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Remember, we welcome comments, questions and suggested topics at thewonderpodcastQs@gmail.com\n\xa0\nS3E29 TRANSCRIPT:----more----\n\xa0\nMark: Welcome back to the wonder science based paganism. I'm Mark.\nYucca: And I'm Yucca.\nMark: And today we're here to talk about a situation that really. Affects many of us in the pagan community generally. And in the nontheist pagan community specifically, which is what do we do about longtime friends or members of our family who are hostile to.\nOur way of being they, they disapprove of, of atheism or they disapprove of paganism,\nOr they disapprove of both because as we were saying before we started recording, we kind of get it from both ends. So, This is something that many of us struggle with. And especially those who have left more authoritarian kinds of religious contexts.\nIt's not uncommon for parents or relatives or friends to be to be caught up in this idea that you must be the way that they want you to be, or or there's something wrong with.\nYucca: Right, right. Or just the, the programming that you know, in, in some beliefs that, you know, they love and care about you, but they're really worth, you're gonna go to hell. Right. And they truly believe that the stuff that you're doing is gonna make you suffer for eternity or, you know, something like that.\nMark: right. Which is in theory, that's a. of generous and charitable thing to think about someone else, but when you really get down to it,\nYucca: That's pretty patronizing.\nMark: it, it, it is. And it's also I mean, it's something that. I would think, well, okay. I, I have the perspective of having been raised with no religion. So I can't really, I can't speak with any authority about this, but it seems to me that it it's an additive to the health of a person to get out from under that. Extortion right. To get out from under that, the threatening nature of the story of heaven and hell.\nAnd I think that there is a lot of resentment that happens on the part, particularly of parents who raised you a particular way. And then you say, well, I'm not that way. Some other way. And. They as, as people that are in an authoritarian framework because they practice an authoritarian religion, the fact that you've rebelled can lead to a lot of anger.\nIt's, it's not just about wanting, what's good for you. It's about wanting them to be obeyed.\nYucca: yeah, it's a commentary for them on, on their self worth and, and you know, how good a job they did and, and all of that.\nMark: Right. Right. So it's a tangled web and in some cases, more reasonable parents can be talked with parents, siblings, relatives, whatever they are. In more reasonable cases. You, we can talk with them. We can explain that we are following a path that makes us happy and that we see as fulfilling and that we really just need them to let us do that.\nYucca: Right.\nMark: In other cases, things are so bad that you really need to distance yourself. And that I can speak with, with some authority because my parents were incredibly toxic people, both of them. And I they're both dead now, but my mother, I hadn't seen for 16 years before she died and my father for more than 20.\nSo, I just didn't have anything to do with them.\nYucca: Well, and, and you, you split or you cut that off. Long before the, the pagan part of your life began even right.\nMark: Yes. Yes. But, and, and I don't know, I mean, going into the specifics of my particular situation, aren't important, but one of the ironies to me is that I was raised in this non. context. And then my father married, my stepmother, who was a devout Catholic, and suddenly he was a Catholic, even though he was a scientist.\nYucca: mm-hmm.\nMark: And I don't know, I could go on for some time about hypocrisy and my father, but rather than do that, because it won't be of interest to anyone but me. The, the disapproval of the pagan stuff definitely did creep in late. You know, when I made a couple of sporadic attempts to try to get along with them