My family has a split personality when it comes to religion.  One great grandparent was an atheist, others were indifferent while still others were (and, are) conservative evangelical Christians.  No one gets along for long periods of time.  My uncle, a conservative evangelical, is preaching at my mother (who is 72); I have encouraged her to read Professor Bart Ehrman.  And, so, I am not accepted, as an atheist, by my family, but then again, everyone is constantly blocking everyone else on Facebook, which I do not use anyway.

I never "came out" as an atheist, I was born one and never found the need to change that

(August 29, 2021 at 6:36 am)brewer Wrote:

(August 29, 2021 at 6:26 am)Ronaldo Wrote: Does your family have to know?
I choose not to tell them

Do you spend a lot of time hiding and deceiving?

Living in New Zealand I am lucky I guess that religion is not totally pervasive. People are generally quite accepting of atheists, possibly because of the melting pot that Auckland is anyway, with a good mixture of virtually any culture and belief system you can imagine - and whilst some are minorities, you won't get very far if you are judgy and shove your belief in everyone's face, since no-one group has enough of a majority (even Christians) that they can afford to piss off everyone else.

I imagine a lot of you are in completely different boats there - with your whole family / circle of friends / community being religious and conformity being king.

Whilst I was Christened, all of my family is also Atheist - which is actually boring from one perspective - hard to have stimulating conversations with people who agree with you.

Having robust conversations with people at work about religious beliefs is risky, since you still have to work with them the next day.

(October 26, 2021 at 3:26 pm)slartibartfast Wrote: Living in New Zealand I am lucky I guess that religion is not totally pervasive. People are generally quite accepting of atheists, possibly because of the melting pot that Auckland is anyway, with a good mixture of virtually any culture and belief system you can imagine - and whilst some are minorities, you won't get very far if you are judgy and shove your belief in everyone's face, since no-one group has enough of a majority (even Christians) that they can afford to piss off everyone else.

I imagine a lot of you are in completely different boats there - with your whole family / circle of friends / community being religious and conformity being king.

Whilst I was Christened, all of my family is also Atheist - which is actually boring from one perspective - hard to have stimulating conversations with people who agree with you.

Having robust conversations with people at work about religious beliefs is risky, since you still have to work with them the next day.

Sounds like you need some spice. I'd like to submit you name to the Watch Tower mailing list.

(October 26, 2021 at 6:57 pm)brewer Wrote:

(October 26, 2021 at 3:26 pm)slartibartfast Wrote: Living in New Zealand I am lucky I guess that religion is not totally pervasive. People are generally quite accepting of atheists, possibly because of the melting pot that Auckland is anyway, with a good mixture of virtually any culture and belief system you can imagine - and whilst some are minorities, you won't get very far if you are judgy and shove your belief in everyone's face, since no-one group has enough of a majority (even Christians) that they can afford to piss off everyone else.

I imagine a lot of you are in completely different boats there - with your whole family / circle of friends / community being religious and conformity being king.

Whilst I was Christened, all of my family is also Atheist - which is actually boring from one perspective - hard to have stimulating conversations with people who agree with you.

Having robust conversations with people at work about religious beliefs is risky, since you still have to work with them the next day.

Sounds like you need some spice. I'd like to submit you name to the Watch Tower mailing list.

Haha.... had a few visits from them over the years. If you do that I will give your address to the Kirby vacuum people....