Agno Well you've obviously tried your best to help. Some people are resistant to help and may even make life worse for those trying to help. We're agnostics we don't have to turn the other cheek when we our help is rebuffed. However I do think it's bad if families are split up for really irrelevent things like religion - let them have their superstitions which they believe in we've probably got some superstitions we believe in too. Science advances by detecting the errors in previously held theories. We may not care much for the 'christian' side of christmas but the 'goodwill' side of it is important to us. Why not anyone one reading this that has a family split going back years and years try to put it right? No need to alter your beliefs but just give it a try. If it's rejected well you tried and as I said we don't have to turn the other cheek. If it works you might be glad you gave it a try.

No, but most of my sisters don't contact me for reasons unknown. I love them dearly, but they chose to end communication with me. I don't know the reasons, but respect their choice.

Yes, I haven't talked to my younger brother in decades because of philosophical differences. He thinks the world owes him a living and has spent over 20 years of his adult life in prison.

I just have a small range of topics I can talk to with my brother, Sports, the end.

Oh yeah. I value family, but I have priorities. My dignity, moral guidelines, and ethical values will not be compromised for anyone, including family.

yep, and don't miss them for a second. Life is to short to put up with bullshit, even if it is from family.

Fortunately, no. But the way you describe him it seems it is best to move on.

I would have hung up first and a lot sooner than he did.

I have about 11 family members I have turned my back on in the last 10 years for exactly the same argumentitive and Ignorant behaviors and language toward me. I damn near beat the crap out of my own addoptive father in 1983 for as he called it...(committing me) to a Religious Cult in NY state. This same cult was radded in 2008 for its leader murdering 6 members and other Civil Rights Violations Kidnapping as well as money laundering and some other financial crimes. Since then every time I turn my back on one of them I feel freed from their Insanity. Welcome to the World of Free Thinking and enjoy the ride!

35 years ago was the last time I saw any of my immediate family. Toxic, with untreated mental health issues. Now they are dead & I am safe from their disease. I no longer entertain the unreachable......except on this site. =0}

I've been un-friended on Facebook over politics by family. I tell them the truth as I see it. If they don't like it, it's on them. Don't tend to talk politics in person unless someone brings it up.

Yes! And I finally just gave up. I'm not the idiot whisperer. There's no point trying to make sense of it. It's not clear why people go off the rails and start believing right wing screed. They buy into an alternate reality maybe because the fact based one disagrees with them. Whatever the cause, I'm not going to get suckd in by it all. It's also clear that the pervayors of that screed have an evil agenda that would never fly with a rational and we'll educated mass. They need to drive crazies to there side in numbers to have political traction, which they are doing pretty successfully at the moment.

You owe him nothing. Separate yourself from all toxic people, and that applies to family, too. Take care of yourself though, it hurts to cut ties.

Drugs and alcohol are not the only addictions plaguing our time and society. They are just the most costly of addictive substitutes. Many of us become addicted to behaviors that furnish similar 'highs' and fears of their loss when confronted with the facts of the addictions. One of them, most here know well and have 'kicked' is theological 'feel-good' rituals and doctrines; which include the payoff of faith in one's own supremacy by virtue of being a believer and subscriber to the ideas of others.

Another is addiction to functionally identical ideological and political pap of BOTH the Left and Right. This site reeks of it. It is teeming with self-aggrandizing, priggish and presumptuous ideologues who are no more than followers and users of packaged political doctrines, no less addictive and no less counterfeit than 'scriptures'. It is ABSOLUTELY COMEDIC!

To allow others to form thought and beleif systems for us means that they really aren't 'our beliefs'. They are borrowed or purchased with the price of abdicating personal rights to judge what is from what ain't to others. Surest symptom of this kind of addiction is responding to differing opinions as though they ALSO are products of mesmerizing 'group think'; such as juvenile expressions and distortions; word play on names and terms that run the gamut on both Left and right. I won't dignify them here by citing. We hear and read them day in and day out.

If you dine out, guess what? You only ate what the menu offered. You didn't even have a hand in preparing it. You didn't even slavishly follow a recipe at home for it. That means it isn't your product; though it technically becomes both yours and ultimately you by consumption.

Want to claim independence of thought? Do it just like 'home cookin'. Compose the recipe, choose and proportion the ingredients and even refine them with each preparation. Know how and why the recipe and preparation are the way they are as author of them. No need then for 'talking points'. Then and only then can one fairly represent it as their own. The same goes with beliefs and opinions.

Know this. Dinner guests who don't know how to cook will accuse you of 'ordering out' and re-plating dinner because its the only way they know how to eat.

Between the religio-nazis, the child-molester-supporters, and the racists, I have pretty much told them all to fuck off. BTW, the best way to deal with people who lie is to think up a really good wopper and tell it to them. Had a nephew who loved fishing, he was always lying . . . . told him we were going fishing tomorrow morning, he is all up and into it, next morning, he's like, "I'm all ready to go!" and I tell him, "I lied to you, I am not going fishing." So he's all "I can't believe you would do that." and I am like, "Well, you are always lying to me, and that gives me permission to lie to you!"

My brothers are drug-addled alcoholics who are pathological liars too. The oldest was in the car with our mom as my mom and were disscusing politics and my brother (30) says its all the mellinials fault. I had too send my mom the info to show him he was apart of the mellinials group. So the smart ass that I am asked who he voted for... guess... Yup tRump! I told him he was still jobless because of that and to look at his 3 baby girls and to apologize to them for being so closed minded. We don't really talk anymore..... i am not up at night worried about it.

Over reaction is often a response of people who know that they are in the wrong, and can not hope to endure a reasonable conversation. People who are unable to grow or change often retreat into self delusion. They know that they are in a weak position and dare not risk a conversation which may expose the truth, on any matter however trivial; since that would require an act of strength from them. You can therefore do nothing for them until they are ready to move on, it is not your fault, and it is better to spend your energies on family and friends who will benefit from and enjoy what you do.

No reason in this world why you should feel sad or guilty.

Agno What's the point in rowing with him? I have a feeling you probably do feel sad after it. He's the one in the wrong but he may need you far more than you need him. Why not give him a ring, wish him merry christmas then ring off before it can change into an argument. You'll both feel better.

::::::::removing my nose from your family business and stopping the unasked for advice. Merry Christmas.

To be honest, that's not a philosophical difference. It's a smart avoidance method to keep needy people away from you. Simplest way I can put it...