Why do you hate God?

[Mister Agenda]

Thank you for sharing your story Mister Agenda. I have a question if I may. How does your family feel about you being an atheist? Do they know now and if so do you still have a relationship with them?

You are welcome. My family is aware, although I didn't bring it up, I never lied about it, so eventually it got around. My mother and stepfather had already passed before it got to their side. Her sister and nieces and nephews know but don't mention it, I think they're all Assembly of God. On my dad's side I'm a popular topic of conversation, I think my preacher uncle is aiming to convert me at the next family reunion. My dad thinks I'll be part of the Tribulation Force when the antichrist comes because I was properly baptized and will be able to discern the probably gay Catholic so-and-so for what he is.

Frankly, I don't visit my dad much, he's far away, doesn't do Facebook, pretty much doesn't do phones, and preaches at me the whole tie I'm there. I bring DVDs of movies he finds acceptable (Christian-themed, war, or westerns) to keep him quiet while we hang out.

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Good evening Nomad,

So, you have on here that I wrote 
<snipping the bull@#$% and snide personal attacks>

I am not sure where you got that from, but I have never spoken like that to anybody in here at all nor do I speak like that to anybody in my personal life so please do not attribute such things to me. 

Nomad was probably responding to your initial post, which seems out of character for you compared to your other posts.

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Thank you for sharing your story with us I appreciate it very much! Question if I may. You say you are an atheist and are a part of a UU church? Can you please elaborate more on that so that I understand what you mean by UU church?

I'm associated with a Unitarian Universalist Congregation myself, although I haven't visited one in over a year. It's a liberal religion that doesn't assert any creed but focuses on the common search for meaning in life. The Universalists are one of the roots, they couldn't believe a just God would condemn people to hell. Congregations with 'All Souls' in the name were usually originally Universalist churches. The Unitarians are the other root, they were basically non-trinitarians. There are still congregations that are Unitarian alone, but most Unitarians joined with the Universalists in the late 1950s-early 1960s.

Today, UUism is essentially pluralistic. All faiths or none are welcome. They've got everything from disaffected Baptists to Muslims without a mosque to attend to Jews who don't agree with their rabbi, to atheistic humanists.

In my experience services are like interesting lectures with hymns. My local congregation isn't very good at those so I would usually time my arrival to coincide with the last hymn before the speaker. I sometimes miss out on good musical guests that way. There's a share the plate offering at mine where half goes to the UU and half goes to a charity. As a member I get to use an activity room for the meetings of my Freethought Society group.

You could think of them as a hippie church. One of the jokes about them is Universalists think God is too good to keep them in hell and Unitarians think they're too good for God to send to hell. There used to be a Unitarian joke about Unitarians believing in one God...at most. Nowadays they have pagans so that joke doesn't fly anymore.

I hope this was helpful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_...%80%931961