A question of disclosure

Recently, I had an interview for a job at a local bookstore. During the interview, I was asked to name some of my all-time favorite books, those that had had a major impact on my life.

I wanted to name The God Delusion as one of them, but I didn't know how something like that would come across. So I went with The Selfish Gene instead, figuring I could get in my appreciation of Dawkins without necessarily blowing the cover on my atheism.

I am open and honest about my atheism. You'll notice that I blog under my real name. And yet, I felt apprehensive about making my atheism a topic of direct conversation during a job interview. It's not even that I didn't want my prospective employer to know I was an atheist (heck, all he'd have to do is google me). But I didn't want him to think of me as unprofessional for bringing my atheism into the workplace. And I have to wonder, would I have been as worried about appearing unprofessional for sharing an experience as a Christian?

The workplace is hardly the ideal atmosphere for matters like religion and politics, to be certain. But when an interviewer is trying to get a sense of who you are, what do you do? Did I demonstrate good tact, or did I just chicken out?

What would you have said if you were in the same situation? Have you ever had to make similar checks on voicing your opinions on religion?

(And in case you're wondering, I didn't get the job. Apparently they went with candidates who had previous bookstore experience, which is understandable.)

Homecoming

Going home is never easy.

Someone very close to me said earlier this week (forgive the paraphrase):

It's what I've grown up with, and it's really all I know -- and it works for me. There are some things that don't make sense, but I have to just not go there and I'll be ok.

I am reminded now, more than ever, that faith in religious modes are - with the exception of the hard-core Calvinists - tacitly held. Not held firmly and stubbornly in contradiction to fact - but by and large unchallenged in the narrow scope of practical life. We who concern ourselves daily with the ultimate truth or falsehoods of religious dogma would do well to remember that those who are caught in the crossfire - our friends and loved ones - may have neither the time nor the inclination (and, for some, the resources) to address these fundamental questions. NOMA works really well for these people because they are seldom if ever confronted with a case in which the 'magesteria' collide. They might be able to see it if they really thought about it - but between the job and the mortgage and the laundry, isn't it just easier to just spend the hour a week for some canned answers and pay attention to the parts of life that really demand attention?

I know what the answer is for me: I've opened that box and looked inside, and found that there is only one reasonable logical conclusion. But I had the good fortune of having the time, the resources, and the faculties to pry open that box in the first place. Can I necessarily blame someone for not wanting to do the same? Is it a pragmatic decision, or a timidity of will? Do I have respect for someone who knows his limits, or do I pity/scorn a person who refuses to face the contradictions of his worldview head-on?

Put another way: what is an atheist to do with faithful loved ones? Particularly ones who aren't in the prime of life? Who may have already buried parents, siblings, spouses, or children? For whom life's travails really have turned the idea of a pleasant afterlife into a sustaining force? For whom there might be nothing left, and in whom religious faith really does do no appreciable harm? What do you do? How do you agree to disagree without losing respect for your loved one or yourself? How can you love them and refuse to try to liberate their minds? How can you love them but deliberately cause them the pain of assaulting their faith? How do you respect yourself for causing them pain, and how can you respect yourself for allowing the people you care about to live a lie?

The best I've come up with so far is to put it out of my mind and try not to let it come up in conversation (I was raised French Canadian Roman Catholic - we invented taciturn) - but for a guy in the business of comparative religion (/professional Atheism), it's kind of a hard subject to avoid.

I have no answers.

If there is anyone out there reading this blog, and if any of you have had similar experiences with your families, maybe just leave a little note. I'm sure that there's a million folks out there struggling with these kinds of questions, and maybe it would be nice to just get our stories out there. Maybe we'll figure something out together.