Skip to main content

Out of the Shadows and Into the Light

By Klym ~

Next month I will celebrate my 60th birthday. I have also decided to retire from 37 years of being an educator (public and private schools) and mental health professional (school counselor, past work in a women's shelter, and an MHMR caseworker). Both these 'events' are huge in my mind. The decision to retire is probably the hardest decision of my life, second only to the decision to divorce my first husband at the age of 20, when I attended a fundamentalist Baptist church. I am a bit terrified of the prospect of not having a job to get up for each day, and of having no "regular" paycheck.

On top of all that, I am seriously thinking of coming out as an atheist, once and for all. Most of my close friends and family know that I am a non-believer, but it is very rarely discussed. My husband knows I'm an atheist and respects my intelligence and thoughtfulness on religious issues. But, he's not quite ready to give up his extremely liberal christian worldview. He knows nothing about my essays and posting on this website. He would be shocked (temporarily) at some of the things I have written/shared here.

All my Unitarian Universalist "church" friends know that I'm an atheist. I live a dual life---one at my school and in my community where I'm perceived as a Christian, because of the culture of this geographic area---and my other, "secret" life that I share only with my church family and my ExChristian.net family.

I have been a non-believer now for eight years. Actually, I was probably a non-believer all my life, but it took me way too long to accept the truth of who I am and who I've always been. Such is the power of growing up in the Bible Belt. I remember clearly as a child thinking that if it weren't for the fear of hell, I wouldn't believe in any of the doctrines I was taught.

Anyway, something one of my dearest friends said to me at church a few Sundays ago has been going around and around in my mind. This friend is a gay man, my age, who I dearly love. He is an amazing human being, and has suffered so much because of his sexual orientation. We were talking about his coming out back when he was in his twenties. He told me that he decided years ago that when people asked if he was gay, he was going to tell them the truth---at the very high risk of losing his job and standing in the community. He said that when he told people he would remind them that HE was STILL the same person they had come to know and love; that only THEIR PERCEPTION of him had changed. HE WAS STILL THE SAME PERSON! He had not changed. He did this faithfully and never lost his job or his standing in the community.

I live a dual life---one at my school and in my community where I'm perceived as a Christian, [...] and my other, "secret" life that I share only with my church family and my ExChristian.net family.I got to thinking that if I come out as an atheist, I AM STILL THE SAME PERSON. Only the other person's perception of me has changed. This is a tremendous epiphany for me. I'm sure several of you have already figured this out, but this was like a gigantic clanging bell going off in my brain when I thought about it. Why has this never occurred to me before?? DUH!!!

I am reading all kinds of retirement books. I'm at a stage in my life when I have the privilige and opportunity to reinvent myself totally, if I so desire. Actually, we reinvent ourselves each and every day, don't we? When I turn sixty, why not come out as an atheist to everyone, and let the chips fall where they may?

I've spent my entire life as a child advocate. I detest that children continue to be brainwashed and abused with the superstitious BS that is Christianity. I'm thinking it's time to be completely true to who I am. I hope I have the courage necessary to do this. If it weren't for the courage of the gay community to come out, they would not have made the amazing strides towards equality and justice that they have earned over the past few decades. The same can be said for women and minorities. We are reaping the rewards of our ancestors in so many areas; many people gave their lives so that as a woman I have opportunities that were denied my mother and my grandmother. Perhaps it is time for another revolution.

It's time for me, personally, to stop living a dual life. I have such admiration for all of you on this website. I know that each of us have our own personal reasons for living in the shadows. I know my "coming out' won't change the world, but perhaps it will shine a light in some of the dark places in my immediate sphere of influence. I am excited about my sixtieth decade of life----get ready world, here I come, ready or not! YEEHAW!!! It's gonna be a wild ride!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~  A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins  Accepting Christ as Savior  Frequently reading the Bible  Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules)  Attending church services  Partaking of the Lord’s Supper  Tithing  Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc.  Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro