As an atheist, I have had my share of being demonized by believers, specially the holier-than-thou born again types. Just because I do not share their belief and by some magical twist of born-again-Christian logic, they see me as a person who only wanted to do what I wanted to do – which is implied as evil things – without having to be responsible for my action. Never mind that the accusers don’t know me at all, nor have even met me in person. What they can conclude, is purely through my chance meetings with them in online forums and chatrooms. Is there any tinge of justification to their accusations?
Rather than be self-serving and talk about myself, I would like to talk about my friends A and J instead. In around late year 2000, I had been working with them for about a year already. We never really talked about religion until that day when this event happened. In that day, and for for no other reason, J started to talk about religion and about being kind and good that one is supposed be as a believer. After so much talk, he must have noticed that A was not paying any attention. Then he paused to ask, “What about you, are you Catholic?” To J’s rather frank question, A gave a half-embarassed smile and a quick shrug, followed moments later by “Naaah, I don’t believe in those.” J was so shocked, he didn’t know what to say for a whole minute. Later in the day in our way home, he was still in shock and kept on talking about it. (J and me were staying in the same area of the city.) Overnight, his view of A changed, from being a “really nice chap” to a “bad person”, simply because A didn’t share his belief. Of course A didn’t change overnight as a person. All the transformation seemed to have transpired in J’s mind overnight. A continued to be a fine chap from my own perspective, my being a non-believer myself probably helped. I see people beyond belief in a supernatural morality compass. I have friends and family and they are a mixed bag of beliefs. I have never looked at them and judged them as being good or bad on the basis of their belief. Why is this so difficult for some people of belief, specially the fundies, that they have to see atheists as evil or lost souls or immoral merely because of atheism?
Mere atheism, just like mere belief in god(s) – mere theism – is not an ethical system in its own. Believing in god(s) does not automatically make a person moral, nor being an atheist automatically makes him evil or immoral. The religious fanatics who like to paint “others” as evil and misguided are being shortsighted. Arthur C. Clarke once said,
“One of the greatest tragedies in human history was the hijacking of morality by religion.”
Indeed, morality has been hijacked by religion. No, religion is not the same as belief in god(s). But to those shortsighted believers, they cannot tell any difference. This ignorance is what we somehow wish to blur, to lessen the bigotry borne of a fanatic belief in one’s religion.
Telling your colleagues that you are an atheist is the surest way to a career deadend.
I once had the impudence to tell my boss I had no religion(in Chinese, there is no definite translate for the word “Atheist”), and he called me a juvenile.
My refusal to join a Taoist talk was seen as hedonistic, and when retrenchment came I was the first to be shown the door.
As an atheist, one must understand that discrimination is the place to pay for not following the crowd.
It would be all too easy to be a closet atheist, but again, it is up to the individual’s choice.
I never told J (nor my other friends for that matter) that I am a non-believer myself. At that time I kept my atheism to entirely to myself only. I always thought atheism is a non-issue and therefore not even worth talking about. But things have their way of turning out to be what is not intended. One day I found myself thinking about it, and so I tried looking it up in the net. Are there others like me out there? Are there Pinoys? Where are they? I joined the Pinoy Christian chatrooms. I saw the hate and slander against atheists, and right there I decided I shouldn’t be any longer be passive about it. In short, I rediscovered atheism and started to assert it. I could no longer take it passively and so I felt I had to speak up now if I can at all. Fast-forward, in my current work, discussing faith is against company policy. This is meant to protect religious minorities like me so I appreciate it very much. I think because it’s partly an American company that such policies are in place, aligned with U.S. legislation itself.