For refusing to go to Church?

So if OP asks MIL to join her at a meeting of the Atheist Society, or a lecture evening entitled “Why Only Fools Believe in God”, should she be obliged to go?

Or tell her you’re now a Wiccan and that you desperately want her to come to your next sky-clad coven ritual at the full moon.

You’ll go to her funeral presumably, so not all is lost…

Your DP needs to tell her to back off! If she wants to believe in fairy stories, so be it, but you don’t want a part of that.

My MIL was so happy when I made my DH go with her to church. He sat through 90 minutes of someone else's beliefs (mixed up with perfectly reasonable things like be nice to people and notices) and she was happy and proud that her son would do that for her and thrilled that she got to show him off to her friends and community. I think it's fine to accompany someone to something they think is important to them, it's just tolerance. Doesn't mean you have to take communion or sign up. If you don't like your MIL enough to do it then don't.

Yes! please do this OP

Ask her to come to a Swinger's party in return.

I would be saying 'no, i will not be going, this is the last time we will discuss this, i will ignore all future church requests'
Polite but firm

I agree with most that say you need to find out where your DH sits on wedding, kids, baptism, schools and all that
He may very well be no now but what happens when the wedding and kids happen?

I hate the notion that the non-religious have to respect religion almost to a 'no matter what' standard
Yet the non-religious are not afforded the same respect in any way
Its always just do it, be nice, it wont hurt you - not a simple respect your choice and give up asking

yes, that too! That’s one of the main reasons I have such a problem with organised religion and particularly Catholicism - I think it’s responsible for great evils throughout the ages, some of which continue to this day. I can’t imagine supporting such an organisation.

But given as every other poster had rather sidestepped that issue I decided not to be the one who brought it up!

I just don't see how it's nice, but fair eough and seeing as you're not being pressured, it's different to OPs situation anyway, where her MiL is clearly not respecting her.

You just need to talk to her about it.
Say you totally respect her faith and her choices, but that they aren’t for you and so to please respect your choices too. You will NOT be going to church.

Please tell her " I respect you too much to make a hypocrite of myself by attending church with you or anyone else "

Then suggest meeting her for a coffee after church or something like that so that she doesn't think you are avoiding her in particular.

People should not be made to feel bad about any religion or lack thereof. Stick to your guns or you'll be on an alpha course before you know it! They have ways of dragging you in.

Well, in both our cases, it was more a matter of ‘Why would I sign up my baby for membership of a notoriously corrupt organisation which disproportionately chose to abuse and mistreat women and children, and which is very far from setting its house in order?’

Bluntly, there’s nothing particularly nice about encouraging someone else’s delusions, ‘sincere’ though they be.

Just keep saying No and ask your DH to talk to her to say you don’t appreciate being constantly asked to do something you have made it perfectly clear you don’t want to do.

As for the ‘your DH will revert back to Catholicism when he has children’ comments - I had the opposite experience with my DH. It made him even more determined that his children wouldn’t experience the enormous amount of catholic guilt he was subjected to as a child and the dreary hours and hours of church services he was forced to attend.

This!

Tell her one big fat NO and not to ask again. My in-laws asked me if I wanted to visit their local church, I explained the i’m atheist that I have no more interest in going to someone else’s church than I have in stamp collecting! They’ve never asked again.

Your mother-in-law is very disrespectful trying to force her beliefs on to you. It’s okay to ask once but once you’ve made your position clear asking again is offensive in my view. I don’t try to persuade religious people to give up their beliefs so I expect the same in return from them.

It doesn’t matter how much you like her or that it’s only an hour etc, it’s pointless if you don’t want to go. It’s not like it’s providing her company; there’s no conversation in church, and it’s not like you’re against spending time and chatting with her at any other time. It would be different if she was asking for help with something, or time together, but there’s nothing to be gained from it other than her getting the feeling of getting closer to converting you. It won’t stop if you just do it the know, if anything you’ll have shown that you’re open to it sometimes. Just say no. No thank you, no excuse. No, I won’t be coming.

I think maybe you've misunderstood what I meant. She doesn't pressure me to go, and my DH stays at home, no problem. I choose to accompany her because she has always been so welcoming to me - I was pretty much family from the day we were introduced. My atheism is robust enough to sit through a mass every now and then, as a kindness, without it sending me into an existential crisis. Sometimes it's just nice to be nice.

With respect this thread was nailed at 9.24 by Eelqueen - all the rest is just 'window dressing'

It is a spineless dh problem

It would mean not going to church, obviously. If its 'respectful' for OP to go sometimes, then it would also be respectful for MiL not to. But neither of these things are actually respect, respect is leaving someone to their own beliefs rather than pushing your own onto others.

Well practising a religion usually means attending a building/place where would a practicing atheist take people that is important to them? In the atheist sense

Relevant to atheism not just their favourite sport evenr, bar, book group etc.

This. OP, your future MIL won't have "learned her lesson". She never will. As for your fiance, be warned that he's likely to have a sharp change of opinion especially as he gets older and/or when children come along. I've seen it happen particularly with Catholicism and Islam.

Yeah this is a running theme, atheists must respect the religious, but the religious don't have to respect atheists.

I'm an atheist married to an agnostic who was raised Catholic.
I go to church with my mother in law, if we're over, and if she invites me. It's something important to her, that I can do for her. She knows I'm an atheist, and I don't lie to the priest about it, but I am respectful. The faith of her congregation is sincerely held. I cannot prove there is no god; they cannot prove there is one.
I liken it to going to support someone at their sunday-league rugby. I'm not really interested but I do it out of affection for the other person, because it matters to them, and they want to share it.

As you say, others. Not everyone. There's also likely to be a fairly high correlation between people who believe in the afterlife and people who think priests somehow have special powers.