Received 8.21.2001

First I would like to comment on your wonderful website, I have been a constant reader for close to a year now, and your website is still the place I go to when I want to be entertained or to read and hear about other Atheist's problems. Speaking of problems, here is mine.

I am 21 and I live in a house with two other guys, these guys are very zealot xians, though they have left me alone about my atheism for they know they would get no where in a debate with me.

I thought that living on my own with some roomies to split rent with would be very fun, and I so desperately wanted to get out of my parents house...well now I live in a house with two xians who are more religious than my parents were, plus I am trapped between two churches and a Christian school across the street :( Anyway, the problem occurred when we wanted to move a non-xian girl into the house whom we all knew pretty well, so we 
had one of our roomie meetings and the head guy of the house (head only because 
his mom is the land lord) said that he prayed about it, and that it would cause a moral dilemma for him, plus he said that he did not want the church thinking of him badly or having his reputation ruined at church because he let some heathen girl live with him. And the other guy said that she would have to marry one of us to move in so that it would be right in the eyes of God!

Now it might just be me but this is what I call hypocrites, just like 99.9% of every other Christian I have ever met. To say the least I was very upset, this was a sweet, kind girl and I felt that I had been cheated out of a fun and maybe rewarding experience in my young life just so my roomies could avoid having a moral dilemma, and get this the only reason the land lord let me move in with her son and his friend was because she thought that by 
the end of a year living together that between the both of them they could have me "evangelized", so I could become a good moral person. All this makes me extremely irritated and I feel sometimes that I have been mentally raped by these people, I wonder sometimes if I even had an opinion to begin with in anything that goes on in the house, I voiced my opinion and they said they would pray about it! how about you answer me now and not give me that praying about it, or waiting for an answer from God crap. I pay the rent too ya know! Everyone here and everyone they know who comes over here treats me like I am sub-human because my mind is not a slave to their God. They always think they know exactly what every Atheist has gone through and they think they know where I am coming from. They don't know the hurt and pain that I felt, the mental anguish and rage that I had inside of me when I broke my chains from Christianity, it was a long, extremely hard road to recovery, one that included suicide attempts and severe depression. Denying something that you grew up being taught was right is the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life. People wonder why their are so few Atheists in the world, this is why, we all want to feel like we live forever and that we have an invisible crutch to lean on when things go bad, it takes mental and physical feats of strength to deny these things and to start depending on one's self for guidance and dependability.

Thanks for your time, a pissed off heathen.

Matt

My Reply:

You have to hand it to your roommate for leveraging the "Christian advantage." He can dismiss any argument by saying that he has prayed on it and God has sided with him. Some how I doubt if God has ever sided against him. For example has he ever said, "I prayed on our recent argument and God says that you are completely right and that I am a self-righteous dumb ass." You want to buy Lucky Charms? Well tough, because God likes Cheerios.

I can appreciate that a new roommate is something everyone must agree on, regardless of whether they consult with spirits, psychics or astrologers, but suppose you have a girl friend who wants to stay over. Would your roommate forbid it for fear of tarnishing his saintly image? He seems awfully vain about his reputation. Jesus dined with prostitutes and befriended the tax collector. Apparently the Biblical Jesus never worried about what other people thought about him.

You point out that you pay rent too, but you are also out-numbered. I'm afraid you have a better chance of bumping into the Pope at Hooters than you do of influencing policy at your apartment. Unless your roommates change you will always be a second class citizen. You need to decide if this bothers you enough to justify moving out.

In regard to their over-simplified view of atheism and your personal situation, I think that in general everyone imagines that their world view is more sophisticated than most everyone else's. Atheists think Christians have not thought critically about the supernatural and Christians think atheists are jaded intellectuals out to abolish religion and the Boy Scouts.  In Michael Shermer's book "How We Believe" he writes about a survey he performed where people were asked why they believe in God and why they thought other people believe in God.  People's own reasons for believing in God tended to be intellectual, like the complexity of the universe, the necessity for a first cause, or a personal religious experience.  The reasons survey respondents gave for why other people believe in God were less engaging, such as it provides comfort and security, or that they were raised to believe by their parents.

To me it comes back to something I bring up often on this site-- we are egocentric creatures.  We have a self-centered world view that is a by-product of our drive for self preservation.  It is the same reason that more than half of the population thinks they are smarter and more attractive than the average person.  In order for someone to become to sympathetic toward your opinion and situation they will have to take the time to get to know you.  It requires some effort on their part and if they are not willing, it will never happen.

Good luck and thanks for writing.