Atheist Forum

The purpose of this thread is for my fellow atheists to be able to share their experiences with family regarding their atheism. My family in particular are armchair christians. They all profess a belief in God but none of them are practicing christians. At the same time they look down upon me for rejecting a belief in God and are always looking at the negative events in my life as a result of my unbelief.

They claim that God is "punishing me", or giving me opportunities through adversity to come back to him. I have decided years ago to handle my situation head on without beating around the bush. The reason for this approach is very important and personal to me. I feel that the the same way christians have the right to proclaim their gospel to everyone and anyone that will listen I have the right to openly express my unbelief in public as well.

When I first decided to be an atheist I was ashamed to express this openly, especially to family. But one day I decided to not hide any longer and openly express myself to all. Try conversing with self proclaimed christians that know absolutely nothing of what is written in their bibles. You can sit there all day and point out the flaws in scripture and by the end of the conversation you are back at square one. Them proclaiming their belief in God and Christ and advising you todo the same.

Please feel free to comment on these issues openly and express yourself and your ideas.

Sounds like all the usual Christian values. Brainwashing, guilt and denial!
I respect your views on the 'evengelical' atheism. I've always seen it as very personal thing and it gives a great feeling of inner peace knowing that I am only answerable to me and that I have decided on my own values and morals. I'll debate and discuss it with anyone and it's certainly no secret. This forum is the first time I've really decided to reseach it deeper and to put my veiws to a wider audience.
Every time one of them breaks one of the ten commandments try pointing it out. "You'll never get to heaven like that!". I've never met anyone religious or not that does'nt. After all there always an ass to covet!

The cultural Christians who don't know squat about the bible really bug me. I once had a 'christian' techer who did not know who Cain and Abel were!

Hahahaha, Dagda thats brilliant!

When I told my mom and family that I renounced my belief in god,I did not hear the end of it for years.They would have conversations with me and I would present them all kinds of evidence of the fallacy of scriptures and they would nod with this deer in the headlights look on their faces.The next thing that came out of their mouths was something similar to the following:"But if you dont believe in god you will go to hell and suffer eternal torment".Nothing is more tormenting than trying to have a conversation with a brainwashed idiot!!

The 'eternal torment' part shows there ignorance, no offence to your parents. The original Hebrew term of Hell was the end of concioussness, pretty much atheist death. I don't really concider it eternal torment, more like a deep sleep.

I think i can link your situation

Comming out to your Christian parents as a athiest is the equal to comming out the closet to being gay

i wouldnt know this experiance as im not gay nor have i had your miss fortunes with anti athiest parents but you can see how it can relate to each other, now i think you did the right thing in standing up for what you believe in and no matter how much S*it you get you always stand up for what you believe (or disbelieve ) and enjoy the short life you have been given.

Congrats to you and your bravery.

Thanks Proud Atheist at one time it was a challenge coming out to my family as an atheist but it's become pretty routine now.They still don't accept that fact that I am an atheist even after 13 years but they have learned to respect my opinions and unbelief.

Does your family talk about religion a lot? Mine doesn't. I stated in another post that I don't feel religious tension at all and it may be due to the environment I'm in. Most people I know are just too self-absorbed to bring up religion - or in this case "no religion". In fact, the only time I'm ever talking about religion is in forums such as this one.

It's definitely nice to have forums like this one. As I grew up in a very unpressured home, I didn't really understand until quite recently how profoundly many people will defend their religious beliefs, and how many of my friends (and even my girlfriend and her family :o) are church-going christians. What surprised me more was (at colege) when I was having an argument with a creationist, several people who were not religious at all were piping in, when we were talking about evolution, and he was spinning all the creationist arguments and presenting them as facts... infuriating, because they were stupid, clearly wrong ones; for example, he pointed at a rock and said that in a thousand years it would not become a car. People were nodding their heads!!! So much for modern education.