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As an agnostic I was faced by a difficult decision recently, usually people never ask my religion (lack of), but a week hence I was in a friend's grandparents house and it came up.
I claimed presbyterian (parent's religion). It was probably a good choice to keep the peace, and would have no doubt lead to more questions if I answered truthfully, so it saved a lot of grief. I live in Texas in a town with a very large proportion of baptists.
Have any of you ever claimed a religion to avoid conflict?
Nope, i would be lying to myself and them. If i lie, it will make me weak, i can't allow to let myself to lower myself and please someone by simply lying to them.
Yep! Once when a particularly ardent pair of religious folk arrived on my doorstep to share their rapture with me and were ignoring all my polite but firm comments that I wasn't interested I eventually stated that we all worship Satan just so I could close the door.
Seemingly that got the message across much better than repeatedly stating I am an athiest. They packed up fairly quickly after that and scurred away looking deeply perturbed. They've not been back.
It's a shame what you have to resort to sometimes.
My Mom is a devout Christian and I absolutely have no regrets lying to her about my non-belief. She's old and likely to die within the next 5 to 10 years and I feel no shame in lying to her as long as it gives her comfort. If she knew I was atheist/agnostic, it would break her heart and I refuse to cause her pain. It's a small sacrifice that I'm willing to make for the woman who gave me life.
Everyone else can bite me if they don't like my views.
Sometimes when a telemarketer calls my home, I'll pick a belief system at random and tell them for example "sorry I'm a fundamental universalist hindu".
Absolutely not. People accept me for who I am or not at all.
If a Christian(or any other religion) cannot deal with me being an Atheist then quite frankly I want nothing to do with them.
People are human beings first and foremost. If my Atheism is so distasteful for some then I guess we are not meant to ever be friends or associate socially. I would expect tolerance from a religious person .
Lying about those things to me seems really pointless and let's face it eventually people will find out.
I do not court conflict and confrontation but if that is what someone really wants then bring it on !
As an agnostic I was faced by a difficult decision recently, usually people never ask my religion (lack of), but a week hence I was in a friend's grandparents house and it came up.
I claimed presbyterian (parent's religion). It was probably a good choice to keep the peace, and would have no doubt lead to more questions if I answered truthfully, so it saved a lot of grief. I live in Texas in a town with a very large proportion of baptists.
Have any of you ever claimed a religion to avoid conflict?
no, I pretty much have always just been honest. I like to show religious folks that some godless heathen can actually be a good guy...
I haven't lied about it since I was a minor. At that point I pretty much had to, or I'd have been physically abused because of it. Once I turned 18 and left my parents' house, I never claimed to be anything other than what I am. If someone doesn't like it, they can choke on it.
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