Coming Out

Before I delve into this post, I need to give a quick disclaimer. These views are mine and not the opinion of UNIFI. In fact, I expect most of the officers to vehemently oppose this. I do not want anyone to think they need to follow this advice to be active in UNIFI.

Last week, I was on Reddit and came across a topic in /r/atheism about dealing with religious parents. The poster comments:

I don't feel it's my place to argue, correct, or engage them over their ignorance or faith. They gave me a good childhood, all things considered, and I'd rather avoid the issue, mostly because I know they would act so irrationally if they knew I was an atheist.

More posters agree. ABTechie commented about his parents "Love them. Talk about everyday things. Jobs, travel, clothes, hopes, dreams, goals...and try to keep religion out the best you can." Clickwir writes:

So if everyone else in the room wants to discuss the "Reason for the season", I'll just sit there and admire the tree. When they are done talking about their religious views, I will re-join the conversation. I think my silence speaks for itself, to a degree. I don't want to add more stress to their lives right now. Good luck, don't push too hard or you might just push them away.

This isn't a phenomenon reserved only for Redditors, either. Many leaders in UNIFI haven't "come out" to their parents, let alone grandparents. Many will attend church and pray with the family over Christmas Break. I've heard countless rationalizations for it. Most don't want to bring undue stress to the family or they wonder what family would think of them. Some fear disownment. Still others feel they owe it to their families to play nice when it comes to faith.

Where in the world does this cognitive dissonance come from? I know there are members of UNIFI who want a hands-off approach to religion. Many feel like Paul Kurtz – they don't want to hear or see anything religious in a public setting. I've never understood this viewpoint. I actually have a lot of respect for religious people who proselytize in public. If you believe atheists will be eternally tormented for what they believe, it's a moral imperative for you to try to convert me. In the same way, I believe religion is one of the biggest dangers in our world today. I'm not going to sit back quietly as it continues to shape public policy.

Now, if you're one of the Paul Kurtz-esque members, I understand not coming out to your family. But if you think like I do – if you believe religion is dangerous and if you engage random strangers – then what are you doing? When you join random Facebook groups to attack religious ideas, you don't consider what people will think of you. When you find a random Facebook status to jump in, you don't think about what that person is personally going through at the time. Why treat you family any different? If they won't accept what you believe and who you are, then what kind of family are they?

Here's the crux of the issue. Atheists are the most distrusted minority in America today. Often, people never get to know an atheist personally. They wonder how a non-religious person could actually do good things without an invisible man looking down on them. This isn't fringe either – the Governor of Indiana recently said:

I'm not sure it's all that new. People who reject the idea of a God -who think that we're just accidental protoplasm- have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications -which not all such folks have thought through- because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power. And atheism leads to brutality.

There are even laws on the books denying us a chance to hold public office (if we can even manage to get elected in the first place). This isn't going to change without an effort on our part. The non-religious movement is often paralleled with the GLBT movement, for good reason. Many of their strategies mirror ours. In the movie Milk, Harvey Milk encourages all of his followers to come out to their family. If they know one of us, they'll vote with us, he says. Atheists are in the same boat today. It's easy to demonize us if you don't know any of us.

This is my call to my atheist friends still in the closet to friends and family. Come out. I'm not asking anyone to pick fights or force the issue, but only to consistently reject religion. If you won't pray at school, stop praying at home. If religion comes up, tell your family you're a non-believer. I'm not asking you to be hostile, only to be honest. The future of the non-religious movement depends on it.