Richard Wade is a retired licensed Marriage and Family Therapist living in southern California. At Hemant’s suggestion, in 2009 he began writing an advice column called “Ask Richard.” He publishes his responses to email letters from people of all viewpoints, not just atheists. These usually deal with challenges or conflicts stemming from believers and nonbelievers living or working together. He tries to reduce unnecessary conflict and suffering on all sides.
He has spoken as a “guest atheist” at several churches to dispel the misconceptions and false stereotypes about atheism and atheists. His goal is to prevent the same unnecessary strife and hardship in families and friendships that he has dealt with in hundreds of “Ask Richard” letters. With accurate information, loving and respectful relationships do not have to be ruined by this difference in beliefs.
He is the President of the Santa Clarita Atheists and Freethinkers, who provide a safe haven and support for non-believers in the area as well as participate in several community outreach activities, charity work, interfaith events, and political activism.
Richard, I will try to make this succinct. I am 28 years old. In the last year, I have admitted to myself both that I was an atheist and that my wife and I were no longer in love. We have been separated for about seven months now with a divorce in process. There have been many new things for me to get used to. We married young, so I’ve never really lived alone, and I’ve never been single as… Read more
Hi Richard, This is something that i’ve been wracking my brain about lately. I live in Lynchburg, Virginia (yes, THAT Lynchburg) and there’s this one house on this one street that happens to be on my route to work. This guy has his own personal little church sign board you can put lettering on, and boy does he wear his beliefs on his sleeve. For the longest time most of his messages and statements have been pretty benign. Standard stuff… Read more
Bill wrote a long letter that I have edited for space reasons. My paraphrasing is indicated by parentheses. For privacy, I have given him a different name. Dear Richard, I’m in a bit of a bind, and I have come to the conclusion that I need to seek out advice from people who lack the religious prejudices that I’ve been indoctrinated with. I appreciate any thoughts you have regarding the following situation. I’ve been gradually losing my faith over the… Read more
The various holidays that plague enliven the year have all gone through a complicated process of being co-opted. Each successive culture that has conquered or prevailed over a previous culture has adapted local holidays to fit its own agenda, drawing the conquered populace into participating in the new culture. So local animist holidays were co-opted into Celtic forms, then Roman forms, then Roman Catholic forms, then Protestant forms, and in the United States, the latest co-opting has been into Capitalist… Read more
Dear Richard, My girlfriend recently asked me to come to church with her. She’s from Korea, and she doesn’t speak first-rate English, so she doesn’t know how to phrase things sometimes. She’s a very open person and she’s not interested in converting me or anything like that. She knows I’m an atheist, but she asked if I could come with her to church as just another place to go. I tried explaining to her how asking me to come to… Read more
