Lately, I've became quite close friends with a muslim buddy of mine. I am chinese, so I was raised with little to none religious influence. As we began to talk about our lives, his religion became one of the topics we talked about. Now, I believe that religion is a poison, that is slowing killing our world. It has caused death, war, and hate among humanity, and that, to me, cannot be justified by whatever good it has done and is capable of. I never said that in our conversation since I didn't want to start a huge arguement and ended up with my friend hating me.
But lately, I've begun to realize how big of a role religion plays in people's lives all around me, that I haven't noticed before, since religion is practiced much more privately in everyday life(as opposed to politics). This leads to my conflict, I am having trouble being friends with people who have religion in their lives. For example, I broke up a relationship with this girl earlier this year because she was christian, and I really liked her, but I couldn't bring myself to be someone who was christian. I never told her why, because I thought leaving her was bad enough.
I know that society teaches me to be tolerant, I know that this should not be a problem, but it is. When I am with these people, I feel like I cannot be truly comfortable around them, either because I know there is a zone that I can go into, or because a part of me thinks I'm better than they are(I know I'm not).
What I'm asking is, does anyone have the same experience as I do? And if so, how do you cope with it? I would like to also hear from the other side's point of view.
[This message has been edited by Holy Shit (edited 07-03-2006).]
|
Threaded Mode
