CNN: Atheists are still reluctant to ‘come out’
CNN: Atheists are still reluctant to ‘come out’
www.cnn.com
Why people are reluctant to call themselves atheists | CNN
206 comments
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Just not even really worth 'coming out'. Why deal with all the arguments that are likely to crop up from it? When I was the angsty teenage atheist I got off on that shit. Now...im over it.
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Yeah, it's not like you're changing anyone's mind anyway, so why waste the energy and social capital? I'll sometimes ask follow-up questions to get them thinking, but no reason to poke the bear by announcing that you're the devil.
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It's a bit sad that "coming out" as an Atheist is even a thing. Where I'm from it's basically the assumption. I've met a few people that mention that they're religious before and my reaction is always an astonished "but they seemed so normal."
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We're not afraid to come out, we just don't talk about it because religion isn't important to us and we don't feel compelled to have everyone believe in the same thing as us.
Now may you be touched by thy noodley appendage
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there are totally people who dont want to be found out, cause of familial or work repercussions.
Its not uncommon for people to have to hide things like lack of faith, sexuality, "wrong" thought, etc for a variety of reasons.
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Both things can be true at the same time.
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It's like disliking avocado and telling everyone you meet that you don't like avocado. Telling someone something you're not isn't a character trait, so there's no reason to bring it up.
Unless of course it's a defense against people pushing their beliefs on you.
"You should eat this avocado"
"No thanks, I don't like avocado"
"You're going to go to hell for that."
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Furthermore, even if it were, people will cringe if you announce your "character traits"
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One of the things that makes people dislike atheists is the tendency of atheists to mock other people's beliefs. Things like the flying spaghetti monster, noodley appendages, etc, are atheist inventions designed to make fun of other people's beliefs.
You have the right to make these kinds of jokes, but other people have the right to not like you for making jokes that are mocking them. But without the mean spirited memes, there's nothing else that atheists have going on and communities like this wouldn't exist.
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Right, it's not like there aren't billions and billions of religious nutters out there. I mean I don't see aethiests killing people for believing in a fairy god monster and yet if you said you're an atheist in Saudia Araiba etc you'd be killed. The fuck sort of tolerating intolerace is that?
Aethiets are pushing up not down, mocking people for believing in fairy tales seems a very sensible reaction ? especially when they inevitably double down on their nonsense.
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And their right to tell people that their immoral and going to hell gives atheists the right to mock them.
And you’re also entirely wrong about atheist groups only existing for making memes. I’ve seen many conversations in atheist communities that are people discussing religion, the motivation to hold a belief, metaphysics and epistemological theories, history, biology, physics, anthropology and so on. People in other atheist communities (eg ex-Christian, ex-Muslim) do that as well.
I have to think you know little to nothing about the topic.
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"One of the things that makes people dislike religious folk is the tendency of believers to destroy entire relationships over violating dogma, breaking families and refusing to support children."
...which is to say, let's not clutch our pearls over jokes, especially those made by communities that are often very scarred by religious abuse. "Punching up" isn't the problem here.
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Have you ever heard how religionists talk about atheists? I respect the right of people to believe whatever they believe, but I don't have to respect their actual ridiculous beliefs. Bringing up the FSM, which is specifically aimed at dismantling the absurdism of creationism, is pretty funny. Are you a creationist? My dad was a real Christian minister, and while I don't believe as he did, I would never mock his actual Christian beliefs. But I'll mock the idiotic beliefs of fake-Christian creationists any time I tell like it.
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Someone needs a hug, our noodley overlord gives the best hugs!
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I see no more need to announce I don't believe in the Christian god than there I see need to announce I don't believe in Zeus. Both questions are completely irrelevant to my life
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If I ever say it I specifically say "I don't believe in any gods." It's not that I don't believe in theirs specifically. They don't believe in any others, so what's the difference?
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Not many Polytheistic Greeks trying to outlaw medicine in my neck of the world tho.
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While they're both similarly lacking evidence and therefore irrelevant, christianity is unfortunately still relevant, as it is being used as a justification for religious based laws nonstop.
Whether you like it or not, your reproductive rights (regardless of sex/gender) are on the line thanks in large part to christianity. Therefore it's almodt certainly relevant to you. Same goes for a myriad of other social issues.
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I mean in the US at least, it could become VERY dangerous to not be an evangelical Christian cultist. (Much less a atheist)
If the Orange Man becomes dictator in November, shit is going to get bad quickly.
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Which is quite fascinating since he's made it very obvious that he himself doesn't know jack shit about Christianity and that he's not a believer. I'm an atheist myself and I've never seen a person more lost and uninterested when speaking about Christianity than him.
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Really reminds me of the Association of German National Jews and their sad decision to endorse Adolf Hitler. We're frequently presented with the assertion that people, in-general, are rational when they evidentially are not.
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Christians know and do not care. All that matters is that they have more control.
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I'd argue that most people in government feel very similarly to Trump in regards to religion, they just know its a powerful tool to use.
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"If" 😪
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A 2017 study found that people believe atheists are more likely to be serial killers than believers, even though federal data suggests they are far less likely to commit crimes than religious people.
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Hmm.
One group uses the threat of eternal damnation to compel moral behaviour, the other has no external compulsion*.
Which group is likely to have more "good" members?
Yeah, laws? Social etiquette?
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i think this probably has more to do with serial killers having disregard for shit in general, than atheists having disregard for religion.
Statistically it checks out that someone who doesn't care about torture, murder, and violence, probably gives even less of a shit about religion lol.
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@ChunkMcHorkle @LankyPomegranate530
35 years of faith must have been brutal mentally.
I'm Aussie so religion is not much of an issue here but I deal with it by separating the person from the faith if possible.
Belief is not a choice & I'm not convinced by biblical evidence. Feigning belief would not fool God if he exists.
My christian friends agree to disagree & we move on to other topics. I will not be the angry atheist they need me to be to reinforce their negative opinion of atheists. -
You were a christian scholar? Mind if I ask what sort of things you were interested in, when you were researching? I'm always curious about what the real intellectual types are pondering in their beliefs or church history.
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I used to be more forward about it, just to make sure people were aware to try to avoid awkwardness down the road. Turns out, some folks just hyper focused on it and only defined me by the one thing.
- I had one person break down crying. That was the single most awkward as I got dirty looks from other people in the room who had no idea about the conversation.
- I've had multiple people tell me I'm unworthy of love and commitment. And while not said, by their actions might as well, unworthy of basic respect.
- I've had multiple people try "converting" me.
- I've had some people send people to my homes and stalk me. Primary reason I have a Nest doorbell and want to know exactly when someone is going to show up to visit.
- I've had multiple people try various intimidation tactics to try to "convince" me to join their church.
- I had one person bust out laughing at me when I said I more closely line up with secular humanism.
- I was questioned multiple times why I'd show up to someone's wedding... (not a wedding crasher, they basically assume only religious people get married, and that atheists cannot support others in their life paths)
I've since stopped telling people or making it even known at all.
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This was my thing. I'm not a atheist, but the moment I talk about religion, it becomes "the thing". I imagine this is what vegans have to deal with, like the moment they share... It becomes a shit show of people questioning everything. And like bruh, let them eat vegan marshmellows and pray to Cthulhu.
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I didn't meant to type a long wall of text but here goes anyway.
Yeah, people here are dismissive of the news headline, but I have a similar experience coming out as agnostic atheist. Luckily, I did not get as much as negative experience as you have, but when I came out, I was tried to be invited twice on separate occasions into Christian prayer meetings. Naive me didn't realise that both invitations are more like trying to get me "back into the flock".
On the second invitation, I went along just to see how it was. After the second prayer session I attended, I said don't want to go anymore. I had a long "debate" with the pastor on the phone to try to make me at least a believer in any religions. There was a bit of condescension in the conversation and kind of implied I am going to hell. The thing is, or rather problem for him, is that I don't feel or see whatever religious folks see even when I was going to church. So, I don't feel at least bit intimadated by threat of hell. The OG Judaism and Old Testament don't even believe in hell so why should Christians and Muslims do as well?
Not to mention, religions across the world have conflicting claims of historical and scientific realities. If they all conflict with each other and could not agree which is the correct one, then religions themselves are false. If there are universal scientific truth to each of their claims and basis, then one religion in one part of the world should have the same or similar accounts to another religious belief on the other side of the world. But that is not the case.
I told the last paragraph to the pastor and we were pushing back each other. I do not like to de-convert people from religion but he was trying to re-convert me so I laid down all the heavy stuff to him, despite signalling that I don't want to continue the conversation in the first twenty minutes.
I admit that I have had cognitive dissonance the following day and think "what if I'm wrong?" I simply re-think back that religious accounts conflict with each other and therefore not real. Also, it dawned on me that my emotions is probably more that I feel offended trying to be re-converted and being condescended. Conversely, the pastor must have thought I am a devil tempting him away from religion, lol.
Since then, I don't tell people I'm agnostic atheist. Christians (and Islam) feel religious obligations to convert as many people as possible. That's how they survive. I didn't think much about proselytising before but I realised that the practice is rather condescending and gives them superiority complex. This is not to say that there aren't militant atheist, but the religious zealots are more adamant from what I observed.
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Same. There's no benefit and everything to loose causally coming out. Most people will just assume you're part of their religion, so it's not like you even have to lie about it most places.
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The boldest claim to make when it comes to the existence of a "god" is that we don't know. No one fucking knows. One thing I do know is that the fundamentals of physics are beautiful no matter how it came to be. People hate not being able to explain things so they made shit up as they went, such that the idea of "god" was created.
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It's not 50/50, though. Religions have repeatedly proven to have 0 predictive power, which skews the probabilities drastically in favour of atheism.
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This is called agnosticism. It's great. If there is a god or God or gods it's not really "my" place to concern myself with them. There is no way to prove whether or not they exist. I was baptized as a child and i do not actually deny God (according to Christianity this is a cardinal sin) so by the tenants of Christianity if they are correct I'm eligible to go to heaven. Besides that I generally just aim to be an alright person doing outlandish things like treating others how I wish to be treated, and not stealing while sometimes volunteering at the local animal or homeless shelter.
If some pearl clutching Christian who pays lip service to God is going to get into heaven over me, I kinda don't want to go there anyway. I think I mostly stopped being a Christian because the sheer cognitive dissidence other Christians were causing for me with their actions was just too much for me to handle.
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We do know. In order for the question of "does X exist in the real world" to even be relevant you'd need to coherently define X as a concept, and God fails even that test. Ask ten people what God is and you'll get fifteen different answers.
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Nobody but mathematicians speak in proofs. Not X just means I have sufficient reason to Believe X is either explicitly false or insupportable such that I am confident in my position.
I could dish out an encyclopedia of fabrications that you couldn't prove or disprove mad libs style without sense or sanity and you could still confidently call me full of shit.
With every other position maybe X doesnt mean I cannot write a math proof that X is false it means there is a reasonable chance of X and yet when someone says not God 12 people discover an entire different standard.
When I say not god I don't mean maybe god nor do I regard this as an extraordinary position.
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America as a whole needs to ensure following secular ideals for its public policies and laws.
I don’t mind people using religion in their personal lives for whatever reason, but it does seem like there’s a delusion driven community level effect that leaks out from temples, churches, mosques etc. It seems most of these people “mean well” but they don’t realize how much unintentional harm they’re doing. The Satanic temple type people adding fuel to the fire of religious zealots are making things worse.
In general, I hope it becomes taboo and outlawed to base rules or laws around mythology-based scripture. Where is this social movement? I get fuck cars and all, but secular humanism is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
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your yearly PSA on the TST and COS:
some clarification here. The satanic temple, or the TST as it's known is actually really based, while it is "satanic" that's mostly a funny haha thing, the majority of it is mostly based around being a religion that isn't awful. I.E. being nice to people, because you should do that.
A lot of flak they've gotten is for things like putting a satanic club into a school (that school had a bible study club) and various other shenanigans, notably the one satan con thing they had, where people protested, but inside it was pretty chill. It's performance art and statement pieces primarily, which are perfectly apt, i feel. Freedom of religion and all. It seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Anyway, the point i came here to make was that the TST is the good one, and the church of satan, or COS, is the less based one, for instance, they believe that consuming blue cheese makes you gay. That's like the religion religion one. Nobody likes that one.
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secular humanism is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
Don't you realise you basically sound the same as someone saying
Chrisrian Nationalism is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
Islamic Sharia is seriously needed as a mainstream social movement everywhere, locally and globally.
In general, I hope it becomes taboo and outlawed to base rules or laws around mythology-based scripture.
In a democracy, if there is a sizable Christian population, it makes sense for them to base laws around Christian values. Same if there was a sizable amount of Muslims, Hindus, etc. It doesn't make sense to give Atheism a special status above all of them as some form of "arbiter of morality"
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Secular just means not structured around religion. It makes sense for a democracy to be secular as its constituents come from different religions
Humanism just means finding morality and ethics based on humanitarian ideals instead of from religious doctrine
I am not sure how you think Atheism has anything to do with the above, but yes atheists would be the most likely ones to invoke ideas of secular humanism
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The reason it's even a normalized idea that government should be secular is bc it is a better arbiter of morality. For one it is not dogmatic. More bluntly science and mathematics have validity beyond what any religion can offer.
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As a quasi-religious person I do agree that public policy and moral imperatives should have a secular basis. For example, when people look back at this point in history they're going to see a particularly nasty stain in the way that 99% of the human population is responsible for a sort of perpetual holocaust of many other species of animal, all for nothing more than a little gluttonous sensory pleasure. That kind of morality is easily argued on a secular basis for all the substantial harms those lifestyles cause, and the sheer amount of tangible benefits for choosing a better way.
But secular policy is dangerous if it does not also support religious plurality. When one or two belief systems dominate, they invariably oppress smaller groups. Diversity of belief is a natural buffer against that.
That said, a religion does not necessarily need to base its exegesis on interpretation of arbitrarily chosen writings. One of the best things religious groups can do for themselves now days, if they want to adapt to the times and survive into the future, is embrace the scientific method in their own ways. Evolution shows us that the things that aren't willing to change and adapt die.
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When i lived in big cities on the West coast i was open in my Atheism. Now that i live in rural Michigan... I keep it to myself
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I wonder if it has anything to do with all of the “bad atheism” that’s populating the internet.
By this, I mean to say that actual TRUE atheism isn’t about hating Christians, but if you look here, and on Reddit- any community involving atheism is nothing but anti-Christian rhetoric. Not other religion- just Christianity. AND A LOT of hate.
Actual atheists don’t define their ideology based on who they hate. It’s simply just not believing in religious idolatry. Nothing more and nothing less.
So if you find yourself hating on someone simply because they believe differently than you do. Maybe ask yourself if any of that seems familiar to you at all. And then back away from the nonsense. Because maybe It’s you that’s making it difficult for the ideology of atheism to be taken seriously.
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I think the atheism you are referring to is teenaged angst filled atheism. They are lashing out at their oppression. They can come out of their shell later into a more refined version of atheism.
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Fair point, but it’s not atheism, and shouldn’t be associated with it. It’s more like just teenaged angst that assumes the title for the purpose of appearing edgy.
Atheism has a bad enough rap on its own. It really doesn’t need people making it out to be something that it’s not. Especially something hateful.
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- please stop gatekeeping atheism
- hating christianity is perfectly ok
- there is no wrong way of being atheist, being any type of atheist is more sensible than following any mainstream religion, more so in 2024 and given the uprising of christofascism
- should i continue?
- the mainstream hate directed towards atheists is just a manifestation of the relentless brainwashing performed on the population by religious power groups, which are unfortunately pervasive in every society
- atheists can say they are atheists as much as they want, if you don't like to hear them cover you ears
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English language forums especially US centric forums are populated by people who overwhelming deal with bad behavior by Christians whereas others are small minorities which keep to themselves
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I see a fuck ton of ex-muslims on athiest forums which shit talk islam depending on the day even moreso than christianity, idk what you're talking about with this "only christianity" stuff lol
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I think we have different definitions of “fuck ton” because I guarantee you I’m on the same forums and I see one in every few hundred that might even mention Muslims.
But don’t let this get in the way of your exaggeration.
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poor default country problem.
I stopped mentioning my atheism because it's so common among my sociodemographic environment that it's not anything interesting.
If anything, when casually cracking another "religion bad" joke at work, I'd better check if someone is maybe religious, and I really don't want to insult them.
-- millennial yurobro
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Strange times in strange places.
In the American "Bible belt" being known as an atheist is becoming a social pariah.
It can put your employment at risk.
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In the 1960s and 1970s only scientists were ardent atheists and they had their own social circles. But there was a strong left-wing / liberal wing of Christian congregations, and nones and I don't knows (the majority of atheists today) would assert affiliation with one of those churches. You didn't even have to attend.
But yeah asserting a lack of faith was something teens did to be edgy. At the same time ghosts and alien visitors were thought to be real. Girls were suspended for practicing witchcraft.
Some folk believed the Dungeons and Dragons manuals featured real demon-summoning rituals that could summon real demons. Lawyers got a red phone to Satan around the time they bought their first Porsche 911. Carl Sagan was alive and cried.
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No it's not lol. I'm from Kentucky, and unless you work at a church or something nobody will care outside maybe your family if they're super religious.
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While I was in the angry atheist online camp when I was the only atheist I knew and needed a community, I've since evolved into an apathetic view of individual belief.
Screaming at the thumpers won't do any good. Eye-rolls are more effective. And explaining religion to the young is as simple as saying it's just something some people do, like sports.
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Or like believing in Santa clause when you’re 73
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explaining doesn't do anything, screaming won't do anything, but i have a suspicion that heavy satire and performance art might just get something across. At the very least it will provide amusement.
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No stigma. I assume all such questions have an alternate agenda.
Like I know better than to talk about my stance with any religious nutter. Their beliefs are not grounded in facts and no amount of logic can overcome their emotional outlook. All you can do is make yourself an (enemy) outsider. Anyone that asks me to brand myself on some survey or upon questioning has an agenda, in my opinion. Why should I put my name on some witch hunting list. Witch hunts have always been attacks on academics and abject thinking.
Becoming a first generation atheist is a class in skepticism, misdirection, and manipulation. It is not easy rejecting your entire friends network and questioning foundational ideas learned when we were gullible little children. I'm not about to shoot myself in the foot by feeding the sky wizard monsters with no fundamental logic skills. It's as stupid as walking into a maximum security prison and opening all the doors. I'll always defer to answer such a question, select other, or nondenominational.
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One cannot reason a person out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
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personally, i like branding myself as nothing, or one of the various flavors that i feel like partaking in for my own amusement. Sometimes i want people to understand me as little as possible, other times i want to fuck with people. It's about the optics.
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I'm a bit surprised with the number of religious people I know irl tbh. I've only met maybe one other atheist at school. These people realized that their ancestors believed in another religion and were probably killed and forced to convert right? Probably about half are actually just agnostic and the remaining full believers.
I mean I'm not trying to convert anybody I'm just tryna understand why.
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When you grow up in the church, it's all you know. Not believing isn't even a thought. Sure, the Bible/church might mention non-believers, but either in a "convert them" sense or a "they will be punished" sense.
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"Hesitant to identify because of the social stigma?"
This is proof they fear what they don't understand. I exist without faith in a higher power. I don't share "not believing in a god" because it's like saying "my eyes are not brown". It doesn't tell you what color they are.
Me saying I'm "atheist" tells you absolutely fuck all about what I do believe. I do believe that humanity has the potential to solve all the problems we have right now, and it would be likely easier without religion interfering.
Murder, theft, intentionally harming relationships (etc.) and other crimes are things I simply don't want to happen to me. So I won't do them to others. Seems easy enough.
If we assume everyone we meet is suffering, and on their own path away from it, we tend to be better people toward them, and our own struggles help too.
I came to the conclusion a while back that all these religious nuts end up doing what an authoritarian tells them to do, because they understand the authoritarian, and fear everything else.
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Because theres nothing to fucking evangelize lol. "Excuse me ma'am, do you have time to discuss our lord and savior, nobody?"
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Still to this day I’ll have to gently remind my family I’m atheist about twice a year,
yeah... I don't think my distant relations forget, they simply hope I'll stop fighting for my own agency and/or return to the church.
it's sad.
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I really wish I'd left when I started doubting in my teens rather than spend another decade fighting them. I carry nothing from those years but regrets.
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Wtf does coming out mean? Atheists hardly proselytize, what is the process of "coming out"
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Identifying openly in public.
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I don't openly identify as someone who is atheist for the same reasons I don't openly identify as someone who doesn't collect stamps. It just doesn't come up if I avoid the places where people tend to ask.
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i think specifically here, the first openly public exclamation of such.
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It's like coming out as gay.
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Not really. More like coming out as Human (as opposed to those who’ve deluded themselves into believing they are more than that)
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At a guess, it would depend on where you live. For one thing, the number of non-religious people in the USA has doubled in the last 15 years, but notably, most do not go all the way to identify themselves as "atheists" (militant or otherwise):
Perhaps b/c the belief that there definitively is no such thing as any kind of "god" is a rather extreme hard-line stance, while "meh, there might be, but probably isn't, and anyway who cares?" seems much more popular lately (according to that study, and many others like it).
Also there are a HUGE fraction of people who are ostensibly "Jews" or "Protestants" or "Catholic" or whatever, but don't really give a shit and just hang on loosely b/c of historical reasons, or b/c of current cultural rather than religious affiliations.
Unfortunately (imho), while the article itself goes into some depth as to why various people believe as they do, the title itself seems extremely click-baity, trying to capitalize on people's prejudices and fears. Though despite all that, ultimately is accurate so... less so than normal, I guess?
There has never been a better time in the history of America to self-identify as an atheist, I think? Unfortunately, we might look back on this as a Golden Era, if McCarthyism returns and this time in the guise of evangelical christianity. And I say this as not even an atheist myself, just someone who will defend to the death someone else's right to believe what they wish rather than be forced (especially to the death! e.g. let's say a woman who is pregnant and experiencing complications) to believe something else - the latter is one of the chief reasons for the entire existence of America, but the pull of (christo-)fascism is indeed strong...
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Maybe if atheists didn't abrasively proselytize so much, and denigrate every other faith, they'd feel more comfortable being in the open with their religion.
¯(ツ)_/¯
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Sounds quite US centric. Atheism/agnosticism is normal in the UK.
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It's cnn I don't trust it
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I'm from an arguably secular country but people still put Catholic or Anglican or whatever on the census even though they are "non-practising" and haven't been to church in years.
Probably better to ask how often people go to church in this type of questionnaire and ignore what people "identify" as.
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Honestly I blame Reddit Atheists for giving Atheism a negative reputation
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Extremist religionists have been hammering on the anti-atheist propoganda for centuries. Reddit hasn't even had the opportunity, historically, to have a significant impact.
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Whenever someone complains about Reddit Atheists, I go to r/atheism, sort by top posts of the month, and check the top 10. Let's see what they are:
The word "God" appears 41 times in the Alabama's Supreme Court ruling that destroying embryos counts as killing a child.
Pastor’s Sermon Implying Women in Shorts Deserve to Be Raped Prompts Response. “If you dress like that and you get raped, and I’m on the jury, he’s going to go free. Because a man’s a man."
Taylor Swift is engaging in demonic practices and satanic rituals in live shows, Christian artist claims: 'Her music is dangerous'.
Utah House ignores constitution, passes bill allowing allowing Ten Commandments to be taught in public schools
Canada would remove religious exemption from 'hate speech' in proposed bill. Christians say quoting Scripture to defend their bigotry could be criminalized if the legislation passes.
UK: Clergy warn of ‘doom spiral’ as church attendance drops off at record rate. Church attendance has more than halved since 1987.
California Megachurch pastor Jack Hibbs admits he broke the law telling church members to vote Republican. FFRF says it will ask the IRS to revoke his churches 501(c)(3) status.
Super Bowl jesus Ad funded by groups fostering "hateful Christian Nationalism"
A dangerous mental illness is spreading in the Trump cult
MAGA influencer Jack Posobiec, speaking on stage at CPAC: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We're here to overthrow it completely. We didn't get all the way there on January 6th, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here…Because all glory is to God.”
As you can see, all of them are genuine concerns about religiously-motivated people or groups provoking harm in one way or another, sometimes even subverting the basis of a functional democratic state. Online communities of atheists are, fundamentally, communities of people who have been hurt by religion one way or another, many of which simply feel the need to vent and lash out on a bad day, and will engage in constructive discussion about society at their best, and does definitely not deserve the caricature you're propagating.
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Your God loving redneck doesn't have their views on atheism formed by reddit
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I remember reading somewhere that if you poll Christians anonymously, almost 20% of them are atheists or agnostics, but if you poll them publicly 100% of them are Christians.
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Sounds about right
Religions actively encourage harassing “questioning” family members
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There isn't much benefit to doing it.
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You get to join the atheist parade every year and can go to atheist club every Sunday!
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Atheist here. What’s the problem?
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The prejudice of other people. I had a boss once, an older lady that was super nice and baked lemon squares for us all the time. But she was super Catholic. I once overheard her say to the Pentecostal coworker that she doesn't think anyone has to believe exactly what she believes, as long as they believe. And then they went on to express their distaste and distrust of anyone that doesn't believe in god. I was new in the office. I kept my mouth shut. It was never brought up to me directly. I just enjoyed my lemon square and did my job. I think they knew subconsciously, but they never pushed it so I was just Schrodinger's believer...as long as they didn't ask, I was just like one of them.
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Do you live in Indiana? Because I do. And in a lot of Indiana, saying that out loud will cause you a lot of problems.
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i have had many conversations where people assume i'm christian is a way that makes me really uncomfortable; my choices are to "well, actually," or plaster a fake smile and nod in agreement.
i do the latter, but i hate it.
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The lack of support structure, and the frequently harsh consequences for announcing your beliefs (or lack there of). Becoming an atheist usually means your not joining a new group either as there isnt exactly a weekley meeting of the "we dont believe in X" club. (TST tries to help with this)
On top of that leaving some groups can be very bad for ones mental and physical health. JW and Islam have parts of their dogma that supports retaliation against individuals who leave. (not picking on them, just the ones off the top of my head, im sure there are others)
With that in mind the calculus changes, one has to weigh the risks of announcing that you are questioning the beliefs of a group that you are a part of and if they are going to react rationally while you think their beliefs are irrational.
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Unlilke Deists such as me, that will tell you all about it quicker than a vegan :P
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Maybe most of the people is simply disillusioned by religions, but not totally confident that there's nothing at all.
In my case i'm more of a "hopefull" atheist. Considering the entropic and chaotic nature of the universe, the continuous predatory massacre that we call "life" and extreme difficulty to keep any state of equilibrium in this reality. I really don't want to think of some sentient all-powerful being in charge of all this.
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Cause preachers can talk about Jihads against atheists on talk shows, but somebody says god isn't real and everything they are connected to gets examined for not complying with the first amendment.
Yup. Even 'tolerant' religions go batshit when they encounter unbelievers. It's like you can root for any team, but if you decline the entire sportsball thing, YOU GOTTA FUCKIN DIE
Bit hyperbolic (for most people lol)
It's more like "you and everything you stand for is unbound by morality, and you pose a threat to my entire worldview through your thoughts and ideas alone."
In my experience, theists would just want an individual to believe in anything instead of nothing.