Society and Your Religon

[samosasauce]

Once, a Christian man (who I presume was rounding up people to convince to go to his church) was extremely rude to me. I was a Taoist at the time, and he asked me what Taoism was. I tried explaining to him, but there were quite a few other people around and so as I have both speaking fluency issues and ADHD I was having trouble getting the right words out, and was stuttering a bit. The man then continuously talked over me as I was in the middle of getting my words out, basically talking the phrase at me "so you don't know what it is, is what you're saying?" over and over. I was mortified

 

[Akivah]

Hi, This is my first actual thread here, so bear with me...

So, my question is, has your religion influenced other people's impression and opinion of you? How so? How severely has this happened to you?

I try not to offer my religion, but it always comes out because of food. Once I decline something because it isn't kosher, the other person always wants to know more. It seems that there is an intense curiosity about Judaism.

 

[misteralarming]

The way I grew up, if you weren't a Protestant, you were going to hell, that was that. Outside of that sheltered life, though, I've not encountered anyone really being an *** about religion or the lack thereof, not to me personally, anyway, I know it happens. Except my parents, who are LDS converts, and...well. That's how they roll. The funny thing is, they have some particular issue with Catholicism, but the parts they have the most problem with are things that have Mormon counterparts they don't mind, as in, praying for souls in Purgatory really wigs them out, but they're down with the whole baptism-for-the-dead thing, which is actually not that different. If I were to go back to the whole organized religion thing, it would be RCC, which they don't like at all, though marginally moreso than a non-Christian group -- I have a pentacle tattoo that my mom and dad interpret respectively as either Jewish (because she thought it was a Star of David) or Satanist (because he doesn't know anything about Satanism and just makes the leap straight to demonic).

 

[misteralarming]

I try not to offer my religion, but it always comes out because of food. Once I decline something because it isn't kosher, the other person always wants to know more. It seems that there is an intense curiosity about Judaism.

In your experience, is this curiosity benign or malevolent? Do you take offense at being asked about your beliefs, or do they generally ask out of genuine curiosity? I've seen both varieties of questions and wondered which you thought was more often the case.

 

[Katzpur]

Hi, This is my first actual thread here, so bear with me...

So, my question is, has your religion influenced other people's impression and opinion of you? How so? How severely has this happened to you?

Absolutely. I'm a Mormon and everyone who learns that I am immediately forms certain opinions about me that may or may not be grounded in reality. Of course, since I live in Salt Lake City, this doesn't happen much on a day-to-day basis with people I interact with. Salt Lake City is about 50% Mormon, but most of the non-Mormon population here has finally figured out that we don't actually have horns. Online, it's an entirely different matter. People think they know so much about the way Mormons think and feel and believe, when they actually have a very limited understanding of us.

 

[LuisDantas]

Hi, This is my first actual thread here, so bear with me...

So, my question is, has your religion influenced other people's impression and opinion of you? How so? How severely has this happened to you?

Many people seem to just expect me to have a good reason not to believe in God, or even to not be a Christian.

Few of them will speak openly about that to me, other than to insist that they have hope that someday I will believe, though.

There is some indication that they don't find me reliable until I do (not going to happen). Which I guess is true by their conceptions of reliability.




I hesitate in saying that it has "happened to me", though. From my perspective it has happened to them. They have been led into poor judgements by their beliefs.

I don't like that, but I can hardly feel responsible for that either.

 

[Akivah]

In your experience, is this curiosity benign or malevolent? Do you take offense at being asked about your beliefs, or do they generally ask out of genuine curiosity? I've seen both varieties of questions and wondered which you thought was more often the case.

In my experience, it has mostly been benign. I will answer, but normally attempt to stop when the topic of the Christian god comes up. My honest responses on that subject normally cause angst with the questioner.