TEN TIPS FOR LOVING AN ATHEIST (IF YOU’RE RELIGIOUS) 1.) If you really care about us, do more listening than talking and take time to understand where we’re coming from. Love implies empathy. If you can’t understand why we don’t believe, then take the time to try and understand it. If you really love us, you will also take time to consider how many times we’ve already been exposed to whatever you feel the urge to say to us. If we’ve heard what you’re about to say five hundred times, do you really think saying it one more time will have a more positive effect than the previous times we heard it? 2.) While you’re at it, take a minute to watch “What Atheists Wish Christians Knew About Us” if you haven’t before. It’s an excerpt from an interview I did at a church in Jackson, MS, and it was essentially my “coming out” talk. After a year and a half, people are still telling me that talk helped them open up constructive dialogue between themselves and their very religious friends and family. 3.) If you decide you must interrogate us about why we don’t believe what you believe anymore, you should be prepared to hear answers that will upset you. If you can’t take hearing someone speak negatively about beliefs you hold very dear, don’t ask us about those things. Why walk into something you know will only lead to an argument? 4.) Focus on what we have in common. Is it really that hard to find things which don’t divide us? Do we have any common hobbies, common interests, common goals or occupations which could unite us in friendship? If you really care about us as people and not as notches in your belt, you’ll focus on building our relationship around those things and set aside your compulsion to make us be something other than what we are. I know you feel converting us is the most important thing you should be doing, but if you really trust your God, then stop trying to do his work for him. 5.) Learn not to speak to us in a patronizing, parental tone. It sounds condescending whether you want it to or not. Learn how to recognize when you’re being preachy. You think I’m broken and you want to fix me. But I think I’m fine the way I am, and the more you talk to me like I’m broken, the less I feel you really know me. 6.) Practice not talking differently about us when we’re not around. When you make a habit of thinking and saying condescending things about us, you might not say them when we’re around, but it affects your behavior despite your efforts to hide how you really feel. We can tell these things, you know. 7.) Consider the possibility that “I’m praying for you” is a phrase that only has meaning for you. And if it only means something to you and not to the person you’re addressing, why are you doing it? Do you not see that it’s self-serving to knowingly offer something that you know is meaningless to the other person? How egocentric can you be? How about we tell you we’re going to say a magic druid chant over your business? Would that touch your heart or just make us look a little creepy? 8.) If at some level you could acknowledge the possibility that you could be wrong about your religion (just as you ask us to suppose about our disbelief in God), that simple admission could infuse your interaction with just enough humility to make you a bearable person to be around. If you’re one of those who won’t admit even the slightest possibility that you could be wrong, you’re probably a pain in the a** to be around. Perhaps there is a God but you’ve misjudged him. Maybe he cares less about believing in him and cares more about people being kind and accepting toward each other. What if God is blessing the world through the lives of non-Christians and cares not one whit what they actually believe about him? It’s possible, right? How would that change your behavior toward us? 9.) Consider the possibility that some former Christians have been on the receiving end of very bad treatment at the hands of people representing your faith. Consequently, you should realize that many of us have triggers that you’ve probably never thought could be triggers for someone. Some have had what legitimately qualifies as abuse, and certain conversations, accusations, and even catch phrases can set off PTSD for them. Even the sound of some songs can send people under a pile of pain and stress because they’ve been treated so badly by others. 10.) Take a good, long, critical look at the notion of eternal damnation. If you question nothing else you were taught to believe, at least question this one as sincerely as you can. It’s an atrocious, barbaric belief, and those who hold it will be ten times more likely to say and do manipulative things because of it. I am convinced that this single belief is responsible for more bad blood between Christians and non-Christians than anything else. It’s an awful doctrine and it’s past time for it to go. Finally, there were a handful of excellent responses by friends I have to include here because they’re just perfect: patheos/blogs/godlessindixie/2014/10/29/how-to-love-an-atheist/
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 14:46:13 +0000
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