Edited 3/4/2012: I shortened up the summary a bit and add the following update:
Thanks for the lively comments. As a preliminary summary of things I've found quite useful/helpful:
- Shorten/transform the document (David_Gerard)
- Remove/postpone any reasons (TimS)
- Don't be so prosy/fake sounding (orthonormal)
- Show to religious people, not just LW (AlexMennen) -- doing that, btw
- Give reasons (Will_Newsome)
- Create two documents. One very simple, plain-language, frank relating of the fact that I no longer believe in god. I'd like to write it just as though I were saying it personally to someone, easing them into hearing this (like Bugmaster suggested, except that actually doing this in person is impractical for me)
- The second will be my actual list of reasons. I think it will be valuable to actually spell them out, and many will want to know reasons anyway (and probably ask)
It's almost one year later, and I've finally made tangible progress on some of the input suggested in my post about being non-religious in a primarily religious environment. That is, I have a near-final draft of a "coming out" statement I plan to share with a majority of those who know me.
I was involved in two religious communities for about six years of my life (SPO and CCR). Two years post-deconversion from Catholicism, many of them still do not know I no longer believe in god. This can make for awkward interactions for myself, as well as for my wife, who's still a believer. She thought it would be helpful if everyone was on the same page, as did I.
Thanks for the comment. I kept some of the worst reactions from my religious acquaintances out of the document, by the way :)
It wasn't, by itself. But consider someone with belief in belief, but who doesn't know it. Imagine the first time they encounter some belief that doesn't pay rent (say the bit about flour impermeability) and it brings down the whole thing. I actually think I had real belief... but I'm just illustrating the nature of what I think happened. Reading this bit about Jesus was the first time I actually saw that my religion might fall into the category of something to be examined, just like everything else. It was the first time I realized I had never researched it to begin with. Hopefully that makes more sense.
On it's own, it probably is inconsequential (many apologists have plenty of reasons for why Jesus wasn't more noteworthy). As the first chink in my armor... it was life changing.
Good question. It's up and down. I advocate for raising them aware of religious beliefs, but not teaching any one of them as true. My wife is [obviously] more inclined to raise them Catholic, and sometimes feels very obligated to do so. Recently, she attended a conference for women in which the speaker made the point very emphatically that raising one's children Catholic was one's duty to god.
She came home and was very renewed in her conviction that this was her mission. I was very troubled by it, mostly because it felt like she had been invigorated to disregard my opinion and rights as a parent, not necessarily because it would have led to raising my children religious. She talked about the matter like it was a one-sided decision.
Subsequently, her trusted Catholic small group informed her that she didn't need to be this forceful and that she could just "live as a witness" and that would be fulfilling her duty. So... I guess we're back to where we started. My older daughter (3.5) does pick up quite a bit of religious stuff ("playing Mass," singing alleluia, etc.), but I think she just likes the ritual and imitating what she sees. I try not to worry about it even though it bothers me.
So... hopefully that paints some of the picture. Thanks again for taking the time to read and comment.
If you haven't already, you might want to think about what to say when your daughter gets told about hell.
I didn't get told about hell as a possibility when I was a kid (my background is not-very-religious Jewish), but I gather it can be quite a shock.