I’ve realized lately that I am still really uncomfortable letting people know that I am an atheist. I’m not sure why that is. I think it’s probably just that it’s such a loaded word. People bring with them so many negative ideas about what that means.
I noticed it the other day. I was going to fan (or, like, as it’s called now) the Friendly Atheist‘s facebook page, but I stopped myself. I just didn’t want to deal with any negative reactions from people.
Then, yesterday, someone asked me if I was still an atheist and I hesitated. I had to think about it. Well, I don’t believe in god, so, yes, I thought to myself. The answer seems like it would be easy, but for some reason it’s not.
An atheist is someone who believes there is no god. I am just someone who doesn’t believe in a god.
Actually, both are atheists. The first one is a strong atheist; the second is a weak atheist.
Weak. That name seems so apropos to me. I feel weak. For the first time in my life, I am completely uncomfortable freely expressing my views because I am afraid of what people might think.
That is so not like me. For Pete’s sake, I was a conservative political blogger in Vermont. I am used to holding a minority opinion and taking the flack that goes with it.
I know it’s kind of odd for me to say I am uncomfortable being public about my atheism on my public blog. But, not a lot of people know about this blog. It’s not even on my facebook profile. Only my craft blog is.
The past six months were so hard on me personally and I finally feel like I am okay now. I just don’t want to deal with any more damaged relationships. It was so hurtful to be rejected by people who were close to me, just because I stopped believing in god.
The reality is, though, that I don’t want relationships where I have to be fake. The people who I really care about deeply all already know that I am an atheist.
So, why is this still so hard for me?
I can relate, so often the reaction can be negative. I find that while I have strong feelings about religion and atheist issues, I do not like being defined by my lack of faith.
Dear Charity,
It is precisely this kind of commentary — what you’ve posted here — that keeps me coming back.
For different reasons, perhaps, I have felt exactly what you are feeling. It is hard to be honest about oneself in front of others. Egads, we all want to “belong”, at least to a degree, and being different, or divergent, just gets tiring much of the time. There’s a sentence written by Phil Yancey I particularly like: “I am too conservative for my liberal friends and too liberal for my conservative friends” (or something like that).
I especially liked this candid remark of yours:
It was so hurtful to be rejected by people who were close to me, just because I stopped believing in god.
I get that. Odd, though, that I was rejected by people who were close to me because I started believing in God. But rejection is rejection, and it hurts. I would just urge you to be careful, as those who were once close to you might feel rejected by you because you’ve rejected their God, their religion, and thus their companionship. Seriously, I don’t know how you can be candid about your new convictions without seemingly hurting others, or making them feel dumb or irrational or less-than-best. It’s a tough spot for anyone. I don’t envy your position. Honesty is hard, that’s for sure.
And, by the way, you might be a weak atheist, but I am a weak theist. Very weak. (Isn’t there an old Christian truth hidden in there, that strength is perfected in weakness?)
Peace to you.
BG
Well, when I came out of the closet as an x-Goldwater conservative, I heard all kinds of shit. If you are locked into something just because your friends, peers, and everybody else is, you’re bound to catch hell if you leave that something, or deviate from it in any way. Like you’re rejecting people, or threatening people’s comfort, or, sometimes they even feel it as an attack.
Listen, critical thought is what matters. The Almighty Spirit gave us all brains. As Norman Mailer wrote in “The Naked And The Dead”–”If there is a God, he sure must be a character.”
Charity,
I tend to think of atheism as a belief, similar to other religious beliefs. The empirical facts seem to be that we (our physicists and cosmologists) have no idea about the ultimate nature of reality, or the “cause” or “purpose” of what we think of as existence. There is an alternative to acceptance of religious explanations of the world and atheism, and that is just not knowing. – Eric