athee

mom is catholic (mild version) Dad is "officially" church of England (probably agnostic though. On religion his official position is "whatever your mom says"

I suspect I was always an atheist, even though mom tried to raise me catholic. I remember before 10 years old thinking that there is something wrong with the stories we hear, but there was not an internet for support or anything I knew of to put it in some sort of perspective. At 10 (5th grade for me) I told my mom I didn't believe in god. She replied, "Oh, you're an atheist huh?" I didn't even know what the word was. After I looked it up, everything fell into place. Knowledge is truly enabling.

I was sent to sunday school, but was asked to leave the classes, because I would point out all the contradictions in the stories and fables.

They put me in a "special class" to help convert me, but quickly gave up (6th grade timeframe) . The next step was one on one meetings with a lady of the church. That lasted a whole hour and I never returned. I was always respectful and was never mean. I just wanted reasonable scientific explanations for the stories. After thoroughly confusing the lady of the church, it was back to sunday school (forget the special stuff .. maybe peer pressure would work).

While registering for the 7th grade, the director of the school begged my mom not to enroll me. I was confusing the other kids. I told mom to save her money and leave me at home. She replied that it is her duty to have me develop body, mind and soul. I replied that I had no soul. Since I got all A's, play sports, run my own business and don't get into ANY trouble, why should she care about this minor aspect of my life!?!?!?

8th grade was "confirmation time" as I recall. I flat out said that I would have nothing to do with it, but I was still enrolled. As I learned about the sacraments and other drivel, I also learned about excommunication. "These yahoo's even tell you how to get expelled!!!", I thought.

I told my mom on a sat nite, that if I woke up the next morning and was forced to go one more time, I would immediately go the the priest and have him excommunicate me.

I slept in that sunday and every sunday since.


My dad told me years later (after college) that my rebellion, which was absolutely unrelenting for 3 years, broke my mother. She never showed it to me, but he said it was extremely hard on her. I just told him, I was sorry, but they knew since I was a kid they could never force me to do something once my mind was made up. I reminded him that as a kid, I had told them that they could beat me to a pulp, but I would battle them tooth and nail until I had freedom on sunday. He remembered it and said that the stubbornness is what convinced them to lay off.

The funny thing about all this is that my mom has a PhD in a field of science. She has always encouraged me to read and learn and find the truth (well except for religion). Truth be known, her non religious aspects of her personality led me down the path of atheism. I find that ironic.

Farren

Perhaps I was a little hard on my folks, but it struck me when I was around 17 (I'd been an athiest for about two years) that it was so important to my mother that she would react with profound and ongoing irrationality if I told her.

In light of this I weighed up whether a lifetime of baggage or a cautarized wound was a better thing and came out fully and (when the inevitable hysterical reaction came) belligerently. I took "I love and respect you but you're utterly wrong. You believe in childish fairy tales and I'm horrified that you think that everyone around you must live in the same ridiculous fantasy world"

My rationale was that her horror and pious indignation were self-inflicted agonies. My mom is a smart cookie. I was indoctrinated in the same way as her and had the intellectual and moral honesty to rise above it. I was, and am convinced that, like many smart christians, her clinging to the faith has more to do with fear of being different than honest examination of her beliefs.

Subsequently my older sister (who ten years later turned fundy - huh?) also "came out" with equal belligerence. In the ten years that followed we all heaped horror upon horror on my folks, becoming vegetarians, getting involved (on the fringes) with the then-banned ANC, hanging around with and vociferously supporting homosexual friends. Throughout it all we were often a bit too strident but we mostly continued to express our respect and love for our parents, especially for the sacrifices they made in bringing us up.

15 years on the wound is cautarized, so I think all of us made the right choice. We still have strong family ties and are able to talk for hours without any sense of subtexts and bullshit politics. The main change is that on an emotional level, my parents deal with their children as, well, their children, and on an intellectual and ideological level, like they are dealing with the nice jewish or muslim person at work. It works quite well for all of us.

Based on my own experiences, I would have to say that no matter how strongly a person feels about something or how close they are to you, if they impose a belief on you that you believe is utter bullshit, you have two choices: Live a lie, and feel the discomfort of that every day of your life, or create the space to speak freely by refusing to accept anothers right to dictate your beliefs.

Frotiw

Sorry I am slightly pissed been enjoying a couple of beers with friends at uni. Forgive me for being a bit too straigtforward and not very "diplomatic".

Go to a Scandinavian country e.g. Denmark. Atheism is pretty much the standard stance, being a religious perhaps slightly out of common practice. Sure don't get me wrong there are plenty of churches but VERY few acually use them, mostly people have some vague idea of relgion as e.g. "there is more betwenn heaven and earth" and there it stopts no consequence is acually drawn. Sometimes it is almost redicules discussing religion vs. sucularism as there actually really are nor religious people. There are a few scientologist and the sort but what can you say they appear to be just ordinary fanatics like nazist, communist, Jehovas Wittness members and the like. They seem to always exist like cockroachs and rats.

Sorry if I expressed myself a little blunt I didn't meant to offend. I can easily symphatize with the difficulties in rejecting religion living where religion is dominant. My point was merely to say that religion is not necessarily a stance imposed by sociaty. Where I live atheism is by far more common than theism.

King Rat

LOL!

My mom knows. I was forced to tell her when she kept subscribing me to religious magazines for xmas presents. We have spoken maybe 5 words to each other since.

I told my Dad a few years before he died and he was very calm about it. IIRC he said something like, "I kind of suspected as much, but you're a good man so it doesn't really matter does it?"

AspenMama

Frotiw-- Your comments are very interesting to hear as the majority of posters here are from the U.S., but you are a bit off-topic. The topic of this particular thread was: I look forward to hearing more from your point of view, on topic posts!

AspenMama, SL & S Moderator