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?