Religious "Friend"

Well no WONDER she is not talking to you! Just look at the first line of that paper...

If this person is a friend, part of the deal in that is respecting her beliefs. Not handing her something that is very offensive and expecting her to just...take it. Im not going to go into what that paper you have says, because i would be here all day arguing about it.
I can tell you don't believe in the bible, and I do believe in the bible. So the respectful thing to do is agree to disagree and stay away from topics that will end in banging our heads together, because no one can win a fight like that.

If someone came up to you and started to push their religion on you, telling you things like "accept god or you will burn in hell", I would not expect you to just take it. This is the same thing. She obviously does not want to sit there and take you blasting her religion.

If she is a friend, and you do want to remain that way, then an apology is definitely in order. You might want to ask her if you can stay friends, but just agree to disagree on this topic. Maybe try telling her you believe strongly in what you do and you don't want her pushing religion on you and in return you wont push her away from hers? That seems fair to me.

 

Haha, sounds like you threw her for a little bit of a loop. If I can offer a piece of advice, don't be so sure in your faith that you feel the need to shake the faith of others. When it comes to religion / philosophy, I tend to be more of a deist, but that does not mean that I am right and others are wrong.

The fact is that none of us know the answer to the "big" questions out there. Why are we here? Is my soul really special or am I just a collection of atoms in an evolutionary coincidence? What happens when we die? These are all questions that people far smarter than you or I have attempted and failed to answer. Be spiritually curious. There is a lot for us all to learn out there.

The only people who I am particularly wary of are the ones who claim to know the answers to those "big" questions. I have visited or worked all over the world. I have friends from a "rainbow" of faiths. One thing that I have found to be true is that we all want love, acceptance, and to provide for those we care about. Religion, in extremes on any end of the spectrum, stands in the way of that.

One thing I am pretty certain about though... with all the love, pain, joy, life, death, war, sickness, fun, hunger, evil, and goodness in this world... I am pretty certain God doesn't care who we sleep with. Shy of that, who the hell knows?

 

I completely agree with Greg ^

 

I also agree with Greg. If you want someone to respect your beliefs, openly disrespecting theirs is not going to help at all. If the shoe was on the other foot and she'd been dissing your beliefs you'd be pretty offended, so why on earth would you expect her to not feel the same way? Respect goes both ways. I'm not religious but I have my beliefs, and this kind of situation is why I don't share them with anyone - I'm not using my beliefs to hurt anyone, and I don't want people insulting them or me because they don't share them.

 

^ wow I wish someone told me that going into my GCSE's cus there's no way I'm gonna remember it all, but yeah, try not to be so closed minded about creation and philosophy, the 6 days thing, most people believe was just a metaphor anyway and it does say in the bible that time works differently for god, so 6 days for him might be billions of billions of billions of years for us in this universe. Just something for you to think about and Good luck with her too, you're gonna need it

 

to me it doesn't seem like he was pushing her away from her religion but more like he was trying to explain to her why he doesn't believe in god. if she asks him, what his beliefs are, and he says none, she wants it explained, then what's wrong with telling her why he doesn't think that the bible is true and god exists...?
i bet if she had told him why she does believe in god, people would never say it was offensiv of her and she wasn't respecting his "atheist beliefs"...
i always get the feeling people who talk about why they DON'T believe in god are marked as ignorant, disrespectful, close mindet people but people who DO believe and also talk about it, are not.-which seems unfair to me

 

Of course people have all different types of beliefs just like if someone said they were Pagan or Christian, Jewish, Atheist or in your case Realist..any and all beliefs fall into this catagory.. and they should all be respected whether they are yours or not .. she walked away because she wasn't expecting to get an answer that contradicted what she was asking..many people who have a belief are like that..they normally cant accept any other answer than the one they were raised to expect. Simply just appologise if it offended her in any way and explain that you have your beliefs and she has hers..everyone is entitled to their own.

 

This.

 

Frankly, anyone who considers Christians and Catholics to be two separate entities would have a hard time convincing me of much in way of religion, anyway.

Lex

 

No reason to appologise.. just sit back and have a good laugh..if she's trying to convert you, and you are set in your ways..you are the real victor today :icon_wink Grats!

 

OK, maybe it wasn't just a casual question from her point of view, but it's still better to avoid a screed. I'm an atheist myself, probably most of my friends would be actually, but I have a few good Catholic friends. If you're questioned about it, it's probably just better to say, It just doesn't make sense for me.

The one thing you should remember is that many practising Christians don't take a literalist view, so they'd ignore any criticism based on a refutation of creationism, thinking that you don't really understand them.

I read a good book recently, 50 Reasons People Give for Believing in God, by Guy Harrison. If you can get a hand on it, it gives good answers in a calm reasoned fashion to the various questions believers pose to atheists.

 

Thats what you think, thats what YOU think. Simple as. Sure you might of laid it on bit thick but meh. She asked, she got! Of course certain situations you have to hi=old your tongue but really this wasn't one of them. Tbh what she said you you was just as bad as what you said to her. Win some, loose a lot.

 

Well, like i said in my first post, respect goes both ways. She should not push her religion on you, and you should not push her away from hers.

She clearly wants to push hers on you. And you should not have to take that. Its your turn to just walk away.

 

I personally don't see the difference (in terms of respect or lack thereof) between making the assertion that christianity is not real to a christian and making the assertion that christianity IS real to a non christian.

I really don't buy into the whole disrespect thing Greggers and Surferdude said. So long as you put forth your view in a polite way, imo the disrespect is non-existent.

 

It seems like she is just getting really defensive because you called something she holds to be very important in her life made up and not real.

You said, "The difference between evolution and Creationism is that evolution is real and Creationism is not real." You probably could have phrased it better saying something like "I think evolution is real and creationism isn't". You didn't make it seem like you were open minded enough to listen to what she had to say.

Just from what you wrote it seems like you both have the exact same attitude except that her views are 10x more important to her than your atheism is to you (and your views don't end up with her in hell). Both of you could stand to be a little more open-minded because she is taking a very narrow view of Christianity and your anti-religion argument is quite logically flawed.