11.20.09
Posted in Advice, General, Richard Wade at 10:00 am by Richard Wade
Note: When letter writers sign with their first names instead of a pseudonym or nickname, I randomly change their name for added anonymity.
Hello,
A few years ago, I met my biological mother (and siblings, etc.) for the first time at the age of 30. I had been corresponding with her, and one of my sisters, for about a year before hand, during which I found out that she was had a strong xtian faith. I had figured as much, as I was adopted through Catholic Charities. They all know I am an atheist, which is something I don’t hide — no one talks to me about it, or brings up their faith to me.
The first birthday we shared, she got me Blue Like Jazz, a book described as “non-religious thoughts on xtian spirituality” (I gave it away). For Xmas, I got a small, fold up manger decoration. I also got a copy of the book, The Shack, but didn’t realize what it was about at the time. I figured that she was sharing things she enjoyed with me.
When I read The Shack, I started to understand her way of thinking: her faith is not about dogma, just god/jesus’s perfect love and a personal relationship with god. Choosing to “live apart” from god is empty, incomplete, without love or trust, even rebellious- independent in a bad way. All of the explanations/apologetics illustrated how flawed the whole theory of god is. But because she takes god as a fact, and has always been comforted by faith, being without it is truly incomprehensible. I began to feel offended (not the best word) for the first time.
Then, for Easter, I got a typical xtian card from her, but she had also written that she “hoped I would reconsider (god)”. It was only a one line note, but I was very bothered by it. I still can’t put my finger on WHY these things bothered me so much — but it did.
I discussed this with all my atheist friends, and a few that are not, but no one was sure what to do. I am outspoken, but mostly polite, and am baffled by what to do. I toyed with the idea of giving her an atheist philosophy book for every xtian one she gives me (what to give her?), but wasn’t sure if it was a good idea.
Ideally, I would like her to see that it is possible to be happy and complete without god/jesus. I would settle for never getting another xtian card. She is not closed minded or hateful in any way, and I know she is doing this out of love- but it doesn’t make it acceptable.
What would you do? Any ideas why did the card/book bother me so much????
Thanks!
Stephanie
Dear Stephanie,
I always hesitate to hypothesize on the thoughts and motives of people. Speculating about why someone thinks, feels or does something is a risky prospect. Such suppositions should be accompanied by broad and frequent qualifiers. “Maybe, possibly, perhaps, I suppose, I imagine, it could be” keep us humble while playing at being mind readers. We can only know our own minds, and often we’re strangers to parts of ourselves as well.
In the end, even if we are correct, all we have to our question of why we or someone else thinks feels or does something, is a “because.” Having that answer doesn’t automatically change anything. Changing things takes time and work.
However, having some understanding about another’s motives can sometimes help us to find more patience and compassion for them. If we get an accurate glimpse of the emotions behind their actions, we have the chance to empathize, and empathy tends to make any relationship better.
Understanding your own feelings about your mother’s gifts are linked to understanding what may be her motives. So I’ll begin with some highly conditional speculation about your mother first:
She gave you up for adoption under circumstances not stated here. Regardless, I imagine that it was very difficult and even painful for her. She may have a great deal of regret or guilt surrounding that. Then 30 years later you reappear in her life, having been raised by someone else, having had experiences and influences beyond her control. She learns that you are an atheist. She may think that this is one of the things that would have been different if she had been able to raise you. It might be a source of regret or guilt for her, as she wonders how you might have turned out differently. “Would have, could have, and should have, if only” can torment people like harpies. So possibly, she hopes to try to correct something that “went wrong” in her absence. Perhaps, trying to make up for lost time, she wants to give you what she sees as a gift, her faith.
In your description of your understanding of her beliefs, the statement “To live apart from God is empty, incomplete, without love” may hold some special insight into her experience. She had to live apart from you, and it might have felt terribly empty, incomplete, and without love. She knows what that is like, and she doesn’t want that for you.
Stephanie, since main question of your letter is why are you increasingly perturbed by your mother’s religious gifts and remarks, now I’ll do some highly conditional speculation about you. Please accept my apologies in advance if I’m way off, which is quite possible.
You described your feelings as, “offended, (not the best word)” and “very bothered.” I wonder if your feelings could be summed up as “hurt.” Perhaps you think she is making a statement about you by giving you these religious things, and you think it’s not a flattering statement, so your feelings are hurt. Maybe you think she’s saying that you are mistaken, or wrong, or foolish, or immature, or “rebellious-independent in a bad way,” or the worst thing she could possibly say: that now that she’s met you after 30 years, you are a disappointment.
Ouch. That hurts.
Remember, these are only my speculations about your speculations about a third person’s possible statement hidden in her giving you gifts and cards, a statement that may not be be there at all. As I said, guessing what’s in another’s mind this is a risky prospect. It’s probable that none of it is correct, and let’s hope so, because that’s a lot of unnecessary hurt.
Most likely, these gifts are statements about her, rather than you. I think that if your mother has gone through and may still be going through just some of the painful things I’ve postulated, then it’s not likely that her religious gifts mean that she’s judging you disapprovingly. Any disapproval or disappointment she is feeling is probably directed back onto herself.
I think you are on the right track when you say that you know she’s doing this out of love. I would only add that she’s doing it out of love, mixed with sadness, pain and regret, as well as hope for redemption.
I suggest that you receive these things graciously, accepting them as her gestures of love. The only statement about you in them is that clearly, she thinks that you are worthy of love. Enjoy them for that, then discard them, give them away, or put them in a box labeled “Bio Mom’s Love.”
I agree that it is not a good idea for you to give her an atheist philosophy book for every Christian one she gives you, or any tit-for-tat kind of response. It seems clear that you want the relationship to increase in acceptance, not decrease. Sending unwanted things to her would most likely only create a similar kind of upset that you have been experiencing, because she might assume similar unintended meanings of disapproval by you.
Her religion is a large part of her life. My guess is that your atheism is a much smaller part of yours. There is so much more to what you do with your life than not having a belief in gods.
Send her things that reflect your life and what is important to you. For instance, you said that ideally, you would like her to see that it is possible to be happy and complete without God or Jesus. Rather than sending her things to convince her of that, just demonstrate the happiness and completeness that is real for you. I’m guessing that you don’t go out to try to be happy and complete specifically without God or Jesus, you just try to be happy and complete, period. Share your successes in that way with her. Let her feel proud and happy for you. Leave the theism and the atheism out of it entirely; it isn’t that relevant in this relationship, because there’s so much more to you than that.
You have here the opportunity for a relationship with a person who loves you for a very primal reason. You seem to be able to accept her religiosity as simply a part of who and what she is. Reframe her religious gifts and gestures to you, seeing them as expressions of love instead of disapproval of you, and then you can enjoy and return that love unhindered.
Richard
You may send your questions for Richard to 
. All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.
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11.17.09
Posted in Advice, Atheist Generosity, Churches, Coming Out, Education, General, Richard Wade at 11:30 am by Richard Wade
Dear Richard,
I am a great admirer of the eloquent yet simple advice you give on Friendly Atheist. I have been “out” as an atheist for about one year now. I work in a Divinity Faculty, where I am surrounded by liberal, thoughtful, sophisticated religious believers, and recently I have been having thoughts about becoming an ordained minister in the Anglican Church. I feel that this job would give me personal fulfillment and allow me to do what I really want to do in my life, which is to, well, ‘minister’ to people’s needs, to be there for them in the hard times and help them celebrate the good times. I believe that religion does not have to be about beliefs, but actions, that it can be a force for good rather than hatred, and that “God” can be useful as a symbol which can provide many different meanings and frameworks for different people. I also believe that I would perhaps be more use to the furthering of reason and tolerance if I were within ‘the system’, promoting religious moderation than simply being an outsider.
My question is: should I pursue this career path, whilst remaining an atheist (or a ‘theological non-realist’ to give it a ‘theologically acceptable’ term)?
I would greatly appreciate your advice on this issue, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Best wishes,
Conflicted
Dear Conflicted,
You’ve expressed two goals that you would like to accomplish in your life. One is to “attend to the wants and needs of others, to give aid or service,” which is one of the definitions of the verb “to minister.” Most people would agree that that is a very noble and admirable desire.
Your other goal is to bring about positive change in the church, making it more responsive to a wider range of people’s needs, and to improve its influence on society; to in a way, humanize it. Many people would approve of that as well.
However, your proposed method poses some ethical and pragmatic difficulties.
It isn’t clear from your letter, but I’m going to assume that if you were to apply to the ministry, you would do so openly as an atheist, just as you are now at your workplace. I’m assuming this because I think you know you wouldn’t be able to cover up your lack of belief for very long.
There are clerics who become free of their faith while they are ministering to their flocks. Many leave the clergy, some famously, because they cannot abide the conflict of promoting and reassuring beliefs in others that they no longer hold for themselves. They see it as hypocrisy, and it is too painful for them. An unknown number of these people continue on in their ministry as secret apostates, keeping up a deception for either selfish or noble reasons. Perhaps they just want to keep their jobs, or perhaps they want to keep on helping others somehow, “ministering” in that decent and generous meaning of the verb to which you aspire.
Being secretive about your atheism would pose ethical problems, and being open about your atheism would pose pragmatic problems.
Concealing it would require lying. That by itself is an ethical breach that should not be acceptable to a person who wants to be a professional helper in any capacity. Hiding it would most likely also cause injury to others. Since people look to their ministers for ethical guidance and moral modeling as well as spiritual solace, a closet atheist minister would be running a serious risk of implanting terrible cynicism, bitterness and deep hurt in those who trust in him, once the truth eventually comes out.
Because eventually, it always does.
Being open about your atheism might stop you right at the front door of the Anglican seminary or divinity school. From what I can find in a quick online search, the initial process of “discernment” involves intense and intimate examinations by your own personal priest, a discernment committee, a commission on ministry, a Bishop, and perhaps even a mental health professional. These people will assess the suitability of your intentions, personal history, values, attitudes, ideas, goals,
and your beliefs.
If you don’t believe in their god, they may see you as missing an essential prerequisite. Your openhearted desire to help others and your open-minded desire to bring more breadth, reason and tolerance to the church from the inside may not be enough for them to trust you with either their doctrine or their flock.
Even if you somehow get past all those barriers and become a minister, the hardest questions will come from the people whom you are trying to help. They will look you in the eyes and say, “My little girl died today. Please tell me that she’s going to heaven.” Will you respond with reason, or with the comforting myth they so desperately want to hear you confirm?
Conflicted, I don’t want to extinguish your wonderful longing to be of service to others, to “be there for them in the hard times and help them celebrate the good times” as you so movingly put it, by only listing reasons why your idea may not work.
Perhaps your experience in the divinity faculty and your knowledge of the Anglican Church is extensive, and you know how you could overcome those pragmatic hurdles. I’m certainly no expert on that.
Perhaps you can find ways to reconcile a person’s desire for a reassuring bedtime story with your rational mind’s demands to tell them the truth as you see it. I don’t pretend to be that wise, but I don’t assume that no one else is.
Perhaps also, your broad vision of God and religion, and how you could influence the church from the inside toward embracing more reason, tolerance and moderation is somehow attainable. When people propose lofty aspirations, I never use the word “impossible” because thousands of people have personally amazed me.
However, I can point out that you have other options, other venues for helping people on a personal level. For instance, you sound like you’d make an excellent counselor. That is a broad and varied field, and you don’t necessarily have to specialize too narrowly into one kind of need to fulfill. It has a challenging and interesting process to qualify, just as would the ministry. My years as a counselor were immensely fulfilling. I made a positive difference, and I even saved a few lives. I still get great pleasure from the little bit of service I can offer with this column.
But if the path of the psy does not appeal to you, there are many other ways that you could find satisfaction as well as sustenance by making the world around you a little better than it was before. That is the whole point of life for people like you and me; that we somehow, even in small ways, make a positive difference in others’ lives.
Use your imagination. Your generous spirit can be of great value in so many unexpected ways. Find them all!
Richard
You may send your questions for Richard to . All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.
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11.13.09
Posted in Advice, Coming Out, General, Richard Wade at 12:00 pm by Richard Wade
Note: To add another layer of anonymity for the letter writer, I have changed his name, as I do for all the writers who sign their letters with their name. I have also altered a few incidental details of his story to make him less identifiable.
I’m interested in your opinion on this matter.
I consider myself a radical Atheist, as Douglas Adams was known to say, he preferred to put the term “radical” there because it conveys the fact that he really meant it. Unfortunately I am also pretty much in the closet with regards to my lack of belief at work.
My problem is at work. My coworker in the next cube over is always ranting and raving about god and country. He’s a stereotypical Glenn Beck viewer, I could very easily envision him disrupting a Town Hall meeting if you get my drift. He thinks President Obama is an evil socialist Muslim from another country who wants to abort all the babies and kill all the grannies. Of course, he thinks atheists are the root of all evil and the problems of our country are caused by our abandoning god. I think he suspects I am an Atheist, perhaps because of the FSM logo on the back of my car. He recently put up a sign on his cabinet that reads “God Bless America” with a flag background. I suspect he is trying to provoke me into a discussion when I have zero interest in having one with him.
It makes for an uncomfortable workplace. I work on computer software so I can do my job with headphones on and I find myself turning the music up lately to drown my coworker out.
My question is, should I say something to him? I’d like to simply ask him to stop. I feel like he is trying to lure me into a discussion of religion just so he can try to evangelize and push his agenda. He has already made it known he has had a run in with HR when he was going around with a sign up sheet to raise money for his anti-abortion group. I personally feel such talk at the office is inappropriate. I think he wants to be a martyr with his loud offensive bullying talk. I suspect he wants me to say something and of course would claim I am somehow oppressing him.
Another wrench in the works is my manager, who can’t go two sentences without dropping a comment affirming his own religiousness. My manager even has a cup in his office from an evangelist college. It’s the kind of place that I would be amazed if they were accredited in any way. I suspect he may be a graduate from there. He also has a bible on his desk. So my manager is a devout Christian and so is his manager. My manager is also known as a cost cutter who has laid people off to save money. I wouldn’t want him to have any reason to fire me because I think he would do so in a heartbeat. If my manager were to find out I was an atheist he would probably take an interest in converting me and it would probably change his opinion of me for the worse.
We work at a pretty large company with an HR department, do you think I should go to HR over my coworker? Am I wrong for wanting him to keep his ill-informed opinions to himself? Should I just suck it up? I have a wife, kids and a mortgage to worry about.
Thanks!
Brett
Dear Brett,
To sum up the strategic situation, your coworker is a childish, boorish, paranoid, evangelizing activist who is annoying you with his loud and distracting blather, your manager is a devout evangelical Christian who uses an axe to protect the company profit margin, and his manager is also a devout Christian. You have a mortgage and a family to support.
I don’t think sucking it up or turning the music in the headphones up even louder will be a lasting solution. It’s just going to wear you down. You need and deserve a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere to do the work you do.
As irksome as you may find the content of Mr. Religious Right Reactionary’s opinions, that is not the issue. He certainly has the right to express his views, but he does not have the right to disturb his neighbors at work. It would be completely legitimate for you to try to quiet the irritating chatter from the next cubicle, but exactly how you do that is very important. Revealing that you are an atheist would not be a good idea at this time and place. I’ll speak to that issue later on.
The big mouth bugs you for two reasons: his political-religious views are noxious, and his constant tirades disrupt your ability to work. Although the first reason is probably the foremost in your mind, the second reason is the one that you should focus on.
I suggest that you begin to make polite requests to your coworker to quiet down always for work-related reasons. Say with a calm, flat tone, “Excuse me, I need to concentrate on my work.” or “Sorry, I gotta get back to work.” or “Can you please keep it down? I’m trying to work.” This will probably have to be repeated many times. Be patient and think of it as a game.
The volume and tone of your voice must remain low and calm, unchanging every time, so practice before you speak to him. It’s important to keep any hint of irritation out of it, because that will only provoke him. He’s looking for a challenge or even a fight, and you don’t want to feed him that.
Don’t touch the subject of his rants with a ten-foot pole. If he or your boss asks you if the specifics of your coworker’s opinions are what you object to, don’t answer that directly, just stick to you how you need to have a peaceful, quiet work environment. You just want him to stop his distracting prattling, period. Always attaching the need to do your work to your requests for him to be quiet makes your requests unassailable in that office. You’re there to work, not to discuss politics, religion, baseball or somebody’s gall bladder surgery. Even your two Bible-brandishing bosses couldn’t argue with that.
Going to HR should be the last resort, but prepare for it from the beginning. Keep a written record of the dates and times that he was disturbing your work, and the exact wording of the work-related polite requests for quiet that you made each time. This will simply help you to see if you’ve given it a fair enough time to have an effect, and if as a last remedy you decide to go to HR, you’ll have documentation that you have tried your best in a reasonable manner to get him to stop. Whether to him or to HR, always emphasize the disruption of your work, NOT the content of his tiresome twaddle.
If it finally has to go to HR, even though you will have taken all the reasonable steps and followed the proper channels, be ready for the poop to hit the propeller. If he wants to play the oppressed martyr, he will. His remarks may become more passive-aggressive, with sneaky barbs and sideways insults in your direction, or he may actually defiantly escalate his political-religious rants, daring you and HR to stop him.
Don’t get suckered into reacting to that. He wants that. Calmly and meticulously stick to your original tactic of polite requests for him to not disturb your work. Keep documenting dates, times and your polite requests, and when it seems like the right time, take it back to HR.
Now to the issue of your atheism and the tension you feel from having to keep your own views carefully concealed. I think that people with jobs should be constantly doing two things: doing their very best at their job, and looking for a better job. Even if the guy shuts up, you’re not working in a comfortable place. Casually socializing with your fellow workers is a healthy part of work, but being driven into a cubicle-within-a-cubicle, such as with your headphones on and the music up loud, or having to be extremely secretive about your own views is not a healthy way to live.
Quietly, daily, start looking around for a better place for you to work and be more free to be yourself. It may take a long time, but just the act of taking assertive steps for benefiting yourself rather than only defending yourself will help you to feel more empowered and in control of your life.
Richard
You may send your questions for Richard to . All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.
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11.10.09
Posted in Advice, Dating, General, Richard Wade at 12:00 pm by Richard Wade
Richard,
I will try to make this succinct.
I am 28 years old. In the last year, I have admitted to myself both that I was an atheist and that my wife and I were no longer in love. We have been separated for about seven months now with a divorce in process. There have been many new things for me to get used to. We married young, so I’ve never really lived alone, and I’ve never been single as an adult. Any emotional issues I may have had were met with lots of prayer and scripture, and convincing myself that God was taking care of everything. Obviously I no longer have those options available to me, and in hindsight I realize that they only masked the problems and didn’t solve them.
So that’s the background, and here is my problem: Over the last three months or so, I have slowly come to realize that I am in love with a woman who has been my friend since 2006. We have more things in common than anyone else I know, and the things she doesn’t have in common with me absolutely fascinate me, and I want to learn everything I can about her. She is every bit as fascinating to me as nature, and even the thought of holding her hand makes me too happy to sleep at night. Unfortunately, she does not have any romantic feelings for me. We are very good friends. She is one of my best friends, and she loves me, just not in that way. She allows for the possibility that her feelings for me may change in the future, and we remain good friends. She does not want me to pursue her romantically, though, and we both agree that doing this would destroy our friendship.
But I can’t stop thinking about her and how much I want to be with her. I don’t think I ever felt this way about my ex-wife. I want her so much it hurts me, and knowing that she doesn’t reciprocate my feelings hurts even more. I am deeply concerned that I will do or say something to damage our friendship (which, sadly, may have already started to happen), and that is the last thing I want. I am hoping to be her friend for the rest of my life, and she hopes the same for me.
There are three possibilities that I can think of that would resolve this, ranked in order of what I want most (at the moment, anyway):
- She falls in love with me, and we live happily ever after, or for a few months or years, but at least we gave it a shot.
- She doesn’t fall in love with me right away, but my feelings become manageable and I’m able to concentrate on other things, like work and music, and she eventually realizes that I’m the guy for her.
- I stop having these feelings and things go on as they were before.
I really do not know how I should proceed. I don’t know how to stop feeling these things, or how to stop feeling them so strongly.
This is the short version. I hope you can help me.
Sad and A Little Pathetic in Seattle
Dear Sad,
I won’t call you “and A Little Pathetic” because you deserve more respect than that. You are in love. As painful or confusing as that can sometimes be, it is not something to be sneered at. Being in love is the beautiful, awful, tragic and splendid specialty of our species. It is the central part of what makes us human. We admire lovers, we feel sorry for them, we cheer them on to go forward, and we warn them to go back. They are the subject of comedies and tragedies. But we should never, ever look down our noses in scorn and contempt at those who are at the same moment lucky enough and unlucky enough to be in love.
You have never lived alone, you are new to your atheism, and up until recently, you have relied on prayer, scripture and God to deal with your emotional issues.
So inside, you are very young.
Not for all but for many people, living alone for an extended period, free from the distractions of an intimate relationship is necessary for them to come to understand themselves. I think this may be so in your case. You have only recently had the opportunity to begin to know yourself on levels deeper than those you reached while living with your parents and immediately later with your wife. In the months since separating from your wife you have begun to get glimpses of insight, such as seeing that your problems had only been masked and left unsolved. But now you have started another powerfully distracting love relationship, and your growing insight may once again be slowed.
Until recently, your main way of coping with emotional challenges was to rely on something intangible outside of yourself. Being convinced that God was taking care of everything hindered your developing self-reliance, self confidence and the skill of using friends for advice and support. Building these will take time, patience and work. If you don’t have friends with whom you can confide, find some. These must be friendships that you will not begin to romanticize or sexualize.
I agree with you that if you continue to pursue your friend romantically you will probably destroy the friendship, especially since she has specifically asked you to cease.
Your friend sounds like she is very level-headed, but even so, she may be experiencing a dilemma:
When a friend learns that their friend loves them romantically, but they don’t have that kind of love to return, they often feel a tension because of an odd quirk in our culture.
The healthiest response for the friend would be to feel sad about their love-struck friend, knowing that they are frustrated in their love. Unfortunately, in our culture people often take upon themselves the responsibility for other people’s feelings, thinking that they are supposed to somehow do something about or fix the other’s feelings. They confuse caring about someone’s feelings with taking care of someone’s feelings. So, being unable to return their friend’s romantic love, they might feel guilty. It is not rational or fair to themselves to take on that responsibility and the resultant guilt, but unfortunately it is all too common.
Also unfortunately, guilt is almost always accompanied by resentment. They don’t want this responsibility, but they don’t realize that it isn’t really theirs to take on. So they gradually begin to resent the source of their guilt. They think, “Oh why did my friend have to fall in love with me, making my life so complicated? Now I have to do something about it.” They cannot imagine themselves saying to their smitten friend, “I care about you, and I’m sad that you’re so frustrated, but there’s nothing I can do about it. My feelings are just not the same as yours. I hope that you can resolve your feelings.” They might consider such a response to be cold and uncaring, but it is not. It is the healthy, reasonable response of a caring friend who can only care, but who cannot be the manager of someone else’s emotions.
This is why your friend may at first have wished that your feelings would go away, and later may start wishing that you will go away. If she’s caught to any extent in that cultural false responsibility, the discomfort of guilt and resentment will take its toll on her friendship for you.
Sad, I suggest that you assume that possibility number three in your list is the correct one. That is the only one that is supported by any evidence. Your friend has told you that she doesn’t love you that way. That’s very strong evidence. The other two possibilities are merely wishful thinking on your part, perhaps similar to the kind of wishful thinking that propped up your belief in God. You have seen through that clearly, now see through this clearly.
If you jump right into another love relationship, you will continue to delay becoming familiar and comfortable with yourself, and will continue to impede your emotional maturing. Sometimes people use such relationships in a similar way to alcohol or drugs to avoid encountering uncomfortable things inside themselves. You need much more time by yourself to confront your insecurities, and to see through them to the confident, self-esteeming man you can become who can then offer a mature love to someone who can love you in return.
Richard
You may send your questions for Richard to . All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.
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11.09.09
Posted in Advice, General, Military Atheists at 7:00 am by Hemant Mehta
I received an email from an “atheist in a foxhole” recently. He’s a teacher in a very religious, conservative part of Texas. (Yes, I know. Who knew there were any other parts of Texas?)
He has a dilemma, though, and he’d like some input:
Our school, as part of a Veteran’s Day celebration, has asked its veterans to lead a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. While I have no problem saying the pledge in general, I do have a problem with one particular phrase. You know the one.
On normal days I simply omit the offending duo of words. This day however will not be normal and my dilemma is this: Do I simply say the Pledge and not rock the boat? Do I say the Pledge and omit “under god” and announce to the community my scorn for their superstition? Do I simply refuse to participate altogether?
One piece of information that may change your answer is that the writer will be reciting the pledge (or not) with seven other veterans. So it’s possible that if he simply omitted “Under God,” he would go unnoticed.
But it’s still an interesting question and I wonder what people would say if he were the only veteran in the school.
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11.06.09
Posted in Advice, General, Richard Wade at 10:00 am by Richard Wade
Hi Richard,
This is something that i’ve been wracking my brain about lately. I live in Lynchburg, Virginia (yes, THAT Lynchburg) and there’s this one house on this one street that happens to be on my route to work. This guy has his own personal little church sign board you can put lettering on, and boy does he wear his beliefs on his sleeve.
For the longest time most of his messages and statements have been pretty benign. Standard stuff like “Jesus is life” and “It takes more faith to be an Athiest than a christian” (he can’t spell either).
However, over the past 6 months or so, the sign has gotten highly offensive. For example, he currently has “TURN OR BURN” on his sign. Other previously offensive things I’ve seen on that board are “EVOLUTION: A LIE TAUGHT TO CHILDREN” and “EVERYONE HAS A MASTER.” I’m just glad I work a later shift now and don’t have to stare at the other side of that thing anymore. Being that this is a sign owned by a private individual, is there anything I can do? I’m sure hundreds if not thousands of people come down that road every day and are exposed to the misinformation and hate this guy spews through that sign.
Can anything be done about this sign? I’ve tried scouring through laws for my state on google, but keep coming up empty handed. Please help!
J
Dear J,
I think you know what the answer is. Live with it, and every time you see that sign, rejoice gratefully that you live in the land of the free. The sign is apparently private property on private property. Unless it is violating local signage codes or zone regulations, there is nothing you can do about it and nothing that you should do about it.
Either we all have freedom of speech or none of us have. Any law that could shut him up could and would be used to shut you up as well. Many people have given their lives for both of you to be free to speak your minds, and I’m afraid that to protect our freedom, many more may have to give their lives yet. There will always be those among us who would forcibly remake everyone in their own image, if they could. Resist the seductive temptation to be one of them.
We need to raise our threshold for feeling offended. It seems to have become very low in our society lately. Increasingly, more people are decrying as “offensive,” smaller and smaller things that contradict their views. If this thin-skinned trend continues, since no one can see anything exactly as anyone else does, then eventually everyone will be offended by everyone else on every possible subject. We will be omni-offended.
I know it can be annoying to see some dimwit displaying his disapproval of his wide variety of scapegoats. Annoyance is inside us, not around us. It is our reaction, our emotion, our creation. If we allow too much of it to occupy our minds, it drains us of our strength, and it foments discouragement. We will never get rid of all the annoying things, but we can change how we respond to those things.
Carl Jung once said, “Everything that annoys us about others can help us to understand ourselves.” Disagree intellectually with the sign man’s opinions all you want. But you can follow your annoyance into your mind to find where you feel insecure, or have hurt, or have your own anger or resentment, and then by facing and resolving those things, you can become more serene. Imagine. Using that sign to become more serene?! Richard, you’re crazy. Yes I am. Thank you.
A sense of humor can help as well. Think of the phrase “sense of humor” literally. Not creating something that is funny, but sensing the humor that is already there in the situation. It’s there if you can but sense it. Sensing the humor in a situation brings you a measure of mastery of that situation. You can begin to rise above it.
Think of the sign as a public service announcement. If the guy wants to publicly announce that a superstitious, intolerant ignoramus who is getting steadily worse lives in this house, then thanks for the warning! If anyone has an emergency on that road, they’ll know better and go to the next house for assistance.
I’d be looking forward to my daily dose of dementia from the local kook. There’s a chuckle in it if you can first create peace within yourself.
Richard
You may send your questions for Richard to . All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.
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11.03.09
Posted in Advice, Churches, Coming Out, General, Richard Wade at 6:00 am by Richard Wade
Bill wrote a long letter that I have edited for space reasons. My paraphrasing is indicated by parentheses. For privacy, I have given him a different name.
Dear Richard,
I’m in a bit of a bind, and I have come to the conclusion that I need to seek out advice from people who lack the religious prejudices that I’ve been indoctrinated with. I appreciate any thoughts you have regarding the following situation.
I’ve been gradually losing my faith over the last couple of years. I was raised in and still attend services at what I would call a hyperconservative church in Tennessee. While I do not believe, I continue to attend out of respect for my wife’s devotion. When we got married, we were both sincere believers, and she still is. As my faith has eroded, I’ve begun to be more vocal in publicly disagreeing with the elders, who are considered the authoritative leaders on all things, at church services. During the past few months, there has been a class studying Genesis through Deuteronomy. I have never studied these books from the perspective of skepticism before.
For example, Deuteronomy 22:13-21 discusses Israelite laws addressing a daughter’s virginity. (These verses relate how if a young husband accuses his young bride of not being a virgin, it must be investigated by her father and the city elders. If she is found to be a virgin, the husband must be fined, whipped and must remain married to her for life, but if she is found to not be a virgin, she must be killed by stoning.)
The teacher and elders said we should teach our daughters to not have sex before marriage because god hates it and he demanded death for it in the past. They said that a few deaths for fornication would solve a lot of our problems with premarital sex in this country.
After hearing the tirade continue for about 5 minutes, I asked the teacher if he would kill his daughter if she sat down with him and told him she had premarital sex. His exact words were “I sure would like to kill her if that happened.” I responded that no sane parent in this day and time would kill their child, and in fact, no one in the room would do it. A parent may be upset, angry, frustrated, or feel any number of emotions, but they would not kill their own just because of a supposed biblical fatwa in the Old Testament. Furthermore, how is it just that the man only gets a fine and a beating if he is wrong, but the woman gets stoned? Should we adopt the ancient Near Eastern practice of viewing women as property?
Needless to say, my comments didn’t go over well with the teacher. He informed me that human logic doesn’t apply, and God said it, he believes it, and that settles it. This is really the church’s way of saying “You called me out, I have no answer, and therefore, I conclude that you are a douchebag.” This is just a sample of what I argue against on a weekly basis.
Is it ethical for me to continue to attend this church and publicly disagree with the leaders on these sorts of issues? Should I just come out and walk away, or should I continue to try and inject some critical thinking into the indoctrination/teaching process? I guess what I’m really asking is whether or not it is appropriate to take the fight against religious fundamentalism into the sacred sepulcher and challenge cherished beliefs in the pews instead of the public sphere. I imagine that you’re very busy, and I appreciate the time and thought you put into responding to emails like this. Thanks for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Bill
Dear Bill,
This would be a simpler problem if your wife was not involved. Without her on the scene, the only ethical problem would arise when someone in the church asked you point blank if you believe in God. Then you’d have to weigh the ethics of honesty vs. your desire to make things better.
Aside from the honesty issue, absent your wife, the rest would be a matter of weighing cost versus benefit. In other words, will you really be able to change others’ beliefs or social attitudes from the inside as a church member, and what will it cost you?
The teacher was courteous enough to tell you what you’re up against. He said “that human logic doesn’t apply, and God said it, he believes it, and that settles it.” Will your rational arguments, enhanced by your passionate outrage be enough to break through pious mulishness like that? Will your logic at least plant seeds that might sprout in a few of the more fertile minds, or will it bounce off like a BB off a battleship? I don’t know. Maybe you’re really good at it.
Remember what it is like inside the fortified mind-set from which you freed yourself. Faith, often a euphemism for unquestioning credence, is taught to be a moral virtue. Doubt and skepticism are taught to be moral vices. Merely questioning the Bible is seen as rude at best, and heresy at worst. Education is looked upon with suspicion. Science is often called the work of the devil. Here, ignorance is not merely the passive lack of knowledge. Here, it is active, robust, aggressively self-defending and self-replicating. Here, ignorance is alive.
Also remember that you’re up against men who make money by convincing people to abdicate their ability to think for themselves. Your church isn’t just a social and book discussion club. It’s a business that sells dogged intellectual conformity. Threaten the leaders’ livelihood, and it won’t be long before you’re told to quite literally get the hell out.
Because they are founded on absolute claims lacking evidence, most churches tend to be very intolerant of dissent, disagreement and dispute. They’re brittle. Dissenters don’t usually get to stay inside and work to change things for very long. More often they’re pushed out and they start their own church with their own angle on things, trying to take some of the like-minded congregation with them. This is why there are thousands of sub-sects. They multiply by dividing, like amoebas.
Bill, if it were just you alone, I’d say hey, if you like fighting single-handedly against a gang of armor-plated automatons, then go for it! I admire your valor and your pluck. Sometimes David vs. Goliath stories turn out well. Maybe you’ll turn the whole thing around, or maybe you’ll at least get them to soften their stances on certain social issues. I’d also suggest that you wear a helmet in church, and don’t walk down any dark streets.
But you’re not alone.
I cannot be sure from your letter whether or not your wife knows of your loss of faith, and what that would mean between the two of you. That is a first priority issue that would affect your other decisions.
Your wife is still a devoted believer and member of the church and a sincere believer. You said that you continue to attend out of respect for her devotion. So her feelings are important to you. It might be that nothing unpleasant will happen, but churches have well-earned reputations for penalizing people for their association with others who are seen as troublemakers, especially family members. Your actions could seriously affect her relationships with others in the congregation, and your actions could seriously affect her relationship with you.
This is your primary ethical dilemma: You must weigh your desire to do battle against what you see as a harmful influence in your community, versus the risk of collateral damage that may be suffered by your loved one. Whatever hits you take as a result of your struggle are part your choice, but someone else taking hits from that is another matter entirely.
I suggest that you talk this over thoroughly with your wife. You should at least hear what her concerns would be. To deliberate this carefully you need more information, and since you clearly think that women should be treated as persons instead of property, then she should have some input into your decision.
I see three different questions that you should consider:
- If you stay in the church, will you be able to make any change from the inside to their beliefs or social attitudes, and what will be the effect on your wife?
- If you leave the church with a public declaration of your atheism, will you be able to make any change from the outside to their beliefs or social attitudes, and what will be the effect on your wife?
- If you leave the church quietly, just stop coming, will you be able to make any change from the outside to their beliefs or social attitudes, and what will be the effect on your wife?
I don’t have the answers to these questions. I can only urge you to be very judicious in your decision. The consequences could range from good, to unremarkable, to very painful.
Richard
You may send your questions for Richard to . All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.
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10.30.09
Posted in Advice, Churches, Dating, General, Richard Wade at 10:00 am by Richard Wade
Dear Richard,
My girlfriend recently asked me to come to church with her. She’s from Korea, and she doesn’t speak first-rate English, so she doesn’t know how to phrase things sometimes. She’s a very open person and she’s not interested in converting me or anything like that. She knows I’m an atheist, but she asked if I could come with her to church as just another place to go. I tried explaining to her how asking me to come to church is a very offensive question because it doesn’t respect my beliefs. Is there a better way I could explain to her why it is offensive to ask me to come to a church to attend a preaching session?
Thanks!
Brad
Dear Brad,
“I really don’t like it“ doesn’t seem like too complex an idea. That can be communicated even with pantomime, like the face you’d make when biting into food that should have been thrown out a long time ago. Your girlfriend sounds like a nice person and she’s probably not dense, so I wondered if there was some other issue going on here.
Just to see if your girlfriend being a Korean might have relevance to this, I consulted a good friend of mine, who is a member of an elite group of experts known as the Ask Richard International Research Team. She was born in Korea and has experienced being a member of more than one Korean Christian church in the U.S. She offered these insights that might help you understand what your girlfriend may be going through. She said:
“Of course, I could be wrong about this particular woman, and we should be careful not to make generalizations about nationalities too broadly. But I’ve never met a Korean who attends church regularly and asks someone else to go to church, but has no intention of trying to convert them. Although there are many Koreans in the U.S. whose spouses and partners are not as religious, the church-going Koreans are always, ALWAYS praying about them.”
“They do religion very well. It’s mixed up with the old Confucian teachings and the Christian thought, which means they are extremely affected by the pressure of duty and indebtedness. There are many Koreans who are Buddhists or even atheists, but even the atheist Koreans have the cultural Confucian upbringing. The mindset is very patriarchal and respectful of the elders and the ancestors. When you add Christianity on top of that and the belief that Jesus gave his life for yours, the sense of obligation to spread the word is very powerful. I attended a Korean church a while back, and they used to pressure the churchgoers to bring others there. ‘Just get them here, and we’ll do the rest.’ was the idea.”
My friend continued…
“It is possible that she may just want him to share in her life for another reason. If it is a specifically Korean church, rather than one with a general population, it could be as simple as wanting to introduce him to the food, since eating Korean meals after church is very common. Some people come to church just for the food, but if his girlfriend attends any church regularly, as in being a member of the church, I think chances are that she’s hoping that she can somehow change his mind about Christ.”
“If he does end up visiting her church, he would have to make himself very clear to her that he has no intention of changing his beliefs, although that will probably fall upon deaf ears. Whether Korean or American, so many Christians think, ‘If only you had the chance to hear the gospel message in the right way…’”
“Korean church people don’t push Americans too hard, just the other Koreans. They wouldn’t pressure him as much as his girlfriend to keep him coming. If he shows up once, that pressure on her will get worse. In fact, it may already be happening.”
“Since her English is not first rate, it’s likely that she goes to a Korean language church. They may have an English translation, but it’s not likely to be a good translation. It will sound like Greek to him.”
So Brad, if my friend’s experiences are relevant, this may indicate that this is not about a language barrier making it hard to explain yourself to your girlfriend. It could be that she understands you well enough, but she intends to get you there one way or another. To her, it may be much more than “just another place to go.”
Regardless of any underlying issue, it’s time to get the message across. Rather than further trying to explain why this is not your cup of tea, or why her persistently asking you is offensive, a simple, gentle and repeated “No, thank you, I’m not going” will probably cut through any barrier, whether it’s about language, culture or intention. “No thank you, I’m not going” repeated without anger or impatience, said warmly with no variation in the words. Tell her that you have no objection to her going all she wants, but “No thank you, I’m not going.” Forget explanations about why. That just keeps the subject open for discussion.
Do some research and suggest some specific things that you and she can share and enjoy about her background, such as Korean restaurants, cultural expositions and art exhibitions. She may be very pleased that you put forth the effort to explore her unique culture with her. But if you go within a thousand feet of that church, be prepared for whatever insistence, cajoling, wheedling, enticement and urging you’ve already experienced, to amplify.
Richard
You may send your questions for Richard to . All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.
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10.27.09
Posted in Advice, Atheist Parenting, Coming Out, General, Richard Wade at 12:00 pm by Richard Wade
Hello and thank you for your time.
I grew up a christian and was raised in a baptist home (yikes). I am divorced and I have two children ages 11 and 7. I have only been an atheist for 3 years. My children were exposed to christianity from birth and still attend church with their mother, which scares the proverbial Hell out of me. They do not know of my change in ideology.
My question is, when do I talk to them about it? Even though I am an atheist, I still pray with them every night that they are with me. Now I realize this seems odd but, I believe it brings them comfort… the kind of comfort that is no different than my daughter’s stuffed alligator that she sleeps with every night… and talks to. I do not believe the alligator can hear her anymore than god would in our prayers. Am I misleading my children? or it is ok, to a point in their age, to make sure they feel comforted.
Dad of Two
Dear Dad,
This is very complicated, very delicate and there are many “ifs,” so based only on your letter, I cannot give you many definitive suggestions. I can only generally lay out for you issues of which you should be aware and pitfalls to avoid. Some possibilities I describe may sound worrisome, but it may turn out that this is resolved more easily. If I discuss something that is obvious to you, or if I warn you against something that you’d never even consider, please forgive me.
Children in divorced families are caught between conflicting loyalties. They are naturally loyal to both their parents. When their parents disagree on something important, the kids can feel uncomfortable taking one side over the other. When the parents don’t get along and even dislike each other, the kids end up having varying levels of guilt mixed into their love for each parent. They think in either/or, black-and-white terms. Understanding things like gray areas, ambiguity, nuance and compromise are for much more mature people. Even many adults never master these. So in the kids’ minds, when they are loving one parent, to some extent they may think they are being disloyal to the other.
The severity of that inner conflict and the pain involved is determined mainly by how conscientiously the divorced parents cooperate to mitigate it for the kids. In the best of cases, the parents communicate openly, and agree to make it clear to the kids that loving them both is okay, and that they don’t have to choose one parent over the other. Then the kids’ discomfort can be greatly reduced. It is also important for such conscientious parents to make it clear that it is not the kids’ fault that their parents don’t get along. Internalizing that undeserved guilt is a sadly common consequence when their feelings are not openly and frequently discussed.
In the worst of cases, the parents, focused on their own resentment for each other, use their kids as weapons against each other. They will denigrate their ex spouse in front of the kids, and even tell them to spy on the other. Meanwhile, the other parent may be doing something similar, so the children become ropes in a tug-of-war, or stones to be thrown back and forth, or very conflicted double agents. Many other metaphors would express the situation where more damage is done to the innocents in the middle than is done to the two enemies who are in conflict.
Your two kids, going back and forth between you and their mom are already caught in at least a little of this. That is inevitable, even in the best of cases. What you must do for them is to at least not make it worse. You may be able to make it better with patience, humility and selflessness.
Below are some of the “iffy” issues that are not clear here, and would affect your best course of action:
- Are you able to cooperate with your ex-wife to promote the best interest of the children?
In the best scenario, you would first tell your ex-wife about your atheism, and alleviate whatever fears and misconceptions she might have from that revelation. Then the two of you would work out a detailed agreement about the children’s religious upbringing, about how things like prayer would be handled, and how you will tell the kids about your views.
I realize that best scenarios are rare, but if there is any room there, work with it. If she is not as willing to cooperate with you as you are with her, it may take some time to negotiate with her and to coax her to focus on realistic solutions that benefit the children, but also respect both of your needs.
- Is atheism vs. religion going to be a very severe a conflict between you and your ex-wife?
If it is so contentious that it will cause the “weaponizing” of the kids, or make them the prize in a contest of who will “win them over,” then it may be preferable to not reveal your non-belief to your ex-wife at all. If you choose to not tell her about your atheism, DO NOT tell your kids about it with the requirement that “This will be a secret between us, don’t tell Mommy.” That would severely increase their inner conflict of loyalties, and it would most likely leak out anyway. A tangled mess of tension, guilt, confusion, anger and hurt would come from that. Avoid, if you can, teaching them to lie to someone they love.
- Do you want to get the kids to see things the way you do?
As a parent, it’s natural that you would want that. But the question really is, how badly do you want that, and to what amount of conflict are you willing to subject the kids? Thinking that you will be “saving” them from the evils of religion would be just as regrettable as your ex-wife possibly thinking that she’s “saving” them from the evils of atheism. Both of these mentalities are based on a vision of a future outcome that is probably colored more by emotion than reason. They both tend to increasingly focus the parents on wanting to be right and wanting to have their own way. The wellbeing of the children in the here-and-now begins to recede into the background.
You have the right to try to influence your children, and so does your ex-wife. Short of illegal abuse, neither of you have the right to completely prohibit the influence of the other. If cooperation with your ex is not an option and competition is too destructive, then your course will have to be to influence them quietly by your example. They will benefit from watching you be a man who is true to his convictions by the way he lives rather than the things he says.
Regardless of the course you take according to the considerations above, you can begin being more true to your own views by not participating actively in their prayers. When they say, “Are we gonna say our bedtime prayers, now?” you can smile and say, “Sure, you can if you want.” That subtly gives the choice to them. If they say, “Aren’t you gonna pray with us?” you might smile and say, “That’s for you kids, Sweetheart. I’m going to sit here and think about how much I love you.” That is after all, what you’re actually doing.
You compared their prayers to a stuffed toy they use for comfort. They know that you and other adults no longer use stuffed toys, and they see no problem with that. Your subtle message is that this is a thing that people grow out of.
Over the next several years, you will have thousands of interactions with them where your example will be more a powerful teaching tool than a specific tutorial. They will watch how you think things through, how you hold back coming to a conclusion while you look for evidence, and how you make it okay for anyone to question anything. When you help them with their homework, you will be frequently asking things like, “Hmm. How do we know this?” or “Okay, what evidence is there for your idea?” You will be planting the seeds of skepticism and critical thinking.
Perhaps soon, perhaps not soon, the right time will come for you to speak to them frankly and openly about your unbelief. There are so many unknown conditions in your situation that it is not possible to recommend a specific time or age that is best. At ages 11 and 7 they are probably beginning to be able to understand the basics of what you want to tell them, but there is so much variation in children’s cognitive and emotional development, and so many variables in your relationship with their mother. I’m sorry that I have to say it depends, it depends, it depends.
When the time comes, tell your kids the truth about yourself. Don’t talk about God, talk about your lack of belief, and what you need in order to believe something. Make it clear to them that it is up to them to decide for themselves what they will believe as they grow up. Make it clear that it is okay for them to change their minds as time goes by. Make it clear that you will love them if they choose to disagree with you. That must be completely true for you or it will soon be shown to be false, and it will only make things worse. Be in every breath the man who speaks the truth he lives.
Dad, your focus on wanting your kids to be comforted at this age shows that as a parent you have your priorities in the right order. It means that their wellbeing is at the top, and your personal needs taper down from that. As they grow, you will be more able to accommodate your needs with theirs so that you are not constantly sacrificing being true to yourself in order to be kind to them. It will probably be a gradual shift until they are able to be their own persons standing alongside you, having learned by your example as you adjusted to their increasing maturity.
Your kids have an excellent father.
Richard
You may send your questions for Richard to . All questions will eventually be answered, but not all can be published. There is a large number of requests; please be patient.
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10.26.09
Posted in Advice, General at 3:00 pm by Hemant Mehta
Dr. Richard Beck is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Abilene Christian University.
He has a great piece where he goes after other Christians for something he dislikes about their (his) subculture:
Personal acts of piety and devotion are vital to a vibrant spiritual life and continued spiritual formation. But all too often “working on my relationship with God” has almost nothing to do with trying to become a more decent human being.
The trouble with contemporary Christianity is that a massive bait and switch is going on. “Christianity” has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed “spiritual” substitute…
To illustrate his point, he uses the example of Christian tipping on Sundays — a point I’ve talked about here before. It’s no surprise that servers *hate* working on Sundays precisely because they know Christians will be coming in and tipping them nothing. Or next to nothing, if they’re lucky…
Millions of Christians go to lunch after church on Sundays and their behavior is abysmal. The single most damaging phenomenon to the witness of Christianity in America today is the collective behavior of the Sunday morning lunch crowd. Never has a more well-dressed, entitled, dismissive, haughty or cheap collection of Christians been seen on the face of the earth.
… Rather than pouring our efforts into two hours of worship, bible study and Christian fellowship on Sunday why don’t we just take a moment and a few extra bucks to act like a decent human being when we go to lunch afterwards?
It’s a tremendous critique of Christianity coming from a person of faith. This is a piece all Christians ought to read, but I fear few will.
If they followed Beck’s advice, it wouldn’t make their beliefs any more reasonable, but it might make dealing with Christians that much more tolerable.
The Atheist raises a question he’d like to ask Christians after reading the piece:
… Is it more important to have a good relationship with your deity, or with the people around you? I’m not implying that the two are mutually exclusive, but clearly some people give preference to one over the other, and in my experience (and one would assume from the article, Dr Beck’s) it tends to be their deity.
(via WhyWontGodHealAmputees)
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