As you can imagine, I’ve been feeling pretty pessimistic since the 2016 election. It’s seriously undermined my positive and optimistic view of America’s future.
But I’ve always believed that minds are changed one at a time, and as slow and difficult as that is, it’s the only way to bring about lasting transformation in a democracy. This week, I got an e-mail that reminded me of that. It’s from Patrick, a high school senior:
I became non-religious (or, as I would call it now, atheist) in 2012. When I realized that God may not exist and that I didn’t have to go through the Catholic sacrament of Confirmation, I found myself unable to believe. Also, despite claims to the contrary, the Catholic Church denies evolution. They only accept “when anyone is watching,” to borrow Greta Christina’s excellent phrase. In private, they act as though Adam and Eve actually existed.
So I told my parents that I no longer believed so I could stop going to church and pray before meals. I didn’t know the phrase “come out of the closet.” I didn’t know that open nonbelief could cause problems. I had to learn that the hard way. My parents thought and still think, ironically, that I am close-minded (when I have now considered Jainism, deism, pantheism, and solipsism while they haven’t even considered atheism) and that I take science for “gospel truth.”
After that, I considered and rejected deism and learned the full inportance of the scientific method. I started noticing how awful the doctrines of hell and original sin were. Two years ago, I discovered your essays page. I still haven’t found such a comprehensive and well-organized collection of atheist essays on any other site other than Skeptic’s Annotated Bible.
Then there were your political posts. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but they later influenced me to embrace democratic socialism based on the problems with capitalism, and vegetarianism based on universal utilitarian ethics, and to not hate myself for being bisexual. Without you I may well have bought into the myth that my parents believe, that even though Trump is bad, Clinton is even worse and people should hold their noses and vote for Trump (unfortunately I was too young to vote by two weeks but I stayed up to watch the election).
Over a month ago, I got a phone and gmail. I joined The Satanic Temple as a joke and now compose this email. My parents do not know that I go on atheist websites when they are at church, or that I post comments on Patheos when I say I am playing computer chess. When I go to college I plan to fully come out as an atheist and join secularist organizations but I do not know how much this will strain family relations.
Thanks again for your atheist and political activism! Activism does make a difference even in the face of a Trump victory! It did for me.
Patrick gave me his permission to publish his letter, asking only to add, “My parents are not bad people, or parents. They have been duped by religious indoctrination and by the rhetoric of conservative politicians. And I think that, having never doubted their religion, they cannot empathize with nontheism. Other than politics and religion, they are great parents and decent people.”
I’m still feeling gloomy, I won’t deny that. But letters like this give me hope for what this country may yet become when the younger generations come fully into their own. As I wrote back to Patrick, I don’t doubt that he would have come to the same conclusions regardless, although I hope that my work may have speeded the process.
There are dark times ahead of us, but no election can stop change forever, nor can the prejudices of the past permanently bind us. Every generation has the chance to reshape society as they see fit. I can’t say how long it may take, but that brighter day is out there waiting for us, and there will come a time when we’ll catch up with it.