A question for atheists about religious loved ones...

Great Debates
#1

Suppose you’re an atheist by nature, liking facts, science, things having explanations that making sense, occam’s razor, all that. And further suppose that your mother (or other close relative or friend) has the properties of 1) being severely religious, to the degree that she can (calmly) cite personal experience on the order of dreams, feeling presences, hearing voices, having visions, etc, and 2) being otherwise quite normal-seeming, practical, and rational.

It seems to me that you’ve got two choices:

  1. decide that dear mummy is a certifiable loon, or
  2. contemplate the thermostat settings for your anticipated afterlife.

If you don’t have the natural inclination or historical record to think your theistic relative is unbalanced, what then? And please, let’s stick with the atheist approach here. I’m not looking to be told I’m a recalcitrant twit who should just cave in and have faith.

#2

It’s just not that hard. I’m an atheist, and my wife is a theist.

I don’t think she’s certifiable, nor does she believe that about me. We both just happen to think the other is wrong. Heck, she’s wrong about lots of things (and I’m sure I am in her opinion), but I wasn’t looking for a clone of myself when I got married.

I think I’ll be wormfood next to my wife. She thinks I’ll be joining her in the afterlife. I’m fine either way.

Why does it have to be one extreme or the other?

#3

You’re overlooking “3) Allow said relaitive to live his/her life as he/she sees fit, so long as you are allowed to live your life as you see fit.” Which, coincidentally, is precisely the approach that I take with my wife and mum-in-law. Of course, they aren’t so severely religious that they wanna relate personal experiences such as those described above. Pretty level headed, to my view.

#4

The question is not wether I can live peacable with her (what else am I going to do? Go postal?) but rather one of constructing a personal worldview that includes mummy’s religious claims alongside my own perceptions. If, GLWasteful, by option 3 you mean, “don’t bother with it,” I have a tough time with it. Flat-out ignoring somebody’s claims is bad science, after all.

We’re talking about a nice, normal, rational person who calmly claims to have been the recipient of voices and visions. This goes a bit beyond the ‘good feelings’ that can be dismissed as the mind’s respons to the concept of god (or whichever); I’m basically left with the usual options: She’s lying, mistaken, or a loon. And she isn’t one to lie and doesn’t sound mistaken.

#5

I’ve decided my mom is a loon, just like all the rest of my realitives. If believing in “magic sky pixies” (hey, I didn’t make it up, I read that here!) keeps her happy, fine by me. I also think she is a loon for keeping a housefull of yapping kick-dogs.

#6

What does a mistaken person sound like?

#7

When you’re talking about hearing voices and having visions, a loon.

#8

Doesn’t ‘sound’ mistaken? What does someone who doesn’t sound mistaken sound like?

If there are no gods, and your loved one believes she has received personal communications from one, then she’s mistaken. Whether the degree of mistakenness is on the order of reasonable error or madness is, outside of the obvious extremes, a judgment call you’ll just have to make. Of the four items you list, ‘dreams’ and ‘feeling presences’ are fairly normal experiences, which the atheist can claim have been misinterpreted as experiences of the divine. ‘Hearing voices’ and ‘seeing visions’ are another matter. But frankly, if she claims that God appeared to her waking vision as a tall man clothed in robes of fire, who ordered her in deep, booming tones to burn down her house and give all of her belongings to Reverend Moon-well, I don’t think you need to be an atheist to have concerns about her mental health …

#9

Please explain why it is that those are the only two options.

#10

js_africanus, please explain a third. What do you think I started this thread for? Since my mom’s theological experiences are entirely consistent with her rather calm religious worldview, I don’t see her as a threat to herself or others. But the, shall we say, severity of her experiences seems to take the might-be-imagining-it right out of it. As far as I can figure, either she’s right, or she’s nuts. I’d be happy to entertain alternatives.

#11

No, I’ve got four choices, of which I have to pick two:
1A) decide that dear mummy is a certifiable loon,
1B) not decide that dear mummy is a certifiable loon,
2A) contemplate the thermostat settings for your anticipated afterlife,
2B) not contemplate the thermostat settings for your anticipated afterlife.

With my wife, who is a practicing Catholic, I choose 1B and 2B. She is not a loon, and I don’t anticipate an afterlife.

#12

My Mom fits your criteria. When she talks about prayer healing so-and-so’s shoulder last Sunday, I don’t think she’s a loon, just mistaken. I find a lot of her beliefs are comforting to her, without having an impact on me, and without me needing to say I think I’m right and she’s wrong. I don’t have all the answers either.

I’m not sure what you mean by, “what then?” What is our relationship like when the topic of religion comes up? I listen to what she has to say, and that’s about it. If I felt she was in a place where she could listen to my thoughts on the subject without getting upset and thinking about how I’m going to hell, I’d probably say more. I guess I’m just comfortable enough, that I really don’t feel the need to do much more than listen.

#13

True. But sometimes it’s worth it to just gut out any contact you have with said loon and know that you can vent at your leisure. And I’m not saying, “don’t bother with it.” I’m saying that as an atheist you need to accept that sometimes people feel differently than you do. Just as those people need to accept that your feelings sometimes differ from their own. Give a little to get a little, can’t we all just get along, however you want to say it.

Then I’d prolly think that she was bug fucking nuts. Then I would weigh whether or not declaring my thoughts would endanger our friendship/parental status and act according to whether or not I ever wanted to see this person again. Because one thing I can tell you from experience: telling someone that you think they’re crazy will pretty much end any and/or all relationship that you had with 'em.

And I, too, am curious how one manages to sound mistaken.

#14

My wife has all of the things you listed, and even I have the first two. I obviously dream, and I sometimes “feel” a presence. The latter could be that someone quietly entered the house, drafts of wind, etc., but I still “feel” them.

A funny thing though, the visions and voices are almost always (from the times I’m aware of you can even drop the “almost” from that phrase) at a time when my wife has just woken up or just gone to bed. One possibility is that the higher power has crappy timing, but another one is that she is in a dream-like state, thus putting them in category 1 from above. I tend to believe the latter, while she thinks it’s still possible that they are signs. I don’t think either of us are loons.

#15

True. But sometimes it’s worth it to just gut out any contact you have with said loon and know that you can vent at your leisure. And I’m not saying, “don’t bother with it.” I’m saying that as an atheist you need to accept that sometimes people feel differently than you do. Just as those people need to accept that your feelings sometimes differ from their own. Give a little to get a little, can’t we all just get along, however you want to say it.

Then I’d prolly think that she was bug fucking nuts. Then I would weigh whether or not declaring my thoughts would endanger our friendship/parental status and act according to whether or not I ever wanted to see this person again. Because one thing I can tell you from experience: telling someone that you think they’re crazy will pretty much end any and/or all relationship that you had with 'em.

#16

On the “receiving personal communications” stuff: I believe that I have received personal communications from George W. Bush and from John Kerry, thanking me for my support for their campagns, and asking me for money. It may be that I am mistaken, and that these so-called personal communications really come from other people, just writing in the names of Bush and Kerry. (It would not surprise me to be mistaken here, since the letters usually contain mistakes, not the least being statements that I have helped these guys in the past.) Since I believe in these personal communications, does it mean that either I am right or I am nuts. Being wrong in these matters where one has to take things on faith does not make you nuts …

(And I’ve never seen Bush or Kerry in real life, so I have no direct evidence of the existence of either.)

#17

Just because someone is “wrong” about the scientific or theological constructs of the universe doesn’t make them loony.

Was Stephen Hawking “loony” all those years he held onto an incorrect idea about black holes until he finally admitted he was mistaken? Or was he just wrong? Is his current theory even the “correct” theory? Either way, only a nutcase would call him loony.

Were all those ancient Greeks and Romans loony for believing in Zeus or Jupiter? Or were they just wrong?

Atheists and theists can get along, even love one another, just as long one or the other doesn’t attempt to enforce a scientific method or theological belief on someone unreceptive.

#18

I think there’s a difference between ignoring what someone says, and arguing who is right and who is wrong. If my Mom makes an outrageous claim, I can look it up later, if I have questions, and possibly strengthen my own stance or learn something I wasn’t aware of. I can also flat out decide there’s no way this sounds plausible, and discard the claim in much the way I deal with the man standing outside Burger King screaming, “The end is nigh!”

I think it’s possible to not compromise good science, when deciding not to debate with a brick wall.

#19

  1. She is mistaken.

  2. You are mistaken.

Why does having different beliefs make someone a lunatic? Maybe you haven’t been specific enough about what these visions are that she’s having, but it doesn’t sound like lunacy to me. Lots of people experience such things.

Yeah, I’ve had similar thoughts. A friend of mine has seen ghosts, and is quite convinced they are real. But he has only seen them when first waking. I asked if he ever saw a ghost when fully awake, and he said no. His explanation is that they are ghosts. My explanation is that they are hallucinations. That doesn’t make either one of us crazy.

And let’s not forget that fervent religious belief can lead people to interpret events as supernatural that would appear innocuous to a non-religious person.

#20

For a while, she was seeing the same person at 3:33 AM and almost every single night. The odd time sort of piqued my interest, so one night I stayed up late, until well after that. She didn’t wake, nor even stir for the entire time the clock said 3:33. Needless to say, the next morning she distinctly remembered waking up and seeing the ghost at the exact same time. :slight_smile: