Do you ever feel "in the closet" about your atheism/agnostic views?

[Arugula Latte]

74. We live in a liberal city (Portland), so no, we don't hide it.

We hang with liberals, so it's not a problem at all. A lot of them despise religion as much as we do, and the few "religious" ones we know are groovy liberal Christians, or else they're sort of vaguely religious/spiritual (they say they believe in some sort of a god, but I never know exactly what that means, and they probably don't either) and don't go to church or practice in any way. A few are drawn to Buddhism, which is more of a philosophy than a religion if I understand it correctly. If I get an inkling that someone is hardcore Xtian (or any hardcore orthodox believer in Judaism, Islam, whatever) I wouldn't really develop a friendship/relationship with them anyway. Steer clear of zealots, that's my motto!

However, if I lived elsewhere I'd have to be more careful (see the recent story about the guy who shot a soldier dead because he didn't believe in a god). There are a lot, A LOT, of militant religious loonies in this fucked-up country of ours. I have a relative who lives in the Midwest who tells people that he has "no supernatural beliefs." I like that because it subtly points out that his beliefs are based on evidence and theirs are the illogical, irrational ones.

I will say that with the rise of the Internet more and more of us are expressing ourselves, albeit often anonymously. It makes me happy to think that more religious people must be realizing that there are millions who aren't drinking the Kool-Aid. They don't like that because it fans the flame of doubt that probably 99 percent feel deep down. As Mark Twain said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so."