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Post by Armand Tanzarian on Dec 25, 2009 7:54:10 GMT -5
We just had a conversation blasting fundamentalists and religious harassment with the family. All was well, but it looks like, despite my repeated essays criticizing religion, my mother still thinks I'm a Buddhist.
To be fair, my mother is traditionally slow to pick up on things, and you can technically be both Buddhist and atheist (I'm not). But yeah, I just wanna see how/if you guys are currently hiding your godlessness from your family.
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Post by Bluefinger on Dec 25, 2009 8:39:17 GMT -5
I don't hide it, because I never really needed to hide it. Though my family seems to be of a variety of different beliefs, none of those beliefs were imposed on any of us and vice versa. If anything, I even make my misanthropic streak known from time to time with little to no problem. I guess I'm lucky to have a family that enjoys a good discussion (and considering how we all are, we tend to be able to have at least a couple of sides or more going in any discussion).
However, that isn't to say that we haven't had discussions that became overly heated and what not.
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Post by dasfuchs on Dec 25, 2009 12:51:48 GMT -5
I'm not really sure what my folks are. I know my grandmother and aunt were christian, my grandmother rabidly so, my mother and step father never seemed to show much religious anything...My father is a hard christian, deep believing, but he's become quite liberal in the past few years. And my step mother is catholic, but not really anything beyond being able to say so....aside from my grandmother, no one ever forced me to a religious ideal, my dad did hint heavilly for a while and i went to church with him later in life just to show my support and see him happy. Everyone in the family knows I was agnostic, but no one really cares enough for the religion issues to come up
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Post by John E on Dec 25, 2009 13:40:18 GMT -5
My dad's nominally Christian, but not particularly religious. My mom's basically agnostic, I think. She's said that she's closer to being a pagan than a Christian. So I've never had to hide my lack of religion from them. I can even have pretty civilized discussions about religion with my born again sister in law.
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Post by Vene on Dec 25, 2009 14:59:25 GMT -5
My family is weird about religion. My parents do believe, but they never do anything about it. Religion never came up when I lived with them. Even when I moved in with Oriet and they found out she's transsexual, nothing at all about religion. The only reason they don't really know about my atheism is that there is no reason to say anything.
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Post by the sandman on Dec 25, 2009 15:08:20 GMT -5
Well, my parents are no longer with us, but I have never hid the fact that I am a heretical, hippie-liberal, God loves and accepts everyone, anti-fundamentalist, non-judgmental, philosophical, pro-science pseudo-Christian.
I don't shove it in people's faces, but I don't hide it, either.
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Post by Sandafluffoid on Dec 25, 2009 19:36:33 GMT -5
Both my parents are atheist, and my grandparents on my mother's side are pretty much agnostic, so that was never a problem. By maternal aunt and my paternal grandparents both belonged to rabidly christian churches, but just didn't seem to take it to heart much, I imagine they know, but do not care.
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Post by RavynousHunter on Dec 25, 2009 20:02:40 GMT -5
Never comes up, so there's never a reason for me to even mention it.
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Post by Mira on Dec 25, 2009 20:54:55 GMT -5
My immediate family is all quite Christian, but they don't really care. My extended family is mostly agnostic to Christian and I've never explicitly said anything, but I doubt many of them would care either.
My dad was an atheist as well, but he died before I identified as such.
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Post by Jedi Knight on Dec 25, 2009 21:13:41 GMT -5
I don't hide it, I really don't need to. Of course, I'm a 37 years old Norwegian, and no one in my family are particularly religious. I'm actually fourth generation non-religious. Most of my family is nominally Christian, though, and some of them are more or less agnostic. My parents and my sister are atheists, and I've recently converted my girlfriend. She used to be a deist, but she's now an atheist humanist. I'm really proud of her.
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Post by Armand Tanzarian on Dec 25, 2009 21:57:41 GMT -5
That's the point. Should I bring it up when it should be no issue, except for the occasional temple visit.
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Post by malendras on Dec 25, 2009 22:53:00 GMT -5
My immediate family knows...and mostly don't care. My dad's deist, so he really doesn't care. My mom's nominally catholic (despite not going to church and disagreeing with the vatican on a lot of issues) and she only occasionally brings it up. My sister's some form of christian, she believes pretty strongly, but she's not fundie. We don't talk much, being pretty much exact opposites.
The one person I won't tell is my Grandpa, because he's 86 years old and has been catholic and going to church for over 70 years. He'd flip out a bit. with my extended family it doesn't come up, so they mostly don't know, but I don't hide it either. I display my atheism quite often on my facebook.
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Post by MaybeNever on Dec 26, 2009 1:20:58 GMT -5
That's the point. Should I bring it up when it should be no issue, except for the occasional temple visit. I don't know the dynamics in your family, but I don't think it's worth bringing up. If you don't have any problems going to the temple with your family then there's no reason to cause one. If you'd rather abstain, just say so when the situation comes up. If your family inquires, then you can explain it in context.
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Post by Sigmaleph on Dec 26, 2009 13:42:36 GMT -5
My immediate family are atheists, though my sister and I are more anti-religious than my parents, and my younger sister is pretty meh about it. My grandmother is a church-going Catholic, but she's been married to an atheist for 60 years so she's ok with the general godlessness, though it doesn't come up much. As for bringing it up, well, it's your choice. Depends how you think they will react and how important it's to you.
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Post by Caitshidhe on Dec 26, 2009 17:34:42 GMT -5
My parents aren't super religious, but they're still religious. They go to church a few times a year (other than just Christmas and Easter) and they like to attribute good things to god or "someone looking out for so-and-so". They both know I'm atheist, but my dad doesn't care enough about me to have an opinion on it. My mother, on the other hand, has a long history of denying things that are plainly obvious. I've told her many times that I'm atheist, but she consistently says, "No, you're not, you're agnostic." She's not hostile about it--she just refuses to accept that I don't believe in ANYTHING. My mom also tells people that I have brown or hazel eyes and refuses to ever admit they're green. Draw your own conclusions.
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