I'm sort of opposite to the rest of you guys in terms of generational differences.
I am 72, and I have two sons in their 40s. The younger son is an atheist like me. The older son (who was a totally wild kid when I was in the ministry) attends a fundamentalist church and reads these ridiculous Left Behind novels about the Rapture. I think his wife is even more so.
However, I regard them as skin-deep fundamentalists, which are the best kind. They probably suspect that the old man hasn't been to church in decades, but they don't raise the issue. They are good parents with their kids, and not really morally rigid. I'm secretly amused that The Big Bang Theory is one of their favorite TV shows; you would think most fundies would disapprove of all the pre-marital sex.
Anyway, I've just decided not to rock the boat. They don't bug me, so I won't bug them. I would be afraid that if I made an all-out effort to deconvert them, I might find myself cut off from the grandchildren.
I am 72, and I have two sons in their 40s. The younger son is an atheist like me. The older son (who was a totally wild kid when I was in the ministry) attends a fundamentalist church and reads these ridiculous Left Behind novels about the Rapture. I think his wife is even more so.
However, I regard them as skin-deep fundamentalists, which are the best kind. They probably suspect that the old man hasn't been to church in decades, but they don't raise the issue. They are good parents with their kids, and not really morally rigid. I'm secretly amused that The Big Bang Theory is one of their favorite TV shows; you would think most fundies would disapprove of all the pre-marital sex.
Anyway, I've just decided not to rock the boat. They don't bug me, so I won't bug them. I would be afraid that if I made an all-out effort to deconvert them, I might find myself cut off from the grandchildren.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people — House
