(July 16, 2013 at 10:56 pm)pineapplebunnybounce Wrote: So my question to you all (theists and atheists alike), is this: do you mind if your friends have religious practices that inconveniences you? do you find it slightly less convenient to be around theists (theists: of your own religion, and of other religions)? if you were in my shoes, what would you have done and would you mind?
That isn't something I can give a blanket answer to, because it depends on a number of factors.
I put up with all kinds of inconveniences from certain family members because I love them and care about them. I have no doubt that they do the same for me, even knowing that I don't believe in god. My older sister and her daughter pepper Facebook with religious-themed pap, but they're both awesome people and I have no desire to cause them any grief over it.
I have a relatively few close friends, the sort of people who are not (or would not be) fazed by my lack of belief. The sort of people who'd go through a wall for me, knowing I'd do the same. I'm willing to inconvenience myself for them because I know they'd do the same for me. Among the religious ones I wouldn't ask them to compromise their beliefs for my sake; they're good people and I'm not going to lay something like that on the conscience of someone who has been so good to me.
Everyone else... it depends. I'm generally a pretty accommodating person and willing to respect other people, occasionally even when they don't return the courtesy. But there's a line there somewhere, where I'd make it clear that whatever they're demanding isn't going to happen because being a nice person doesn't give others a license to be a fuckwad in return. Unless you allow it, anyway.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould