Are You a Closeted Atheist, or an Open Atheist? I mean, do you fake it sometimes?

[NNadir]

24. An interesting story. Your father could accept your atheism just so long as you weren't Muslim.

I think my mother, who died when I was a young man, knew I was an atheist. How, I'm not sure. I know this because my aunt relayed to me, as my mother's mind was failing owing to her brain tumor, that my mother's last wish was that I believe in God. It was, to be sure, an impossible wish to fulfill. Leave it to my mother to make an unreasonable last request.

In the years of agony over my grief from that whole scene, which was very ugly, I did do a lot of reading on religious theory, Alan Watts, the early work of Elaine Pagels, some others. If anything, it made me secure, ultimately, in my atheism.