Asking for suggestions on how to deal this friend.

[Duppers]

What would you think of a "friend" who wrote the following to you?

Friend: "But if we you don't believe in God, and if there is no supreme being, then aren't we the supreme beings on this planet?"

Me: "Please stop using that phrase 'supreme being' as a synonym for most intelligent. 'Supreme being' means deity / god."

Friend: "Sorry but I did not mean it to be a synonym for most intelligent."
>>

To extrapolate from that statement in a logical, linear fashion, she had to mean that people are deities "on this planet"! People are deities?? With powers of gods? WTF? If that's not fruitcaky enough, she topped that with this clincher:

"I was just speculating that our creator could be on another planet or another universe."

I could write a five page diatribe about the number of things wrong with that statement.

She had formerly told me that she's an agnostic and that she believes in evolution, so I'm extremely puzzled.

And what would you do if you had a "friend" who made such statements? Can anyone here defend what she said in any way?

I'd like to find some way to excuse this; but as it stands now, our friendship is on very shaky ground from my perspective. Yet, I don't want to hurt her. I have high standards for my friendships and therein lies the problem. She usually emails or calls every day, so I cannot just avoid her.

Opinions? Suggestions?


Thanks,
D

[crispini]

1. What a horrible thing to consider kicking someone to the curb for!

It seems to me that she is being intellectually curious and trying to hold an interesting conversation with you. What is wrong with the free play of speculation? I don't see anything wrong with anything that she wrote, because she is positing them as questions, not as blanket statements or ultimatums.

Seems to me you are the one who is being a bit of an ass here. Why is friendship subject to the rules of intellectual debate, anyway?

[Duppers]

14. intellectual debate?

In that case everyone could be friends. Political debates here are a form, a subset, of intellectual debate to a certain extent. Often have I heard people here call wingers and fundies stupid.

I don't like detached friendships where I just use a person for certain thing. Shopping, hiking, dancing, dinning, etc. with this friend or that one is nice, but to not to be able have a political or religious discussion---that's not for me. I can't seem to compartmentalize my friendships like that. I have few friends, you don't wonder :), but they are very, very close. I have many acquaintances, however.

Wars are fought over religious, political issues. And although I'm not advocating some personal "war" with this kind lady, I cannot feel close to a person who cannot identify with my belief system.

Thanks for your comments.

The "ass." ;)

[crispini]

17. I prefer to concentrate on what I have in common with people.

I do even count some Republicans among my friends, although there are things we don't talk about. I prefer to see the Buddha in every person. There are some people whom I feel more warmly about, whom I am closer with, but I guess it all comes back to your definition of friend.

[Duppers]

20. do you?

Do you apply "I prefer to see the Buddha in every person" to the neocons? To bush?

Seems as if we all have our limits and standards, does it not?

Thanks for the comments. :)

[crispini]

24. Yes. Even Bush has his Buddhanature.

Much as it pains me to say it. :mad:

[GirlinContempt]

2. I don't see what your problem is

'excuse' this? What is there to 'excuse'? Sounds like she was trying to have a conversation with you. To extrapolate from that statement in a logical, linear fashion, people talk about things that are on their minds, often to their friends, ergo maybe she was just talking.

This seems a bit loony. Your reaction I mean.

[Heidi]

3. What do you mean by, "I have high standards

for my friendships,"? Does that mean that those who don't agree with you can't be your freiends? I'm afraid I don't understand. In my estimation, spiritual and intellectual curiosity are good things, and far more interesting than those who simply swallow all that's force-fed to them via culture, environment, etc.

If you don't want to hurt her, then don't do or say anthing with the intention of hurting her. Her reaction is her responsibility, but you'll need to own your intent.

(Welcome to DU. :hi:)

[Duppers]

15. thanks, Heidi.

nt

[Dangerously Amused]

4. Is this the same friend

...you were with at lunch when the waiter wore an offensive watch?

[Duppers]

8. funny, funny

Ya made me smile. :)

[billyskank]

5. You'd stop being friends with someone over a theological dispute?

:wtf:

[Call Me Wesley]

6. You know, this really puzzles me, can you elaborate on that?

And no, I don't request five pages, but I was wondering what really puzzles you: Her being an agnostic or believing in evolution or both? Or do you automatically assume that being an agnostic excludes the belief of a 'creator' whatsoever? I don't get it.

She had formerly told me that she's an agnostic and that she believes in evolution, so I'm extremely puzzled.

[Duppers]

7. The definition of agnostic....

She professed being an agnostic and believing in evolution and that belief system contradicts these statements of hers.

You said, "Or do you automatically assume that being an agnostic excludes the belief of a 'creator' whatsoever?" Indeed, by definition it does!

>>Agnostic:
One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
>>

Her statement presumes the existence of god.

The posts, so far, are being helpful here. I guess I am being too judgemental, but I knew that since I exclude fundies from my circle of friends.

[Call Me Wesley]

9. Her statement presumes the existance of a 'creator',

or, if you will, a creative idea behind our existance. Agnosticism has nothing to do with deep atheism; being skeptical about given dogmas does not mean to negate the given dogmas but to question them.

I might have misread your post, but I thought that you equate 'Believing in a 'creator' means believing in 'intelligent design' (or whatever it's called right now.) From what I've sensed of her words, it centers more around paganisms, although I'm not an expert of neither of them.

You're an atheist?

[Duppers]

11. Am I an atheist?

Yes, dear, I am, but with a twist. Too much to go into here.

[Call Me Wesley]

12. As I said,

I wasn't asking for a five page elaborate on it. That's what I just assumed. :hi:

[GirlinContempt]

13. "that since I exclude fundies from my circle of friends."

You're sounding pretty fundie yourself.

[Duppers]

16. oh?

Are you a religion wingnut? Or go to lunch with them?

Why don't you post a poll on that premise, asking how many here are religious or have religious friends. One of us should be surprised.

[ghostsofgiants]

29. I think this is what she's getting at...

[benEzra]

32. The defining feature of fundamentalism in the United States

isn't so much their theological beliefs, but their idea of "separation," i.e. how they treat those who disagree with them. They shun those who disagree.

Tolerance of differing views isn't a fundie virtue; it's supposed to be a progressive one.

My wife and I have friends from all across the political spectrum. I think this world (and this country) could use a bit more friendship and social cohesiveness; for a study of what happens to a society when people lose the ability to be friends with people who aren't just like them, see Yugoslavia/Serbia/Kosovo.

[GirlinContempt]

35. Exactly

"a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles"

[GirlinContempt]

36. What the hell are you talking about?

[Kerrytravelers]

40. I don't think GirlinContempt would be surprised by the proposed poll.

There are many of us here who are religious and who have religious friends. There are some who are evangelical. There are all faiths and those who choose no faith. Many of us here have friends and family of all political persuasion and faiths.

[philosophie_en_rose]

10. True Friendship is a treasure. Sounds like she was thinking out loud.

Part of friendship is trust. My friends are generally kind-hearted and funny people with occassional irrational ideas. I believe in honesty, but true friendship can survive disagreement or mockery or silliness. It sounds like she was just thinking out loud. Give her a break.

[khashka]

18. Sorry can't help you...

If you want to end this friendship, then do so. But it will be a mistake.

She sounds like an inventive, curious, thoughtful person. She's trying to find ultimate answers - she can't, but she tries. That's a good thang.

You are being a right royal ratfuck bastard. "Her philosophy does'nt agree with mine!" Yeah, well, welcome to life.



Khash.

[Deja Q]

19. Non-sequitur. No supreme being = we're all supreme beings?

:crazy:

Fit her inside a cuckoo clock, she's done.

BTW: Hurting her is a crime in 49 states.

BTW: "Sequitur" in the spell checker comes out as "Squirter".



Edit: Grammar

[Duppers]

22. thanks, Toadie.

She did not just mention this in casual conversation, but first said it when she was stoned. So, I asked again when she was sober, only to get the same statement. Then we had an email exchange over this and she stuck by her guns and the exchange got weirder and weirder.

But it was this statement that flipped me out: "I was just speculating that our creator could be on another planet or another universe."

Her saying that we had 'a creator' is one thing.... 'Our creator' always has the connotation of being 'god' and saying that god has a physical persona??? Hell, I may as well believe in christianity as to believe that. But it's another thing to say this 'creator' cooked us up in some petri dish on another planet? Come on. Let's just ignore DNA then, shall we!! ;) If the word 'god' can be applied to anything, it would be the physical laws that created and enable the universe, which includes "the singularity," as Hawking refers to many times.

Whoops, my "atheism" is showing.

It's interesting the difference in the responses from the males here and the gals.

Thanks again Toadie for seeing my point.

[Duppers]

23. she also said that she does "not buy into the big bang"

Uh oh. She knows my hubby is a physicist.

For your entertainment and enlightenment:

The big bang has been proven by the background radiation leftover from the big bang back in the '70's; the people at Bell Lab won a Nobel Prize for that finding. The Big Bang is irrefutable.

The universe began in the big bang; before that? There was the "singularity" in the space-time continuum.
This singularity has always existed and could be called 'god' but I'll not do that. The word 'god' has no meaning for me because it always has a religious connotation.

Sources:
>>
"Einstein's equations describe a spacetime that is perfectly smooth, like the rubber sheet. His theory of relativity only deals with the physics of what happens on big scales. It cannot deal with what happens at the centre of a black hole, or what happened during the moment of the Big Bang at the birth of the Universe when spacetime itself was infinitesimally small. That takes us back into the world of quantum physics .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/exploration/timetravel/index.shtml


And Stephen Hawking says:
>>
"At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside."
"Although the laws of science seemed to predict the universe had a beginning, they also seemed to predict that they could not determine how the universe would have begun. This was obviously very unsatisfactory. So there were a number of attempts to get round the conclusion, that there was a singularity of infinite density in the past. One suggestion was to modify the law of gravity, so that it became repulsive. Instead, the idea was that, as the galaxies moved apart, new galaxies were formed in between, from matter that was supposed to be continually created. This was the Steady State theory, proposed by Bondi, Gold, and Hoyle.


The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again. However, the contracting phase, will not have the opposite arrow of time, to the expanding phase. So we will keep on getting older, and we won't return to our youth. Because time is not going to go backwards, I think I better stop now."

http://www.hawking.org.uk/text/public/bot.html

I love to read Hawking. My hubby literally bumped into him/his wheel chair rounding a corner in Cambridge.


From National Geographic:
>>
Proof of Big Bang Seen by Space Probe http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0317_060317_big_bang.html


So, cuckoo clock is right, Toadie. She's not really a deep thinker, any more than she's enlightened.

[gollygee]

21. She sounds a little nutty

but that doesn't mean she isn't a good friend.

[Wapsie B]

25. How the hell does she know,

with absolute certainty that this divine power, this creator of all is a Christian God? How in the world does she know where this power is? Sounds like she's been "saved" to me. If she showed the least bit of vulnerability the fundies would pounce on that in a heartbeat.

[Duppers]

30. don't know about that

But it seems what she's proposing is more fruitcaky than the fundies' beliefs.

I think she's searching for something to believe in, but aren't we all! I could believe in the Easter Bunny too, but who'd want me as a friend! ;) Perhaps, some of you, since making sense doesn't matter in your relationships. (not you BWAWOL)

[Wapsie B]

33. I'm certainly no one to cast aspersions

on other relationships. Yeah some of 'em don't make sense. But such is life.

Welcome to DU!

:)

[TheBaldyMan]

26. evolution isn't mutually exclusive with agnosticism or belief

it's a scientific theory not an article of faith.

Faith and a recognition of the scientific method are not contradictory and lots of scientists believe in God, they just don't subscribe to the fundamentalist view that scripture is literally true.

[Duppers]

28. yes, I know that

But that's not what this is about really. Thanks. :)

[TheBaldyMan]

31. if you want my advice about how to deal with the weird beliefs

I'd say she believe anything no matter how nutty but you could let her know that you find discussion of her beliefs uncomfortable. Maybe advise her not to get into any conversations with cult members that may take her unorthodox views as a signal that's she'll believe any old claptrap and recruit her into their tax-exempt confidence trick.

[I Have A Dream]

27. I'm just going to be straight with you...

I think that she'd be better off without you as a friend. I think that it would be your loss rather than hers in the end.

[Nikia]

34. In college, we had "nutty" discussions all the time

Some of it was serious. Some of it was for entertainment value. A lot of it was both. It fit well in the environment of considering and challenging different ideas, even if those ideas might seem strange. All of us participating in such discussions had fun. We tried not to offend people who would be offended by such talk, such as Fundamentalists of all types.
If you are offended by such talk, tell her, but don't end the friendship over it. I think that it is important to tolerate a little bit of quirkiness in friends. I am glad they tolerate my quirkiness after all.

[ChoralScholar]

37. I have several friends

with whom I do not discuss religious-type things. We are great friends and have great conversations in other subjects, but we just learned we disagreed on religion, and avoid it.

I ask you this: What's the point of having 'high standards' for friendships? Unless someone does something hurtful to me or someone close to me, I have no problem being anyone's friend (obviously there are different degrees of friendship, but I digress).

People are not like old socks, constantly needing to be checked for holes so they can be thrown out. Be tolerant, accepting, and agree to disagree on the subject and enjoy her as a person.

Excluding a friendship on the basis of religion is something über-conservatives do... not liberals.

[Tsiyu]

38. So you don't get out much then?

Agnostic means "I don't know" so no, it does not automatically exclude a creator, it merely is a position which says, "nobody knows for sure."

An athiest denies the existence of a creator outright.

So what is your problem? That your friend questions the universe? That she has odd questions?

Her statement about each of us being a supreme being is a religious mindset for some - the godhead residing in each of us. So it's not an alarming thought process. It has occurred to others before your friend came up with the idea.

Positing that our "creator" might exist on another planet is certainly speculative but it shouldn't make you go loony tunes over it.

I'm just confused. If you'd lose your friend over this trivial a matter I'd say it wasn't much of a friendship. But that's just me.

[Kerrytravelers]

39. Opinion: I think you're being mean about your friend. Suggestion: Stop it.

Luckily I don't require everyone to hold the same belief system as me. I'm Catholic. Two of my dearest friends are Buddhist and Atheist. I could never be without their friendship.