Wait, do you not eat babies in public?

This happens to me so much here in Texas. At first I don't tell people I'm an atheist I'll just sit and talk with them and we'll have a normal conversation like two normal people and then they get to like me for me. Next thing I know it's hey what church do you go to or hey would you like to go to church with me this Sunday? When I tell them I'm an atheist all of a sudden it's like how can you be an atheist? You seem so nice. As if atheist or the meanest group of people in the world. The other day I was at the laundromat talking to a woman and she found out I was an atheist so she had a million questions and I answered most of them but at the end she says I know that you would be a great Christian. I told her I was a Christian up until I was 25 years old and she said see I know that's God working through you. No matter how much I tried to convince her that I am an atheist and I will always be an atheist and I am happy being an atheist she was convinced that I had to believe in God and even started crying because she was afraid I was going to go to hell. She then told me she would go home and fast for 3 days for me. I asked her not to punish herself for me much less for herself. I've not seen her since.

I don't get out too much or when I do, a conversation with a stranger is rare.

Phhhtttt! I live in Texas so ... yeah. It's assumed one is Christian, so the questions asked instead are whether you go to the better mega-church.

I'm interviewing for jobs and it's a tough call. Feign Christianity, or contradict them and lose the job opportunity? Religious paraphernalia is always on show throughout the offices.

I have gotten the "which church do you go to" question or something similar in the distant past. I can't recall anything in recent years. Maybe I look less approachable than I used to.

Checking in at the docs, lady asks “how are you celebrating Christmas” I say I celebrate Hannukah. She asks if that’s a new way to celebrate Christmas. I say I’m jewish and she asks is that another way to celebrate Christmas? Btw, I’m a humanist Jew. I have a cat

If you don't eat babies, how did you get on this site? Lol.

Yes, people presume I'm Christian because most people are. I don't correct them, but if they were to ask I tell them I'm not Christian. If they ask more, I tell them I don't believe in god. They never ask any more questions and I don't offer more. I didn't like preaching Christians, and I don't want to hear preaching atheists. This site is perfect. I can take it when I want and leave it when I want. No preaching.

no im presumed to be a nutter I think or a druggy gangster or murderer lol

Never anywhere but the South and they usually assumed I was a Jew due to my beard, glasses, and last name. I was given some books about Jesus. A lot of people confessed stuff they did that would have been frowned upon after they absorbed the fact that I am an atheist.

Presuming religion isn't generally done on the West Coast in or near cities.

My coteachwr was telling me the other day how she is reading the Bible through its entirety. She has no idea that I'm an atheist. She like most in Oklahoma has made a big assumption that I must be a Christian. I do keep it quiet at work. I am outspoken in other areas of my life. Sometimes I feel a bit like a coward by not being more open about my lack of faith.

I have never been asked: "what church do you go to?" People have asked me if I believed in god and when I told them that I did not believe in god, the foolish ones stepped forward as though it was some opportunity for conversion. They quickly retreated when hit on the head with a metaphorical pile driver.

What you describe is the essence of why I'm bothered by certain religions. Their broad assumptions that everyone around them believe as they do. Like how could there possibly be any other way of thinking besides theirs !? Gr-r-r

If I find myself in a similar situation, I make sure to speak up and correct their assumption. I do it kindly, without attacking - but I sure do it ! Sometimes minds need to be pried open !

Also, on the other hand, some people presume you're an atheist if not religious or is agnostic. In the eyes of the infinite and eternal, possibilities of life are also infinite and eternal in theory. How do we know what we don't know for sure?

My beliefs baffle most people, and they claim either I wear a mask and fake or that I'm illogical and need serotonin. I don't fit any single, suffocating/ confining label or classification of groupings. It's the perception of being within a bubble and not being aware or urges to be aware of anything outside of that bubble. To not signify and classify is a higher order level of thought in my way of interpreting this life and awareness that some may not fathom.

Basically, if we are not wired to this matrix or the norm, then we must be crazy or something and need to be fixed. It's so difficult interacting with people and to find anyone to relate.

Maybe now, with all that is going on and you own personal evolution you will say something.

Although I have to ask, @silvereyes: Does this mean we don't get to eat babies???

Its not really like that here. I just had a comment from a friend who is Jewish. Oh you're not religious thats why you're on that Atheist site You've never been religious. Fine with me. Known her for 25 years.

I live in south Louisiana, so yeah I get that. I love telling people I'm Agnostic. Some don't know what that means and some do and just shake their heads. I wear a pentacle necklace with a dragon on it and an old lady saw it when I was walking out of the a store and grabbed her chest and gasped, she actually gasped. I didn't know why for a while until I thought about it and looked down. It gave me a good chuckle.

Yep, until they figure I'm not, then I get dogged with you need jesus in your heart and Ill pray for you comments. I they look in shock as I ask them questions about there religion that they can't answer while they try to preach.

Yes, I have. Several times. It's unavoidable in the bible belt. If you are anywhere in public and people see you as pleasant, nice, sweet, reserved, any kind of quiet, calm and collected, they just assume its "the holy spirit driving!" as one woman put it. When I state I'm not Christian they look at me suddenly as if my head burst into flames and I grew a tail or some silliness. I rarely bothered to ask why they would think so but it seems to not register to them that maybe, just maybe, they could have possibly been LIED TO about non believers and the need to be religious in order to be a good person. Even as a child I recognized the horrors people committed in the name of God. Why would I want to be part of anything to do with that?

Maybe I'm a sourpuss, but I think that the replies of eating babies are quite tasteless to me. I know it is meant as joking, but still it's not the kind of joking that I like. And above that these replies are off the subject of the post.

I think it's pretty common for some people to just assume (without ever realizing or even thinking about it) that everyone goes to church. It happens when people are never exposed to other ways of being.

Then you have those who feel (again, probably without much examination) that the only right way to be is to belong to their preferred in-group--so anyone who seems "right" (i.e. not a degenerate) must belong to said in-group.

I've seen this so much in good-hearted people that I don't really fault them for it. You don't know what you don't know.

Once you know and you still chose to save yourself some mental effort by relying on flawed heuristics instead of permitting everyone's humanity to enter your eyes, that's a sin.

Yes, definitely. However, I do find it mildly entertaining with the look on their face when told differently.

I am with SO. I assume it is a Texas thing. Not as prevalent here near Houston. I guess because there more than two religions (Catholic and Christian.)

Not so much a problem in the UK. it's only happened to me a few times. I even once stopped and changed a tyre for two stranded Nuns with a flat, sure they asked if I attended church, but were completely understanding when I explained my atheist position. Hopefully they had a pleasant experience with an atheist that day.

In our society, pretty much yes.