1) Find her objections
2) Assure her that you understand that her objections feel valid
You can, if you like, try to explain why her objections don’t feel valid to you (unless of course, they do) but try to keep the conversation away from facts, premises, or rationality. The odds are very high that she is not becoming hysterical about you becoming an atheist because of some rational process. The odds are also very high that she cares more about feeling listened to than about your atheism. Try to steer clear from why you are an atheist: don’t invite an argument where there doesn’t have to be one. It likely won’t be a productive argument if you have it. Definitely steer clear of directly attacking Catholicism: the odds are high that she has heard such attacks before and it could cause a negative social grouping that it doesn’t sound like you want.
I’ll leave you with one thing that can help if you become frustrated with her that I learned from sales training: objections=interest. It can feel like your mom doesn’t value your welfare or well-being, especially if you believe religion was doing bad things for you. But if she genuinely didn’t value your well-being, she would be unlikely to bring up an objection to your atheism. She might be mistaken about what is good for you, but she’s likely very scared and doesn’t know how to handle this. Anything she says that is hurtful is probably best attributed to that fear.
I would recommend the following steps:
1) Find her objections 2) Assure her that you understand that her objections feel valid
You can, if you like, try to explain why her objections don’t feel valid to you (unless of course, they do) but try to keep the conversation away from facts, premises, or rationality. The odds are very high that she is not becoming hysterical about you becoming an atheist because of some rational process. The odds are also very high that she cares more about feeling listened to than about your atheism. Try to steer clear from why you are an atheist: don’t invite an argument where there doesn’t have to be one. It likely won’t be a productive argument if you have it. Definitely steer clear of directly attacking Catholicism: the odds are high that she has heard such attacks before and it could cause a negative social grouping that it doesn’t sound like you want.
I’ll leave you with one thing that can help if you become frustrated with her that I learned from sales training: objections=interest. It can feel like your mom doesn’t value your welfare or well-being, especially if you believe religion was doing bad things for you. But if she genuinely didn’t value your well-being, she would be unlikely to bring up an objection to your atheism. She might be mistaken about what is good for you, but she’s likely very scared and doesn’t know how to handle this. Anything she says that is hurtful is probably best attributed to that fear.