RE: How should I go about telling my parents that I'm atheist
February 12, 2015 at 10:43 pm
(This post was last modified: February 12, 2015 at 10:43 pm by SteelCurtain.)
Welcome!
Like Beccs said, it's a really difficult thing to give advice on---there are so many factors that only you can know.
Financial independence is an important factor. Parents can surprise you, either way. My parents are about as fundie as you can get, and when I told them I was an atheist, there response was not what I expected. I expected them to be extremely divisive and disown me, but they didn't at all. They are loving and supportive. It took them a long time to get used to the idea that I don't believe the same things they do, but they did eventually get used to it.
But on the other side, we have many people just on this site that will tell you about some horrible experiences they had when they told their family.
A good barometer is to have conversations about a "friend" you met in college who is an atheist, and sing his praises. Tell them about how cool this person is and how much you respect him, and see how they respond. This will let you know two things: whether they respect your judgment, and their response to the term atheist. Just be prepared to not take it personal if they have a reaction.
Also, keep looking into it. Read books from both sides. It seems from your examples that your issue with religion is less about the evidence pro or con, but about the tenets themselves. Discover more, so you will have more ammunition on your side if you do have the conversation.
Like Beccs said, it's a really difficult thing to give advice on---there are so many factors that only you can know.
Financial independence is an important factor. Parents can surprise you, either way. My parents are about as fundie as you can get, and when I told them I was an atheist, there response was not what I expected. I expected them to be extremely divisive and disown me, but they didn't at all. They are loving and supportive. It took them a long time to get used to the idea that I don't believe the same things they do, but they did eventually get used to it.
But on the other side, we have many people just on this site that will tell you about some horrible experiences they had when they told their family.
A good barometer is to have conversations about a "friend" you met in college who is an atheist, and sing his praises. Tell them about how cool this person is and how much you respect him, and see how they respond. This will let you know two things: whether they respect your judgment, and their response to the term atheist. Just be prepared to not take it personal if they have a reaction.
Also, keep looking into it. Read books from both sides. It seems from your examples that your issue with religion is less about the evidence pro or con, but about the tenets themselves. Discover more, so you will have more ammunition on your side if you do have the conversation.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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