WDAD: What Do Atheists Do About Religious Family?

http://agnosticatheist.wordpress.com/2007/04/06/atheist-coming-out-to-religious-friends-and-family/

http://www.atheistrev.com/2009/06/coming-out-as-atheist-to-your-christian.html

http://www.americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2010-04-ask-richard-my-christian-family-feels-threatened-by-m

http://www.askdrrobert.dr-robert.com/christianparents.html

http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/07/religious-parents-atheist-children-and.html

Atheists already deal with people’s mistaken ideas about them spread by apologists and other “well-meaning” believers in God on an almost daily basis, but how does this factor in with one’s family? My own family isn’t terribly pushy about their Christianity for the most part, and this is mostly due to me being, for the most part to extended family, a closet atheist. I haven’t even told many people outside of those that could figure out through Facebook and look at my profile to see I identify with Zen. In that case, family wise, I would estimate only about 20-25 people at most would know that I’m not Christian, which is pretty much the default faith of most people raised in Tennessee anyway. I don’t see many people having a problem with it at all and I’ve only lost one Facebook friend through their unwillingness to engage in civil debates with me without exploding. I can’t speak for those who have come out, which comprises more of the difficulties and questions that are raised in regards to atheist’s relations with their religious family, excessive or otherwise. But I think I can provide some advice nonetheless as one who engages with the religious commonly.

Atheists who have already come out to their families encounter proselytizing and general skepticism that someone could actually stop believing in God and Jesus. Accusations are flung ranging from the person being possessed by Satan, affected by the secular humanist agenda or doing it out of rebellion. There’s also worry that they’ll go to hell or that they don’t have any basis for doing good, both of which are either irrelevant or unjustified. The insistence that they’ll change their mind with time, when they “grow up” makes me chuckle, since those believers have only grown up physically at most, but mentally, they haven’t truly matured, since they refuse to accept even the doubts that arise as to whether God actually exists or cares about them, pushing them aside. If they are unwilling to face the anxiety and emotional distress that might arise from adopting a perspective where there is no God and only humans in a world which they have the power to improve or destroy, then perhaps they haven’t really grown up in any real sense, except perhaps taking on some responsibilities that any human being is expected to as they reach a certain age. We all leave the nest of our parents, but this doesn’t mean that we sever those connections and dispositions that sometimes persist in spite of the separation we experience by paying our own rent, getting our own groceries and working a day to day job to support ourselves. Many people, since they have lost that direct connection to their initial providers, instead take on the belief that there is a spiritual/supernatural parent always watching over them which comforts them in some way. I don’t deny people’s right to believe this, but even as a pluralist, I cannot completely allow people to hold these beliefs in spite of evidence and arguments to the contrary. Plenty of people live a life full of happiness in spite of losses and don’t make any pleas to a deity to protect them or help them through it, but persist in spite of the existential despair. That humanist tenacity, particularly the secular variety, is admirable to me, though I suppose this goes without saying when in the position of being an outsider to a religion that offers not only the community of similar groups, but spiritual and existential solace in hearing someone preach that there is someone watching out for them and that loves them unconditionally (but only until they die, after which they separate the child from their love eternally if they haven’t loved them back).

I could understand in part when a family member feels defensive or disappointed when you have a family member that believes very differently than you about the supernatural. It’s one thing to have someone who converts to Judaism in a Christian family, or even Islam (popular in the 21st century as the new target that previously ranged from Judaism to Catholicism 50 years or more in the past). But even someone converting to Buddhism, which I have in part, let alone becoming an atheist (reverting back to a state they were already in before) poses a bigger issue to parents who might feel that the child is rebelling against them, or if the child is otherwise obedient, that they have somehow failed God in not raising their offspring to be good Christians. But I’d respond to all those parents: if your child is an otherwise good citizen and is respectful to you in spite of disagreeing with you about whether Jesus saves or God exists, then you’ve done a better job than many parents do in letting the school or the media serve as the babysitter for their spawn, regarding them as little more than a nuisance or free labor. If you genuinely love your child, I don’t see why you should become hostile in any sense just because they have changed from the religion you thought they ought to adhere to. Accept them as they are, like God accepts people. And before you respond that God expects change, don’t compare yourself to something that’s supposed to be all knowing and all powerful. You are neither and thus you don’t have any basis to do anything but pray to that God; not that it will necessarily have any effect on your child’s beliefs. If your child hasn’t become a criminal, they are in no imminent danger.

In terms of preconceived ideas of what atheists are, the best way to dispel those myths is to behave as you normally would and let your behavior speak for itself in terms of your atheism. You haven’t ceased to love your family, you haven’t become less moral, and you aren’t trying to convert them to atheism. But you must establish that you won’t change your beliefs just to make them feel better. You chose your beliefs and you will stick with them even if your family doesn’t agree. In the worst case scenario, your family would disown you and if you’re an adult, this is fine, however troubling it is at first. If they are not willing to accept you in choosing atheism, then perhaps they aren’t truly family in the sense of a group of people who persist in unconditional love in spite of the occasional ups and downs. If you’re not an adult, this can pose a problem in that you have to tolerate such intolerance that it borders on criminal behavior. In this way, being an atheist in a situation where you are dependent on religious family is actually a motivation to become independent sooner than if you don’t have this problem. My own immediate family isn’t so religious that they don’t permit that I have my own beliefs, so there is in a sense not as much motivation to become independent, though I definitely desire it a great deal if only to avoid more religious infighting that might occur in the future as I further mature.

So in my experience, atheists do have problems sometimes with religious family, but as they have become atheists, they seem to have become at least more understanding, though there are many atheists closeted to even their immediate family for fear of ostracism. And I say to them, do not be afraid. You have support in other atheists and even other theists who may disagree with you, but nonetheless grant you that freedom to choose your beliefs as an individual instead of thinking you must conform to satisfy their selfish wishes. Atheists and tolerant theists are your friends, even your family in a sense. Don’t let the so called “support and love” through your family members’ religious evangelism become a barrier to openness about your atheism. That’s the first step to making atheism more accepted and more well known in the world at large. Once your family begins to understand that atheism is only part of you and doesn’t determine other things about you, then they can start telling non family members about how you’re still the same person, you just don’t believe in God like many others might. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.

Why Moral Language Matters

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christian-smith/religious-tolerance-karma-christ-whatever_b_965072.html

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/09/15/morality-brooks/

I don’t speak enough about being confronted with conflicting opinions and resolving those differences in detail, as much as I try to smooth them over. I consider myself a pluralist and not anything of a multiculturalist or hard relativist, especially in an epistemological or metaphysical sense. Some things are true whether we believe they are or not and things exist independently of our minds. But I can’t deny that there is some interaction and relation between what our mind perceives and those things as they are in themselves. And in terms of right and wrong, I don’t deny there should be some flexibility, but not to the detriment of having basic principles that we’d abandon for convenience’s sake or some twisted notion of progress that focuses on creativity over any sense of rationality. Both truth and morality should be high on our list of priorities in life, even if it’s a slow progress.

In order to make the world a better place, even one person at a time, we should go beyond multiculturalism and relative tolerance on the one hand and also beyond sectarian and divisive views of the world on the other and affirm a real pluralism. We can respectfully disagree and also affirm that people can have well thought out belief systems and find common ground even with dissonant foundations elsewhere. People’s beliefs should be taken seriously as to whether they are true or not, since many times, it appears we don’t believe in things because they have credulity, but because of peer pressure, need for social conformity, or even just to make ourselves feel secure. If we actually investigate with a discerning eye and some degree of objectivity, maybe we would gain deeper conviction or perhaps we’d change our beliefs in favor of more convincing ones. I’m not going into a rant about why religious beliefs should be completely dropped, since that’s highly unlikely to happen anyway. I can respect people who believe in God and other supernatural things, but there is a point where I cannot simply let people go their own way. We shouldn’t just accept people’s beliefs when they put others in danger, either through neglect or through excessive interference. If someone thinks they can heal disease by prayer and completely ignores medical treatment, that’s dangerous. If someone thinks they can change someone to be straight through invasive psychotherapy, I can’t accept that as either scientific or moral. This is based on the understanding of liberty that says people’s rights of non interference stop at the point they begin to interfere with other people’s inalienable rights. If you cease to treat people as equal because they don’t share your beliefs or behave in a way you think is immoral, then your religious beliefs don’t deserve automatic respect or serve as justification for otherwise irreprehensible actions. If you happen to believe in God or such and are not intrusive or obnoxious about it, you at least deserve some modicum of tolerance from other people. But at the same time, I don’t think we should give religion any more favor merely because it’s rooted in tradition or socially accepted practices. But we should at least give people liberty to choose within reason amongst the various religious beliefs that generally do not cause excessive harm. One can allow belief systems you don’t agree with to exist if those who believe in them are willing to let them be criticized on the same level as other systems. And the same allowance on your end will create a more peaceful coexistence than before.

It’s ironic when some people say all things are ultimately relative and without any basis for judgment of right or wrong and also judge certain things (slavery, gay rights, genocide) as right or wrong as if it is self evident, which contradicts their claim that all things are relative for ethical judgment. If we qualify that things are epistemologically relative or ontologically relative, there might be a better case for consistency. Things being “epistemologically relative” means we each approach questions with a limited knowledge base. And things being “ontologically relative” means we all classify things in particular ways, though perhaps there are certain things that are more unified in how they are categorized. Not all things are relative in terms of the laws of physics, for example, except perhaps on the quantum level. Regular everyday events and actions are only relative ethically in terms of perspective, similarly to our knowledge; if we don’t consider something’s rightness or wrongness, we don’t respond in that vein to claims of that action being right or wrong. If we argue there are certain things that are objectively and more conclusively true than other things, the difficulty is distinguishing why this is so. Pluralism is a good impetus to this form of soft relativism, as opposed to hard relativism. According to a study by Notre Dame professor Christian Smith, many young adults do not have the vocabulary or even motivation to speak about moral issues. It’s one thing to try to argue that all morals are relative, which is at least some conclusion about the issue, however mistaken it is, but it’s another thing to be apathetic about morals and ethics, which seems to be the case here. The importance of moral language cannot be overstated, since without even some cursory ideas about what right and wrong are in various systems, we can’t even start to consider the basis of those ideas and our own beliefs about the rightness or wrongness of something like Troy Davis’ recent execution even though there was supposedly little conclusive evidence to prove his guilt. If you don’t care about whether an innocent person is killed by the state, or whether an innocent person is killed to begin with, you have your priorities terribly out of shape.

People’s interests only seem to focus on any kind of ultimate truth or being correct when it personally affects them in some way, which usually leads to a misguided sense of moral indignation, or when it affects a group they identify with. Christians who take their religious identity very seriously get up in arms about upholding morals, but many of them seem to use that notion of being Christian as an excuse for doing all sorts of unethical things otherwise and then begging for forgiveness after the fact. The biggest problem that exists in terms of either whether one worldview is the only correct one or whether the death penalty or abortion are ethical/unethical is that people tend to focus too much on a smaller picture of things and miss how their own moralizing and overly zealous attitude is a problem in and of itself or they try to polarize the issue as a whole and paint every person who disagrees in any way as an opponent, even if they unknowingly agree with people on those issues in part. I had a co-worker who was staunchly pro life and listened to conservative radio, but I didn’t have a problem with working alongside them, especially since they only made that a specific part of their life and avocation of “protecting the unborn”. I could understand part of their position, as they’re a parent and possibly find it incredulous that anyone could “destroy a child” for mere “convenience” or “selfishness” As you grow older, you tend to become a bit more set in your ways, since it gives you a sense of stability in an otherwise chaotic world. But the existential nature of life; searching for meaning and building foundations upon insights or institutions; is a shared feature that we all engage with in one way or another. I might not agree with many friends or acquaintances who are strong Christians, but I can nonetheless respect their right to believe it. But, remember, this is only to the extent that they do not give themselves a mistaken sense of entitlement, similarly as I hope people would grant me if I became misguided in what I felt I deserved in life in the future. So, until next time, Namaste, aloha, and let’s all try to get along.

Faithful Nation or Nation of Faiths?

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/05/most-tea-partiers-call-america-a-christian-nation-study-finds/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/02/britain-recognizes-druidry-as-religion-for-first-time-gives-it-charitable-status/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/07/my-take-so-who-are-the-druids-anyway

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1317490/Druids-official-religion-Stones-Praise-come.html

With the recognition of Druidism/Druidry (?) as a religion in the UK and a generally good response from many people, one wonders how the U.S would feel in a similar situation. It has only been a little over 20 years since Dettmer v. Landon, where a Wiccan practitioner was agreed to have had his 1st Amendment rights violated. Wicca was officially recognized to be a religion and thus protected in free exercise, even in prisons, including the use of ritual objects. And it’s been only 3 years since the family of Patrick Stewart, a Wiccan soldier killed in action, was granted a Wiccan pentacle on his gravestone, since the U.S Army hadn’t recognized Wicca as a religion worthy of recognition by the Army in practically 20 years. I can’t imagine why; except that the army also discriminates against homosexuals, so why should I have been surprised at this? As I said two weeks ago, Wicca is quite possibly one of the highest growing movements in the U.S., so frankly, I am happy that the UK is making more progress, especially considering Druidry’s no doubt higher demographics across the sea. There is of course a strain of thought even in England that appears to regard giving Druidism the status of religion as a pandering to New Age thinking or other arguments suggesting that tolerance and acceptance are exactly the same in legal terms (p.s., they’re not). The critic of Druidism’s status as a religion also makes a questionable assessment of what is considered a religion by trying to say that because Druidry doesn’t have a shared set of beliefs it isn’t a religion, but a fringe cult. It’s hard to imagine that even in England there exists a similar, though not necessarily as strong, current of thought that suggests that without Christianity there would be no cause for moral behavior.

I remember reading a book for a class on New Atheism by David Bentley Hart, an Eastern Orthodox scholar, who noted that many of the claims about Christianity in the Middle Ages and prior are misrepresented. His scholarship was indeed correct from what I could determine, but his claim that we have to acknowledge Christianity’s place in history, even if we are becoming post Christian, I can only tentatively agree with. Any involvement of Christianity in culture and history should properly be viewed, even in a Christian perspective as a matter of fortune, not of providence. Any involvement of God’s will in relation to Christianity’s existence would be moreso related to its survival, not its precedence in the “fleshly kingdoms”.

The very notion of a Christian nation is something I’ve spoken of before, though it has been months no doubt. Jon Meacham’s argument still stands as a strong Christian argument against the notion that America is a Christian nation, and honestly the very idea would no doubt strike even the Protestant arbiter Luther as blasphemous. The idea that God would favor any kingdom or nation on earth is preposterous on the grounds that in the Gospels, Jesus himself called to bring together all the nations of the world, all people, Gentile or Jew, male or female, high or low class, even those regarded as heretics like the Samaritans. Not to mention he said the kingdom of heaven is not of this earth, so that’s another nail in the coffin.

If the Religious Right that persists today, even through my own generation, disappointingly, got its way, they’d probably have legislation to discriminate against virtually any religion that wasn’t derived from the Abrahamic tradition, though it’s doubtful if they’d even allow Islam to exist with the climate that surrounds anything related to Muslim activities in America, faith based or otherwise. It’s always heartening to hear Christians reflecting tolerance towards even those that in their religion’s perspective are condemned to hell unless they shift their faith towards a God that is both three and one (however that works) while ironically in many areas of Wicca, the God and Goddess are practically two in one. I’m especially curious about what will happen with the future possibility of a Wiccan Senator or even a Wiccan President/Vice President. How long will it take? Will I even be alive when it’s a possibility? Will I even be aware of it unless I’m told by someone else? And when will it be an insignificant issue about what faith the person is as opposed to whether they stand for basic democratic “American” ideals that people can admire and respect even if they both aren’t going to heaven? Hopefully, before I’m as old as my parents. Until next time, Namaste and aloha.