I will never understand this. Every parent knows their children have their own minds; you don’t expect your child to think the same thoughts as you, or to have the same experiences as you had, so why would you ever be surprised - much less dismayed - that they come to different conclusions about religion than you do? Did you do your homework and come to that conclusion yourself? Great, if that’s what makes you happy then I’m happy.
In their mind it’s not a simple difference of opinion, it’s the fate of your eternal soul forever. They can’t understand how someone could reject infinite happiness in heaven for pure unending suffering in hell.
And even worse than that, you are (directly or not) saying they are wrong, that they are fools for believing in fairy tales, and not just about any old subject, but about the most important thing in the universe - it’s whole purpose.
That’s quite a hard thing for a lot of people to accept unfortunately, and some don’t take it well at all. I do feel like I was lucky that my parents didn’t take it as harshly as some do.
Probably helps that I’m still cis and straight, and grew up in a left-wing area, so it’s not like I’m the only atheist they knew.
Right, but like that has to be tempered with the understanding that different people think different things about stuff like religion, right? Some acknowledgement that what might be self-evident truth to you is a muddy contradictory mess to others? shrug Iono, people be dumb I guess.
Yeah, my parents were pretty chill, took a kind of ‘expose the kids to lots of things and let them make their own minds up’ view and didn’t even really comment (they asked, obviously, but they were just like ‘whatever’ upon hearing the explanation) when I told them I had been asked to not come back the church we had been going to. But I do get that this is a big deal for other people, so I don’t mean to demean their struggles or anything.
Really happy for ya, parents usually don’t take these things so well, mine would probably disown me if I ever came out about having different beliefs
I will never understand this. Every parent knows their children have their own minds; you don’t expect your child to think the same thoughts as you, or to have the same experiences as you had, so why would you ever be surprised - much less dismayed - that they come to different conclusions about religion than you do? Did you do your homework and come to that conclusion yourself? Great, if that’s what makes you happy then I’m happy.
In their mind it’s not a simple difference of opinion, it’s the fate of your eternal soul forever. They can’t understand how someone could reject infinite happiness in heaven for pure unending suffering in hell.
And even worse than that, you are (directly or not) saying they are wrong, that they are fools for believing in fairy tales, and not just about any old subject, but about the most important thing in the universe - it’s whole purpose.
That’s quite a hard thing for a lot of people to accept unfortunately, and some don’t take it well at all. I do feel like I was lucky that my parents didn’t take it as harshly as some do.
Probably helps that I’m still cis and straight, and grew up in a left-wing area, so it’s not like I’m the only atheist they knew.
Right, but like that has to be tempered with the understanding that different people think different things about stuff like religion, right? Some acknowledgement that what might be self-evident truth to you is a muddy contradictory mess to others? shrug Iono, people be dumb I guess.
Yeah, my parents were pretty chill, took a kind of ‘expose the kids to lots of things and let them make their own minds up’ view and didn’t even really comment (they asked, obviously, but they were just like ‘whatever’ upon hearing the explanation) when I told them I had been asked to not come back the church we had been going to. But I do get that this is a big deal for other people, so I don’t mean to demean their struggles or anything.