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.
Dear Richard, I am a senior in high school and I am preparing to start the college admissions process. A few of the colleges that I am planning on applying to use the Common Application. The essay for the Common App is open-ended and can be written on any topic of choice. I am contemplating writing about my experiences as a teenage atheist for the subject of this essay. I am not planning on explaining the reasons why I’m an… Read more
Hi Richard, I’m on the state board of a high school student organization. As a vice-chair I was in charge of an icebreaker and we did a series of questions. As an avid reader and always on the look out for good books, one of the questions was “what is your favorite book?”. We had a great discussion until one of our members stated that the bible is the greatest book ever written. My knee jerk reaction to that was… Read more
Update: The letter writer has written a follow-up letter four years later. Dear Richard, I’m in 8th grade and have been “officially” Atheist since the beginning of 7th grade. I think I’ve been subconsciously Atheist since about third grade, though. It was then that I started thinking “How do I know this is true and not Hinduism, Islam, etc?” As I grew older I would avoid any quizzes that my friends would see that asked anything about religion because I… Read more
Dear Richard A while back I was waiting for a lecture to start with a friend when I casually used the word “God” in a sentence. I don’t remember the exact sentence, but it was probably something like “oh my God,” certainly not an uncommon turn of phrase. She then asked me, politely, if I could not use the word “God” because it goes against her religion. Well, for that lecture at least I stopped using the word, but that’s… Read more
Don wrote a very long and candid letter which I have edited here for space reasons. I have kept the details that I believe are pertinent to the challenge he describes: Hi Richard! I’ve been following your new posts on The Friendly Atheist site for a couple weeks now. You have a great gift of communicating sensitive issues so elegantly for many diverse audiences. Thanks for everything you’ve given the community! Your advice and tone is exactly what is needed… Read more
