(October 26, 2016 at 8:10 am)robvalue Wrote: I think every open atheist in the world makes it slightly easier for the next one to "come out". But being an obnoxious atheist and shouting it at everyone when no one asked will likely work against this.
Back when I lived in SoCal, at one apartment, my neighbor was a Mormon, and sometimes the young missionaries would come up and visit her. We shared a balcony that abutted the stair-landing, and one day when they came she wasn't home. I was sitting out, reading, smoking, and having a beer.
They struck up conversation. I was polite in telling them I was atheist, and they were fine with that, they just wanted to talk, so I set my book down and we talked. It ended up going an hour or so, me explaining my lack of faith, them explaining their own brand of silliness -- but it was really a nice convo, they were good kids and not trying to shove anything on me or cast aspersions.
They came by several more times when Tasha was away and I was outside reading, and we had more good conversations.
I felt by that point that my aim was to demonstrate that atheist stereotypes -- angry, aggressive, etc -- were just that -- stereotypes. I'd like to think that I broke their stereotype of "atheist" just as they broke my stereotype of missionaries being drones.
I think the world would be a better place if we could set our beliefs, or lack of beliefs, in their proper place: inside, where we turn them over in privacy rather than inflicting them upon unsuspecting others.
