Funeral Causes Family Drama After Sister Follows Her Atheist Brother’s Last Wish

While each person is free to choose what religion, if any, to follow, some are strongly influenced by the customs rooted in their countries or their families, which can become a cause for conflict.

In this redditor’s family, differences in views towards religion resulted in her atheist brother being excluded from the family, and her kin calling her a disgrace for respecting his wishes after his death.

According to World Population Review, as much as 85% of the population identify themselves with a religion. Statistics reveal that the most popular one, practiced by nearly 2.4 billion people worldwide, is Christianity, followed by Islam (1.91 billion followers), Hinduism (with 1.16 billion) and Buddhism (507 million) respectively. Data also suggests that close to 1.2 billion people consider themselves nonreligious or have Atheist beliefs.

The OP’s brother was seemingly an atheist in a world surrounded mostly by Christians, as Catholicism, which the OP pointed out to be the most prevalent religion in her country, is one of the main branches of Christianity. According to World Population Review, numerous nations, such as Armenia, Greece, Peru, and Venezuela, just to name a few, boast a population where more than 93% people consider themselves Christian.

As for atheists, countries where they seem to comprise the largest part of the population include Estonia, the Czech Republic, Japan, and China, where more than three-quarters of the population do not follow any religion.

The OP shared that her 91-year-old grandmother was distraught over the lack of traditional Catholic ceremony and feared that her late grandson would go to hell, as he was not blessed by a servant of her religious faith. While people’s views on the existence of hell or heaven differ with each religion, or lack thereof, a 2023 study of religious beliefs across the world found that in 26 surveyed countries, roughly half of respondents believed in the former existing (and just slightly fewer believed in the latter).

According to said study, younger people in most of the surveyed countries are less likely to identify themselves as Christian, especially Catholic, seconding the OP’s point that the youth nowadays tends to stray from religion. In the majority of surveyed Catholic countries, the percentage of Gen Z identifying as Catholic is lower than the percentage of Boomers who identify as such.

In the OP’s case, the generation gap and the strong influence stemming from following religious practices resulted in conflict among family members, as well as uneasiness the redditor felt over the entire situation. Addressing the online community, she said she needed to hear whether or not she was in the wrong for following her brother’s wishes, and fellow redditors made sure she knew she was not.