Sorry this is a little later than I usually get posts out. I was too busy to get it ready at the end of last week and the trip to Seattle this weekend to see family was quite fast and furious…well, not quite the right word, but it was busy and I didn’t have time to work on the blog.

The weather was interesting. There was a chance of snow on the drive over through the Blue Mountains and over Snoqualmie, but the roads were dry until I was almost to the summit of Snoqualmie pass and it was plowed and treated. Today was different. Chains required on trucks over Snoqualmie pass, and then it was snowing off and on from Prosser, WA all the way home, and snow and ice on the road all the way through the Blues. Nothing that slowing down a little and shifting into four wheel drive a few times couldn’t handle. Needless to say, I made it home safe.

Moving on, there is something I missed last time:

You can expect to be pretty messed up when you start recovering from religion, with symptoms ranging from PTSD, to depression, to just being an asshole. How much your religion dictated your life, how invested you were, and how much you lose as a result of losing your faith will all play into how extreme it can be.

If you think about it, realizing that you’ve been lied to your whole life and that you have been suppressing your very sense of self, it’s not surprising. You have to allow yourself to mourn the loss of something that was such an important part of your life.

You can can be sure that you will be an asshole while you figure out who you are. You’ve gone through years of surrendering yourself singing very repetitive songs with lines like “more of you and less of me.” Its now time to let yourself be you and to figure out who the hell you are. Odds are that you will go a little overboard, but as you figure out who you are you will settle down to being less of an ass. In the meantime enjoy getting to know yourself.

If you do end up suffering from depression or PTSD, then get help. There’s a new podcast that I highly recommend that will help with this, Living After Faith, Check it out.

I got a question from “Anonymous coward” after last week’s “Life After Faith” post, asking:

I am a non-believer for logical reasons. However, I choose to not come out about it too my family because, I don’t want to disturb and be rejected by them. Furthermore, I don’t know what I would be accomplishing by telling my family that I am an atheist. Furthermore, there can be serious ramifications to telling people that you are among the least trusted group in society (that’s atheists.)

How to come out to your parents will have to wait until Wednesday, because this question is important and I’m sure more than one person is asking it.

“Nones” (atheists, agnostics, and those with no religious identification) make up 15% of the US population according to the ARIS 2008 Report. Based on stated beliefs, according to the same report, 12% of the population are atheists and agnostics with another 12% being deists. We make up 12% of the population. That means that more than one in ten Americans lack a belief in God.

It is true that atheists are the least trusted group in America, being less trusted that Muslims and the LGBT community. I would say that a lot of this is left over from the Cold War propaganda that linked atheists with the godless commies. However, if one in ten lack a belief in any kind of a god then odds are that just about every American has a friend, family member, coworker, or acquaintance who is a unbeliever. Generally speaking, people fear that which they don’t know, so unless they know that their friendly hard working coworker is an unbeliever, they don’t have to face their prejudices.

Look at what the LGBT community has accomplished over the last few decades. Homophobia is easy if you don’t know any homosexuals, but once you know that you know one, then it changes your perceptions. Instead of viewing them as some hypothetical horrible, sinful beast, you are forced to realize that this person that you know, who happens to be gay, is a person just like everybody else (although probably better dressed). The degree of acceptance in society that they have accomplished has been through coming out. The slogan, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,” comes to mind.

If you come out as an atheist then those who know that you are a good person will know that they know one good atheist. Then when some other closet atheist sees your example and comes out as an atheist then they will know two good atheists. Just about everybody knows an atheist or two, if they knew it, they wouldn’t hate and distrust us.

To stay in the closet does nothing to make things better for all of us. The more atheists come out, the better it is for all of us. Just imagine what could happen if all 35 million non-believers came out…