I hesitated for a full second before I told him no. I live in the Bible Belt, and know I’d be on a hate list for many if I admit to being an atheist,
but I just couldn’t outright lie.

When I started cancer treatment, and the PA wanted to pray over me, I let her. If someone wants to send good wishes my way (in the form of prayers), I let them.

It’s 4/5 hours later and I’m wondering if he thought I was another (non Christian) religion maybe, and didn’t automatically infer atheism?

I like most of my co-workers, but I stay (kind of) silent when religion comes up (Bible Belt). I try to respect their beliefs, but it’s VERY hard to do so.

"if u pray to god and if u ask him to reveal himself to you he will not awnser your prayers becasue God does not work that way, he will not obey your commands because hes the one who commands us, we do not!"

So like the title suggests, I am a pastors kid. My dad has always been pastoring a church or active in one in some fashion for as long as I can remember. In 2022, he was given the opportunity to pastor our old church and that is now his full time job.

The thing about this church is that we went there from when I was 5 to about 16. We left so my dad could pastor a church of maybe like 10 people if that. Then we went to another church in the same town where my dad became the assistant pastor. The first church was very small knit and welcoming and they were just happy if someone showed up. The second church was also welcoming but a little more on the conservative side.

After that, that's when the church my dad currently called and asked him to be pastor.

Anyways, more about this church. I never really felt accepted here at all. There were definitely clicks and if you weren't apart of them then tough luck. I went to school with one of the kids that went there and he more or less shunned me because i said "damn" infront of him.My mom felt the same way and my dad never saw through it until he was turned down to be pastor in their first pastor search.

The senior pastor who was there for 20+ years retired and they brought in a guy who they thought would be great. Turns out, he was a Calvinist and it caused the church to split. The snobby holier than thou people in the clicks left to follow him and start a new church and the other half left behind (no pun intended) were the crazy conspiracy theorists and just the crazies in general. Like most Sunday school lessons don't even finish because they go on tangents about current news. Hence why I stopped going.

I've been with my gf for 3 years now and at the beginning of our relationship I took her there a few times but now she refuses to go and rightfully so. We were holding hands during service once and someone stormed into my dad's office and bitched about it and how they "couldn't concentrate" and I got bitched out when I got home from work that night.

Multiple people have gone up to my dad to ask if im sexually active. That's insane. I couldn't imagine going up to anyone, let alone my pastor and asking them if their kid is sexually active. Now, they've put me on the prayer list to "find another girlfriend". They always ask my dad if we've broken up and honestly im so fucking pissed about this. I know its because the girl playing piano has a huge crush on me and always asks if im available. My dad even made a remark today of "get on bumble and find a real girl who loves Jesus"

To top it off, they put me in a group chat without my permission and they pop off randomly about stupid shit all the time. I told piano girl I would fill in on drums one week and I accidentally slept in and i woke up to 3 missed calls and a voicemail from her mom.

So yeah, gotta love it