When I became an atheist, to be honest, I really didn’t know any other non-believers. Or so I thought. As a few years went by, I discovered, even in my little town, that I was not completely alone in my disbelief. The difference was I was not afraid to talk about being an atheist to those believers, anxious to be the one to have me come back to Jesus. I can’t be certain that people knowing I am an atheist didn’t hurt me either professionally or socially, but I never feared about my job and as far as friends or colleagues were concerned, if me being an atheist repel you to the point you can’t be around me? Good for me.

But I also never evangelized being an atheist, unlike some believers I worked with that would come in on Monday’s and spend the first hour telling whoever would listen how great a day Sunday was and how the Lord Had Blessed Them. Good for you. Can I get back to work now? Please? I did eventually learn of a wider world of atheists, online. I discovered these on Twitter (now X) and cultivated several friendships over a period of a couple of years. In reality, not friends since I never met any of these people in person. But we had nice online chats and a very few, exchanged phone numbers. This was during what I call the hey-day of atheism in the 2010’s. Today? Most, if not all of the people I knew more than a decade ago have disappeared from this virtual world. The online presence seems minimal compared to what it was like from around 2008 (for me) until around 2015.

Although I do miss some of the good times we had (I was involved in a podcast for a short time), and the interesting things (atheists holding church?), I don’t miss some of the infighting there was because a faction, somewhat prominent, decided that it would be great to combine atheism and social justice into a thing to be known as Atheism Plus.It was hug for a very short time because their were strict rules and people that wouldn’t swear allegiance (my exaggeration) to the Social Justice Warrior cocept woud be tossed into the darkness of, well, the real world. In short, like most regressives today, they ate themselves. People were summarily excommunicated for “JAQ-ing off”(Just Asking Questions). To be honest, for me, a simple blogger, it was a feast of posts for some months until it completely self-destructed.

Since then, well, friendships slipped away as well and me? I’m back where I began before the Dawkins’, Hitchens, Harris’, etc. circus began its international tour and faded out before the second act. I’m not decrying my decision to become an atheist. It didn’t happen overnight. Besides, it looks to me like believers today have their own issues and yes, it’s looking like the atheist schism where people were forced to choose sides. In the meantime, I think I’ll kick back, pour another cup of coffee, and enjoy the circus.