Atheist But Family Pressuring Me To Get Baptized?
I'm 18 and i've been a seventh day adventist all my life so were my grandparents and greatgrandparents. I've been a part of youth groups and i help out in church but i've never really believed any of it even when i went to bible studies. I've been seriously looking and exploring religions and I'm an atheist. I still go to church every saturday because i live with my parents and they make me but no one in my family knows about my beliefs because i feel like it would cause drama especially since so many members of my family have big positions in the church. It wasnt till this year that i had one of my cousins whos an elder in the church trying to get me to get baptized and i just keep telling him that i'll consider it but im not ready for that commitment but he wont leave me alone and now other churchmembers are arrasing me about it. I think its because i'm leaving for a college 8 hours away in August. Idk what to tell them because telling them i'll consider it isn't working anymore and its annoying
Christian family going nuts on me and i cannot take it anymore?!?
Do you know what agnostic is? Probably the reason you are not a believer is because you were raised that way. Religion is something that should be shared, not shoved down your throat. The Christian family you are speaking about is just going about it the wrong way. They should have been sharing with you, the wonderful true stories and promises made to us by God and Jesus. Faith is a very personal thing but the love of God should be shared with joy, not threats. They should not have gotten mad at you for not wanting to pray, they should have in turn, prayed for you to see the light shinning thru them to you. Here is something that happen to my family. My daughter was in a very serious car accident and in critical condition. A young man was in the other room next to her and in critical cond too. The doctors told the other family that their son would not make it thru the week and that they should make funeral arraignments. A Non Christian will pick up the phone and start making the arraignments. A Christian will drop to their knees and pray to God for healing. We all did this with this family. By the end of the week, the young man was sitting up, eating jello. God heard the prayers and showed mercy on this family. But the bottom line here is, there is always God to turn to for help and for comfort. I will pray for you, and God Bless.
Should I pressure my parents to accept my lesbian marriage?
We can't tell you what you "should" do, because there is no objective measure of "should" when it comes to parents and lives.What I did do was hold a ceremony to which we invited our parents - none of whom came. Not because they didn't recognize the relationship, but because it wasn't the ceremony that was the point, but the acknowledgement of our relationship. The parents got the point - we had a nice party with friends. Win-win. That was at 10 years. By 20, both sets of parents understood that this was the relationship. One set of parents was faster than the other, but both accepted what is.Recently - I mean, like last month - my mother-in-law called herself my mother-in-law. For the first time in 32 years. The first time my wife I mentioned that she was my mother-in-law, probably 25+ years ago, her reaction was violently opposed to the idea. Our marriage wasn't legal, our relationship wasn't what she wanted for her daughter. She was *NOT* my mother-in-law. And there she was, a quarter century later saying she was. It could take time. But if the marriage is a good one - you'll have all the time you need. Be firm. You are married. And let them cope on their own. No need to push or prod. They'll get there.
How do you keep Christmas from feeling anti-climactic and disappointing? No other holiday has such high expectations and such over-commercialized hype. How do you make the day enjoyable instead of depressing?
I grew up in a family that placed even more emphasis on Christmas than the commercialized hype does, if possible. In short, if Christmas did not perfectly align with the ideal in my mom's mind, it was Forever Ruined and we didn't love her.And since she worked right up till the 25th, it fell on me to do all the things that went into her perfect Christmas: cooking, cleaning, decorating, wrapping, cards…. I didn't do any of it for me; I did it all for her.Needless to say, that pressure ruined Christmases for me for a very long time.I reclaimed my Christmases by deciding what really matters to me on Christmas Day and doing only the work required to make my part in that happen.For instance:We spend Christmas Day with my husband's family, so I don't bother decorating my house beyond throwing some colored lights around the banister. A tree is not that important to me.Watching my nieces and nephews open gifts? A MUST. I spend a fair amount of time picking just the right present for each and finding creative ways to wrap the really good ones.Everyone in the family has their homemade gift/craft thing they're really good at. Mine is papercrafting. I spend evenings in December making paper ornaments and watching Star Trek reruns. This is probably the Christmas task I enjoy most.Dessert for me and the other two celiacs in the family: ESSENTIAL, and all three of us want cookies on Christmas. So I set aside an afternoon to bake cookies.And that's it. I don’t do anything else or expect anything that isn't a reasonable outcome of what I chose to do.I love Christmas much more since I adopted this method.
"I hate my parents. I didn't get an iPhone this Christmas."?
Don't let the question fool you. I'm not saying this, as you can tell I am quoting due to the quotation marks. I notice a LOT of kids who are around 15 (I'm 15) and 16 who tweet and post statuses saying they hate their parents for not getting them certain gifts. If they didn't get an iPhone, they would hate their parents because they didn't get one. If they DID get an iPhone, they would hate their parents because it's the wrong color. If they got one with the color they wanted, they would hate them because they didn't get an iPad as well. If they DID get an iPad as well, they would hate their parents for not getting them Beats. See where I'm coming from? What is wrong with this generation? I didn't get exactly what I wanted (In fact, I didn't even know what I wanted. I didn't ask for much.), and I'm still glad I got them. Their parents and other family members put HOURS upon HOURS to buy their kids gifts and to give their family a nice Christmas, and they are going to spit upon their faces and telling them that they can go f**k themselves because they didn't get exactly what they wanted? It's like a little kid who still believes in Santa. They write him a list, and they get upset when they didn't get everything on their list. Depending on how old they are, they still have to learn the value of money. Since kids around my age are hating on their parents the same way, I still think that they haven't moved on from Santa. I don't like Santa anyways. If I ever have kids, I don't want to put my blood, sweat, and tears into a gift that they will thank a guy who flies with reindeer and eats literally TONS of cookies. They should thank the parents for getting them their gifts instead of a fictional character. Back to the teenagers. They've probably already figured out that Santa doesn't exist. Why do they hate on their parents for the gifts? Don't blame the parents themselves. It's not their fault that they ended up being ungrateful. Gratefulness comes from choice, not by how you are raised. Now, I know not ALL teenagers are like this, but this message goes out to all of the ungrateful, spoiled ones that I am talking about. Seriously, teenagers. I hope you never have kids that do the same to you. Until you guys realize how hard your family works to get you free stuff for yourself, well, you guys are pretty much scumbags.