Has religion driven you and a friend apart?
By olisaur
@olisaur (1922)
United States
December 14, 2009 5:17pm CST
It certainly has for me.
I have/had a friend I met in the 8th grade- she was devoutly Christian and I knew. I was Christian too when we met but in the past couple years I have drifted away from it and become more religeously ecclectic. I knew she disaproved, but she didn't really say anything about it. She had a habit of making belittling remarks about athiests and agonistics.
A couple weeks ago, I saw the episode of Oprah where she went to Coppenhagen and discussed how different people in the world live and find happiness. Statistically, they said on the show that the people in Coppenhagen are the happiest and are also the least religious. I told this to a group of my friends, and that friend I mentioned before was in the group. Upon hearing this, she said, "Oh, silly Oprah. What a sad, sad woman."
I was totally taken aback and asked what she meant by that. We proceeded to argue, she taking the stance that Christians are better than everyone else. I tried not to make "I" or "You" statements and stood with my beliefs that no one is better than anyone else in terms of belief systems, as long as they all don't deliberately harm others. But my friend could not be altered from thinking her religion is "best." We've avoided each other since, and she even deleted me from her facebook friends. w
3 responses
@ruchimom (280)
• Australia
15 Dec 09
Hi
I think this is a very good questionReligion is important but i think you have to draw a line when it becomes involve with your personal life.
I think this is a personal choice.I have never had friends based on religion.People should know their limits and not releigion take over them.Always respect the other religion if you want your religion to be respected.
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
14 Dec 09
Your friend seems to have very intense feelings about this subject and the fact that she defriended you on facebook just about says it all. I've never been in a situation like this but I can tell you that you have to be true to yourself and you have the right to expect your friends to respect your beliefs and opinions, just as they would expect you to. It's a sad situation but there's little that you can do about it at this point. Always be open to conversation with this person when you run into her but I wouldn't expect her to change much.
