If so, how did they take it (I’m guessing “not well”), and where do things stand now?
They know. I stopped attending church in my teens, and my mother never stopped looking for opportunities to re-convert me. I no longer take her calls.
I stopped attending church in my teens
How did that happen? Did they not force you to join them?
I was fortunate that my father was still agnostic at the time and wouldn’t allow my mother to force me to church after I decided I wasn’t going. He later converted after he was diagnosed with cancer, so had that happened earlier, I probably would have been shit out of luck.
As it was, my mother still harassed me for years after, until I finally cut contact.
Told my SO first. It did not go well, and there was a time when I thought I might end up having to move out. However, everything is fine years later, as they came to the understanding that mixed-faith relationships have been happening throughout human history, and those people are happy regardless of their religious affiliations.
Told my mother next, and being a progressive Christian who works with people of other religions, she was very cool with it.
Nobody else in my family knows explicitly. I don’t know what suspicions they might have, but I don’t really see the need to burden them with what is a personal choice in my life. We can have our family relationships without religion just fine.
I was raised by a catholic mother and Salvation Army father (his mother was Amish and father was a Quaker, but they joined the Salvation Army) I was not raised religious, but it was always there. We never did church, but the catholic guilt was instilled. I also grew up in a rural NM town where Catholicism permeated everything.
At the age of 6 or 7 I found a book of Norse Mythology and realized that made far more sense to me than anything christian I had ever learned. Gods that walked among humans, that loved humans, that helped humans. But my mother told me they were not real gods and only her god was real, but with no proof. For a number of years I questioned, but always found myself retelling the stories of the Eddas.
Eventually I thought the Church of Satan was the place for me, as I left home I told my mother she had turned me into a Satanist. She was aghast, but for once in my life responded with love instead of hate… or so I thought. She started to force my sisters into church so they would not end up like their godless brother. It worked on one and pushed the other into my Norse beliefs.
I have long since distanced myself from the CoS and fully identify as a Norse Pagan. It pisses my mom off that I call christmas jul/yule despite that being what she always called it when I was a kid.
What has kept you in a “practicing” religious state rather than moving away from a supernatural/religious belief system all together?
Most of the people I know who are ex-Christian have become agnostic or atheist over moving to another “faith” (of you want to call it that).
Interesting, I was also unsure about how many people here simply shifted to atheism as opposed to a world belief still involving the supernatural. How do you worship, if you do? Do you have some kind of community? It almost sounds too rare to be true.
despite that being what she always called it when I was a kid.
She did? But that’s not Catholic, Quaker, nor Amish (as far as I know)!
She called it Yule because she felt christmas was too commercialized.
Other than my baby sister, I know no other Norse pagans in the flesh. I do not worship, she does have an altar. I wear my mjolnir. I would love to find a non white power community of Norse Pagans. I do know other pagans, but spiritual beliefs are not something we discuss.
Edit to add: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Yule
My mom’s mom’s dad’s family was from Scotland. He grew up in Barbados, but from talking with my mom about him I think he spoke Scots, which likely could be where the Yule originated.
Oh, Yule; okay, that I know. I had never seen it in your spellings before, so TIL.
That is also interesting that your sister followed almost precisely in your footsteps. Are you close?
Jul is Norse, Norwegian, Danish for Yule or christmas.
My Norse sister and I are very close, we would be closer if she was not an alcoholic.
My family know, but mostly because of my lived example rather than any explicit conversation with them.
They knew when I moved to a more liberal church (Society of Friends, who I have a lot of respect for), and when I eventually stopped going there as well, but I never explicitly said.
My sister has asked if id consider “coming back to church” but it was a pretty relaxed conversation to be honest.
It’s just something that’s the way it is now. Occasional remarks (especially as I’m marrying, legally, without a religious ceremony) but nothing terribly cutting! My mother is a little passive aggressive at times but that’s not explicitly to do with my religious practice (or lack thereof).
