Feeling forced to mourn in other people's ways.

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WARNING : Posted by an atheists with not too kind words about organized religion. If you are deeply religious and offended by people like me, you might want to skip this post.

My mom passed away January 1st this year. I'm doing fine though, I'm not looking for sympathy here.

Her birthday is July 15th, so the family is coming together the Sunday before (13th, next week) to remember her. When my stepfather told me about this, he said that the Church mass is at a certain time in the morning (don't remember exactly what time), clearly expecting that I would go to church with them.

I'm an atheist however. I don't have anything against spirituality by itself, but I do have a major problem with organized religion, and especially the catholic church, which is the dominant religion in my country.
In my eyes, the catholic church is the biggest disease in human history. There has never been a more perverse abuse of power. I'm not looking for a religious debate here either though.

I still go to church for weddings, funerals and and baptisms, but that's it. The church mass that day is not for her, it will just be a quick, 30 second remembrance. But having to sit through all the rest of that religious (in my mind) BS makes me pissed.
I feel that my memory of my mother gets insulted when they bring in this religious stuff.
I always feel like I am being forced to mourn their way, believe in what they believe. That I'm not allowed to honour her and remember her my way.

I want to bring this up with my family, but I'm about 99% sure they will see it as disrespectful that I don't want to go to church. The way I see it is that it's disrespectful of them to try to force me to do go to church, which is also what I'm about 99% sure of is going to happen.

Does anyone have any advice?

I find church services boring and pointless at best. At the funeral for one of my grandmothers, the pastor read from a generic one size fits all service. He's never met her and didn't have anything useful to say. But at the funeral for my father's father, although it was at a church and organized by a born again christian, it was a respectful look back on his life and who he was as an individual.

What you describe doesn't sound like much of an honoring of your mother. It may be pointless to you, but perhaps it may be valuable to others in your family. Perhaps the mention of your mother isn't terribly important in terms of a public recognition of her, but it may be the focal point that others use to come together to personally share stories and recognize her in their own way.

My advice is for you to go along with it. I'm an atheist myself and have no love of organized (or disorganized) religion, but it think it is important that you don't make this about your dislike for the church. I think you need to focus on what is important; the love and respect you have for your mother. The church service isn't your cup of tea, but it might make others in your family happy. This should be an opportunity for your family to remember your mother, not an opportunity for you to advertise your dislike of the church.

Of course the church will say you should think the way they want you to think. Ignore all that. You'll think and feel your own way regardless of what the church tells you to think and feel. I think your mother's memory could only be insulted if the church actually was able to change the way you think about her. So long as you remember her in your own way, there is no insult.

Let your family remember her in their way and you should remember her in your way.

I have a horrible grieving process.

Have lost tons of people in my life, but I only cry if it was somebody I treated bad.

The worst experience was recently when my maternal grandfather died. I felt like laughing for no reason at the service and I had trouble controlling it.

I actually buried my face in my mom's shoulder for most of the time so people couldn't see me trying not to laugh.

My doctor said I shouldn't be ashamed because I tend to get mixed up and laugh when upset but I felt horrible about it. I actually had to hone in on my acting skills and pretend that it was someone else or that we were closer or something.

The Church is appalling and as far as I can make out its only use in the last 1500 years has been as a patron of the arts. However. I agree with jagatai -- this isn't about your faith, it's about helping the other people in your family mourn. This is how they do it and how they pay your mother respects. At this mass you are not called on to consider the words of the service and their meaning; you're there to support these people.

If I were you I'd find the most understanding member of your family, who likely also has very good relationships with others in your family, and explain the problem. Say you want to go and to be there for the family, but that you have very strong feelings about this, are not a believer, and do not want to say the words. My guess is that if you simply go along, do the pew dance, move your lips a bit, and keep your head bent respectfully you can make whatever faces you like and they'll be interpreted as grief. Just don't scowl at people. If there's Communion, just eat the cracker, it's a cracker, it doesn't have to transubstantiate in your mouth and fight with you. (Sorry, I don't know what goes on at masses.)

I'm a Jew, btw, and I'd be shocked if more than 3/4 of the people in synagogues on Saturday mornings actually had a morsel of belief in the bloody our-fraternity's-best prayers they're singing. They do it because they're Jews, not because they believe, and certainly not because they belive *that*. It's got slightly less meaning than the bit with the bagels afterwards.