Forced to give 'thanks'.

[MoonJeli]

I don't understand how it hurts you to say thanks to some non-existent guy in the sky. Heh. That's just me.

I'd say something that was non specific to god, personally. You could aim the thanks at your family, or whatever. I'm with frickinmuck here. His example of a moment of silence for those who have nothing is a beautiful sentiment.

Don't have to put god in there anywhere.  

[Alucard2021]

Last friday my Great Grandma had her funeral and of course we all gave thanks at a certain point. Of course I went through the motions and I did give thanks but not necessarily to "god". I gave thanks for just getting to know her and out of respect to Life in general.

Just because you're an athiest doesn't mean you can just give thanks to whatever. Think of a lucky rock or some s**t or just think to yourself but don't just stand there and look up and look like an unfeeling a*****e infront of everyone because you're an "athiest".

One reason i'm an athiest because I just don't care about all that bullshit. But Still we can give thanks and it's better to just RIDE THE WAVE instead of causing one right?  

[Lux7]

My mom and dad are atheist but the rest of my family isn't. For one of my cousins birthday we had to say what we were thankful for. I just said i was thankful for education and books. It wasn't that big of deal though i didn't really mean it in a God sense and thats all that matters.
If someone asked me to say grace though i would refuse especially sense my whole family knows i'm atheist. Its extremly disrespectful to disregard anothers belief.  

[Arios V]

Even though the people in my family are non-theists (at least to the extent of my knowledge), but we still say grace every night and at formal occasions. There is no meaning behind it and I don't really care if we do it, it's just a family custom we've been doing since way back when. Now it's mostly a way to prevent people (namely me) from finishing their food before everyone sits down to eat.  

[Tornado_Creator]

Ozraptor

So, today at dinner, one of the people in my family say grace(thanking "god" for the food or w/e), it usually isnt me because my mother knows that im an atheist. BUT we had people over at our house, and my mom asked me to say grace, there was an awkward silence, followed by me telling my mom politely 'i dont know what to say'. She started to get aggitated and told me to think of something. So i thought of something stupid to say, and dinner went on and we all lived to tell the tale.

D:< She knew i was an atheist! I dont think i should be forced to thank someone whom i dont think exists! I wanted to say no, but there was people there. So not fair.

Has something like this ever happened to any of you?

I would have refused... if she carried it on I would have said "Thanks Satan" started eating.

If she gets bitchy I would have left the table, with my meal and eaten elsewhere. (unless it would be infeasible to take the meal in which case, big woop, I miss a meal).

By being unwavering you can make a statement. Refuse to follow religion entirely, clamp down and people will either learn to respect that right or they will get out of the ******** way.  

[KCXerro013]

no one ever asks me to say grace , but then they say it i dont bow my head or close my eyes.
i just take a bit of some food ,... they arnt going to see it they have their heads down and eyes closed.
im prety sure they know i dont pray with them , but i also think they do it to make me feal awkward. i never do , i actually take a bit of some one elses food some times just to make them feal awkward too  

[Prince Rilian]

She made you say it just because you had guests? That's dumb.

I've never had to say "grace".  

[Sanguvixen]

Rilian

She made you say it just because you had guests? That's dumb.

I've never had to say "grace".

Well, sometimes people do that because they want it to appear as if the family is "normal" in the eyes of other guests. That is why even if they don't normally have certain things they do, they might do them anyway because they know the guests would. It's not exactly stupid, somethings it's smart to just do something so you don't have to deal with butt-hurt people later on.

My family, fractured and mixed up as it is only ever has grace when we are with other family members. Usually this is around Thanksgiving, or Christmas Dinner.

I used to have to say grace as a kid but when my parents divorced, we stopped eating at the table as a family. So the whole practiced died off.  

[Prince Rilian]

If I were to agree to say "grace", I'd thank the people who actually provided the food.  

[gallows humour]

Rilian

If I were to agree to say "grace", I'd thank the people who actually provided the food.

My friend Maria had a fight with her dad over exactly that.

"Thank God for the food, Maria!"

"No, I'll thank you: for working to buy the food and provide for the family, and I'll thank the farmers for growing the food..."

"Maria." (Even more sternly) "thank God for the food. Now."  

[Prince Rilian]

I didn't know Maria was an atheist.

She could have said, "Thankyou, g0d, for stripping the farmers and the merchants and my father and my mother of their freewill in order to force them to complete the sequence of events necessary for this food to be sitting here in front of me now. Thankyou for, likewise, forcing me to eat it so that I don't die."  

[gallows humour]

Maria is not an atheist exactly. She's a wishy-washy agnostic sort, who believes in astrology... stare  

[Edi Gammon]

I wasn't made to say grace... But at a recent picnic that my family had, my father who said grace used it as an opportunity to tell me how stupid he thinks I am, in a backhanded, passive-aggressive sort of way.

Before he said grace he gave a little anecdote about how he was fishing at the lake last night and he looked up at the stars. He said "... I saw the stars of the big dipper, and how they point exactly at this other star that is exactly at the north pole. And some people think that that all happened by accident."
Then he said grace.

Sounds innocent enough right? Especially to the rest of my extended family who mostly don't know I'm atheist. But to me this was a slap in the face, because I knew what the subtext was. It bothers my dad incredibly that I'm an atheist. The last time he even addressed my lack of belief directly was when I came out to him and my mother... a year and a half ago. But he has no problem saying things to others in my presence that he knows I would find insulting.

Real nice how people like to spoil our appetite isn't it?  

[Prince Rilian]

So, your dad wanted to point out something that couldn't have been created through natural processes and he went for constellations rather than, say, the chemical processes going on inside a star? Those are far more amazing. Constellations change over time as the position of everything changes relative to this planet, and the constellations are different from different places in space. And what the hell could possibly be the point of making the handle of the big dipper point at the north star? There's no conceivable reason for it, and it's really not that amazing that a few stars that are all different distances away from this planet seem to form a line. Seriously. Does your dad understand how many stars there are? He sounds really ignorant.

Anyway. My family members all know I am an atheist, so I can't imagine them ever trying to force me to say "grace". They'd probably think it was an insult to their god, anyway. Usually, they don't even put in insults like what you are talking about. I know they think it's really trashy of me and my immediate family to be non-christians, but they RARELY (maybe twice ever) say anything. For clarification, my parents and my brother and I are not christians, whereas all our other family members are, except the one who just converted to judaism.  

[Missuhs Bunneh]

If I was in a situation in which I had to give grace it would have probably been along the lines of, "Dear God whom I do not believe in, I hope this food is not poisoned, because that would suck. Amen." but only because my mom makes fun of me saying my food will be poisoned for not praying at the table, haha.