As a note to moms everywhere, please do not bring your atheist/agnostic/what-have-you 16-year-old son to a two hour church service from out of the blue and expect him to not complain about it.

Cue a 30-minute rant in the car about how I'm going to be damned to hell and punished later on in life for being a prick to my mother.

She would then go on to bring my friends into it, going all "What would they think?"

And then she'd complain about how me not being Christian makes her look bad as a parent, that she didn't raise me correctly because I don't believe in some bearded old dude in the sky who grants wishes.

You're like the devil or something.

When you grow up to have a wife and kids you'll regret it.

He will punish you for not believing in him.

And so what!

I don't believe in him, he doesn't exist to me, what is there to say here?

Do you seriously expect me to change my mind because some guy in the sky says so?

She's all asking me if I'm unthankful for my life and characteristics.

I'm certainly grateful, just not to him.

I'm pretty glad I'm as smart as I am, but that was Dad's fault because he made me scholarly as a child.

I'm not physically deformed? So are another five billion people.

And then she threatens me with such things as forcing me into some seminary or weekly church thing or something.

I apparently can't possibly live without this guy watching over my life.

Why is it, then, that I haven't died eight years ago, when this first cropped up?

*sigh