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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
 Posted - 02/09/2011 : 13:08:12
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My best pal and I have been partners in crime for the last 21 years. He has all kinds of confused thoughts about religion which I believe came the fact that his parents religion-hopped a number of times when was a kid.
He is an aging "party guy". While the rest of our buddies and I have gotten married and settled down (not that we don't party any more..it's just not nearly as often) he has continued as if he were still 21 y/o.
Things finally caught up with him after going on a three day bender during New Year. He decided that he was going to quit drinking (great!) and start going to church regularly (boo!!). This has happened a couple of other times over the years and never lasted more than a week. This time though I think it is really going to happen.
When he first brought his life change to our attention (he is the drummer in one of my bands) he made it pretty clear that he would probably not be hanging around with us any more. (as if somehow WE are bad influences on him ) I told him that I was glad that he was straitening his shit out but to turn his back on his friends who have been there so many times for him over the years was both insulting and unwarranted.
Last week at band rehearsal he was telling about the church he found. He discovered the big Rock-N-Roll-Laser-Light-Show church we have here in town. He expressed how happy he was to find such a "cool" church. (to quote him " I've never been to a church where they play GUITAR SOLOS!)"
Here is where I feel like a bad atheist. I found myself feeling happy for him that he found a place that he fits in (even though it is a church) if it meant that he doesn't have to disown his friends who care about him.
Am I a bad atheist?
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Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2011 : 13:53:07 [Permalink]
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You aren't a bad atheist, since there is no atheist mandate to proselytize. Nor, really, is outreach a necessary component of skepticism. Depending on how cynically you want to view religion, you might be considered a bad friend for letting him get taken up in a predatory cult. Is it better than drinking himself to death? Certainly, although ex-alcoholics often end up just replacing one addiction with another (religion). It might make him a better person, or it might make him more insufferable or more judgmental. Then again, it could be a phase. He might benefit from psychotherapy or drug rehabilitation for a more sustainable recovery. I'd just be honest with him. Tell him you are glad he quit drinking but that he doesn't need Jeebus to do it, and that you'll be there as his friend whenever he needs one.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 02/09/2011 13:54:15 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2011 : 14:00:12 [Permalink]
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Nah. You can't live someone's life for him. If he's happy in this, well, church, then be happy for him. Could be worse; he could have fallen into the greasy clutches of Scientology or some pack of YEC loony-toons. Count your blessinge and keep your friend.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2011 : 14:15:50 [Permalink]
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Thanks for the validation H.
Filthy, kinda funny...he is a YEC. I remeber when he discovered the concept a few years ago how he tried to convince me of the validity of YEC. All I could do was laugh. |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 02/09/2011 : 17:28:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
Thanks for the validation H.
Filthy, kinda funny...he is a YEC. I remeber when he discovered the concept a few years ago how he tried to convince me of the validity of YEC. All I could do was laugh.
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Heh, call him an apostate, then -- Rock & Roll church indeed!
I rather suspect that the double-dip failed to take hold as firmly as is usual with the YECs. If he is doing this on a sporadic basis, then I'd look for him to be back sooner or later, hopefully sans the hooch.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2011 : 05:17:24 [Permalink]
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Sounds to me as though you did about right. Your comment to him: "I told him that I was glad that he was straitening his shit out but to turn his back on his friends who have been there so many times for him over the years was both insulting and unwarranted" was only fair.
If you choose to be a bit more tolerant to him than he, with his convert's sense of superiority, is to you, you should not feel bad about that.
H.H. got it just right. We atheists aren't compelled, or reasonably expected, to be dicks to our believing friends. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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I must be bad at being an atheist
