A Dear Friend Falls Victim to the Virus

[FallentoReason]

For those of you who don't know, I play guitar in a band. This is the second band I've been in since my first one, of which I began with a good Christian friend when I was also Christian, got disbanded. My involvement in this second band reflected perfectly my world view; no band member was religious. What's more is that the other guitarist whom I had seen around the place was thinking very similarly to me in terms of world views and attitudes towards god/religion. In short, he became one of my greatest friends in the span of weeks because we were literally the same person with the same interests. That's what you need to know as the background info.

I was at his place yesterday, and we went out to grab something to snack on. I was asking him pretty general questions about how his sound engineering stuff was going and what not, and before I knew it, we got real deep about purpose, suffering and being a good influence in this world. 2 hours later, and his tone had progressively moved to that of a classic Christian. He began to drop classic passive-aggressive lines of how his opinions about life and its meaning entail that he should live out his life in a particular way, while making it practically an objective truth i.e. I'm in the wrong and I'm missing out on blah blah blah according to the Bible.

Towards the end of our discussion, I suddenly felt like the line was being crossed to an extent. Don't get me wrong, this guy's got a heart of gold and he means well, atheist or theist. But I've been in this place of being the prey which needs converting way too many times that I just began to lose it, and I started fighting back by bringing out my philosophical arguments for why Christianity fails. This is why I'm posting about this, because I've got a dilemma (which I knew was going to surface once I realised the path we were heading down):

I really value our friendship, but it's become crystal clear that we don't agree on much anymore in terms of world views. This creates a certain friction which I have already experienced with other exceptionally good Christian friends which I still see. With those Christians though, we can have insightful arguments and it's all well and good at the end of the day. But with my guitarist friend, I fear that he's extremely fragile. Let me explain; he can't account for why people get depressed, amongst other reasons along the lines of experience and consciousness. After the third time of him asserting such an ignorant argument, I had to break it down to him and explain that depressed people are deficient in dopamine, the "feel good" chemical...

Basically, I can tell straight away that his conversion was emotionally driven, seeing as though a third of what we talked about was to do with suffering in the world. I don't mean to sound arrogant here, but given the silly arguments he kept raising, I feel like properly engaging in discussion will make his renewed faith fizzle out... but the thing is that he kept saying how he's feeling better than ever, and that he doesn't have a worry in the world about anything.

So what now? I'm in this awkward place where one of my best friends is acting like a Christian who graduated from Apologist101 and he's going full steam ahead.

[CapnAwesome]

Well you are going to have a big problem trying to get away from Christians in your life. They are a sizable part of the population. I don't really think there is any moral conflict with being in a band with someone who disagrees with you on theological positions. Just listen and ignore it or just defend your positions in real life like you do online. Anyway keeping bands together is it's own type of hell and I wish you luck in that.

[Minimalist]

He prefers his new invisible friend to you.

It is doubtlessly discouraging but were I you I would not expect him to stop. In fact, I would assume that he will get worse.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

If you want to talk to your friend about this, don't be emotional about it. Don't bring his religion into it, if he brings it up, brush it aside. Just focus on the things he believes in that would really impact his life, no need to talk about whether or not god is real Just do it like 2 friends chatting. The moment one of you gets emotional, the entire conversation is pretty much lost.

On the other hand, just live with it. It's all good until he tries to convert you. Then once he realizes that isn't doable, and he accepts your atheism, your friendship should be fine. If he doesn't accept it ... that's another story.

[FallentoReason]

If you want to talk to your friend about this, don't be emotional about it. Don't bring his religion into it, if he brings it up, brush it aside. Just focus on the things he believes in that would really impact his life, no need to talk about whether or not god is real Just do it like 2 friends chatting. The moment one of you gets emotional, the entire conversation is pretty much lost.

On the other hand, just live with it. It's all good until he tries to convert you. Then once he realizes that isn't doable, and he accepts your atheism, your friendship should be fine. If he doesn't accept it ... that's another story.

It's just that, inevitably, *everything* is interlinked. After I asked him how sound engineering was going, I said that I wish I could put 100% of my time into music like he is. That in turn triggered him to comment on society and how we're so focused on the material and wanting temporary success/pleasure ergo we don't understand our purpose ergo god. It's like a scale; you weigh down one of the sides with a certain topic and the other side rises up with a related one, which is usually god. So in short, anything of real substance, of true meaning and value that can be talked about will awaken our opposing pre-suppositions.

[pineapplebunnybounce]

If you want to talk to your friend about this, don't be emotional about it. Don't bring his religion into it, if he brings it up, brush it aside. Just focus on the things he believes in that would really impact his life, no need to talk about whether or not god is real Just do it like 2 friends chatting. The moment one of you gets emotional, the entire conversation is pretty much lost.

On the other hand, just live with it. It's all good until he tries to convert you. Then once he realizes that isn't doable, and he accepts your atheism, your friendship should be fine. If he doesn't accept it ... that's another story.

It's just that, inevitably, *everything* is interlinked. After I asked him how sound engineering was going, I said that I wish I could put 100% of my time into music like he is. That in turn triggered him to comment on society and how we're so focused on the material and wanting temporary success/pleasure ergo we don't understand our purpose ergo god. It's like a scale; you weigh down one of the sides with a certain topic and the other side rises up with a related one, which is usually god. So in short, anything of real substance, of true meaning and value that can be talked about will awaken our opposing pre-suppositions.

wow, ok that's a bit extreme, lol. hmm ... well, if i were in your shoes, and wanted to be patient, i'd not raise my opinions at all. just keep questioning his until it breaks down. at the least he doesn't get mad at you and you still get to poke holes.

if i'm not in the mood at all i'll just joke it off. I mean, do it often enough they have to get the message ... right?

[FallentoReason]

Yeah, I think the best thing might be to avoid the topic altogether... thanks for your advice