{"id":512,"date":"2010-11-06T18:17:08","date_gmt":"2010-11-06T08:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=512"},"modified":"2010-11-06T18:17:08","modified_gmt":"2010-11-06T08:17:08","slug":"atheism-the-new-closet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=512","title":{"rendered":"Atheism: The New Closet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question from Kevin:<\/strong>
\nI am agnostic-atheist but barely anyone knows and I would like them to know but there is a price to doing such. Only a few of my family [all who dislike my choice] and my friends [which only a majority dislike my views]
\n
\nSo—
\n
\nWhy should I come out as an atheist openly? It would bring me happiness to express my beliefs and i already have done so with friends, some have not taken it well and have left me for such. Others accepted it and I even converted a Christian to my point of view which I also enjoyed. But I understand there are problems with expressing this openly to everyone in real life (on job applications, social networking sites, job\/other discrimination? etc.) I know that some people would hate, dislike, avoid or try to convert me and that would be awkward.
\n
\nWhy should I tell everyone I am an atheist and why should I not? Also do you think I should or should not, what is your opinion?
\n
\nAnswer by SmartLX<\/a>:<\/strong>
\nWell, the first thing you did there was give us a good reason to come out as an atheist (your own happiness) and a good reason not<\/em> to come out (possible discrimination), so that’s a start.
\n
\nAnother reason to come out is that it will encourage other atheists around you to do the same. Some of the people you think may react negatively to your atheism might actually be closeted atheists themselves. Even if they don’t come out all the way, they might at least reveal themselves to you.
\n
\nDiscrimination pretty much covers the negatives all by itself. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, though; I don’t know where you are, but in most countries it’s as illegal to discriminate against atheists in practical ways (e.g. in job interviews) as against people of any religion. The worst you’ll get is a lot of attitude.
\n
\nOne thing though, just because you openly declare yourself an atheist doesn’t mean you have to try and deconvert everyone you know. Maybe you actually want to, but people with any kind of one-track mind don’t tend to do well socially. Just come out, and expect to be accepted, and most of the time you will be…unless you’re an Amish or something.
\n
\nI’m interested in the Christian you deconverted. Care to write a comment and tell us what happened there?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I don’t know where you are, but in most countries it’s as illegal to discriminate against atheists in practical ways (e.g. in job interviews) as against people of any religion. The worst you’ll get is a lot of attitude.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,135],"class_list":["post-512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","tag-atheism","tag-deconversion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pB6tr-8g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":513,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512\/revisions\/513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}