In her book “We Of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (And Maybe You Should Too)” Kate Cohen writes about atheism, her secular Jewish upbringing, and her decision to gradually reveal her atheism to others. As an atheist myself, who doesn’t proselytize my beliefs nor even often mention them, I found her stories interesting.
Like her, I am quite familiar with secular Jewish traditions. Although I was raised Catholic, my wife was Jewish. During our 3 decades together, I witnessed and participated in many traditional religious ceremonies around holidays, births and deaths. At the time, I would have described myself as a retired Catholic who believed in some sort of God, just not the Catholic/Christian one. My wife, on the other hand, did not believe. She told me she believed that when you die, you’re dead. There is no afterlife, no salvation and no eternal punishment.
Today, I believe what she did.
But, like her, it is not something I discuss with most people.
Cohen wrote about the many socials instances where she’s exposed to religion – usually Christian. She writes about prayer in school, in government, in casual social interactions, in media, etc.
I have noticed the same prevalence.
Generally, so that I do not make others feel uncomfortable, I do not share my non-belief. When someone invites me to their church, I’ll decline politely but non-specifically. When someone says they’ll pray for me, I thank them. If someone talks about God’s plan or Jesus, I may bristle inside, but I don’t display that feeling outwardly.
After all, people can believe whatever they want. It’s not my job to try to convince them that my non-belief is “right”.
That said, I think I will reveal my atheism on occasions going forward. I live in the North Carolina where apparently there is a high % of Christians. I receive more invitations to Church than I do to anything else. The next time, I think I’ll explain that I’m an atheist and see how the conversation goes from there.
Like Kate, I consider myself a nice person. I’m kind, friendly, dependable and overall a good guy. It might be helpful for others who see me as such to also know that being an atheist doesn’t change any of that.
As I’m typing this, it makes me think of the parallels to gay people “coming out of the closet”. When I was a child and teenager, I had no exposure to this whatsoever. As an adult, I had family members, coworkers and neighbors who were all “out“. It was no big deal. If anything, these people were generally more interesting and likable than straight people I knew.
Today, in American society, coming out seems blasé. There’s some stigma and strife with other non-normative gender stuff (trans, etc.) but I suspect most of that is over-hyped controversy stirred up by politicians and pundits. I have a feeling most of us don’t care too much about it and will be desensitized as we get know more trans people too.
I suspect it will be the same with more people being exposed to atheism.
