Received 9.3.2000

I was very pleased to locate your group. As many atheists know, it can be a very lonely world out there. I know no one who shares my understanding whom I can talk to and discuss things with or whom I can get support from. My family is very Catholic and my boyfriend and his family are extremely Christian. I must suffer in silence while his father preaches to me the meager contents of his closed little mind, including the terrible things he believes about Jews, homosexuals and a multitude of other offensive blather. I merely sit silent and try not to express my opinion in order to keep the peace. I'm even afraid to discuss my beliefs with my boyfriend, because I'm afraid that the discussion my bring about some doubt in his faith and I envy that faith. It seems life would be so much easier to have those blinders on. I have only recently been able to control the anger I feel toward those hopeless sheep. Now I'm looking for some comfort and support. I found a little on your web site. Thanks so much for being there and helping, a little, to make the burden of knowledge a little easier to bear. I was wondering if any of your readers might have heard anything about the "faith" gene that I have read about. I was curious if this discovery was true and if anyone could send me a little info. I was adopted, so I was wondering if my lack of faith was a result of genetics, since my parents tried to raise me Catholic. I figured the whole myth out when I was in the third grade and from there went on to pursue more knowledge. Anyway, thanks again, and feel free to share this with your readers if you like.

My Reply:

I don't envy your situation, but can sympathize.  Without knowing anything about your relationship with your boyfriend, I would imagine that if you are serious about a long term commitment, the sooner he knew the truth, the better.  If you told him, as you stated in your letter, that you admire his beliefs but just don't share them, I doubt you would diminish his faith. And if you did shake is faith, there would at last be someone for you to share your thoughts with. Being an atheist is not such a bad thing. Christians make no apologies about massive efforts to convert people. Atheists seem to have more respect for people who think differently and are conscientious about not disturbing their beliefs.

If you don't tell him, imagine how deceived he would feel if he found out twenty years from now.  Should you marry and have children, imagine what a hypocrite you would feel like at their baptism and then raising them as Christians.  His parents would eventually find out too, of course, no doubt making things with them very awkward.  The visits you have with them now sound almost intolerable.

As far as a faith gene goes, I was unable to find any details.  From a biologists perspective, it seems unlikely that such an involved behavior could be linked to single gene.  But just as everyone looks different (identical twins excluded) everyone's brain is also wired different.  People tend to look like their parents and they also tend to think like them.  It makes sense that the tendency to be uncomfortable with ideas which require a lot of faith could be genetic.  Christian faith is complicated thing, though.  It fills needs that may just be by products of us being mammals with oversized brains.  It plays upon our fear of death, our need from childhood to win approval and be told that we are good, our need to feel important, and provides easy answers to questions about the universe that we can't answer from our microscopic perspective on Earth.  A lot of atheists come from Christian backgrounds as well as Christians from atheist backgrounds.  Like most things in life, the answer is complicated.

Good luck with your situation and thank you for the intelligent note.  If you are so inclined, write me again sometime in the future and let me know how things have worked out.