Hello! I don't know if this is the right place for me, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Okay, I hope you all will bear with me here. I admit, I am probably highly disliked by most atheists because I am a born-again Christian and right-wing conservative to boot. However, I hope that someone might still be willing to help me out with a dilemma.

I am trying incredibly hard to be sensitive to my brother-in-law and sister. My brother-in-law is a professed atheist. My sister has told me she is agnostic, though I suspect she is also an atheist now, too.

Basically, what I want to know is how can I get along with them?

I am trying everything I can. I'll admit, it's really hard for me because my faith is extremely important to me and a huge turn-off to them, and I don't feel like we even have much of anything in common anymore (with my sister, anyway).

So I'm just trying to get to understand atheists as people--not that one single atheist can represent everyone (just as one Christian does not represent the entire religion). If you have any advice for how I can have a meaningful relationship with my sister and brother-in-law that is not merely superficial but also not emotionally harmful for them (or for me), please email me and let me know.

Thank you.

Christina tinazplace@yahoo.com

Hi Christina,

I fell out of closeness with my brother after I got married. He's religious, I'm not, and my atheism is important to me, and religion to him. But it wasn't this that 'did' for our closeness. Looking back it was circumstances and the separate lives we live. There were also underlying issues about our relationship mainly jealousies (both ways strangely enough). However, we just agreed not talk about our un/faith positions and in the end we have come to understand and accept each other where we are. The closeness you have as siblings is just not possible when other relationships compete for your attention. However, I think we get anxious and frustrated that these 'constants' don't remain constant and anger/rows etc often follow close behind. Also finding your own identity, separating yourself from your younger self, often involves deliberate rebuffs from the views of family members. I still feel very warm towards him, but it is inevitable that our lives separate somewhat. Us humans hey?...we seem to be able to find so many lines to draw in between each other. I'm confused if this means we are nowdays more discerning or just plain old over fussy! Good luck.

You should know what to do. Drop it. Are you going to sentence him to 900000000 Hail Mary's and 1,00000000000 Our....'s. If you know what these are, and you are a Catholic, you need to worry about your own heretical beliefs. "Salvation by faith ...grace ...alone. No where in the bible is via "ACTS" included in your salvation. Are you trying to do good works to save him? Are you trying to be a pushy "born-again"? Talk to an elder about the issue instead of coming to the the pagan of your problem.

By the way ... For all, my new slogan is

"Roman Catholics exit here, the pope is your immediate gate to hell!"

-Love an ex-catholic

I guess Martin did know what he was talking about