Originally Posted by to_hobbes

Unfortunately, you'll never convince your family of anything. But if you'd like, I can give you some "argument ammo" you can use if you end up in a confrontation. (Only use these arguments in self defense :-)

If your family thinks being agnostic means you will loose all sense of ethics and become some kind of criminal, you just need to say that that religious people do evil in the name of god all the time. Christians are no exception (from the crusades, to American civil rights movement). So if people who believe in god do evil things, then being a good person has nothing to do with being religious.

They usually respond with "yeah, but the religious people who do evil things didn't *truly* believe in god." Then just ask them, so how do you know the difference between "truly" believing and not truly believing? What is right? The answer comes from an intellectual study of ethics, not from God.

If they don't like that answer, you could also mention that the American legal system also relies not on god but on intellectual study of ethics. That is the whole purpose of our legal system -- determine what is right by having both sides present evidence and let a jury decide, with a judge to moderate and render a verdict. It has nothing to do with a judge looking at a bible and deciding if something is right or wrong based on bible verses. Sure, they have the bible to swear in people, but that has to do with tradition, and it has nothing to do with how decisions are made.

That might prompt a debate over whether or not our government a government of god, but that has nothing to do with how people decide what is right or wrong.

If they are concerned that you are going to hell, just remind them that even if they believe you are going to hell, they only believe it because of their religion. There are plenty of people (atheists and agnostics) who don't believe you are going to hell. So how do you know if mom and dad are right and the atheists are wrong? The only counter argument to this (that I can think of) is that they would insist you screwed up to believe atheists over your own family. To that you could say that you of course trust your family, it's just that you don't trust religion.

I hope that helps.