What obstacles the young atheists have to deal with? It's a tough question to answer because
there's a lot of them, unfortunately.
Some of it depends on where you live. I mean, if you live,
you know, in the Bible Belt or in the deep South,
your obstacles are very different than someone who lives
in, you know, New York, or Oregon, or something like that.
But, you know, there's a few different categories. First, you might have to deal with your family.
You know, do you even tell them you're an atheist? Do you tell them you don't want to go to church anymore?
That's kind of the primary thing, because when you're a kid, you're under your parents'
house, you're under their roof, you're under their control.
So, you might have to go with them to church on Sunday. If you're in my case, you have to go to like a prayer thing once or twice a month.
And telling your parents you don't want to be a part of that
is a challenging thing to do, and I know a lot of people who
just try to avoid the subject. That they don't want to bring it up
because they don't want to ruin that relationship
with their parents.
I remember, you know, one girl
who is quoted in the newspaper article. Her high school had started an atheist club
and the article quoted her saying that she didn't tell her parents where she was after school.
One girl said she just lied to her parents. She said she was at Ocean Club
instead of at the atheist club.
And another girl said:
"I don't tell my dad where I am because," you know, "he's in the military
and he would be really upset if she told him she were an atheist."
And she just didn't want to ruin that relationship.
So, I empathize with her a lot. That's a huge obstacle.
For a lot of students,
it's not until they go to college
when they can finally explore their atheism and
openly talk
and tell people that they are atheists, because they're out of their parents' household.
So, that's one obstacle.
Another one is in school. Do they even tell their friends? Because
in a lot of places
most of your friends are religious, most of them might be very religious, part of the church. They want you to come to their church.
So, for you to say you're an atheist
not only you become a target of their, you know, conversion tactics,
you become someone that has a problem and needs to be fixed.
And so, a lot of kids don't want to tell their peers because,
you know, they don't want to be ostracized by everyone in their community.
There's a lot of stories about students who came out as atheists in the Bible Belt
and that started--
People started picking on them because of it. They would call them names,
they would say nasty things to them. They would
yell out, you know, when they're saying the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning. You know, "One nation"
"under God!" like the atheists in the room
needs to hear that.
And then there's also some instances of physical bullying. And a lot of Facebook and Twitter bullying
as well. So, there's the peers.
So, let's say you get past that. Let's say you're an atheist and you're out and you're open about it.
And you want to, let's say start a group.
Now you face a whole another world of obstacles, which is
sometimes you have administrators who don't want you to have an atheist club.
So they will-- They will throw everything in your path, so that you can't have it.
You know, you might need a meeting to start a club,
but the principal keeps pushing the meeting back, and then, all of a sudden, it's the end of the school year.
Or you're about to graduate and then your group doesn't happen.
Or the principal tells you, "Oh, you didn't file the rules properly. You need to find another faculty sponsor."
That's another tough one: finding a teacher who's willing to
be there for your meetings. It doesn't even have to be an atheist, but that can be an obstacle sometimes.
And after all of that,
even if you cut past all those obstacles,
now you gotta deal with society at large.
Society at large is basically telling you that, you know, religion is a good thing.
That if you go to church, you're a good person.
No one wants, you know-- Usually atheists aren't given a lot of respect
in society.
Or if they're a character on a TV show or in a movie, they're the bad character.
You know, someone who doesn't believe in God
can't possibly be good in those situations.
So, there's this huge stereotype, the stigma
that atheists have to overcome.
And so what you're seeing in a lot of high school and college atheist groups,
it's not so much about
getting other people to not believe in God,
it's about getting the stereotype, you know, washed away.
So, a lot of atheist groups might do volunteering projects. They might
work with a religious group to maybe sponsor a debate or have a bigger discussion about these issues.
Because that's one way of showing: "Look, we can be good without God and that's not a big deal". So,
you know, if you're an atheist
it's not a bad thing.
I've met so many people who
have grown up in the church environment
and I think every atheist can tell you this story where
you get to know someone, and you become friends, and then the atheist
says, "I'm an atheist."
And the reaction we get is,
"Oh, but I thought you were a good person."
Because the stereotype is that atheists are not good people.
So, that's one of the things that we have to deal with, that obstacle that says,
"Atheists are bad immoral people". And when you've grown up in a church culture,
where atheists are always the other,
it's going to be hard for Christians to kind of get past their own,
you know, prejudice that they were raised with
and agree that, "Oh, maybe Jesus isn't the only path to being good."
"Maybe God isn't needed for a person to be a kind decent human being."
But sometimes it takes atheists to come out and show other people the way.
I'm Hemant Mehta and I write at FriendlyAtheist.com
If you have any questions you'd like us to answer on this channel,
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