A skeptic's quest for books, science, & humanism
Being friends with people of different beliefs and opinions than us is usually seen as wholesome. I used to think this way when I viewed the world as a dichotomy of Christians and atheists. In a way, I had to see it like this because I was an atheist who knew, and therefore was friends with, almost only Christians. No Christian friends would have meant no friends.
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I started working at my first-ever office job in March of 2019. During a typical week, I would go into the office for three days and work from home for two. I enjoyed working in an office, mostly because it was the definition of success and of being a true adult after college. My coworkers were all very close friends with one another, and I enjoyed the lightheartedness in the air that came with the camaraderie. Unfortunately, I don’t think I ever truly made my way into that circle of friends (I’m talking best-friends-outside-of-work level friends) for many reasons. I believe that the overarching reason is because they all shared common interests that I could not have cared less about.
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The Purpose-Driven Life consists of six parts: one for each “purpose” as well as an introduction. Today we are looking at Part 3, which is Purpose #2: “You Were Formed for God’s Family.” In the past, I’ve taken each of the seven sub-sections (one for each day of the week) one at a time, but the chapters I read this week all bleed together, so I believe they can be looked at as a whole. They are:
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Over the years, I have received a lot of emails and messages from other closeted atheists asking for advice. Most of these messages have been from atheists in high school, wondering what to do in regards to having this secret among Christian friends, parents, and church members. I decided that compiling my advice together could hopefully prove helpful for at least one of my younger readers.
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I may have only started using the term “closet atheist” recently, but I have been a non-Christian living a Christian life for about ten years. During most of my deconversion time, I told myself that never ever in a million years would I ever tell anyone that I wasn’t a Christian. If I had stayed the apathetic nonbeliever that I was in my teens, not really caring one way or another, it might not have been that hard, but the more it becomes an integral part of who you are and how you think, the harder it is to keep private.
I mentioned in my first post that my boyfriend is also an atheist. Until recently, he was the only person that I had ever told. We have been together for a little over three and a half years, and I think that I told him about a year into our relationship. It took a lot of trust because I didn’t know what his beliefs were, but the bubble that I was raised in caused me to almost assume that everyone I came across was a Christian unless they told me otherwise. Back then, I wasn’t using the word “atheist” yet, and I wasn’t too comfortable thinking or talking about it, so when I “came out” to him over the phone, it went a little like this: Read more