"Well family tends to pick up on the fact that you never show up at church anymore and want to know why. I kept it to myself for 15 years. You don't give me credit for that?"

It's not my responsibility to give you credit nor should you care if I don't. It's great that you waited 15-years but clearly that wasn't long enough and that stems from not knowing your audience.

When I stopped attending church or going to Christmas Mass - my family asked the same questions and I simply responded with "I feel spirituality is a personal thing and being somewhat of an introvert I'd rather keep it that way i.e., private". No one took offense and when we did get together for the holidays and they would say grace - I'd bow my head too but I was thinking of things completely different than what they were thinking about and they weren't the wiser because I don't have mind readers in my family.

I'm not here to beat you up - I'm simply saying that apparently you didn't give enough thought to your decision to come out before you did. Be true to yourself - there's nothing wrong with that - but atheism shouldn't define you and if you have people in your life that you value - don't lose sight of the cliche that loose lips sink ships.

Let's look at it another way - I valued my relationship with my Meme - she meant the world to me. Had she insisted that I attend a Christmas Mass - I would have gone and I would have participated. Why? Because in my mind I was just playing a part and I was doing that to preserve my relationship with Meme. Some might say "respect is a two way street" and I would agree on some levels but not when it comes to a lady born in 1922 who had completely different ideas when it came to what was considered the "social norms". It's not my job to debunk old style mindsets - my job is to determine whether or not despite their archaic beliefs - do they have value? I am much richer for having Meme in my life and I made a conscious decision to not divulge my non-theism because I knew it would hurt her and that's the last thing I ever wanted to do. Do I feel cheated because she quite likely would not have accepted my non-theism views - not in the least.

Tell your father he's not a good Christian if he'd do that to you. He's being revengeful and the Lord spoke out forcibly against revenge. Tell the old gent to practice what he preaches.

I still don't understand why people feel the need to declare their atheism or why they're now borrowing the phrase "came out of the closet". When I became a non-theist my life didn't change in any dramatic fashion - I simply no longer went to church. It's not as big a deal as people are making it out to be. My family before they passed away between 2000 and 2017 were religious and I never once felt the need to discuss my beliefs. I didn't feel the need to show my superiority and in my opinion that's the only reason for someone to "come out". You didn't think ahead and you're now suffering the consequences - there's a lesson to be learned here.

Oh MAN!! so sorry to hear that. My mom was a bigot and lived in fear I'd bring my man east to meet my family. LOL! I told her' WHY would I subject him to that?' I could have come out as atheist and she would not have cared but living with a black man was not exceptable.
Living on the west coast was not running away from them but choosing to live free from constant criticism, setting my boundaries. I missed them but oh well.
Religion poisons and so does prejudice.
How long has it been since they kicked you to the curb?

Religion poisons everthing... Christopher Hitchens should've patent that one !!!! (He said it before you)

I'll be an for nearly 2 months and I believe that things that happened to you. Will happen to me. However, I'm cosidering coming out of closet on 2 fronts, but I don't think I have courage right now.

Agreed. Religion is a tumour sucking the life out of humanity, nobody should ever experience getting abandoned or neglected solely because of their beliefs or lack of.

All that grief just because you don't believe in the ridiculous.

Yes it does.

I never appologize for being an atheist. Nor do I explain it. It's no more my choice than my eye color. This is what people don't understand.

It's scary crazy bullshit.

I hope that some of the compensaton for having had insensitive parenting is that you were able to take control of your own life an ddecisions -If I had staed in my abusive family I htink I would have killed myself - we survived, its enough, its good!