Before I was coerced into those religious conversion classes that Bub’s paternal grandmother rushed me through filling out forms to sign up for (you know, the ones that she intentionally did not even give me the chance to read), Bub’s paternal grandmother told all of her friends at church that I was actually interested in converting to Catholicism. This was news to me, given that this had never actually come up in conversation with me and I had never actually been told that I was interested in it. You know, because I wasn’t. Not at all.

Apparently she had also spoken with the instructors of the class and let them know that I was also interested in converting to Catholicism, so it was… surprising, to say the least, when I showed up to the first, last, and only class that I actually participated in, did not even know the name of the class, had no idea why I was actually there, didn’t even know that the instructors of the class were not priests themselves (as, having been coerced into attending Masses with my son’s father for weeks up until that point and various church functions and get-togethers, and clearly not wanting to [although it might not have been clear enough to everyone, including him, because they had their heads in the sand and could not see that it was actually clear as day that I did not actually want to be there or want anything to do with any of this], I was ignoring as much as I could about everything that had to do with the Catholic church, to include who all of these people actually were), and at the end of the class, that I had actually been an atheist without interruption since I was three years old. So, by that point, we were going on decades of non-belief in anything supernatural. They were stunned. What I told them did not match up with the impression that Bub’s paternal grandmother had given them of me. And I suppose it was then that she was outed as having lied about at least one thing (“my interest in conversion”, “signing up for the classes of my own interest”).

And then she had to find out that yes, I was actually an atheist and that I had been one my entire life. She would not be getting what she wanted. She would not be able to convert me by force into her religion, and she would not be getting the Catholic wedding that she so desperately wanted to “wash away the sin” that was her grandson being born out of wedlock. Not only would I have been dropped from the class roster at the point in which inquirers would have had to interview with the class instructors or priest had I not been dropped from the roster at the end of the very first class (I was actually dropped from the class roster at the end of the first class, and I was disinvited from all subsequent church functions and get-togethers after this, even though I was civil in… letting everyone know that I was actually a long-term atheist), but his church would not have married us because of my long-term lack of belief, refusal to participate in anything that the church would have required my participation in, refusal to consent to our child’s baptism or participation in anything relating to the church (I believe that children should have a right to choose if or when they participate in anything religious and would have virulently fought his father on this), and the fact that I am diametrically opposed to everything that the Catholic church believes and teaches. This has only grown over the decade, although it can also be said that my opposition to theistic religion has also exponentially grown as I have continued to study them. Evangelists have tried to wear me down over the years with absolutely zero success, even “well-trained” ones who “have a high rate of success getting individuals to want to convert, and planting seeds”. I have actually caused them, well, ire, because my objections are enduring.