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As an atheist, I'm friends with many different religious people, Christians, Muslims, pagans, agnostics, even a few Evangelicals. It's never been a bane to any of my friendships, I've even gotten some pretty interesting debates out of it.
I'd like to think they can. I'm an atheist and I grew up in the Bible Belt. I have conservative Christian friends who are fully aware of my atheism and we're still close, though I do not live down there anymore.
Any atheists willing to extend the olive branch and befriend a Christian? An evangelical, even? Any Christians willing to admit that atheists are not fire-breathing demons and are actually decent people worthy of friendship? Or am I crazy?
Christians and Atheists are going to be best friends in the not too distant future in Europe and the rest of the western world. A new civil unrest and possible war will start in Europe in the next 20 years. You'll be thinking about this post when it does.
Funny, how in the city-data subforum for Atheism, we all pretty much get along and agree and just share with each other interesting things that we found, etc, but in the Christian subforum, they seem to be arguing quite often about what scriptures mean, who really has a relationship with Christ, and whether universalism is right. They don't argue in every thread, but most.
Christians getting along with non-Christians? It seems many can't get along with other Christians. At least the Protestants and Catholics aren't killing each other in wars anymore.
This was my first thought as well. Part of the fun of turning subjective personal opinion into absolute truth via faith is that everyone can do it. Too bad it creates all sorts of incompatible "absolute" truths to fight over.
Fix that and there would be a much better chance of people getting along.
In general, perhaps, but none of you are smarter than me.
Thanks for making me laugh out loud today.
I have friends and relatives too who are theists of various kinds. Occasionally we discuss this, that or religion and, when it gets to 'Well, I don't care what you say, I still believe it' it can be amicably left on the shelf.
It isn't personal. The debate is not for individuals but worldview. A general acceptance of the logical, rational and evidential superiority of the non - theist view is going to do more than years spent debating individual theists.
I have friends and relatives too who are theists of various kinds. Occasionally we discuss this, that or religion and, when it gets to 'Well, I don't care what you say, I still believe it' it can be amicably left on the shelf.
It isn't personal. The debate is not for individuals but worldview. A general acceptance of the logical, rational and evidential superiority of the non - theist view is going to do more than years spent debating individual theists.
When intelligence is actually measurable numerically, your discussion of "world views" doesn't affect the scores.
I think areas of discussion about religion are going to flame things up more than normal. I think there are atheists I can barely stand here, and who likely can barely stand me, but I may get along with them okay at Music or whatever. In life most people are not going to spend that much time talking their religion or their atheism to people who don't share those things.
In life I talk about history or TV or music or what have you with people. Or shared experiences or whatever. So I've gotten along with people of radically different viewpoints from each other and from myself. Including Marxists, or people I'm pretty sure were Marxists. There's a Trotskiyite on another board I get along with okay. Getting back to the subject some of my favorite authors and professors were atheists of various kinds. (I don't want to make atheists sound Left-leaning I think it's more that I don't tend to like Right-wing atheists that much as they tend to be overly libertarian or obsessed with national defense. Although I do like some Neal Asher stories okay and he's a pretty Right-wing British atheist, I think he said Cameron's too moderate for him.) However I admit we're not usually discussing our religion or irreligion or economic philosophies with each other. If we were in a situation where that's all we discussed things might be tenser between us.
In life most people are not going to spend that much time talking their religion or their atheism to people who don't share those things.
I find religious people tend to bail out of religion related conversations with non-religious people. Atheists would love to discuss it. Atheists don't seem to shy away. But as soon as a spiritual/belief/faith/religion discussion gets rational and objective, the religious people usually can't say much more than what they've rote memorized in church. They politely change the subject to the weather or something. They seem to be afraid of being challenged - and really afraid if their kids hear the challenge.
It doesn't come up much among my non-religious friends, and when it does, we are usually both mature enough to end the discussion when it get inflammatory. The situation is the same with a fundamentalist friend I have. Religion does come up, and I guess there's some tension as I'm a Catholic and he's definitely not, but we're not going to argue about it.
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