geetarmoore
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2006
- Messages
- 280
Okay, so.... I have this dilemma.
I've known for 15 some years that I'm a non-believer. I've told selected friends about my religious views, as well as engaging Christian acquaintances when they bring up spirituality to me. This is relatively easy for me to do, as I am strong enough to deal with their questions and feelings about me after they learn of my heathenisim.
My family, however, is a different story. The only immediate family member I have ever talked to this stuff about is my brother, and it turns out he's every bit the skeptic that I am, but he's a natural-born one. He told me he never fell for the cult - he knew it was bull when he was 10 years old.... I guess he was the smarter brother
I'm not so sure how strong I will be if I'm ever tasked with the chore of admitting my atheism to them..
My mother and father are both Christians who attend church every week. My father is a lay minister who preaches the sermons on Sunday when the in-house minister is away on vacation. He's on the counsel board of the church, and a member in the choir, bible study leader, etc. He's 'in' the church in a big way. Almost every night he has a church related function to attend, and he joyfully does his duty while committing his life to the 'lord'.
Of course, mom and dad indoctrinated me into the church at birth, and led me up through catechism. I wasn't given an option when it came to going to church as a child, and I eventually went of my own accord as a young man, because having a belief in the doctrine myself, I wanted to go. I don't blame my mum and pop for anything, as they were only doing what they felt was right for me, and for sure I love them rather than spite them for it.
Paradoxically perhaps, I also learned some of my first critical thinking skills from my father. A firm believer in separation of church and state, he is feverishly against prayer in school, the denial of a woman’s reproductive rights, 'In God We Trust' being printed on US currency, etc. He feels that the founding fathers were right to demand that the country be secular to avoid the pratfalls that theocracy would surely bring to the union. Dad always taught me to look at both sides of an issue, and to always try to see things in a framework outside of your particular ideology. To me, this is a prime example of skepticism - to be even skeptical of your OWN ideas....
My mother is a saint. That's about all I can say. She's always treated her children with absolute unconditional love and respect. She cries for us when we have rough times in our lives, even though her life hasn't been great. She, along with my father, watched two of their four children die young at separate times. As a parent myself now, I'm not sure how one can handle such a thing once and continue to live, let alone twice. But my mother did it with strength and grace. Any strength of character I have now I learned from mum for sure.
Anyway, when my faith evaporated and I stopped going to church, I never heard from either mom or dad about it. Dad would continue to ask me to play guitar for his summer bible school program each year, and I did it for the first few years of my non-belief out of respect for him. One year, though, he asked and I just flat turned him down - I couldn't keep up preaching to kids stuff that I knew was a lie. I never told him why I rejected the idea, but I'm know it hurt him. It's one of the things I'll feel bad about for the rest of my life, to be honest.
I'm sure they both understand at this point that I don't go to church, and that spirituality is very low on my list of worldly priorities at least. Religion topics hardly if ever come up when I visit. We talk about a large range of items and issues, but they don't bring it up to me, and I don't bring it up to them.
So my questions boil down to this;
Have you ever had a 'coming out' event with your family?
Does one even need to 'come out' to their family?
What are the benefits of doing so?
What are the drawbacks?
Thanks for your help.
My feeling is just to let mom and dad ride out the rest of their lives in peace, and not bring up an issue that can only be a painful one for them. They seem to have at least already come to grips with my lack of weekly reinforced spirituality, and are living a pretty happy retirement.
Sorry for the rambling post. I let stuff get away from me here and there, I guess….
Thanks again.
I've known for 15 some years that I'm a non-believer. I've told selected friends about my religious views, as well as engaging Christian acquaintances when they bring up spirituality to me. This is relatively easy for me to do, as I am strong enough to deal with their questions and feelings about me after they learn of my heathenisim.
My family, however, is a different story. The only immediate family member I have ever talked to this stuff about is my brother, and it turns out he's every bit the skeptic that I am, but he's a natural-born one. He told me he never fell for the cult - he knew it was bull when he was 10 years old.... I guess he was the smarter brother
I'm not so sure how strong I will be if I'm ever tasked with the chore of admitting my atheism to them..My mother and father are both Christians who attend church every week. My father is a lay minister who preaches the sermons on Sunday when the in-house minister is away on vacation. He's on the counsel board of the church, and a member in the choir, bible study leader, etc. He's 'in' the church in a big way. Almost every night he has a church related function to attend, and he joyfully does his duty while committing his life to the 'lord'.
Of course, mom and dad indoctrinated me into the church at birth, and led me up through catechism. I wasn't given an option when it came to going to church as a child, and I eventually went of my own accord as a young man, because having a belief in the doctrine myself, I wanted to go. I don't blame my mum and pop for anything, as they were only doing what they felt was right for me, and for sure I love them rather than spite them for it.
Paradoxically perhaps, I also learned some of my first critical thinking skills from my father. A firm believer in separation of church and state, he is feverishly against prayer in school, the denial of a woman’s reproductive rights, 'In God We Trust' being printed on US currency, etc. He feels that the founding fathers were right to demand that the country be secular to avoid the pratfalls that theocracy would surely bring to the union. Dad always taught me to look at both sides of an issue, and to always try to see things in a framework outside of your particular ideology. To me, this is a prime example of skepticism - to be even skeptical of your OWN ideas....
My mother is a saint. That's about all I can say. She's always treated her children with absolute unconditional love and respect. She cries for us when we have rough times in our lives, even though her life hasn't been great. She, along with my father, watched two of their four children die young at separate times. As a parent myself now, I'm not sure how one can handle such a thing once and continue to live, let alone twice. But my mother did it with strength and grace. Any strength of character I have now I learned from mum for sure.
Anyway, when my faith evaporated and I stopped going to church, I never heard from either mom or dad about it. Dad would continue to ask me to play guitar for his summer bible school program each year, and I did it for the first few years of my non-belief out of respect for him. One year, though, he asked and I just flat turned him down - I couldn't keep up preaching to kids stuff that I knew was a lie. I never told him why I rejected the idea, but I'm know it hurt him. It's one of the things I'll feel bad about for the rest of my life, to be honest.
I'm sure they both understand at this point that I don't go to church, and that spirituality is very low on my list of worldly priorities at least. Religion topics hardly if ever come up when I visit. We talk about a large range of items and issues, but they don't bring it up to me, and I don't bring it up to them.
So my questions boil down to this;
Have you ever had a 'coming out' event with your family?
Does one even need to 'come out' to their family?
What are the benefits of doing so?
What are the drawbacks?
Thanks for your help.
My feeling is just to let mom and dad ride out the rest of their lives in peace, and not bring up an issue that can only be a painful one for them. They seem to have at least already come to grips with my lack of weekly reinforced spirituality, and are living a pretty happy retirement.
Sorry for the rambling post. I let stuff get away from me here and there, I guess….
Thanks again.
) asked "who are you doing this for?" The guy felt guilty and somehow destroying his marriage would remedy this. It seemed to me like that guy felt he deserved punishment and he wanted that punishment regardless of consequences. Is there a bit of this guilt in you? Leave it lie, sez I. Don't lie, if asked directly, but leave it alone. I will bet you 25,000 cyber bucks they know already, parents are like that.
