Man plays prank on 'very religious child,' mom says, 'why'd you humiliate my son?'
When this man is annoyed with his party guests, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for ruining easter by agreeing with a self righteous little brat that I am a devil worshiper?'
A little background. I (28m) live in a big city and yard space for entertaining is a luxury. I inherited 10 acres of land from my grandfather which he bought in the 70's.
It's a dream location for an easter egg hunt and 90% of family events are held on my property. There are 2 houses on the property. My house that I had built 2 years ago and my grandfathers house which has remained untouched since he died.
I am an Atheist and you will not catch me in a church but I have no problem celebrating religious holidays like easter if there is food involved. My dad and his wife are more active in church than most of the family.
My family was getting together for easter and my dad asked me as a favor to let his wife invite her church friends for an egg hunt after lunch. I reluctantly agreed.
This pious kid who I thought at the time was 12-13 from his size but I found out later he is 9 asked me why I never go to church. Keep in mind I have never met this kid in my life so I can only assume he has heard something about me from my stepmom. All I said was church was not my thing.
He asked why not. I said a different view point and he wanted to know what religion I was. I said I do not belong to any religion and I consider myself an Atheist. He asked what is that and I said I do not believe in a higher power.
From that conversation he told me I was a devil worshiper. I was like wtf??!! I told him I sure was and in the house he would see my animal sacrifices mounted on the wall. I told him everyone thinks I got those deer from hunting but they really are sacrifices.
This kid lost his shit. He ran screaming to his mom I was a devil worshiper and sacrificed animals. He was crying with snot running down his face.
At first my dad and stepmom did not get what the kid was saying because I don't hunt. The deer mounted on the walls belonged to my grandfather. My dad asked why does this kid thinks you are a devil worshiper killed deer.
I told him the kid was nosy and made assumptions that I agreed with. I got yelled at by this kids parents. They are yelling at me red faced and I cannot stop laughing telling me about my prosperity and that I’m evil. I told them to go take their superstitious bullshit off my property.
I am catching so much hell. Drama llama stepmom is saying I have humiliated her in front of the entire church and she will never forgive me.
I told her I don't care and reminded her I only tolerate her. My dad wrote a public apology on his fb on my behalf. There was some backlash from the family and he deleted it. I feel a family meeting coming on which I won't subject myself to.
AITA for agreeing with this little brat abou his assumptions? I really think they overreacted. I might have taken it to far with the deer sacrifice.
Let's see what the internet had to say on this one.
mandown9 writes:
Definite YTA in this situation. You took an opportunity to teach a curious child who had likely only been exposed to a single church and one set of ideas for this whole life and shat all over it.
As an atheist, I know it can sometimes be exhausting having to explain yourself and your beliefs to people who aren't open to them, but you've reinforced bad religious ideas in a child who is now just going to fear people like you.
Always approach conversations like that with as much patience and compassion as you can, even if you're not being met with it. You could have even just excused yourself for literally any reason rather than take the opportunity to bully a literal child who sounds like they're asking earnest questions.
virne writes:
NTA, and IGNORE every single AH on here saying that you are. The kid should have been taught better, not your problem.
You have more patience than I do, there is not a snowballs chance in hell I would have agreed to allow a bunch of religious people onto my property and the MOMENT any of them attempted to spout their religious nonsense off, they would have been escorted OFF of my property.
Teach your children that they do NOT get to ask inappropriate questions to others. And anything religious is inappropriate.
plazmuh writes:
ESH here is the best judgement as far as I can see. OP could have easily navigated this in a way that didn't make him seem like an asshole. Instead he went out of his way to essentially scare a young child who is being indoctrinated.
This sub reddit isn't about whether someone is justified in being an asshole or not, the informant is absolutely an asshole in this situation.
OP, you easily could have just said 'I don't believe in Satan and I don't want to talk about this anymore.' And then if the kid persisted then unleash but instead you just escalated from the getgo on a kid who didn't know any better.