I thought I was pretty much done with Cary. But the last two days have been poetic and moving, and also, I suspect, genuinely helpful.

it creates a strong dichotomy in those people. You are literally messing with their delusions. As a life long atheist, I have come to the conclusion that admitting how delusional religious thinking really is creates such enormous inner turmoil that it puts the very sanity of those who embrace it at risk. So, you, by having embraced a different set of values, are actually toying with their very sanity.

Perhaps I am too cynical about most everything, but the fact is, no person is ever fully accepted. If you wait for anyone else, even your parents, to fully accept you, you will be waiting forever and ever. People have difficulty accepting themselves… accepting another person, even one connected to us by blood, whose belief system, values, and personality are not only different from our own, but from which we have no firsthand knowledge of, is pretty darn difficult. (Sidebar: Also, I’m never entirely sure we SHOULD accept other people, as I’ve too often seen this used as an excuse for bad behavior… someone acts selfishly, or unkindly, then retorts when they are reprimanded that the other person doesn’t “accept” them.)

Your parents love you. You admit your relationship with them is stable, compassionate, and respectful (if it isn’t, how can you truly call it loving?) Leave it-and accept it-at that. Parents unconditionally love their children, but that does not mean they have to accept-and thus approve-of absolutely everything their child does, says, and is. I’m also sure you see the hypocrisy in saying that YOU fully accept them for who they are, and yet you cannot ACCEPT that they do not accept YOU.

Additionally, I would warn against too much projection. No where in your letter do you point out instances in which your parents have made it clear they do not accept your religious preferences… do not agree perhaps, but to agree and to accept that these are your decisions are two different things. Stay inside your own head to find the answers to why the End of Times still bothers you.

Lastly, if the whole End Times concept doesn’t bother you EXCEPT around the family, a simple way to remedy this is to politely but firmly ask your parents and family members not to mention it in your presence, and say the subject is too delicate to be brought up in passing. If they love you-which I hope, and sincerely think, they do-they will acquiesce without too much fuss, and thus you will no longer feel, correctly or not, that your religious beliefs are coming under scrutiny.

Never been a fan of Tennis (as a writer, and for insights, he's not the Keillor of old), but this is by far the best I've read by him.

And then he blew it in the last three paragraphs. Oh well.

I've posted this to my estranged (and very estrange) wife, who's written on End Times plays and movies. There's an immense industry out there, invisible to the rest of America, devoted to making megabucks by scaring the crap out of their/our children. Think of it as Mel Gibson-style child abuse, beyond the reach of the law. Tennis gives the best prescription for recovery, but his conclusion is erroneous: it's not inevitable, and it certainly doesn't have to happen. It just does, and there's nothing wrong with blaming the perpetrators. If the LW has unlimited funds, it would be amusing and emotionally profitable to track down the makers of that movie and sue their asses off for intentional affliction of trauma.

LW you write 'Should I accept the fact that they will never fully accept me?'

Yeah, and it's not so bad. We don't have to see our relatives that often. You get a career, maybe spouse and kids, and you see all your family a couple of times a year. They might mention end-times, or ask other uncomfortable questions ("when are you having kids?"), trying to make conversation, trying make a connection. You sit through it and soon, you won't be seeing them for another 3-6 months. Celebrate that you have many other connections - family history, prolly many things you do agree upon, similar opinions on non-religious subjects, and forget that 'big thing' you disagree upon.

Can't help relating a family story - after WW2 my dad rejected his catholic faith, because he couldn't accept all the men he fought with who died (most of them) were in Hell because they were not Catholic. His mother lit a candle every day in church for the rest of her life just for him. The family still got along despite this. I never saw him get a hard time because he didn't raise us (his kids) Catholic. They got past it and you can too.

You wrote:

At its core, their non-acceptance is rooted in love. They believe that I am going to hell if I don't change my ways, so they can never fully accept me. If they quit praying for me and fully accept me for who I am, they will be resigned to the fact that their son is going to spend eternity in hell. This would mean that they are not only failing as parents but also as Christians.

You can't do a damn thing for these people except live your life as a gracious, loving, moral human being. Your life will be a good object lesson for them.

That said, I also spent a lot of my childhood in terror of the End Times. And I didn't see the movie you saw, just read books and heard sermons. Exposing children to these kinds of things is, in my opinion, a kind of child abuse and you need to get some professional help to get over it.

But I hope you wiped off the mat.

I had a similar experience growing up. Attending a fundamentalist church every week I was literally told to prepare to be drafted into the End Times War. There my Mom, sister, friends, friend's parents, and others in the congregation were every week exalting God's name and begging for him to come back soon. At some point in high school, I became too fearful to go to Church. God, rather than being the Great Protector was everything that Jonathan Smith had ever dreamed. Why would you want something like that to come back soon?

I spent most of my high school years and 20s (like the LW I'm in my early 30s now) pouring over scripture, Biblical history, science and philosophy trying to get a grip on what was real and what was made up.

Ultimately, for me, I decided the whole thing was a fervent myth (I'm speaking of Christianity, not just the end times). My Mom is still a fundamentalist Christian - something that I took offense to for around 10 years and tried to logic her out of.

One day, it occurred to me that she wasn't the one fighting with me (though her beliefs certainly put her in heaven and me in hell), I was the one fighting with her. I had a hard time seeing anything other than disappointment in her about me since, after all, I was destined to burn. Further, it bothered me to no end that those thoughts of a personal relationship with Jesus would be more important to her than my relationship with her. I am her only son. Shouldn't that matter more than praying to something you have to take on faith?

One day it occurred to me that believing in Jesus and for some reason, her particular strain of faith helped her. She wasn't (and isn't) the snarling stereotype of a fundamentalist zealot. She's a smart woman who has gone through her own traumas. To her, this works. To me, it doesn't. Asking her to believe different would be the same as asking me to believe like her. I found myself needing to apologize and ask her forgiveness.

In all honesty, she didn't really understand where I was coming from at the time. But it certainly was the first step in the healing process. Since then, our relationship has improved. We still talk about God from time to time. It's easy to speak the "Christian language" if you grow up with it and it's a way to identify with her mindset. That she listens patiently as I praddle on with whatever advance in science or archeology topic I want, even when it seemingly contradicts her own beliefs, is a testament to the goodwill extended on either side.

For the LW, it seems to me that you need to know what result you want. If you're scared of death (or what death might lead to) you may find some solace by reading "Apology" by Plato. In it Socrates goes before the Athenian court where he is ultimately sentenced to death. There's good knowledge in there (plus, it's not too long, which helps). IIRC at one point he essentially says something along the lines of death can bring about 3 results: heaven, hell, or oblivion. With a 66% chance of a good outcome, why worry?

If you wish for a better relationship with your parents, rather than take Cary's advice to accept their rejection, I would work to decide who has rejected whom, as in my case I realized that it was me who pushed my Mom away for her beliefs. Talk to them, if they're decent people. Tell them you love them and that means more to you than the End Times or Christianity and you don't want to let that go. Tell them that you don't want to hurt them and you don't want to be hurt. Ask to set boundaries that seem appropriate.

If you're mad that so much of your mental space in your life has been dedicated to thinking and fearing the End Times, embrace your PTSD, for that is what it is. Take solace in the fact that every doomsday prophecy to this point has been wrong. One day, you will die, this is true. But Revelation has as much to do with reality as The Matrix does. Conduct a serious study on it if you need proof. Or learn about quantum physics.. in all honesty, it's WAY weirder than what Revelation has to offer. Embrace your animal-ness. Did you know that we're one of four apes that have the ability to brachiate? When's the last time you did that? Unless you've gone to a gymnastics gym, probably never. Find some rings, or a climbing wall, or a tree branch, or a pull up bar and hang. Feel your spine elongate. Breathe. Recognize your real ancestry. Because that, best I can tell, that is all there is.

You may also benefit from some books by the cultural anthropologist Marvin Harris. I found his "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches: The Riddles of Culture" and "Our Kind" to be invaluable in understanding various aspects of how culture developed and how we as humans came to be.

I'll wrap it up by saying, though I'm talking like I have all the answers, I certainly don't. I'm still a work in progress in this arena too. Getting mindfucked when you're a kid is serious business. It's a battle to loose yourself from those bonds, but you've got a good shot at doing so. It's going to take a long time. But progress comes alternately really slowly and then (ironically enough) in bursts of revelation. Embrace the journey because it sounds like you're on it whether you want to be or not.