religious friends

[LukeMC]

Bex, I suppose it depends. If a friend of mine was blatently racist, I wouldn't be able to stand by and agree with their hateful speeches about how all black, chinese, polish, swedish, japanese, indian, pakistani, et al people needed to be deported from the country. I'd have to disagree. Same for sexism, same for gay rights. If they've come to ridiculous and potentially harmful conclusions about the world which leave them with a bitter hate in the pit of their hearts, I'd want to turn those beliefs around into somethign which makes consistent sense. All of their little prejudices are probably harmless in private, but when enough of them vote on these grounds it gets messy. If they're trying to pass legislations to makes gay marriage illegal, or deport immigrants, or any other such thing, it gets messy. If they vote for their president or pirmie minister just because they share similarly bigoted views, the more gentle percentage of the population must suffer.

Then there's religion. When somebody tells me they believe the earth was created 6000 years ago by a magical father and all the animals were put here in present form, I have to say "but everybody knows that's not true. The human race is older than that". If they pursue the crazy belief and cannot provide evidence for it, I wonder why on earth they believe it. It's especially bad if their views on gay rights and gender roles are formulated from this religion. It's like they're leading a double life- only one of which is in the real world. We could pursue deep and meaningful conversations, discuss all sorts of issues and try to find a place for ourselves in this universe, but now we have a wall between us. This person is basing his/her views on fantasy stories and things which don't exist. No meaningful conversation can go very far before they start uttering absolute jibba-jibba, and the ludicrousy of this belief drives you insane. Sweet friend of mine, stop talking such insane nonsense :|