You do realize you’re suggesting that the respect only needs to go one way?
The house you grew up in and haven’t moved out if is your house as much as it is your parents’ house. If you consider expressing disagreement with your beliefs and declining to join rituals “shitting all over your beliefs” then it’s your problem. We have no reason to believe that the OP “shat” all over anything, merely that he informed his parents that he didn’t believe what they believed and that he declined to participate on their rituals. That is something that a nearly adult member of a household has an absolute right to do, without threats of being expelled from the family. Family behavior isn’t governed by who pays the bills. It’s governed by the fact that parents are in charge of children. But that degree if authority starts rolling back as a child starts to become old enough to think for himself.
On the contrary. It often amazes me how people can scream about others being 'Intolerant Narrow Minded Assholes" while themselves being even bigger intolerant narrow minded assholes, and that’s pretty much what I was saying there.
And seriously, it comes down to WHERE ARE YOU? If you are in my house, you’d better respect my beliefs. When I’m in your house, I will respect yours. You want to be a frothing racist Tea Party and Prosperity Jesus asshole in your own house, I will respectfully remain silent, or withdraw if it gets to be too much. Hell, if you want everyone to stand, wave their hands in the air and All Hail Justin Bieber before we eat, I’ll probably laugh a little, but what the hell, I’ll do it, because it’s your house and your beliefs, and as a guest I believe that I should honor and respect you in your house.
However, if you start that negative asshole shit in MY house, I’ll definitely have words about it. If you see the various Aikido, I Ching, Buddhist, Pagan, whatevers in my house and criticize me over them, then you’re being a jerk and a bad guest. You don’t have a claim that I need to respect your beliefs as you insult mine in my personal space.
Are you kidding me? I think part of being at someone else’s home comes part and parcel with working with their particular customs be it religious or otherwise. Absolutely no one expects you to pretend. However, they expect you to at least respect them and their lifestyle. This may mean bowing your head and hearing a prayer that you personally find distasteful. And I have to say that this is extremely rich coming from someone who discusses her bowel movements with excruciating detail and speaks regularly and often about how she wishes her daughter was never born. You have your sensitivities all fucked up lady.
I expected nothing less and certainly nothing more from you, keturah. So you expect me to conform to some culture, but yet you feel free to not conform to the SDMB culture?
I do not disrupt the prayer, but I also don’t pretend to pray.
That’s Christianity in action.
In this case, “respect” means “grovel & lie”, not to mention submitting to blackmail. It’s notable how Christians define “respecting their beliefs” as absolute submission to their will.
And what makes you think that the pressure will end once he’s out of the house?
Of course people expect you to pretend. That’s what “respect” means in this context; the kid is supposed to lie, to pretend to believe what the parents believe and to hate what he actually does believe.
I have to wonder if those believers who think that atheists should pretend to pray before eating in a believer’s house are willing to NOT pray if they come to my house and eat my food? Am I supposed to let the food get cold while waiting for a prayer? Or, if I’m in my own house, can I just dig in while someone else thanks the Invisible Pink Unicorn for the lasagna?
In what way, exactly, have I not abided the SDMB culture?
And the way I have seen this handled many times is that those who follow strict rules bow their own head and say a prayer and never expect others to do what they do in their own homes. Easy peasy! If you preach tolerance it has to go both ways. Seems easy and smart to me, but what do I know?? I never sucked gas fumes working as a clerk at a gas station while simultaneously keeping up my Mensa membership.
Your memory is as sharp, or rather as faulty, as ever.
My memory, like all of my toes, is intact. Can you say the same?
I honestly don’t know what you’re going on about. The OP is objecting to him being forced to attend Mass. Nobody is advocating rude behavior towards the OP’s parents. Being forced to attend a 1-2 hour service is going well beyond, “Respecting beliefs”. It’s more like “You should participate in my beliefs”. Now if you want to argue the latter, fine. Just don’t paper it over with pretty words.
ETA:
False. Forcing somebody to attend a church service often involves expecting them to pretend, unless it’s something like a UU service.
FTR though, I don’t have a problem with bowing your head during a brief grace. I guess I might have a problem with a lengthy pre-meal prayer, though I’ve never encountered that.
But these parents really don’t sound like they’re so extreme or they wouldn’t have just not let him go to church for the last year. And they *just *found out he’s an atheist. That would upset even most nominally Christian parents. They didn’t flip out or anything, they were just annoying. Unless there is a lot more bad about his parents than he’s saying, he really should just let this whole thing go and just change the subject or something when they bring it up, and not because he has to lie to stay safe because his parents are dangerous, but just because it probably won’t be a huge deal. He can sound a little wishy-washy though and save the absolutes for after he moves out of the house, Catholics are pretty big on wishy-washy anyway when it suits them.
Besides, sending kids to nutty camps and kicking them out of the house because they don’t believe in God is not really Catholics’ style, that would be more fundie. I was raised Catholic and I’ve never heard of it happening.
And this is what you have after the edit? What kind of monster are you? A middle-school-er?
Yes to all of this. Seriously, what exactly have the parents done that was so very bad? They did not force him to go to Mass, they did not scream in his face, they did not have him kidnapped and sent to a re-education camp. They had an argument and brought him Chinese food. With a note on it, the abusive bastards. And all this in the immediate aftermath of a confrontation. Give them a chance to process everything and cool down.
I’m Catholic and my son, who was just confirmed in the spring, has been saying for some time that he’s an atheist. We’re pretty active in our parish and almost our closest friends here are our church’s deacon and his family. My son still acts as an altar boy from time to time with his good friend, the deacon’s son, and went through the whole, year-long confirmation process, albeit with his motivation to get presents. My husband and I figured hey, at least he’s there and hopefully getting something out of it, like deeper ties of friendship and community. He’ll have to make up his own mind about what the ultimate meaning of the world is, just like the rest of us. In the meantime, he only goes to church on the most important occasions but he’s a part of things with us and with the church community.
I hope the OP works on articulating where he stands on his journey of faith (or lack thereof) and can communicate that clearly, respectfully, and calmly to his parents. He needs to find a way to show that this is about his real beliefs, not him being rebellious and rejecting them in a way designed to hurt. There is never a reason to regret taking the high road.
He doesn’t believe. Period. He doesn’t need to think about why he doesn’t believe, nor sit in front of his parents and defend himself. He has said all he needs to say on the subject.
My experience as a non-believing person with deeply religious parents is that the more one explains why they don’t believe, the more argument and headache they’ll receive. Saying “It doesn’t make any sense to me” only invites someone to say, “It makes perfect sense! If you open up your heart!” Saying “I don’t understand how I’m expected to love God when he allows X, Y, and Z” is met with “You’re trying to make God fit into your little box. He moves in mysterious ways! Stop being arrogant!” You go through this a couple of times and it just starts to feel like a huge waste of time. You certainly aren’t going to get anyone’s respect by laying it all out there.
I’m a grown woman and I don’t have the tolerance for this kind of exchange. Expecting a 17-year-old kid to have the fortitude to defend himself against charges of eternal damnation? That’s unreasonable. He doesn’t owe his parents anything anyway. All he should do is continue to tell them he simply doesn’t believe and that there’s nothing they can do to make him change his mind. Maybe he can remind them that he will be out from under their roof soon, so they can either make the most of the rest of his time with them. Or they can drive him away sooner and ruin their relationship. It’s their choice.
Seems to me parents would want their children to come to their beliefs all on their own. I would be proud of a kid who was strong enough to say, “You know what? I’m not going to go with the crowd this time.”
Also, a douchy retard.
The kid is having typical teenage angst and whining, true–I mean, horrors: after he locks himself in his room and refuses to go to church, mom and dad bring him Chinese food with a very mild message of faith on it. The monsters.
But even given his angsty, whiney behavior, you’re making him look like Gandhi with your over-the-top red-hot raeg about…stuff.
Please. Stuff your head in your ass so your stupidity is muffled.
I’d just say something like, if they pushed the issue, “keep this up, and you’ll just be giving me reason to not ever allow you to meet any future girlfriends, wives, or children I have. it’s up to you just how bad you want the rift between us to become over this issue.”
I’m proud of my Atheist kid for doing that. Especially when everyone else in the family is devoutly devout.
And we never made him defend that position, or explain himself. Or buy his own Chinese food.
Most accurate and amusing summary of another poster I think I may have ever seen on The Dope.