Letters to the Editor
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Beliefs are personal and private.
There is a reason why many people keep their personal beliefs private.
Acquaintances and casual friends don't really care what you believe.
Unconditional close friends are understanding but it's still your choice whether or not you share your beliefs with them.
Your family's reaction to your beliefs are more about them than you and it is likely that they will perceive your beliefs as a threat to their own beliefs, an attack by you.
It's a good idea to establish clear boundaries with your parents. Love them, honor them, live your life and share your beliefs only with those you feel comfortable sharing private details of your life.
Your beliefs may undergo metamorphosis as you get older and experience life.
Protect yourself and your inner core beliefs. It is your right as a human being. Freedom of speech is also your right as a US citizen. The decision is yours and no one else's.
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An agnostic still in the closet here
Well, not entirely, but for my dear mother's sake, I let her believe what she wants about my faith (or lack thereof). Namely, that I'm still her devout Catholic boy. Anytime a religious subject comes up, I try to avoid pronouncements of faith and focus on the good things about Christianity (and yes, they do exist).
During a visit once I made the mistake of bringing up Buddhism to her, and was woken up in the middle of the night by her crying over my soul. Neither of us need this.
My advice is that you do the same. In the meantime, read "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs.
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You don't have to tell
Atheism doesn't require you to witness, testify, or convert on its behalf. There are no "requirements" other than a healthy sense of skepticism and the ability to reason. It does require that you think long & deeply about ethical and moral behavior as it applies to you, however, there are no absolute rules of morality you are required to follow, thus you must learn to think for yourself about what is ethically and morally acceptable.
For myself, that means taking as many variables as possible into consideration of when to tell and when not to. For instance, my mother and step-father know. It bothers them, but not to the extent of them nagging me about it or worrying incessantly about the condition my mortal soul. My father and grandparents will never know: the former because he would never stop arguing with me about it (in vain)...I will never change his mind, he will never change mine; the latter because it would cause them unnecessary pain and there is simply no point in hurting them just to get a point across.
Try to find the "greater good" when contemplating when to tell and when to keep your mouth shut and change the subject. Ask yourself who gets hurt, and whether or not expressing your opinions will ultimately have a point. When dealing with an extremely religious person or institution, ask yourself if it will make any real difference confronting them with your beliefs. Is your child's school trying to teach "intelligent design"? Most likely yes. Is your fundamentalist friend going to try to make you see the error of your ways and convert you? Yes, to no point.
As far as the university goes, is it hurting them to remain unaware of your beliefs? In my opinion, not at all. They're getting paid for the service you "hired" them to do. Finish your degree, get out, and move to a part of the country where you are not judged by your religious affiliations, or lack thereof.
Good luck.
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What church do you go to?
I hear those words about once a week, asked not only people who are just curious but by people who are quite eager to invite me to their church and to convince me that it is the best one in town.
After reading over the previous letters, it occurs to me that some people really have no idea what it is like to live a small town in North Texas (no that is not that panhandle-shaped part but rather nearer Dallas-Fort Worth) and to exist among people for whom religion forms the greater part of their social life, when it is not being swallowed up by Friday night football.
To go around loudly proclaiming one's atheism/agnosticism would mean to turn every social encounter and every commercial transaction into unpleasantness.
When I moved back to Texas, I had assumed that it had changed since I left twenty years prior, but in its small town and rural areas, it has change very little. No sooner had I arrived here than I heard on the news that a woman in Mexia, Texas, had legally challenged a local public school bus driver's right to play religious hymns on the school. She did not want her children subjected to this. Naturally she was being properly ostracized.
When I lived in an almost all Mormon town in Arizona, my daughter was basically ostracized once they figured out that we not only weren't Mormons but that I was a former Mormon who had rejected Mormon beliefs. That was not a harsh price for me to pay since I found a few folks at the local college who were also not Mormons, but it is a pretty tough price to pay when you are an eight year old girl, as my daughter was.
I suspect that those who want the LW to give up the advantages of his college (whatever they may be), risk complete social rejection, and possibly alienate himself from his parents may actually have no idea at all what it means to live in an environment dominated by religion.
It amuses me that we now have a new sort of tyranny that requires all true non-believers to declare themselves so, in order to further the agenda of non-believers in combating the terrible tyranny of belief. It long ago occurred to me that people who must constantly be waving their various flags are marchers in a parade. Ta-rah-rah-boom-de-ay!
Somehow I find a connection here between the woman whose sexually neutral dress so unnerved her boss that she seemed almost being compelled to declare herself gay or straight immediately. This also reminded be that I once read of a study in which people were asked to observe the "gender" behavior of crawling babies all clothed in nothing but identical diapers. They were not to actually know the sex of the babies but merely to observe and note. This so frustrated the observers that many of them were emotionally driven to peek into the babies' diapers to determine any particular baby's sex. After all, how could one know whether a baby was gentle or assertive without knowing its sex?
How can one know if a person is good or evil if one does not know if that person believes in God? How can one know if is smart or a complete idiot if one does not know if that person is an atheist? After all, the cool kids are now atheists.
When people ask me what church I go to, I may respond in a variety of ways. I may simply say that I am a Unitarian and am saddened by the fact that there is no Unitarian Church here. (They never actually know what a Unitarian is. ;-) ) If they persist in inviting me to their church, I may say that I just wouldn't be comfortable anywhere else. Or, if they ask me what church I go to, I may ask them about theirs. If THAT PARTICULAR PERSON INTERESTS ME, I may ask them to elaborate on their particular beliefs. Soon that person is off and running telling all about themselves and their own particular journey. They have forgotten about me, for it is never really about me but about them and their own needs and their own egos.
Atheists have egos too. They will expound at length about how ignorant and silly theists are. It is fun to listen to them. Give them enough attention and soon they are off and running to tell me all about themselves and their own journey. They forget all about me; it is never about me.
As someone who writes fiction, you cannot imagine how useful this skill of disappearing is. I learned it by happenstance and in most peculiar circumstances. I have perfected it ever since. It allows me to gather raw material.
Think I am a hypocrite? Hey, think what you want. Just call me a sort of Valerie Flame, exotic entrancer.
However, I have learned something useful about people. Some of them are capable of looking beyond the outward trappings -- and that includes professions of belief and non-belief -- to valuing people just because they ARE. Some of them are capable of love and some of them are not. Some of them are capable of taking responsibility for the strenuous demands of loving relationships and some of them are not. I have never noticed that a mere profession of either faith or advanced intellect made one bit of difference one way or another. To reduce people to pious religious profession or to advanced enlightened atheism is to miss the infinite variety, is to mistake the veils for the dance.