Religious Differences Among Family

This is a post and run because I have a client in a few minutes... but I will be back later to read and respond and all that jazz.

How do you deal with religious/spiritual differences among family and loved ones?... Like if you were raised one way, but believe something else now. My mom is beginning to see that I have some different opinions. I know she will flip her lid when she discovers just how different my beliefs are and I am legitamately concerned that she will have some kind of intervention or "exorcism" or something. I may be overreacting but I don't know how to do deal with it... or I do know and it is just scary to think about.

I don't tell my dad I don't believe in God. I don't want to break his heart...

Honestly, I keep my mouth shut because all of SO's family & mine are strong christians, he's agnostic & I'm pagan. If either side knew, we'd both be drenched with holy water & tied down to be exorcised

I'm Atheist, SO's family is Mormon (he calls himself a non-practicing Mormon since he doesn't go to church and follow a lot of "rules"). The first time his mother tried to have a religious conversation with me I basically said flat out to her "I understand how you feel and why you feel that way, but to be honest I'm an Atheist. I don't feel that way, I probably never will feel that way and if you can respect my beliefs I am more than willing to accept yours." She was not very happy but we have since come to an understanding. She gets that I don't believe as she does and that she isn't going to change my mind. When she talks about stuff in their church I listen respectfully and when I don't understand something I ask her to explain. Just be honest and eventually she will get over it.

I refuse to talk about religion or controversial subjects with one of my sisters because she has some strong (and ignorant IMO) views. For example she's the type that believes that a woman that has an abortion after a rape is a terrible person because "its not the babies fault she was raped" and believes if someone is gay that that is fine but that they shouldn't have the right to be with someone of the same sex and should just never have any sort of romantic relationship because the bible says its wrong.

I grew up going to a MASSIVE church in San Antonio. Like 3x a week.
As of age 13 none of it made sense and I refused to go.
My dad is the only one who made a fuss and I pretty much had to be a bitch and tell him to mind his own business. No offense to anyone, but all the religious people I know are so inconsiderate and pushy and think they can change my mind.

I was raised Catholic, now I'm an Atheist. My mom just ignores that little fact and yells at me if I 'take The Lord's name in vain' or speak against religion. She hopes that one day I can become religious again. Nope, I'm good.

I thought my mom would react that way when I told her I am an agnostic/atheist, but she didn't. She did how ever refuse to talk to me for over a year. In the last year she has finally excepted me and we have began to rebuild our relationship. Its completely different because she still lets her ignorant beliefs get in the way but I wouldnt change not "coming out to her". I had to be honest.
Its been worse though coming out to DHs family than my own.

My mother and the rest of my family are lapsed Catholics.
My In-Laws are super Catholics and all of my husband's 7 siblings believe in the Church in a variety of degrees.

My husband is Athiest, I am Pagan, my daughter is Buddhist.

Needless to say, we don't discuss religion a lot with my in-laws.

Everyone prays for me, feels sorry for my kids, and tries to guilt me by telling me that if I believed in god, bad things wouldn't happen. :eyeroll:

we generally skirt the topic.

once in a while i have a good ol' fashioned throw-down w/ those willing, but w/ my mom, she'll start on her "end of days" stuff and i do my best to let her know it's still as ridiculous as it was when i was a kid.

so - b/c it's old hat at this point, we usually just don't go down that road.

used to be that i'd bring it out b/c i wanted to have the confrontation, now that i'm a little older and have a bit less arrogance (just a bit!), i prefer to swallow the reality of how different it is and play nice.

it's boring and painstaking, but it's (apparently) the preferred method for most people.

My mom is hardcore Southern Baptist and I came out last year about being Wiccan. She flipped her smurf. It was/is awful.
She even went so far as to get a lawyer to try to take DD away from me.  

I get told that I'm going to hell and I'm dragging DD with me, I'm a bad mother, she deserves better than this, etc.

Thanks to everyone for their input. I would prefer to just not talk about it at the moment, but she will not relent, I'm afraid. If it comes right down to it, I know what has to be done. I just don't want to hurt any feelings.