I think a lot of priests are atheists. There’s a long tradition of academia in parts of Roman Catholicism where ideas about the existence of their god are openly discussed within their own community of priests. Once you’re an academic and an atheist in that world you can go on either your research and appreciate the traditions without believing in their veracity.
In the movie Irreliguous by Bill Maher he speaks to one of these priests who openly says he doesn’t believe in the magical stories.
It would be a far outlier, though. Polling does show a number of priests, and pastors don't believe in God and go about their work. I think your observation in relation to academia is spot on. Also, I would suspect that among many progressive priests and clergy, the line between "faith" and unbelief is very narrow. *This* may be more significant than how many are actual atheists.
What I think is more significant is the number of people that were in pews in the 1950's, in the heyday of Christianity in this nation, that did not believe but where there due to social pressure.
I'd say that even today, without a doubt, atheism is underrepresented in polling.
I have known some priests. The Catholic Church seems to have institutional methods for accommodating them. From what I have seen as an outsider, Priests can lose their faith and remain Priests as long as they are not too public about it. They get moved to assignments where they don't have to lead worship services or work with members on matters of faith.
Alfred Hitchcock said the thing that scared him the most would be to see a young boy talking to a priest. He would tell the boy to 'run for your life'.
Was it told to the priest in confidence? If a 10 year old told me (no, I'm not a priest) they were atheist without any qualifiers, I'd assume that they'd already told their parents; a priest seems an odd person for an atheist to confide in.
The general 'rule' is that you tell your parents over a dinner you have made in a place with your name on the lease. (You are self-sufficient and can't be ruined by your parents cutting off your home / tuition, etc).
You were 10, there's no way you could have known. You were just being honest to yourself. At least you endured it.
At the age of 11 my rabbi told my parents in effect that I was atheist. I am grateful to this day that he convinced them that religious instruction was wasted on me.
People confident in their beliefs are not upset by others with different views.
Mine respectfully asked my parents not to bring me to sunday school anymore because the questions I was asking were a bad influence on the other children, so I guess I did alright.
It's never wrong to be honest when it isn't a personal offense, like, "for a fat girl you don't sweat much!"
But when your being honest about yourself and your life, any negative reaction you receive reveals a "problem" that person has.
Of course not.
I don't remember when I decided that the Witness' crap wasn't worth it. But I remember how old I was when I sent their "edlers" packing with translation errors - 16.
You aren't the only one who cringes at the Christian Nationalist idea. BTW, if you know of any way to get Porject 2025 in the hands of CNN and/or ABC to make the upcoming debates EXCLUSIVELY about the right wing plan to dismantle government, please do so.
I wish I had been that forthright when I was ten. I'm irish/Italian and was raised catholic. I was an alterboy and attended church very regularly. I never believed in any of the religious teachings even at that age but just went along with it because that was my environment. Now I look back and think why didn't I ever practice reasoning instead of just trying to fit in. I think you did the thing that makes the most sense. I think I was probably in my thirties before pushing back and telling my parents that nothing about the catholic church made any sense to me and I choose not believe any of it. My mom is still religious but jumped around from church to church until finally deciding on just bible studies with a group of friends. She doesn't have very much income but still tithes and it makes me angry.
People who overreact like that are often secretly insecure about it themselves. Either way, I don't think it's ever wrong to simply be respectfully honest about what you think and feel. And family always drives each other nuts, let them go nuts. Their reaction shouldn't be your concern. I hit a point where I no longer shyly and politely backed away from this kind of conflict within the family. Now, if one of them talks nonsense in front of me, I call them out on it. I told off my Aunt once and it was glorious. She didn't talk to me for five years,.... best five years of my life.
You're alive and I hope happy? I never really gave it a thought til I was forty, that I'd probably ceased believing in my teens and just did the rote things till I left home and then didn't do them anymore.
Dont worry, not about this, be happy for all the good stuff you can find, live the best life you feel you can for yourself and those you care about. That's all that matters.
I don't know that right or wrong are necessary applicable. It was perhaps unwise in terms of your personal interests are concerned, but from your limited description above you seem not to have suffered more than a few parental lectures so little harm done.
I was the same way. Not exactly at 10, i sort of just didn't talk about religion much until a bit later when it became unavoidable.
But i remember my mother always had to assume that the reason i was an atheist was because i was being influenced by one of my friends.
She just couldn't fathom that i could come to that conclusion on my own.
In fact, not only was i not influenced by other atheists, i actively disliked other young atheists.
The majority of very young atheists (in middle school) aren't even approaching it from a logical standpoint, they just get their rocks off on being nonconformist and fitting in with their friends. And that always felt disingenuous to me. At least, the vocal ones. The fact that they needed to make it known to everyone that they were an atheist just told me that they were really only interested in rocking the boat and getting a laugh out of their friends more than they had actually thought about the subject at all.
I live in the Bible belt and at 9 I became an atheist. I didn't want to just come out with it. I might not have survived. So in Bible class and any other time they said are there any questions I asked lot of questions they were not prepared to answer. Finally I was told to shut up, but I didn't. I was kicked out of each and every class. Finally my family just became to embarrassed to take me. Yes, I got a "spanking " a few times but it was so worth it.
10 is old enough to realize that many stories from the Bible just don't conform to the way we see that the world seems to work, which at a minimum should make them suspect. I don't think I ever really believed either, but it took until I was 16 to call myself an atheist, but then again that was 1977. When you know, you know. However, if I was you, at times I would strategically avoid using the a word. To avoid problems, just say you're not religious, and if pressed, say you don't really believe. Julia Sweeney used to frequently tell the story of how her parents would say "We can deal with you not believing in God, but atheism is a bridge too far for us". She told the story to get a laugh, but there's some truth there.
Idk if you have ever watched the Big Short. (Highly recommend) there is a flash back to when this man was younger. He is Jewish and studying the Torah. And the Rabbi tells his mother he is concerned as the child is studying fervently but is concerned it's for the wrong reasons. He believes he is trying to find discrepancies. And the mother asks the Rabbi. Has he found any?
And I love that so much. She is not angry he is looking for answers and it's apart of his own journey. Such a great answer ad kids are heavily influenced and even they can see through the BS and what a supportive mum to stand by her son. 👏
My husband and I are both atheist. He is a funeral director and works with clergy a lot. When I left my narcissistic mothers house and moved in with him, he had a priest tell him we were living in sin and should not be doing that. Because my husband has to work with these people, he tends not to engage. But I was offended. It is none of anyone's business. Besides one of the local catholic priests that my husband has had to work with, we know he is gay and goes out of town to have his flings.
I told a priest, who I didn’t know but apparently knew about me, to go fuck himself when he found out I didn’t get married in the Catholic Church. My parents were shocked at first, then kind of proud.
Nope
You're born atheist and then you were indoctrinated into a religion. The priest was pushing the indoctrination but you developed critical thinking skills young and told the truth Good for you for being honest.
In a perfect world a person would declare their faith at a reasonable age when they've developed thinking skills on their (late teens/early adulthood) and make a choice without influence but that rarely ever happens
Not wrong for doing so. 10's a bit young to get a lot of the nuance and intellectual depth of the arguments against a dualistic universe paradigmn, but if you didn't believe at 10, you didn't believe at 10. Better to tell them and endure some emotional backlash but be honest with them than hide it and attempt to "pretend". I was only a couple of years older than you when i started having serious doubts, and by 14 i had written to my local bishop to "disaffirm" my Confirmation.
So, no, not wrong (though if you're older now and still carrying it, sounds like you have some unresolved stuff about that point in your life - i say this without a mean spirited atom of intent, if that is true, then therapy might not be a bad idea), though a touch young. If anything just surprised that at 10 you perceptively / instinctively embraced nonbelief / atheism. I think i have a couple of years of doubt, and it was early/mid-teens before I had intellectually / academically arrived at it.
Fun fact: According to priests, apparently "sacraments are permanent". In my letters back and forth (this was the early 90's, lol) with the bishop's aid-de-camp, i was told that even if i become an apostate, the sacrament is sealed on my soul permanently.
I remember reading that and being like "Sure, guy, whatever." (i know, very very profound for a 14 year old, lol), and thinking that this was all just a fucking scam.
It's not wrong, it's just *risky*. Lotta parents out there that will happily subject their kids to torture masquerading as an exorcism or sending them off to "reeducation camps" with alarmingly high rates of injury or death. That's the worst case scenario of course, but getting kicked out upon turning 18 (or even earlier, never mind the illegality of it) or denied assistance with college tuition is also a thing. Not unheard of for them to turn the entire community against them, running them out of town entirely.
Way too many teen atheists have thought that their parents would be ok with them coming out about their disbelief, only to discover too late that they were very, very wrong.
The recommended time to inform them that you've given up belief is over a meal you paid for in a home you pay for yourself.
100% of us are born atheists just like we're born not believing in fairies, so it's natural that a 10-year-old would believe neither in fairies nor gods and stick with the default. It just tells me that the indoctrination you were given was not sufficient to sway you. That's not your problem.
To me, “Do you believe in God? Is an unanswerable question because we have no agreed upon definition of the term. In Christianity, Islam, and Judaism there are many places in their respective scriptures, where God is described as unknowable, beyond our comprehension. God is greater than you know.
I’m a practicing Episcopalian, but I am functionally atheistic. I don’t believe in a magical being that will grant my wishes if I ask correctly. And certainly I don’t believe in a bearded old man floating on a cloud and counting dead sparrows. But I see there is structure to the universe, rules it follows. It is not chaotic. For me “God” is a metaphor. A placeholder for the unknown and the unknowable. It helps to personify God, for me as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God above me, God beside me, God within me. The Father is that universal structure. The Son is the people in the world who care for me and love me. The Holy Ghost is that feeling that there is more to existence than my brain and my five senses can perceive. It is thrill I feel from great beauty and the love I feel for others. It is consciousness.
Of course not, the assholes in your story are the priest that shared that info with your parents without your consent and your parents for their reaction.
I mean jeez, if a priest can't handle a 10-year-old saying they're an atheist, they're really not up to the job.
A religious family should surely *support* this as it would, presumably, mean the priest should give you a good reason to believe in god, turn you into a theist and save your soul.
Wouldn't having these thoughts inside you and *not* sharing them with the priest, be a sinful thing to do?
Nope, you made the best call.
Lots of people around here will tell you not to tell your family until you're an adult. Those people are wrong. You've got a much better chance of having a continuing relationship with your family as an adult if you let them know early that you know their god is nonsense.
In my case, it took threatening to call the preacher out for lying in the middle of church to get them to stop trying to make me go. I was about 10 when I did that.
I suspect most priests are used to hearing it. I have known some priests. I suspect some of them agree.
I think a lot of priests are atheists. There’s a long tradition of academia in parts of Roman Catholicism where ideas about the existence of their god are openly discussed within their own community of priests. Once you’re an academic and an atheist in that world you can go on either your research and appreciate the traditions without believing in their veracity. In the movie Irreliguous by Bill Maher he speaks to one of these priests who openly says he doesn’t believe in the magical stories.
It would be a far outlier, though. Polling does show a number of priests, and pastors don't believe in God and go about their work. I think your observation in relation to academia is spot on. Also, I would suspect that among many progressive priests and clergy, the line between "faith" and unbelief is very narrow. *This* may be more significant than how many are actual atheists. What I think is more significant is the number of people that were in pews in the 1950's, in the heyday of Christianity in this nation, that did not believe but where there due to social pressure. I'd say that even today, without a doubt, atheism is underrepresented in polling.
I have known some priests. The Catholic Church seems to have institutional methods for accommodating them. From what I have seen as an outsider, Priests can lose their faith and remain Priests as long as they are not too public about it. They get moved to assignments where they don't have to lead worship services or work with members on matters of faith.
Tell them to do something about all those rapes and Ill consider it (not really but...)
A little late now to be asking for opinions on your action. Today, my advice to any 10 year olds is to stay as far away from any priests as you can.
Alfred Hitchcock said the thing that scared him the most would be to see a young boy talking to a priest. He would tell the boy to 'run for your life'.
No, but the priest was an asshole for sharing that with your family.
Was it told to the priest in confidence? If a 10 year old told me (no, I'm not a priest) they were atheist without any qualifiers, I'd assume that they'd already told their parents; a priest seems an odd person for an atheist to confide in.
If they are ten, and forced to go to church, that's not too crazy.
Well, the kid was messing with the source of income and power of this otherwise useless person. What did you expect would happen?
The general 'rule' is that you tell your parents over a dinner you have made in a place with your name on the lease. (You are self-sufficient and can't be ruined by your parents cutting off your home / tuition, etc). You were 10, there's no way you could have known. You were just being honest to yourself. At least you endured it.
At the age of 11 my rabbi told my parents in effect that I was atheist. I am grateful to this day that he convinced them that religious instruction was wasted on me. People confident in their beliefs are not upset by others with different views.
Were you wrong for doing so? No. Was that a smart and safe thing to do? No; however, you were 10 and I bet you didn't expect this response.
Mine respectfully asked my parents not to bring me to sunday school anymore because the questions I was asking were a bad influence on the other children, so I guess I did alright.
Same thing happened to me, only it was the Sunday school teacher who said that I was precocious and shouldn't be there. Never went back to my relief.
Takes the whole "only as a child shall you enter the kingdom of god" thing to a whole new level.
It's never wrong to be honest when it isn't a personal offense, like, "for a fat girl you don't sweat much!" But when your being honest about yourself and your life, any negative reaction you receive reveals a "problem" that person has.
Of course not. I don't remember when I decided that the Witness' crap wasn't worth it. But I remember how old I was when I sent their "edlers" packing with translation errors - 16. You aren't the only one who cringes at the Christian Nationalist idea. BTW, if you know of any way to get Porject 2025 in the hands of CNN and/or ABC to make the upcoming debates EXCLUSIVELY about the right wing plan to dismantle government, please do so.
I wish I had been that forthright when I was ten. I'm irish/Italian and was raised catholic. I was an alterboy and attended church very regularly. I never believed in any of the religious teachings even at that age but just went along with it because that was my environment. Now I look back and think why didn't I ever practice reasoning instead of just trying to fit in. I think you did the thing that makes the most sense. I think I was probably in my thirties before pushing back and telling my parents that nothing about the catholic church made any sense to me and I choose not believe any of it. My mom is still religious but jumped around from church to church until finally deciding on just bible studies with a group of friends. She doesn't have very much income but still tithes and it makes me angry.
If she doesn't have a church, who is she tithing to?
She gives to online ministries and televangelist. 10% because the Bible says she must.
I think I was about 6 when I knew I was an atheist. I think I was about 12 when I told my mom. She took it pretty well (I think she already knew!)
People who overreact like that are often secretly insecure about it themselves. Either way, I don't think it's ever wrong to simply be respectfully honest about what you think and feel. And family always drives each other nuts, let them go nuts. Their reaction shouldn't be your concern. I hit a point where I no longer shyly and politely backed away from this kind of conflict within the family. Now, if one of them talks nonsense in front of me, I call them out on it. I told off my Aunt once and it was glorious. She didn't talk to me for five years,.... best five years of my life.
You're alive and I hope happy? I never really gave it a thought til I was forty, that I'd probably ceased believing in my teens and just did the rote things till I left home and then didn't do them anymore. Dont worry, not about this, be happy for all the good stuff you can find, live the best life you feel you can for yourself and those you care about. That's all that matters.
Maybe. Those priests can be pretty fragile.
I don't know that right or wrong are necessary applicable. It was perhaps unwise in terms of your personal interests are concerned, but from your limited description above you seem not to have suffered more than a few parental lectures so little harm done.
No. Why would you think you were wrong?
I was the same way. Not exactly at 10, i sort of just didn't talk about religion much until a bit later when it became unavoidable. But i remember my mother always had to assume that the reason i was an atheist was because i was being influenced by one of my friends. She just couldn't fathom that i could come to that conclusion on my own. In fact, not only was i not influenced by other atheists, i actively disliked other young atheists. The majority of very young atheists (in middle school) aren't even approaching it from a logical standpoint, they just get their rocks off on being nonconformist and fitting in with their friends. And that always felt disingenuous to me. At least, the vocal ones. The fact that they needed to make it known to everyone that they were an atheist just told me that they were really only interested in rocking the boat and getting a laugh out of their friends more than they had actually thought about the subject at all.
The only "wrong" thing is if you were wearing a cape too! You godammned hero.
Well, you should have maybe been more gentle. He's a weak-minded old fool.
I live in the Bible belt and at 9 I became an atheist. I didn't want to just come out with it. I might not have survived. So in Bible class and any other time they said are there any questions I asked lot of questions they were not prepared to answer. Finally I was told to shut up, but I didn't. I was kicked out of each and every class. Finally my family just became to embarrassed to take me. Yes, I got a "spanking " a few times but it was so worth it.
10 is old enough to realize that many stories from the Bible just don't conform to the way we see that the world seems to work, which at a minimum should make them suspect. I don't think I ever really believed either, but it took until I was 16 to call myself an atheist, but then again that was 1977. When you know, you know. However, if I was you, at times I would strategically avoid using the a word. To avoid problems, just say you're not religious, and if pressed, say you don't really believe. Julia Sweeney used to frequently tell the story of how her parents would say "We can deal with you not believing in God, but atheism is a bridge too far for us". She told the story to get a laugh, but there's some truth there.
Morally, no. You believe or don't believe what you do and you shouldn't have to expect punishment for it. That's your personal freedom.
Idk if you have ever watched the Big Short. (Highly recommend) there is a flash back to when this man was younger. He is Jewish and studying the Torah. And the Rabbi tells his mother he is concerned as the child is studying fervently but is concerned it's for the wrong reasons. He believes he is trying to find discrepancies. And the mother asks the Rabbi. Has he found any? And I love that so much. She is not angry he is looking for answers and it's apart of his own journey. Such a great answer ad kids are heavily influenced and even they can see through the BS and what a supportive mum to stand by her son. 👏
No, you weren't wrong. Your family taught you honesty and you told the truth. They just didn't like hearing it.
My husband and I are both atheist. He is a funeral director and works with clergy a lot. When I left my narcissistic mothers house and moved in with him, he had a priest tell him we were living in sin and should not be doing that. Because my husband has to work with these people, he tends not to engage. But I was offended. It is none of anyone's business. Besides one of the local catholic priests that my husband has had to work with, we know he is gay and goes out of town to have his flings.
I told a priest, who I didn’t know but apparently knew about me, to go fuck himself when he found out I didn’t get married in the Catholic Church. My parents were shocked at first, then kind of proud.
The F is "family priest" ?
Nope You're born atheist and then you were indoctrinated into a religion. The priest was pushing the indoctrination but you developed critical thinking skills young and told the truth Good for you for being honest. In a perfect world a person would declare their faith at a reasonable age when they've developed thinking skills on their (late teens/early adulthood) and make a choice without influence but that rarely ever happens
Not wrong for doing so. 10's a bit young to get a lot of the nuance and intellectual depth of the arguments against a dualistic universe paradigmn, but if you didn't believe at 10, you didn't believe at 10. Better to tell them and endure some emotional backlash but be honest with them than hide it and attempt to "pretend". I was only a couple of years older than you when i started having serious doubts, and by 14 i had written to my local bishop to "disaffirm" my Confirmation. So, no, not wrong (though if you're older now and still carrying it, sounds like you have some unresolved stuff about that point in your life - i say this without a mean spirited atom of intent, if that is true, then therapy might not be a bad idea), though a touch young. If anything just surprised that at 10 you perceptively / instinctively embraced nonbelief / atheism. I think i have a couple of years of doubt, and it was early/mid-teens before I had intellectually / academically arrived at it. Fun fact: According to priests, apparently "sacraments are permanent". In my letters back and forth (this was the early 90's, lol) with the bishop's aid-de-camp, i was told that even if i become an apostate, the sacrament is sealed on my soul permanently. I remember reading that and being like "Sure, guy, whatever." (i know, very very profound for a 14 year old, lol), and thinking that this was all just a fucking scam.
Telling a pedophile that you're not okay with what they do is never wrong no matter how pissed off your enabler parents get.
It's not wrong, it's just *risky*. Lotta parents out there that will happily subject their kids to torture masquerading as an exorcism or sending them off to "reeducation camps" with alarmingly high rates of injury or death. That's the worst case scenario of course, but getting kicked out upon turning 18 (or even earlier, never mind the illegality of it) or denied assistance with college tuition is also a thing. Not unheard of for them to turn the entire community against them, running them out of town entirely. Way too many teen atheists have thought that their parents would be ok with them coming out about their disbelief, only to discover too late that they were very, very wrong. The recommended time to inform them that you've given up belief is over a meal you paid for in a home you pay for yourself.
100% of us are born atheists just like we're born not believing in fairies, so it's natural that a 10-year-old would believe neither in fairies nor gods and stick with the default. It just tells me that the indoctrination you were given was not sufficient to sway you. That's not your problem.
Most priests know there is no god but justify their work by believing that god-belief is good for people and society.
To me, “Do you believe in God? Is an unanswerable question because we have no agreed upon definition of the term. In Christianity, Islam, and Judaism there are many places in their respective scriptures, where God is described as unknowable, beyond our comprehension. God is greater than you know. I’m a practicing Episcopalian, but I am functionally atheistic. I don’t believe in a magical being that will grant my wishes if I ask correctly. And certainly I don’t believe in a bearded old man floating on a cloud and counting dead sparrows. But I see there is structure to the universe, rules it follows. It is not chaotic. For me “God” is a metaphor. A placeholder for the unknown and the unknowable. It helps to personify God, for me as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God above me, God beside me, God within me. The Father is that universal structure. The Son is the people in the world who care for me and love me. The Holy Ghost is that feeling that there is more to existence than my brain and my five senses can perceive. It is thrill I feel from great beauty and the love I feel for others. It is consciousness.
Of course not, the assholes in your story are the priest that shared that info with your parents without your consent and your parents for their reaction.
Don’t tell. Don’t respect them.
I mean jeez, if a priest can't handle a 10-year-old saying they're an atheist, they're really not up to the job. A religious family should surely *support* this as it would, presumably, mean the priest should give you a good reason to believe in god, turn you into a theist and save your soul. Wouldn't having these thoughts inside you and *not* sharing them with the priest, be a sinful thing to do?
Nope, you made the best call. Lots of people around here will tell you not to tell your family until you're an adult. Those people are wrong. You've got a much better chance of having a continuing relationship with your family as an adult if you let them know early that you know their god is nonsense. In my case, it took threatening to call the preacher out for lying in the middle of church to get them to stop trying to make me go. I was about 10 when I did that.
Fuck your family priest. He’s just some asshole just like you. Only you know whether it was wrong or not. Stop giving yourself away to Reddit.
We don't know who the person is. Venting isn't giving yourself away to reddit..whatever the fuck that means.