I’ve been an atheist since 1989, when I was 24. I knew I couldn’t tell my dad while my grandmother was alive, because he told her everything (my grandfather was a minister in the Churches of Christ, and she was a typical preacher’s wife, my dad a typical PK), and I was afraid it would literally kill her. Like, heart attack, stroke, boom. Dead. You killed Grandmother! I had reason to believe that, as the oldest grandchild, I was kinda her favorite.
So when she died in 1998 I asked a dear friend if she thought I should tell him. Her answer was along the lines of: if you think he’s better off not knowing, if it will only cause him pain (or you trouble), then why does he need to know? Okay, fair enough. I figured he wasn’t as religious as she was and he wouldn’t be (very) upset by it, but why risk hurting him?
Now he is 69 and living in blissful retirement. He has been a Methodist for years and I know he attends church. He even teaches a Sunday School class. I was talking to him on the phone yesterday and he told me he has been praying for me to “become closer to God” or some such. :eek:
I’ve been thinking about this and I keep coming back to my friend’s advice: he’s better off not knowing…especially if he’s becoming more religious nowadays. I don’t want to keep things from him, but I don’t want to hurt him and I don’t want to worsen my relationship with him (especially as he ages) and I don’t want him fretting over the fate of my soul. But I don’t want to be patronizing in the “I didn’t want to tell you because I was pretty sure you couldn’t handle it” sort of way, either.
I wouldn’t tell him, unless he asks straight out. He obviously knows that you’re not very religious, and his beliefs mean that he wishes you were more religious. Him knowing you’re officially an atheist will only make him fret more, not less.
I wouldn’t lie to him about it, but I also wouldn’t go out of my way to make sure he knows the extent to which I’m not religious.
Yeah. What they said. I’m an agnostic who was brought up to be strictly Catholic, and my Catholic mom and I have an unstated “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about religion. She makes occasional mention about how it would be swell if the grandkids got baptized someday, I change the subject, and then it doesn’t come up again for another several months.
If I made a big issue out of it, all that would happen is that my mom would feel free to be even more pushy and open about trying to bring me back into the fold, so to speak. Plus she’d be hurt and would feel like I was rejecting my upbringing and, by extension, her. No good would come of it.
I would say to keep quiet unless he presses the issue. I know that some people aren’t willing to leave it alone, though an insist on trying to engage you about your beliefs. If he gets that way, I think you should be honest but tactful.
If you aren’t faking anything religious (which is sort of deceptive), I wouldn’t tell him. People seem to need their faith, unfortunately they also like to spread it.
I used to have religious debates with an old girlfriend, but I finally stopped. I pretty much knew I wasn’t going to convince her there was no god, but suppose I did. It would be like telling a child there’s isn’t a Santa Claus.
I’m from the school of complete honesty and transparency. If you have to ask, then tell him.
Would you rather he heard it from someone else? Sure, the truth may hurt him a little. He might’ve already mostly figured it out. As long as you’re the one who tells him, it’s a sercret you kept. If it comes from another it’s a lie, at least to him. And that’ll hurt him more than the truth.
Convert from Christianity (Methodist parents) to Judaism here. I did tell my parents before I converted.
My situation wasn’t quite parallel to yours, though. I started keeping kosher, and stopped celebrating Christian religious holidays, so they were going to figure out that something was up whether I told them or not. I was also planning a Jewish wedding, and, if and when I have kids, to raise them Jewish. It was going to come out sooner or later in my case.
Was this a one-off thing, or is he regularly asking questions about stuff like where and how often you go to church?
Do you think it’s at all likely that he’d do something like try to convert you back every time you have a conversation with him if you did tell him?
Fortunately for me, in my family discussing religion is taboo, so my parents don’t try to re-convert me (or my sister, who is spiritual but not religious, though I don’t know what she has or hasn’t told them- they do know she’s married to a Catholic and raising her kids Catholic).
Bad news: there’s no way for you to do that, other than by pretending to become religious and go to church.
Worse news: There’s no guarentee that pretending to become religious and going to church will stop a parent (or other loved one) from fretting over the state of your soul.
I don’t know that anyone in my family is atheist–therefore I don’t know that anyone is pretending as opposed to being religious, but we’ve certainly had a few conversations which show that we don’t all have the same take on such subjects as Evolution and how literally one should interpret the Bible.
I’ve never told my family outright that I don’t beleive in that stuff anymore.
I think it is my comments of when watching some guy cross himself before a freethrow shot and then he misses it, " Ohhhh, Jesus doesn’t like your team." that they got the picture.
I’m an atheist, and I’ll never tell my Mom. She’s already distraught because my Dad died as an atheist and she thinks he might be roasting in hell, she doesn’t need more to worry about.
I have told my father as much, but that’s not what I meant. My dad being an ass is subjective, being an atheist isn’t. I’ve never bought into the whole “lying to people to make them feel better” meme. My rule is, if you have to ask yourself wether you should tell someone something, then you should.
