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I’m curious to hear from some of our friends in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Pakistan.
When it is a primary tenet of one’s belief that one must attempt to convert others because otherwise those others are doomed to eternal damnation if they do not, then any attempt to convince them that such attempts are considered rude will be met by (at best) blank stares, and (at worst) accusations that you are actively “anti” whatever their religion happens to be.
I think that’s why I try to never out myself if possible. I suspect someday I will be loud and proud but not today.
Really, it sounds more to me like you dodged the bullet of getting into some kind of larger relationship with a loon.
My link covered that. But your definition is not exclusive to just that bit of Social Darwinism, and to suggest that mbh believes in that specific ugly corner of the broad spectrum that it encompasses is more than a tad presumptuous.
Peripherally related, I told my friend’s Mom who is a Jehovah’s witness, that I believe in evolution, and she gave me a pamphlet called “Was life created”? I kind of wanted to ask what she thinks about whale hips.
She’s ask if you thought she looked fat.
This is the weirdest sentence I have seen all week.
On a few occasions, I’ve just gotten complete bafflement, as though how could a person (as nice as me) live without believing in God? It’s kind of touching and naive and sweet, as I’ve seen it. In the wrong hands it could veer into anger, but that’s not what I’ve experienced.
Yea, I thought about going to her house and bringing it up. Then iI realized I’m at a point in my life where I don’t have need to chase after those who don’t want me in their life.
That’s a frequent misinterpretation of the term but, strictly speaking, you’re a Spencerian – someone who believes and espouses the concept of race-encompassing evolution and “survival of the fittest” as did Herbert Spencer, an English sociologist whose views were published slightly earlier than Darwin’s and have, unfortunately, been conflated with the latter’s more famous works. It’s not surprising that those of a creationist bias tend to conflate the two and have misused the term frequently enough that it has become a common misnomer.
Spencer gets a footnote in Classical Sociological Theory textbooks because of his contribution of the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” to modern discourse – a dubious honor for such a ignoble perspective. His views, though, are generally dismissed by his peers and professional heirs. Darwin himself never actually used the phrase in his famous publications and might not have been aware of it.
–G!
Do I win a prize? 
I’ve never got the whole WWJD? thing. I mean, really, how many everyday situations are there where getting nailed to a cross is the answer?
You don’t live in the Philippines.
“Sorry Ms Smith, I couldn’t finish my homework assignment because I was nailed to a cross all weekend.”
Re. not asking about people’s religion.
Nah, not weird at all: just working under the same assumption as in Catholic Spain, that everybody is a Catholic, a non-practicing Catholic, Opus Dei, neocatechumenals, more Catholic than the Pope, an atheist but did baptise the kids and will celebrate their First Communion (my brother and his wife have over a dozen godchildren from friends like that who thought the kids’ godparents should be able to tell the altar from the cloister), or variations thereof.
Courtship/marriage is one of the few times anybody is likely to actually ask about it; another one is if someone mentions a religious activity. The arrival of immigrants with religions other than “some variation of Catholic”, plus the rise of “conscious atheism” (as opposed to that apathism which gets attacks of Catholicism when the kids are born), plus the creation of Evangelic churches, mean that we’re having to reinvent protocols to deal with the existence of multiple religions and of multi-religion families, but for a long time it was simply a non-existing issue.
Properly speaking, the next thing you should’ve done was clutch at your chest and fall over.
Happens here from time to time as well. Gives me a little twitch as well, but I try to remember that they’re just trying to be friendly.
I sometimes wish we here in the states had went with an established church, rather than our imperfect church-state separation. It seems, comparing secular Europe to religious America, that the single best means of promoting non-belief is to establish a state religion. 
I’ve never told anyone I’m atheist. (I’m not really, I just think “God” is a different way of spelling “Universe.”) But in a conversation with a colleague recently, she said something like, “We’ll get you in the confession booth yet!” I don’t remember what led to that statement. I was raised Protestant, so found it pretty amusing.
Speaking of being raised Protestant, I went to Confirmation class in middle school. The mother who led one of our study groups told us that Christians would make the best friends, and that no truly good friend could be other than a Christian. She seemed to think that non-Christians just wouldn’t get you, somehow. I suppose that’s the kind of viewpoint that leads to some of the reactions listed above. I think it’s bizarre, but I also kind-of get it - if I were really intensely into something, maybe I’d think others not so intensely into it wouldn’t get me either.
Btw, regarding why Christian is capitalized, we capitalize Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu, don’t we? I don’t think it has anything to do with Christ being a proper name, it’s just what we do in the English language for religions.