
Contents
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To Be and Not to Be: Making Symbolic Boundaries To Be and Not to Be: Making Symbolic Boundaries
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Telling Stigma Stories Telling Stigma Stories
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Suspicions Suspicions
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Slights Slights
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Difficulties Difficulties
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Incivilities Incivilities
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Rejections Rejections
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Accentuating the Irrational Accentuating the Irrational
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Cultural Sources: Believers as Insufficiently Equipped to Be Rational Cultural Sources: Believers as Insufficiently Equipped to Be Rational
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Social Sources: Believers as Unable to Be Rational Social Sources: Believers as Unable to Be Rational
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Personal Sources: Believers as Unwilling to Be Rational Personal Sources: Believers as Unwilling to Be Rational
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Feeling One’s Way Feeling One’s Way
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Being but Not Necessarily Belonging Being but Not Necessarily Belonging
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3 Maintaining Atheist Identities: Stigma, Reason, Feelings
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Published:July 2019
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Abstract
Whereas only a minority of American atheists participate in atheism-related groups and communities, this chapter describes how many more of them maintain their atheist identities by situating themselves within an “imagined community” of nonbelievers. They do this by telling “stigma stories” that range from minor suspicions about being treated differently by believers to outright rejection by them. Next, they cast the believers in their midst as being irrational insofar as they are deemed insufficiently equipped, unable, or unwilling to properly use their reason when addressing matters of faith and religion. Finally, they access and rely upon their feelings as a kind of affective confirmation that they are living decent and purposive lives without religion. These feelings include regret about their religious pasts, a feeling of freedom from religious strictures in the present, and a sense of responsibility for carving out meaningful lives into the future.
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