How do you get along with friends who are religious? Living in Sweden, having atheist, apatheist or vaguely-there's-probably-something-bigger-than-us deisty types as friends is pretty much the norm outside of the churches and mosques. Thus, I can only number three people among my friends who are religious (xian). We get along quite well, all things considered, mostly because they aren't preachy types. One is a socialist, single mother with an adopted daughter who gets a secular upbringing. Another is a Catholic married to an atheist, and she's pretty ecumenical (she didn't like the local kafflicks when she moved here, so she's active in a protestant church!). The third is an old friend who once thought of converting to kafflickism, but thought better of it. She's a church-goer, but doesn't bring up the matter. All in all, they are people I love and respect, and who don't seem bothered with my rather vocal atheism. Hell, I'm the preachy one! There are a few more acquaintances who are xian (including a couple of priests), but who I haven't seen in a long time. So, how do you cope with religious friends?

Most of my friends who were religious are no longer friends. In junior high, I had parted ways with a few of them. The bullshit about not having sex until you're married (including masturbation), the need to save me, etc. got to be overbearing.

Since then, I had befriended people who were varying levels of religious lite, and have had minimal problems with them. What I get mostly is the request not to talk about my stance on religion in front of them... but even that was rare.

I don't have any, I think. I had a sort of skirmish with the one I did have a month or so ago when she took offense to something I'd copied into my blog- humorous mock ups of standard arguments for the existence of god that someone had posted at RDF.

I had to get a little tough on her and haven't heard from her in awhile, even though we did "make up" whatever that means. I think the damage is done, she permanently has it in the back of her mind that I think she's stupid, and as a result of how she conducted herself I have lost some respect for her. So maybe that was all going to happen sooner or later. I don't know.

I doubt I will have many religious friends from here on out.

The trick is to avoid directly confronting them about their beliefs. I find I can talk in general about atheism and religion with them, and we can have a good old laugh together at the fundies' expense, but it is when I ask them why they believe in god that things start to get tense.

None of my friends are particularly religious. Although some are quite woefully woeful and we tend to fall out over pseudoscience and other bullshit (like anti-vax and homeopathy) rather then anything to do with religion.

Still I suppose a battle of reason versus nonsense but on a more local, human, scale. No need for sky faeries!

I'm pretty sure that all but one of my local friends are theists. None of them ever really talks about religion, so it's hard to tell for sure. One couple is definitely the "you'll be in our prayers" type, if they hear about something going wrong. Another couple is definitely christian... the guy hangs a silver crucifix from the rear view mirror of his car, and he reaches out and touches it, like some kind of talisman, every time he gets in the car... but he doesn't celebrate, or even like, any of the christian holidays. The talisman thing bothers me a little whenever I see it, but each to his own.

I doubt that any of them know that I'm an atheist, and if they do know, they don't say anything about it. I don't talk about it. If one of them asked, I wouldn't lie about it, but I am of the opinion that my circle of friends would diminish if I made it public knowledge.

I have quite a few theist friends. For some reason, they never want to discuss religion with me. Don't know why that is...

I am pretty much surrounded by Christians in my life. For the past 26 years, I have been married to a man I met in college when we were both a part of a Christian Fellowship group called the Navigators. At the time, we were both evangelical Christians, and "loving and serving God" was the most important thing in the world to us. Several years into our marriage, I began to study the Bible in earnest for the very first time, beginning with the book of Genesis. This brought on all kinds of questions for me as I found it difficult to reconcile a God of love with the violent and cruel God portrayed in the Old Testament. At the time, I innocently took my questions to all of our Christians friends, to my husband, and to our pastor. To my surprise, my questions were met with anger, hostility, rebukes, and eventually--silence.

I remember the first time I asked my husband, very innocently, how Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God could all be one and the same, and his response was a horrified, "That's blasphemy!"

I remember talking with a very close Christian friend about my questions, and she said, "Riley, you can take my faith away from me if you want to, but if you do, I'll have nothing to live for." I remember how shocked I was by that response. I wasn't trying to take her faith away from her, I was trying desperately to find a way to hold onto my own faith.

As the years went by, I learned to keep my questions to myself. My husband and I came to a compromise of sorts--he could raise our three young children as Christians and in return, he wouldn't expect me to go to church, Bible study, etc., with him, nor would he try to convert me in any way. While it seemed like a good idea at the time--it was the only compromise that he would agree to--I now realize that it was a huge mistake. Although my husband (who I have been married to for the past 26 years) has been a wonderful husband and father to our children in so many ways, he also made it clear that any thoughts I had about Christianity, the existence of God, etc., were unwelcome in our home. He made it clear that he was what he called "the spiritual leader," and when it came to raising our children, my thoughts and perspectives were not to be aired in any way.

Now our children are basically grown. They are all rather liberal Christians, and they are wonderfully loving, kind people. Even so, to this day, all discussion involving anything to do with Christianity is avoided. While I know my children love me very much, I also get the feeling that in their eyes, I am spiritually corrupt. This was the message that I feel my husband communicated to them as they were growing up, and it was a message I allowed to be communicated about myself. The result is that I now find myself feeling somewhat alienated.

As a result of my experiences, I have slowly pulled away from all of our Christian friends. Actually, it was a kind of mutual pulling away. Looking back on it, I think that my Christian friends found my loss of faith a bit frightening. They had always known me as a very strong Christian. Together with my husband, I had taught Children's Church, been a Sunday School teacher, led an adult Bible Study, and been involved in any number of outreach programs through our church. I got the feeling that they felt that if I could lose my faith, then maybe they could, too.

Obviously, I don't hate Christians at all. My children are Christians, and I love them dearly. My husband is a Christian, and in spite of the mistakes I feel he has made, I love him as well. Even so, when it comes to actually discussing Christianity with Christians, my own experience is that it is very often an exercise in futility. It's difficult to reason with a person who didn't reason himself into a certain viewpoint.

As far as being friends with Chrisitans, I don't know if it can really be done. I think you can be friendly with them without being close friends. Maybe I'm wrong, but if a person believes that you should in fact be eternally tormented in hell for failing to believe as they do--is genuine friendship really possible?

endless psych wrote:None of my friends are particularly religious. Although some are quite woefully woeful and we tend to fall out over pseudoscience and other bullshit (like anti-vax and homeopathy) rather then anything to do with religion.

Same here, none of who I would call 'friends' are religious as far as I know- maybe a few boarder line doubtful ones but even that is only an assumption rather than having been told it by any of them. My partner, however, has some friends who are fiercely religious and I make it very clear that I don't wish to mingle with them. Especially the ones that are not only religious, but catholic and gay (!) at the same time. As a gay man myself, I can only scratch my head at such insanity

Where I do, however, regularly cause confrontation with some of my friends is all that new age esoteric quackery stuff that some of them 'believe' in regardless of not believing in (a) god. Besides that, most of my atheist friends are what I like to call 'fluffy atheists' who behave like the lamb that presents itself to its slaughterer and argue in favor of the oh so tolerant theists around them who apparently all 'don't take the bible literally'.

And the ensuing talk like "You are the preaching one here!" or "The only one radical, is you!" is what really makes me really ANGRY

Riley Stone wrote:

As far as being friends with Chrisitans, I don't know if it can really be done. I think you can be friendly with them without being close friends. Maybe I'm wrong, but if a person believes that you should in fact be eternally tormented in hell for failing to believe as they do--is genuine friendship really possible?

Oh, yes, as long as that isn't what is on your mind every time you are with them. And not all theists believe you are going to hell or that there is a hell. Are you not friends with your children? I know you love them, do you do things with them, have fun with them? If you meet a person you like in every way who happens to be religious but non judgemental, run with it.

We are a very mixed family and religion is never discussed for the most part. We have our disagreements over earthy matters at times so why bring religion in it too? But we are also a very fun loving family with lots of fun things in common.

I think when a person leaves a very strong fundamentalist faith, there is healing and during that healing period, yes, it is hard to be around someone who had similar strong faith. I give you credit for being able to maintain a loving relationship with your hubby.

I came from a very devout Catholic background when I left all organized religions. In my case it was hard to be around a devout Catholic if religion was brought up but not hard to be around any other religion. I just didn't talk religion with the Catholics (most of our relatives) and living quite a distance from all of them helped keep it from being in my face very often. Once I became strong in my own point of view, I became absolutely comfortable being around Catholics.

SpiritualNotReligius wrote:
And not all theists believe you are going to hell or that there is a hell.

That's true. I should have specified "fundamentalist Christians."

SpiritualNotReligius wrote:

Are you not friends with your children?

Yes, of course I am. However, at this point in their development, my children lean toward universalism. I may have allowed my husband to raise them as Christians, but my influence wasn't entirely lost. Basically, they're all three heretics extraordinaire, which is kind of nice.

SpiritualNotReligius wrote:

We are a very mixed family and religion is never discussed for the most part. We have our disagreements over earthy matters at times so why bring religion in it too? But we are also a very fun loving family with lots of fun things in common.

That's pretty much how it is in our family as well. I don't have any hard feelings whatsoever toward my children regarding their belief systems, and they certainly treat me with great love, kindness, and respect, so I have no complaints in that department.

What I was getting at, mainly, was the superior attitude of a fundamentalist Christian who thinks that a non-Christian is hellbound. The reason I don't think friendship with that kind of person would be possible for me is because I don't think I could be friends with a person who believed he was superior to me. When it comes right down to it, that is what the fundamentalist Christian believes. Either he believes that God gave him the gift of faith (while not giving that same "gift" to you) or he believes that he was "wise" enough to have faith while you are basically a fool, a fool who should be eternally tormented. I suppose it would be possible to be friends with that sort of person if one viewed them as entirely delusional or ignorant, but in that case, I would be thinking that I was the superior one and I doubt that I would make a good friend.

I don't know . . . what do you think?

Any atheist that has theistic friends deserve a gold star for being able to tolerate bullshit.

I couldn't do it. None of my friends are theists.

Valden wrote:Any atheist that has theistic friends deserve a gold star for being able to tolerate bullshit.

I couldn't do it. None of my friends are theists.

I can tolerate the bullshit as long as they're not using the bullshit to try and degrade me. Recently, for example, I was talking with an online Christian who knows almost nothing about me personally who concluded right off the bat that I was never really a Christian to begin with or that I am still a Christian who is so ashamed of my loss of faith that I go online and "twist" the words of Christians in order to make myself feel better. Or something like that. He then told me that my beliefs would fail me---even if it isn't until my death.

This is the kind of bullshit that I can't tolerate. Even if the other person thinks that they're saying something like this to you "in love," what they're really doing is being abusive toward you in the name of what THEY call "love." When you think about it, fundamentalist Christians actually believe that a "perfectly loving God" should eternally torment people for either failing to believe or being unable to believe that he exists. This really is their definition of "love." If a person is capable of thinking that this is love, I can only imagine what kind kind of abuse they would be capable of in real life, thinking all the while that their abusive behavior was actually love. I could never be friends with someone who honestly believed that cruel, abusive behavior was love, and this is why I could never be friends with a fundamentalist Christian.

Come to think of it, I don't even know if many of my friends are theists or not. Guess that speaks for itself.

Thank you, Riley, for sharing your personal story.

What works for someone doesn't necessarily work for others.

Riley Stone wrote:

What I was getting at, mainly, was the superior attitude of a fundamentalist Christian who thinks that a non-Christian is hellbound. The reason I don't think friendship with that kind of person would be possible for me is because I don't think I could be friends with a person who believed he was superior to me. When it comes right down to it, that is what the fundamentalist Christian believes. Either he believes that God gave him the gift of faith (while not giving that same "gift" to you) or he believes that he was "wise" enough to have faith while you are basically a fool, a fool who should be eternally tormented. I suppose it would be possible to be friends with that sort of person if one viewed them as entirely delusional or ignorant, but in that case, I would be thinking that I was the superior one and I doubt that I would make a good friend.

I don't know . . . what do you think?

I figured you meant fundamentalist but I wanted you to say it

I agree that it would be hard to be close friends with a fundamentalist if they are the kind where religion is a very important part of their conversation. Otherwise it is as I said, focusing on the common fun things. Even fundamentalists fall into different personality branches. The online fundies are the most likely to tell you the negative things that you are speaking. And you may even have been one yourself when you were devout and use that as a basis of your evaluation? I am a strong believer in innocent until proved guilty when it comes to crimes and when it comes to friendships. Deep friendships just happen as far as I am concerned. Sure we develop them but it is because so much of us comes together. I don't hold believers in hell against them because I'm so glad that I don't believe in it. And to me it is just a belief and unless they deliver it with a na na na na na na, it is easily ignored because I understand where they are coming from.

I agree on the superiority but it is more than likely a mutual happening when it comes to many online atheists. Many think they are superior because they used "reason" to see through the dogma. Generally a friendship isn't going to develop if there is superiority on either side. Cause friends mean equal

99% of the people I know personally are theists and they range from very devout to very liberal. While we never discuss religion my evaluations are made based on their outer activities or their decorating. You know, wall hangings, pictures and so on.

I like people. If I want to argue religion, I can get on a forum. Otherwise I'm a firm believer in staying away from politics and religion in real life most of the time.

I have a few religious friends, mostly Christians, and 1 Muslim, rest are agnostic or atheist. It doesn't really affect our friendships often, generally it just never comes up, though I've gotten into some quite heated debates with one of the Christians over whether homosexuality is a choice, it's rather strange as she's so willing to read up on scientific studies around evolution but refuses to even look at the cover of any that suggest homosexuality isn't a 'lifestyle' choice. But really it just doesn't affect us, we became friends because of the things we had in common, not because of the things we didn't.

Myself I do not have any problems whatsoever ! You see, I do not have any friends at all

What it boils down to appears to whether the religious people are fundamentalists. As in any relationship or society, there's give-and-take, live-and-let-live. Those turning themselves into fanatics will find the rest of the world increasingly intolerable. The theists that want to see their religion survive are best adviced to allow for some, well, evolution.

Valden wrote:Any atheist that has theistic friends deserve a gold star for being able to tolerate bullshit.

I couldn't do it. None of my friends are theists.

I'll have to remember to give all my friends one of those stars. Just about all of them are atheists.

Varangian wrote:What it boils down to appears to whether the religious people are fundamentalists.

Agreed, though I have no problem getting on even with hardline evangelicals. They just avoid talking about it. That may be an English thing, the old habit of "not making a fuss". Conflicts with the whole evangelism part, but there you go.