I've always thought that it's important to understand that we have fundamentally the same human experiences. People of different faiths and people of no faith all love, laugh, and mourn. I can feel transcendent, part of something greater, while walking in the woods -- but I ascribe it to wonder at nature, rather than wonder at God.

Erik's mom (D) is a staunch catholic, but she's loosened up a lot and is able to accept people of other faiths and be quite open-minded. So, one morning while I was visiting, D started a discussion about spirituality. She'd knew I wasn't church-going, and she was being very non-judgemental and understanding of that, and different beliefs/spirituality in general. I thought it was awesome -- look, we CAN talk! Further transcript follows:

S: "We have lots of common experiences, even if the meaning we ascribe to them differs."
D: "Exactly!"
S: "So even though I'm an atheist..."
D: "No you're not."
S: *total surprise* "Excuse me?"
D: You're not an atheist. You're too caring and creative."

Apparently being open-minded about faith didn't extend to being open-minded about lack of faith. I didn't fit her baby-eater emotionless-robot mental image, so she flat out refused to believe me about what was in my own head.

In fact, she immediately tried to play weird semantic games to try and trick me into somehow admitting that I did believe ("Well, you must believe in God, because if you don't believe in god how do you know what you don't believe in?" or something like that). It was rather like someone explaining to you that you were wrong about your favorite color.

Unsettling, to say the least.