Oct. 15, 2008
Even though I grew up in a community full of religious groups – five churches in a community of five hundred people – I escaped the problem of "coming out" as an agnostic there. I simply headed off to university some distance away.Yes, one or two of my closest friends knew, but they were involved in their own personal searches and weren’t about to mess up our friendship with revelations that might involve them.
Compared to others I was lucky, or so it seems to me now. I often encounter reticence on the part of non-believers to become publicly involved. Since we have had an enforceable charter of rights and freedoms only since 1982, there is a vague sense that some discrimination might occur. Indeed, there is a systemic assumption that everyone is some kind of believer.
For the most part, we Canadians are a live and let live bunch, thinking that if someone is doing something that does not affect others negatively there is no cause for comment. Of course, whether what one is doing is harmful or not is open to some subjective interpretation.
Fundamentalists of all stripes, including fundamentalist atheists, seem to have the most problem dealing with someone who differs in philosophy from them. While Puritans may live with the agonizing sense that somewhere, someone is having fun, fundamentalists suffer the same fear that somewhere, someone disagrees with them. Perhaps, although relatively small in number, these folks are intense enough to cause people to hold their philosophies close to their chest.
Since the only workable definition of a Canadian is "an immigrant with seniority," I suspect that a considerable factor in this reticence to "come out" is experience in less tolerant countries. This reticence seems to carry on for a generation or two. The meme set of a non-believer, probably accounts for this since one tends, even without knowing it, to have the same cultural memories as one’s parents.
Of course, many non-believers are out when their believing parents are not around and are wary of public association with other non-believers since their involvement might get back to their believing parents. Surprisingly, this effect seems to last well beyond the point where they have their own separate lives and families. Perhaps this is just a matter of not wishing to hurt their parents in some way.
Since some people are not comfortable being "outed", some of our humanist activities are curtailed. Mostly this means that we don’t put up banners over every event.
Positive experiences like having waitresses prefer our Solstice gathering to a Christmas bash in the next room and having people who meet our Camp Quest kids being impressed with their polite demeanor certainly ameliorate much of our uncertainty and give us examples to encourage others to come out.
No doubt, the issue of "coming out" will disappear in time. However, at the moment we have to respect the comfort levels of people who don’t want to come out just yet.
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