Through my life, I have defined my feelings on god in different ways .... agnostic at first seemed the most personally comfortable. However, I kept running into a problem......
When I would say to someone who had faith in a supernatural world that I was agnostic it left too much grey area.
Usually, if I was having a conversation with someone about belief I knew them, or we were close in some personal way...so when our conversation would start narrowing down and I began defining my atheistic beliefs, I could see the fear build in them. When I said the word agnostic instead of atheist it seemed to be like throwing them a life raft. To them, I was not completely beyond salvation.
.... But I got sick of that .... I wasn't expressing what I really felt. I had decided upon agnostic because when I tried to find a definition for atheist I would often come across an acceptable definition of a-theist or non-theist , but, I would also find an unacceptably forceful definition, "believes that god does not exist". To me there is a huge difference between saying that I have no belief that god or a supernatural world exist, and saying, there is no God and I know that to be a fact.
So, I stayed with agnostic for a very long time... and I gritted my teeth every time someone optimistically saw agnostic as an opening to insert god....into my life.
I will stray from my main idea a little here and say, I began to resent it. Often people who I loved and cared about would feel that they were enriching my life by trying to convert or save me. ....and I wasn't interested in hurting them.... or shutting down conversations. I felt too aggressive saying that I thought the Bible was fiction... the same as any other fiction... and that other fictitious creations by men had had more impact on my life. Like Star Wars :) <----( funny but not really kidding.) I felt like an asshole closing a door in their face... but ... it also became clear to me (after multiple conversion attempts) that they were in the aggressive position, not me.... while I made no attempt to cut their ties with their church , they happily pushed their agendas into my life hoping that I would change. To them I think the word agnostic seemed to imply that I was seeking guidance.... I think it practically excited them. I have since re-investigated the terminology. Agnostic in many forms seems to be a worse fit than atheist.
I define myself an atheist now.... it leaves less room for speculation, and I think it is a better encapsulation of my feelings. However.... I did not realize how people would react with a change in terms.
When I said "I am an atheist"
My Aunt - told me I was not
A co-worker- stared at me with bulging eyes for a few minutes and then did that "raspberries" thing a few times with her mouth and said "so" and left. Later she came back and said "you think you know so much...but I believe in God". The whole exchange was unclear she was mumbling and seemed a bit shaken.
Another co-worker- told me that the only reason I was nice ...didn't lie, helped other people out when they needed it, and so on .... was because my Dad was Catholic and so somehow the ten commandments had rubbed off on me.
My Dad- said "No your not and laughed" told me something about Einstein saying that only idiots and college freshmen knew their was no god. When I got more serious he said ... that he had been brought up to believe that atheist = bad.... and then went on to apologetically talk about how he had made mistakes raising me.
Yet another co-worker and friend- Told me I wasn't... and then for months told me that I was in her eyes Christian anytime I did something "nice" and when she did something "bad" she would say "see maybe I'm the atheist" ...................then around Halloween ...and I like Halloween a lot... she said "...oh yeah, I guess you like this time of year because you like Satan..."
... and so, as much as it pains me... I feel like I want to assert myself a bit, be an ambassador for atheism if possible. I saw a button with a smiley face that said ... smile, you have just met an atheist. Usually that type of self promotion seems obnoxious.... but maybe it would be nice if people had to confront a real person as an atheist so that the term atheist couldn't be shuffled into a faceless category filled with godless evil.
