Christianity and Predestination

[chanel]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

 

[Mr. H.]

Good for you.
You should go to her next Bible study meeting and straighten them out.
It's God's plan.

 

[Mini 14]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

IMO, its an ever-present "difference of opinion" among Christians, which stems from literal interpretation of some passages in the Bible. My experience has been that it is the crutch of the religious and/or intellectually weak, and is most often espoused by those who equate being a good church member, or memorizing the Bible, with being a good Christian.

I agree with the tenant on some levels (that there are moments in our life which God determines, there are possible outcomes that God presents to us, etc...) but I disagree at the most basic level in that I believe we have free will and choice, and it is our choices that God judges. I think the large majority of Christians share this same view, but I also believe literal predestination is and always will be a debated and contentious element of Christianity.

 

[Ravi]

If there is a God, I think he would be rather shocked that your friend continued alienating her mother over religion.

 

[Intense]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

From a Catholic Perspective......

Predestination (Latin præ, destinare), taken in its widest meaning, is every Divine decree by which God, owing to His infallible prescience of the future, has appointed and ordained from eternity all events occurring in time, especially those which directly proceed from, or at least are influenced by, man's free will. It includes all historical facts, as for instance the appearance of Napoleon or the foundation of the United States, and particularly the turning-points in the history of supernatural salvation, as the mission of Moses and the Prophets, or the election of Mary to the Divine Motherhood. Taken in this general sense, predestination clearly coincides with Divine Providence and with the government of the world, which do not fall within the scope of this article (see DIVINE PROVIDENCE).

Notion of predestination
Theology restricts the term to those Divine decrees which have reference to the supernatural end of rational beings, especially of man. Considering that not all men reach their supernatural end in heaven, but that many are eternally lost through their own fault, there must exist a twofold predestination: (a) one to heaven for all those who die in the state of grace; (b) one to the pains of hell for all those who depart in sin or under God's displeasure. However, according to present usages to which we shall adhere in the course of the article, it is better to call the latter decree the Divine "reprobation", so that the term predestination is reserved for the Divine decree of the happiness of the elect.

A
The notion of predestination comprises two essential elements: God's infallible foreknowledge (præscientia), and His immutable decree (decretum) of eternal happiness. The theologian who, following in the footsteps of the Pelagians, would limit the Divine activity to the eternal foreknowledge and exclude the Divine will, would at once fall into Deism, which asserts that God, having created all things, leaves man and the universe to their fate and refrains from all active interference. Though the purely natural gifts of God, as descent from pious parents, good education, and the providential guidance of man's external career, may also be called effects of predestination, still, strictly speaking, the term implies only those blessings which lie in the supernatural sphere, as sanctifying grace, all actual graces, and among them in particular those which carry with them final perseverance and a happy death. Since in reality only those reach heaven who die in the state of justification or sanctifying grace, all these and only these are numbered among the predestined, strictly so called. From this it follows that we must reckon among them also all children who die in baptismal grace, as well as those adults who, after a life stained with sin, are converted on their death-beds. The same is true of the numerous predestined who, though outside the pale of the true Church of Christ, yet depart from this life in the state of grace as catechumens, Protestants in good faith, schismatics, Jews, Mahommedans, and pagans. Those fortunate Catholics who at the close of a long life are still clothed in their baptismal innocence, or who after many relapses into mortal sin persevere till the end, are not indeed predestined more firmly, but are more signally favoured than the last-named categories of persons.
But even when man's supernatural end alone is taken into consideration, the term predestination is not always used by theologians in an unequivocal sense. This need not astonish us, seeing that predestination may comprise wholly diverse things. If taken in its adequate meaning (prædestinatio adæquata or completa), then predestination refers to both grace and glory as a whole, including not only the election to glory as the end, but also the election to grace as the means, the vocation to the faith, justification, and final perseverance, with which a happy death is inseparably connected. This is the meaning of St. Augustine's words (De dono persever., xxxv): "Prædestinatio nihil est aliud quam præscientia et præparatio beneficiorum, quibus certissime liberantur [i.e. salvantur], quicunque liberantur" (Predestination is nothing else than the foreknowledge and foreordaining of those gracious gifts which make certain the salvation of all who are saved). But the two concepts of grace and glory may be separated and each of them be made the object of a special predestination. The result is the so-called inadequate predestination (prædestinatio inadæquata or incompleta), either to grace alone or to glory alone. Like St. Paul, Augustine, too, speaks of an election to grace apart from the celestial glory (loc. cit., xix): "Prædestinatio est gratiæ præparatio, gratia vero jam ipsa donatio." It is evident, however, that this (inadequate) predestination does not exclude the possibility that one chosen to grace, faith, and justification goes nevertheless to hell. Hence we may disregard it, since it is at bottom simply another term for the universality of God's salvific will and of the distribution of grace among all men (see GRACE). Similarly eternal election to glory alone, that is, without regard to the preceding merits through grace, must be designated as (inadequate) predestination. Though the possibility of the latter is at once clear to the reflecting mind, yet its actuality is strongly contested by the majority of theologians, as we shall see further on (under sect. III). From these explanations it is plain that the real dogma of eternal election is exclusively concerned with adequate predestination, which embraces both grace and glory and the essence of which St. Thomas (I, Q. xxiii, a. 2) defines as: "Præparatio gratiæ in præsenti et gloriæ in futuro" (the foreordination of grace in the present and of glory in the future).
Read more at Site....... CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Predestination

 

[Intense]

Predestination, Roman's Chapter 8:


8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.



8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

8:30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

8:31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

The Holy Bible

 

[Anachronism]

It's definitely an interesting topic.

I grew up in the Lutheran Church, which generally takes a very literal interpretation of the Bible. The way that I was taught Scripture comes close to what Intense commented on. The idea that we have the Free Will to choose how we wish to live our lives, but that God already knows what we will choose and has already determined what the final disposition of our soul will be because of it.

Personally, I am no longer a member of any Christian faith or other organized religion at this point in my life, and I have become a very strong believer in a form of predestination known at Fateism.... the idea that the fabric of our lives is woven and cut to length at the moment of our birth and that there is nothing we or any Divine Power can do to alter it.

 

[zzzz]

We all have free will on our own actions. If we did not have free will then God would not have allowed Adam and Eve to partake the forbidden fruit. Each individual has a choice in taking the Lord as their Savior too. Yet major earthquakes and other natural events may have been predestined to occur.
to that.

Of course that brings up Judas.

 

[editec]

Predestination is the belief of some Christians.

The puritans believed in that notion.

There was THE ELECT who were blessed by GOD, and evrybody else who was not.

And, conveniently their belief system informed them that GOD made THE ELECT rich on earth and in charge, too.

That way challenging their authority was not only a civil violation, but a SIN AGAINST GOD.

How convenient, eh?

That is exactly the same logic that suggested that revolting against a king was an affront to GOD.

 

[JScott]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

Im not into religion at all but I would ask this person if they want to wait for the afterlife to make amends or make them now. Theres no way Jesus(I believe he existed) would tell someone to, basically, blow off that person or wait for a sign. I think if it bothers her thats a sign.

 

[Mr. H.]

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

I will choose free will...



There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance take,
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.

A planet of playthings,
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
"The stars aren't aligned,
Or the gods are malign..."
Blame is better to give than receive.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose freewill.

There are those who think that they were dealt a losing hand,
The cards were stacked against them; they weren't born in Lotusland.

All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate.
Kicked in the face,
You can't pray for a place
In heaven's unearthly estate.

Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete.
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet.

 

[Marie888]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

Before I reply, just wanna inform you I don't have any type of "denomination"; I go by the Bible alone.

There has always a great argument about predestination it seems. But what I've seen is that its mainly "calvinism vs free will." My belief is that love is not forced, it cannot be forced, so therefore we have freewill. It's just that God knows things we could not possibly know. How is it that we choose to love whom we love? 1 Cor 13 explains love, and if you look at the explanation, those are all choices.

You are going to get different answers here, but I believe God gave us a gift through Christ, and to all the world He gave this precious and best gift, (as His Word says)but we need to receive it. Just like any gift anyone gives us. We need to receive it. Calvinism argues against that; in addition, calvinsim is divided within itself, there's 5 point calvinist, etc. It's kind of a mes - I chalk it up to mans sin nature overall, and even perhaps some wolves in sheeps clothing.

As for your friends situtation, I'd need more info. Hard to say because it depends on many things. I'm not sure if she was "predestined" but maybe she means she felt the Lord was drawing her away from the church? Perhaps her mom was getting between her and her relationship with the Lord? No clue.

As for being in a rift with her mom... well, how bad is the rift and what is being said? For instance, did the mom "condemn" the daughter for leaving the church? Sometimes when people leave the RCC, they claim the RCC is the "one true church" and may condemn others. (Which is a lie from the pit of hell) There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus - those in Christ are the "church". Anyhow, if that was the case, I'd say, Praise the Lord the daughter got away from that and her mom condemning her. We always need to choose our LORD and His Word above man and mans doctrine. (1st Commandment, plus He knows best, loves us the most and knows we need Him first and foremost)


Sorry I dont know what Pres church teaches, as I believe we need to go by His Word first and foremost. Alot of these denominations have traditions and some even false doctrines we just dont need. Can't go wrong with sticking with the Bible first.

Take care, hope it helps.

 

[Marie888]

PS - RE: Predestination -

There is a web site called carm.org. The owner of the site, Matt Slick, I believe is a "calvinist." I don't agree with him about "calvinsim" at all, I think he got too caught up in it....but I find his website very useful in Christian apologetics. However, you may also be able to just google "christian apologetic" websites and get more info on predestination vs free will.

When I run into "Calvinists" .. I quote the Bible -

1 Corinthians 11 For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. 12 Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

Looking at the verses above, I don't think the Lord wants us to even call ourselves "calvinists", or what have you. Those in Christ, are in Christ, plain and simple. Morever, when His Word says, He died for the "world", that doesn't exclude anyone, that I see. The gift is open to all, just that some sadly reject Christ.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

.

 

[Intense]

We All matter, We Alway's have.

 

[chanel]

As far as family dynamics, of course there is more going on than anyone else could know. I don't know if her mother "condemned her" persay but I imagine she said she's changed. Because she has. Drastically in my opinion. What I do know is that they were very very close. I'd hate to see either of them have regrets.

Interesting talk folks. Thanks I learned a lot.

 

[Samson]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

From a Catholic Perspective......

Predestination (Latin præ, destinare), taken in its widest meaning, is every Divine decree by which God, owing to His infallible prescience of the future, has appointed and ordained from eternity all events occurring in time, especially those which directly proceed from, or at least are influenced by, man's free will. It includes all historical facts, as for instance the appearance of Napoleon or the foundation of the United States, and particularly the turning-points in the history of supernatural salvation, as the mission of Moses and the Prophets, or the election of Mary to the Divine Motherhood. Taken in this general sense, predestination clearly coincides with Divine Providence and with the government of the world, which do not fall within the scope of this article (see DIVINE PROVIDENCE).

Notion of predestination
Theology restricts the term to those Divine decrees which have reference to the supernatural end of rational beings, especially of man. Considering that not all men reach their supernatural end in heaven, but that many are eternally lost through their own fault, there must exist a twofold predestination: (a) one to heaven for all those who die in the state of grace; (b) one to the pains of hell for all those who depart in sin or under God's displeasure. However, according to present usages to which we shall adhere in the course of the article, it is better to call the latter decree the Divine "reprobation", so that the term predestination is reserved for the Divine decree of the happiness of the elect.

A
The notion of predestination comprises two essential elements: God's infallible foreknowledge (præscientia), and His immutable decree (decretum) of eternal happiness. The theologian who, following in the footsteps of the Pelagians, would limit the Divine activity to the eternal foreknowledge and exclude the Divine will, would at once fall into Deism, which asserts that God, having created all things, leaves man and the universe to their fate and refrains from all active interference. Though the purely natural gifts of God, as descent from pious parents, good education, and the providential guidance of man's external career, may also be called effects of predestination, still, strictly speaking, the term implies only those blessings which lie in the supernatural sphere, as sanctifying grace, all actual graces, and among them in particular those which carry with them final perseverance and a happy death. Since in reality only those reach heaven who die in the state of justification or sanctifying grace, all these and only these are numbered among the predestined, strictly so called. From this it follows that we must reckon among them also all children who die in baptismal grace, as well as those adults who, after a life stained with sin, are converted on their death-beds. The same is true of the numerous predestined who, though outside the pale of the true Church of Christ, yet depart from this life in the state of grace as catechumens, Protestants in good faith, schismatics, Jews, Mahommedans, and pagans. Those fortunate Catholics who at the close of a long life are still clothed in their baptismal innocence, or who after many relapses into mortal sin persevere till the end, are not indeed predestined more firmly, but are more signally favoured than the last-named categories of persons.
But even when man's supernatural end alone is taken into consideration, the term predestination is not always used by theologians in an unequivocal sense. This need not astonish us, seeing that predestination may comprise wholly diverse things. If taken in its adequate meaning (prædestinatio adæquata or completa), then predestination refers to both grace and glory as a whole, including not only the election to glory as the end, but also the election to grace as the means, the vocation to the faith, justification, and final perseverance, with which a happy death is inseparably connected. This is the meaning of St. Augustine's words (De dono persever., xxxv): "Prædestinatio nihil est aliud quam præscientia et præparatio beneficiorum, quibus certissime liberantur [i.e. salvantur], quicunque liberantur" (Predestination is nothing else than the foreknowledge and foreordaining of those gracious gifts which make certain the salvation of all who are saved). But the two concepts of grace and glory may be separated and each of them be made the object of a special predestination. The result is the so-called inadequate predestination (prædestinatio inadæquata or incompleta), either to grace alone or to glory alone. Like St. Paul, Augustine, too, speaks of an election to grace apart from the celestial glory (loc. cit., xix): "Prædestinatio est gratiæ præparatio, gratia vero jam ipsa donatio." It is evident, however, that this (inadequate) predestination does not exclude the possibility that one chosen to grace, faith, and justification goes nevertheless to hell. Hence we may disregard it, since it is at bottom simply another term for the universality of God's salvific will and of the distribution of grace among all men (see GRACE). Similarly eternal election to glory alone, that is, without regard to the preceding merits through grace, must be designated as (inadequate) predestination. Though the possibility of the latter is at once clear to the reflecting mind, yet its actuality is strongly contested by the majority of theologians, as we shall see further on (under sect. III). From these explanations it is plain that the real dogma of eternal election is exclusively concerned with adequate predestination, which embraces both grace and glory and the essence of which St. Thomas (I, Q. xxiii, a. 2) defines as: "Præparatio gratiæ in præsenti et gloriæ in futuro" (the foreordination of grace in the present and of glory in the future).
Read more at Site....... CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Predestination

 

[Foxfyre]

Put into its simplest terms, the predestination mentioned in the New Testament provides much ammunition for controversy and very little for consensus.

St. Augustine, one of the great Church fathers, interpreted it to mean that we are all predestined for salvation through grace.

That concept was turned on its head by Martin Luther, however, the father of the Reformation and the one who unwillingly founded "Protestantism." Luther loved the Catholic Church and never intended to separate from it. He did intend to reform it however when he came to object to a concept that it was the Church and not Christ that was the vehicle through which salvation by grace was obtained.

Grace by definition is a gift from God. It cannot be earned nor merited. You can't work for it. You can't deserve it because we are all sinners. It is a gift from God freely given.

So Luther developed the doctrine of predestination to mean that you can't even ask for grace as that would be 'earning' grace through works rather than as a free gift from God.

Calvin took that doctrine to the extreme. We cannot do anything to achieve grace as it is God's perogative alone. Therefore it is a fact that some will be born predestined for heaven and some predestined for hell which is the core of Calvinist theology.

Those who reject Calivinism--and that would be me --simply cannot reconcile a God we have experienced as love and a God who would allow people to be born knowing they were headed straight for hell. Nor do we believe that we are puppets manipulated by some sadistic being who forces us into unwise choices and suffering.

Without free will there cannot be love. And free will implies choice--choice to choose wisely. Choice to choose badly. Perhaps even choice to choose heaven by allowing God to take us there or refusing that option and therefore choosing hell, whatever that is.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

Ah, the classic debate between free will and predestination.

The debate itself is actually Christian, and is the primary cause of most of the rifts in Christianity. My advice would be not to try and argue with her about it, because it is pretty pointless. Just point out to her that even with predestination she still has to work on her relationship with her parents. Remind her that that is the first commandment with a blessing, and let her make her own decisions.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

IMO, its an ever-present "difference of opinion" among Christians, which stems from literal interpretation of some passages in the Bible. My experience has been that it is the crutch of the religious and/or intellectually weak, and is most often espoused by those who equate being a good church member, or memorizing the Bible, with being a good Christian.

I agree with the tenant on some levels (that there are moments in our life which God determines, there are possible outcomes that God presents to us, etc...) but I disagree at the most basic level in that I believe we have free will and choice, and it is our choices that God judges. I think the large majority of Christians share this same view, but I also believe literal predestination is and always will be a debated and contentious element of Christianity.

Be fair, there are those who are just as adamant about free will in the debate. I can easily support either position using scripture, so both sides have strong adherents.

 

[syrenn]

Are there different views? I had an uncomfortable conversation at a funeral yesterday with a friend who left the Catholic church about a year ago and joined a Presbyterian Church. No biggie, except her mother got upset and they haven't spoken since.

She belongs to a Bible Study group and they told her that the rift between her mother and her, was "all part of God's plan". I told her that's rubbish, and she needs to make amends with her mom who is all alone. She said everything is predestined and she cannot change the course of events. Being the outspoken person that I am I told her "maybe it was God's plan that we met in this church on this day and I was sent to tell her that her Bible friends were giving her bad advice". She said she'd have to think about that one.

Is this a precept of the Presbyterian church? Is it part of Christian thinking? Forgive me for my ignorance. I was raised Catholic.

Mom is probably pissed that she is going to have to explain why her daughter left the church when she arrives at the pearly gates.

What does any of it matter? Life happens and then you die. The best way to get along with people is to not argue about religion and what they believe. If mom wants to be pissed fine. Her loss.

My advice is to stay out of the middle.