Very strange atheist behaviour
TrollHunter
Posts: 12,496 Forum Member
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I attended a wedding at the weekend which was a reasonably large affair, about 150 in the church and for the subsequent sit-down meal. My mother-in-law is a devout atheist and she and her daughter seemed to go to great lengths to prove it during the day.
During the service, there were a number of songs, prayers and readings, what with it being in a church and all that. Everyone in the church stood up during the hymns with the exception of the M-i-L and her daughter, who sat firmly on their arses to show how 'anti-religion' they were, and just in case anyone didn’t get the message, they got out their respective Kindle and DS and started using them. During the prayers, as others around them either bowed their head or remained silent, they once again went to the effort of extracting their Kindle/DS from their bag and using it for the duration. This happened every time without exception.
At the meal, just before people started to tuck in, someone made a toast so everyone stood up. Someone else asked to say grace so everyone remained standing, obviously with two exceptions, and once again, just in case anyone STILL didn’t quite grasp their atheist credentials, they crossed their arms across their chests and glared around the room, almost saying, “Look at us – we’re atheists, we don’t believe in your God.”
I can’t quite comprehend their pathetic behaviour. I’m as much an atheist as the next non-believer, but as an adult I’m also able to behave in a considerate, respectful way. By standing up during hymns or prayers or someone saying grace, I’m not accepting Jesus into my life or suddenly converting, but merely taking a few minutes out of my life to respect those who are religious.
So, lengthy waffle over – my question: can you understand where they’re coming from with their behaviour? Either from an atheist or a Christian perspective, do you feel what they did was acceptable?
I know that if any of my daughters get married in a church, their nanny and auntie definitely won’t be getting an invitation!
During the service, there were a number of songs, prayers and readings, what with it being in a church and all that. Everyone in the church stood up during the hymns with the exception of the M-i-L and her daughter, who sat firmly on their arses to show how 'anti-religion' they were, and just in case anyone didn’t get the message, they got out their respective Kindle and DS and started using them. During the prayers, as others around them either bowed their head or remained silent, they once again went to the effort of extracting their Kindle/DS from their bag and using it for the duration. This happened every time without exception.
At the meal, just before people started to tuck in, someone made a toast so everyone stood up. Someone else asked to say grace so everyone remained standing, obviously with two exceptions, and once again, just in case anyone STILL didn’t quite grasp their atheist credentials, they crossed their arms across their chests and glared around the room, almost saying, “Look at us – we’re atheists, we don’t believe in your God.”
I can’t quite comprehend their pathetic behaviour. I’m as much an atheist as the next non-believer, but as an adult I’m also able to behave in a considerate, respectful way. By standing up during hymns or prayers or someone saying grace, I’m not accepting Jesus into my life or suddenly converting, but merely taking a few minutes out of my life to respect those who are religious.
So, lengthy waffle over – my question: can you understand where they’re coming from with their behaviour? Either from an atheist or a Christian perspective, do you feel what they did was acceptable?
I know that if any of my daughters get married in a church, their nanny and auntie definitely won’t be getting an invitation!
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Comments
I truly can't stand weddings. I come from a very big family with a huge circle of family friends, which means there's a wedding almost every weekend all my life. I have no interest in religion, either. Doesn't mean I'd be rude and selfish enough to hijack a couple's day by expressing my dislike of weddings and having no faith in religion.
Those two have been selfish and self-centred, and in need of a good hard kick up their bottoms.
Some people have to make it known that they're an atheist. It's like they're on a mission to let everyone they come across know that they're strongly against religion. There's some Christians that are also incredibly rude and nasty, as there are atheists as well. Both sides of the fence can be right nasty pigs, and childish as well.
True enough.
Someone else's wedding isn't the time or place to make a point about your atheism. Like you OP, most adults are able to show consideration and respect for other people's beliefs and life choices.
It did strike me recently at a funeral that some people (not wilfully rude like these two) just have no idea how to behave in a church. They talked, quietly, during the prayers. They sat and tinkered with their phones while the crematorium minister was talking. I genuinely don't think they meant any disrespect: never having been to church, they behaved as they would if they were watching a service on tv. A generation ago, experience and peer pressure would have kept people silent and at least outwardly attentive during prayers and address.
In the same way, the almost universal habit of travelling by car seems to have produced a generation of people who have no idea how to behave on trains. They think it is perfectly all right to let children run up and down shouting, or to have loud conversations themselves, or to play noisy games and music, because that is what they do in their cars; a generation ago, every single passenger would have felt able to tell a group of noisy children to be quiet and sit down, so the children learned from the start to be considerate.
I bet they didn't turn their noses up at the free dinner though.
Yes.
It's because they're arseholes.
A wedding day can be one of the most important and memorable days for the bride, groom and their families and it's definitely not the time or place to make a point about your beliefs (or lack thereof)
As an atheist, I would have probably just played along with proceedings, maybe quietly mumbling my way through prayers and grace.
Yeah, that's just rude. They could have simply just stood there and not joined in the grace.
Playing on your phone is a bit rude though, IMO. I definitely wouldn't go that far.
(Mind you, I went to church in New Orleans a few year back because my best mate's mum, who we were staying with, was a regular churchgoer and it meant a lot to her that we went along too. Me and my mate couldn't resist surreptitiously throwing the horns at each other when Satan got a mention. But we kind of hoped nobody else saw, and it was more instinctive than deliberately trying to cause offence. I'd have been mortified if we had!)
Blimey, that must have been an interesting experience!
It really was- there weren't any stereotypical chicken sacrifices or anything- I'm a vegetarian so I wouldn't have been down with that at all! It was a great little ritual, though- offerings of rum etc to the loa, and various blessings. Another mate who was conducting the ceremony's a pretty well-respected writer on and practicioner of the faith, and these guys were all very serious about it. Well, I say "serious", but it was a pretty joyful and fun occasion, as a wedding should be.
Heh. I was going to make a chicken-sacrifice comment, but thought better of it.
Sounds very interesting. One of my mother's many, shall we say...interesting, cousins used to practise Macumba, which is a weird Brazilian mish-mash of various African voodoo-style religions.
The weddings and funerals I (as an atheist) have attended everyone respected the traditions and ceremony.
Although I have to say this story sounds rather extreme behaviour and actually totally pathetic.