Trouble dealing with family about my unbelief
April 30, 2011 at 2:53 pm
(This post was last modified: April 30, 2011 at 2:55 pm by everythingafter.)
Some of you know my basic story. Former believer, churchgoer, turned unbeliever a few years ago. I announced this on my blog, which posts back to my Facebook account. My evangelical parents thus read this, got upset to the point of crying themselves to sleep one night (yes, that bad) and apparently are still upset three years later.
My parents were in town for a visit over lunch yesterday. After lunch, we got into the car and my mom said she found a book that she wanted me to read. She pulled out "The Case for Christ" by Strobel. Realizing where the conversation was headed, I quickly said that I had already read that, along with tons of other apologetic works. My dad was like, "Oh you've read that too?" I said yeah. My dad, who is a hard headed, set in his ways and outspoken about it kind of person, then proceeds to ask me how many atheists are in the U.S. I said a growing number, but I didn't have an exact count, obviously. He then said all kinds of stuff about how nation was based on Christian principles. He also tried to suggest that Jefferson wasn't a deist, which, as we know, he almost certainly was. He said the Jeffersonian Bible supported Jefferson's belief in Christ as god, rather than the alternative, which sounded like an argument Glenn Beck would have made. He also asked how millions could be wrong about Christianity if it's false. You know, that whole truth in numbers argument. I said that its human nature to want to invent gods to explain things that science has yet to explain. He looked through the car windshield and said something like, This isn't enough proof. This meaning the world and all its splendor, I guess. I started getting frustrated at this point.
He kept talking and implied at one point that I was blaming God (again dredging up the argument that I was angry at God for some reason). I said forcefully that I wasn't blaming God, that I was denying God. "There's a difference," I said.
I said little after this, realizing that there was no point. After we got to our destination, my mom, who hasn't said anything this whole time, had been crying, and she was crying when we said goodbye. As for my dad, he was fine, and tried to make some small talk near the end to smooth things over a little. Pretty pissed at this point, I didn't say much. Took the book with me and left my mother in the van with tears in her eyes (yes, it's that bad).
So, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? I feel bad having upset my mother, but belief is not something I can just "turn on" to make people happy. I presume my mom is so upset about this because of the "hell" thing and well her only son rejecting something they hold so dear. Should I write a letter and try to explain that my rejection of God was not intended to upset anybody, that it was just my sincere attempt to get at the truth, regardless of where that search may have led me? To do that, I have studied apologetics, the historicity of Jesus, science, astrophysics and many other areas. They have studied nothing but the Bible and faith-affirming books like Strobel's, etc.
I mean, to me, it seems like it's getting serious. I mean, what if I get sick one day, and my family is pleading with me at the last to turn to God? And my refusal to do so makes the already dire situation even worse. I just don't know what to do at this point except move far enough away to be out of immediate reach, but that would probably be the end for my mother. To their credit, my parents are more protective than some because I almost didn't make it to my fifth birthday because of a rare immune disease with which I was born, and they attribute my still being here to a miracle from the heavens. I attribute it to medicine and the doctors who researched for years looking for a treatment (And I said this on the aforementioned blog post). My grandfather apparently made a "pact with God" that if God would save me, God could take my grandfather. He died in his early 60s. My father never fails to bring this up ... to make me feel guilty, I presume. But do I not have an ounce of personal space or am I forever devoted the spirit of my ancestors? I'm 33, but they seem to have no ability to realize my ability to think for myself. They think I'm simply misguided (probably by the devil or something).
Any suggestions? I would just kill myself to escape this rock-and-hard place situation, but I couldn't in good conscience do that.
You guys see the divide here. I don't take like too seriously or worry myself into a tizzy. That's pretty much all they do it seems. As ever, religion poisons everything.
My parents were in town for a visit over lunch yesterday. After lunch, we got into the car and my mom said she found a book that she wanted me to read. She pulled out "The Case for Christ" by Strobel. Realizing where the conversation was headed, I quickly said that I had already read that, along with tons of other apologetic works. My dad was like, "Oh you've read that too?" I said yeah. My dad, who is a hard headed, set in his ways and outspoken about it kind of person, then proceeds to ask me how many atheists are in the U.S. I said a growing number, but I didn't have an exact count, obviously. He then said all kinds of stuff about how nation was based on Christian principles. He also tried to suggest that Jefferson wasn't a deist, which, as we know, he almost certainly was. He said the Jeffersonian Bible supported Jefferson's belief in Christ as god, rather than the alternative, which sounded like an argument Glenn Beck would have made. He also asked how millions could be wrong about Christianity if it's false. You know, that whole truth in numbers argument. I said that its human nature to want to invent gods to explain things that science has yet to explain. He looked through the car windshield and said something like, This isn't enough proof. This meaning the world and all its splendor, I guess. I started getting frustrated at this point.
He kept talking and implied at one point that I was blaming God (again dredging up the argument that I was angry at God for some reason). I said forcefully that I wasn't blaming God, that I was denying God. "There's a difference," I said.
I said little after this, realizing that there was no point. After we got to our destination, my mom, who hasn't said anything this whole time, had been crying, and she was crying when we said goodbye. As for my dad, he was fine, and tried to make some small talk near the end to smooth things over a little. Pretty pissed at this point, I didn't say much. Took the book with me and left my mother in the van with tears in her eyes (yes, it's that bad).
So, what the hell am I supposed to do with this? I feel bad having upset my mother, but belief is not something I can just "turn on" to make people happy. I presume my mom is so upset about this because of the "hell" thing and well her only son rejecting something they hold so dear. Should I write a letter and try to explain that my rejection of God was not intended to upset anybody, that it was just my sincere attempt to get at the truth, regardless of where that search may have led me? To do that, I have studied apologetics, the historicity of Jesus, science, astrophysics and many other areas. They have studied nothing but the Bible and faith-affirming books like Strobel's, etc.
I mean, to me, it seems like it's getting serious. I mean, what if I get sick one day, and my family is pleading with me at the last to turn to God? And my refusal to do so makes the already dire situation even worse. I just don't know what to do at this point except move far enough away to be out of immediate reach, but that would probably be the end for my mother. To their credit, my parents are more protective than some because I almost didn't make it to my fifth birthday because of a rare immune disease with which I was born, and they attribute my still being here to a miracle from the heavens. I attribute it to medicine and the doctors who researched for years looking for a treatment (And I said this on the aforementioned blog post). My grandfather apparently made a "pact with God" that if God would save me, God could take my grandfather. He died in his early 60s. My father never fails to bring this up ... to make me feel guilty, I presume. But do I not have an ounce of personal space or am I forever devoted the spirit of my ancestors? I'm 33, but they seem to have no ability to realize my ability to think for myself. They think I'm simply misguided (probably by the devil or something).
Any suggestions? I would just kill myself to escape this rock-and-hard place situation, but I couldn't in good conscience do that.
You guys see the divide here. I don't take like too seriously or worry myself into a tizzy. That's pretty much all they do it seems. As ever, religion poisons everything.
Our Daily Train blog at jeremystyron.com
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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We have lingered in the chambers of the sea | By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown | Till human voices wake us, and we drown. — T.S. Eliot
"... man always has to decide for himself in the darkness, that he must want beyond what he knows. ..." — Simone de Beauvoir
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." — Albert Camus, "The Stranger"
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