Friend deleted me after 2 years because i'm atheist

[Silver]

I had a theist friend who stopped being my friend because I decided to be me, a gay man, instead of succumbing to her religious beliefs that I should suppress who I am toward the detriment of my mental health.

[Edwardo Piet]

Ahhh those friends who are bigoted cunts. Ahhh those friends.

[KevinM1]

Man, this thread has really reminded me how much high school drama is just asinine bullshit.

Listen, it's simple: he shouldn't have targeted your atheism, but you made a terrible decision confiding in him to begin with based on the descriptions of your interactions with him.

Pick better friends.

EDIT: The above is directed to the OP

[Heat]

I always gave him the benefit of the doubt, I would agree with him just so he would shut up and stop taking our arguments so seriously. He couldn't handle being wrong. I didn't care if I was wrong.

When you say you gave him the "benefit of the doubt" that's pertaining to your opinion. In relations to penal offences it's actually considered a human right.

And you clearly do care if you're wrong because you flared up like a christmas tree when I tried to explain to you the flaws in "logic arguments".

I want him to become atheist because I lack tolerance for his beliefs? Alright you're not worth responding to anymore because you're either trolling or just brain-dead stupid. I never brought my religion in to the conversation for two years, and when I did i said specifically "Im telling you this because I dont think its something that should affect our relationship negatively in any way, or is imporant, im telling you this because I trust you and want you to understand my world view because of my stance on the subject". Really?

I have a feeling what Jenny meant was that you wanted him to assimilate in some way. But the fact is that Christians and Atheists agree on 99% or more of things - we drive on the same side of the street, eat the same foods, work the same hours, etc.

You consider yourself an intellectual and some people your age may find that intimidating. Heck the last girl I dated was intimidated by my intellect - I didn't want her to be I liked her a lot, but she was and it was a clear impassable barrier, sadly.

Even in my long and very angry response to him I didn't attack his religion, or mention it, which I very easily could of. Don't talk to me again. It makes me angry that you would even say my atheism made me not accept his religion, and somehow i'm the one to blame. Like shut the fuck up honestly you have no idea what you are talking about. Unbelievable. Frankly you should be the poster child for all religious misconceptions. Turning a situation that is clearly about something else into an atheist being intolerant for someone's religion. Get the fuck off this forum, because you just exposed your preconceived notions about atheists, so why are you here if all you think is that atheists are intolerant and non accepting of religious beliefs. You're going to tell me how defensive I just got and how that's probably how I was with my friend or something, and this is proof I have to be right. Go ahead, you fail to realize that you are not my friend, and I would never argue with such hostility toward my friend. Even when making ridiculous claims.

Why get so angry over a two sentence reply from Jenny?

You are on our forums you know (although I'll grant you that goes for her as well). If you stick around they'll become your forums as well and you'll be one of "us" (well you'll belong to the AF community anyway).


I don't think you were intolerant of your friend's religion, FWIW, but I do feel that you may have been inconsiderate in other areas. But for the record, just to make this clear to you, I'm not suggesting that's why your friendship has been lost. As per my previous reply sometimes you lose friendships through no fault of your own.

I know you are trying to be fair to the other person, but by benefit of the doubt what I meant was that many many times I would say something along the lines of "Okay man let's just agree to disagree" and he would continue because he needed me to say he was correct. You guys don't know the situation, but it's not just my opinion when I say that I gave him the benefit of the doubt. 

This is the reason I got mad at you. It's because you are comparing me to someone who has anger issues, or some type of issue when I explain the negative aspects of the person in question. Whereas someone with anger issues(for example) would exaggerate the situation dramatically and think they were giving the other person the benefit of the doubt, in reality they probably didn't live up to those claims. That's not this case. I try to look at everything from the other persons point of view. I tried everything to get him to understand where I was coming from when I said I needed some proof to believe him, I didn't just say "Why do you believe that" and when he responded no say "You're wrong then". I actually tried to get him to understand my point of view so it was not just one sided. Many times I would type long, long messages explaining why i couldn't just accept his opinion as true when he just says "Fuck you kid you're so stupid if you dont believe ___". I would even at the end of these messages say "Don't even respond to this, just think about it" cause I knew that a majority of the time he will respond and curse me out, in the process convincing himself that i'm the one in the wrong.


I also flared at you because, again, whether my definition of logic was wrong or not I DO NOT CARE. It was not the point of this thread. I love to know more information. This thread however, was not a thread of gathering information, or making a statement of what's true. It was a personal story where I was looking for personal advice. For you to come on here and pick apart my every word and say "this is wrong, that's wrong" doesn't seem to coorelate to the actual story does it?

For example, if you go write an email, do I read your email and tell you what grammatical errors you have? No, because in the context of an email, the purpose wasn't to have your grammar 100% right. The purpose of an email is to read the content the person wrote, and think about the subject they are addressing. Although they may have poor grammar, it's irrelevant pertaining to finding out the reason the person actually wrote the email in the first place.

[Heat]

I also wanted to mention that he was very discriminatory towards homosexuals, which stemmed from his religion(i'm guessing). Not to pride myself, but to get an idea of the type of person I am, I never challenged this belief, I easily could have, but I knew that it wouldn't change, and even though I strongly disagreed with him, I respected him and his beliefs. If I challenged him on that issue it would end up going back to where it started in the first place, his religion, in a way if I challenged that issue I was challenging a personal belief of his, not just on a random subject but one he actually cared about. I guess that added to my anger as well when he brang up my atheism and started mocking it when the argument taking place had nothing to do with it whatsoever. I don't want to paint me out as "me being 100% right and him 100% wrong on everything" like i'm perfect and he's the devil incarnate, which you may have got from this thread. 

However, the fact that I respected his personal beliefs that much, to not even so much as challenge his completely unethical, depressingly less-than-a-person view of homosexual people. That meant something to me. There was a lot of build up to me getting this angry but that was the final straw. For me to respect his views that much, and for him to have to little respect for mine in return, to bring it up in an unrelated situation and not only use it as an insult, but to use it as an insult not even a day after I told him what it meant to me and how it shouldn't affect our relationship. That's why I was angry enough to make this thread.


For the people who think i'm being "overly dramatic";
You have to realize that I don't have many friends. I knew this person and talked to them every day for two years. It's not like i'm just dramatizing a small event in my life. It wasn't just some random friend, or an episode of daily high school drama on Degrassi. I don't make a big deal out of things. For the most part, I am very anti-social and completely the opposite, I would rather keep to myself and not bother anyone than create commotion and have the possibility that someone might help me improve my situation a little bit. I don't like bothering people with my issues, because i'm always in the mind set of "it could be worse", the morning after writing this when I woke up I was already regretting posting it. Don't think i'm being dramatic for no reason.

[Aractus]

I never attacked your definition of 'logic arguments'. My whole point was that they're divisive and highly fallible.

I never, ever, said anything meaningful about the other person. I said I don't know him and that he "may" this or "may" that, and that's it. I never said anything to defend him.

200 years ago every sovereign country in the world condemned homosexuality (nothing to do with religion). Just 50 years ago psychiatrists would diagnose homosexuals with a disorder. Why judge him for a belief that quite frankly has likely been with humanity for 200,000+ years? And again logic tells a different story - logically it's wrong because procreation can't take place. It was listed as a mental disorder in the original DSM. But further research showed that it isn't a disorder and it was subsequently removed.

[Edwardo Piet]

It's not wrong 'logically'. There's no logic to that. So what if procreation can't take place between homosexuals?

Social Darwinism is false.

And there may even be evolutionary benefits to homosexuality but even if there isn't that means nothing. It is not 'logically wrong because procreation can't take place'.

[Whateverist]

If he can't see past a basic petty difference then he was never truly a friend.

Pretty hard to see it that way with a person you've talked to for 2 years every day

Differences in religious beliefs is a minor thing for atheists but not for many theists.  Theism is about something they believe in which matters a great deal to them.  Atheism really isn't anything, just the lack of something.  So theists are more likely to object to forming important relationships with atheists since we challenge beliefs which are meaningful to them.  

A theist may be attracted to an atheist and honestly believe/hope the difference can be worked with.  But that is the sort of appraisal a person can get wrong.  It doesn't require dishonesty, a simple lack of self knowledge is enough.  

The differences look less important to an atheist because it involves something unimportant to them.  You just can't reasonably expect to talk a theist into agreeing that religious belief is unimportant.  Your 'truths' simply are not compatible.  

Of course not all theists hold their religion as near and dear as others do.  There are atheists on this site married to theists and making it work.  But an atheist forming an attachment to a theist has to make a judgment call about the other person's ability to accurately assess how important religion will go on being for them.

[Heat]

Pretty hard to see it that way with a person you've talked to for 2 years every day

Differences in religious beliefs is a minor thing for atheists but not for many theists.  Theism is about something they believe in which matters a great deal to them.  Atheism really isn't anything, just the lack of something.  So theists are more likely to object to forming important relationships with atheists since we challenge beliefs which are meaningful to them.  

A theist may be attracted to an atheist and honestly believe/hope the difference can be worked with.  But that is the sort of appraisal a person can get wrong.  It doesn't require dishonesty, a simple lack of self knowledge is enough.  

The differences look less important to an atheist because it involves something unimportant to them.  You just can't reasonably expect to talk a theist into agreeing that religious belief is unimportant.  Your 'truths' simply are not compatible.  

Of course not all theists hold their religion as near and dear as others do.  There are atheists on this site married to theists and making it work.  But an atheist forming an attachment to a theist has to make a judgment call about the other person's ability to accurately assess how important religion will go on being for them.

I can't really agree that gay rights are unimportant either. That doesn't mean I can't be a normal human being and keep my thoughts and opinions to myself and not attack anyone that doesn't believe what I believe.

[Aractus]

It's not wrong 'logically'.

Well I disagree, and 200 - 300, 000 years of humanity would also disagree.

But like I said, just because it's "logically wrong" means nothing.