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I had quite the throwback culture war experience this past weekend. While at a family gathering, my dad was cornered by an in-law and quizzed about my “agnosticism”.
He was asked if he had led me to this lack of faith, and was then informed that it’s the patriarch’s responsibility to “get his family into heaven” – a neat little double-duty insult of both himself and me.
I tend to be a very laid-back guy in meatspace, but found myself livid. I’ve been in this family for close to a decade, and the sheer cowardice and arrogance of this exchange was breathtaking. To circle around to one of my direct family members instead of having the cajones to challenge me directly was ridiculous (and in hindsight, what I should have really expected from these people).
We’ve been existing in what I thought was a reasonable detente. As a victorious participant in the Atheism culture war, I’ve been kinda-sorta prepared to have these skirmishes with my wife’s catholic family for a long time. The unspoken agreement was that I go to church for holidays, let you splash water on my children, and don’t bring up anyone’s hypocrisy/the church’s corruption, rampant pedophilia/the inherent idiocy in believing in god.
In exchange, I get to stay balls deep in my excellent wife and should be left alone.
I’ll be the first to admit the excesses of Atheism’s victory laps and see how “live and let live” can slide down the slope into a children’s drag show. But this indirect exchange reminded me that when the culture war pendulum swings back, I should be prepared for the petty tyrants and fools on the religious right to reassert themselves. We’re already starting to see the tendrils of this, even if some of their forces have been replaced with rainbow-skinsuit churches across the US.
For Christian motteziens - No disrespect intended. I'm aware of the hypocrisy of my arrogance in this post, and it's intended to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek
Given that the baptism of your children requires that you ask the Church to accept them as a member and publicly state that you intend to raise them in the Catholic faith, I think your in-laws can be forgiven for bringing this up. Since at least one point you least mimed agreement. I have friends in similar circumstances and I'm also unsympathetic. If you don't want to raise your children religious why get them baptized, if you had been clear with your intentions from the start I don't think you would have this conflict (might have other conflict but not this one!).
I'm entirely uncool with Catholics pressuring people into obviously false statements of faith and baptism, and then acting like that person is a betrayer violating an honest promise when that person honestly states the perfectly clear fact it was all lip service.
You can coerce people into loyalty oaths. Of course that has no bearing on their actual beliefs. It just means they gave into coercion. Some people then act performatively shocked that coerced pledges are worthless.
Is it "obviously false" though?
"Are you going to raise your kids as Catholics?" is a fairly straight forward question, and there is little reason to lie unless you're explicitly trying to get a free-ride off of church resources in which case I'd say they have a right to be annoyed.
I don't think avoiding social ostracism counts as "getting a free ride off of church resources".
It absolutely is "getting a free ride" if the church is offering any sort of perks for membership.
And yes I include things like social functions, play-dates, blue-bag groceries, school supplies, etc.. under the heading "perks"
Is a light-skinned black person who tries to pass for white, in a situation where a lot of people don't like blacks. "getting a free ride"? I would say no.
And if it's a light-skinned black person, at least his parents and siblings are okay with him being black. In the analogous situation with religion, you can have religious beliefs that are completely different from your whole family. It's hard thinking of even a good analogy, but let's say you want to marry a light-skinned black person and you tell your parents that this person is white because you know your parents would otherwise ostracize you. Are you getting a free ride from your parents every time you come home for Thanksgiving dinner, because you know that if you had told the truth, they wouldn't let you in the house?
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If that's coercion, then having any requirement for romantic partners is coercion.
"She said must love dogs in her profile, and I had no other choice but to feign a love of dogs, though I am actually a cat person."
"Coercion" and "not getting a free ride off of church resources" are separate arguments, though related.
I'd agree that feigning a love of dogs doesn't count as getting a free ride off of church resources.
No that a free ride of your partner instead which is arguably worse.
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