Being outbred by the religious

[Clueless Morgan]

As a side note; My christian wife often
tells god she is pissed at him because
she never wanted kids, and therefore
she should have been spared the 'curse'
of a menstrual cycle. She asks him why,
if he knows everything, could he not make
provisions for her given that she was never
going to have children of her own...

If I were a theist I'd be cursing God over having a period too. As it is I have no one to curse for this monthly affliction.

*counting down the years until I hit menopause*

My mother (and 99% of my family) is still religious. My nephew is another atheist born to religious parents. I don't think that idea of children automatically assuming the religion of their parents is necessarily true, though it happens quite often. But I'm betting that number drops as information is easily available on the internet. It was far easier to keep kids indoctrinated back when they actually had to go to the library to look stuff up.

I would agree with this; I didn't inherit my mother's religion for the primary reason that she never went to church and therefore I never went to church either. I suspect my dad is some kind of deist or the lowest, most uninterested rung of theist it's possible to be (I'd say he's a cultural christian, infused with it through ring-wing talk radio, country music, NASCAR and having pretty religious/socially conservative buddies)- the only time he has ever mentioned religion to me was when I was like 16 or 17 and a perfect stranger walked up to me, asked me if I was a Christian, then ran away when my dad walked over. My dad asked me what the guy wanted, I told him the guy asked me if I was a christian and my dad's immediate response was "Of course you are" - which, coincidentally was the first time I really acknowledged to myself that I was 100% atheist and not just investigating my beliefs.

Whoa, tangent...

I also think there might be an element of culture/generation to it, too: I have two sisters, one 2 years older and one 10 years older. The sister that's 2 years older has atheistic leanings; she told me once long ago that she was an atheist but she's not the kind who put much thought into it or cares to learn about the harm religion does, she's a "live and let live" atheist. My oldest sister takes after my dad much more, nominally theist and is probably more a cultural christian than a Believer, but is some kind of deist/theist nonetheless.

I, the most ardent atheist in my family, have no desire to have kids. Like, ever. Give me the hysterectomy now, please, let's not even wait for menopause. My older (middle) sister has never mentioned wanting to have kids and is currently (and for the last 8 years or so) been a nanny so she's raising other peoples' kids. I'm wondering if she'll want to have any of her own. My oldest sister is in her late thirties and is trying to get pregnant and having infertility problems, and coincidentally spent her early 20's as a nanny as well and got burnt out raising other peoples' kids so I'm wondering if my middle sister is destined for the same path.