In another thread, @Ezra noticed that I am an agnostic and said "i see you have agnostic beside your faith.. conversation ended". Apparently the mere fact that I'm not a Christian is justification enough to not talk to me. That put me in mind of something similar that happened a couple of years ago.
As I've described many times here, pretty much all my friends are Christians, some even are full-time employees of a local church. We became friends through our kids (they're all about the same age) and school.
For years we all would go camping together, sometimes at the church's campground and other times at a national forest campground....but always next to a lake. As our kids have grown older the tradition has waned a bit, but we try to go whenever we can. At the last camping trip, one of my friends invited his sister and brother-in-law. I'd never met them before, but they seemed like nice enough people to me....at first.
One day all the parents were floating in the bay on a large inflatable raft, just hanging out and chatting. I can't recall exactly what led the conversation towards non-Christians, but at one point my friend's sister says rather loudly "I can't stand non-Christians! I don't want them in my house, I don't want them around my kids...I don't even like being around them!!"
Now, everyone else (besides her husband) on that raft knew I was a non-Christian, so there was an immediate period of very awkward silence. I just sat there and turned my gaze towards the mountains and smiled and eventually the conversation moved to something else. But for the rest of the trip, there was an obvious tension as every once in awhile she would again say something about non-Christians. I don't know if any of my friends ever said anything to her about my lack of faith, but I didn't. I'd just met her and didn't feel like I should start up with her on what was otherwise a very enjoyable trip. So as usual I just spoke to her in pleasantries and left it at that.
Anyways, Ezra's comment earlier today reminded me of that day at the lake and how weird her statements seemed. What's with some Christians and this apparent fear of being around or.......GASP......talking to a non-Christian? Are they afraid I'm going to infect them with critical thinking and skepticism? Are they worried they might find out I'm a pleasant person who's fun to be around? Or maybe they think I've got some sort of demon that might jump from my body to theirs?
As I've described many times here, pretty much all my friends are Christians, some even are full-time employees of a local church. We became friends through our kids (they're all about the same age) and school.
For years we all would go camping together, sometimes at the church's campground and other times at a national forest campground....but always next to a lake. As our kids have grown older the tradition has waned a bit, but we try to go whenever we can. At the last camping trip, one of my friends invited his sister and brother-in-law. I'd never met them before, but they seemed like nice enough people to me....at first.
One day all the parents were floating in the bay on a large inflatable raft, just hanging out and chatting. I can't recall exactly what led the conversation towards non-Christians, but at one point my friend's sister says rather loudly "I can't stand non-Christians! I don't want them in my house, I don't want them around my kids...I don't even like being around them!!"
Now, everyone else (besides her husband) on that raft knew I was a non-Christian, so there was an immediate period of very awkward silence. I just sat there and turned my gaze towards the mountains and smiled and eventually the conversation moved to something else. But for the rest of the trip, there was an obvious tension as every once in awhile she would again say something about non-Christians. I don't know if any of my friends ever said anything to her about my lack of faith, but I didn't. I'd just met her and didn't feel like I should start up with her on what was otherwise a very enjoyable trip. So as usual I just spoke to her in pleasantries and left it at that.
Anyways, Ezra's comment earlier today reminded me of that day at the lake and how weird her statements seemed. What's with some Christians and this apparent fear of being around or.......GASP......talking to a non-Christian? Are they afraid I'm going to infect them with critical thinking and skepticism? Are they worried they might find out I'm a pleasant person who's fun to be around? Or maybe they think I've got some sort of demon that might jump from my body to theirs?
