Why do some people flat cut you off if they find out you're an atheist or agnostic?

I don’t know. I’ve never experienced this. Have you tried talking to your friend about it?

No. I asked her daughter what was up, she said she didn’t know. Then I reread our last conversation. She had said something like, “Valerie. Have you allowed the forces of darkness to take your soul??”
I didn’t respond but it was right after that she unfriended me.

I haven’t tried talking to her because I honestly don’t care. We haven’t been in much communication other than FB for the last 20 years.

Actually I had the opposite. I was stalked by baptists to convert me. “Back to the faith”. I played the game with them and I had fun. I won. Most of them lost their faith and no longer go to church. Yeah team.

That is really showing the true christian way, tell em you don’t believe and they cast you to the wolves type thing.
I guess you better believe or else huh?

Yep.

They are afraid that your truth will pull them down into hell with you. “Paranoia strikes deep.”

Some religious people find others’ lack of belief personally offensive.

They do so because they are intolerant assholes.

You are so very snide, dismissive, and condescending to all Christians when you are on Fluther, there is an excellant chance that that attitude is somewhat evident in your personal interactions as well. Maybe that’s why she unfriended you.
But since you don’t care, it doesn’t matter, does it?

I am not snide or dismissive of Christians, @canidmajor. The final comment was a bit flippant, but I wondered of that really was part of the problem. Like, they’re afraid they’ll become atheist too or something. It was a legitimate question.

I remember the circumstances around it now….she thinks Rush Limbaugh is a messenger of God. She always has. She shared some horrible thing that he said about women who have abortions, with a “Praise Jesus and his wisdom!” kind of comment, and I said, “Rush Limbaugh is an asshole. Even when I was a Christian I thought he was an asshole.”

That’s when she made the “dark side” comment and poof, she was gone.

I still talk with her daughter sometimes, though.

I think it’s fear. I don’t mean she is terrified of you, but many Christians fear the country is going to pot at the hand of the atheists.

Also, if she thinks Limbaugh is a messenger from God, her elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top to begin with. I don’t even think Limbaugh himself would claim such a thing. That’s crazy talk.

Also, my experience with Christians who are kind off the deep end (most aren’t off the deep end) is they are utterly confused by atheists who don’t fit the negative picture of what they assume atheists to be. If she likes you she would have to adjust her “world view” and then parts of her world come crashing down.

Hopefully, some Christians come to the Q and shed more light on the subject.

There are some theists who have the mentality that they shouldn’t even be associating with anyone different of their faith. Its not so much that they are afraid of being reconverted, but more of a point that its unbiblical for them to associate with unbelievers. Its usually quite an extreme faction of theists who think like this.

They usually base this on:

“Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?” – 2 Corinthians 6:14

I think it’s partly right that they’re scared. Religious people (not all) tend to have more authoritarian attitudes, which means that they’re basically more dogmatic, and less tolerant of people who don’t share their views.

It’s not just religion, by the way. I very recently had a friend fall out with me (probably for good) because she didn’t like that my views conflicted with her more politically conservative opinions.

A couple of years ago, when my mom passed away, cousin of mine and his wife were there making the usual promises to my dad – “we’re here for you”, “let us know if there’s anything we can do” and so on. Then my cousin asked to kneel down and pray with dad, and dad told him that he didn’t pray, didn’t believe, and had been an atheist for most of his life. My cousin and his wife, just a few minutes afterward, suddenly had some things they had to do and haven’t come around or call dad since to see how he was doing.

Wow. Gotta love them Christians.

Was your dad close to this cousin, @Darth_Algar ?
If so I am sorry, amazing these so called christians get their gonads all bunched up if you bad mouth anything they say or believe, but once you say you don’t believe as they do they want absolutely nothing to do with ya.

@SQUEEKY2

Fairly close. Hell, my parents took him in until he could find a place of his own after his house burned down and his mom died.

(His mom and mine were sisters.)

You seem fairly erudite and smart- anybody that thinks rush limbaugh is anything I would know I have nothing, nothing in common with- like a friend like that, what did you talk about? What did you do for fun? Did you used to be very religious @Dutchess_III ? I can’t imagine even knowing someone like that, would you want a friend like that? Aren’t you kind of glad to be unfriended?

We became friends in Jr. High. In HS we partied. We were just friends.We had a good sense of humor and we laughed a lot. You just didn’t need anything really deep to be friends at that age.
I was never “very religious,” but I was “born again” in the 80’s, so we had that in common, although she went to a Baptist church and I went to a Pentecostal. However, she was much more militant than I ever was. We just lost track of each other in the end.
As you get older, I think something more substantial is needed to be friends.

I don’t really care one way or the other that she unfriended me, really. I just find it an oddly unChristian kind of thing to do, in my opinion, anyway. I just wonder what is going through someone’s mind in a situation liike that.
But, as I said, she was always much more militant and righteous than I was. But she was that way before she “found Jesus.”