So sorry for the lack of updates, guys. I'm not blog material, I guess. I have faith, though, that none of you were on the edge of your seats in anticipation of my next post, so... :] I think we're all good.
Anyways... a few observations about being "out" around my family and friends:
1. As far as I'm aware, I've only lost 2 friends. One of them I was very close to. She's on the road to becoming a foreign missionary, and--after a brief period of awkwardly dancing around each other and really really badly-faked friendliness, she has removed me from her friends list on Facebook (main line of communication right there) and made it clear she wants nothing to do with me. I understand I guess... she's just doing what the Bible (more specifically: John Piper) tells her to. She's always been intensely serious about Christianity, and even when I was a Christian we clashed... a lot. I hate to assume the worst... but I'm guessing she's written me off because I'm a damn dirty atheist and she's a golden glorious missionary. (Let's not even get into talking about what a missionary's "job" is...) The other is a guy I used to be fairly close to, now an acquaintance barely worth mentioning. Definitely no biggie there.
I spent one sleepless night worrying my little head off about it, but then I realized... screw those guys! I will sleep well tonight knowing that I'm being 100% true to myself, instead of being a pussy for a little bit of validation from some so-called friends.
2. My mom and I agreed to disagree in matters concerning her religion and my atheism... she subsequently dug through my things and found a couple trial issues of Freethought Today (what I like to call "aggressively atheist"), and flipped out, banning all atheist materials from the house.... I've found that her idea of respect is rather one-sided. We listen to appalling amounts Christian radio when we are in the car together, and she recently made a kind of rude comment about atheists in front of my fanatically Christian aunt (who we were staying with at that time). I seethed silently, rather than defend myself and get kicked out of the house.
She also brings up demons and ghosts a lot. Fear of the supernatural is something I really struggled with when I was a believer, and I feel like she's trying to use that against me in an attempt to get me to return to the faith. She told me that she saw a "big black shadow" walk into my bedroom at about the time I became an atheist, but that I shouldn't be scared because she thinks it was God's way of telling her to watch out for me.
It's all so... manipulative and passive-aggressive, and when I try to defend myself then I become the villain. I am more than willing to drop the subject and never ever ever talk religion with my mom ever again... I guess the ball's in her court.
Anyways, over the next few days I'll be cleaning up the blog a bit... deleting and revising some of my cringe-worthy posts, maybe making the layout a little nicer, stuff like that. I'm also going to try to start posting a little more regularly... no promises, though. ;]
Good luck. Moving out of that house will help your mental health quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteHave you tried raising the issue of parity of respect with her? It might be worth saying that, while you have shown her respect by not bringing up your atheism, she is not reciprocating and that disappoints you - especially considering christians are always claiming a monopoly on tolerance and respect for others.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that it may be difficult to address when you're under the same roof, but how do you think she'd react to it? It might surprise her that you're taking the moral high ground and showing her respect (especially since us atheists are evil, amoral reprobates) :)