I don't know how much discussion value will come out of this. I was just really interested to see the results of the poll. Sorry if I left out any poll options.

No I haven't told them.

I haven't told them I'm a heterosexual either.

No, but it doesn't matter, though they believe in god peripherally they are hardly religious enough to care. I'm pretty lucky in this regard, I think. I never faced the social pressures of leaving a faith

It was sort of an unspoken truth in my family that I wasn't religious (my parents are active, but not particularly conservative Catholics), but it somehow came up last time I was home, and my mother asked, "do you have any kind of belief in God or anything like that?" and I said, "No. I don't really consider it a pressing question in my life." Didn't cause much fuss either way, although my dad made what I thought was a bit of a backhanded remark, "I didn't go to church much before you were born, either."

I'd also like to point out that I'm an atheist, if you haven't noticed.

It's just that on another site, somebody said the increasing atheist numbers among teens was because of rebellious behavior. But somehow I don't think that teens who don't tell their parents are rebelling. I wanted to see how many told their family members.

Maybe rebellious behavior is because of increasing atheist numbers?

Maybe the increase in rebellious behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with religion/athiesm and is caused by any number of other factors which I'm not going to go into here.

Yes, this too.

I'm sure sure people agree with you. Christians need some sort of logical reason why so many of the youth are becoming atheist. Rebellion is the best reason they can come up with.

Dodged the questions, huh?

i didn't need to tell them. they've seen my bookshelf, and they've seen the kinds of stuff that i occasionally post on facebook.

My atomic family are all non-religious/atheistic. (Aunts, uncles, and cousins are predominantly that too.) The only people that aren't particularly keen on hearing such views are my grandparents, of which only one still exists.

As a result of this my vote at the top doesn't mean much.

Not really an atheist, but an Agnostic Deist, but many of my views would be indistinguishable from an atheist's to anyone of a revealed religious background.

I've not had the conversation with anyone other than a close friend. All of my family are Christians. Faith is very important to my wife. Most of my support community is based around church, which I still attend.

Youth rebellion stems from a lot of things, but atheism fits in somewhere. Most of my reasons for rebelling came from the fact that I felt like I had been lied to all my life. The assertion of a god was just one such lie.

FWIW I think my parents still assume I believe in God. Now I live in Asia and don't talk to them enough for the topic to come up, so it might be awkward one day when they finally discover the truth

as a group many seem to be satisfied with the answers they want versus any actual facts. I doubt they're even considering that to many, in today's world, their religion seems wrong.

This is purely anecdotal, but I think there is a feedback loop element to the increasing number of atheist youth. Many churches are doubling down on taking very conservative social stances on issues that young people are developing contrary opinions on: evolution, abortion, and especially homosexuality. Many, if not most, teens these days know someone who is gay, perhaps even a close friend. It's rather alienating to hear every Sunday that their friend is going to hell (conservative Protestant groups) to at best morally confused (liberal Protestants, official Catholic stance, etc). As churches become increasingly conservative on an issue where society is getting past it on a rapid scale (for the first time, a majority of Americans support marriage rights for gay people), young people get increasingly turned off to their religion--now that atheism is more in the mainstream, it's easier for people to explore what atheists are like, beyond the caricature they're often given by religious people. An exodus of young, more liberally-minded people means that the churches are left with more conservative members, which just makes their ideological stance that much more solid.

My brother knows. My parents and 2 sisters and anyone else in extended family doesn't know.

Most of my friends and family are atheists or agnostics. I don't have many theist friends.

There wasn't really any religion at all in my family growing up. It wasn't like we had debates on athiesm or anything like that, I think it was just kind of accepted that there wasn't a place for religion in our lives. I don't remember having any serious conversations about it when I was young, just maybe the occasional "oh don't believe all that rubbish". Maybe the fact that I didn't really explore religion properly when I was young is the reason I'm so interested in talking about it now that I'm older.

I'm not going to vote because it seems like the poll is more for people who come from religious families where telling them about your athiesm is an issue.

I "came out" to my parents when I was about 25. I shot her an e-mail. My family is Catholic but not overtly so, (I was taught growing up to respect all religions as different versions of the same truth). Over the following years I have "converted" both my brother and sister (and I think my mom too), my father still holds on to the warm and fuzzy idea of God and the sanctity of the Catholic church but I doubt he actually believes any of the tenants anymore.

Quick clarification of the "converted" label, both my brother and sister were pretty much on the outs when it came to organized religion but held over some deep seeded longing that there must be something. Over the years they have asked me questions and I think I have clarified their thoughts, or at least forced them to be honest about their positions. Sunlight is still the best disinfectant.

Yeah and it was a pretty big mistake IMO. My mom is ultra religious (goes to conferences and watches religious stuff on TV all day) and eventually after me dodging all of the times she tells me to pray for stuff and what not she flat out asked me, phrased as "please tell me that you do believe in god and jesus who died for our sins etc etc" I replied no and we had a few more texts back and forth regarding why I don't and stuff but that was about the end of it.

We never discuss religion in person ever, and I don't think I would ever want to TBH. After the initial reveal she has only sent me another text or two about religion, stuff like "i know a lot of people and you are the only person I know who is an atheist"

The kicker was that when she first found out she told me that "everything I have ever done and everything I will ever do is for nothing," which was just a few weeks before I graduated college, so that was a rather unpleasant message to receive. My fiancee later told me that at my graduation my mom was crying and telling her the same "all for nothing" stuff.

In hindsight maybe I should have just lied? Who knows.

cliffs: told mom, was mistake, because she now thinks my life is meaningless

My parents are both atheists. And I don't think I know anyone who is a practicing theist. I do know a few people who say they believe in a supreme being but they don't go to church or partake in rituals or even read religious documents.

I'm actually a little surprised by the question and even some answers. I'm from Europe so that might explain the difference. I never considered that coming out as not being religious would be difficult for people. I actually think that not believing in a god is the standard over here (at least for people under 45ish) and that the religious people need to come out.

Pretty much my whole family is atheist.

I've had a couple discussions about religion with members of my family and they've figured out that i'm agnostic/atheist, yes. They aren't bible thumpers or anything but there's certainly an undertone of godliness among them, and I could sense a bit of sadness in them at first when they realized what I believe. But they quickly got over it.

I have some friends whose family would seriously disown them if they came out as atheist/anything other than christian.

I haven't told my parents however my dad assumes that I'm atheist (or at least not religious) because I have a high IQ (lol, he is in the salvation army, how can he work out I don't believe in God because I'm intelligent but still believe himself?). Both my parents are pretty stupid so although I would say my non-belief would be assumed amongst my family, that would be giving her too much credit.