re: #227 HappyWarrior

My father’s father worked in the Labor Department. When my oldest aunt got married, her husband and my grandfather would sometimes argue politics. I don’t know how heated it got but my grandfather was the liberal and my aunt’s ex was the conservative. Both were educated guys. I think all five of my Dad’s brothers and sisters were in someway struck by how their parents treated people. My grandparents marriage itself was inter-class- my grandfather growing up more affluent and interestingly enough in a Republican household and my Nana growing up with a widower father but I’m not sure about his politics, Dad’s cousin told me he remembers him cursing Truman but a lot of people hated Truman left and right. Either way, my Dad’s parents from what I saw treated people fairly regardless of race or class background and I guess that helped make their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren liberal both politically and in life.

If my parents argued politics they apparently did it away from their children. My father was the conservative from what I could tell with my mother being the liberal. Both college educated (engineer, librarian), came from working class families (truck driver for coal company, steel mill worker), and prized education and choice for their children. Religion was not a major factor in our upbringing. Both our parents were raised Catholic, but my father was non-practicing and my mother attended a UU congregation and was pretty much a secular humanist. I attended “Sunday school” at the UU church at a young age, but that was pretty much more of a child care thing than an indoctrination.

My sister attended a UU congregation as well while my brother and I are pretty much non-religious. He terms it being “a-religious”.

If asked I refer to myself as a “hopeful atheist” and explain that as “I hope there is not a overseeing and interceding capable deity since I dislike the concept of being a lab rat. If said deity is not overseeing and interceding than it doesn’t make much of a difference.” If asked about moral behavior I generally respond that moral and cooperative behavior is to the benefit of society as a whole and that all altruism does not flow from religion.