During my time online, I remember talking to a guy in a chat room, telling him that I no longer believed in God. He said, “You need to keep that to yourself because you will get beaten up if anyone finds out.” He easily remembered the abuse he had received earlier in his life for being an “out” atheist. I have never told anyone that story.
I kept my beliefs to myself. It took a while for me to become comfortable using the “A” word with my peers. Over time, I began throwing out some feelers. I remember writing down my thoughts about religion on two sides of a piece of paper and handing it to a friend of mine. She read it and handed it back and said, “Yeah, makes sense.” Still, I didn’t really know any other atheists. I remember in my high school freshman English class we were talking about Greek mythology. My teacher asked everyone in my class if they believed in God. Everyone in the room said yes, and when the question came to me, I said yes as well.
It wasn’t until college that I fully came out. I helped to start a group that became quite involved in the secular movement. I was exposed to a new world. I realized that there were other students in the same position as me — many, in fact, who had it a lot worse than me — and thought that I might be able to do something to help. I wanted to be a part of that.
The girl who I started the secular group with told me that she had volunteered at Camp Quest, a summer camp for children of atheist parents. I thought, “That sounds awesome!” She also informed me about an organization called the Secular Student Alliance that helped organize atheist groups. Our group became affiliated with them and with a similar organization, CFI On Campus. I realized that I could meet all these other atheists and make it easier for people like me to come out. I also learned about other organizations that were doing charity work and pushing the message that atheists exist and that we’re good people. How could I not want to be a part of that?
I had been accepted to medical school at the University of Illinois-Chicago right out of high school, provided that I met certain grade point averages and MCAT scores during my undergraduate career. I met the requirements, so I enrolled. My grades were fine, and I passed my classes, but I just wasn’t happy. I started dating a girl, and I remember thinking, “I just don’t have time for her.” I asked the medical school for a year off. They allowed me to do so with no penalty.
During that year, I had plenty of free time. I decided to get certified as a high school teacher. There was a church near me, and I realized that for all the railing against religions that I did, I had a stereotype of what church was like: really boring, really dry. I had been informed largely by The Simpsons. I decided to see it for myself.
I ended up putting this silly thing on eBay that said, in short, “If you want to bid on where I, the atheist, go to church or mosque or synagogue, you can, and I’ll go wherever the highest bidder wants me to go.” I didn’t think anyone would take it seriously, but the bidding got out of hand. There were Christians bidding to have me go to church and atheists bidding for me not to go. They set each other off, and the bidding climbed higher and higher. Ultimately, a pastor won for over $500, and I owed him 50 weeks of church. We ended up making a deal. He picked the 10 churches that I would attend. In exchange, I agreed to write about my experiences on his ministry’s website. A publisher saw what we were doing and thought that it was cool that I was criticizing church, and Christians weren’t mad at me for doing so. The publisher said, “Why don’t we send you to a bunch of other churches across the country, and we’ll turn your experiences into a book?” This, mind you, was a Christian publisher, not a secular publisher, and no atheist had ever written a book for them. I thought that I’d be crazy to say no, so I took the opportunity. It was a wonderful, educational experience. The book that resulted from those experiences, I Sold My Soul on eBay, came out in 2007 and was sold in bookstores across the country. It’s still sold on Amazon.
I had thought that most Christians would be lockstep with the Christian fundamentalist preaching on TV, people I viewed as perhaps nice, but very bigoted. Some of the churches I attended did talk about social issues and were anti-homosexuality; I had my problems there. What I found, however, was that a lot of Christians didn’t agree with what fundamentalist pastors said. I had never heard that perspective. At a lot of the churches that I went to, they didn’t talk about gay people. They didn’t talk about politics. They talked about how best to live to make your life better. It was hard for me to have a problem with that.
Many of the people at these churches, I found, were just good people who happen to believe in God. I think they’re wrong about that last part. But they weren’t doing anything harmful. In fact, I found many of them to be pretty liberal regarding social issues. We actually shared a lot of the same values. I had thought that if someone was a Christian, then they also shared the same views as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. I was glad to learn that that wasn’t necessarily true. I realized that there are Christians who are on the left, and they dislike the religious right as much as I do, if not more, because the religious right is besmirching their good name. Interacting with them was a good experience because it made me realize that there’s no reason why the secular movement can’t ally with moderate Christians on some of the bigger social issues of our time. I think it’s a much more pressing issue, for example, to get same-sex marriage legalized or to make sure that abortions are available and safe across the country than it is to convince people that there is no God.
After my experiences at these churches, I started my blog, Friendly Atheist. The name came from the idea that, in America, every time one hears about atheists in the media, they’re always framed as “Bob, the devout atheist, the militant atheist, or the angry atheist.” It’s never “Bob, the really happy, smiley atheist.” I realized that if my site was called Friendly Atheist, people would have to put those two words together.
I began blogging about religious issues on a regular basis. I knew that I couldn’t say that Christians were the sole problem in the world or push the idea that all churches that exist in the world are bashing gay people. I could admit that there were Christians who were bigoted and wrong but also recognize that not all Christians felt that way. I needed to delineate conservative Christians, the religious right, the fundamentalist Christians, from all other Christians. I had to change the way I thought and wrote.
In fact, even now, even with fundamentalist Christians, with people I’m so opposed to on a personal level because they just say and do things I abhor, I’ve met a lot of them, and they’re really nice people. I find it hard to hold a grudge as much as I might have in the past. For example, James Dobson used to run Focus on the Family. He always emphasized that he was anti-gay. Now Focus on the Family is run by Jim Daly. I’ve seen him speak. When I listened to him, I realized that I didn’t have problems with everything he stands for. He talks about the importance of adoption. When I saw him, he didn’t emphasize his opposition to gay marriage and abortion. Most likely, if I were to mention Focus on the Family to a bunch of atheists, they’d raise all of our differences, they’d get pissed off, perhaps rightfully so. But not all the people who work with these groups are as bad as they might be perceived.
Still, I am not hesitant to criticize groups of people, including churches themselves, when I feel like they are doing something wrong. I try to watch my language to make sure that I’m not stereotyping. I try not to call them mean names unless it’s warranted.