Reply To: So, I am atheist.

[BeckyL]

@tonidatyga Yes. I can well imagine. 🙂

@mammonista I applaud you for holding fast to your convictions. I do believe that the best way to loosen the grip of religion and thereby hasten it’s extinction is for non-believers to be bold and demonstrate that religion is unnecessary. The reasons that many of us have for remaining “in the closet” are often not as simple as all that. I failed to mention in my bio that I am married to a theist. When we married, we were both in the agnostic camp and in agreement. Later, my agnosticism drifted more to the atheistic side until it became just plain atheism. He, on the other hand, drifted more toward the theistic side – probably owing to some degree to his fundamentalist (Southern Baptist) upbringing. We found ourselves disagreeing on the subject more and more. Up until recently, we simply agreed to disagree and avoided discussing our divergent feelings on religion. (It is worth noting that this is a second marriage for both of us and the raising of children is not an issue. He raises his and I raise mine without interference.) Unfortunately, this detente recently came to a head, and it remains to be seen whether we can salvage anything or not. His dream is that we would happily attend church and have church friends and a church “family”. My dream is that we can just be happy without all of that church-y playacting (and regardless what anyone may think about their church friends and church family, there is some playacting involved in maintaining that church-y image.) I tell you all of this because I can certainly see why so many atheists keep a low profile and hide their convictions from even their closest family members. Some people are willing to publicly declare themselves, damn the torpedoes. Others simply find the price to be too high.