Are Closeted Atheists Cowards?

[rug]

Thursday, September 19, 2013
LiP

I was listening to Dan Savage, writer of the advice column Savage Love, writer, podcaster, and gay rights advocate (It Get's Better campaign), on Marc Maron's WTF podcast the other day. I don't always listen to WTF (I have too much media on my list to consume), but decided to do so on that particular day because Dan would be the type of guest that would entertain as well as challenge both host and listener.

The conversation started with the basics of Dan's life -- pretending the girl he had sex with in high school was Andy Gibb, coming out to his mother first and later to his dad. And that's when he said something that particularly resonated with me:

"If you're gay and in the closet, and you can come out without any serious repercussions but choose not too, then you're a coward."

I'm paraphrasing a bit (I'm not going to search through the episode to get an exact quote). but the above is what Dan meant.

I chewed on that a bit.

http://www.laughinginpurgatory.com/2013/09/are-closeted-atheists-cowards.html#more

[pscot]

1. That seems kind of silly

Being gay is a behavioral matter, but there is no analogous atheist lifestyle. I can be an atheist without evangelizing for the cause.

[rug]

2. I tend to agree. It's a forced analogy at best.

[Goblinmonger]

4. Do you think atheists go without repercussion in our society?

Certainly there are areas of the country that are better and worse than other areas, but for many people to come out as an atheist would have horrible consequences. As a high school teacher, if I was an "out" atheist where I am, it would cause a shitstorm of problems. And I don't live in the Bible Belt.

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. What i a closeted atheist?

Typically, among gays, it is someone who pretends to be heterosexual because coming out as openly gay will change your life in a world where being gay has, for most of modern history, ben reviled in many places due to prejudice and ignorance. Until we reach a point where gays are afforded full equal rights in society, for some it is understandable. No matter what the article says, I don't think you can come out without repercussions since being Gay an get a person fired and will change the way your friends, neighbors, and acquaintances look at you.

So what would be a closeted atheist. Would that be a minister who realizes he doesn't believe but has his entire economic welfare in his profession. Is it someone who has family in a Church or synagogue, and attends regularly or occasionally with family. It is someone who doesn't believe bu doesn't care to either discuss religion or proselytize atheism or be proselytized by well meaning people that just want to save his soul.

Define it for me.

[rug]

6. He didn't define it in the OP but I'll give you mine.

A nonbeliever who conceals his views for fear of repurcusssions.

You can substitute any other noun as the subject for other circumstances. For example, a poltical coward is one who conceals his or her views for fear of repurcussions.

The common trait is that more value is placed on the repercussions than on the opinions held.

[Agnosticsherbet]

10. You mean somethng like his quote from Harry Rollins....

though it is more about being honest with yourself, but it does define the whole cowardice issue nicely.

Now, there are states that have laws that an atheist can not be elected. (No one has challenged those laws as far as I know)

I've never known a closeted atheist, though I have known many who would never proselytize their atheism, or go to the mat in a fight with someone selling the word of God door to door.

Personally, I would judge them cowards, just as I would never judge a gay man a coward for living the closet. Their choice. Their life. They live with the consequences.

[okasha]

15. All state laws making atheists ineligible for elective office

were nullified by the SCOTUS Torcaso decision, decades ago.

Look it up.

[longship]

5. A short answer... Nope.

There are many reasons why an atheist might not want the world know his or her lack of belief in gods.

It could be as simple as it's none of anybody's business whether one believes or not. Or it could be that one is a pastor at a church and ones only income and training is being a pastor. Close family members may be very religious.

There are any number of reasons. And no, it's not cowardly to keep ones beliefs to oneself.

Both of my parents were undoubtedly atheists but I never heard them say anything about it. When I was 13, after attending church every week all my life, they told my sisters and me that they no longer wanted to attend church, but if any of us still wished to attend, they would take us there. Other than that, We never heard anything about disbelief. And my sisters and I never went to church again.

[unblock]

7. what's cowardly about avoiding something "without serious repercussions"?

if it requires zero bravery to do something, then avoid it is not the least bit cowardly.

you could call it many things, i suppose, but cowardly is the one thing that's excluded by definition.

personally, i'd call it a personal matter that person has chosen to keep private.

[procon]

8. No.

I dislike these professional opinion commentators who try pinning unnecessary judgmental labels on other people to prop up their income-driven POV.

Why would anyone accept the ridiculous notion that any complex life choices can be rendered into simplistic black or white options limited to keeping your own council and be disparagingly tagged by a total stranger, or blabbering your personal business to the world at large; most of whom could not care less?

It's of no consequence to anyone that I am an atheist. So, regardless of the benighted charges of 'cowardice' flung around by some dour celebrity columnist, why would anyone allow themselves to be pigeonholed or forced to accept someone else's narrow expectations?

[cbayer]

9. I'm not sure that I would call it cowardly.

But if one were an atheist who felt that the negative stereotypes and discriminatory behavior towards atheists were a real issue, and one wanted to help others who were suffering from this, and one had nothing to lose, I think you should "come out" when it's appropriate to do so.

[skepticscott]

11. No more than closeted gay priests

are sniveling cowards. Are they?

And many believers in this room are no less cowardly about saying openly and unashamedly exactly what their religious beliefs are, and in saying what parts of the Bible they think are definitely true and what parts aren't.

Nice to have symmetry. Even in the face of shit-stirring.

[rug]

12. There's a poll at the link. Vote.

[LostOne4Ever]

13. As a closeted atheist

Im going to say no.

[cbayer]

14. Why are you closeted?

[LostOne4Ever]

17. Several reasons

I live in probably one of the most conservative parts of Texas (an hour away from Midland, the former home of GWB). I constantly get bombarded by super conservative religious posts on facebook from friends.

But above all, its a family issue.

Peace in the family>not believing in something.

It's a large part of why I like this group and the A&A group so much. I can fully express myself here and get my irreligious views out

[cbayer]

18. Got it. The author really qualifies the question by adding

"if there are no significant consequences", which for you there clearly would be.

I'm glad the group is here for you. It must be a relief to be able to be yourself.

[dimbear]

16. I would say yes, but I have a better opinion of cowards than most. Given the long historical

pattern of the believers throwing us into the flames or hanging us from gibbets, it just shows a grip of reality to be discrete. That's in Christian nations. In Muslim nations, acting honestly is more or less insanity--and ditto some backward parts of India, lots of Africa.

[edhopper]

19. I wish more religious folk I know where closeted.

I'll explain. For the most part religion has nothing to do with most of the discourse I have with other people. So when people bring there religion into conversations where it is superfluous, I find it intrusive. I am not closeted, I just don't bring up my atheism, it often makes people uncomfortable, so unless pressed, I just say I don't follow any religion.
I would be happier if people who wear their religion on their sleeves where more closeted.

[cbayer]

20. Most people I know never talk about religion at all...

even those who are very religious or strongly non-religious.

I have seen people get intrusive on both sides, though, and it generally doesn't go very well.

[backscatter712]

21. Are closeted gay people cowards?

Or closeted transgender people?

The LGBT* community and the atheist community both have to deal with nasty people doing things up to and including death threats and violence.

People have endured everything from legal discrimination to being fired to being disowned from their families to worse for being gay, or for being atheist.

I understand when people choose to keep their heads down.

[rug]

22. The starting point of the article is Dan Savage's comment.

That said, the analogy is a poor one.