Family Visit

Well, my birthday was last Monday and my brother, his wife, their daughter, and my Dad came to visit. I have to say that right now I'm also pretty passive aggressive and have yet to really tell anyone directly that I'm an atheist, except for my brother and his wife because they tend to be more liberal and accepting. Well, when my Dad came to see my apartment I made sure that right underneath the TV were my books including: a bible from my first communion, a bible from my confirmation, and right next to them "God is Not Great" and "The God Delusion." Unfortunately, my Dad didn't say anything and I still don't know if he even noticed them. I guess I'll just wait and see if my lack of a religious preference comes up in the future.

Facebook Fallout

I'm a rather passive aggressive person, so rather than go through the trouble of confronting people about atheism individually, I decided to change my religion status on facebook to "Atheist." Back when facebook was populated entirely by college students this would have been fine, but unfortunately my change of religious preference coincided with a rather disturbing trend: all of my Mexican relatives are getting on facebook!

It started with my younger relatives, of course. Slowly but surely, I watched helplessly as facebook spread through the ranks of my relatives in Mexico, moving from young (14-16 year old) cousins to their older siblings and finally their parents.

This of course changes the game up a bit, since coming out as an Atheist to a bunch of American college kids and coming out to my Catholic (by default) family in Mexico are two entirely different animals. As the deed was already done, however, I decided to let it ride and see what happens. It was only a matter of time before my own MOTHER was on facebook. It started out innocently enough:

Hi Nandon,
How are you doing?
"hugs':D

Yes thats right, my mom used a pet name, the strangely punctuated word "hugs' and an emoticon in one shot. As soon as she got on, I let her know what was up:

I'm rockin, mom! Have fun looking through pictures of me at parties!

And for a while, that was that. It wasn't until I came back from my summer internship in Oklahoma that I was confronted again with what I had done. My dad was the first to mention it, at dinner after he picked me up from the airport:

Your mom's really worried about this whole Atheist thing, but I told her that its not like you don't believe in a higher power, you just don't believe in the conception of one that has been fed to you by traditional religion.

At this point, I marveled at the fact that my dad decided to reinterpret my lack of religion into a simple denial of tradition or a rebellion against organized religion. I did not, of course, say anything, and instead I'm writing this blog post because, as we've already established, I'm passive aggressive. But he went on, and I shall continue depicting paraphrases as quotes:

So I told her, if he really didn't believe in anything higher than himself, he wouldn't be doing all this stuff for the environment. So its not like he's a selfish person, he does believe in *waves hands in circles as if to indicate the world* something.

Someday, I'll tell him that yes, I do believe in something, but that something has absolutely nothing to do with the supernatural. It has to do with nature, with morality, with the ability of each person to pass ideas to others. But for now, I kept quiet. I have to think before I try to do these things.

I got home, and my Mom, the ultimate source of my passive aggressiveness, of course did nothing. Nothing except for making two snide remarks:

Snide remark one (when asked at a company party about what church we went to)-

I go to Metodist church, but he *points at me and rolls eyes* doesn't go to churh anymore. (if only she knew that I've been going to Unitarian Universalist church)

Snide remark two (after a brazillian swimmer who had crossed himself catholically won a race on the Olympics)

See? It works!

I guess at some point I'll sit my parents down and try to explain my beliefs to them. For now, though, I think I'll let this ride for a month or two, and I'll let you know how it goes. Maybe they'll find this blog and I wont have to do anything.

-

A God, You Say?

I hate to interrupt Andon's amazing posts, but I really must tell this story...

Just as fun back story, today I broke my little toe. It was pretty obviously broken; all sideways and stuff. Anyways, I was in the emergency room and I was being quizzed about the information they keep on record and keep updated. Well, after a series of semi-normal questions, like my mother's maiden name, I was asked, "Religious preference?"

My family and I had had the atheist talk and so we all were silent for a second and maybe laughing awkwardly when I chimed in with, "none." My Dad decided to revise this by mumbling some stuff and then said he guessed it'd be Christian.

The guy who worked in the emergency room then replied, "Well, Christian is better than..." And kind of trailed off. What? Christian is better than none?

Thanks, world.

Another Ex-Catholic

A journey from Kimberly, an activist, a mother and a bio-geek:

I was raised in a Catholic family. My mother was catholic by marriage. She says that she is a christian but I do not ever recall her going to church or mass or even owning the book. I was a good kid but whenever I did something wrong I remember her saying that I needed to get down on my knees and prey so I would not go to hell. I cannot imagine saying that to my children. It really was not a big deal as I was pretty GodDamn sure I was not going to hell.

During those early days I was trying to figure in God's creation of the world and the dinosaurs. I was skeptical. My Dad's family is from Mexico and they have a long history of catholicism. However, I must say like most catholics they have a great deal of respect for the rituals but are far more openminded than my Mom's protestant family. If I were going to be a christian, I would definitely be catholic. Catholics do enjoy their drink so that is a plus. Thought about buddhism but I like my wine too much.

Then I went to college and received a degree in microbiology. This is were I decided christianity was not for me. As a scientist I have great deal of respect for reason and so evolution makes perfect sense. However, it was probably more my anthropology and history courses that really helped me come to the conclusion that there was no God. I mean, consider what the catholics did to the Aztecs and Native Americans. What the protestent missionaries did to the Native Americans. All in the name of God. Of course, I think we know there was more behind it than God. Like Oil, Gold and Land.

The Right Reasons

The long awaited conclusion of the saga of Zach:

I have attached a facebook note by a friend of mine followed by a series of comments. In the note my friend comes out against Christianity and as an atheist. He gets mainly non-confrontal feedback from friends. I post a comment about what his reasons are for becoming an atheist, and he gives me reasons to which I reply, "Good. I was just checking to see if you were an atheist for the right reasons." I get a reply saying, "I am wondering, Zach, what are the "right" reasons for being atheist?" From there, all hell breaks loose. It's all in the attachment, but I warn you, there are some 50 comments mostly between my friends and me debating religion.

Just to let you know, in those comments of mine in the attachment I compare god to: Zeus, Brama, Wotan, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, leprechauns, and of course...a teapot.

However, the only ones people get offended by is when I compare god to unicorns or leprechauns. Hmmm.....

Facebook Discussion (Word Document)

Oklahoma Christian

The second of three in the Zach saga:

I went to a Dark Knight midnight showing. I was sitting by myself because all of my friends had gone back home for the summer and my coworkers were in another theatre. Anyways, as I was sitting reading my book I get to talking to a guy next to me who’s with a group. We introduce ourselves and I said I was going to OU and he said he was going to OCU. I asked him, “Oklahoma City University?” And he said, “Oklahoma Christian.”

We proceeded with some small talk until his friends got his attention and I proceeded to read my book. A few minutes later he asked me what book I was reading. I hesitantly turned to the front cover to him revealing the words, “The God Delusion.” We laughed a little bit and talked some more, but didn’t get into a big argument or anything. (After all I was going to be sitting next to this person for the next two and half hours.)

A few minutes later, I sneezed, to which he quickly and sincerely responded, “Bless you.” I started laughing mainly because I knew he didn’t do it on purpose but just the irony of the situation.

Half the Catholic and Twice the Fun!

From Zach, a sophomore at Oklahoma University:

I was raised Roman Catholic and was an alter boy until about my early to mid-teens. I always pretty proud of Catholicism for allowing the theory of evolution, but that was pretty much it. I knew everything in the Bible wasn’t true and I thought, “Well, why do I consider the rest of it true?” My answer was in science. I never really fully believed everything that the Church or the Bible said, but it was starting in my junior year in high school I started having severe doubts about my religion.

It was during this time that my brother was too, so him and his wife converted to Episcopalian or “half the Catholic and twice the fun,” as they would put it. By the time I graduated high school in 2007 at the age of 17 I considered myself agnostic, but not necessarily an agnostic theist, nor an agnostic atheist. I started college in the fall, and by December realized that was an atheist but told myself that I could be an agnostic theist around my family.

I remember visiting my dad and he wanted me to go to mass with him. I went, but I didn’t want to. I believe I mainly did it for him. Over the previous months my parents had separated, my mom just basically left my dad because she just didn’t want to be with him anymore after 24 years of marriage. He was in a rough time and I didn’t want him to think that their separation caused me to turn away from god (which it didn’t). But by the end of my spring semester in 2008 I realized I was an atheist and if it came up I would tell the truth (sort of).

I came home during June for a weekend (I was taking summer classes) and Sunday morning came around, but my Dad didn’t ask me to go, nor did he mention going to church at all during the weekend. I wasn’t guilt tripped into going to church, nor did the subject of my atheism come up. A week or two after that my sister called me. She wanted me to be co-godfather to her son (one of the godparents has to be Catholic). Since I was technically a confirmed Catholic I went ahead and accepted. I also thought the idea of godparents was nothing more than a tradition that had absolutely no utility.

Anyways, afterwards at the get-together at my grandmother’s house my brother and his wife arrived and we were talking and I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but I let them know I was an atheist. Ever since then they have been very supportive of me.