Declaring your atheism/agnosticism: Reactions from family

[TheNoNamedOne]

For those who grew up in a religious household, how old were you when you declared to your family your no longer belief in a God? Did you do so soon after you arrived at your decision, or did it take you a while to muster up the courage to do so?

Were there rammifications? What were they?

Were there some pangs of guilt or fear for leaving your belief in God?

What was the situation in which you declared it?

I'll start:

-----------------------------------

I was 14. I first told my sister. Then after a trivial fight over something, she outed me about it right as we were sitting down to a Thanksgiving Dinner with my Roman Catholic family and my Grandmother was present.

We were getting ready to say Grace, or perhaps we had just finished when my sister blurted it out, "TP doesn't believe in God!" Whoa! Awkward silence. My dad looked at me, "You didn't say that, did you?" I just kinda sheepishly said, "Yeah," and he got to carving the turkey. My grandmother looked kind of disgusted. But that was it. Not too eventful. Just embarrassing to be outed like that about God.

Yes, doubt, guilt, and a little fear lingered for a while.

[ja_Patriot]

So what were the ramifications?

[TheNoNamedOne]

Guilt, taunting by my sister, public embarrassment for being outed, feeling like letting down a part of the family.

Luckily, the Roman Catholic part of my immediate family were not church goers, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I think at the time they just chalked it up to adolescent rebellion so they kinda ingored it thinking it would just be a phase.

[P_chan]

I just don't consider myself very religious anymore. I don't think there is a god, but I'm not going to rule it out all together. My immediate family doesn't really care that I'm not religious anymore, because most of them are the same way now. My aunts were a tad shocked, but fine with it. The only person I could see having a problem with it would be my grandma, but she passed away last year.

[DougP]

My parents are pretty much agnostic themselves. They don't even raise an eyebrow to the fact that I don't believe in God. In fact none of us have attended church since I was about 7. My parents weren't to keep on how the church was treating my younger brother. He had a pretty unique learning disability back then that kept him from understanding the concept of God etc. So after much prodding and coercing trying to get my brother to accept Christ. The church folk resorted to telling my younger brother some rather terrible things. Things like how he was going to go to hell if he didn't accept Christ into his heart and then proceded to tell him what hell was like. This concept was something my brother could sort of grasp. Needles to say he had night terrors for weeks.

That was about the last straw for my parents and me as well. They basically kept us out of the clutches of the church and religion from then on. They told us that if we wanted to go to church or follow any religion that it would be up to us(my brother and me) They said that they didn't want to force us to believe in something and thought it was wrong for people to force their beliefs on others. Of course my brother didn't understand this at all but was relieved about the fact we didn't have to return. The other thing my parents and me both disagree with is the use of scare tactics that can screw someone up emotionally to get them to convert. That's what turned me away from religion completely. I know people say there's a great message behind the gospels but I can't get my head around the fact they offer you two choices: accept Christ as your savior or burn in hell for eternity. Where's the love?

My parents still claim to be Methodist but its more like a religious insurance policy to them:D Also my dad says if you live withing two miles of a building of worship you're covered and there's no need to actually go there on Sundays. I usually say something like "Why would God put the NFL on TV on Sundays and then expect you to miss it by attending church?"

[Isaak Brodsky]

I was known to be one of the most talented religious scoffers in my frat and among my wide circle of friends for years during and after college. I was really fantastic at mocking jim bakker and jimmy swaggert while passing the water bong or slapping my friends in the forehead in public and telling them with a great southern accent that they were healed!!!!

I developed this skill for about thirty-two years. My dad was a Jew who pretended to be a Catholic to satisfy my mother, a Jew raised during the Depressionin an orphange by Catholic nuns who must have really impressed her. In our immediate family, nobody observed the sacred and holy, except for our Jewish cousins. The pretenses that Mom and Dad carried around were astounding, and for what I don't know to this day.

[ja_Patriot]

Guilt, taunting by my sister, public embarrassment for being outed, feeling like letting down a part of the family.

Luckily, the Roman Catholic part of my immediate family were not church goers, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I think at the time they just chalked it up to adolescent rebellion so they kinda ingored it thinking it would just be a phase.


How does that saying go again, "If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague."

Youth can be impetuous and whimsical. In retrospect, at least you were decent enough (or scared or respectful enough?), not to jump up and down and say in your Dad's face, "Screw your church. I'm not going to Sunday mass."

I'm not a church goer myself but will I ever have the heart to tell my Mom who attends mass every God-blessed day at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in a NYC borough? Never.

No reason either for me to deny the existence of God or Jesus Christ. That day when Katrina decided to change course and so unnaturally cut west-to-east through Miami-Dade county and blast the hell out of my windows, it was between the wrath and fury of the hurricane, my wife and I, and the Lord my God.

[OkiMike]

I deconverted about 4 years ago though the process started a year or so before that. It was pretty much the outcome of my incessant questioning and study of early church history and, later, philosophy and science.

I eventually had to ask myself the question point blank, "Do I still believe a God exists?" and the answer was a feeble, "No." In time, with more study I became more sure of myself and the conclusion I'd come to. It's hard to be objective though when one side is threatening you will eternal hell-fire/non-existence when you don't acknowledge him...

In any case, I suppose I'm technically an agnostic atheist in that I don't have a problem with the idea of a Deistic God existing, but such a God is highly irrelevant and is completely extraneous in every possible solution we may seek to uncover. And just like I don't believe in the existence of pink unicorns just because they can't be proven to NOT exist, I also don't think any supernatural dimension exists to our universe, nor a being or beings who would inhabit it. There's just no evidence in favor of such an idea so I discard it.

At the revelation of all this to family, most were devastated. We were 5th generation Seventh-day Adventist Christians after all! My mom, being the good spirit she is, enjoys discussing the issue, but the conversations are short because they always boil down to whether or not I'm willing to having faith. And since I think faith is worthless and can lead to dangerous propositions I would otherwise have no interest in believing, that answer is always, "No."

On a positive note, my brother came to visit me here in Japan and recently "confessed" his agnosticism, though he still rides the fence just to save face with the family.

[Isaak Brodsky]

no reasonable person can deny that he or she has no faith in the unknown.

a simple trip to the store by bicycle forces you the cyclist to exercise some faith in those in motor vehicles who follow you that they will not flatten you.

let's not confuse faith with the possibility of the extra-dimensionality of God - a point already expounded on by mathematicians, physicists and philosophers.

[Asshat]

no reasonable person can deny that he or she has no faith in the unknown.

a simple trip to the store by bicycle forces you the cyclist to exercise some faith in those in motor vehicles who follow you that they will not flatten you.

let's not confuse faith with the possibility of the extra-dimensionality of God - a point already expounded on by mathematicians, physicists and philosophers.

Ian, I disagree with you. (no surprise right? :) Comparing the faith of a driver behind you is a known quantity. After all, the suposition that the driver wont intentionally flatten you is bolstered by the knowledge that the driver would be charged with a crime, or perhaps the intrinsic knowledge that another human will not harm you simply because you are riding your bicycle. Sorry this seems pedant, but it was the only way I could explain why I refute your analysis.

The Buddhists have an interesting philosphy on that, although they share Christian mystism from a theological standpoint. And that is one of the five great laws- Called the "Mystic Law" which simply means; "that which we do not understand."

A simpler or perhaps more profound example can be found in astophysics where we can not see black holes, or black matter, but we know of their existance because we do know about light reflaction, the speed of light and the effects of gravity.

[OkiMike]

no reasonable person can deny that he or she has no faith in the unknown.

a simple trip to the store by bicycle forces you the cyclist to exercise some faith in those in motor vehicles who follow you that they will not flatten you.

let's not confuse faith with the possibility of the extra-dimensionality of God - a point already expounded on by mathematicians, physicists and philosophers.

While I will acknowledge that there exist many practical definitions for the word "Faith", we do not need to continue on in this vein when the Bible offers us a definition of the very word as it applies to its own theology. This is "faith" with a capital "F":

Hebrews 11:1 -- "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

Put another way, the existence of faith precludes the non-existence of evidence, visible or otherwise. That is, if evidence exists, we no longer need faith. We know this woud be true because we can imagine that God is real and has visibility appeared and resides with us on earth at this moment. We would no longer need to "hope for" him because we would have him visibly and presently. The fact that he does not exist physically or visibly to us at this moment necessates faith.

Anyway, your analogy of cars and traffic fails because I can prove that a physical car and driver exist and will likely hit me should I wander out in front of them. (I can also point to statistics that show a direct cause/effect of people/drivers who have done this very thing). furthermore, hoping or trusting that drivers will follow traffic laws is not an extraordinary proposition nor would their failure to uphold the law require a supernatural explanation. Both these points fail when discussing religious faith in supernatural gods.

[Mythopoeikon]

I grew up in a highly catholic environment. I used to say that I was going to be a priest and everybody seemed pleased with the perspective.

I was 6 years old by that time.

I started to read the bible. I just couldn't cope with what it said. Too much gore, incest, murder, petty fights over stoopid things, jealously, and the list goes on.

After some years thinking and talking about it with priests, friends and reading here and there about other religions and cultures realized that I just couldn't believe anymore in the invisible man. I announced to my parents that I was openly atheist and the outcome couldn't have been more anticlimatic. My mom just said something about being true to my feelings and my father couldn't have cared less. They stood above their teachings and made sure that I wasn't ahteist just for the fun of it. After all, it was an important step in my development as human being.

Although we talk and some times argue about it, they respect my atheism and care about me the same way as if nothing ever happened. True love is not conditioned to a certain faith, but they only asked one thing about me: never to lose my humanity, I guess that even if they are very open minded, still think that atheism is equal to sinful life. I've proven otherwise.

And of course, never been better. I'm not a second rate human being. As some who think they are and wished that the rest was just the same. That's one of the things that I most despise about religion: it makes you feel unworthy for no reason other than to keep you hocked for life and in despair.

[Hokoquan]

I still believe in god, I consider myself a religious person and if asked i'll gladly tell my opinion, i however am not one of those people tht feels the need to try and sway someone i think those people are what "puts" people of religion to begin with.

[Zim the Invader]

First I'd like to present Mythopoeikon with http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/9461/oldestthread0hx.jpg

Ok, I was 12, my parents were going through a divorce and the church turned their backs. I started losing my faith. At 15 or so I started seeing what was out there and looking for what called to me. I found witchcraft and paganism. I started ordering books and reading things online and wanting to know all I could. My mom found out (not hard since the books were ordered on her card) and she told my dad. My dad wasn't super religious, but my step mom (all though she wasn't step mom at the time) was super god lover. Her oldest son is a pastor. Anyway, I got preached at and lectured about fire and brimstone and blah blah blah for nearly five hours. Then, I wasn't aloud around the kids in the family because I was evil and couldn't be trusted as I was under the influence of Satan. Fine, whatever. At least I didn't have to baby sit anymore. They still look at me funny when I just start eating instead of praying. Like I'll burst into flames any moment now. And anytime I'm at my dads near a weekend he invites me to church. It's become so rude and disrespectful that I rarely see that side of the family. I just don't respect them anymore. Less to buy at X-mas I guess. (and yes, Xmas, not Christmas).

To me, the very concept of God is insulting. How could a thing like that have possibly created a world like this? And if there is a god somewhere, we either killed him somehow or ran him off through our complete failure as a species. Mostly though, I think "god" was created to explain things that couldn't be explained before. Like illness and stuff. Then, someone realized it was a great tool to control the masses. Then it became evil.

[Richard Burns]

I believe in God. I'm not religious.

I'm also the founder of The Holy Church of *****. We come together from near and far to enjoy the greatest meat around.