A Christian Seeks Advice About Her Atheist Friend

Perhaps it’s just plain different here in New Zealand, but when I was a Christian, I never broke off friendships or even considered that the friendship might end when someone left the faith.

However, when I left Christianity myself, I didn’t really feel like hanging around with my Christian friends any more. I didn’t want any more Jesus crap in my life than I already had to tolerate, living in a house full of Christians.

A friend of mine recently joined a self-development group that I’m fairly certain would qualify as a mind-control cult though. He’s still a great friend of mine, and we can even have civil debates over the stuff he has been taught, completely disagree, and be laughing about something else 10 minutes later.

I’m picturing the following exchanges:

“Oh you’re atheist now? Haha, you’ve turned to the darkside!”

“Oh you’re still an atheist? Hah, really enjoying that dark side, huh?”

“Oh you’re still an atheist? Yeah… that’s pretty dark of you…”

“No seriously, you’re on the dark side.”

“O.m.g. why are you making me unfriend you!?!”

But seriously, there isn’t enough information on Jenn, Rachel, or the rift.

This Ask Richard is perfect. Just reverse the roles.

http://friendlyatheist.com/2011/04/07/ask-richard-my-friend-is-questioning-her-faith-2/

No matter how you cut it, atheists are going to have a lot of religious friends if they want to have friends at all. I had it easy. While I’ve neither experienced nor understood my friends and family members turning on me (my Presbyterian girlfriend even turned atheist), but I know many who have suffered from such ostracism.

It’s refreshing to hear about someone like Jenn trying to save her friendship with her atheist friend without trying to “save” her. It’s the first time I’ve even heard of something like this.

What I would really like to know is if Rachel is being dickish about her atheism – because if she is, it’s not going to be easy at all. Then again, there are so many things that an atheist cannot say honestly without offending one friend or another. I know I’ve certainly tested the people around me, sometimes deliberately saying things I know they would find hard to swallow just to see if they can be reasonable about them. Am I being dickish if I have genuine problems with how some religious people or organisations act and am not afraid to say so?

Like Hemant said: there is really too little details to go on. And the fact that one or both parties have starting feeling that a rift had formed between them makes it less likely that the friendship will survive in its present form.

I can’t speak for all atheists, but any rifts between myself and my friends are usually perceived by them. Personally, I do not respect or like them any less; it’s just that I do not, cannot respect their worldviews anymore.

One final platitude: the strongest friendships are those tempered in hellfire.

I have this issue, more or less, with my parents-in-law, and what I’ve found is that we can have great conversations about our core beliefs without bringing religion into it. They are both very committed Christians (my mother-in-law majored in Bible in college!). I am an equally committed atheist. But we can agree that, for instance, regardless of the roots of our belief systems social justice is an important goal. In some ways, I think that by forcing ourselves to refrain from bringing overt references to religion into our conversations, we’re able to have more meaningful conversations about the topics that deserve real discussion.

So what this means is that you might consider practicing a form of communication that doesn’t make overt reference to religion, the bible, etc, but instead addresses the core issue directly. You’ll no doubt have perspectives that are informed by your beliefs, as will your friend. But as you seek a more neutral vocabulary I suspect you’ll find that you wind up with a more sophisticated perspective on your own beliefs and a greater appreciation for the values of others.

Good luck!

I’ve read some of the dialog on Think Atheist, and I don’t know… I question Jen’s motives. Although she says she will not proselytize, she does say that she hopes her friend come back to Jesus some day. Atheism is not a fad. Someone wrote it beautifully in a response, liking it to believing in Santa again after not believing.

I think she is searching for some way to bring her friend back to religion. I do applaud everyone’s response… very civil and respectful. I think the greatest take-away Jen will get is that atheists are not evil people.

Without more specifics, there’s no way to determine what advice to give. In any case, like Daniel says, you can plaster over the problem by putting an embargo on religious talk.

One interesting quote from the original post (emphasis mine), that seems to be most indicative of what’s going on:

All I seem to be reminded of is Bible scriptures telling me I shouldn’t allow myself to be unequally yoked, and ordinarily, I would agree with that. But this time, I can’t follow those instructions (forgive me, Lord). At least not until I begin to see that our rift is beginning to have a negative impact on my own personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

It’s worth reading the whole thing for context, but my nickle’s worth of psychiatric analysis is that Jenn doesn’t realize how pervasive her faith is in her life, and thus in their daily conversations. Prayer requests, church activities, fundraisers, evangelism (though not to Rachel), word choice, quotes that come to mind, or whatnot. I’m guessing that it makes everyday conversations really awkward, but Rachel doesn’t say anything about it – she doesn’t want to risk losing any more of her friends.

If Jenn reads this, my advice is this: With Rachel, be a friend first, and Christian second. You’ll have time enough later to fulfill your duties to your church, but the greatest commandment in the Bible is to love one another, and that’s what Rachel needs now.
Secondly, show Rachel what you’ve been up to online. You’re trying to be the best friend you can, and letting her see that you’re trying to be understanding and accepting will mean a lot.

While we don’t have enough information to answer her query – how many of you have Christian friends? Is that a deal breaker?

Personally I would feel sorry for anyone who surrounds themselves with people who believe and think as they do.

Depends on what kind of Christian she is, but unfortunately believing ridiculous sh*t ABOUT atheists is part and parcel of some Christians’ faith, and a living, breathing atheist in their midst that defies what their Church or fellow Christians tell them MUST be true about atheists just creates too much cognitive dissonance…

I don’t say diddly at work but I get the impression I’m the only atheist in my section. However, the guys at work I have lunch with at work (who work in other sections/divisions) are all nonbelievers, though I’m the only one comfortable with the Atheist label…one of them is “agnostic” (I almost teased him with “ah, the polite way to say ‘atheist'”… but didn’t), another describes himself as Daoist while another is basically an “apathist”…i.e. doesn’t care–he was raised Buddhist (he’s Asian), married to a moderate Xtian wife (she goes to church, he doesn’t save for Xmas & Easter)…

Part of why I don’t say anything in my section is because I get the distinct impression that several of the Christians I work with have the “thou must trash atheists/atheism” shtick as one of their secret commandments to prop up their faith, and I would just as soon let them spout their bullsh*t while I turn away and roll my eyes than reveal my real beliefs and get constant grief from them.

Some people have trouble being friends with people who don’t share their overarching worldviews. This isn’t a bad thing intrinsically but it can mean that when their worldview changes, their friend group changes as well.

Jenn is pretty serious about her faith. She doesn’t give many details, but from a few comments you can see that she appears to be involved in a lot of church activities and filters a lot of her experiences through religion. And she talks about it a lot. Some of that is probably unintentional and she doesn’t fully realize how often she brings up religion in everyday conversations.

I just don’t understand how you can’t simply talk about something else and leave religion out of it. There must be a lot more things they have in common.

The problem seems to be that even in those other conversations, Jenn unconsciously injects religion. She talks about some things in her life and then makes it about something she prayed for. Her friend rolls her eyes at that, but is polite enough to not say what she really thinks. However Jenn picked up on the eye rolling and notices that something makes her uncomfortable. That’s a big source of the friction as far as I can tell.

I am an atheist my friend a Christian … SO?? We both are free thinkers and have a lot of respect for each other. It Can happen… We do not focus on our differences but on the friendship we have developed over the years and continue to do so…..

I’d say that while this may have seemed like a sudden development from Jenn’s perspective, she should keep in mind that her friend almost certainly wrestled with this issue for years. Going from privately questioning your faith, to finally throwing it out of your worldview, and then to decide to actually tell people about it is not an easy process. It can take a lot of time and bravery (social, intellectual, and emotional) to do such a thing.

In addition to what Becky said on the other thread, Jenn should realize that this has been a long time coming, and that her friend has a right to be proud of her hard-won intellectual freedom.

My best friend is a Christian – in fact, he and I met at a church youth dance in 1984.

I’ve been an out atheist for a long time and it really hasn’t affected our friendship much.

That said, the church we both went to (and he is still part of) is very liberal…he accepts evolution as described by scientists. He is a strong proponent of feminism, LGBT rights (including marriage, of course) and is politically more left leaning than I am. He is sex positive and thinks sex is only immoral if it is not honest and consensual. He thinks proselytizing is wrong. I know he prays for my general well-being, but I doubt he prays that I will return to the church.

So, we have LOTS to talk about, including mocking conservative religion…he values my insight, and will even come to my husband or I for explanations related to early church history, alternative narratives, etc.

So, it IS possible to stay close to your religious friends, but it takes a lot of respect and it helps if some of your underlying beliefs are similar.

Not sure how successful a fundy-atheist pairing would survive.

What usually holds me back with Christian friends is their belief that I deserve eternal torture because of my differing outlook. Out of all of the biblical cherry-picking they do you would think they could afford their non-believing friends some compassion by not assuming they deserve the worst form of punishment imaginable.

My advice to Jenn is: leave out the part about your best friend burning forever. And don’t just bottle it up into some strange form of pity. Lay it aside along with the passages condoning slavery, violence, the destruction of our habitat, as well as the geological misinformation.

I wonder…

Is it possible that in becoming an atheist, for which there is no “So now you’re an atheist” pamphlet, her friend might be under the impression that all theists are suddenly the “enemy”.

Lord knows, there are plenty of theists who would paint a recent deconvert as an agent of Satan etc etc. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to think that corollary is true.

If this is the case, it is relatively easy to locate many instances where atheists/theists are not only friends, but in many cases good friends even spouses/partners. And that she (Rachel) should remember that her friend is nearly an atheist, just with one more god to go.

Though I understand the impulse to reflexively assume that it is the actions of the Christian that could be causing a rift, I don’t see that this is neccesarily the case.

For the moment all we have is a Christian who is clearly concerned about her friendship to an atheist and wants to preserve it. This means that she likely has already thought about her interactions with her friend on the basis of religion and can’t find anything that could form a rift. She cannot be assumed to be bigoted against atheists because she a- wants to remain friends with an atheist while never indicating “saving” her is the goal and b- Trusts enough in the good intentions of atheists that she went on an atheist forum to seek advice, obviously assuming the people there had good will.

Of course she could be doing things, even unconciously, that drive her friend away (o/t: funny how easily we assume a Christian can subtly drive someone away but atheist men driving atheist women away from the community is so damn unimaginable to so many). However it could be that the one that has a problem with people with a different worldview is her friend. It could be that her friend is conciously or unconciously distancing herself from anything that has to do with religion, including religious friends. It also could be that she’s distancing herself for something totally unrelated to religion.

I think it’s good that atheists give her tips on different things she may not notice but may justifiably bother her friend. However we cannot discount the possibility (and neither should she) that none of those things are the problem because the problem is inside her friends head. Hopefully whatever the real cause is, it’s temporary and easy to fix.

The thing is, Jenn doesn’t lack empathy. She is deeply concerned for her friend. Especially after she read stories about how atheists are often bullied or shunned. Which she was completely oblivious about.

I was aghast at that comment too and I consider it “unfortunate” that she believes something so deeply disgusting. But I see it as some sort of cognitive dissonance in light of the rest. If you read her other posts, you’ll see that she is truly a nice and caring person. Yet she buys in the most immoral beliefs of Christianity without questioning. She is aware of doubts, but she casts them away because she desperately has to believe.

She is a good person despite her religion. So if it they can manage not to talk about it, it’s possible that they can get along.

I think what she believes is BS. I think that comment is horrible. But I don’t really know her. I’m not going to say she is evil just from that comment.

I’d say she is brainwashed and so deep into the religious thing that she doesn’t fully reflect about what she says. Some people just throw out these soundbites because they were programmed to. Not because they are genuine sociopaths. If she were truly one, she’d be a lot more dismissive about some of the comments that pointed out what atheists really think about her beliefs (like calling her god an “imaginary friend”). But she appears to be open to differences, as long as she doesn’t have to think about them and apply what she learns to herself.
She’s like “Yeah, it’s sad that my beliefs have such bad consequences for some [the shunning. Not hell], but it’s what I was taught and like to believe in”. In this case, I rather attribute that attitude to ignorance and being sheltered than malice.

I’d be nice to have a real dialogue with her about that, but she is only there for direct advice about the relationship.

It would appear her “friend” doesn’t want to. Can you blame her?

She doesn’t actually share many details of their interactions. From the little she says, Rachel rolled her eyes a couple of times when Jenn brought up religion. So she probably (rightfully) thinks that the comments are ridiculous. But the fact that she didn’t say anything also shows that she doesn’t want to be confrontational about it. They both want to their relationship to continue.

If I were your fiend and I got smart and became a an Athiest, and you still wanted to be friends, first I would not try to covert you to my way of thinking as we don’t try to convert, but if you try to convert me back to some mythology that you believe in I would throw your ass out the door on a broomstick and consider this a lost friendship and move on with out you

I think it’s important not to jump to conclusions that Jenn is the problem. She seems to be level-headed. If she was one of those people who tries to proselytize at every opportunity, then her friend might probably have cut off ties with her already. She certainly wouldn’t have come to a place full of atheists to ask for help.

I think it might be a case where her friend, having decided that she doesn’t believe any more, is pulling away from people and things that are connected with her previous religion. To an extent that’s to be expected, but if she’s been friends with Jenn since the second grade, then pulling away from her completely probably isn’t the answer. It may be that this is a phase that her friend is going through; like, “Whoa… I need to step back and look at things for a while.” It may be that this “rift” will disappear once her friend is more comfortable in her new skin as an atheist.

In any case, calm discussion is in order. Both of them need to discuss what’s happening. Jenn needs to bring her concerns about a rift forming to her friend in a way that is not confrontational or judgemental. Just start out with something like, “We need to talk. I’m feeling like we’re drifting apart…”

Good luck to the both of them.

Going on limited information since we don’t know why this has become a problem to begin with, my advice is to not discuss it.

I thought it could work. It doesn’t. My best friend and I have just recently gotten back to where we were before we were arguing about religion. We both realized that to have a relationship we couldn’t discuss that issue.

There is the “backfire effect” (forgive me if someone else has mentioned this but I haven’t read through all the comments) psychological phenomenon where when confronted with facts and arguments that contradict deeply held beliefs, the beliefs are simply reinforced and facts denied and arguments discounted. This is what happened with my friend. I didn’t convince him of anything — he simply grew more entrenched.

Granted this can’t be generalized to everyone, but it will be the case in at least a large portion of individuals so there is a good chance that you will not accomplish anything by discussing religion (at least not right away). That is something they will have to figure out on their own.

Does anyone else have the urge to send this page (along with a big “fuck you”) to a former friend that abandoned them because of atheism? Seriosly, if there were two Jenns for every closed minded idiot in Christianity…

I have to agree with Mr. Z and Demonhype on this. I doubt Jenn has any idea of just how much she has made religion a part of her life. I would say she should try to go a few days without talking about religion with anyone and see how different it is then it is right now.

Seems simple to me. She should leave the faith too. Many of my christian friends have done so. In several cases it was due to realizing they weren’t ok with a god who would set their friend on fire. Because when it comes right down to it, who is more important to you, real friends or imaginary ones?

Wow, I’m from MS and have actually had a similar, recent experience. I’ve been a christian my whole life…..did a hellofa lotof things as a young adult that dont support that fact but I’ve grown up and realized it. One of my best friends from highschool, whom I went to churh & youth group with, just in the last 5yrs decided that there is no God and thay evolution is the real answer. Lol, I can only ASSUME that after obtaining her masters degree she thought she was to smart for “fairy tales”. As a Science major, I love the wonders of the earth but never doubt where they began….Nor will I let a, once best friend of mine, preach to me about how she now thinks we evolved from monkies. Everyone is entitled to their oponion but its absurd to think that all ur friends will have the same one. Best advice, love ur friends for there differences and whatever ur religious belief may be, just be educated enough to civilly support ur opinion & dont surround urself with people that u know will deliberately challenge ur beliefs.