Author Topic: Coming out Atheist  (Read 8951 times)

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Offline Vypernight

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #15 on: June 05, 2012, 06:46:48 am »
If the subject comes up, I often tell people I'm an atheist, only because it's quicker and easier than explaining what an agnostic Buddhist is (I'm lazy and sometimes, I don't feel like going into detail).  I justify it in that I don't believe in their close-minded, bigoted view of a god. 

I haven't faced any of this descrimination that people have spoken with, just sometimes shocked silence.

Whenever I hear a politician speaking strongly for or against abortion, all I hear is, "I have no idea how to fix the economy!"

Offline Nightangel8212

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #16 on: June 08, 2012, 07:03:53 am »
Well, I'm not atheist, I'm Pagan...

My mom and sister knew pretty early on, and after explaining to them what it is REALLY about (and not some bs where I'm sacrificing animals and drinking the blood of virgins) they were perfectly fine with it. I was scared of telling my dad because he's a pretty religious man and almost became a Catholic Priest when he was younger. My Aunt Elma came from Ontario one year and she's a Witch, so I brought my books to show her, knowing and bracing myself because I KNEW there was no way I could show them to her without my father seeing. He sauntered over from his hockey game while I was showing her the books and the conversation went something like this:

Dad (looking at the witchcraft books with a perplexed look on his face): What're these?

Me (taking a deep breath and bracing myself for the worst): Dad, these are my books.

(Dad picks up one or two books and looks at the backs of them.)

Dad (smiling and shaking his head): I always knew you were a little funny.

(Dad goes back to his hockey game)

We actually had a few confrontations about it, but that stopped for the most part when I explained to him that Paganism is not Atheism (which he thought it was) and that I believed in multiple deities. His response to that was "Well, as long as you  believe in SOMETHING".

Nowadays, all I get from my dad is the occasional "Just keep that door open" in the middle of a theological conversation.

As for my brother... yeah, he just recently became born-again, so I just avoid any religious topics with him period. He knows what I am, and he doesn't like it, but he's smart enough to keep his trap shut.

So, yeah... that's how I came out of my broom closet :P

Offline Zygarde

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #17 on: June 08, 2012, 03:13:30 pm »
Like Nightangel im not an atheist im a pagan I came out when I was about maybe 13 and this was after I explored other religions after leaving christianity. Most of my family and friends are cool with it the only problems I get are from one of my bigoted uncles who is a bit of a racist and a homophobe so I don't talk to him much to begin with ,and my classmates who we're all raised on the very hateful form of Catholicism.

Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #18 on: June 08, 2012, 09:41:58 pm »
My mother and I left a conservative church and, after taking a vacation from everything religious, started attending the local Episcopal church.

It was fantastic... and it also let us have the room to think.  During which, we started to explore paganism and eventually stopped believing in a literal Jesus and Bible.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that for most of our lives, we believed in a literal Jesus/Bible, it was impossible to keep that happy medium up, and so we fell out of Christianity, and later out of the Episcopal church.

We've been trying to find our paths ever since.
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Offline czechmate

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #19 on: June 09, 2012, 04:19:40 am »
I think it was in a car ride and my mom was talking on the phone to someone.

Mom: "Yeah, I'm a secular Jew, my husband's a lapsed Catholic, the boy's too young to decide, and I have no idea what my daughter is."

Me: "I'm an atheist."

Mom: "That's nice honey, but don't interrupt."

Now the only people who make fun of my atheism is my dad ("Where do you think you got your smarts from? God?") and my grandmother ("When I was your age I was an atheist too. You'll grow out of it.").
Kittens are automatically Christian - but become atheist when their eyes open.
My grandmother always told me "I always keep a large bible around the house in case I run out of toilet paper and firelighters. It also serves as a doorstop"
The Christian bible is the New Testament, so why are the fundies always quoting the Old Testament which is actually a major chunk of the Torah.
And for all you Islamophobes out there - Jesus is mentioned more times in the Koran than in the Christian bible. He is referred to as Inas and was revered by Mohammed. Also "Israel" and "Children of Israel" is scattered all over the Koran but heavily editted by the RCC.
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Offline Askold

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #20 on: June 09, 2012, 05:14:28 am »
The Christian bible is the New Testament, so why are the fundies always quoting the Old Testament which is actually a major chunk of the Torah.

Well, actually the old testament is also a part of the christian bible* so I don't really get why you would claim that only the new testament is a part of it. Just because Torah and Quran have some of the same material it does not mean that the similar chunks aren't a part of the others as well.



*When I say christian bible I guess I have to clarify that there are several different versions of the bible (And no I'm not gonna start an argument about which "holy book" is the "one true version" this is a religious matter and all are equally valid.) but most include the old testament. It has been removed from the bible at least once because it was considered "too jewish" by the "german christians" in Nazi Germany. I do admit that there might be other christian groups that have gotten rid of the old testament but that's the one case I know of.
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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #21 on: June 09, 2012, 05:21:34 am »
I feel like my "coming out" story is far too boring to be submitted. Raised Anglican, slowly expressed more and more skepticism about religion until I was finally just like, "Yeah, I'm an atheist, guys.", and never really faced much other than the standard, "But how can you handle believing that life is pointless?" crap, though my dad does still make some passive aggressive comments about it from time to time.

Kind of like this, though with being baptist. I've also never really "came out" to my parents about being agnostic (close enough) but they know that I'm not religious and that I view the Bible with as much seriousness as I do Dr. Seuss books. Though, that doesn't stop my parents (or grandparents for that matter) from taking jabs at my lack of faith. They'll often try to play those "gotcha" questions with me like

1. Where did we all come from?
2. If we evolved from monkeys, then why aren't monkeys evolving into humans today (so many flaws in this logic; natural selection, common ancestor=/=monkeys, confusing theory of evolution with evolution, and why would monkeys want to evolve into us they are already far more intelligent).
3. Saying I can't accept Christmas presents (they still give them, but they act like I'm being a hypocrite and conversely I feel the same about them as Christmas has really become more of a materialistic than a religious holiday and Jesus was very likely not even born in December).
4. Similarly they get weird about phrases with religious connotations as though such phrases can't convey a secular message. A few years ago I told my parents and grandparents at Easter supper that I "was praying to get accepted into college" and they took that as literally "praying" missing the context that it just means I really want it. Phrases like "Jesus Christ!" or "For the love of God" also are rebuked with a "you don't believe in Jesus/God, so therefore you can't say that." I've always wanted to tell them "no I can say that because I don't believe in the Bible, you can't as per the 10 commandments."

Anyways, in a less convoluted way, I've never came out as atheist/agnostic but they know and still like to belittle my lack of faith.

Offline Eniliad

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #22 on: June 09, 2012, 08:44:49 pm »
Speaking of gotcha questions, Queen, how's this one:

"Why do we have to accept that everything in the universe had to come from something - but that God himself didn't have to?"

Seriously, it violates their own "logic".
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Offline czechmate

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #23 on: June 10, 2012, 06:23:52 am »
The Christian bible is the New Testament, so why are the fundies always quoting the Old Testament which is actually a major chunk of the Torah.

Well, actually the old testament is also a part of the christian bible* so I don't really get why you would claim that only the new testament is a part of it. Just because Torah and Quran have some of the same material it does not mean that the similar chunks aren't a part of the others as well.



*When I say christian bible I guess I have to clarify that there are several different versions of the bible (And no I'm not gonna start an argument about which "holy book" is the "one true version" this is a religious matter and all are equally valid.) but most include the old testament. It has been removed from the bible at least once because it was considered "too jewish" by the "german christians" in Nazi Germany. I do admit that there might be other christian groups that have gotten rid of the old testament but that's the one case I know of.
What I'm saying is the NT are books supplemental to the Torah. When the Christian "scholars" hacked together the Bible in 325 AD, many books were omitted for various reasons (mostly out of ignorance and greed).
Since then, the Bible was been continuously hacked to suit the agenda of various splinter groups, each and every one of them being the "one true" and, with few exceptions, had a negative effect upon humanity.
As a whole, over 1.2 milliard (billion) lives have been lost since 325 AD, due to the "conversion" of societies to Christianity. To put it another way, that is equivalent to 1630 unnecessary deaths per day from 325 AD to the present day.
That is 50 times worse than any pandemic suffered by mankind.
Religion is supposed to be the greatest uniter?

Offline Jedi Knight

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #24 on: June 10, 2012, 07:45:23 am »
We've been trying to find our paths ever since.


You know, I used to be there after I lost the faith I had as a child. This is going to sound very zen, but I didn't find my "path" until I stopped looking. It occured to me that I didn't need a path. I'm comfortable not believing.

As for coming out, that's not really an issue, not here in Norway. I suppose it's more or less the default position among (and I loathe this term) ethnic Norwegians anyway.

Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #25 on: June 10, 2012, 01:39:30 pm »
We've been trying to find our paths ever since.

You know, I used to be there after I lost the faith I had as a child. This is going to sound very zen, but I didn't find my "path" until I stopped looking. It occured to me that I didn't need a path. I'm comfortable not believing.

I tried that.  Simply not believing.

...I hate to say it, but it isn't for me.
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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #26 on: June 10, 2012, 03:41:40 pm »
Speaking of gotcha questions, Queen, how's this one:

"Why do we have to accept that everything in the universe had to come from something - but that God himself didn't have to?"

Seriously, it violates their own "logic".

Maybe God created Himself through a Stable Time Loop.

Offline Eniliad

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Re: Coming out Atheist
« Reply #27 on: June 11, 2012, 11:58:53 am »
My own atheist story is more boring than my coming out gay story. By this point, most of the immediate family had lost its faith (Exception: My middle sister is Christian but very tolerant) so it was a shock to nobody. Only my grandma seemed disappointed, and even then it's not like she won't speak to me or anything; she does get a bit preachy now and again though. Other than that... meh.
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