Religion
In reply to the discussion: Question for atheists. [View all]longship
(40,416 posts)The Jesus story of the gospels never ever made any sense to me. Although I attended church for the first 13 years of my life, I basically never believed any of it. And although my parents took my sisters and me to church almost every week during that time, apparently neither did they.
One Sunday, when we were all piled into the family Oldsmobuick, on the way home from church, my mother turned around and basically said, "Your father and I have decided to not attend church anymore. However, if any of you would like to continue, we will drive you there." They really meant that. My parents would no more mandate church attendance than they would have forbade it.
That is the measure of ones atheism. Both of my parents have since died. Neither of them had any kind of religious celebration upon their death. Interestingly, my father's memorial service was held at the local and very rural Masonic Temple. There was a kind of Masonic ritual, apparently rarely practiced in public, but reserved for such occasions. There was no appeal to any god in that memorial, which was led by his younger brother, also a Mason, and also sadly gone. It made me proud of my father, who so gently lived his life and so gracefully left it behind. Basically without religion, but not necessarily denying its influence.
I think that one cannot be an atheist without knowing religion. My parents knew that, too. I thank them for that every day that I consider these things.
My best.