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Re: Religion Thread: That's Me In the Corner...
My parents always said they sent me to CCD and took me to church not to make me a Catholic but so that I could make an informed decision. They weren't thrilled that I was an atheist but they were also intelligent enough believers to realize that going through the motions without belief is no improvement over being a sincere non-believer, so they let it drop without much of a problem. My father, as a convert, always felt that life without God was a diminution, and an emptiness, but he was civil about it and we made our peace far more easily than my older brother who retained spiritual instincts but was vocally anti-Catholic. It is interesting that my parents found it easier to accept me, who left completely, than my brother, who simply moved on to other faiths. I suspect I was easier to dismiss as merely wrongheaded while he was more threatening.
My parents were far more concerned with issues of lifestyle and "sinfulness." For example, none of the kids was permitted to share a bedroom with an unmarried partner when we were at my parents' house, even when we were in our forties. It was very much the "my roof, my rules" attitude. But at the same time my parents were always scrupulously polite with those partners and accepted their kids as family.
Basically, they were smart and that made them tolerant. They weren't moderate -- they were indeed hard core orthodox in their faith and extremely unaccepting of what they felt was "backsliding." But they came at religion as much from the head as the groin, and that made them able to empathize with those who had come to other conclusions. I mean, they knew we were all going to hell, but they weren't insistent on throwing it in our faces.
Originally posted by FadeToBlack&Gold
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My parents were far more concerned with issues of lifestyle and "sinfulness." For example, none of the kids was permitted to share a bedroom with an unmarried partner when we were at my parents' house, even when we were in our forties. It was very much the "my roof, my rules" attitude. But at the same time my parents were always scrupulously polite with those partners and accepted their kids as family.
Basically, they were smart and that made them tolerant. They weren't moderate -- they were indeed hard core orthodox in their faith and extremely unaccepting of what they felt was "backsliding." But they came at religion as much from the head as the groin, and that made them able to empathize with those who had come to other conclusions. I mean, they knew we were all going to hell, but they weren't insistent on throwing it in our faces.
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