Comments on: Atheism in the Workplace

By: DonEscamillo

DonEscamillo — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:41:04 +0000

Great blog, discovered it via your clever okcupid personality test (I’m a haughty intellectual, 100% rational, and atheist, yes). It’s really funny to witness the battle between USA’s believers and non believers from a europen perspectve. It really is a non issue here where almost nobody anyway will admit to believing in God. It’s like being sent back, say, 400 years back to the outburst at the first claims that Earth wasn’t the center of the universe. To sum up: there’s still some pretty crazy religious shit going on in too many people’s heads in 2009.

By: Liew

Liew — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:47:02 +0000

I’m feeling terribly guilty right now because someone gave me an advertisement for a bible study meeting and I just smiled and accepted it. What the fuck. I’m not a Christian. I’ve never even BEEN a Christian. I was part of an obscure monotheistic religion for most of my childhood and I’ve never ever been inside of a church at all.

I HATE MYSELF. I HATE AMERICA FOR DOING THIS TO ME. I FEEL LIKE I’M BEING SUFFOCATED BY CHRISTIANS ON ALL SIDES. AAAAHHHH.

I find it sort of insulting that Americans assume that everyone’s a Christian. For Dawkin’s sakes stop thinking that every single person shares your beliefs. I could have been a Buddhist or Taoist or whatever for all they know. GAHH.

By: toomanytribbles

toomanytribbles — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:01:50 +0000

saint gasoline, i realized from your text that you’re not closeted… but too many are.

which is why theists react as they do when they discover an atheist.

By: Saint Gasoline

Saint Gasoline — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:21:11 +0000

Toomanytribbles, I most certainly am not a closeted atheist. She asked if I believed in God and I told her that I don’t believe in God. So while I am willing to make it known that I disbelieve in the workplace, I’m not about to engage in a theological discussion at work. No one at work tries to preach to me about converting, so I’m not going to preach at them. Now, if the person who asked me why I didn’t believe in God started haranguing me with apologetics and directly initiated such a discussion, I’d certainly feeled compelled to address her. But she didn’t, so I didn’t.

So it’s not really a matter of being a closeted atheist; I just don’t want to get into a vehement discussion about a subject like that at work.

By: Saint Gasoline

Saint Gasoline — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:14:55 +0000

JB, I actually think that family situations are better for talking about your religious beliefs or lack thereof. I don’t want to talk about atheism at work, simply because it will provoke arguments with people I do not wish to argue with, but family is a different story. Generally family members are more likely to listen to you. When my dad was dying, he asked me whether I believe in God, and I honestly told him that I don’t.

By: Jeff Satterley

Jeff Satterley — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:54:38 +0000

JB:

For some people, this isn’t much consolation, but this helped me come to grips with death after becoming a materialist. It’s from Douglas Hofstadter’s book “I Am A Strange Loop”, which is sort of a follow up to “Godel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid” (yeah, I’m too lazy to add the umlaut).

http://faceaside.com/2009/02/12/quoted-offering-for-es-and-friends.aspx

By: Lizz

Lizz — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 13:09:03 +0000

I’m with Flavin on this one - I always try to have sex with someone before discussing my unbelief system. Softens the blow.

By: toomanytribbles

toomanytribbles — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 08:06:00 +0000

i feel that this closeting of atheists in america is something that simply has to stop. the only reason theists have this power is because atheists have given it to them… on a silver platter.

i teach and i work. i don’t discuss religious matters in classroom, but i often have open philosophical discussions with my colleagues… theists and atheists. it’s natural, it’s interesting and it’s pleasant.

if it is illegal in a location, say a school classroom, then i would respond as flavin suggests — ‘i prefer not to discuss this here… so how about elsewhere?’ otherwise, i find that discussing religion ultimately lessens its grip on the local workplace.

so why did your coworker feel it was fine to ask you about your beliefs and you felt it was not? because you allowed this imbalance instead of finding a polite and assertive way to make your thoughts clear.

By: JB

JB — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:11:35 +0000

And here I am, feeling like a total shit because after years of prodding “Why don’t you go to church? What do you believe?” I calmly and rationally explained to my parents why I am an atheist. And now my mother has told my sister “I don’t think I believe in god anymore.” And my father is dying. And I feel like I have stripped from them this hope of meeting again in some afterlife, and I wish more than anything that I had simply continued to hedge. Should I have been more compassionate, if less honest? Can we ever hope for rational thought to overcome our need to believe, if not for our sakes, then for the sake of our loved ones?

By: Saint Gasoline

Saint Gasoline — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:39:37 +0000

Liew! So was that YOU causing all those genocides when I took a long break from blogging?!