Guess I'm Just Not Ready?

[Evelyn]

I had two opportunities today, first time ever that I can recall, to tell someone I'm not a xian and I didn't take them!

 

The first was at lunch at work with a new friend. I know she was raised catholic and she told me, as part of our conversation, that she now attends a methodist church. She asked me, "What are you doing on Easter, unless you don't do Easter?". I told her that my hubby and I attend an Episcopal church and it's always very crowded on Easter Sunday, so we usually don't attend that day to make room for the visitors. She gave me an out and I didn't take it! She even mentioned that her grandpa doesn't "do Easter", so she'd probably be attending church with her parents and they would visit him afterwards.

 

The second was a phone call from an insurance agent, a women, who is trying to make an appointment to sell us long-term-care insurance. I've talked to her on the phone a few times and have tried to nicely blow her off but don't know how. She doesn't know me, I don't know her, and she was just making conversation. Anyway, she asked me the same thing and I gave her the same story I told my friend at lunch! She then told me a story about a trip to England she took with her "partner" (around here, that's a code for same-sex paramour) and the xmas-eve service they attended at an old abbey, strongly implying during the course of the story that she doesn't usually attend church. I could have told her I'm not an xian, no harm done, and I didn't!

 

I'm bold on the board - this forum - so to speak, but not quite there in my day-to-day life...

[Amethyst]

An aunt of mine called today and asked what I was doing. I was honest and told her that I'm going to a sci-fi convention that's all weekend long. I figure, if she wants to pray for me, she can, but it's not going to do any good.

 

I was also honest at work when a co-worker asked me if I celebrated Easter when she gave me a handmade easter bunny thing. I said my family did, though I really wasn't religious, but it's the thought that counts.

 

I try to be polite at work, but it gets annoying there sometimes because there are a lot of Christians in the office and many of them talk about their religion so much. I may just bring in my MP3 player and listen to headphones, then at least I won't have to overhear them so much.

[Amethyst]

 

Good points. I haven't told some particularly fundy relatives of mine. No doubt, they'd just start preaching at me.

[Godless Wonder]

To the OP:

 

Don't worry about this. I've been an atheist my whole life (I hang out here, because I like it that a nice healthy simmering (ok, sometimes frothing) anger towards Christianity is well understood) and I still get a bit of a mild adrenaline charge, fight or flight type phsyical response upon being confronted by Christians "in the flesh." (Now there's an image. )

 

The problem is, in my basic personality, I'm pretty non-confrontational, and don't really like confrontation. Religious discussions with Christians have an inescapable, implied adverserial aspect, even if the conflict is civil. As an atheist, there's just no escaping the fact that I think Christians have been deluded. Nobody likes to be deluded, or to be thought of as deluded by others. So there's this confrotnational aspect which is just inescapable due to the nature of the views held by me and those held by most Christians, (and by "most," I mean every single one I've ever encountered anywhere, ever, sorry to say.)

 

So, that confrontational aspect ends up giving me a little shot of adrenaline, it seems, which I hate, because it tends to rattle me a bit, makes it harder for me to put my words together to articulate my thoughts, etc. I might notice my hands shaking even, a little bit. Very weird response. It's a lot easier online, when it's just you and the computer screen, and Google is a tab away, and you've got all the time in the world to compose a response, etc.

 

Don't know if your experience is similar, probably if anything, having been a former Christian, you probably have a harder time than I do.

 

It gets easier with practice, if that's any help. I'm actually learning to like the confrontation a bit, mostly because, despite the adrenaline charge I get, and despite being rattled, I've got things down well enough now that usually my "opponent," as it were, is as rattled, or more rattled than I am. And in a verbal "confrontation," er, conversation, neither of us has google at the ready, so it kind of evens out, though both sides tend to be a little "at a loss for quotes," compared to online discussions.

 

For instance, there's this guy I work with. For the longest time, I considered him a lost cause. Just a true-red Republican, Christian to the core, parroting the party line. I'd had a few run-ins with him, and decided he was just a lost cause, not worth talking to about politics or religion. So I stopped talking to him about those subjects.

 

Well, occasionally, he'd email me this or that little newspaper clipping about religion, or how "atheism was on it's last legs," and so on. Usual stupid crap. Which I filed away in a little folder, just for grins, but never responded to. Occasionally he'd as me a direct question in those emails, to which I'd respond, but never really figured it made much difference.

 

Well, Monday, he comes into my office after he'd asked me about where atheists thought a conscience might come from, if not God, and I'd responded with various ideas (the usual stuff) and he told me, "You made me think, it was supposed to be the other way around." LOL. I almost fell out of my chair. I'd written this guy off for the last five years so as a lost cause, but he might just be waking up after all this time. And we had a not too bad little discussion after that, which was not the usual confrontational "i'm right and you're stupid," kind of stuff that the both of us usually pushed each other into. So, with perserverence, and patience, progress can be made. Ain't easy though.

[spamandham]

I had two opportunities today, first time ever that I can recall, to tell someone I'm not a xian and I didn't take them!

 

You spineless bitch!

 

Sorry, ..couldn't resist.

 

One of the fringe benefits of being an apostate is that you (should believe you) are not being held accountable for your failure to "witness". It's ok not to tell people, or even to outright lie to them about it if it serves you, because it's none of their fucking business to begin with.

[Evelyn]

Thanks, spamandham

 

Thanks for all the responses so far. Godless Wonder, I'm like you in that I don't like confrontation. And very good thoughts, ZoeGrace.

 

I think why this all stuck in my head was not a compulsion to share my new non-faith but that I had two opportunities to describe myself and I used an old definition. I haven't come out of the closet to anyone other than my husband, my in-laws (they are cool people) and my best friend, so when I'm around my family, for instance, I play the game of being xian. With my new friend, I wasn't sure how'd she react if I told her I didn't "do Easter" and it apparantly didn't register in my mind that she said, "unless you don't do Easter" until later. With the insurance lady, there was no consquence one way or the other so I had a chance to try out a new definition of myself and didn't take it.