Beliefs and friendship

[Beanie]

This is actually kind of a thing for me right now. One of my co-workers is very political and likes to discuss political stories he sees on the internet... and by doing so often bashes the political party I happen to identify with. He has no idea how I vote and certainly didn't bother to find out before he started going on these political rants, and I have yet to tell him "So you DO know I totally didn't vote the same way you did last election, right?" I'm not exactly offended by the things he has to say, but the language and tone he uses is so judgmental and... angry... it bothers me.

But at the same time it's nothing new. I've been friends with people before who go on long anti-religious rants - almost always anti-Christian specifically rather than just general religion - filled with hate and venom, and when I pipe up (or point out again, as some people forget repeatedly...) that I'm Christian, I get "well I don't mean YOU" (which is like if I were standing in front of a friend from Korea and start ripping on Asians and then said 'well I don't mean YOU.' Yeah, my comments are still offensive and bigoted.) or my personal favourite, "You're a Christian? But you're so COOL!" (because being Christian and cool are mutually exclusive.)


And really what's most amusing/sad is... for so long I've known a lot of my friends do not vote the same way I do. I don't judge them for it, it doesn't change how I feel about them as friends, I really don't care. And yet I know that if some of them ever found out how *I* vote, they wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. Because they are SO convinced that the other side/Christians/Jews/people with green eyes/cat people are SO MEAN and SO STUPID and SO BIGOTED and SUCH JERKS.
Normally I love irony... not so much in this case.

 

[Tahla9999]

Yeah, I just had a big argument with my two male best friends on whether or not it is ever the fault of the women that she is sexually assaulted. They believed that most of the time, it is all the guys fault, but 15% of the time, it is the fault of the women too.They felt that a women who wears revealing clothing, or constantly leads the guy on is partly responsible. Yeah, lets just say it was a huge argument that ensued, and it was me against them. I was really angry, they were really angry, we argued for more than an hour on the phone(I actually had an argument with another male acquaintance of mine about this same topic so I guess many men hold this view). Than they stop, said it was getting too lengthy and out of hand, and then we started talking about something else. I could have went longer on the topic because I really wanted them to see my viewpoint, but they wanted to move on.

We had heated debates like this quite a bit. One of my male friends is VERY religious, and there have been times where we had discussions about it that wasn't too intense, but he had his say, I had my say, than we move on. My other male friend I tend to get into arguments all the time, arguments that a few times, lead to one of us hanging up on each other because we were so frustrated at one another. But like all of our intense arguments, we had them, we recognize our difference on the topic, than we move on. We still relate quite a bit to each other, despite our differences in opinion. We have great times together. I have a hard time not imagining them in my life. In fact, IMO, arguments make a friendship more real and honest. I'm a shy person, so the people who I can openly argue with are the people I'm most comfortable with.

So to answer the question, yes I can definitely be friends with a person who shares very different beliefs from mine.

 

[Cheetah]

I have learned which friends I can talk about certain topics with, and which ones I can't. But it has never gotten in the way of our friendships. I'm friends with each person because we have some thing or another in common, but I know everyone is going to be different.

 

[Shai]

As long as the person isn't a jerk about their beliefs I'm pretty much fine with it.

That goes for whether we hold the aligned or opposing viewpoints.

 

[OwnedByBCs]

Depends on the issues and how close we are, I guess. I could never be more than courteous with someone who is against gay rights, for example. Or like someone else said I couldn't be close to someone who supports the whole animal rights cause because we are inevitably going to clash over that, and hard.

Someone's position on fiscal issues doesn't really matter to me but there are at least a few social issues that I feel strongly enough about that it would be a problem.

This is how I feel.

 

[MinPinOwner]

It's strange that this is all even an issue for me and others. It doesn't usually bother me what others believe and I try not to judge people by their beliefs. I do think it's unhealthy(for lack of a better word) to constantly discuss controversial subjects. People should enjoy their relationships with their friends/relatives and socializing with others. I've experienced people being obnoxious about their opinions and they'll discuss it a lot.