Guys – hold on a second – Noah-of-the-Bible would have been Jewish, not Christian. (Except, I guess, to Christians who extend honorary Christianity backward to Adam & Eve, which may be more common than I like to think.)

My apologies. I did not intend to imply that Noah was Christian. I said he was a figure of Christian mythology because he is in the sense that Christians inherited / plagiarized the myth from the Jews. Perhaps I should have said ‘Old Testament mythology’?

I don’t like it, and I don’t like the fact that the Australian government endorses discrimination against non-believers in partially taxpayer-funded religious schools (by not making the funding conditional upon the removal of discriminatory hiring policies). But there it is.

Our daughter knows we don’t believe in god/gods/whatever, but we don’t really use the A word…knowing what we think is more important than what cubby we fit into.

That’s about it really.

I’m not a full-Atheist yet, so I guess I’m Agnostic. I haven’t told my family and my cousin thinks I’m Agnostic-leaning-more-towards-Christianity (as in I still fully believe in God). I hesitate to tell them because..well I’m not sure how to explain this.
They aren’t total hard-core Catholics. I dont think alot of Asians are. But we never miss a Sunday church thing, and when we have family over, we usually have this long prayer thing so that my ancestors are sure to be in Heaven. And it’s respectful. I don’t want to tell them though, because I know they wouldn’t accept it very well and might say things such as “You’re only a teenager, you don’t know anything, God will punish you, etc.” And I just don’t have the courage to disappoint them.

If asked I wouldn’t lie to them, but I doubt they’ll risk their comfort to query.

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There are a few cases where the subject of my non-belief never comes up. First, I never mention my political and/or religious views when teaching since I see that as very inappropriate – especially since they have nothing to do with computer programming, robotics or control systems.

Second, I also never discuss religion in the workplace unless I know I am with like-minded individuals. This is both because I know most of the people around me are religious and I also know I wouldn’t like people to discuss their religious beliefs with me at work.

Finally, I have never and will never mention my atheism in front of my maternal grandparents. I just see no reason to upset my 80+ year old grandparents by making them think I am going to hell.

In conclusion, if someone has a major problem with me being an atheist and that results in me losing a friend or a potential job opportunity, I won’t be particularly upset. The friend was obviously not a true friend and I probably wouldn’t enjoy working somewhere that judges me based on my non-religious views.

I shall now stop rambling……

Most of my friends knew and were rooting for me by the time I told my family. It’s a source of shame for my mom. I doubt she has even told her friends. She’s devestated because she thinks I’m gong to hell. My friends, even my christian friends, and I openly discuss my atheism with no problem.

My immediate family prefers not to talk about it ever and we have an agreement not to let my extended family find out. There’s no reason to give my grandparents a heart attack and add stress to their lives when they only have a maximum of 20 years left anyway.