# Half Pit, Half Praise: Teen relative punished for honest agnosticism **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 31, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-pit-half-praise-teen-relative-punished-for-honest-agnosticism/470441 "2008-10-31T15:51:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-pit-half-praise-teen-relative-punished-for-honest-agnosticism/470441/101 "2008-11-02T01:17:29Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > She’s saying that religion definitely exists, not that god definitely exists (I think). Give that man a kewpie doll. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Caveat\_lector\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@Caveat\_lector\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caveat_lector_1)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-pit-half-praise-teen-relative-punished-for-honest-agnosticism/470441/102 "2008-11-02T01:19:44Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Nothing at all. In fact, it’s pretty hot. I was joking that she could use it as fantasy fodder for masturbation, since all her “wicked” books have been taken away. (“Killing kittens” is a euphemism for masturbation.) Truly, there’s something in the Bible for every occasion, even those which might shock and dismay her parents. Ah. I took it as you meant it was fodder for arguing with her parents. A digression: When I was looking for a wife I always knew that if I compared her hair to a flock of goats and she took it as a complement I would have found a keeper. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2008, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-pit-half-praise-teen-relative-punished-for-honest-agnosticism/470441/103 "2008-11-02T14:33:28Z")
> [@Caveat\_lector\_1](#): > > A digression: When I was looking for a wife I always knew that if I compared her hair to a flock of goats and she took it as a complement I would have found a keeper. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-pit-half-praise-teen-relative-punished-for-honest-agnosticism/470441/104 "2008-11-03T15:07:35Z")
> [@Pyper](#): > > Jess has more balls than I did at that age. I was already an atheist when it came time for my confirmation, but I couldn’t tell that to my mother’s face. Instead, I just acted like a snot before, during, and after the confirmation classes we had to attend once a week. Driving home after one class, my mother pulled over and asked in a tearful voice if I didn’t want to be confirmed. I just sat silently. I ended up being confirmed and to this day I have not told my mother, “I am an atheist.” Pretty sure she knows, though. This is more or less what I did (though I became Jewish, not atheist, later). I certainly had doubts about Christianity when I was in my confirmation class, but I didn’t tell my parents about them. I didn’t let them make a big deal out of my confirmation either, though. I still _wanted_ to be a believing Christian then, though, so my case is a little different from hers. > [@Baker](#): > > Her parents will accomplish nothing by the treatment they are handing out. You can’t force people to believe You can’t even force _yourself_ to believe something you don’t. I know- I’ve tried. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I think not. if I’d done that at her age, I’d have gotten a whipping with it in short order, and while I don’t know that my cousin and her husband would do that, I know they spank for other stuff. I’d rather she learned to be sneaky. Evading the question of religion or changing the subject when it comes up _is_ something she’ll have to learn to do if she wants a relationship with her parents as an adult (assuming she doesn’t change her mind on religion before then- unlikely, maybe, but stranger things have happened). In my family, it is a subject that Mr. Neville and I Do Not Discuss with my parents, just like politics (they’re staunch Republicans, we’re staunch Democrats). I suspect my sister and brother-in-law follow a similar course. He’s Catholic, she’s spiritual but not religious (they’re raising their two daughters Catholic), and they’re both staunch Democrats, too. My family situation growing up (my sister and I were forced to go to church every Sunday during the school year, and were very strongly discouraged to express any doubts about Christianity) makes me think my parents’ approach to teaching their kids religion is probably counterproductive now, at least in terms of having your kids grow up to practice your religion. It probably worked for their parents, in a time when you were expected socially to practice a religion and didn’t have a lot of opportunities to find out about other religions, but it doesn’t work now when there are few social consequences of not practicing a religion unless you’re running for political office. I think parents now need to back off sometime in the early teens and let kids make their religion their own, rather than continuing to push it on them and making them resent it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/half-pit-half-praise-teen-relative-punished-for-honest-agnosticism/470441.md?page=5)