Someone asked me a while back whether my goal is for my siblings to become atheists. I was completely taken aback because I had never even thought about it like that. The answer is no,<\/em> that\u2019s not my goal, and it never has been. But the question made me think. What is<\/em> my goal for my siblings? Why don\u2019t <\/em>I feel a driving desire to deconvert them into atheism?<\/p>\n There is something similar involved when I think of my children. I\u2019ve had conservative Christians tell me \u201cjust wait until one of your kids to decide to be a Christian, and then you\u2019ll know how your parents felt and you\u2019ll almost certainly react similarly.\u201d The thing is, this isn\u2019t true. My goal isn\u2019t for my children to be atheists. I plan to let them form their own beliefs. Rather, my goal is that they be caring, compassionate, accepting, confident, independent thinkers who believe in equality and the value of humanity and are conscious of the importance of social justice.<\/p>\n I have good friends who are Christians and I don\u2019t feel the need to deconvert them either, because they are already all of the things I listed above. I disagree with a few of them on some things \u2013 universal health care, for example \u2013 and those are the things I argue with them about. Similarly, if I found a friend didn\u2019t believe in LGBTQ rights, or thought abortion should be banned, or was in favor of the death penalty, those are all things I would feel the need to argue about, and those are the moments when I would try to change a friend\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been trying to think of the reasons for this. For one thing, there are both caring, loving, and accepting people and hateful, bigoted people in every religious tradition and outside of religion. My desire, then, is not for people to hold or not hold specific beliefs about the supernatural but rather for them to be caring, loving, and accepting people regardless of what they believe. For another thing, I\u2019m tired of proselytizing. I spent too many years believing it was my role in life to make others believe what I did. I feel no need to repeat that. I think in some sense I became so jaded by my parents and religious community trying to impress their religious beliefs on me no matter what it took that I want to stay as far away from repeating that as possible.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to be the friend who is always trying to prove you wrong or lecture you about the inadequacy of your beliefs; I want to be the friend you can count on for love, acceptance, support, and a shoulder to cry on.<\/p>\n Now of course, none of this means that I am afraid to state what I do and don\u2019t believe or why. If religion does come up in a conversation, with a Christian or Jewish friend for instance, I make it clear where I stand and why. I plan to do the same with my children, and with my siblings if they ask. I am not shy about stating my own beliefs and I don\u2019t adhere to the idea that all beliefs are somehow all equally true. But there\u2019s a difference between being willing to call it like I see it and feeling that I won\u2019t be satisfied unless those around me, whether siblings, children, or friends, are atheists as well, or that it is my job to make them so.<\/p>\n Several of my adult siblings know that I am an atheist and have been amazingly cool with it. I\u2019ll never forget the moment when I came out to the first of them.<\/p>\n Me: I don\u2019t believe in God anymore.<\/p>\n Sibling: Then what do you believe in?<\/p>\n Me: I believe in love.<\/p>\n Sibling: Then I guess we believe in the same thing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That \u2013 that <\/em>\u2013 is my goal for my siblings.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Someone asked me a while back whether my goal is for my siblings to become atheists. I was completely taken aback because I had never even thought about it like that. The answer is no, that\u2019s not my goal, and it never has been. But the question made me think. What is my goal for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","category-family"],"yoast_head":"\n