Is it hard to come out of the 'atheist closet?'

[Superman]

For me it wasn't hard. My father respects the fact that I'm an atheist and doesn't try cramming anything down my throat. He even feels a bit guilty about doing that while I was growing up.

I find it interesting how some people won't admit it, and even go to church and religious functions to appease the family. Is anyone in this situation? Why do you think you have to be this way?

[Alyeska]

Only some people know that I am an atheist. It depends on where you live and what the consequences will be. What I find rather funny is several of the people I know at my parents church probably know that I am an atheist, and yet the subject never comes up and I am very good friends with them.

I have one friend who used to try and convert me every other time we met, but I laid down the law with him one day that his actions weren't going to accomplish anything and it would only serve to irritate me. Since then he hasn't said a word on the issue and we get along great.

[Mr Flibble]

For me it wasn't hard. My father respects the fact that I'm an atheist and doesn't try cramming anything down my throat. He even feels a bit guilty about doing that while I was growing up.

I find it interesting how some people won't admit it, and even go to church and religious functions to appease the family. Is anyone in this situation? Why do you think you have to be this way?

I have not told my family that I am an atheist. I used to attend church services, but slowly stopped going, and now only go at christmas, and that is just to see a friend of mine. My reasons are simple, I don't think that my father would be particularly happy with it, seeing as he is a priest.

[Medic]

For me it wasn't hard. My father respects the fact that I'm an atheist and doesn't try cramming anything down my throat. He even feels a bit guilty about doing that while I was growing up.

I find it interesting how some people won't admit it, and even go to church and religious functions to appease the family. Is anyone in this situation? Why do you think you have to be this way?

It depends on the situation; for me my little come-out-of-the-closet-experiment was none other than Basic Training and boy was that a mistake with guys from Kentucky [the worst, fire and brimstone and derisive attitude towards me and the other atheist] and a baptist from North Carolina [he proselytized like hell but on the basis that I was a good person that would otherwise go to hell] .

The way it worked out was low-level persecution but that's to be expected since Basic is like a more severe version of high school. Cliques form, the Drill Sergeants are narks, teachers, your parents and worse all rolled into one but the greatest source of stress is invariably your peers.

I only really positively identified myself as an atheist in my senior year of high school and thought nothing of just wearing that in my sleeve; Basic was a closed system to boot, I could admit stuff there and it won't follow me. It sucked enough though that I've been gun-shy since although if I deploy to Iraq, that will change, cause I'm loathe to go from this world perceived as anything but what I am.

[Metatwaddle]

For me, it wasn't too hard to come out as an atheist, but it did take a while. I think my parents suspected I no longer believed when I called my dad from a church trip and said, "Dad, the people here are psychotically religious and I don't believe the things they believe, and even our youth group has 'gotten religion' now that they're here and this sort of sucks." At that point I decided to start describing myself as agnostic instead of as Christian. (I'd sort of flip-flopped a bit before that, but that was the only really final, point-of-no-return deconversion.)

So for a while my parents and my brother were the only people (besides some online friends) who knew for sure that I was agnostic, and possibly the pastor at my church knew as well based on a comment I had once made at youth group. (At any rate, he knows now.) I still went to church simply because I had already agreed to accompany the children's choir and I wasn't about to leave them without an accompanist, and occasionally to youth group because I still liked quite a few of the people there. But I did draw away from the church a lot. It's possible that some of them suspected I was agnostic or atheist.

The next person to learn that I was an atheist (by this time I was no longer describing myself as agnostic) was my therapist, because I thought it was a relevant thing for her to know. (A few months ago I learned that she is an atheist as well, which is really nice to know as she did strike me as the atheist type.) Later I mentioned it to some people at school in a philosophical conversation that came up in English class. Somewhere along the line, my younger sisters learned of my nonbelief as well. And I mentioned it to my atheist cousin.

These days, I'm about as "out" as it's possible to get. All of my friends know (or can know if they bother to look it up) because I'm listed as an atheist on Facebook, and I'm in the Secular Student Alliance here at school. My immediate family knows and they are very comfortable with it. Two of my cousins (maybe more) and two of my grandparents know. The only people that don't know are some of my friends from back at my church and a few members of my extended family. I'm lucky enough to have friends and family who are fairly secular.

[Gandalf]

A lot of my family don't know, but nobody is particularly religious enough for it to be an issue.

The only relative has expressed some concern over it is my mum. She just wants me to believe in something.

[InnerBrat]

I love being British. And I love my family.

My dad was actually sort of disappointed that my sister got married in a church.

You guys all have my sympathy.

[Flagg]

I really had no problem, and to be honest never really felt I was hiding it. Hell, it took me awhile to even realize an Athiest is what I was. I never really put alot of stock into the whole Christianity thing, and pretty much lumped all that bullshit into the same category as Santa and the Easter Bunny. My mom was into alot of New Age garbage, and I kind of bought into some of that for awhile, but as more time went on and I became more educated I just stopped even thinking about mystical shit completely.
I think I was 15 or 16 when it dawned on me that it was all pretty much hoseshit, and when asked identified myself as an athiest. I don't go adverising it or anything, but my mom knows, and most of my friends know and don't really care either way. My grandmother has her suspicions, but doesn't give me any shit about it.
The toughest time I ever had with it was when I was in the hospital for 6 weeks back in '05 with a fistula and a priest kept trying to give me a New Testament, no matter how many times I told him I wasn't interested, I'd already read it, and he could pretty much cram it up his ass (that was after the 5th time). Had some nurses, and nurses assistants try to shove the Southern Baptist shit down my throat, and just kind of gave them noncomittal answers since I wanted to get my pain meds on time. The worst was my doctor, but that's a whole other story.

[Civil War Man]

Although I haven't said as much to my family, but I'd say my mother, sister, and grandmother (the women in my life. Go fig) probably already know. But of course, my mother is the child of a Catholic family who was easily disillusioned with regards to the church (and her extensive travels made her pretty tolerant of others), my sister is at most an agnostic quasi-Buddhist, and my grandmother gets a thrill out of discovering dirty secrets in the past of just about every religion.

Religion is not a topic I bring up around my father and grandfather. He's an old school Catholic, and so he's pretty protective of his Mother Church. My father, also a devout Catholic, knows at the very least that I'm not Catholic. Family comes first for him, so he wouldn't disown me for being atheist, but I don't bring it up because I don't want to go through the hassle. He's the kind of person who doesn't care about the particulars of a person's religion, but still thinks its necessary to have faith. I've been innoculating him to the idea of atheists, though. Hell, I think I might have had a breakthrough when religion was somehow brought up a while back and I used the "if there's no afterlife, then depriving someone of their ability to live would be the greatest possible crime, because there's nowhere for the wronged to go to make up for their loss" argument.

[Walsh]

Everyone in my family and most of my friends know, and fortunately none of them care. I suppose I'm lucky in that way, I grew up in a religious vaccuum, we never went to church or sunday school or any of that, my parents never brainwashed me with any religious stuff, I didn't even know what religions they followed.

I can still recall a primary school scripture lesson, my first dose of religion, taught by two old ladies. It was only 3rd grade or so, so I believed most of it, after all, they were really old, they had to know what they were talking about. I remember later that day when I asked my dad about whether he believed in it all, after he said that he didn't, I remember being really frightened about what would happen to him when he died.

Surely enough, social conditioning endeared me towards strong Christian apologism, until a couple of years ago on the totalwar forums when I saw DW and various others spanking the theists in pretty much every debate that took place. After that I started reading a lot, this forum, creationtheory.org, talkorigins, and so on, and eventually I declared myself an atheist.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Not in the slightest.
My parents encouraged my increased secularism after we moved to Israel (Where you're either a fundie or agnostic/greatly removed due to the lack of any sort of a moderate religous mainstream as was the case in the UK).

Hell I discussed it greatly with them, and my Dad's a pantheist (I was a pantheist for quite a while in fact before becoming a deist, then becoming a pantheist again).

When I decided that I'd be a atheist intellectually at least (I still sometimes feel that there is something to the universe as a whole/Pantheism, though it certainly is nott a old man with a beard sitting in a garden somewhere) My parents didn't blink.

Hell it certainly hasn't affected my lifestyle barring an extra conversation topic and me voicing my distatse with religion more frequently (And an unfortunate tendancy to generalize when talking about it in Israel or concerning true believers [Equating real belief with Religous fundamentalism, a tendancy that I despise and try to root out whenever it "pops out"]).
Hell, I still always go to a "kabalat Shabat/Sabbath" on Fridays with my family - Bread/Wine blessing, thanks for the sabbath (Saturday) & "Delivernace from Egypt" and all (I even sync with my grandfather down to body language, tone & finger waving).
Its a family thing, prayers for family health etc' - Its bonding and I enjoy it.

So I don't believe in god, but I still enjoy those abridged (Short) pre-dinner preludes as much as ever, I see it in many ways as a correlative example of the difference between religious fanaticism and real Belief.
(Think the difference between Christian's Jesus [Who's name was Joseph] & a Witchhunter, the meaning of burn in hell certainly isn't "Burn them at the stake")

[Ariphaos]

Telling my mother was the hardest thing ever, after that admitting it was fairly easy. Granted, as a nontheist, I trip up a lot of more common arguments some of my family members have tried to propose.

[Bounty]

Religion hardly ever comes up as a subject. My parents and sister know I am an atheist; they insist I come to church on Christmas and Easter, but that's mainly for the sake of my grandmother, who has been involved in the parish for decades and appreciates having the whole family together on the holidays. Two hours of church are a minuscule price to pay to make her happy.

[Aasharu]

I grew up in a non-religious environment, and although my parents are non-practicing Catholics, they don't especially care. I openly proclaim myself an atheist at school, and even though I go to a Catholic college, people are more interested in debating with me then in condemning me. The only people who probably don't know are my grandparents, but that is because the subject of faith doesn't come up much with them, and I haven't really gone out of my way to tell them.

[Zac Naloen]

Myself and pretty much everyone I know is an Atheist, so nothing really to hide here.

[Karza]

Depends mostly on your surroundings I think. If everyone around you is a firebrand christian, it will of course be hard. And if the people around you are like those around me, atheism is just fine, because people either don't care or are atheists themselves.

No biggie for me, really. My father is an atheist, so I probably would get more of a reaction out of him if I became religious (or maybe not, he's quite easy going). My mother is a christian, and quite a devout one too, but she doesn't think shoving religion down other peoples' throat is a good idea either. Most of my friends don't think about the whole issue, and those who do are flat out atheists.

[Ghost Rider]

My mom and dad have more worries about whether or not I'll get married, then about my afterlife potential. They long accepted and are happy whatever I do religious or otherwise.

[Akhlut]

It's easy enough to admit to my friends here at college, and it probably wouldn't surprise my siblings, but I just don't have the heart to tell my mom, who is a diehard Catholic. I figure that she has a hard enough time without having to worry about the state of her baby son's soul. It doesn't bother me too much to say grace occasionally when we have family dinners or something, so I just keep up the facade around her for her sake.

[phongn]

Most of my friends know (and most are religious to one extent or another) as well as my immediate family. I didn't really have any trouble with it.

[Rye]

There are very few theists around here, and they're the unobtrusive types. It's not hard to tell people you're an atheist at all.

[Surlethe]

If I become an atheist (and it's a distinct possibility, I think), then I don't know how I'd tell my parents. On the one hand, they love me, and I think they'd support me; on the other, their stated goal for me was to raise me to become a Christian man, and if I "came out" to them, as it were, it would probably be a huge disappointment. Because I love them, I don't want to disappoint them; but I wouldn't want to be dishonest, either, so I'd probably put off the "coming out" indefinitely.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm not sure exactly how my relatives and friends think, since I didn't exactly come out to them and say, "Guess what, I'm an atheist now!" I think most of them think I'm just a very inactive christian who may or may not really buy into it. None of them bother me about it.

My mother was a different story. Coming out as a non-believer to her, and stopping going to church, got pretty ugly at times. She still occasionally gets mad about it, but rarely.

[General Zod]

Haven't really had much contact with my family over the last few years, but for the most part it was mixed. My grandpa was generally accepting of it and fairly critical of religion himself. My Aunt & Uncles were another mix altogether. They were the ultra religious groups of the bunch, and tended to follow the same groupthink most fundies do. Including the thought that hardcore porn led to pedophilia.

It never really came up around my mom much, so I just let that be that. Otherwise, except for my family I've never really had any huge problems telling people I don't go for the whole religion thing. Especially since most of them seem to expect it from me anyways for whatever weird reason.

[Mange]

Living in one of the most (if not the most) secular Western nations, it wasn't hard at all. In fact, I think it's harder for theists.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I let everyone know. If they don't like it, they can fuck off and die.

I always criticise religion when it's on TV, for instance, and when I do, my dad sometimes seems to tell me I'm Christian, which is ironic coming from someone who hasn't been to Church in years and never went for anything other than a wedding, confirmation etc.

I assume my family is the same, my mum and dad never go to Church and I brought my brother up knowing the ignorance and evils wrought in the name of religious dogma.

I don't recall any real resistance to my personal belief (or lack thereof) from work or social interaction, bar the couple of times with my ex when I ranted about religion jokingly (she was apparently Catholic and I never noticed; she was just too hot for me to care).