no one cares<\/em>. The people I interact with on a day-to-day basis are atheist, agnostic, \u201cspiritual,\u201d or, less commonly, some form of progressive Christian.<\/p>\nThere are the mothers of Sally\u2019s daycare friends that I\u2019ve gotten to know: One is lapsed Catholic who is now agnostic, another is a woman who also attends my local UU congregation, and a third attends an LGBTQ-friendly, atheist-friendly United Methodist church (which apparently, here, is a thing<\/em>). There are the other graduate students in my department: A lifelong atheist, a lifelong Unitarian Universalist, an evangelical Christian who believes in gender equality and spends her time hanging out with atheists. And on it goes.<\/p>\nIn fact, it\u2019s such that when religion comes up, I\u2019m actually surprised if I learn the person I\u2019m talking to is religious. Spiritual, sure, but religious<\/em>? Odds are they\u2019re not. And if they are, they\u2019re almost certain to be progressive Christians who aren\u2019t going to give you trouble for not believing. I\u2019m on a local mom\u2019s group on facebook, and a recent request for suggestions in how to deal with children and religious relatives brought a thread of helpful advice, and not a single condemnation. And besides, religion doesn\u2019t usually come up anyway. I don\u2019t know what my adviser believes about God, or most of my colleagues at work. I know they\u2019re politically progressive, but religion isn\u2019t something people just bring up.<\/p>\nSo when I read blogs by atheists who feel discriminated against in their daily lives, well, it sounds rather foreign. Once in a while, once in a long while, I\u2019ll get a small taste of what they\u2019re talking about. For example, I was talking to another mom during the class Sally takes at the Y, and for some reason religion came up. I don\u2019t even remember how. I let on that I don\u2019t believe in God, and her demeanor suddenly changed. She suddenly acted like there was something wrong with me. It was weird, because that\u2019s something I\u2019m so unused to encountering. So while I understand what atheists in places like the Bible belt are talking about, it\u2019s something I almost never actually experience myself.<\/p>\n
Now I suppose you\u2019re wondering. But Libby, you\u2019re thinking, didn\u2019t you grow up an evangelical Christian? What about your family, and your friends from when you were evangelical? Thing is, I don\u2019t live near any of them. Further, the only members of my family that I\u2019m out as an atheist too are the few that have walked my same path. The others still assume I\u2019m Christian, though a progressive (read: heretical) form of Christian, and we pretty much have our own little don\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell policy. As for the people I grew up with, I lost contact with them when my entire background exploded in my face while I was in college. I was changing, and I knew they wouldn\u2019t be understanding. It was just easier, given that it was at a transitional time in my life anyway, and living away from home at college, to let it all go. So I did.<\/p>\n
But what I find interesting here is just how profoundly exactly where you live and what circles you float in influences the experience of an atheist living in the United States. Most of the atheists I encounter here don\u2019t really give a second thought to their atheism\u2014because they don\u2019t have to. There\u2019s no shared sense of being discriminated against to bond over. There\u2019s simply lack of belief, and a lack of belief that really doesn\u2019t impact one\u2019s daily life. Surrounded by other academics and the hippie types that flock to progressive college downs like this, someone who doesn\u2019t believe in God doesn\u2019t stand out. In fact, it\u2019s rather the other way around.<\/p>\n
How about you? What do your experiences have to add to this conversation?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am a graduate student in a humanities field, living in a progressive college town. Because of this, not believing in God doesn’t cause me any trouble at all in my day to day life. No one cares. No really, no one cares. The people I interact with on a day-to-day basis are atheist, agnostic, “spiritual,” or, less commonly, some form of progressive Christian. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>I am a graduate student in a humanities field, living in a progressive college town. Because of this, not believing in God doesn\u2019t cause me any trouble at all in my day to day life. No one cares. No really, no one cares<\/em>. The people I interact with on a day-to-day basis are atheist, agnostic, \u201cspiritual,\u201d or, less commonly, some form of progressive Christian.<\/p>\n