Ask Richard: Religious Blackmail Part 2 of 2: Financial

…self-deception, either thinking that they will get sincere religious belief from you by using coercion or bribes, or that after being blackmailed into attending church you’ll “come around.”

Oh come now. They don’t think anything of the sort. Nor care. All they care about is their status in that community, and it’s being damaged by the defection of one of their children.

All they are looking to reverse is the damage done by that defection to their social standing.

Ah, necessity…

As you can severe financial strings things should become easier (perhaps).

I hope your relationship with your parents and sibling improve with time.

Good luck.

This is why I admire Richard so much. I don’t think I personally could have responded to that email without a string of profanity or two.

I recommend a little passive-aggression on your part. Make snide comments after every church service like “there’s another hour of my life I won’t get back” and “do you really think this is going to change my mind about such nonsense”. If they give you a hard time about that, just point out that if they treated you like your brother, perhaps you’d show them a bit more respect. Make the experience for them as uncomfortable as it is for you.

They are demanding that you buy their love with obedience to their view. Since the loan is all ready co-signed, walk away. Don’t go to church, don’t go to family events. Don’t call them. Don’t have anything to do with them. When they show up at your door treat them as unwelcome and with the contempt that they have earned for their behavior. There is no relationship here to repair. Relationships are built on mutual trust, understanding, and acceptance. None of that is being offered from your parents so give nothing back. Save your emotional energy for important things like your own family and your friends.

Everyone,

They cosigned the loan, and that probably means you already have the money in hand.

Perhaps you could try a little more deceit; don’t feel guilty, you’re deceiving people who never really loved you. Get them to give you more money by pretending to be a “good Christian” (please, don’t sign any contracts with them that stipulate this though) , and then once you have enough to get away do so. Break all contacts, move the hell out of state or at the very least somewhere they can’t find you, and start anew.

Just wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t the same Robert that made this post and that I completely disagree.

I think the parents may have another motivation here – to “prove” that atheists are unprincipled. If they can make Curtis violate his principles for money, they can sit back and feel superior to all those amoral atheists.

Personally, I don’t see why Curtis needed to cave in on this. He left school for a while to get a job. I don’t see why he couldn’t have stayed at that job a little longer until his financial situation improved enough to get a loan or pay the $7k. So I’m not entirely sympathetic to this situation. He compromised his principles for money, making atheists in general look bad, and now he’s made an agreement to become a good christian that he does not intend to keep. I know there was duress involved, but it’s not life and death; he could have refused to make that promise, but he made it, and eventually he’s going to break it, which will give the parents more ammunition to accuse atheists of being unprincipled and untrustworthy.

I disagree with those saying to cut off contact, or extort money, or anything of the sort. But if that loan is cosigned, they can’t back out. Make sure you keep up your payments so that they never fall financially responsible for the loan, and stop going to church. Tell them honestly why. When they complain about the disrespect, calmly tell them that you feel just as disrespected at what is, in your opinion, blackmail from them. Tell them that to have any sort of healthy relationship, you’re going to have to deal openly and honestly, and there is nothing honest in your pretending to believe.

Horrible, despicable people. That’s not a relationship that’s worth trying to repair.

I would suggest having a heart to heart with your parents. I would tell them that you felt under duress to get that co-signing, that you have begun to attend church in an effort to comply with their stipulation, but are regretting the deal/deceit. You can’t continue to live a lie. You love them and appreciate the many things they have done for you over the course of your life. You understand their position, and that they just want you to be “saved” according to their world view, and it is difficult for you to be honest with them that you are no longer a Christian, because you know that is a hurtful truth for them to hear. You’re not intentionally trying to hurt them. You love them. You’re trying to be true to yourself and what you believe to be true. You are an adult capable of making your own decisions now. You are sorry that you made promises that you no longer intend to keep, but you will pay back every cent of that loan on your own, so that their signature will never cost them a dime.

Tell them that you know this admission will make them feel betrayed. It was not your intention to betray them, but you now realize you can not continue to go down this path. You hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive you for reneging on the church attendance part of the deal, and that you hope you will be able to maintain a relationship for the sake of your future children. You will in turn, forgive them for extortion, and the favoritism they have shown to your brother.

That’s it. You will have said your piece. You will have apologized and called them out on their part of the mess.

If they really believe there is truth in the parable of the Prodigal Son, they’ll forgive you sooner than later and realize they have to accord you the “free will” they believe their god extends to everyone.

There’s really no restitution to be made, as the only thing they gave is their signature. This is a big f#$%ed up mind game.

It may be that your parents were “desperate”, and willing to do anything, even put their own mortal “souls” in peril by forcing you to comply with their version of reality, even when it expressly violates the teachings of Jesus.

Even as an athiest, I see the value in many of the great teachers in our past (with out any of the baggage that says they are the children of powerful sky gods…), and the dictates of Jesus would have been to love you regardless of your belief, not blackmail you.

That is why I find so many Christians entirely at odds with the teachings of their faith to be so alarming. So many of them are willing to call for the death of their enemies, victory in sporting events, or the granting of financial gain “in his name” and I find this to be the height of hypocrocy.

In the end, only you will be able to determine if you are able to forgive your parents, even when they were not able to forgive your tresspasses and simply accept your own convictions.

Often times, people are as their parents raised them to be. You will be one of the few who have the chance to be better than the circumstance in which you were raised. Don’t let that chance slip you by. Accept that you can forgive them, and forgive yourself the choice you had to make, and become a better person for it.

You can still be strong and follow your convictions in the future even when circumstance has in the past presented some choices that were less than ideal for all involved. Don’t covet, or want for a single thing they have given your brother, and be as respectful to them as they should have been to you.

In this way, you as a secular, proud athiest will have been more of a Christian to them than they ever were to you, or themselves. Perhaps then the light of reason will reach them? (or so we hope.)

That being said, I don’t know if you have any kind of history with not being responsible with your finances. If so, your parents would be justifiably leery about having taken on a legal responsibility to pay your debt, if you default. You need to make those loan payments under any circumstances.

If your family has witnessed you spending lavishly in the past, they may think that only “god” can help you get a problem like that under control. So from their point of view, they agreed to sign the loan, fearing they’ll likely have to pay it, and hoping that the church attendance bargain they cut with you is the equivalent of forcing you to attend Debtors/Spenders Anonymous.

I’m not saying you have a problem, and I certainly hope you don’t, but it just occurred to me, that we might not know the whole story here.

Good luck to you. There’s a bright future for you on the other side of this valley!

I’m glad that Kahomono and others have brought up the possibility that the parents’ motive might be for social status and appearances only. I have received other letters where that was the overt motive for forcing someone to attend church.

However, in this case it seemed too speculative to spend time describing this possible motive in my response, and as Rieux pointed out, it makes no difference in what I would suggest that Curtis should do.

I have also seen in some cases an ambiguous blending of these and other motives, where the “enforcers” are partially aware that they probably won’t get the person to genuinely come back to the fold, but they are also partially practicing wishful, magical thinking that somehow the person will come back to the fold. They might also rationalize that their loved one’s immortal soul is at stake, so a desperate ploy like blackmail is justifiable. Added to all of that can also be the social status motive, of which they might be only partially conscious.

So the motives for this kind of thing are often not cut and dry. They can be a muddled, confused, partially unconscious mix from several sources, not fully understood by any of the people involved. It can be very difficult to deal with in a rational manner. Sometimes the unbeliever has to give up trying to argue with or even understand the parents’ motives, and just take care of his own needs in a pragmatic way.

Well, not to sound too crass, but if the loan has already been cosigned there isn’t anything your parents can do so I would quit putting on a show for them and live my life the way I want to–with reason and respect. Normally I’m not a huge proponent of the eye for an eye mentality, but from what I gather from the letter the OP has not done anything to hurt or disrespect his family, except reject their condescending idea of faith. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of that situation a bit? If the parents can buy land and an entire house, they can cosign for their child to get an education. While the optimist in me would like to agree with Richard and say, sometime in the future, that they should work on reassembling something that resembles a healthy parent-child relationship, it doesn’t seem like the parents have done anything to deserve that kind of respect.

They clearly want to believe that atheists are despicable awful people with zero integrity. They would probably be happiest if this belief was confirmed. You can help with this. Default on the loan and and let the bank come after them!
(Someone has to give you a crap suggestion among all the good ones, might as well be me).

Aw ‘cmon people! Why are so many of you eager to saddle the poor guy with lifelong regrets? Bailing out on the loan is just a bad, bad idea. Quitting the church thing without an explanation is a bad, bad idea. He made an agreement with his parents that, although probably not legally binding, was made in “good faith” (no pun intended) (ok, well maybe it was…). So a resonable way to modify the agreement is to negotiate honestly. Maybe at some point, after a certain amount has been paid off, they can discuss how the agreement is working. He’s gotten what he needed (money), but have the parents had enough time to see that they can’t force someone to honestly believe in the supernatural? Set up some quarterly checkpoints and reinforce that there is no progress being made and that continuing the charade is pointless.

It seems to me that for the time being the parent/child relationship has gone. So, this should be treated as a business deal. In return for something that will massively enhance your future prospects and career, you agreed to undertake a chore once a week for an hour or so. That is not such a bad deal. Attend the church. It will be boring, it will be people talking nonsense. But it will not harm you, and is better than most part time jobs.
Make sure however that you are honest. Do not go to the altar call or take communion. Tell your parents how you feel and what you believe and do not believe. That way, in the future, any famillial relationship that starts up again will be based on the truth. Also, they may tell you not to attend church if you are willing to tell people there that you do not believe in it and are doing it as part of a deal with your parents.

Kudos to Richard for a much more sensitive answer than I would likely provide.

Curtis, your parents are assholes. I would never make my support for a son or daughter in a secular matter contingent on some religious belief or practice.

As a consequence of the above, you need to become independent of them. At least financially independent, but perhaps emotionally and socially as well. It’s all very well to talk about repairing the relationship, but you need to do it from a position of strength, not dependency.

Some commenters have suggested you should renege on the deal. Others have suggested that such behaviour will reinforce in your parents a stereotype that atheists are immoral. I suggest sticking to the letter of your agreement during the period that your parents are guarantors on your loan. The reason is for your own self-respect, not their opinion.

In the meantime there are a couple of things that you can do. First is, you can try to get their names off your loan document. You might have to pay off part of the loan to achieve that, or find somebody else who can substitute. Maybe an old friend, or a teacher. Somebody who trusts you enough to not default on the loan which would leave them responsible for repaying everything.

The second thing is … exactly what did you agree to? It says here “start attending church and become an upstanding Christian”. You should totally do that … in fact you should be so over the top during this time that your parents will end up wanting you to be less of a Christian.

Some suggestions:

– Don’t do any work on the Sabbath. If you are with your parents and you see anybody working on the Sabbath, suggest that they be stoned to death. Give the bible chapter and verse just to prove that you know the ropes.

– Hate Gays. I know, you’ll feel like such an asshole yourself. But your parents need to be taught an important lesson, and it’s only temporary. Get some Westboro Baptist literature, maybe make up a big God Hates Fags sign. Try very hard not to let it be seen by anybody except your family. Be sure you can quote the same biblical verses which the WBC use to justify their homophobic intolerance.

– Become Edward Current. Learn from the master well, that you may apply his techniques at any moment, in any situation.

– This next step is only if you contemplate truly hardcore civil disobedience: become 1GOD1JESUS.

– Help out at your parent’s church bake sales or whatever. You may not want to do this if you think your parents are primarily giving you this pressure in order to save their face in the community. But you can be an annoying god-botherer in public. They may welcome your enthusiasm to do the Lord’s work … but a few weeks of good old-fashioned Old Testament morality told to the customers followed by impromptu prayer (kneeling in the carpark, for example) and maybe an episode of speaking in tongues is likely to cure your parents’ church’s desire for you to help out.

– Whatever you do, don’t give the church any money. Beg for money if you have to; tell them you are being held financially hostage by a cruel tyrant who loves you and wants you to go to heaven.

– Change to Catholic. Or if your parents are Catholic, change to Protestant. It’s all Jesus anyway. Of course this minimises the intangible value of your parents seeing you attending church.

– Attend a different church every week. Tell your parents you need to find a creed which is right for you. Eventually settle on some weird shit like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Tell your parents they should not have blood transfusions. Don’t tell them not to give _you_ a blood transfusion if you need it.

– Repent your sins, loudly. Repent your _parents_ sins too. “Dear Lord, when I saw Dad looking down that lady’s top, I did not speak up, so please forgive me. And I’m sure he subscribed to the Playboy channel by accident, so please forgive him.”

– Ask cool questions in church. Like if the bible is the inerrant word of god. And if so, why does it condone slavery?

Like Richard said, forcing you to go to church isn’t going to make you believe if you have already decided that it is a load of bull. If your parents somehow think that it might, then the possibilities for fun are endless. One frequent characteristic of atheists that I have noticed is we enjoy making fun of religion. And Poe’s law applies here; excellent parody is indistinguishable from earnest belief. You can see how much you can wind it up until your parents catch on that you are taking the mickey, and when they finally challenge you on it, you can impart this timeless lesson: forcing church on you is not going to make you believe, so what is the god damn point?

Wow, was I too blunt? Seems my previous comment has disappeared.

Let’s see how do I put this politely so as to get by any censorship? (Frankly, I’m shocked as I’ve never had that problem before.)

This guy’s a “jerk” who deserves all the grief he’s getting from his parents who do seem to be doing this for appearance’s sake only. He’s using them for money and money is obviously more important to him than honor and personal integrity. This is further indicated by his bitter mention of his brother being given property but not him. FSM forbid, he and his dear little wife should get off their duffs and, you know, like work their way through college like hundreds of other people have to do, even putting it off for a year or two if need be.

Where’s the obvious question: what would you be doing if you didn’t have parents? After all, this is supposedly an adult. From the sounds of it, one well into legal adulthood since he mentions a younger brother who’s also married and active in the church and a career.

Of course, it is rather obvious who he learned jerky behavior from but I still have no sympathy for him whatsoever.

Are we now going to be censored on the “friendly” blog? I love this blog. I’ve been coming here for years under a couple pseudonyms but, man, if this growing trend for unfriendliness continues, I’m out of here. What the hell?

Curtis,
How many Christian churches are there where you live? Are they all the same? Is there one that is more tolerable than the rest? Perhaps you could have some control over your show of being an “upstanding Christian”.

I would walk away from the family, and the deal, altogether. It would be really hard, but it would be the best option for me. For you, maybe not.

Well, you have my sympathy whatever happens. Just try to keep in mind that you do have options, even if they do suck.