Another Chicago-area resident checking in. My experiences have been in line with Kalhoun’s: being an atheist is a big issue to many locals and I’m careful about whom I tell. I’m not worried about being subjected to physical violence, and in most cases I wouldn’t worry too much about losing my job, but it’s definitely an area where I never feel I’m allowed to forget I’m different. I’ve had managers exhort whole departments to “be better Christians,” been told on job interviews that the company atmosphere was “very Christian,” been actively proselytized to by coworkers, etc. Dating is a lot harder in an area which is primarily conservative Christian, where you’re viewed as either a target for conversion or damned to hell. It was much worse when I was a child, when parents who formerly classified me as a “good influence” discovered I was an atheist and decided their kids could no longer spend time with me.
In general, though, I’m more bothered by the larger issues that have less to do with personal interactions than cultural ones: creationism in the classroom, swearing on the Bible in court, and other religious intrusions into areas I believe should be secular.
You have to remember that the small minority who does think that everyone should be Christian tends to be the most vocal.
I live in Upstate NY. I have:
Lost one friend because they discovered I “celebrated” Halloween
Been asked plenty WHY I was atheist; was I mad at God?
Been told, when complaining a bit about work, that I could never be truly peaceful until I “Let Go and let God”
Had someone tell me as they were leaving the job that they hoped I would “finally find faith in Jesus”
Stuff like that. I work with all agnostics & atheists, or really, cynics, so that problem doesn’t come up here…too much. Once in a while a temp will swing the other way though and I am the only one who has no problem coming out and saying I’ma theist. (I think the others suffer from Catholic guilt).
Wow, even our two “church ladies”, do not push their belief on us non-believers. They are remarkably well behaved compared to what some posters are describing. I would consider things like Anaamika mentioned to be a hostile work environment and I would contact HR and even the state if it did not stop.
I cannot easily comprehend having co-workers behave like that.
When I lived in Milwaukee or the Twin Cities, it really didn’t come up much at all.
But when I moved to Kansas City, I’ve had people ask — in their first meeting with me — what church I went to, just assuming I was one of “theirs.” I should note that this coincided with Bush in the White House and 9/11, when I personally believe that there was a bit of a resurgence of faith in the U.S.
My girlfriend lived for a while in a rural Tennessee town a few years back and it was noticed that she wasn’t attending service and was encouraged to come to service a number of times.
I feel this way every time someone on SDMB talks about witnessing co-workers. I live in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s a heavily Catholic city, but the only time anyone is demonstrative about it is in a context where it makes sense, e.g., at an actual religious ceremony or in a Catholic school. Otherwise everyone just keeps it to themselves. The notion of someone lecturing about Jesus to another employee at work is just so foreign to me. I guess it’s different in places where there’s a higher concentration of evangelical Protestants (?).
Maryland, USA here. When I was interviewing for my present job they asked me what religion I was, and what religions were my parents. My previous supervisor (I’m a scientist) was a scientific creationist who once went off in a meeting on a tirade about evolution being only a theory. When preparing for surgery one time, the nurse asked me what religion I wanted to put on some form, and when I said “athiest” she said, “Oh, sir, I’m sure you don’t really want me to put that!”
Maybe she just wanted your blood pressure nice and high before the surgery?
There was some religious pressure in the Navy. It was universally from Southern Baptists. Are Southern Baptists more evangelical than most Protestants?
The Roman Catholic Priest was actually pretty cool. He sat in some of the D&D games to see what us “potential heathens” were doing. He was sitting there one day with us in his gym gear when a Southern Baptist chief gave us a hard time about being Devil Worshipers. When the RCC priest mentioned that we actually seemed as normal as any of the poker players and that he was one of the ships Chaplains, the Chief turned a little purple. I also had an incident in boot camp and another two on the ship. So 4 problems in 4 years in the Navy and all 4 were Southern Baptist.
Some of the very devout would talk and argue religion, but never in an offensive way. Again all in the Navy.
BTW: For dogtags they listed religion. Atheist was an option but agnostic was not. I think I got them to put NR for Not Religious as a compromise.
Welcome to Latin America, where shrill public professions of faith are standard, from politicians to pop stars, even in settings that one would consider completely inappropriate.
My son, for example, attends a school that is non-religious, but the principal who is a devout evangelical Christian cannot open her mouth or write a communication to parents without invoking the deity in some way. When I suggested to the deputy principal that I thought the principal ought to keep her personal beliefs separate from her professional life, they could not understand why I should have a problem with this, or why indeed I would choose a secular education for my child - to which I said “I could have sent him to one of the many religious schools , but I didn’t”.
Anyway, describing oneself as an atheist is taboo here. The most one can say and remain within the boundaries of social acceptance is “I’m not religious” or “I don’t practice my religion” to which the reaction is invariably “but you believe in god” as if anything else would be unthinkable.
There are atheists here, even in public life, but they are mostly in the closet.
I’m not an atheist, but I’m not Christian either, so I tend to avoid the subject of religion if at all possible because I think it’s a personal thing. (Having a recent immigrant type Scandinavian background helps in this conviction.) Living down in South Florida, the most pointed question you might get is an inquiry as to whether you’re Jewish or not. It’s happened exactly once to me, and a couple times to other people I knew. It’s certainly not common for it to happen, but some people ask when they’re not sure.
I went to college in Tallahassee, Florida and people were VERY nosy about religion to the point of asking complete strangers on the bus what church they went to. I had to explain one year to a coworker that I didn’t celebrate Christmas as an explanation of why I wasn’t going to participate in the secret santa event, and she asked if I was a Mormon. (People weren’t very aware of other religious sects in this town, especially if they hadn’t gone to college. I kind of regret not just telling them that I couldn’t afford it and didn’t want some tacky tchotcke or a candle that’d make me have an asthma attack.)
I rarely have issues with religion coming up in any workplace that I’ve worked in down here. However, there are occasionally people in my life for whom religion is so important that they must [del]stifle[/del] [del]drown[/del] share their religion with everyone else. There’s one particular person in my life that I have to endure this type of behavior with on almost every occasion that I see her. This makes things pretty uncomfortable sometimes, as this particular person seems to equate going to church all the time with being a good Christian or the proper thing for everyone to do. It also makes it difficult, as, well, she’s really subtly hoping I might convert to the form of Christianity she converted to. It doesn’t help that I’m a bit stubborn and must bite my tongue in order to not be too controversial about the fact that she’s not likely to get a conversion out of me, despite her best wishes. This is really only annoying because I get the message that I’m not a good enough person because (to borrow a term from my atheist acquaintances) my Invisible Pink Unicorn is not as good as her Invisible Pink Unicorn.
Houston here. No one here at my current job knows I’m an atheist and very few know I’m quite liberal. At my last job, I didn’t shout it out but didn’t keep it secret if I was asked. I’m not sure how it came out but my boss asked if I was an atheist and I told the truth. From that point on he continuously tried to convert me (he was a conservative Methodist). At the one review I had with him he even noted that for him priorities are God, Family and Work but of course the first one doesn’t apply for me, a completely inappropriate comment. I didn’t complain to HR but he was definitely one of the reasons I left. He was also a diehard Bushie so my liberalism didn’t sit well with him either.
Two other stories with this same guy with 2 former coworkers both of whom have also left that company after me and I’m still friends with. One guy was agnostic but culturally Hindu. He tried the same converting techniques with him and wouldn’t accept the answer that if he was to become religious again it would be with Hinduism not Christianity. The other guy is a very liberal Catholic and again that was the wrong type of Christianity. He was given a parting gift of a King James bible.
I forgot to add a note about my wedding: I had it when I was at the former company. I had a different boss then, the one talked about above was not my boss then and not at the wedding. We had a non-religious ceremony with a humanist minister. The only person who really made a fuss was my step-mother (a lapsed Catholic) who kept noting that he wasn’t a real minister.
I’m just echoing what other Brits have said. Religion isn’t a big thing here, though generally Islam has been brought into focus by current events. Even just talking about your faith without any of impetus might be seen as a bit strange - it’s a private matter. My uncle’s family are the most religious people I personally know, and that just extends to baptism, confirmation, and church on Sundays (and the occasional mild glurge about the house, but eh).
I’m actually going to take the opposite tack to some of the Americans here: isn’t it actually a great thing that people know that they can speak freely about their religion and try and convert others? Contrast this to the Islamosphere. For example, the penalies for preaching Christianity or Bhuddism in Saudi Arabia are rather severe.
I’ve lived my life in Western Canada (raised in a Mennonite town, no less), and religion is considered a private matter everywhere I’ve lived, and is not considered a big deal. I don’t know the religion of my co-workers, dentists, doctors, politicians, or friends (okay, I know the religion or lack thereof of my friends simply because it has come up in conversation over the years; it’s not a big deal to anyone I know). I am currently involved in a group that has recently attracted a couple of new members who are Christians, and the way they make such a big deal about letting everyone know they are Christian is a little embarrassing and off-putting to the rest of us.
Point somewhat taken, but shouldn’t freedom from religion involve any religion? I’m pretty sure that in Saudi Arabia you can jabber on as much as you like about being a Muslim.
The Southern Baptists are probably the second most evangelical stripe of Christianity, besides the “evangelicals”. Around here (Texas), if there’s an intolerance or proselytising issue with Christians, 6/10 times it’ll be Baptists, 2/10 times it’ll be evangelical/congregationalist/Pentecostal/other assorted loony Christians, 1/10 times it’ll be an AME church, and 1/10 times it’ll be Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc…
Generally speaking, with the exception of Baptists and the fringe evangelical/congregationalist churches, the established churches are pretty sedate.
Point taken - however I have never been given a satisfactory reason for prosetlytizing. However the F you spell that damn word. I hate the practice, totally despise it, and wish it would somehow be written out of every religion. I have a feeling I would be much less annoyed by religion if it wasn’t written into several of them to change other people! So, I agree that it’s a good thing you can talk about it but freedom of religion should mean freedom from religion, too.
What Exit? In my examples, I doubt if I had any ground to stand on. None of the coworkers of whom I speak stood in any sort of supervisory capacity over me. And when they let their religion interfere* with their work they were chastized appropriately.
I was actually showing my examples to point out how relatively mild it is in NY. If I told you about my six months in TN, and I wasn’t even atheist then…shudder.
*One girl, when asked what she was going to do about a major problem she had caused, said she and her husband got down on their knees and prayed. :smack: Boss wants to know really what you plan to do, as in physically take an action. Prayer may be good for you but it doesn’t cut it for the bottom line I’m afraid. I still wonder how anyone looked their boss in the eye and told them they prayed for something like that - and didn’t immediately follow up with a “real” answer.
I’ll second this for western Canada, and add that from what I remember about living in southern Ontario, it’s about the same there. Religion, or lack of it, is a private matter, and generally not discussed.
