Not the only poison, but a poison nonetheless.
Is it likely that DtC’s family would have sought such a vow of silence over a political, or dietary choice? And religion itself is often a source of conflict regarding sexuality.
I’m not familiar with what the UU is other than quick wiki so I’m not able to comment on that but I’d suggest that there is something special about religions in general that drives people to be less respectful of differences.
Easy for me to say, because I don’t have religious parents, but wouldn’t it be a good idea for everyone in these types of situations to tell the “very religious relatives” that it’s game over time, and they can just deal. Like coming out of the gay closet, it’s good for society for everyone to know how many atheists are out there, part of our families and communities. We don’t have to be disrespectful, although I’d be tempted.
Not the root cause poison. The root cause is not respecting differences, regardless of whether those differences are religious, political or behavioral.
I don’t know about DtC’s family, but my friend’s family had an effective vow of silence over vegetarianism. I know half a dozen people who have vows of silences with their family on being conservative or liberal. I know a number of people who have dated interracially, and don’t let their parents know. A number of people whose family is unaware of mental health or addiction issues - past or present - with their children’s spouses. And a friend whose mother is unaware that her son married a hoarder. Yes, in my experience, these avoidance behaviors are common across a range of issues that have little to do with religion in families.
Any thread on cat declawing should point out that there is nothing special about religion when it comes to tolerating differences.
It will get better…but from my own past experiences, it’s not over. Did you bring up the idea of counseling to her? It might speed up and resolve underlying issues (such as bounderies and respect).
Well you seem to know a far less tolerant group of people than I do. I’m not familiar with such behaviours but religious restrictions seem commonplace.
The guy who sits next to me at work recently mentioned his high school prom in front of his 5th grade daughter. She asked him who he went with. She was shocked to learn that it wasn’t her mom even though they lived in different states in high school and are several years apart in age. She was really upset he had gone with another girl. Kids get upset over dumb stuff.
The thing is that this guy has an ex-wife he has kept secret from his kids. When that comes out there will surely be a wailing and gnashing of teeth. I can’t help but think that if this had been out in the open from day one it would never have been a big deal. I’m not telling anyone what they should do, but it seems like honesty is usually the best policy.
This may be long past, but could the reason she thought you’d be going to do be because she equates atheist with satanist? I have run into a few people that have said as much.
Good luck on sorting this out. Sounds like you are making progress.
Warning- I have not read the entire thread. Post may contain theology and possibly minor witnessing.
I trust you’re all familiar with Jack T Chick. His G-d discounts all faith and good works unless you’ve specifically and explicitly accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.
Personally, I feel that any supreme being who cares more about getting His ass kissed than about things like kindness and good works is a monster not worth worshiping.
I think the same principle applies here. Assuming for the sake of argument that there IS a G-d, either your good deeds are enough to earn you a place in paradise, or G-d’s an asshole who we’re all better off without. In fact, I’ve said many times on these boards that the good deeds of atheists mean MORE to G-d than the good deeds of the faithful. An atheist who say gives food to a homeless person does so without expectation of any reward. It is pure charity. A believer may be motivated, even subconsciously, to give because it is commanded by G-d or in expectation of Heavenly reward.
To venture a little out of my territory, if your daughter accepts (and it sure sounds like she does) that the Lord so loved the world that He sent His one begotten son to suffer and die, then doesn’t if follow that He loves each human being enough to show them mercy and to judge them based on the quality of their character and the good deeds they have done and not solely by whether they have accepted Jesus?
The only person I “know” who has kept his atheism a secret is Dio. Maybe its just a different population sample - I know people who are religiously tolerant, but not necessarily politically tolerant.
Well, Catholicism doesn’t really teach that non-Christians (even atheists!) go to Hell or aren’t “Saved”, so I wouldn’t see how that’s a problem. It was more "Catholicism is the “the best chance” of getting into Heaven, but it’s up to God.
As an amusing aside, when my first grade teacher told us about Purgatory, she said it was a place to be “cleansed of one’s sins”. So I somehow got this idea that it was like a car wash for your soul. That you’d be there and they’d start scrubbing off, “Oh, lied to her mother here!” Something like that. 
I am sorry for the situation, Dio. I don’t understand why you’d send your daughter to Catholic school and specifically raise her in such a way that it conflicts with your beliefs without a disclaimer…? But now that the cat is out of the atheist bag, it’s time to deal with it.
She’s eleven. She’s going to get emotional about a lot of things. Whatever you do, don’t tell her things to placate her and don’t tell her how to think about religion. I mean, to say, “Well, this Jesus idea is just fucking stupid and this shit is superstitious” is not going to help, either, but you made a decision 20 years ago to raise your children as Catholic. You should be secretly proud that you’re doing such a good job. 
I can tell you’re really upset about this and I’m sorry. But maybe this will end up being a lesson on tolerance for the family.
No you did not. Lying would be much worse. Besides a chink in the edifice of the church is good for her. Eventually her training has to be dealt with. When she figures it out, she will thank you.
I’m having a bunch of disjointed thoughts about this, so bear with me.
I got an image in my mind of Dio getting into a debate with his daughter, which, if she has inherited his nature, will end only when one of them collapses from dehydration and exhaustion. You two should have an official from the Guinness record book present, as you will have a good shot at the all-time record of repetitions of “Is so!” “Is not!” 
Second, and I say this as one who went through 8 years of Catholic school, putting her through that indoctrination borders on child abuse. But religious instruction is a nearly universal form of child abuse, and it can be recovered from, even without your intervention. With a rational atheist in the home, she has a better chance of dumping all that crap sooner than most.
I gotta ask – is there an expiration date on this deal with your wife? It’s gotta end. I don’t know whether you can figure a way to end it for only the one child, but it’s gotta end at least with her. You owe it to her to give her honest and complete answers to her questions.
I know couples make these compromises with each other, and while I don’t know how you came to this one, you just cannot leave these kids without guidance to be sucked into the maw of Catholic adulthood. Seriously, I think you know that at some level, and I know that a lot of people will think I’m overstating this, but it is terrible future which may await them.
This is Boyo Jim, the New Atheist, talking. You have to push back and help them purge the Kool Ade they’ve already drunk.
This is a long thread, but I wanted to post, because I had a very similar situation happen when I was about the same age.
My mother is Lutheran, which is how my sister and I were raised. My father was raised Catholic but is now an atheist (as he has been for most of his life). When I was 11, they sent me to Catholic school because the public school sucked. Lutherans are pretty mellow (our church, anyway), and the state of my father’s soul was just never discussed. I just assume he believed as we did. At Catholic school I learned all about hell, and asked my mother if we were going to hell. My mother told me that the Catholics were a little melodramatic, that you don’t need sacraments, just belief, and that we were fine.
But it starts turning around in my head-- Daddy doesn’t pray. Daddy doesn’t go to church. So I asked him if he believed in Jesus, and he told me no. I recall being pretty devastated, and then making the mistake of telling a nun at school (who told me that my father would go to hell if he didn’t repent, which was awesome). I stewed on this for a long time. Eventually I asked our pastor at the Lutheran church about my father.
He told me that some people have a harder time believing, and that God has his own path for them. Some people need to see the face of God himself before they believe, but as long as they have lived a good and decent life, when they die and they meet him, he will welcome them with open arms.
My father and I are very similar, and while I never got to full athiesm, I did abandon Christianity in it’s entirety (which he said later he expected I would). He and I have had many conversations about how and why he came to his belief, and they were frankly more interesting than any religious conversation I had with my mother. The only difference between him and I is he sees no evidence God exists, therefore believes he doesn’t. I see the same lack of evidence, but am not entirely convinced you can prove a negative. There might be God-- I guess I’ll find out when I die. My father has said that he would be very surprised to find pearly gates, but he would not scorn indisputable proof.*
He told me that after my conversation with the pastor, who’s words have stuck with me all my life. It was an incredibly kind and useful thing to tell a confused 12 year old-- it was the only good answer to that question, because it absolved me of both my worry and the crazy idea I was responsible for my father’s soul.
The next year I transferred back to public school, which really was a good thing. As I became more aware of the history and the world I was having serious cognitive dissonance problems as I saw logical gaps in what they were teaching. This was something I really, honestly, needed to sort out for myself. Not having those issues all tangled up with my schooling was immensely helpful. I didn’t need my internal conflict about the nature of God dragged into the middle of my English class.
Best of luck. FWIW, my parents and their religious differences will celebrate their 40th anniversary this September. My sister and I both turned out fine.
*He’s also said of my mother, “One of us is right, and if it’s me, at least she’ll never know it.”
I don’t know, perhaps. I’m from the UK so maybe the debate is less polarised over here.
In the USA I suspect it is different and this board gives me a snapshot. Of course this is a self-selecting group and so not fully representative but it seems that the topic of belief/non belief to be a common source of family strife. Certainly moreso than political or other differences. It also seems to cause deeper and more intractable rifts as well.
So does Catholicism teach about hell or not?
Seems like DtC’s daughter was taught about it, Obsidian mentions it, you say you were learning about purgatory.
Sounds like Catholic teaching is very much concerned with depicting such places as real, rather than symbolic. So it begs the question. If you have heaven and purgatory is there not a need for a hell as well? And so it seems unsurprising that it is a concern for children.
Speaking as one who went through grades K through 11 at Catholic Schools in the 50’s and 60’s, I say it doesn’t “border” on child abuse.
Even in hindsight I never saw any hint of sexual abuse, luckily for me. I saw plenty of physical abuse, but the horrific psychological and emotional abuse was far more traumatic.
It did when I was there. It was drilled into us in terrifying detail about how bad it would hurt, with emphasis on helping us appreciate just what “eternity” and “forever” really meant. (“After a year for every grain of sand on every beach in the world, it’s still only just beginning.” A line I’ve never forgotten.) And it was what would happen to us for crimes like intentionally skipping Mass on Sunday.
We were ten years old. Yes, I’m damaged goods, and yes I’m bitter.
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Your daughters school sucks. Not because it’s an catholic school, no, its sucks as an catholic school. (this in defence of your wife).
She’s 11, hopefully this won’t be the last world shatterring revelation that will blow her mind. She’ll get over it.
(Keep on) Show(ing) her how you can respect her beliefs while not believing yourself. Something the school (or your wife) might have done as wel.
G.L.
I didn’t go to a Catholic School, but I went to Sunday School, and hell was never taught like that. We were flat out told you didn’t have to be Catholic (or even Christian) to get into heaven and that being a good person was all that was required.
I even remember some of us pressing the teacher on just what “hellworthy sins” meant, but all she would say for sure was that murderers would go to hell. Basically, everybody else was negotiable.
You got Catholic Lite. Many of us got the full-contact version of Catholicism.