It’s difficult. I decided to end a friendship recently, due to the friend’s wholehearted embrace of catholic doctrine. I just didn’t want to be around someone with her views on homosexuality, abortion and contraception. Not sure if this was the right decision, but I no longer found her company enjoyable, and I thought I was unlikely to change her mind.
I find it much easier to be friends with more liberal christians. They are wrong, but in a way that I find easier to deal with.
ETA: could someone explain why this has been downvoted twice? I’m quite new to this site, and would like to know how to avoid this.
ETA2: No longer downvoted, so ignore previous question!
Picking your friends by their politics seems like a bad way to maximize personal well being, unless they insist on talking about it all the time. Indeed people who ostracise others because of ideology are often the ones who can’t stop talking about it:
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
—Winston Churchill
Most people compartmentalize quite well and most humans are hypocrites. In the real world people with weird or “evil” ideologies can still make great friends and can be good people. And people with wonderful sounding belief systems can be horrible human begins. Don’t underestimate the utility she may bring you and how much utility you can bring her by continuing the relationship.
Note that if she is into virtue ethics she may view severing your friendship over religion a breach of loyalty, not something she would do, which means you are sort of defecting. (;_;)
I’m getting to be quite old, and I have very little tolerance for people with strong political beliefs. For people I meet in passing, I generally ignore stupid beliefs and simply transition the conversation elsewhere—it’s not worth the time and effort.
However, for anyone I’m going to spend more than passing time with, I usually ridicule and/or contradict what I consider unproductive beliefs if they are expressed strongly. This puts the target on notice that I don’t approve and that they had best not talk about it in my presence; occasionally, it gets rid of the target completely, a fact for which I have been grateful many times.
My reasons for so blatantly violating social norms centers largely around the fact that no matter what action I take, I will have at best minimal impact on this person. If I support their view, it is reinforced. If I do nothing, they assume I don’t have a problem with it, and it is likewise reinforced. If I directly contradict their view, it also reinforces it, as discussed repeatedly in the articles on this site.
Quite frankly, I have limited time remaining, and better things to do with that time than try to fix an occasional broken belief system in a low- or normal-functioning person. If you’re not going to lead and you’re not going to follow, then get out of the way.
I just didn’t want to be around someone with her views on homosexuality, abortion and contraception; Not sure if this was the right decision, but I didn’t find her company enjoyable, and I thought I was unlikely to change her mind.
What was disagreeable about her company? Was she trying to convert you, or constantly telling you you are wrong? Would she be amenable to simply avoiding those topics, and would you be able to deal with that? Why do you need to change her mind?
She did want to discuss moral issues quite a lot, and yes she did want to convert me back to catholicism. I couldn’t see what could be gained by continuing the friendship.
And I wanted to change her mind, because it’s better not to be a catholic!
And I wanted to change her mind, because it’s better not to be a catholic!
Just because you know it’s better doesn’t mean you have to harbor a burning desire to change her mind. If you want to change her mind for her benefit, ask yourself, is it better for her to continue to be her friend, or to stop? Of course, this can only work if she can take the same stance with you.
You are also free to choose to otherwise, of course. It’s enough for me to have posed the interesting questions.
Why were you friends with her in the first place? I understand not wanting to be around someone with terrible mental hygiene habits (because of the epistemic danger), but that sort of thing becomes rather obvious long before they start telling you all about their new religious conversion.
This post has fluctuated a bit. I should clarify that I wasn’t suggesting that he or she shouldn’t have been friends with her in the first place. I was simply posing the question in order to elicit clarification. (I understand how it may have sounded like I was suggesting that though, which is why I’m writing this.)
I didn’t care too much that she’s never been much of a rationalist. If I decided that I only wanted to be friends with rationalists I would have to end friendships with a lot of people! I found that her views made her annoying to be around! Perhaps if she’d talked less about her views things would have been different.
Well, I was friends with her when I was much younger, and we were both catholics. After my deconversion, I think I continued to be friends with her for sunk cost fallacy reasons—I didn’t want to end such a long friendship!
It’s difficult. I decided to end a friendship recently, due to the friend’s wholehearted embrace of catholic doctrine. I just didn’t want to be around someone with her views on homosexuality, abortion and contraception. Not sure if this was the right decision, but I no longer found her company enjoyable, and I thought I was unlikely to change her mind.
I find it much easier to be friends with more liberal christians. They are wrong, but in a way that I find easier to deal with.
ETA: could someone explain why this has been downvoted twice? I’m quite new to this site, and would like to know how to avoid this.
ETA2: No longer downvoted, so ignore previous question!
Picking your friends by their politics seems like a bad way to maximize personal well being, unless they insist on talking about it all the time. Indeed people who ostracise others because of ideology are often the ones who can’t stop talking about it:
Most people compartmentalize quite well and most humans are hypocrites. In the real world people with weird or “evil” ideologies can still make great friends and can be good people. And people with wonderful sounding belief systems can be horrible human begins. Don’t underestimate the utility she may bring you and how much utility you can bring her by continuing the relationship.
Note that if she is into virtue ethics she may view severing your friendship over religion a breach of loyalty, not something she would do, which means you are sort of defecting. (;_;)
As I say below, she did insist on talking about it too muuch :-).
It would be interesting to discuss the utility of choosing your friends based on politics, but I fear we’d be going too far off topic!
Ah ok, sorry.
Ah ok sorry then.
I’m getting to be quite old, and I have very little tolerance for people with strong political beliefs. For people I meet in passing, I generally ignore stupid beliefs and simply transition the conversation elsewhere—it’s not worth the time and effort.
However, for anyone I’m going to spend more than passing time with, I usually ridicule and/or contradict what I consider unproductive beliefs if they are expressed strongly. This puts the target on notice that I don’t approve and that they had best not talk about it in my presence; occasionally, it gets rid of the target completely, a fact for which I have been grateful many times.
My reasons for so blatantly violating social norms centers largely around the fact that no matter what action I take, I will have at best minimal impact on this person. If I support their view, it is reinforced. If I do nothing, they assume I don’t have a problem with it, and it is likewise reinforced. If I directly contradict their view, it also reinforces it, as discussed repeatedly in the articles on this site.
Quite frankly, I have limited time remaining, and better things to do with that time than try to fix an occasional broken belief system in a low- or normal-functioning person. If you’re not going to lead and you’re not going to follow, then get out of the way.
What was disagreeable about her company? Was she trying to convert you, or constantly telling you you are wrong? Would she be amenable to simply avoiding those topics, and would you be able to deal with that? Why do you need to change her mind?
She did want to discuss moral issues quite a lot, and yes she did want to convert me back to catholicism. I couldn’t see what could be gained by continuing the friendship.
And I wanted to change her mind, because it’s better not to be a catholic!
Just because you know it’s better doesn’t mean you have to harbor a burning desire to change her mind. If you want to change her mind for her benefit, ask yourself, is it better for her to continue to be her friend, or to stop? Of course, this can only work if she can take the same stance with you.
You are also free to choose to otherwise, of course. It’s enough for me to have posed the interesting questions.
Why were you friends with her in the first place? I understand not wanting to be around someone with terrible mental hygiene habits (because of the epistemic danger), but that sort of thing becomes rather obvious long before they start telling you all about their new religious conversion.
This post has fluctuated a bit. I should clarify that I wasn’t suggesting that he or she shouldn’t have been friends with her in the first place. I was simply posing the question in order to elicit clarification. (I understand how it may have sounded like I was suggesting that though, which is why I’m writing this.)
I didn’t care too much that she’s never been much of a rationalist. If I decided that I only wanted to be friends with rationalists I would have to end friendships with a lot of people! I found that her views made her annoying to be around! Perhaps if she’d talked less about her views things would have been different.
Well, I was friends with her when I was much younger, and we were both catholics. After my deconversion, I think I continued to be friends with her for sunk cost fallacy reasons—I didn’t want to end such a long friendship!