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I grew up with my parents trying to force me to be religious. Sent me to religious school from K-12 and went to temple a lot (Jewish). As someone who naturally

I grew up with my parents trying to force me to be religious. Sent me to religious school from K-12 and went to temple a lot (Jewish). As someone who naturally gravitated toward problem solving and logic (engineer), I was always skeptical of religion and the more I learned about it the more I was exposed to things that just made no logical sense and it became pretty obvious to me early on that this is all stuff that some group of people made up a while ago and I don't need to base my life around it. Furthermore, I don't need religious text to teach me how to be a good person. For example on "holy" days where the community spends all day in temple reciting the same prayer 50 times over and over again, I would much rather volunteer at a soup kitchen or maybe plant trees or do community service, that is much more rewarding to me than praying to something that no one even knows exists. That being said, I don't care if anyone else wants to be religious, I am not trying to convert anyone to atheism, as long as their beliefs don't pour over into my life. This is where tension has built up with my mom who continues trying to force me to be religious even as I am into my 30s now. I do not try to convince her to be atheist so I don't understand why she feels she needs to force it upon me. We don't really talk much anymore because of it which is a shame because otherwise we got along. Anyway, I hope you let your child choose whatever path he/she decides is best without forcing anything upon him/her.

hluska 9y ago
Thanks for sharing your story and I'm sorry that your Mom still tries to pressure you. I haven't been a parent for very long so I don't really know what the hell I'm talking about, but based on my experience, it's got to be really hard to let go when your kids become adults. And, I love nobody like I love my daughter, so in all honesty, I don't know what I will be like when she does things that I disagree with. On the topic of religion, I like to think that I'll be fairly liberal. I hope that I will show her one system while she is young and then back off when she is in her teens to let her find her own way. But, unfortunately, parenting has shown me one thing. It turns out that, for all that I like to talk about science and to the extent that I consider myself 'rational', I am mostly an ape. I am fiercely and irrationally protective of her. And I am just as fiercely and irrationally proud of each and every one of her accomplishments. Still though, I have a tremendous amount of respect for her, so I promise you (and her) that I will do my best to let her make her own decisions. However, seriously, thank you again for sharing your perspective with me. I'm sorry that you are going through this, but I will remember this comment and I promise that I will consider your words any time I want to pressure her to believe what I do. Thank you very much.

hluska 9y ago

Thanks for sharing your story and I'm sorry that your Mom still tries to pressure you. I haven't been a parent for very long so I don't really know what the hell I'm talking about, but based on my experience, it's got to be really hard to let go when your kids become adults. And, I love nobody like I love my daughter, so in all honesty, I don't know what I will be like when she does things that I disagree with. On the topic of religion, I like to think that I'll be fairly liberal. I hope that I will show her one system while she is young and then back off when she is in her teens to let her find her own way. But, unfortunately, parenting has shown me one thing. It turns out that, for all that I like to talk about science and to the extent that I consider myself 'rational', I am mostly an ape. I am fiercely and irrationally protective of her. And I am just as fiercely and irrationally proud of each and every one of her accomplishments. Still though, I have a tremendous amount of respect for her, so I promise you (and her) that I will do my best to let her make her own decisions. However, seriously, thank you again for sharing your perspective with me. I'm sorry that you are going through this, but I will remember this comment and I promise that I will consider your words any time I want to pressure her to believe what I do. Thank you very much.