Avery Posted November 5, 2013 Posted November 5, 2013 http://myhopewithbillygraham.org/programs/defining-moments/?SOURCE=BY13AVCLE&BA=2978&QR=137I have a very religious family, especially my grandparents. My grandfather is a pastor and is incredibly generous and loving and is somebody who I've never resented. But he constantly is sending me sermons and videos like the one above. Now he's helped me out financially as I've moved out, so I feel a bit torn by spelling out exactly how I feel to him about his faith. Has anybody dealt with a unrelentingly kind christian in their life? I understand that they are trying to set an example to make their ideology, and I feel like if I make counterarguments I will make reason and evidence look hostile. Any thoughts on how to respond to the video or how to engage in this conversation? Thanks.
ThatAtheistPlace Posted November 5, 2013 Posted November 5, 2013 Boy do I understand!!! My grandfather was a very prominent preacher and civil rights advocate. He and my grandmother were extraordinary human beings. Kind, generous, and loving. But somehow, my mom is fucking insane and so is her brother. So.... for a long time I've wondered what the disconnect was. I actually think it is because her parents were so popular that there was a large amount of unintentional neglect at home. I'm still reconciling a lot of it because my grandfather was also a decorated marine in WW2 and we all know what that entails. Unfortunately, he suffers from Alzheimer's and dementia and my grandmother passed away about 20 years ago. I think my mom is still so caught up in the fact that he was a good man, by everyone else's standards that she can't fathom that he wasn't a good father, so I don't get any useful insight into her upbringing aside from what she tells me and what I can gather from the climate of that era. For your particular situation, I would just leave it. He's already set to reap the consequences of the life he lead, good and bad. I assume his children support him through his aging and that he has a general feeling that he is going to heaven or whatever, but the entire life that he could have had if he wasn't mired in fantasy, can never be known to him. It's not as bad as my grandfather's sentence, of essentially reliving the war and my grandmother's death every day, but that just means that his punishments manifest in ways that we couldn't even imagine. Given that, you can talk to him about whatever you want, but I'd leave it alone. I wouldn't go out of my way to visit him or contact him, but if he e-mails you and you don't like it, ask him to stop or just send it to the trash. If you have to be around him, just listen and maybe ask about his upbringing. You can still learn a lot and you won't have to worry about trying to change him. Hope that helps!!
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