
Spanish: 
¿Qué obstáculos deben enfrentar los jóvenes ateos?
Es una pregunta difícil, porque
hay muchos, por desgracia.
Depende de donde vivas.
Si vives,
en el Cinturón Bíblico
o en el sur profundo,
tus obstáculos son muy diferentes
a los de aquellos que viven
en Nueva York, en Oregón,
o algo así.
Pero hay diferentes categorías.
Primero, tal vez tengas que lidiar con tu familia.
¿Le dices que eres ateo?
¿Le dices que ya no quieres ir a la iglesia?
Eso es lo más importante. Cuando eres
niño, vives bajo las reglas
de tus padres, vives bajo su techo,
estás bajo su control.
Tal vez debas acompañarlos a la iglesia el domingo.
En mi caso, era ir a un evento de oración, una o dos veces al mes.
Decirle a tus padres
que no quieres ser parte de eso
es algo difícil,
y conozco a mucha gente que
sólo evita el tema.
No quieren hablar de eso
porque no quieren arruinar
la relación
con sus padres.
Recuerdo a una chica

English: 
What obstacles the young atheists have to deal with?
It's a tough question to answer because
there's a lot of them, unfortunately.
Some of it depends on where you live.
I mean, if you live,
you know, in the Bible Belt
or in the deep South,
your obstacles are very different
than someone who lives
in, you know, New York, or Oregon,
or something like that.
But, you know, there's a few different categories.
First, you might have to deal with your family.
You know, do you even tell them you're an atheist?
Do you tell them you don't want to go to church anymore?
That's kind of the primary thing, because
when you're a kid, you're under your parents'
house, you're under their roof,
you're under their control.
So, you might have to go with them to church on Sunday.
If you're in my case, you have to go to like a prayer thing once or twice a month.
And telling your parents
you don't want to be a part of that
is a challenging thing to do,
and I know a lot of people who
just try to avoid the subject.
That they don't want to bring it up
because they don't want to ruin
that relationship
with their parents.
I remember, you know, one girl

Spanish: 
que salió en un artículo periodístico.
Su escuela había formado un club ateísta
y el artículo la citó diciendo que ella
no le dijo a sus padres a dónde iba después de clases.
Otra chica dijo que simplemente le mintió
a sus padres. Dijo que estaba en el Ocean Club,
y no en el club ateo.
Y otra chica dijo:
"No le digo a mi papá dónde estoy,
porque él está en el ejército y
se enojaría mucho si 
le digo que soy atea."
Y ella no quiere
arruinar esa relación.
Me identifico mucho con ella.
Es un gran obstáculo.
Para muchos estudiantes,
no es hasta llegar
a la universidad
cuando finalmente
pueden explorar su ateísmo y
hablar abiertamente,
y decirle a la gente que son ateos,
porque no están en casa de sus padres.
Ese es un obstáculo.
Otro es en la escuela.
¿Se lo dicen a sus amigos? Porque
en muchos lugares
la mayoría de tus amigos son religiosos, algunos quizás
muy religioso, son parte de la iglesia. Quieren que vayas a su iglesia.
Entonces, decir que eres ateo
no solo te convierte en blanco
de sus tácticas de conversión,

English: 
who is quoted in the newspaper article.
Her high school had started an atheist club
and the article quoted her saying that
she didn't tell her parents where she was after school.
One girl said she just lied to her parents.
She said she was at Ocean Club
instead of at the atheist club.
And another girl said:
"I don't tell my dad where I am because,"
you know, "he's in the military
and he would be really upset
if she told him she were an atheist."
And she just didn't want
to ruin that relationship.
So, I empathize with her a lot.
That's a huge obstacle.
For a lot of students,
it's not until they go to college
when they can finally
explore their atheism and
openly talk
and tell people that they are atheists,
because they're out of their parents' household.
So, that's one obstacle.
Another one is in school.
Do they even tell their friends? Because
in a lot of places
most of your friends are religious, most of them might
be very religious, part of the church. They want you to come to their church.
So, for you to say you're an atheist
not only you become a target of their,
you know, conversion tactics,

Spanish: 
te convierte en alguien que
tiene un problema y debe ser "arreglado".
Muchos chicos no quieren
decírselo a sus compañeros porque
no quieren ser condenados al ostracismo
por todos en su comunidad.
Hay muchas historias sobre estudiantes
que se declararon ateos en el Cinturón Bíblico
y eso comenzó...
La gente comenzó a acosarlos por eso.
Les ponían apodos,
les decían cosas desagradables.
Les gritaban mientras recitaban el juramento
a la bandera en la mañana: "Una nación...."
"¡bajo Dios!".
Como si los ateos en el salón
necesitaran oír eso.
También hay casos de intimidación física.
Y mucha intimidación en Facebook y Twitter también.
Y están los compañeros.
Digamos que lo superas. Digamos que eres
un ateo declarado, y lo muestras abiertamente.
Y quieres, digamos,
empezar un grupo.
Ahora enfrentas otro mundo
de obstáculos, que son:
a veces tienes administradores que
no quieren que tengas un club ateísta.
Así que, lanzarán de todo en tu camino
para que no puedas formarlo.
Necesitas una reunión
para empezar un club,

English: 
you become someone that
has a problem and needs to be fixed.
And so, a lot of kids don't want
to tell their peers because,
you know, they don't want to be
ostracized by everyone in their community.
There's a lot of stories about students
who came out as atheists in the Bible Belt
and that started--
People started picking on them because of it.
They would call them names,
they would say nasty things to them.
They would
yell out, you know, when they're saying the
Pledge of Allegiance in the morning. You know, "One nation"
"under God!" like the atheists
in the room
needs to hear that.
And then there's also some instances of physical
 bullying. And a lot of Facebook and Twitter bullying
as well.
So, there's the peers.
So, let's say you get past that. Let's say you're
an atheist and you're out and you're open about it.
And you want to,
let's say start a group.
Now you face a whole
another world of obstacles, which is
sometimes you have administrators who
don't want you to have an atheist club.
So they will-- They will throw everything
in your path, so that you can't have it.
You know, you might need a meeting
to start a club,

Spanish: 
pero el director sigue poniendo trabas a la reunión
y, de repente, se acaba el año escolar.
O estás a punto de graduarte
y tu grupo no se forma.
O el director te dice: "No presentaste las normas
correctamente. Busca otro patrocinador de facultad".
Esa es otra difícil:
encontrar un maestro dispuesto a
estar en tus reuniones. No tiene que
ser ateo, pero a veces eso es un obstáculo.
Y después de todo eso,
incluso si superas
todos esos obstáculos,
ahora tienes que lidiar
con la sociedad en general.
La sociedad en general te está diciendo
que la religión es una cosa buena.
Que si vas a la iglesia,
eres buena persona.
Nadie quiere... Generalmente,
los ateos no son muy respetados
en la sociedad.
Si son personajes de un programa de TV
o película, siempre son los malos.
Alguien que no cree en Dios
no puede ser bueno
en esas situaciones.
Existe un gran estereotipo,
el estigma
que los ateos tienen que superar.
Lo que estás viendo en muchos
grupos ateos de secundaria y universidad,
no se trata tanto de

English: 
but the principal keeps pushing the meeting back,
and then, all of a sudden, it's the end of the school year.
Or you're about to graduate
and then your group doesn't happen.
Or the principal tells you, "Oh, you didn't file
the rules properly. You need to find another faculty sponsor."
That's another tough one:
finding a teacher who's willing to
be there for your meetings. It doesn't even have
to be an atheist, but that can be an obstacle sometimes.
And after all of that,
even if you cut past
all those obstacles,
now you gotta deal
with society at large.
Society at large is basically telling you that,
you know, religion is a good thing.
That if you go to church,
you're a good person.
No one wants, you know-- Usually atheists
aren't given a lot of respect
in society.
Or if they're a character on a TV show
or in a movie, they're the bad character.
You know, someone who
doesn't believe in God
can't possibly be good
in those situations.
So, there's this
huge stereotype, the stigma
that atheists have to overcome.
And so what you're seeing in a lot
of high school and college atheist groups,
it's not so much about

Spanish: 
hacer que otros
no crean en Dios,
se trata de lograr que
el estereotipo desaparezca.
Muchos grupos ateos hacen
proyectos de voluntariado. A veces
trabajan con un grupo religioso para tal vez patrocinar
un debate, o tener discusiones mayores sobre estos temas.
Es una manera de mostrar que: "Podemos
 ser buenos sin Dios, y no es la gran cosa".
Si eres ateo
no es nada malo.
He conocido mucha gente que
ha crecido en el ambiente
de la iglesia
y creo que cada ateo puede
contarte la historia donde
conoces a alguien, se hacen amigos,
y entonces el ateo
dice: "Soy ateo".
Y la reacción que recibe es:
"Y yo que pensaba que eras
buena persona."
Porque el estereotipo es que los ateos
no son buenas personas.
Es una de las cosas con las que tenemos
que lidiar, ese obstáculo que dice:
"Los ateos son malos e inmorales".
Y cuando has crecido en una cultura de iglesia,

English: 
getting other people
to not believe in God,
it's about getting the stereotype,
you know, washed away.
So, a lot of atheist groups
might do volunteering projects. They might
work with a religious group to maybe sponsor a debate
or have a bigger discussion about these issues.
Because that's one way of showing: "Look, we can
be good without God and that's not a big deal". So,
you know, if you're an atheist
it's not a bad thing.
I've met so many people who
have grown up
in the church environment
and I think every atheist
can tell you this story where
you get to know someone, and you
become friends, and then the atheist
says, "I'm an atheist."
And the reaction we get is,
"Oh, but I thought you were
a good person."
Because the stereotype is that
atheists are not good people.
So, that's one of the things that we have
to deal with, that obstacle that says,
"Atheists are bad immoral people".
And when you've grown up in a church culture,

English: 
where atheists
are always the other,
it's going to be hard for Christians
to kind of get past their own,
you know, prejudice
that they were raised with
and agree that, "Oh, maybe Jesus
isn't the only path to being good."
"Maybe God isn't needed for a person
to be a kind decent human being."
But sometimes it takes atheists to come out
and show other people the way.
I'm Hemant Mehta and I write
at FriendlyAtheist.com
If you have any questions you'd like us
to answer on this channel,
please leave those in the comments as well
and we will try to get to those.

Spanish: 
donde los ateos
siempre eran "los otros",
va a ser difícil para
los cristianos superar los
prejuicios con que fueron criados
y estar de acuerdo con que: "Tal vez Jesús
no es el único camino para ser bueno."
"Tal vez Dios no es necesario para que una persona
sea un ser humano amable y decente."
"Tal vez Dios no es necesario para que alguien
sea un ser humano amable y decente".
A veces, se requiere que los ateos den la cara
y le muestren el camino a los demás.
Soy Hemant Mehta y escribo
en FriendlyAtheist.com
Si tienes preguntas que quieres
que te respondamos en este canal,
por favor, déjalas en los comentarios
y trataremos de llegar a ellas.
