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Comment by Ian on December 18, 2009 at 7:46pm

Hi Courtney, it isn't a confession - that implies you are doing something wrong, and all you are doing is being honest. It was easy for me since I grew up in a family of atheists and even my grand-parents were not religious.

As for the 'cloning a human" - it has never happened. Your mom may be getting confused by an internet hoax from a few years ago. A good place to check on the accuracy of internet rumors is www.snopes.com. Here is their page concerning a (fake) project to clone Jesus from his DNA:
http://www.snopes.com/religion/clone.asp

The cloning success rate for animals is less than 2%. Any lab that tried to clone humans would probably have the same or an even lower success rate - which would likely lead to it being closed down for all sorts of legal and ethical violations. It has not happened and is not going to happen any time soon.

I don't see how the cloning of a human, or anything that might have happened to the allegedly cloned baby, would indicate the existence of a god or gods. If someone, even someone you love and respect such as your mom, tells you to believe something without any evidence, you are right to politely ask them for proof. It is not your place to try to disprove anything. You can't disprove that giant ghosts inside the earth push it around but that does not make it true. The person who believes in superstitions or super natural invisible creatures should provide proof that they are correct.

But don't hold your breath. No one has ever produced any proof of the existence of any god or goddess at any point in the whole of human history.

Stand you ground but don't forget to tell your mom that, atheist or not, you still love her. She needs to know that you are making a decision based on information and that you are not doing this to hurt her in any way.

Thanks for sharing your experience - there are a lot of people here who have not yet plucked up the courage to tell their closest friends or relatives that they they are atheists or humanists, or Brights, or whatever they decide as their preferred label.

Comment by Jon Fleming on December 18, 2009 at 7:23pm

would just like to point out to you when she tries these guilt trips using family members and there veiws. Thing change you grow and learn more thing, what would you if the roles were reversed and how they would feel or want other to feel if they were in your shoes. instead of thinking of how they would react to your stance think of the reverse of them being in it becuase you can't regret understanding the world with a different veiw point or else how would we ever grow from the basic thought of our ancestors.

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