My thoughts and experiences on atheism, freethought, religion, separation of church and state, politics, philosophy, and just life in general where it relates to the topics.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
New Job
I'm starting a new job and I'm kind of nervous about what will happen when/if people there find out I'm an atheist. It's not something I intend to hide, so if the subject of my religious beliefs comes up I will tell the truth but I really don't know what the reaction will be. I don't know if my job itself would be affected by me being open about my atheism, but I don't want to go to work and be bombarded with religion by people who can't just agree to disagree. At the part time job I have been working for the past six months, the only person I've even discussed it with is not religious so there haven't been problems, but in a previous job when it became known that I didn't believe in a god I was faced with a number of people approaching me to discuss the subject. It never got hostile but I felt pretty uncomfortable having people try to convince me to believe in the Christian god. At that time I wasn't as knowledgeable about religion so I didn't like to discuss it. Now, it is like the polar opposite. I'm a very outspoken atheist and I love to debate religion, but I don't think doing it at work is the best idea. A lot of religious people get very defensive about their beliefs and causing a big argument wouldn't be very productive when you're trying to get work done. I'm just worried that once it gets out I won't be able to stop the discussions from happening. I'm sure the more devout believers will want to toss their views out there and, being a very outspoken person, it would be difficult for me to not respond. The other thing that worries me is the idea that my job itself could be put in jeopardy. I know nothing of the general political/religious views of the employees, whether it be a wide variety or a majority of one over the other, and if the company is full of heavily religious people I don't know how it would affect my prospects. I'm not sure if I want to stay with this job long term but I do know that in general it's a good, solid company and I would hate for my lack of religion and belief to prevent me from moving up the ladder and into better positions.
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