How vocal are you about your beliefs (or lack thereof)?

[NurseShannon]

Well...you really won't catch me knocking on anyone's door on a Saturday morning to give them a watchtower.

I have worked in the same place for the last 4 months and no one knows.

[ladypuglover]

I don't wear my religion on my sleeve, but if anyone ever asks me, I'll give them an honest answer. I live in an area where you have people of all religious backgrounds from athiests up through superfundies, so being a mainline to fundie-lite protestant really isn't going to raise any eyebrows.

This is the same for me. One is able to see all the different types here and it is just as ugly to hear a person stand on the street corner spouting his superfundie beliefs as it is to walk a block down and hear the super athiest spouting the 180 degree opposite. Both are shoving their beliefs on the public at large. :(

[Jessica]

If someone asks, I'll tell them. If I'm telling a story where my church is a big part of the story, I'll include it. If I'm talking about a friend who I know through church and the person I'm talking to asks where I met that friend, I'll say that I met them at church. If someone asks me about my beliefs I'll say "This is what we believe on that issue. If you have other questions you can ask me or go to my church's website" and give them the link. I won't just launch into the Good Person Test when I'm talking to somebody though. If it's relevant to the situation I'll bring it up but not in a preachy way.

[alphaeta08]

I live in a fairly conservative area, so I just don't talk about being an atheist, although I've decided to be braver and tell people the truth if asked directly. I'm way more open with people around my age who tend to be more liberal about gay marriage, abortion, etc, so I just assume most of my peers share similar views on those things. My immediate family and a few good friends know, but my extended family probably never will, until they show up to my non-Catholic wedding somewhere down the line! :lol:

So, I guess I'd tell the truth if asked, but around here, I'd feel sooo crass talking about religion with people who aren't good friends or family. It's like, it's impolite to talk about it blatantly in public, but everyone assumes you're Christian. You can definitely mention things you did at church or whatever, but getting into a big religious discussion would be weird.

[Beeks]

Aelar, now I am super curious how you dress if you're willing to share! Also, does the question bother you? My son sees a specialist who dresses in a VERY distinct manner and I always am curious if it's religious or just her style, but I'm too shy to ask.

[luckylibrarian]

I'm a very private person when it comes to religion. I believe in God and I have certain religious beliefs that I believe in very strongly, but I wouldn't call myself a Christian in the normal sense. I have little respect for churches and organized religion, and I have a hard time concealing that disgust when someone brings it up.

I just moved to a rural part of Ohio, which is very, very conservative. There really is a church on every corner. It hasn't happened yet, but I could see someone here asking me what church I go to. I have been at my new job for two weeks, and my boss is constantly hinting that I should go to her church. It's uncomfortable and bordering on inappropriate. The college I work for isn't fundie, but I suspect I wouldn't be welcome if I were outed. My husband and I are thinking about going to church as a front.

[Rosa]

I'm pagan, and I will mention it in passing - we celebrate Solstices & Equinoxes, etc, and it comes up in conversations - "what are you doing friday?", stuff like that. I keep having to "discuss" it with my mom because she "forgets" and says ignorant shit like "Well you should put up a Christmas tree at least, it's not that much work!"

Other than that I only talk about it if I have the energy and someone tries to evangelize me through questions. Why, yes, I do have an idea how the Earth was created, thank you for asking! There's a special joy in talking to the baby Bible College evangelizers who have literally never imagined that other people might have perfectly valid beliefs that they have thought through and might be able to verbalize.

[Soldevi]

Not much. In Finland religion is thought to be a very private and personal thing and in general religious beliefs are not discussed even amongst friends or family. Of course there are those very vocal ones in every group: atheists, christians and all. But no, I don't tell if I am not asked first and even then I sometimes hesitate to say anything. But it is different to discuss in general level and I love that :)

(Straigth questions about religion and for example about money (salary etc.) are considered rude in here.)

[dcmhejbl62]

Actually, in thinking about it, I like to talk to other people about THEIR beliefs. Not in general conversation, but whenever it goes deeper. Probably why I like to hang out here.

[finleeport]

I never talk about my religion, much, unless people question me like why I don't eat meat on Wednesdays, Fridays and on Christmas or Easter weeks. Even at School people think I'm weird, they try to convince me that I could just break the rules a bit, but I never listen. I actually think its kind of healthy to have some dietary rules, and too much meat is not that good.

Another funny thing is that when people ask what my religion is, they think that I'm an Orthodox Jew, a Hellenistic Pagan or a Catholic. And when I tell them I'm Greek, they're thinking My Big fat Greek Wedding, which is both flattering and a bit insulting to me.

[Witsec2]

People tend to be conservative in my area, but only with lifestyle (politically, my area has more Democrats). The reason I say this is because I'm pretty sure most people around here are are actively religious (meaning they go to church/temple/whatever).

Because of this, because I'm the only one in my family who is openly atheist, I speak up. Not ALL.THE.TIME. but whenever it's relevant, and I never say anything in a way to demean what others believe.

Politically, I'm very open and outspoken. As someone who is extremely against the two-party system, I'm always trying to get people to at least be skeptical about their political beliefs. Not change their mind-- I would never want to do that-- just open their minds to see that, no matter what party you belong to, there's always room for criticism and improvement.

[muffynbear]

I don't talk about religion with anyone outside of friends/family. I don't believe in talking about religion at work. I cringed when this Christian fellow I worked with openly praised Jesus in a work email shared with other members of our department. I felt embarrassed for him. Just because I was raised to NEVER discuss religion with others (especially with co-workers). As for politics, I'm not as afraid to discuss my beliefs. I'm very liberal, very pro-choice ;)

[aelar]

Aelar, now I am super curious how you dress if you're willing to share! Also, does the question bother you? My son sees a specialist who dresses in a VERY distinct manner and I always am curious if it's religious or just her style, but I'm too shy to ask.

The question doesn't bother me at all. I'm perfectly aware that I dress oddly, and unlike a fundy, I get that I am standing out and so it would be silly of me to expect people not to be curious. If I wanted to blend, it's pretty easy to buy clothes that would fit in better, but I like being distinctive.

I find it a little sad that there is such a strong idea about how people should dress that I stand out for not obeying the norm, but since I do stand out, questions are understandable, just like questions about my hair (if I had a penny for every time someone has asked me how long it took to grow my hair....).

I get almost all my clothes from one store: http://www.tiendaho.com/

This isn't me, but is pretty much how I dress, though sometimes I wear brighter colors, more patterns, more complicated styles or more layers. I've been known to twist up turbans and headscarves when I want to feel particularly fancy. (This apparently makes me read as Orthodox Jew, I've had people walk up and start talking to me in Hebrew.)

http://www.tiendaho.com/images/moroccan/IMG_1200.jpg

I love long flowy fabric swirling about me, and a lot of my clothes have little mirrors or embroidery, or uneven hems that flap about. I find the details more lovely than the sort of spare look of mass-produced 'normal' clothes. There are a lot of Indian women and Muslim women in my community who have their own beautiful and unusual ways of dressing, but my clothes, while inspired by several cultures, aren't from any one culture's dress, so I think that throws people who can't quite figure out what box I fit in.

It's a compliment for someone to notice my style, even if they don't know quite what it means.

I'm sure the person you know who has an unusual style wouldn't mind being asked at all if their clothes are cultural or personal.

[MrsKay]

I only bring it up if I'm asked, and I tread carefully (Pagan with Wiccan leanings). I've been disowned by family members, and we were evicted from our last apartment because the neighbors were freaked out, and made a big stink until the landlord found some stupid reason to evict. We could have fought it, but I didn't want anything to do with a narrow-minded environment like that.

[ADoyle90815]

I believe that religion is a private matter, so there's no way I'd fit in with a church that expected its members to either go door to door, or send their missionaries to someone's house. The area I live in is pretty diverse, so there's no need for me to start going to church as a front, although I'm the type who goes at Christmas, Easter, and for something like a wedding or funeral. I do have Mormon step siblings, but they're not the type who push their beliefs down everyone's throat once they got back from their mission, and they don't get upset about seeing a coffee machine on my mom's kitchen counter.

[formerlyfundie]

My husband and I are fairly conservative Christians, but we also despise a lot of the things churches teach nowadays. We focus more on the love part of the message, rather than scaring the crap out of people with that turn or burn bs. (We live in TN so it's EVERYWHERE and is what we grew up with) This has gotten us in a tad bit of trouble with some of our former friends who dropped us because we started doing more "liberal" (their words, not mine) things like me wearing pants and hanging out with people who weren't ~like us to spread God's love rather than a whole bunch of condemnation. My husband wants to go into ministry once his enlistment is up this August so we as a family can hopefully show the love and acceptance of Christ rather than beating people down with doctrine and rules ugh. Anyway we don't just grab people off the street and witness to them or anything, but if someone asks, we have no problem giving them a hug and sharing life with them, the way we think Jesus would.

[Olivia]

I don't go out of my way to be vocal. However, I think people say stupid things a lot, and I won't hesitate to speak up when I think what they're saying is both stupid and harmful to a group. Although, a lot of times that isn't actually defending what I believe... I'm a Christian, but IRL the last few arguments I've gotten into on religion have been defending atheism and Islam. But I'm also married to an atheist, so I'm not exactly unbiased there...

I try not to talk about my politics with the majority of people, simply because most people don't seem to actually want to discuss anything, they want to tell you why you're wrong. Or why you're right for agreeing with them. Neither of which ever seems very interesting to me. However, again, if someone starts speaking the crazy I usually feel the need to say something. I don't know why... it's not like anyone's going to change their mind on the spot... but I do feel like a spineless jerk if I sit quietly as someone says something that's just wrong.

[Olivia]

My husband and I are fairly conservative Christians, but we also despise a lot of the things churches teach nowadays. We focus more on the love part of the message, rather than scaring the crap out of people with that turn or burn bs. (We live in TN so it's EVERYWHERE and is what we grew up with) This has gotten us in a tad bit of trouble with some of our former friends who dropped us because we started doing more "liberal" (their words, not mine) things like me wearing pants and hanging out with people who weren't ~like us to spread God's love rather than a whole bunch of condemnation. My husband wants to go into ministry once his enlistment is up this August so we as a family can hopefully show the love and acceptance of Christ rather than beating people down with doctrine and rules ugh. Anyway we don't just grab people off the street and witness to them or anything, but if someone asks, we have no problem giving them a hug and sharing life with them, the way we think Jesus would.

That was the kind of church I grew up in. I don't agree with a lot of the beliefs I grew up with anymore (VERY conservative), but at the same time, there was a lot of love for everyone. The way I grew up, we didn't proselytize to anyone; the idea was just that you should live a good life, always serving others, and then be ready to witness if someone asked you first. Which, I think, is nice. Respectful, non-intrusive, and a much better use of your time than badgering poor fast food workers with tracts.

[JesusFightClub]

Politically, I'm very open and outspoken. As someone who is extremely against the two-party system, I'm always trying to get people to at least be skeptical about their political beliefs. Not change their mind-- I would never want to do that-- just open their minds to see that, no matter what party you belong to, there's always room for criticism and improvement.

Yeah. Politics and religion are far different IMO. But I don't get why it's a bad thing to change someone's mind? That means you had the more persuasive argument :)

I am pretty outspoken about where I stand politically. When talking to someone though I usually try to take a gentle approach. Like when I get a troublesome reply, I now say "Oh, that's interesting. Why do you think that?" not "That's totally fucking stupid reasoning, you stupid fucking wanker. Read all the 30000012872 books on this list and then get back to me." ;)

[Austin]

I have adopted this to (or have tried to). It usually forces the other person to come up with some rationale, which is sometimes not something they're accustomed to doing.

It also works very well when raising teenagers, who come up with strange ideas and go through odd phases at times. It's not judgmental, but serves the purpose of at least challenging them to think things through.

[Guest Anonymous]

I try to keep both my religion and my politics (atheist and liberal) to myself. Here in Houston, it can cost you, personally and professionally. If it was just me, I'd pay the freight, but we have a 7 yo daughter. We attend a UU church to give her some spiritual grounding but even one of her classmates whose parents are University professors say that the bible says x or y. Then we are stuck doing damage control - I want her to know it is ok not to believe, but I don't want our little girl to have to deal with a shitstorm for our principles.

It would be a lot easier to "pretend", but as my late best friend said, "You come with subtitles."

[Austin]

I try to keep both my religion and my politics (atheist and liberal) to myself. Here in Houston, it can cost you, personally and professionally. If it was just me, I'd pay the freight, but we have a 7 yo daughter. We attend a UU church to give her some spiritual grounding but even one of her classmates whose parents are University professors say that the bible says x or y. Then we are stuck doing damage control - I want her to know it is ok not to believe, but I don't want our little girl to have to deal with a shitstorm for our principles.

It would be a lot easier to "pretend", but as my late best friend said, "You come with subtitles."

Our children experienced some crap kind of like that. People knew that I had stopped going to church and all that, but when I started speaking up on "liberal causes" like campaigning for comprehensive, accurate reproductive education in the schools, it became an issue. It got worse when I participated in trying to get anti-bullying policies and education into the schools. In my neck of the woods, "anti-bullying" seems to be code for "gay-lover" and "liberal" (neither of which are an insult to me, I might add). I spoke at school board meetings and to smaller groups and participated on panels and word got around, I guess.

My eldest, J, took the worst of it, a sunny guy with a thick skin, but I still felt awful about it. I dialed it back a bit (I still worked behind the scenes, but decreased public speaking on the issues and backed off as any sort of point person) in an attempt to lessen the impact.

The sad thing is that most of the static came from adults. Mostly staff and teachers at his high school. His band director and assistant band director are ardent fundamentalists and the assistant's wife is our local fundie loudmouth who took to writing in her blog negative, thinly-veiled references to one of her husband's student's mothers. Nice, huh? *sigh* How very appropriate for a licensed educator to putting her husband's student in the center of her ideological disagreement with me. And how very Christian of her (I'm not bitter).

J kept winning at statewide competitions, but suddenly couldn't do anything right at school band. Our son suddenly wasn't a very good tuba player any more and apparently forgot how to march. He lost his first chair spot, as well, but did his best to take it in stride.

Backstory is that "marching band" is HUGE in our community. The band members are kind of the superstars of the high school because 1) the band is huge, and 2) they win statewide and national competitions left and right. Band kids are treated like football players in other schools because they keep our high school "on the map", so to speak.

Anyway, the 2008 election was the straw that broke the camels' back for J, as he campaigned as a newly-minted-18-year-old for Obama, and he started getting treated even worse, and more openly. It was a difficult time as he had worked long and hard in music (I wouldn't actually say J has a terrific natural talent, but this was always offset by his work ethic). Anyway, it blew up because of some terrible, disgraceful things that his band director said to him, and J quit band on the spot and basically told the asshole to go jump in a lake.

Administrators scrambled, as this was a pretty popular kid with not-exactly-unknown parents (my husband was a very well-respected teacher of more than 30 years in the district at the time), and they tried to talk him out of it in what was certain a CYA move. J was unmoved and unmovable, despite meetings for them to try to change his mind. We fully supported J's decisions.

He ended up taking an "F" for the year, which was heartbreaking for a kid who had worked so hard, but thankfully his GPA was high enough that he still graduated in the top 15% of his class of more than 400. His guidance counselor, a very well-known and respected counselor throughout the state, wrote a very strong letter on J's behalf and attached it to all of his college applications. This counselor also came to the aforementioned meetings and took on the band director (who is treated like a god at this school) and the administrators, at some professional risk to himself, which are actions that we will never forget.

Sorry for the novel, but I guess I just wanted to say that it can become very difficult to balance one's deeply held values and the actions that spring from those values and the price that one's family may pay. In the end, however, I believe the flack that J took and navigating those turbulent waters as a new adult did him enormous good. He is an activist through and through and I don't know if that would have happened, considering that backpack of privilege he was born with, had he not endured some of those situtaions. Hard to say.

So I know what you mean by being willing to pay the freight personally, but thinking twice about what to subject your child to, no matter what the age.

[Guest Anonymous]

{{Austin}}

Props to you and your J. for doing what you feel is right. We were gossiped about at DAYCARE by the teachers as the atheist family. Del Greco (alias DH) heard them one day as he was dropping her off. (Later we learned that our daughter's teacher grabbed another student by the ear and removed her that day.) So far, I love public school - she is in Spanish Immersion - could not get that privately for less than 12K a year!

The hard part is trying to be honest while at the same time as Robert Heinlein said "rubbing blue mud in your belly button as a survival method" - quote is inaccurate in wording, not idea.

[Shoobydoo]

I also only bring it up when asked, when the subject comes up otherwise, or I hear people saying stupid, uneducated things about Atheism in general. I became an Atheist when I was 10, but didn't come out to non-family members until Junior High. (Three quarters of my immediate family are also Atheists, so my mom actually started questioning my critical thinking on the subject when I blurted it out the first time. ;) ) Anyway, in the 8th grade I mentioned it in my science class and a girl at my table proceeded to have a full blown panic attack over it. Never quite got over that. I went through a very anti-theist stage in high school, but I got over it. These days I just want everyone to leave me alone about it. :hand: I don't really mind religion, or things that were actively created by or influenced by religion, but I do dislike raging assholes, of any denomination or lack there of.

[JesusFightClub]

Austin, what a shocking story! Sounds like you raised your kids brilliantly to think on their own and to stand on their principles. Society needs more of these people, not less. It's horrible to think of life as a country club where you're shut out if your face doesn't fit but I think that's how the people who picked on J see it and they like it :(

Hopefully all normal people would agree an 18 year old who had the guts and interest in politics J does should be encouraged not disrespected and sidelined. He does sound like a natural activist and a brave person.

US politics seem much more "raw" in this respect. After an argument, I asked some friends in America what would happen to me as a politically active socialist if I moved to where they live. They said "You would be beaten up. No one in town would speak to you. Only stay in a big city and even then, depends on the city." :shock:

It's so different in Scotland there aren't even words. If I tell most people my politics, at worst they think I'm a weirdo but sometimes they share reminicences of things like miners' strike, anti poll tax revolt, etc. More often now people of all ages say "Well done to you, the government are bastards".

J would fit in comfortably though he would get questions now and again along the lines of "Yir fae America, whit's this Obama oan aboot?" I can honestly say though no one would do worse than argue with him and that would probably be in a pub ;)

Please pass on my applause to J for standing up for what he believes in in the face of unpleasant consequences! It warms my heart no end to see people do that.