: Re: Do I risk losing reader if I put too many religious/anti-religious views? I've been pondering this for a while. Now, I'm not so worried about losing readers than affecting the quality of my

@LarsenBagley300

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That's some overt preaching there! I'd say that, as done, it is detrimental. For one thing, you'll automatically turn off many Western readers, who might decide never to read anything of yours ever again. Human nature.
More importantly, though, the character's (your) line of reasoning is weak. The argument assumes things that not all Christians agree on. Even if the argument's assumptions are all true, then the mother's rejection of Christianity won't help her ancestors. (Indeed, wouldn't they urge her to accept it?)
So you're getting into deep water there: You'll have to carefully explain the mother's beliefs (without unintentionally misrepresenting beliefs that you, the author, disagree with and probably don't want to investigate carefully). Then you'll have to introduce another character for your protagonist to debate, and not just toss up strawmen for your protagonist to shoot down. A well-done debate like that could be interesting, if it were spliced into the story, in short pieces, in a meaningful way that helped drive the story.
Alternatively, you could purposefully leave the son's blithe condemnation of his mother's faith as it is currently written, to show that he is simultaneously arrogant and shallow (even while loving his mother and wanting her to be happy). That's not a bad thing in a protag, provided your story builds on that. Perhaps he grows over time to realize that things aren't so simple, and neither is his mother. Perhaps he suffers for his arrogance and shallowness.
I don't think it is necessarily bad, as a writer, to ask your readers to question their beliefs. But if you venture into that territory in such a blatant manner, you'd better do it well.
To summarize: I doubt that many readers will appreciate this know-it-all young protagonist's facile criticism of a faith that is held by 1/3 of the human race. Especially since one could switch the same argument to many other religions, so now you've just insulted ~70% of humanity.

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