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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/AITA_Throwaway_I on 2023-06-21 20:55:16+00:00.

Throwaway because my son is on reddit

My wife and I have six children James-28, Jacob-26, Grace-23, Beth-23, Samuel-21 and Sarah-16. We raised them going to church and they were active in youth group and volunteering. 5 of my children are still Christian while Jake became an atheist at 13.

While this saddened me, I knew not to force our religion on him. After he told us he didn’t believe in God, we had him come to church for a few months until we could work out a plan for him to have him watched while the rest of our family was at church. He said that he was old enough to be left home alone, but we did not agree with that; he almost accidentally burned down our shed a few months prior. Eventually we came to the agreement that he could be left alone, but we had the neighbor keep watch on the house. He resented my wife and me during those two months for bringing him to church and further resented us when he heard the neighbor was keeping tabs. He claimed that forcing him to come to church was “abusive” even though it was only temporary

His resentment grew more due to our financial situation. The kids always had everything they needed and could join any club they wanted, but we did not have the same luxuries others had. We never went on big trips and Christmas and birthday gifts were usually small ~$75. We would give a smaller religious gift to the other children every Christmas and Easter, but he would refuse it. He would argue that we should give him cash instead, and my wife would sometimes because she didn’t like arguing. We also couldn’t afford college funds. The rest of the kids were given large scholarships by the church due to their volunteering, but Jake didn’t since he left 5 years before graduating

Over the last decade, we have been saving up for a pilgrimage to Israel. It has always been a dream for my wife and I to see the holy sites. We announced at Easter that we would pay for everyone’s travels and we’ve all been slowly planning our trip. Jake has constantly been critiquing the trip which makes my wife cry. We’d talk about seeing the Sepulcher and he responds “it couldn’t be the place Jesus was killed and buried”, we’ll talk about going to Bethlehem and he responds, “King David is just a myth”, the final straw was when we were planning to see the walls of Jericho and the baptism site of Christ. He then sent 3 paragraphs about how this entire trip supports an apartheid state and that he’d rather go to Japan

Seeing how ungrateful he was, I canceled his plane ticket and privately texted him that he was uninvited. He has since posted on Facebook calling my wife and I religious fanatics and saying we are treating him poorly because he is an atheist. He has accused us of being flat earthers, Zionists, and anti-Muslim. Our extended family has urged us to re-invite him, but I can’t see how to have an enjoyable trip with him there

Am I the Asshole for uninviting my atheist son from our family trip?