A friendly Christian sent me a message

[Esquilax]

Esquilax: Y'know it does kind of bring up an interesting point. For example my mom says she talks to God and writes it God, though when I was displaying signs that I now realize were part of my OCD, God NEVER brought it up to my mom until they knew about it and I was diagnosed. Seems midly suspicious.

I think you'll find that god never really reveals anything to people before they were able to independently confirm it, if you look back.

The thing is if my parents are wrong, everything they base their life off is wrong. They believe at the end of the day God is everything, other stuff may be nice and all, but God's all that matters. So atheists are saying they're living a fairy tale? I've even heard my parents say the next town they move to will be "wherever the Lord leads us". They are not casual believers, they are hardcore.

See, I don't think this is true, though. I don't think everything they've based their lives on is wrong, because I don't think everything in their life is their religion. God or not, your parents will still have friends and family that love them, and that they love in return. Those aren't lies. The things they enjoy about this world, in nature, in history, in film and books and music and human achievement, none of those are lies.

Every happy moment you've ever had with them will still be there, even if their entire religion was to crumble around them tomorrow. They won't be left with nothing, though the illusion that they will be is one of christianity's most insidious aspects, to me. The way it makes you dependent on it by taking credit for all those good things, so it seems like they'll disappear without the church.