I'd rather live under a bridge in a cardboard box than be forced to go to church every week.

JohnP has a good point. When I first lived on my own, I was working as a waitress in a bar - I had a one-bedroom apartment next to a cemetery (don't know why I find that amusing now!) and no TV. I had my car, insurance on the car, rent & electricity (water was included in the rent). I had a small stereo and a few CDs. I went to the library & stocked up on books. When I wasn't working, I was pretty much reading. Discovered how much I loved it, and really didn't care that I had no TV.

I ate mostly cereal for breakfast, and soup for lunch. Usually no dinner, because I was at the bar by then, & working til 2 or 3 am. Then I'd go home, shower & crawl in bed, too tired for anything else.

I couldn't afford to go out with my friends, I couldn't afford to go shopping, I couldn't afford to do much of anything. BUT I HAD MY OWN PLACE, and that was a piece of heaven!!!

Point? I SURVIVED. And that old cliche "Where there's a will, there's a way" holds much truth.

ETA: You're not a child anymore, you're an adult. At some point you will have to learn to stand up for yourself, even against your parents (father) and learn to live your own life. Even if that means disappointing someone you love. Even your father.

I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing (I'm in the UK) but I am rather surprised by the number of people saying go to church if you're not paying rent.

I can understand being respectful to your parents, but surely they should be respectful to your (non) beliefs also? Even if you are living there rent free.

Maybe it's just me and the people I know, but I can't imagine my parents, or friends parents etc. ever enforcing the 'go to Church' rule like that.

Either way, I hope you work it out for the best.

1987 - Well, here's the question - where do you get off, arguing about house rules, when you don't pay for the house? You're subjugating yourself to yor parents by virtue of depending on them, and that dependence usually coes with the agreement that it is THEIR home, and their rules.

More generally - If someone wants to run their life, a good starting point is not depending on mommy and daddy for basic provisions. You spoke of respect, but how respectful is it to eat someone's food, use their electricity and water, take up space in their home, and then demand free agency over yourself that runs contrary to their preferences, too? For an adult to command my respect, at least, for their opinions and preferences, acting like an adult and taking care of themselves is a good first step. Just being of legal age isn't enough to make one an adult, one has to live with the responsibilities to demand the perks, as far as I'm concerned.

But then again, I haven't lived with my parents since I was a teen, and it was reluctantly, at that. By the time I was out of college I was married, with children, paying a mortgage and living states away from any of my relatives. Most of my friends who are my age and living with their parents are acting like bums because it is easier than doing the hard work of maintaining a budget working full time or more, and striking out on their own. Their choices have definitely influenced my opinion on the subject. But if one of my children tried to stay under my roof and dictate their preferences to me on a rule, I'd promptly show them the door!

I'm one of those "go to church" people but my views might be invalid because I'm an atheist who was raised by two other atheists and have only gone to church/synagogue for anthropological reasons.

My ex is an atheist, his father is an atheist (and an addict) too, and his grandmother is completely heartbroken and devastated about it. She's "waiting for the Lord to take her" and going senile, but however misdirected she loves my ex and his father and feels she has failed in her life (she never had a job or learned how to take care of herself, her husband did everything for her) because her only son and only grandson are not going to be saved.

It's really sad stuff, but I feel like lying to protect a loved one's feelings is OK sometimes. Of course I'm not implying mimsyborogrooves' dad is a senile Texan woman who has nothing else to live for, but really only OP can decide what's right.

That's a hard situation, Krampus. I'm not in favor of lying to protect someone, necessarily, but withholding comment on my opinion and going through the motions out of respect - that's not lying, in my book!

I feel like it should be your choice not theirs. But (always a but in there, lol) is it really so bad to go and spend a couple of hours at church with your family? I mean it's one day a week. But at some point you are going to have to put your foot down and make your dad understand it is your life and your decision whether you live with them or not. Just my 2 cents

As with many things, families vary. Mine functions more like you have described.

I completely agree.

I think that the ultimate solution for the OP would be to get her own place. Going along to get along can get complicated. IIRC the OP in another thread mentioned that she felt under some pressure to join in church activities (choir I believe).

I have a hard time seeing though how enforced church attendance is a "house rule". House rules should relate to matters pertaining to the house - the decor , the organisation. If this were a question of a non rent payer being told that she could not paint her room the colour she wished or that her parents would prefer that she not use the dining room table for craft projects I could understand filing a complaint under "Their house, their rules". I could also see house rules covering how religion is practiced in the house (grace before meals) or the kind of discussions that take place under their roof.

I don't see though that her parents are entitled to dictate her movements. If they are entitled to compel her to attend church, would they also be entitled to have her attend other functions? If they were avid bridge players for example and insisted that she join their bridge parties should she acquiesce to that demand as well? Are they also entitled to tell her where she can't go?

Hm, don't see any (openly) Christian voices on this thread so far so I'll chime in. I don't think you should just go along to get along.

If you want to be adult enough to make your own choices regarding church attendance - and I encourage you to - you should be adult enough to communicate well with your parents regarding your beliefs. If you not sharing their beliefs is a big enough deal to them that they don't want to financially support you - after all, you are well old enough to live on your own - you are taking advantage of them by concealing your beliefs. (I certainly hope that they won't kick you out over this as I don't think that's what's best for them, but I'm just carrying the thought through to the extreme.) Best case scenario is that you don't have to go to church and you don't have to hide who you are. Since you posted about this months ago it's obviously an ongoing issue so why not just address it instead of ignoring it.

If I had a child who was not a Christian (and I will assume that none of them are unless/until informed that they have converted, obviously) I would definitely want to know about it so that I can continue my evangelistic efforts toward him/her. It is not comforting to be lied to (by omission) to "keep the peace" because keeping the peace is not ultimately what matters.

Like everyone else has said, you just need to move out!

Silly example, but yes, as long as they have the leverage of taking away the roof over her head, they have any extent of control they wish to exercise over her life. I don't think church attendance is an unreasonable request, but they could go much further than that in requests for compliance, if they desired, and she would have no real recourse because she GAVE them control of her living situation once she became an adult and didn't establish her own household.

That's the rub with living at home as an adult, unfortunately.

I disagree with you being forced (for lack of a better term) to go to church because you live at home. I don't think religion should ever be forced on anyone; I think it is (should be) a very personal thing. Clean your room, do the dishes, be home at a certain time - those are reasonable requests when you're an adult living at home. But I personally don't think (my opinion only, I know that many will disagree with me) that church should be on that list.
However, that being said, going voluntarily to church in order to keep the peace in your family is different, and I tend to agree with that.

When you say your father isn't very understanding about religious differences, is he not understanding in more of a "has a temper tantrum, makes unreasonable demands, sulks, and eventually gets over it" sort of way, or a "throws you out of the house and disowns you" sort of way? If it's the former, then both of you will have an opportunity to grow and better understand each other if you're candid with him about your religious beliefs. If it's the latter, then you are probably better off keeping your beliefs to yourself until you can support yourself.

I think that ERHR and the other posters who have suggested that you have an adult discussion with your father about your beliefs make a really good point. It wouldn't necessarily need to be confrontational (i.e., focus on how much you love him and respect him and how much whatever path you're on means to you, NOT on how much you don't want to go to church with them). If you know (or can learn beforehand) how to avoid getting drawn into an argument with him, it would probably help you in the long run. It might help to have a series of small, informal discussions (with the church attendance one coming towards the end).

If you really can't talk to your dad about religion (which would be unfortunate, IMO), then your options are kind of limited. Moving out would probably be good for a number of reasons, but if it's not feasible then it's not feasible. You could also go out of respect (or guilt, as I think you stated) and be unhappy about having to do it. But you do have other options.

If you do decide to go to church with them, can you make it into a more worthwhile spiritual experience for you? (You don't say what your own beliefs or theirs are, but are there any elements of their church's doctrines and services that reaffirm or explore aspects of your own beliefs? If respecting your parents is a religious thing for you, could you make church attendance about that? Does the music move you at all? Do you experience any sense of fellowship?)

Seeing as you're not getting much out of it spiritually anyway, would it really be bad to focus on the social or ephemeral aspects of the services that you do like, regardless of whether or not it's something that you "should" be attending church to experience?

Is your place of employment open on Sunday mornings? Could you reliably get hours then? If not, could you get a second job that included Sunday morning hours ('cause unless you're way out in the sticks I bet all the restaurants in your area are packed for Sunday brunch, and somebody's gotta get everything ready for them )? It's not as good as being up-front with your dad, but if you can't or won't do that, having a Sunday morning job would at least give you a "good excuse," and help you earn money to become more independent.

You don't say what you do believe, but if there's any place of worship in your area that's relatively compatible with those beliefs, could you join that congregation without it becoming a huge issue with your father?

It probably is partly cultural. Religion is a very big part of many people's lives in the American South, as it is in other parts of North America and around the world. In addition to the obvious religious element of church attendance, there can also be political and (especially) social elements associated with whether or not one attends church, what denomination and specific church one attends, what one is involved in with the church, etc. That's not to say that any of those other things are necessarily a factor in the OP's situation, it's just to point out that church attendance in the South isn't necessarily just about an individual's spiritual development. It can also be something by which people are judged, and family attendance is one thing people are sometimes judged on.

There is also probably still a reasonably high percentage of people who believe that one ought to "respect" (read obey) authority (including parents, especially if they're providing for you) and "respect" (read adhere to) tradition (which going to church can be) without question. For people who subscribe to those beliefs, those who openly disobey authority figures or disregard tradition might seem very disrespectful. Those inclined to be "disrespectful" generally need to pick and choose their battles if they want to make progress.

Of course, there's also the (probably) less culture-specific argument that if you're a healthy adult who's still being supported by your parents so you can live in security and comfort while finding your feet and you can't find it in yourself to spend a few hours a week doing something that's important to them and that it would make them happy to share with you AND you won't even offer them an honest explanation as to why you don't want to do those things, then there's probably a good chance you'll appear to lack respect and gratitude for the love and sacrifices your parents have made for you.

Why should parents respect their children's beliefs? What if they think the kids' beliefs are wrong, or even more seriously, leading them away from (God, enlightenment, whatever)? What if the kids' beliefs just sound crazy to them? What if they expect adult children (dependent or otherwise) to obey their parents and/or conform to societal norms without question, whether the children want to or not? If you believed those things, do you think you would find it easy to let your kids go their own way without a fight?

Well, the only reason I don't share my beliefs here is because I didn't want to start a religious debate, but I will share them for general purposes:

I don't not believe in God; I don't believe in church/Christianity/organized religion. I think I finally just discovered a way to define myself -- a free thinker. I feel that everyone should do what they do and believe what they believe because THEY feel it is right, not because someone or something told them to. In other words, I believe that I shouldn't have to live my life a certain way just because some book says I should. Bottom line: religion for me is subjective, not objective, and there is no right or wrong way to believe, as long as your beliefs don't cause harm to yourself or others.

I've thought more about it and discussed it with my mother; the way my mother sees it, I'm old enough to make my own decisions and in her words, being an American citizen gives me the right to freedom of religion, and no one can deny me that right, and she told me to ignore my father, haha. They won't MAKE me go, and they won't kick me out if I don't go, and my mom doesn't care if I go or not, but my dad will whine and complain about it.

And the thing is, I don't even think church would be the issue -- we (my dad and I) don't see eye to eye on most things; in fact, you could say we're complete opposites. My dad seems to think that I do things differently from him to deliberately piss him off. He's extremely narrow-minded and has a "my way or no way" mentality. So, not going to church won't be about church, but it'll be me "defying" him and being rebellious in some way, seeings how everything else I do appears that way to him.

But, I think that I'll probably end up going, but it won't be because my dad says so. There are aspects of church that I do like, such as the music and getting to see people I don't normally get to see; ****, it might even be a chance to network and get a better job. However, I want going to church to be -my- choice, and not because someone else thinks I should.