How do you deal with a religious family?

[MusicLovingAtheist]

Raising children to believe in religion is pretty much thought enslavement. Children will believe practically anything if they're young enough. I think it's great that you want your child to grow up to think on his own without religious indoctrination. As far as family goes, I decided a while ago that I would tell everyone in my family via long rants on facebook all about how I though religion was bullshit. I got into a couple thoughtful discussions with one of my uncles but for the most part people didn't really say anything about it at all. As far as I can tell, all of my family still loves me (most of them are religious btw). I was extremely depressed at the time too, but that's a different story, but part of the reason I decided to just go tell everyone on facebook. I think another determining factor in telling others that you're an atheist could be how old you are. If you're just a kid telling everyone that you're an atheist then I think it would be more risky because at that point adults still see children as impressionable and think they can still change a child's mind or are perhaps incredulous to believe that a child can think on their own.

As far as I can tell my mom is an agnostic and my dad is an atheist, and my brother won't tell me for whatever reason. My mom and dad both used to take me to church until I was about 15. That's all a vague memory now. I think I started attacking their beliefs when I was pretty young. I used to be extremely aggressive about it. They didn't take kindly to it when I was a kid. I don't remember ever getting punished for it but I do remember a few times where I would start arguing with them out of nowhere when I was feeling confrontational and it would leave them fuming and angry. I know better than to argue with my parents now a days but back then it seemed like a unique challenge to try to argue against what I perceived to be an authority figure. Hell, I did that throughout high school. I almost feel a sense of pride in knowing that I carved out my own thinking skills and learned to think for myself. However, I realize my current state of maturity (whatever level it may be) was reached through many, many untactful and sloppy moves.

As for coming out to your family I don't have the slightest clue. You know your family better than anyone outside of it. If you're old enough, I'd say just wait until you move out. If you have some inheritance to worry about, I'd say just don't tell them unless you think they won't care. If you're young and you think they're smart, capable people, then I would grill them to a crisp (at last that's what I would have done when I was a kid). It's really a matter of pride I think. If you take pride in your atheism, then I would take it to the bank. Personally, that's what I would do at this age. Take all of their religious notions and denounce them in an elegant and not pretentious way. It could even get you a few facebook likes if you do it on facebook (I wrote about a 12 page paragraph critique of religion on facebook and it didn't get me a single like). I'm cool with that though. I feel good exercising my freedom of speech.