First, my apologizes for not getting to my second numbers in astronomy post. I will eventually. I have no excuses, only that I've been busy living life and blogging hasn't been a part of that.
I read an article recently about atheists coming out of the closet and why it's so difficult and rare. Add to that the recent set of articles complaining about people like me shying away from the skeptical and atheist communities (they call us tone trolls and worse). So, a confluence of reading brings me to a need to blog this.
The title atheist when presented in mixed company, in company of skeptics and non-skeptics, of theists and non-theists, and any number of similar sets is a door closer. I see the religious literally shut their ears to a person when they find out that person is an atheist. I already have a hard time being heard, I don't need to make things more difficult. So in my day-to-day living I don't use the title.
When people ask me which church I belong to I answer that I usually don't go to church and don't add that's it's because I am a non-believer. That last closes the door to further communications fast. More moderate people will still listen, but they aren't the powerful voting block that I'd like to convince need to be more accepting of secular issues, they already are. We do need to be able to talk to the fundamentalists and evangelicals about secular issues because they have money (you've heard about the Mega Churches I bet) and put people in power to run and ruin things (Texas Board of Education for example). Fortunately the courts have worked in our favor so far. Lately the Religious Right has been working on "fixing" that, too.
The Tea Party and Religious (often the very same people) need to hear our message and not automatically shut it out. There will still be those that don't listen, but I don't want to shut out those that will and who can then echo our message in our stead.
You won't see me at atheist or skeptical events and now you know why.
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