SeekingAdvice

I'm not sure, to be honest. Besides calling him a coward, a liar, a stranger, etc, they also seem to be looking for anything and anybody else to blame, it seems to suggest to me that they cannot a) respect the legitimacy of nonbelief b) respect that he, and not anything/anybody else, can decide and be responsible for his nonbelief. Respect so far seems to be predicated upon whether upon belief in the LDS Church so far. If my parents truly mean what they say, it seems to indicate that they will think less of him. While I can't mindread my brother's thoughts, his expressions so far seem not to indicate that he thinks less of people who have belief in the LDS Church. My brother is 19, so he is recently not a minor, a young adult, living at home, a sort of transitional age in my opinion. Unfortunately, I think that they think coercing or pressuring him into a testimony is in the best interest of their son. I don't think that they believe respecting his nonbelief is, in contrast. And I can't think of any way to dissuade them from this point of view. I've tried a few helpful quotes from links that people have given, but it didn't seem to take root. I don't want to try to tell them how they should parent. I've done that before with disastrous results. They feel that their parenting is immune to comment by their children and that it's offensive for their children to criticize their parenting decisions. They seem to have the attitude that if a parent decides something about how they should parent, the debate is over if you happen to be their child.

Latest Update: My parents are now bullying my brother, who still lives at home, into cutting off communication to people who don't believe, and forcing him to read some books that they have bought him. I feel like my brother's is caving in to appease his parents. I really don't feel that this is right. They see to be exercising unrighteous dominion over my brother through parental positioning and coercion. I've given some quotes from links that people have provided here, but it doesn't seem to phase them at all.

He hasn't mentioned name removal from the church records. So, I am assuming he has just annouced his disbelief. My brother has always sought to make my parents proud of him. He has never sought to hurt them or to be rebellious only for the sake of being rebellious. It is likely for both these reasons -- he didn't want them to be hurt and that he wants to make my parents proud of him -- that he avoided telling of his disbelief for years.

Again, I will have to differ. Everybody acts irrationally, all the time. We are not rational animals. We are rationalizing animals. We can cultivate rational thinking to greater degrees, but we aren't born and instantly inherent a rational mind. Irrationality is not in itself inherently wrong or negative. Selfless courage in the face of great danger, for example, can be regarded as irrational. The fact that my brother concealed his nonbelief for years is not evidence that my parents exhibit mental illness. It is understanding that his nonbelief will have an emotional impact upon his family which made him want to conceal. It is perfectly understandable for parents to feel like failures, for example, when their children decided not to believe the belief system they were raised with. It is perfectly understandable for parents, when they believe that their belief system is what would be best for their children, to respond emotionally when their children don't adopt it. You are making the error of acting as if you can pyschoanalyze a situation. You do not have substantial information nor do you have a full-sided account of information. Your intrepretation may make sense to you, but that doesn't mean it is a correct interpetation. You also are exercising the logical fallacy that if A isn't so, B is so. The fact that he didn't communicate about any particular beliefs he doesn't accept doesn't mean that there isn't any particular beliefs he doesn't accept. Moreover, you are ignoring that he stated that he has come to a conclusion that he doesn't believe that the Church is true, as well as a disbelief in religion in general. This itself suggests that there are things about the Church/religion in general that he doesn't accept. The fact that he doesn't make a litany of which things he doesn't accept doesn't mean that there isn't one. It just means, for example, that he doesn't want to be seen as attacking the family's beliefs, but just that he wants to be honest that he doesn't believe in them. My brother trusts me. I don't and have never tell something that has been given to me in confidence. The likely reason that he isn't listing everything he doesn't believe is likely to keep the peace. I suspect that he doesn't want to be seen as attacking the Church, he just doesn't want to pretend that he still believes in the Church. Again, you err in assuming that you can read into other people's minds without deeply knowing them. I do not feel attacked. I simply think that you are making assertions without valid merit and knowledge to make them. I am not seeking to change my parents either. I am seeking to influence a situation. This is quite different. Again, you make a logical fallacy. Simply because somebody rejects an assertion you make doesn't mean that this rejection itself proves your assertion. Nor does it prove that the person isn't fully listening to you. If you are as rational as you appear to think you are, you must accept the possibility that somebody can fully listen to you, and also rationally disagree with you just the same. If you cannot accept this possibility, this suggests you believe your thinking exists without errancy, and this itself is an irrational belief.

Thank you for your feedback, but I will have to differ from you. First, I don't think you have enough information to diagnose my parents. I think attributing negative behavior that one doesn't condone by religious people to be mental illness is itself problematic. It reminds me of the "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy. If a person of the group you identify with does something which you find unacceptable, it doesn't necessarily and automatically mean that they then aren't a "true" member of the group or that they are mentally ill. Saying that, I want to state that I don't think mental illness is anything to be ashamed of. I just don't think that such a diagnosis of my parents is justified given the information put forth. My parents aren't terrible or horrible examples of the Church. Their response to his expressing his nonbelief may not be recommandable in this case, certainly, but I don't think that is enough to judge them wholly as poor examples of the Mormon Church. Even if they were, and they aren't, my parents still aren't my brother's sole source of examples of people within the Mormon Church. As such, I don't think his nonbelief can reasonably be attributed to my parents. My brother has expressedly said that his nonbelief isn't because of any particular person(s) or because of anything my parents did or did not do. I know this is a common assumption of people who leave the Church, that somebody in the Church did or behaved very negatively and that it turned them off to the Church, but, again, I trust my brother's words at face value since I have no good evidence to believe otherwise. His nonbelief, according to him, is just the conclusion which he has arrived to over time. I don't approve of how my parents are responding to his nonbelief, but I feel it is only fit to judge the action in question, and not the person's heart as a whole.

Thank you again for the many replies and feedback!! :-) Godless, my question to you is do you remember any "turning point" in how your parents interacted with you? Were they given any advice from a doctrinal or church stance that encouraged them to just love you, find peace within themselves, and respect your decision? livy111us, thank you so much for those great links! This will absolutely give me a good starting point and platform to work from. Saintmichaeldefendthem1, my brother expressed disbelief in religion in general. He is not hostile to religions. He has expressed that he is thankful for some of his religious upbringing, but that he nevertheless he doesn't believe in the Church or any religion for that matter. He has made all efforts to avoid hostility between him and our family over his nonbelief. The hostility is expressedly from both of my parents.

I'm not looking for materials on how to bring back my brother back to the fold (that's a lot easier to find), but for materials on how to help my parents obtain a peace of heart and how not to let his nonbelief destroy their relationship with him. Are there any talks or materials that focus on just or substantially on this? Thank you!

First, thanks to everybody who has already responded so promptly!! My followup questions is has anybody come to terms that their child may not "return to the fold"? I didn't make this clear before, but now I think I can articulate it better: I don't want to bolster hopes as much as foster a heart of peace within my parents, as well as to prevent the relationship between my family and my brother from disintegrating. My mother reacted very angrily to him, saying that he was a coward, a liar, that she didn't know him at all, that he was a stranger to her, etc. My father reacted by saying that if the Church wasn't true than he (my father) was either a liar or delusional, and that my brother needs to work harder to find out that the Gospel is true. I find both reactions problematic. My mother's reaction is obviously very negative, and I seriously fear that if she continues like this, it will devastate herself emotionally, as well as poison her relationship with my brother. My father's reaction is problematic in a different way to me. It feels awfully coercive in the sense that he's forcing my brother to tell him that his father is a liar or delusional if he (my brother) really thinks the Church isn't true. As applepansy put it, "I'm working hard to get myself to the celestial kingdom and I certainly cannot and should not try to get someone else there.... that's a agency issue." My father though is trying to strongarm him into reading a bunch of books in the hopes that they'll convince my brother. The underlying tone seems to be that "I refuse to believe that you won't believe, can't believe, or don't believe. You must do all these things." It feels like undercutting free agency of the other to me. My brother has said that he has struggled with his nonbelief for years. He has been exposed and attended umpteen years of church, general conferences, etc. I don't think that coercing him into reading a bunch of books may change anything. I don't think it just popped into his head one day and then he told my parents. If my brother changes his mind, I think at this point it must come from his own mind and thoughts, and not through the reading equivalent of a series of arguments. I personally don't think my brother has done any major sins. He's a good man. He's bent over backwards to make my parents proud of him in the past before this. I prefer to trust people's words until they've demonstrated that those words can't be trusted. I trust that my brother sincerely and genuinely doesn't believe that the Church is true. I don't think he is a liar, a coward, that he has committed some major sin, or that he has undergone some transformation to a completely different person into some sort of stranger. He's the same person he was before -- except now he has said that he has not believed that the Church is true for years, and that he dreaded telling the family how he really felt, but finally felt that he must be true to what he really believes and to what he doesn't believe. As such in this situation, my major concern is that my parents obtain a peace of heart and don't destroy or poison their relationship with their son. While I certainly understand parents holding out hopes that their child will "return to the fold", I know my parents already do, I want them to obtain peace of heart and acceptance of my brother's exercise of his free agency. I'm looking to how to foster the best possible situation that assumes my brother's nonbelief is permanent, rather than temporary. Are there any talks specifically about how to come to peace with the possibility that a child may not "return to the fold"? I'm not good at picking out talks/etc from the Internet, I tried already with much frustration, then which I came here, so if anybody knows if there are relavant links to this, let me know! Again, thank you for all of your thoughts and words. :-)

A sibling has admitted their disbelief in the Mormon Church. My parents are having an exceptionally hard time dealing with this. I was wondering if there were any official instructions or literature on how to healthily handle the news and changed relationship for parents in such a situation. I am not looking for proselytizing information, but advice or guidance for a parent to healthily handle dealing with unavoidable conflict and emotional struggle that emerges from such a situation. If there isn't such official literature out there, or even if there is, I would also like to know of other people's experiences that relate to this. Again, I am not looking for proselytizing advice, but relationship/emotional advice so that my parents can cope and handle this situation in a more positive and healthy manner for themselves. Thank you.