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The dreaded "A" word

TimCallahan

Philosopher
T
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
6,293
A number of years ago, toward the end of the 1990s, I had still not come to grips with being an atheist. I called myself an agnostic. One reason for avoiding the label of "atheist" was that I had somewhat bought into the view of atheists as a rather grim, uncharitable lot who militated against any form of religious belief, something like the White Witch in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, who made it always winter and never Christmas. Another reason for my avoiding the atheist label was, of course, the stigma attached to the word "atheist."

Meeting decent people who were atheists certainly dispelled both of these illusions, and most atheists I met were conditional atheists, not the hard-nosed, close-minded stereotypes usually presented. Once I came to grips with these facts and accepted the fact that I really didn't believe in any god or that I had an immortal soul, I found that accepting the atheist label was quite natural. As for the stigma, I didn't really want to elected dog-catcher anyway.

Two things I've encountered since I accepted that I was a conditional atheist are people who, once they found I wasn't so terrible, decide I really wasn't an atheist and those who asserted that, while it was fine for me to be an atheist, it wouldn't do for others who weren't strong enough to handle living without a god. This latter reaction is part of what Daniel Dennet calls "the belief in the belief in God," the view that the public in general needs religion to keep them civilized.

As for those decide I'm not really one of those awful atheists, a number of years ago I was able to speak with Julia Sweeney, who went from being a Roman Catholic to an atheist. She shared with me some reactions she had encountered from friends and priests when she told them she was now an unbeliever. It paralleled what I had experienced. They said to her, once they found she still had high ideals, "Oh, you're not really that way. You're really one of us. You just don't know it." Last year, at the annual conference the Mythopoeic Society, I was on a panel on religious belief with a Wiccan priestess, an evangelical Christian minister and a Jesuit. When I delineated my position as a conditional atheist, the Jesuit said, "Oh, you're not really an atheist. You're an agnostic." He seemed a bit relieved to be able to say that.

I'm curious as to what experiences other atheists on this forum had when they first came out to themselves and others. I'm also interested as to whether any of you have noticed a shift in people's perception of atheists and atheism.
 
This is a question about culture.

Here in the UK, religion is such a minor issue that no-one would ever think to ask about your religious convictions, and would probably expect that most people they come into contact with wouldn't have any religious convictions. It is a non-issue.

Indeed, there are plenty of people who are atheist but don't know it. They may never even have heard the word atheist, but laugh at the notion of god or the supernatural. There is no "coming out" involved, and there is absolutely no sense of any community not believing or accepting that you aren't religious, or that you have no morals.

Now, I want you to take the next step. Instead of describing yourself as an atheist, I want you to describe yourself as an anti-theist, and then come back to us in a few weeks time and give an account of the reactions that engenders.
 
Being British, my experience of the idea of atheism couldn't be more different to yours. There is no stigma attached to it whatsoever, it's not unusual, and I find that religion is rarely talked of in casual conversation. I've never had to come out to anybody, almost everybody I know is an atheist (or believes in no more than a vague, unthinking "there must be something out there"), and the only conversations about religion I've had with people who are religious - whether friends or strangers, Christian, Muslim or Pagan - have been polite, respectful and understanding in both directions.

I suspect you're more interested in stories from other Americans.
 
MikeG said:
This is a question about culture.

Here in the UK, religion is such a minor issue that no-one would ever think to ask about your religious convictions, and would probably expect that most people they come into contact with wouldn't have any religious convictions. It is a non-issue.

Indeed, there are plenty of people who are atheist but don't know it. They may never even have heard the word atheist, but laugh at the notion of god or the supernatural. There is no "coming out" involved, and there is absolutely no sense of any community not believing or accepting that you aren't religious, or that you have no morals.

Now, I want you to take the next step. Instead of describing yourself as an atheist, I want you to describe yourself as an anti-theist, and then come back to us in a few weeks time and give an account of the reactions that engenders.
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It's pretty much the same in Sweden. There is even a book on the subject. To most of the interviewed, religion is such a non-issue that it doesn't even work as conversation-fodder.

If I'd try to summarize the situation in the Nordic countries, Sweden and Denmark are the least religious. Norway and Finland are slightly more religious. Iceland is not particularly religious, but very wooish and superstitious.
 
If you were to substitute Canada for UK/British in Squeegee's and MikeG's posts above their comments could be mine. Apart form a couple of nieces who grew up in an atheist household and became Christians as young adults, I cannot think of anyone I know who actively participates in a religion. Religion very rarely comes up in any conversations that I have been a part of, even with my nieces.

I do find it interesting to read of the experiences of (some) atheists in the US that seem to appear regularly in these forums because it provides a small window into a world that is really quite alien to me.
 
Steve said:
If you were to substitute Canada for UK/British in Squeegee's and MikeG's posts above their comments could be mine. Apart form a couple of nieces who grew up in an atheist household and became Christians as young adults, I cannot think of anyone I know who actively participates in a religion. Religion very rarely comes up in any conversations that I have been a part of, even with my nieces.

I do find it interesting to read of the experiences of (some) atheists in the US that seem to appear regularly in these forums because it provides a small window into a world that is really quite alien to me.
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Though from what I have heard there is a contrast in Canada between the coasts and the inland. The inland is almost as religious as the US, the coasts are pretty secular.
 
Humes fork said:
Though from what I have heard there is a contrast in Canada between the coasts and the inland. The inland is almost as religious as the US, the coasts are pretty secular.
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Not that I have ever been aware of, at least in the western part of the country. You may have a point about Quebec, as there is a higher percentage of Catholics in the French Can populace.
 
MikeG said:
This is a question about culture.

Here in the UK, religion is such a minor issue that no-one would ever think to ask about your religious convictions, and would probably expect that most people they come into contact with wouldn't have any religious convictions. It is a non-issue.

Indeed, there are plenty of people who are atheist but don't know it. They may never even have heard the word atheist, but laugh at the notion of god or the supernatural. There is no "coming out" involved, and there is absolutely no sense of any community not believing or accepting that you aren't religious, or that you have no morals.

Now, I want you to take the next step. Instead of describing yourself as an atheist, I want you to describe yourself as an anti-theist, and then come back to us in a few weeks time and give an account of the reactions that engenders.
Click to expand...

The problem with that is that I'm not an anti-theist. Here are some reasons why: The late Steve Allen, who was very much involved in the critical thinking movement, was a devout Christian. Kenneth Miller, co-author of what has been called "the Dragonfly Book," because the prominent photo of a dragonfly on its cover, is a devout Catholic. The actual title of the Dragonfly Book is simply Biology. It's a basic high school biology text. What's noteworthy about it is that it includes a large section, approximately 100 pages, on evolution. Miller was one of the witnesses for the plaintiffs in the Dover trial. The botanist Asa Grey, the main proponent of Darwinian theory in the United States in the 1800s, was an evangelical Christian (his noted creationist opponent in a series of debates was the geologist Louis Agassiz, a Unitarian).

After one event sponsored by the Skeptics Society at CalTech's Beckman Auditorium, I asked Kenneth Miller if mass extinctions, which seem chaotic didn't militate against a God using evolution as his means of creation. He didn't see it that way, however. Considering that Miller's testimony was important in the Dover trial and that the "Dragonfly Book" has put the teaching of evolution back into high school biology, I really have no desire to get into it with him because of his religion.
 
Humes fork said:
It's pretty much the same in Sweden. There is even a book on the subject. To most of the interviewed, religion is such a non-issue that it doesn't even work as conversation-fodder.

If I'd try to summarize the situation in the Nordic countries, Sweden and Denmark are the least religious. Norway and Finland are slightly more religious. Iceland is not particularly religious, but very wooish and superstitious.
Click to expand...

A number of years ago, a bit after I had written Secret Origins of the Bible, a Swedish gentlemen wrote me, having read my book. He said it reminded him of letters from a far-off war, since religion is a non-issue in Sweden.

I'm interested in why Iceland would be so into superstition and woo. Do you have any ideas?
 
Most of the time telling people I'm an atheist doesn't result in much more than a sideways glance (though I do avoid bringing it up in situations where I think it would cause a problem, so there's a bit of sampling bias--I haven't told my fiance's very religious grandmother, for instance). That said, in middle school I lost a friend because of it. She was afraid that spending time around an atheist would "lead her astray". She was still nice to me when we were around each other, but there was a definite wall between us after that.
 
Based on my own experience the US is not substantially different than Canada or the UK in this. Religion is not a topic of conversation in normal society. Of the dozen or so people I work with I am aware of the religion of only one, and that did not come up in a religious discussion, but rather with reference to her wedding plans. She mentioned getting a Lutheran minister to perform the ceremony, partly in Danish, as her grandparents were Danish immigrants.
The high level of attention that religion seems to receive in the US is, I believe, an artifact of the political process and news coverage. To most people it is not an issue.
 
Humes fork said:
Though from what I have heard there is a contrast in Canada between the coasts and the inland. The inland is almost as religious as the US, the coasts are pretty secular.
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More a contrast between the urban and rural pockets.

One of the dramatic cultural changes in Canada has been the disengagement of Catholicism from Quebec citizens' self-identity over the last two generations.

I would also say that the higher percentage of Canadian atheists is largely due to Southeast Asian immigration, and it's important to emphasize they did not come to that belief through critical thinking (atheism was the state sponsored religious belief in their nations of birth).
 
Pope130 said:
Based on my own experience the US is not substantially different than Canada or the UK in this. Religion is not a topic of conversation in normal society. Of the dozen or so people I work with I am aware of the religion of only one, and that did not come up in a religious discussion, but rather with reference to her wedding plans. She mentioned getting a Lutheran minister to perform the ceremony, partly in Danish, as her grandparents were Danish immigrants.
The high level of attention that religion seems to receive in the US is, I believe, an artifact of the political process and news coverage. To most people it is not an issue.
Click to expand...

Perhaps it doesn't come up much in conversation, but there's certainly a difference in the way it's perceived between the UK and the US. There are any number of US surveys which clearly show that any politician who declared themselves to be an atheist could not get elected, certainly not as President. Yet when Tony Blair was asked about his religion there was a statement issued declaring "[the Labour Party] don't do God". He waited until he was no longer Prime Minister before converting to his wife's Catholicism.

In the UK I believe that any politician who did make a big song and dance of their religion would be treated with a degree of suspicion. That's the opposite of what appears to be the case in the US.
 
Aepervius said:
Oh. I was hoping for some steamy story about the other A word. Adulterous.

/tip toe out


;)
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Regarding the adjective that also starts with A: aepervius. My take on the meaning was that it meant "perversely oblivious," but try as I might, I couldn't find it in the dictionary. Then I searched through the list of Roman generals - no luck either. So if "aepervius" doesn't exist, then it is God manifesting himself through the prism of atheism. So the word is atheistically logical and its meaning is infinitely non-existent.
 
TimCallahan said:
Meeting decent people who were atheists certainly dispelled both of these illusions, and most atheists I met were conditional atheists, not the hard-nosed, close-minded stereotypes usually presented.
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You know who the super-hard atheists are, don't you? They would scream in horror when you show them the cross, and they also posses an interesting property: the mirror doesn't reflect their image.
 
Pope130 said:
Based on my own experience the US is not substantially different than Canada or the UK in this. Religion is not a topic of conversation in normal society. Of the dozen or so people I work with I am aware of the religion of only one, and that did not come up in a religious discussion, but rather with reference to her wedding plans. She mentioned getting a Lutheran minister to perform the ceremony, partly in Danish, as her grandparents were Danish immigrants.
The high level of attention that religion seems to receive in the US is, I believe, an artifact of the political process and news coverage. To most people it is not an issue.
Click to expand...

Try living in the bible belt. If I had a nickel for every time I heard "personal relationship with god/Jesus" during the time I lived in east Texas I'd be 3 or 4 dollars richer.
 
I live just outside Raleigh, North Carolina - The Bible Belt.

If I tell people I'm an atheist, I might as well tell them I found the real killers OJ was talking about.

Then then (usually) proceed to ask me "how" and "why", but then I usually ask them, "how" and "why" they can believe.
 
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