Last night I was hanging out with a friend of mine when the subject turned to religion. She was talking about her church, and then asked me about mine. I told her that I was an Atheist, so going to church would be a bit odd for me. She then bombarded me with questions about it in a snotty voice about why I am an Athiest, and why I SHOULD believe in God. After she did that, she ignored me for a bit, then left early instead of sleeping over as planned. I haven’t talked to her since, but after that I’m sure she is no friend of mine.
Sounds like she wasn’t much of a friend to begin with, huh? Sounds like you got the better end of the deal here, IMHO.
People like this are what gives us theists a bad name.
We clicked and we were fine…right up until that discussion. I don’t get what is the big deal. Religion isn’t part of my life, so what? I’m not forcing her to become one, this is just me. We aren’t bad people, we just don’t have any religious faith. Sheesh.
Lucky you! Better to find out early on than to get blindsided by it when you’ve got lots of emotion invested in the relationship.
Still. It makes me mad that she stopped being my friend because I don’t believe in God. That shouldn’t matter.
You’re right. It shouldn’t matter. And it’s sad that she has the attitude that would voluntarily omit from her life every person who doesn’t believe exactly the same way she does.
Believe me, you’re much better off without friends like that. FWIW, I believe in God and can’t imagine pushing away someone who didn’t believe.
Hang in there!
I’m sorry you lost a friend. That really sucks. You’re right that it shouldn’t matter to her whether or not you believe in God; however, if she’s that intolerant of beliefs other than her own, you’re definitely better off.
Sounds to me like she makes it a point to screen her friends, though I can’t imagine why she waited to check you out until she was a guest in your home. If I were you, I’d be hurt, but also glad I failed that little test.
Hopefully I can put this into a bit more perspective.
1st she is most likely looking at you as a potential mate, not a ‘just a friend’. As such she would not want to become involved w/ someone who, if he continues down his present path, has no chance of salvation, which basically dooms you 2 from spending eternity w/o contact w/ eachother.
2nd I think you will can understand that she is allowed to make sucha choice, just as you also have the right to discriminate against (or for) a potentail mate based on any reason you wish - or is this not a free country anymore?
3rd - Sorry, whenever you loose someone it sux, no other way to say it.
Sounds more like a casual acquaintance than a friend—how long had you two known each other?
Eh…a few weeks I think? She wasn’t a “friend friend” but not just some smoe I just met.
Congratulations! You’ve lost something that you’re better off without!
Exactly! What a silly twit!
This has happened to me too but on reflection I am glad I wasn’t very close to the person when it did. Makes me mad nontheless.
Rejection alwasy stings, but at least in this case you’re much better off finding out what an intolerant twit your acquaintance was before you had wasted any more time on her worthless ass.
Your “friend” is the loser in this situation, flamingbananas.
As a person of faith, I’ve found that having discussions and even knock-down drag-out arguments with people who do not share my beliefs enriches my life. It also forces me to examine why I believe what I believe, and ulitimately strengthens my faith.
I think that someone who would dump a friend or acquaintance because he/she didn’t share their religous beliefs is probably either in a mind-control type cult, or isn’t really strong in their faith or sure about what they believe. and in either case can’t deal with being around someone who might lead them to call their beliefs into question.
When I was going through my Self-Styled Hindo-Shamanistic Buddhist With a Twist of Islam phase, I used to get into some heated debates with a coworker who was a fund"ist Christian. A friend of hers came to work in the same place, and I tried to show her a passage in the Bhagavad Gita that had some New-Testament Christian=type teachings in it. She literally panicked and threw her hands up in front of her face to keep from seeing the words printed on the page. One has to wonder how secure a person is with their own religion to have that kind of reaction to someone else’s.
Anyway, you have my sympathies, but your friend probably lost more than you did.
People like that are so irksome. I will never understand why some people “need” to export their faith to others. They treat their faith like a hot potatoe, must be given to someone else ASAP! Almost all of my best friends are self-identified “proud atheists”, and they know I’m a theist, but we get along fine. Needless to say we don’t have much common ground if the conversation turns to religion, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have fun in other areas.
0] She should lighten up.
1] If she was truly confident in her faith, then she could still be friends with an atheist.
2] If her wish was to “convert” you, perhaps she could have had the wisdom to still be friends with you and let her faith speak for itself by her actions.
3] If she truly believed her religion was “the truth” then she is being selfish by hiding herself from someone who didn’t have “the truth”.
4] If she was a christian, then she did her Christ a disservice, since he wouldn’t just instantly get all flustered and flee from everyone who didn’t claim to believe.
This isn’t to say that you HAD to be friends, you might not have gotten along otherwise (she does seem like the preachy type), but she shouldn’t have ruled it out like that.
1st, flamingbananas is a girl- and a straight girl, to the best of my knowledge, so your potential mate theory is unlikely.
2nd, nobody is disputing her right to make such a choice. We’re merely observing that she’s a fucking moron.
Don’t worry, fb, I’m still your friend 
It could have been worse - she could have stuck with you, like a Christian friend of mine did years ago.
She said her Christian friends had tried to dissuade her from being friends with me (an atheist), but she decided to not shun me – because, after all, “Jesus associated with lepers.”
The memory of this incident inspires me to make my first ever use of a smiley:
:rolleyes:
You’re right that I am a straight girl, I zoned out a bit earlier and didn’t see that post I guess…anyway, thanks for clearing that up. Yay for Really Not All That Bright!