Fearful of leaving your family's religion - read this

[RedRod]

For those of you unwilling to break with a family tradition or have been accused of failing to uphold the family’s religious principles, just consider this. Go back far enough in your family tree and you will finally reach an ancestor who was not a Christian. Indeed, s/he had most probably never heard of Christianity before and knew only the prevailing religious beliefs of that time and place. Curiosity prompts your pagan ancestor to listen to a missionary one day who invites those present to be baptised and accept the Lord as their Saviour and your ancestor, moved by the missionary's words accepts this offer and becomes a Christian. From that moment forward, a family tradition is born. In the centuries to follow believing parents pass their beliefs to their children and they so on to theirs. Ask yourself this question. Was it wrong for this ancestor of yours to break with long-held and passionate felt family and tribal pagan tradition to become a Christian? I wonder how those pagan parents felt when their son or daughter, once they had just been ritually admitted into this foreign cult, must have felt upon learning of their conversion. Shock, anger, disbelief, dismay and a sense of betrayal of family values and core beliefs – just as parents react today. If it was wrong for you to leave your family’s particular religion, then it must surely have been wrong for that distant ancestor to have abandoned his/her family’s traditional beliefs to become a Christian. To argue otherwise is just special pleading.

[drfuzzy]

Wrongness . . . and fearfulness are not the same things though, RedRod. 

Leaving my families' religion meant that I lost all of my family except my brother, and an aunt and uncle.  Literally disowned.  
Here in the "bible belt", being open about being an atheist could still cause me to lose my job, or my house, or face violence.

I remember a recent post where a member was complaining that his father would not respect his atheism. For people still living 
at home, being openly atheist can mean getting thrown out on the street.  I have literally counseled many Catholic teens to go 
ahead and go through Confirmation - - and not challenge their parent's beliefs until they are on their own. 

Wrong? No, of course not. It's simple honesty. But sometimes that honesty comes with a big price, and the fear is real.

[RedRod]

Yes, honesty indeed comes at a high price and although I don't live in the US bible-belt, I was lucky enough to be born into one of the few remaining families of exclusive brethren still active in an otherwise secular country (Australia). Not only my immediate family, but every relation I knew and friend I had belonged to this cult. As a consequence, not only have lost everything, but I have nephews and nieces, brothers-in-law I'll never meet because I've been cast out and yes, there have been times when I asked myself if it was worth coming out. But I just couldn't bring myself to go through the empty ritual of belief any longer and in my late teens I realised I had two choices; accept the painful truth that my family are barking mad and move out, or be reconciled to becoming my parents - a blind, unthinking, guilt-ridden, fearful, ignorant slave to a toxic meme. I was charged with " breaking faith" by my angry parents and I responded with the same answer I gave in my original post that someone, sometime, decided to abandon their family faith to become a Christian thus establishing a precedent.

[drfuzzy]

RedRod . . . you're my brother from another mother.
Sorry to hear of your losses. Celebrating your self-determination, self-awareness, and self-respect. 
And we just keep putting one foot in front of the other with head held high.