On Attending Religious Services as an Atheist

[MineralMan]

From time to time, I, like most other atheists, find myself in a church or other place of worship. Weddings, funerals, the odd musical concert, and other events require attendance. As a musician, I often found myself sitting in a chair, oboe in hand, near an altar, for example.

At one funeral I attended, the pastor of that ELCA Lutheran church approached me after the service. As is typical, a reception catered by the women of the church followed the funeral. She said to me, "I noticed that you were not participating in the prayers during the funeral. I wondered why that was." I responded, "Well, I'm an atheist. I noticed that you were looking around at the congregation while leading those prayers. I wondered why that was, too."

She was slightly taken aback, but recovered quickly. We then had an interesting, polite discussion about atheism, and about Martin Luther's antisemitism.

[AlexSFCA]

1. I don't mind participating cause it means nothing anyway

it’s no different than celebrating christmas or easter. I was christened as 12 y.o. and even then the ritual felt extremely stupid and fake. But I have some fun memories of it.

[luvs2sing]

2. I'm not an atheist..

more of a curious skeptic, but I’ve also found handling differing religious services awkward.

Several years ago, my former vocal coach, a wonderful progressive woman, invited me to join her Episcopal church choir for a performance of Faurè Requiem. She knew I had performed it several times and pretty much had it memorized. The day of the performance, as we were rehearsing in the main sanctuary, I noticed every time church members walked in front of the altar, they stopped, did a little knee dip, and crossed themselves. It should come as no surprise to you that I did everything I could to avoid passing in front of that altar. 😂

By the end of the performance, I was so fed up with it that I not only walked in front of the altar, I stopped to chat with an audience member. I’d like to say some feathers were ruffled, but no one seemed to notice or care.

[MineralMan]

3. Exactly. However, I have frequently performed music

in church settings. As an oboist and as a Bass/Baritone vocalist, I have often enjoyed performing music that has a religious theme. The music is the thing, not the religious belief, for me.

I no longer participate, due to my age, but I can hardly count how many times I've played in an orchestra or stood up to sing an aria from Handel's Messiah. A few times, I've done both at the same performance. So much music was written for church use that musicians can hardly avoid it if they want to perform.

[luvs2sing]

4. I agree!

In fact, my favorite music to listen to and sing is classic black quartet gospel. Definitely, music is my higher power.

[MineralMan]

5. I miss singing, but my voice is far from what it was.

I stopped quite some time ago. I also had to give up the oboe, at my doctor's request. It was bad for my blood pressure. Oh well. I have my memories and a few recordings.

[TlalocW]

6. Before I was a full-blown atheist

I remember attending an Easter event at a friend's church where they had asked me to perform a song (on trumpet) with the church pianist. Afterwards, we were all milling around outside, and I heard the minister say to someone that the Big Bang was more statistically improbable than there being a God who created everything, and I honestly felt that he would have something to back that up with so I was interested (I would be majoring in math in college a year later). So I turned and started walking over to him, but my friend, knowing me well, grabbed my arm and said, "He just feels that way. He won't have equations to show you."

TlalocW

[MineralMan]

7. Your friend was wise, I think.

I wouldn't have commented to the pastor had she not called me out for not bowing my head and closing my eyes during the prayers. I'm glad to leave it alone and go on my way.