(August 30, 2021 at 8:24 am)Gwaithmir Wrote: I came out as an atheist in 1982, although I had left the Catholic Church at least ten years earlier. My mom had a conniption over this and spent the next two decades or more saying novenas and donating to the Church for prayers on my behalf. All this accomplished was to confirm once and for all in my mind the inefficacy of prayer. If anyone else in my family couldn't deal with the fact that I was an atheist, they kept quiet about it.
My mom didn't go all out "what the f". But she did simply sluff it off as a phase. Ironically years later, she ended up buying me atheist books like Dawkins and Harris and Stenger and Ali over the years.
My mom died a Catholic in 2017. She never left that religion. But my entire life I have to give her credit, she always tried to give me support. She even drove me to the 2007 Atheist convention in DC. And after that 3 day convention, she was excited to know what happened and who I met. I think most of it was because she knew I would make a fool out of myself in front of the Keynote speakers.
I mean she was a good sport. She wanted me to be myself, but she also knew what a spaz, geek I was. So she knew how much I wanted to meet Hitchens and Hawking and Harris. But she also knew I was also going to act like a school girl meeting Elvis. So after I made a fool of my self for 3 days, I finally get back to her and tell her of all the stupid shit I did, she laughed.
I don't like that she was Catholic, being former Catholic myself. But for that one weekend, she knew, that it wasn't about religion, or politics, but about a parent trying to prove she could connect to her child. I know we were polar opposites. But when I came back from those three days, her first question to me, knowing that I had told her who would possibly be there, she asked me, "So who did you meet?". THAT MEANT EVERYTHING TO ME.
