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My mom is driving me CRAZY!

I post a lot of things about religion and atheism on my facebook. Most of it I wouldn't even consider offensive! Things such as:

"Religion is like a lightbulb in a perfectly lit room; everything would be fine without it."

"Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told no matter what is right."

Blog entries such as: http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/a...

Articles like this: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/28/dont-know-much-about-relig...

And my own thoughts about the kuran burning, the pope's arrival in the UK, Christopher Hitchen's current state, and my opinions about the bible as I read it.

I only post a couple things a week, which isn't much, and none which I think are that offensive. My mother posts things involving her religion almost daily, and I've never commented on her stuff, yet she's always at the ready to say something condescending when I post one of my things. On top of that, she's always asking me to read some book about christianity or watch some dvds (Answers in Genesis with Ken Ham? No thank you). She always gives credit to god whenever I accomplish something great, and she always plays christian music in the car and goes 'you will love this Bri'. The internet is my only outlet, in real life I don't say or do anything. I tolerate her crappy music, I support her in her christian drama troupe, I don't say anything when she takes my nephew and niece to church, I've even sat through some of her dvds. I've been feeling bullied by her, and the other day she posted a note on facebook composed by Ben Stein, about how christians don't like being put down because they are christians, and how there are terrorists because people apparently aren't allowed to pray in public and how kids are killing other kids because bibles aren't allowed in schools. Yeah. Anyway, I discovered that I was the ONLY person she tagged to deliberately call me out on my atheism. Let me remind you that I have not invited my mom to comment on any of the things I've posted to facebook, nor have I engaged my mom in any discussion involving this sort of thing. It's always her doing this to me. So I said enough is enough. I decided facebook is the only area in this situation where I have any control, so I deleted her from my facebook. It wasn't really a big deal to me, I was just tired of putting up with her on facebook so I deleted her.
Well shit hit the fan. She is acting like this is the worst thing I could ever do. When she sent me a message pointing out that I had been doing the same things to her, I pointed out that I actually had not because they were status updates on MY facebook and that facebook had a feature to hide status updates from certain people, which she chose to ignore. She said that we should just agree to disagree and move past it, but I asked for an apology. Her apology was, to say the least, unsatisfactory, and laden with blame on me.

"Bri, I do apologize for making you upset and offended. DO YOU, in return, understand how I and many others were feeling by your comments
about Christianity and our religion? It is offensive and, in our
country, we should be free from this sort of thing. I don't want
excuses. I simply want it to stop. In the meantime, we should be able
to handle this like mature adults. Let's let it go. I apologize. Be at
peace."

It seems the only way she is willing to let bygones be bygones is if I stop expressing my opinions on my own facebook. I told her that isn't happening. I don't know what to do. I don't want my relationship with my mom to be strained. Any suggestions?

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Adelita D on October 16, 2010 at 11:44pm

It is your facebook. It is your right to express your thoughts and opinions. It is her choice to be offended or feel something in particular. She wouldn't feel offended if there wasn't something in her brain telling her that she is missing something or might be wrong. She has the right to put anything on her facebook she wants...you have the right to not comment or even read it. She does not need to read your facebook. My mom had this wonderful way of always being "right" and everything always being "my fault". This is very similar. It is obvious you do not see her way anymore and have the right to say so--being that it is your facebook I would keep it up because who knows who you may help with your links and articles. There may be some person still stuck in the religious mire looking for a rational way out....looking for help with the mixed emotions and feelings they are getting.

I certainly don't have my mother on facebook. You keep doing what you are doing--you have done nothing wrong. She wants you to come back to religion and is willing to continue to post religious stuff on her facebook--tagging only you....You do what brings you peace. Sometimes that unfortunately means you have to let go of relationships....If you really want the relationship to work, don't add her back to facebook and explain you are doing that so she doesn't have to read your beliefs as those are not going to change "miraculously"...ya know? Hang in there. You love her but are just tired of feeling you are not allowed freedom unless you are Christian to her......she has no power over your freedom and is not allowed power over you even if she is "family".

Remember my mantra: "The adage, "Blood is thicker than water," was invented by undeserving relatives."
(King Arthur from Camelot)

Permalink Reply by Brianna Starfish on October 16, 2010 at 11:54pm

Thanks. My whole family has been ganging up against me since I deleted her! For cryin out loud it's just facebook, people! It's not like I'm never going to see her again.

Permalink Reply by Adelita D on October 17, 2010 at 12:02am

All of them??? Good grief...and they want "YOU" to be "grown up" or "Mature" about this? rofl what about them.. there is the double standard again. Nope, keep her off and delete the rest and say "I'll see you in person, it's just Facebook!" Then they don't have to read if they don't want to know. People like that WANT to comment and try to make you feel guilty or
"bring you back". Hang in there. My mom and sister are similar and I finally had to tell them to kiss off....it is painful and difficult, but not as bad as the pain and suffering they put me through all these years and then tried to inflict on my children (they actually begged me to not contact them anymore....how sad is that?!?) Hugs!

Permalink Reply by Rich Goss on October 17, 2010 at 1:28am

Bri, I'd tell her straightaway, "Organized religion is nonsense and I don't want any part of it. You can't expect me to believe that Eve was made from Adam's rib and the talking snake seduced her."

Every time she bothers you, hit her with one of her own beliefs. Like:

How did 20 million different species fit on Noah's Ark?
When the devil tempted our Lord, what was he so stupid he didn't know Who he was dealing with?
Why did God kill so many people just to win a bet with the devil, i.e. Job?

Tell her the Bible encourages and condones slavery, male dominated hierarchy, war, sexism, proselytization of minors, dichotomous thinking, and homophobia. How can this be the word of God?

Every time she brings up religion, make her answer a question about it. In other words, fight back.

Permalink Reply by Brianna Starfish on October 17, 2010 at 1:43am

She always has the stupidest responses. If she doesn't have a response she just goes 'God works in mysterious ways' or 'I don't care'. She has this crazy holier-than-thou attitude like she's enlightened because of her religion. She seriously believes that Noah only took one "kind" of each animal on the boat, and they some how became other animals through natural selection in less than 5000 years. But she doesn't believe in evolution. I don't even understand her.

Permalink Reply by Richard Healy on October 17, 2010 at 7:36pm

She serious believes that Noah...

Stop right there.

This is my go-to knock-down refutation of that ridiculous myth.

Dendrochronology is the study of tree rings, they get deposited in layers thicker and thinner depending of environmental factors.

Using over-lapping samples of trees of increasing age (by counting and confirmed by correlation with decay rates of radioactive isotopes) a complete chain of growth data from three separate species of tree (which grow in different regions of the world and at different altitudes) going back over a period of at least 12,400 years. (if you start using fossilised growth records this number increases)

From this we can conclude two things.

1.) The Earth is at least as old as the oldest known tree rings in an absolute chronology: 12,400 years - this is already more than double what your most literal of fundamentalist creationists is willing to accept, and demonstrates just how at variance with reality their beliefs are. This is not hard science; this is counting tree rings.

2.) During this entire period of time there was definitively *NO GLOBAL FLOOD* which covered "all the high mountains under the entire heavens" or which "rose and covered the mountains to a depth of twenty feet." whereupon "all living things upon the earth perished." (Genesis 7:17 - 24) or else there would be no consistent record of dendrochronological record as Trees cannot survive if fully submerged and the growth record in all three intersecting and correlating species (One Bristle cone Pine and two species of European Oak) of tree is continuous.

To continue to find the Biblical creation story at all credible, you have to find some alternative explanation for this correlation found in nature.
These combined oak and pine tree-ring chronologies are the backbone of the Holocene radiocarbon calibration

Several chronologies I've not mentioned are "floating" - meaning they do not have a fixed origin date, but overlap with area of the absolute record - and many of those are older still,. All the species show the same trends in world climate whenever they overlap (the thicker and thinner lines / the rate of decay in radioactive isotopes).

The climatological trends correlate the ages from one species to the others, thus any errors that would invalidate dendrochronology would need to apply to each (and all) species in each (and all) locations at the same time. Here we need only discuss the three long absolute chronologies and how they validate each other.

Now Young Earth Creationists and Biblical literalists have a problem because not only do these different chronologies cover the same time, they also have the same pattern of climate shown in their tree rings even though they come from opposite sides of the earth and are in very different kinds of trees: one evergreen living at high altitudes and one deciduous living near sea levels. Anything that can cause errors in one system has to have a method that can cause exactly the same error in the other at exactly the same time. Positing false rings does not accomplish this. All three sets also show global events like the "little ice age" and other marker events at the same ages. They all come to the same age for the matching climate data.

This also means that there was absolutely NO world-wide flood during the period they cover as there would be no possible overlap of tree ring chronologies if there were some point at which ALL were dead.

Science for the WIN!

I have used this to get a fundamentalist to admit - and contradicting The Bible - Noah's flood may, in his words "have been local", I then began discussing the ages of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets but he had difficulty counting any higher then 100 million so I declared victory and left hi to stew the juice of his own stupidity.

I simply maintain that it NEVER HAPPENED! There is no evidence that it did and plenty of evidence from which one can conclude that it didn't.

We haven't even yet mentioned the geographic distribution of animals, the molecular clock, and DNA, which are proof not only that species evolve but they didn't all walk to where they live now out of the hull of a bloody big boat.

From this it follows:

1.) The earth is old. (Very old as it turns out.)

2.) The Bible is factually wrong.

3.) People who deny either or both of these statements are either ignorant or fools.

Permalink Reply by L.Hunter on October 25, 2010 at 9:23am

Well said and thanks for the info. Could you suggest some books or articles that some of us can use and give to those who lack this information?

Permalink Reply by T Rose on October 25, 2010 at 1:48pm

I think the bigger question is why don't people use these facts to realize the bible is filled with lies and mistakes.

I didn't read your entire post as I assume most creationists wouldn't either because I can easily refute it with their simple claim that all of that doesn't matter because "god can do anything" including let trees survive a flood. This is the same reasoning my sister-in-law uses when she says the Jonas and the whale story is literal truth and my mom uses to reason The Miracle of the Sun even in the face of scientific evidence.

You can call people like this ignorant and fools all you want but they call themselves "faithful" and pat themselves on the back telling themselves their blind faith and devotion is most pleasing to god and that you are going to be sorry someday for not believing.

I love the part where this atheist comedian talks about the rapture happening backwards and as all the atheists are ascending into heaven telling the theists, "Bye guys! Turns out it was all just a big IQ test!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08Nw-dLSRlo

Permalink Reply by T Rose on October 17, 2010 at 4:02am

Dunno if you saw the thread I started: http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/stuff-my-mom-says but I feel ya for sure. I have a facebook for my family (all Christians) and a facebook for my friends. And never the twain shall meet. I split my facebooks after my mom started writing nasty letters to my friends for posts she didn't like and agree with that THEY made.

I don't have time for any more fruitless debates with people who have imaginary friends they think are real. I keep in mind that people who are "religious" are not mentally healthy so I keep as much distance between myself and them as I can. I keep all conversation with family light--the weather, movies, family gossip, etc. When my mom tries to engage me in a conversation about religion, I simply do not become engaged no matter how hard she tries. For example, I posted the "Imagine" video on John Lennon's birthday a few weeks ago on Facebook and she commented "I guess when he got to heaven, he realized wasn't God". Her stock response/strawman regarding anyone she dislikes (going on 20 years with this one) is "He thinks he is god and someday when he gets to heaven will realize he isn't."

Oh yea, and I hide her feed. I haven't gotten to the point where reading her religious stuff (which gets more and more intense as she ages) doesn't make me cringe. I'm working on that one.

The fact is, your relationship with your mom WILL be strained and you have two choices as I see it.
1) Stop expressing yourself and feel repressed and bullied and try to get over it by working on yourself to get to the point where you can "let it go"
2) Keep expressing yourself and deal with the consequences (which are most likely going to stay shitty) and continue arguing until if and when you can resolve it which may result in you becoming estranged.

Do you really think you're going to enlighten your mom? Kudos to you if you can. I gave up on mine after a few discussions where I saw the mental illness rear its head and she started screaming and yelling uncontrollably. Scary. I don't know how old your mom is but mine is well into her 70s. You may have more luck with a younger mom.

Permalink Reply by T Rose on October 17, 2010 at 5:15am

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/10/mom-on-facebook_n_757114.html

Permalink Reply by Brianna Starfish on October 17, 2010 at 12:16pm

I'm not trying to enlighten my mom, I'm just trying to get her to leave me alone with the religious stuff. I don't care if she expresses herself, but I don't want her involving me.

Permalink Reply by T Rose on October 17, 2010 at 2:16pm

If you figure out how to do this, let me know!