As above, I don't exactly shout it from the rooftops, but if someone's being stupid on facebook or someone engages me in conversation about it then I'll be honest. My daughter is doing RE A-Level at college so I get to talk about stuff quite a lot to her.

If someone makes religious utterances in my presence, I see it as an invitation to ask them questions about it. What I believe doesn't really matter. I just enjoy bringing it to Christians attention that they don't know anything about what they believe. This is usually the case. I think that their faith will get them through the doubt that I inspire. At least for a little while. I enjoy planting little seeds of doubt.

(January 18, 2014 at 6:45 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote: If someone makes religious utterances in my presence, I see it as an invitation to ask them questions about it. What I believe doesn't really matter. I just enjoy bringing it to Christians attention that they don't know anything about what they believe. This is usually the case. I think that their faith will get them through the doubt that I inspire. At least for a little while. I enjoy planting little seeds of doubt.

I do this, too. I don't go into a full on debate, I just ask them questions here and there until I see them struggle to come up with something, then I let it go.

If someone asks me about what I believe in, I will say I'm not religious, and if they start questioning me, I ask them to define god. Works every time.

I don't talk openly about atheism much, since not a lot of people around talk about religion. I don't like to advertise my atheism, and insert it into any window of opportunity I can. Though sometimes my grandmother will bring it up, or a church goer I know at the gym will. I talk about most anything with my mother, but she doesn't want to talk about religion. I don't care to bring it up with my dad. I'm afraid he'll say that, despite not going to church or cracking the bible, that he still considers himself religious and that I should be too.

I discuss it all the time with my atheist friends, but usually don't bring it up to believers.

Let's see...

I bring it up when I'm with my two atheist friends, because we like to discuss the news and shit, and so sometimes our atheist/secular stance has to be mentioned.

I don't bring it up with non-atheists unless they ask or say something incredibly stupid to which I have to protest. If I would just bring it up out of the blue, it would be like out of the blue saying, "I do not like sardines." Uh, so? I don't just talk about the things I don't like or believe in if it doesn't come up somehow. There has to be a good reason.

(January 18, 2014 at 6:45 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote: If someone makes religious utterances in my presence, I see it as an invitation to ask them questions about it. What I believe doesn't really matter. I just enjoy bringing it to Christians attention that they don't know anything about what they believe. This is usually the case. I think that their faith will get them through the doubt that I inspire. At least for a little while. I enjoy planting little seeds of doubt.

I do this too and sometimes get carried away with it. I learned to back off before I am asked if I'm an Atheist.
I have to be careful at work as I live in the bible belt and don't want to be discriminated against by zombie worshippers.

I make it a policy to not talk about religion in general unless someone asks me. I hate it when Christians try to foist their religion on me, it would be hypocritical of me to be in people's faces about atheism.

Evolution, on the other hand, I talk about all the time. If i'm honest, i do hope a fundie says something to me...

I'm closeted, so I don't really talk about atheism IRL. If I weren't, I would probably follow a combination of these two:

(January 18, 2014 at 7:59 pm)Ivy Wrote: If I would just bring it up out of the blue, it would be like out of the blue saying, "I do not like sardines." Uh, so? I don't just talk about the things I don't like or believe in if it doesn't come up somehow. There has to be a good reason.

(January 18, 2014 at 10:59 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: I make it a policy to not talk about religion in general unless someone asks me. I hate it when Christians try to foist their religion on me, it would be hypocritical of me to be in people's faces about atheism.

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If i'm honest, i do hope a fundie says something to me...

I don't like being proselytized by strangers in public. It hasn't happened often, but it sure sours me. Beyond that, I spend a lot of time at discussion groups, events, and book clubs relating to atheism and secular humanism, so naturally the subject of religion comes up a lot. I'm very open with people about the fact that I'm Hindu, but don't end up talking about it much. My brother-in-law is an atheist, and my sisters are Christian. My sisters are twins, and you practically have to pry them apart with a crow bar. So, when the four of us are together, I talk to him a lot, and we frequently laugh and joke about religious stupidity. I'm solitary, so aside from groups, I have nobody to talk to about such things. Up until winter a year ago, I had a friend who was Christian. We were talking about something on a TV show, and I illustrated my point with some stories from the bible. She mistakenly thought I was attacking Christianity, and she knows I hang out with atheists, so she starts trashing me over it. I pointed out that I was Hindu, not atheist, and she said she couldn't acknowledge my beliefs because her god said she was to have no other god before Him. In the car on the way home, she gloated about "sticking up for herself." I broke off our friendship the very next day and never looked back. I don't need to be treated that way by someone who calls themselves my friend. I say I'm a loner, but I suppose that's only half true. I'm well known and well liked, I just don't form social relationships with my friends from the groups. But we have a lot of camaraderie at meetups.