There has got to be some good stories of fellow atheists who have been shunned, lectured, or even discriminated against by theist. It will be interesting to hear how you handled yourself. I have a few stories I’ll type up later.
A Christian lady at work was always friendly to me. She would send me religious emails from time to time, just glurge that several other co-workers would also be copied on. No big deal, she’s not the only one who does it. I’d just delete it without comment.
However, one day she sent one with the subject line, “Because I know YOU are a Christian”. That one really put my fur up. I emailed back, “Actually, I’m an atheist.” As of that day, she quit speaking to me. I’d have been willing to continue our former work-friendliness, but I didn’t pursue her. The whole thing was sort of baffling…did she think I was going to drag her down to hell with me?
There is another lady at work now that I like a whole lot, but she’s a Christian too. She doesn’t rub your nose in it, it’s part of her life that comes up naturally in conversation. For instance, she’s reading her way straight through the Bible.
So far, she hasn’t found out my evil secret…
Years ago, I was friends with a girl from work who was into a slightly wackadoo religion - I think it was that sect that believes that “speaking in tongues” will cure your ills, whoever they are. She once said that she decided it was okay to hang out with me “because after all, Jesus associated with lepers.”
I’d post a good story, but I don’t really have any. The few times that it comes up people seem to accept it without question. The one time it came up was when I was at a church retreat. Even then people were totally accepting and welcomed me into their group – and were cool with me taking a walk during their services.
I used to run with this running group, and we had a mother and her daughter drop in for the weekly and I was tapped to run with them because they didn’t know the route. Halfway along the route daughter pipes up apropos of nothing about how great god is, and asks me what I think about god. After finding out I’m an atheist, she yells, “so what do you live for… YOURSELF?”.
“Yeah, clearly I’m plodding along at a snails pace so you and your mom can keep up because I only live for myself” I would have yelled back if the impulse control centres of my brain had not been functioning properly. Had a pleasant chat with just the mother for the rest of the run. The mother was nice enough, it was just the kid who was “on fire for the lord”.
I was talking to an elderly woman who lives in my apartment complex. I told her I was quitting smoking cigarettes. She told me she lost a son and husband to lung cancer. It was sad and I felt bad for her. She asked if she could pray for me, and I said sure. Well it turned out she wanted grab my hands and pray for me on the spot. She clenched my hands and said a long prayer for me.
I should have just let it alone, but after that she prescribed for me to say a prayer every time I was tempted to smoke. I revealed to her that I didn’t believe in god.
“But you seem like such a nice young man” she said. I said I would like to think I am a nice man. She looked shocked. She said one day I will see the light and believe in god. I told her that that’s not going to happen. She argued that there MUST be a god for a little while… it was difficult to argue back because her arguments were so silly. She offered to take me to her church, I said no thank you.
I told her I was sorry and I appreciate her concern for my health. She started to tear up and said; “I don’t want you leaving without you promising me that you keep an open place for Jesus in your heart.” I gave up and said I would. I couldn’t wait to leave.
As I posted this story on facebook, I got a few replies that I should listen to her advice, “for the sake of my life after this one”.
The vast majority of the time I don’t deal with any hostility, just a slightly disrupted normative view. One of my close friends is a fairly devout Christian, and, aside from me, most of his social life is based around his church. So it’s not uncommon at some gathering of his for people to ask me what church I go to (since I obviously don’t go to theirs). No big deal.
A few times people have tried to debate theology with me. They’re usually pretty bad at it.
Only once did I deal with a real jerk about it. One summer in college I worked for a network installation company that my aunt and uncle started. The foreman of our crew was a very conservative Christian man who tried to teach me the error of my ways. I mostly just ignored him and told him that I didn’t care to discuss religion at work. I put up with it for most of the summer, but finally he pushed it too far and I told him off very strongly: “No, I will not have this discussion. I do not care what your beliefs are. I will not read (some religious text). You are not my religious instructor and I refuse to ever discuss this topic with you again.”
Prior to this point he had been picking me up in the company van on the way to the job site. He told me that he wouldn’t do so any further, which meant that I had to ride my bike about 10 miles each way at 6 in the morning (and again at 3:30 when we were finished) to get to work. I told him that it was clear he was punishing me for not being susceptible to his attempted religious indoctrination, and that that was even more inappropriate. I complained to my aunt and uncle, the company owners, and, while I did have to ride my bike for the next few weeks until the summer was over, they started talking to the other employees. It turns out that this guy was universally disliked and had pulled the same sort of shit on the other employees, but no one had spoken up because (1) they needed the job for longer than a summer and (2) they didn’t have the whole nepotism angle to protect them. He was fired not long afterward and several people thanked me for being the first to speak up.
leahcim, how old was the daughter?
I was wondering the same thing.
A couple of years ago, I got back in touch with one of my best friends from high school, lo these 20-something years later. We became good friends again, chatting through emails and phone calls, and I sent her a CD I liked, and I gave her a lot of support regarding her abusive new husband. Then after almost a year of this, she finally noticed that my Facebook page says that I’m atheist, and that was that. She said that she couldn’t talk to me anymore, and that I’d made her question her own religiosity, and she couldn’t have that. I’ve never spoken to her since.
That is incredibly sad. I’m very sorry to hear that.
Oh, that’s okay, but thanks! She would tell me how everyone in our very small hometown area hates her now, and I’d say, “No! Why would they hate you??” Turns out I figured out why! 
Teenager. My guess would be 16-18. I imagined at the time that she probably went to one of the christian high schools and probably didn’t have much religious variation in her circle of friends.
Nothing very negative to report outside the the internet. I did have a few interesting conversations with the fairly fundamentalist Muslim Algerian who I used to work with. He tells his children that their mother will go to hell because she isn’t a Muslim. By extention, he thinks I will to. I didn’t take any offence, he sees it as his duty to say that, and most importantly doesn’t believe he has any special rights over non-believers. He is also one of the friendliest people I’ve ever met, it’s a real shame we’ve fallen out of touch since he left.
Interesting. When I was about that age one of my classmates had a sudden turn-around in his life. He started pushing Chick Tracts on me, among other things.
When I started being really “out,” I kind of had a chip on my shoulder, waiting for someone to be an asshole about it, and it didn’t happen. I suspect maybe a couple people keep their distance from me because of it, but no one is rude or brings it up.
The only person who was vocally horrified and tried to talk me out of it was my devout Catholic grandmother. She really couldn’t conceive of me not believing in anything supernatural and not having faith. She literally said to me, “but what about the trees?!” She wasn’t a jerk about it, but she does send religious gifts to my children on occasion. No doubt she’s worried her all-loving god will torture them eternally because of my decisions.
LOL! What about them?
I’m the only (out) non-believer in my office. None of my peers or superiors have a problem with it (so far as I can tell), but when I was directly managing salespeople some of my subordinates did. I had one extremely confused person get annoyed when I refused a gift of a jesusy poster to hang on my office wall and claim she felt oppressed. She said she was going to contact HR, but I think a wiser friend dissuaded her.
Only God can make one.
Or…
When a mommy tree and a daddy tree love each other very much…
I was very friendly with a coworker for about 15 years. We’d lunch together when possible, attended each other’s kids christenings and graduations, would always hang out and help each other survive work parties.
She called to RSVP to my wedding invitation, the ceremony was being held at the reception site and she was so happy for me that the preacher was going to be okay with that. I explained that there wasn’t a preacher, just a licensed family friend who’d be officiating.
She was aghast. She’d always assumed I was Christian, apparently my politely attending the occasional function at her church for implied my belief. She started crying, sobbing actually, dismayed that she wouldn’t be able to see me in heaven. She kept repeating “But you’re so good! You don’t lie, or sleep around, you barely even drink!” because in her head only living a Godly life keeps people from doing those things. The fact that we know plenty of ostensibly Christian coworkers who’re alcoholics, adulterers, drug users and liars of all sorts meant nothing, the only important thing is their belief and my lack thereof.
It was awkward and ugly and stupid and we haven’t been close since.