No, but I also wouldn’t compromise with them by saying grace in my house or going to church or temple. Don’t have to worry, since both my kids are adults and grew up right.
No, of course not. I made stupid choices in my life, too, and thankfully my parents didn’t disown me.
In fact, my atheist kid goes to a Catholic boarding school.
Atheism is itself a belief system – the faith-based belief that “God” does not exist, despite any circumstantial evidence. Which, essentially, makes Ms. O’Hair a “believer” (and a raving fundamentalist as well) which kinda makes her a bad example for this poll.
<— hardcore agnostic, but not atheist
If by “despite” you mean “because of”, sure. I’m not fundamentalist- a fundamentalist Christian will be Christian no matter what evidence he or she is presented with. The Bible is all the evidence he or she needs. I am not an atheist because of belief, but because of evidence (or lack thereof). Unless I’m also a raving fundamentalist Santa Clause atheist.
My sister dabbled in LDS, and slowly ended up alienating herself from her friends and family, as directed by her church. Eventually she realised that it was becoming ridiculous that they should have to do this, and she gave up on them, thank goodness.
I don’t think atheists disown family, it’s the fundamentally religious who do that.
Not being a parent I can’t really answer the OP, although I agree with the people who suspect that the disownment would go the other way. I would fully expect them to hate, fear and despise me in such a scenario; that is the usual response of believers to atheists.
Nonsense. There IS no “circumstantial evidence”. And atheism isn’t a system of belief, it is disbelief in one thing; gods. It is also the logical default; it is the job of those asserting that gods exist to come up with evidence for them; or for that matter evidence that they are even possible. It’s not the job of skeptics to prove a negative.
And if you decide to burn your draft card
then burn your birth certificate at the same time
From that moment on, I have no son
sniff
The whole disowning thing is a cornucopia of yummy nostalgia.
They’d be acting hypocritically then. But how would you react if they still loved you (albeit telling you to convert or something like that everytime you met them)?
Similarly Christianity is only a consistent belief system in a couple of big issues regarding the nature of God and soteriology -in everything else such as eschatology, the existence of ghosts, etc. they all disagree.
Of course not. Anyone who does this has a couple of screws loose, no matter their religion, or lack thereof.
That said, as alluded upthread, I think it is more likely that a religious person would disown, dismiss, or cease communication with a non religious relative than the other way 'round; they’ve already shown their willingness to base their world view on an illogical premise. It’s simply fewer steps from there to crazy than for a non religious person, in my opinion.
In the dark depths of my extended family there are evangelicals who, when finding out about my disdain for Christianity, curtailed communication with me, but they’re relatives I used to see less than once a year, so I couldn’t possibly care less. My parents/siblings are more of a concern as they seem to be struggling with my atheism.
No. So long as their belief system is personally arrived at then I wish them good luck with it. Violence and the like are the problem, not the beliefs behind them.
I agree with prettydorky, really; even if they did turn out to be violent, abusive, unpleasant people, that doesn’t make me not their parent, as much as I might want to believe that I don’t have any responsibility for their actions.
Again, atheism is not a belief system. It is the lack of a belief in deities. Fuzzypickles, would you say your lack of a belief in talking jelly sandwiches is a faith-based belief that they don’t exist? No? Then why would lack of a belief in gods be? They’re the same thing.
I wouldn’t disown my child under any circumstances.
Would your parents disown you?
It makes little difference if they love me or not (not that I would believe them); them loving me wouldn’t stop them from doing terrible things to me or others “for their own good”. They’re actions will be dictated by their religion; not by reality, morality, or my welfare.
Nonsense, there’s no similarity between the two. Atheism is, again, disbelief in one, and only one thing. That’s not a “belief system”; it isn’t either a belief or a system. As well, Christianity makes assertions for the reality of things for which there is no evidence they exist or are even possible; atheism doesn’t. And the various sects of Christianity make a great many assertions about a great many things; the fact that they don’t all agree with each other is because it is pulled out of their collective rears, not because they don’t make such assertions in the first place.
[Hijack]And people say we’re now a divided country. No, no, no. The sign of a divided country is when parents threaten to disown their children if they publicly come out against a controversial war. THAT’S DIVISIVENESS.[/Hijack]
I don’t have kids so you can probably take this with a grain of salt but I checked the “No” box. I can’t imagaing disowning a child even if he or she became such a wild-eyed violent religious fanatic that they tried to kill me over my lack of faith.
[quote=“Der_Trihs, post:33, topic:562098”]
It makes little difference if they love me or not (not that I would believe them); them loving me wouldn’t stop them from doing terrible things to me or others “for their own good”. They’re actions will be dictated by their religion; not by reality, morality, or my welfare.
[QUOTE]
Would you stop with your bullshit strawmanning of all religious people or do you live in Saudi Arabia or something? Most religious people in the US at least do not commit murder for religion nor beat you up or whatnot. And the question is do you love them not do they love you.
As opposed to your religious apologism?
Plenty do. My hypothetical kids probably won’t attack me, but only because I’d be in a position to defend myself. But I’d expect them to abuse any children they have if the kids weren’t proper little believer-drones; if they turned out atheist or homosexual for example.
From your perspective, perhaps that’s true. But speaking for myself – well, when it comes to religion, it’s 50% bullshit and 49.9% wishful thinking. It’s that 0.1% I find fascinating.
It’s not the job of anyone to prove anything – that’s why it’s called faith, not science. If science could prove/disprove the existence of God, or the afterlife, or spiritual beings, faith would be completely unnecessary. (Not that it would prevent most people from believing in stupid, easily falsifiable theories, of course…but that’s life.)
That’s a false analogy – the existence of jelly sandwiches can be easily falsified by mere observation. The tricky part with “God” is that “God” cannot be observed directly; hence, you must use other means to determine whether “God” exists or not. (Keep in mind, I’m not just talking about the Judeo-Christian God here – in fact, the Christian concept of “God” is the one I’ve already ruled out as being impossible. However, the Buddhist / Taoist / Wiccan definitions of “God” are a little harder to rule out…but I’m working on it.)
That’s ridiculous. My sister is an atheist; my aunt is an Orthodox Jew. My aunt loves my sister just as much as any of her other relatives. She’s practically a second mother to us.
Um. My parents are religious - Christian even - and so is the rest of my family and I was never abused because of it, not even when I turned out not to be a “proper little believer-drone,” not to mention a homosexual. There was drama when I told my dad I’m Pagan, but it wasn’t abusive, just irritating, and gave out after two years.
I think it’s pretty unfortunate you would suspect yourself of raising child abusers. If you raised your children to be humane and compassionate, why would they be abusive, regardless of their religion or lack thereof?
Do you indeed believe that all people who have a religious faith are liable to behave in this fashion, or are you using “religious” as a shorthand for the kind of extreme, blinkered, wrapped-up-in-itself bigoterie held by a portion of people who practise mainstream religions? Because that’s a meaning I often hear, but it’s not one that squares either with my experience growing up in a religious family, nor with my experience in a country where the largest Protestant denomination actively militates in favour of trans rights, same-sex marriage, and the right to social housing.
Leaving aside the fact that you don’t know the definitions of either “atheist” or “agnostic” what “circumstantial evidence” do you imagine exists for sky gods?