Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Slowly Outing Myself


It never really occurred to me when I started having doubts that there is a sort of process I am going through towards being fully "out" as an atheist.  Other than my spouse, only one other family member I think really knows where I stand on the whole belief thing.  That in and of itself is a bit of a relief.  As for my parents, I think my mom knows but we don't discuss it, and I don't know about my dad.

What I've found to be one of the toughest areas is on places like Facebook.  Part of the difficulty is that I went to a catholic high school.  This has resulted in my fellow alumni running the gamut from tree-hugging godless liberals to conservative christian right wing tools (at least in my opinion).  In my info, I played it safe and put in 'Humanist' in the religion area.  It's heartening to see that the people who I feel are the most sane are the ones who tend to be the least religious, and a lot of my former classmates will take on and challenge those who seem to argue from religion first, and facts second.  Over time, I'm slowly letting my feelings be known.  I became a fan of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Bill Maher, & Richard Dawkins.  We have a 20 year reunion coming up and I'd like to be confident in who I am and who I believe, should conversation steer that direction at all.

The whole process is helping me approach a point in the future where I can answer personal questions about church, god, and faith with an unequivocal answer.  Currently, I tend to waffle a bit due to fear of how my answer will be received.  One of the best interactions I've had recently is with one of my cousins.  I am her teenaged son's godmother.  Her young daughter asked me if I believe in god and I told her I'm not sure.  My cousin asked if I was uncomfortable or offended that I had been asked to be a godparent.  I was pleasantly surprised that it really wound up being a non-issue, and she was more concerned about how I felt than the fact that her son has a godmother that most likely doesn't believe in a god.

I'm hoping to be a little more active on the blog, as well as commenting on other godless blogs.  I have yet to pop my Pharyngula commenting cherry, but it's my self-preservation instinct kicking in.  It feels a bit like diving into a shark tank wearing nothing but a shark-bait bikini.