Reply #62: For what it's worth [View All]

[Mythsaje]

my advice is to tell your brother and let the chips fall as they may. It's a hard choice, but some good might come out of it in the end. He'll have to decide whether to turn his back on you and walk away--a decision that carries a moral and psychological price in itself--or accept you and, by doing so, learn something about what he professes to hate. That gays are people too, and we all have to come to terms with that fact because they ARE our brothers, sisters, neighbors, teachers, co-workers, children, and friends.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've never had to "come out" about anything to my family members that made one bit of difference. When I became a pagan, I told my dad and, though he was weird about it at first, he's grown to accept it and, in fact, speaks pretty highly now about those "earth people." Ironically enough, I'm not pagan now in any way that matters, but I'm married to one. I'm fairly firmly agnostic and my dad and I have had discussions about THAT too. He says "how can you not believe in God?" and my answer is always one he can accept... "Religion is BULLSHIT." I don't even try to rationalize the existence of God or the afterlife anymore--I don't believe anything ANYONE says about it. What is, is. None of us will receive any answers until it's all over.

I've ended up as something of an agnostic pantheist. The universe, existence, is enough for me to revere or respect. Protect the Earth, study the cosmos, explore what is. Everything beyond that is pure conjecture.