A reader can relate to atheist guilt:
I spent my teens reading Camus and saying that God doesn’t exist. Then, in my late teens, I joined a youth group and tried to believe – partly because of my family, my friends, and the social stigma of not being a believer in the 1980s South (Atlanta).
Fast forward to age 35, when after years of hiding my non-belief, I came out. Mind you, I went to church, wound up teaching Sunday school, went on some mission trips, and was asked to be an elder or deacon. At that point, I figured I needed to come clean. So I came out. My wife and I divorced – partly because of my non-belief (she was on the road to becoming a Christian writer) – and partly because of the lack of intimacy we had between us. I felt guilty just watching The Sopranos because it wasn’t ‘uplifting.’ How can you have an intimate relationship when there is that type of judgment on the simple stuff?
Of course, my ex thinks I’m going to hell, literally. My family does too. My sister told me she didn’t know who I was, and we really don’t have a relationship anymore – after 13 years. But I’m happy. I’m open and honest about my beliefs and my wife and kids that I have now share my beliefs.
Meanwhile, an atheist since childhood offers some advice to new “converts”:
It’s important to remember that atheism is an altogether unremarkable thing. Sure, many come to the idea, or the acceptance, with a great degree of awe, and they convince themselves that they must now be true to themselves as atheists and never set foot in that awful place of worship again.
But your parents aren’t going to be around forever. Breathing and heartbeats are a finite resource. Go to fucking church with them. If your atheism is hanging by such a thread that you can’t sing a song from some old book with your parents, you probably aren’t really an atheist.
Update from a reader:
Your reader’s experience of attending church with parents might be “singing a song from some old book,” but attending church with my mom (before I affirmed every cliche of the de-converted and left the South for California) was a very different prospect, and much more of an assault on my identity.
It would have involved, at minimum, 30-45 minutes of energetic singing, clapping, and hand waving, during which at any moment a member might break out into several laps around the sanctuary before falling out in religious ecstasy. (If this member happened to be a woman, another female member would quickly cover her splaying, spasming legs with a coat, since women were forbidden to wear pants or shorts.)
Following this warm-up, my willingness to make this sacrifice for my mom would have been tested by a sermon averaging 90 minutes, during which the very idea that someone could doubt God’s existence, question the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, choose a “worldly” lifestyle based around money and hedonism (the only pursuits that could be conceivably imputed to those outside the fold), or heaven literally forbid, go the whole hog into sin and TURN GAY, would be relentlessly mocked, scorned, or just regarded with a sad, knowing pity. (Anyone in attendance would also be encouraged to subsidize this worldview during the offering, with a strong reminder that failing to reach into your pocket could be the difference between someone’s salvation and damnation.)
Finally, this would all wrap up with an altar call, which was very likely to culminate in people kneeling and weeping for their sins, while groups of “prayer warriors” surrounded other individuals who needed a little extra help to “pray through” for the first time (or maybe just recommit themselves to the cause, e.g. “pray BACK through”). Anyone who attempted to tactfully sit back and disengage during this ritual ran the risk of being approached by a concerned member asking if they could lay hands on them. A firm no was sure to be met with suspicion, while any hesitation would invite said laying on of hands, which, if administered by a particularly vocal church member, would serve as a beacon for others to latch on to the hapless subject and add their hands and voices to the prayer.
Finally (I know I said the altar call was the end, but really it wasn’t), with tears being wiped and beatific smiles being exchanged, someone would extend an invitation to re-convene at Denny’s or Cracker Barrel, where in smaller groups of a dozen or less, members would go over some of the strongest points of the night’s sermon or talk about how wonderful it was to see Bro. Smith or Sis. Jones “pray back through.” If a political issue was in the news, a more respected member of the group might point out how clearly silly the “worldly” view (oddly enough, almost always the one opposed to the Republican view) was. (For those who say “Just go home” at this point…my mom was always one of the more social members of the church, so accompanying her would have inevitably ended up here.)
Despite my deep love for my mom and my genuine guilt at the pain that I know my falling away from the fold has caused her, I refused to run this gamut for her. Maybe I should have sucked it up, but I know that by even walking in the door, I would have been marked as a target for re-conversion. I really wish I had been raised Episcopalian, so that I could have gone to church with her after I stopped believing and just “sang a song from some old book” to make her feel better.
The Dish 
