to ask how you feel when someone is at the opposite end of the faith spectrum?

[Morphene]

I've recently discovered two separate people I have been getting closer to (professional/friendship wise) are at the other end of the faith scale from me. I have actually felt a little upset and unbalanced by it.

IABU? I mean I know I am, but do other people get this? Does it make a difference if you are the one with or without faith?

I am sure I will still get on just fine with them, but I feel a little sadness that in this important respect we are very far from each others wavelength.

I was thinking that Dionne. There are certainly some views I disagree with but not to allow people to hold those views (and act/vote accordingly), as long as this is within the law, I think would be worse than what we have now.

There will always be segments of the voting population who hold different views to yours and vote accordingly

True, but that shouldn't stop people scrutinising views, especially if they infringe on the liberties of others. Which i think is what fixit was trying to say.

No difference at all. I have faith but my husband doesn't believe. We respect each other's beliefs.

"If atheists just said they don't believe, fine, it's when they ridicule people who do believe that causes us to defend ourselves."

I have seen some rather unpleasant rudeness to people of faith on Mumsnet, definitely. I have also seen a lot of people of faith defining any disagreement as ridicule. However, I don't think I have seen any of either on this thread. It seems to me it is often used as a red herring.

Oh, just in passing. Suggesting that people who want to discuss their well thought out position on faith only want to do it because they have doubts and are trying to drown out the voice of God calling to them is patronizing in the extreme.

Yes, but Ollie, if the 'scrutinising' is done in an unkind, aggressive or rude way, it is difficult to hold a friendship with that person.

Is scrutinisation intrinsically unkind, aggressive and rude? I think it possibly is, if the person is acting within their legal rights and does not wish to have their views and beliefs scrutinised. If they want to discuss their beliefs in this way, then fine.

it's when they ridicule people who do believe that causes us to defend ourselves. It's not true of the other way round. We don't ridicule you.

aprilsdelight if you've never encountered religious people mocking and ridiculing atheists, or being verbally abusive to them, telling them they'll go to hell etc then you were lucky. I've witnessed it on several occasions.

True, but that shouldn't stop people scrutinising views, especially if they infringe on the liberties of others. Which i think is what fixit was trying to say.

^^yes, thank you

ollieplimsoles - you seem really keen to have an argument with me and other religious people on this thread.

I didn't rise to the bait before and I'm not going to rise to it now, because I couldn't care less if you agree with me or not. I'm not a member of an evangelical religion and am entirely happy with my belief system. I have precisely desire interest in arguing my point to persuade or convert you, sorry.

My belief towards people who don't share my views on religion, is, unlike you, live and let live.

Whereas you, despite claiming to be an atheist, seem almost militantly obsessed with trying to convert others to your way of thinking.

Well, I'm not going to agree. And frankly nor is any other religious people on this thread going to read your smug posts and decide that yes, they'll give up religion there and then, because you made the argument so convincingly that all religious people were not as clever as you!

To answer the OP, I'm an atheist who feels largely unbothered by people's religious faith. The exception would be if they go around thinking Jesus for stuff I've done for them or trying to persuade me I need to just try having faith (this happened to me years ago, was deeply unpleasant).

That said, in the back of my mind there is always the understanding that I'm talking to someone who's got a delusion going on there, for whatever reason. I'm convinced they feel the same about me, if they think about it at all. And it would be hard to get into a proper friendship. A relationship would be out of the question.

I'd never say any of that to their faces as it's not necessary.

To the OP:

As you never answered previously, please tell us - why were you 'a little upset and unbalanced' by the discovery that some of your work colleagues were religous?

What precisely bothered you about this? What did you imagine about them that made you feel 'upset and unbalanced'?

What fears or presumptions do you have about people of faith that frighten you?

Are these fears based on actual experience? Is there something you've not told us? Did someone try to convert you? Make offensive comments?

Or is it just, as your OP suggested, just because their views differed from yours and you have a problem being friends with people who do not share your views on all issues, ie little clones of yourself?

I'm trying to understand your prejudice, and wondering why someone would take against me for no reason than a faith that they no nothing about and haven't even ever thought to mention.

bertrand patronising? the irony....there really isn't any patronising comments coming from atheists is there.
Loup no i've never come across it, where does it happen, and how would they know who atheists are? but apart from that i'm talking about on these threads, every time a thread like this comes up it's constant.

Yes. Some atheists can be patronizing. They shouldn't be. How does that make it OK for you to be patronizing as well?

Is scrutinisation intrinsically unkind, aggressive and rude? I think it possibly is, if the person is acting within their legal rights and does not wish to have their views and beliefs scrutinised

I'm not sure I actually agree with this, I dont really care if they want their view scrutinised or not. I wouldn't care to infringe on anyone's legal rights. But what about a Child's legal right to a balanced education? If somebody holds a view that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in a science class and votes in that vain, I see that as an infringement on my Child's right to a balanced education and wish to scrutinise the views that led them to vote that way- because it effects my child.

Children have a right to not be indoctrinated, its a right that is disrespected by many parents.

Myrobalanna - I'm religious and certainly wouldn't dream of thinking someone who didn't share my faith 'had a delusion'. I'd just think their viws and life experience were different to mine, as everyone's is.

I'm somewhat upset to discover that someone who has never met me or discussed my faith with me would pre-judge me as 'deluded'.

Why is it so hard for some of the atheists on this thread to accept that others have different views? Why do they feel the need to pass judgement on them? There are billions of people in the world with different religious faiths to me, but I don't think they're all deluded, I just think they're different.

Why do some atheists think that they are inherently superior to other people? Can they not see how offensive (and indeed entirely unsupported!) that view is? What is wrong with respect for others' views??!

cvbn

Totally pointless, you may as well not have typed it...

ollieplimsoles - the irony! You want to dictate exactly how all children in the world may be educated! Because only you know best!!

Ha ha.

So you've never walked past a street preacher ranting to passers by that they're going to hell, that they're sinners etc April? I haven't lived in the UK for a long time now but I remember there being a fair few of them in UK cities, and there have been in all of the countries I've lived in.
I've also heard it from people in communities I've lived in and just in everyday life, and from what I've seen the mocking and ridiculing atheists goes hand in hand with the "I've found God" smug/superiority complex that some people have.

ollieplimsoles - you're right.

You are one of the least tolerant, most prejudiced, smug people I have encountered on MN!

So little point engaging with you. Which is why I didn't bother before. but then you got all huffy, because I wasn't rising to the bait.

Christ... I care about facts, evidence based facts.

Did I ever say I wanted all children in the world to be taught the same? And when did I say I knew best? Keep clutching those straws...

You wrote: Children have a right to not be indoctrinated, its a right that is disrespected by many parents.

Yet you also indoctrinate your children. But of course, because it's your view, you see it as 'right', not indoctrination.

It's your total lack of self-awareness that gets me.

By all means say: I want to bring my children up believing in atheism. I have no problem with that at all.

But don't pretend that you know the One True Way, and the rest of us are all following false prophets except for you.

It's embarrassing.

I'm a Christian but have friends with all different beliefs. It doesn't change the way I think of them, they are my friends. We are all different and I think someone's faith is personal to them. Unless somebody is forcing something on you then it shouldn't affect the friendship.

"Why is it so hard for some of the atheists on this thread to accept that others have different views"

I don't find it even remotely hard.

Yet you also indoctrinate your children. But of course, because it's your view, you see it as 'right', not indoctrination.

Its indoctrination to encourage them to make sense of the world through reasoning and asking questions?

Re having a delusion

It is NOT ALL RIGHT to consider every opinion or belief to have equal validity and be worthy of equal respect. The Western world is in a parlous state because we've been force fed this line for too long and given way too much time to all sorts of shit (homeopathy?)

We all come at this from a different angle, I get that. It's a free world (our corner of it), I get that. If that's what you want to believe then go for it. But please don't ask me to give equal weight to something that's objectively delusional! Nobody died and rose again; that's not possible. An angel didn't come down on a shaft of light and tell Mary she was pregnant with the son of god. Praying is talking in your head, it cannot be otherwise! etc etc.

That's what I mean by a delusion - albeit one that's cultural and not necessarily linked to mental illness.

I emphatically DON'T think I'm superior - I think I'm resistant to the infection, that's all. That's why it hits me every now and then when I realise I'm talking to someone religious. I find it totally incomprehensible that an otherwise sane person could allow it into their brain!