Why do SOME people feel the need to convert me to their religion when they realize I am not affiliated with any religion?

because everyone thinks they’re right.

This may sound strange but they probably really like you. They think you’re a great guy and they are probably genuinly concerned for your eternal salvation.
Their approach is the only way they know and what they’ve been taught. It sometimes makes me (as a Christian) sad because it reveals their own insecurities and a lack of confidance that God is in control.

For your aunt, it may be that she loves you & wants the best for you (which she believes is faith in God, and marriage), or this is how she affirms her belief and trust in her faith, by convincing others to join it. For many faiths, an important factor is converting others or showing them the ‘error of their ways’ for not believing.

It could also be a societal thing; if you are in an environment where you’re the only nonreligious person, there’s this feeling that it’s an oddity that needs to be fixed. I myself have never tried to convert anyone, but I think these are logical potential reasons.

I term myself ‘traditionally religious’, because there are certain traditions that have been passed down by generations stretching back to unremembered days. These traditions connect me to my culture and my ancestors, but on the whole I’m pretty much an atheist, because I can’t make the leaps of faith that religion requires.

There are some people whose lives are enriched by religion, but I’m happy without it. (I like to think, however, that many of the basic tenets of religion push to be be a better person than you are—all the major religions preach love, respect, and forgiveness.)

They believe they have found something of true value and want to share it with you. They believe they have an obligation to spread the word of what they have learned to others. They believe they are offering you the most important thing they can offer. They are brainwashed.

I think they have selfish motive, either beleiving they will get into “heaven” for “saving” you, or they are trying to get over there own doubts. I usually just smile, enjoy the show, and wait for them to go back to their flock.

@everyone Thanks for the insight. Your answers make sense, as entertaining as I found them. ;-)

I thought of something else too. In the south, a lot of social life is revolved around Church. They probably also want to include you in that “fellowship.”. Again, because they like you and want to hang out with you.

Bonus points from their congregation for referring someone to the faith?

Well, I guess we can all only speculate as to what another persons motives are but as a Christian girl myself, I will tell you what I assume is some of the reason for this. First I agree with most of the other posts here that often times people are trying to do what they feel is a good thing for someone that there care about. If that is not the case what you have to remember is that one of the core resposibilities that is expressed to Christians in the Bible is to share their faith. It actually talks about us being held accountable for those whom we do not share our beliefs with and having to answer to God for that in some capacity. So this is probably some of the reason as well. Although I do agree with you that it would have to be a decision that you have to make for yourself and it should not be forced on you. Nor should people ridicule your lifestyle to try and scare you into a religion. Thats what frustrates me about some Christians because we are taught to share our faith by showing love…not how greater than thou anyone is. Well hope that helps….Just my two cents.,LOL

Isn’t there also something in the Christian religion about non-Christians going to hell?
In that case, people are trying to save your (after-) life.

@kyanblue there’s something in virtually all religions about non-(that religion) going to a bad place…

Probably because some religions believe that their way is the only way to avoid Hell… so they do it out of concern for you, not for any other reason. They truly believe this, so even if you aren’t affiliated with a religion, they are still going to try to save you if they think maybe they can. Kind of like if your friend was standing in front of a bus and said they weren’t worried about what happened when the bus hit them- that they didn’t even believe the bus would hit them. You’d still push your friend out of the way.

@notabridesmaid That’s the reason why I’m not religious, the message of love in most religions is contractory in that it often times lacks acceptance and tolerance.

@BBSDTfamily Although I appreciate the analogy as a possible explanation for their drive to convert me, their intentions are still way too presumptuous for me. Which makes me refer back to @ABoyNamedBoobs03 comment that it’s “because everyone thinks they’re right.”

you moved from Chicago to the South? willingly? I’m so sorry…I would never want to live there

@Simone_De_Beauvoir LOL. Not intentionally, at first. To make a long story short, it just kind of happened that way and I haven’t found a way to rectify the situation yet. But I’m working on it. I hear London calling.

I’m an atheist and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people trying to convert other people.

If you believe something strongly, you think it’s right and helpful, and you think other people’s lives will be better off if you try to share it with them—why on earth would it be wrong to try to share it?

I mean, don’t be a dick about it, but I don’t get this weird undercurrent in these discussions where religion (or politics) are some kind of sacred ideas that can never be openly discussed or debated. I think there’s an inherent value in being open to such discussions.

Look at things from their point of view. They truly believe that the way to a happy life is to believe in certain things and do certain things, and they think that if you don’t do these things, you will be punished eternally. So because they care about you, they try to convert you.

@Qingu awesome point of view…..love it

It’s Darwins Theory, I’m pretty sure, google it

@Qingu I hear what you are saying, but I think you are missing my point. I have plenty of family members and friends who participate some form religion or other and we can get along just fine because I respect their beliefs and they respect mine, even though they don’t always coincide with one another. I’m allowed to respectfully decline their help or good intentions. Is that so wrong, when I’m just as certain that it’s not what I want just as certain as they are that it’s what I need? My life and my soul is my own. God gave me free will, did he not? When I say no thank you, they should stop beating a dead horse and let me be. Their persistence isn’t winning through, it’s only turning me off.

@SuckaFreeCitizen “God gave me free will, did he not?”

I think that’s the debatable point ;)

I created my own religion that was just outrageous enough to get those types of people to leave me alone. When they heard about Evelynism, and declared that it is ludicrous, I usually replied, “Oh, and yet your religion about a god that had sex with a virgin to give birth to himself, but didn’t use a penis, then had himself killed, laid around dead for three days and then rose up as a zombie to fly into heaven without a plane or even flapping his arms makes perfect sense?”

They’ve learned to not bother trying to save my soul anymore. :^)

Because you’re not what they are and that is a threat to them, so they want to convert you.

Heathens!

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 Ah, yes, of course. The old unanswered question of Fate vs Free Will.

@evelyns_pet_zebra That’s a good one. Very much on point. I imagine Bill Maher would be proud. I might have to borrow that often. =)

@SuckaFreeCitizen I was gesturing more towards the question of whether or not it was in fact god that gave you free will. But if you’re going off the assumption that a god, in the christian sense exists, then yes fate vs. free will.

@SuckaFreeCitizen You’re correct… well, maybe not 100% of the time, but people who strongly believe in their religion do think they are right at least about religion. My analogy was to explain that some people may try to sway you in their direction out of concern, and no other malicious, controlling reason. Some do it for the wrong reasons, but many do it for what is to them the right reason. It is unfair to those people to discredit anyone who is concerned with your religion, because some people do it out of care for you.

@BBSDTfamily do you understand the redundancy of trying to convert someone who holds value on physical evidence to a religion with no provable facts?

in the case of Religious trying to convert atheists, it’s nothing more than jacking off without a prostate, a vast majority of the time.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 Yes, I was going off of the latter assumption. It was more of a rhetorical question for the determined Christians out there, whoever they may be. Just for the record, I have no religion. I’m not an atheist, but I’m not Agnostic either. I don’t know if I have a category, to tell you the truth. I mostly believe that no one knows everything and that anything is possible. So far that’s been enough for me.

@BBSDTfamily Of course I’m not correct 100% of the time, I’m not infallible. ;-) Although, I do try to be reasonable the majority of the time. Their definition of caring may not be my own. I do try to take a more liberal approach in these matters. I don’t necessarily seek to discredit them, but I do want them to let me be. I think I’d get along with them a lot better. I’m not asking a whole lot, really. I guess it really doesn’t matter why they want to convert me. It only matters that I won’t allow it to happen. Even though I know some may argue that it will set me free, I don’t want to be caged by religion.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 What is your point? I answered the question asked… didn’t ask for your input and don’t care either.

@SuckaFreeCitizen Just answering the initial question you asked… not trying to debate w/ you over whether or not you should agree with them. Thanks for sharing though.

@BBSDTfamily And I really appreciate your input even though I don’t agree with all of it. I didn’t expect I would. Nevertheless, I welcome opposing viewpoints. I find discussing them a valuable tool for learning. No need to get touchy or upset. I thought Fluther wasn’t just for questions and answers but having a discussion as well? Ah, well.

@SuckaFreeCitizen You’re right it is for discussion as well… I guess I just thought you were arguing with me about why people would try to convert you is wrong, when I wasn’t claiming it was wrong or right at all, just giving my two cents on one reason I know people try. I happen to be Christian, and at my church we’re not urged to “convert” people or even make an attempt. We are just to love everyone and lead by example… it surprises me how doing just that can spark interest in other people about my religion. When someone asks, that is the “green light” on talking to them about it… trying to convert people usually just pushes them the other direction so it’s pointless.

@BBSDTfamily lol Kind of like if your friend was standing in front of a bus and said they weren’t worried about what happened when the bus hit them- that they didn’t even believe the bus would hit them. You’d still push your friend out of the way.”

I did it out of concern for you, not for any other reason.

why do you think you can try to convince me or anyone else of your personal beliefs without being asked to do so when you dismiss any attempts aimed in your direction? it just seems like a contradiction to me.

As we all know religion is one of those topics….it is very touchy. Well, I will say that for those of us who practice a religion. Because in most cases it is the core of who we are. It’s funny that we all keep using the word “convert”....as many churches as I have been to I don’t recall anyone ever using the term.
@aboynamedboobs Also, as I mentioned in my first post, as Christians we have a responsibility to share our faith very much like the example from above of pushing a friend from in front of the bus even if they don’t see the danger…it is exactly like that. That is why regardless of what tangible proof a person wants it is never pointless for a Christian to share their beliefs because it is one of our core responsibilities in itself.
For me personally I don’t try to “convert” anyone. Attempt to share it with people of course. But at the end of the day, it is your choice. Take it or leave it type of situation….

I think its important to note as well, that as offensive as it can come off when people try and force their beliefs on you, there are situations that are similarly offensive to Christians.
For example when I read the post above by @evelyns_pet_zebra I got a similar feeling to how one may feel if you watched someone punch your mother in the stomach or spit in your fathers face (best way I could describe the emotion). So, as often as it may seem that Christians are pushy “religious” people trying to put others in cages and what not, we often face the same challenges of not being accepted as you might as someone who is not a Christian. It just depends on the crowd. My point is, in many cases it would be easier for us NOT to share our faith because we wouldn’t have to deal with sarcastic offensive comments, or people calling you a Jesus freak, or a Bible thumper….yet still we continue…goes back to the responsibility thing.

And just for the sake of discussion and curiosity, because I do agree with @SuckaFreeCitizen that discussion is healthy and should be welcomed (when carried out in a “tolerant manner”), what do you believe happens to a person when they die? Do you believe that human beings have an inner soul? Do you believe that there is a God just not in the Christian sense? I didn’t want to create a new fluther for this because I would like to hear the opinions of the people that have already responded here.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 I am not the one trying to convince anyone of anything, you seem to be though. Like I said, I was just answering the question of why some people feel the need to do so, so get over it!

@BBSDTfamily Word. I’m glad we got that cleared up. =)

@notabridesmaid I’d be more than happy to satisfy your curiosity. =) “What do you believe happens to a person when they die? Do you believe that human beings have an inner soul? Do you believe that there is a God just not in the Christian sense?” First and foremost, I believe anything is possible. I wish I could discount the black void of nothingness as a possibility or that idea of God is a neurological disorder, human predisposition or psychological crutch, but I don’t. (Please don’t take offense to that because I am being serious and honest). I do hope that we have a soul or some sort of energy in all of us that is a part of some collective belonging to and originating from a higher power or source, whatever you want call it. Some people call it Allah, God, YHWH, Krishna, Nirankar, the Sun and many other names. I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to answer them separately or not, but I hope this answers your question(s).

Because some devoutly religious folks value their religion more than the freedom of religion.

@SuckaFreeCitizen Yes actually that does answer my question and sort of confirm what I assumed. Thank you for your response.

@SuckaFreeCitizen, I think your response to me has more to do with arguing and debate in general than with any specific subject of debate, like religion.

Religion is one of several important issues that I think are worth debating and openly talking about with people. But, some people have different tolerance for debate than others. And some people (especially religious people) are pretty lousy at debate, or confuse “debating” with “repeatedly asserting without evidence,” and this can obviously get quite tiresome. I’m not suggesting that everyone should always be open to any argument that anyone advances. If you’re annoyed by people trying to convert you, I’m not saying you ought to be obligated to sit down and listen to their stupid arguments every time they come up.

I was just advocating against the general perception a lot of people have that religion is a “private” or “personal” subject and that we shouldn’t ever talk about it with other people.

@notabridesmaid, I’ll answer your questions:

When a person dies, the same thing “happens” to them as before they were born: nothing. Your consciousness cannot exist if you are braindead.

The word “soul” has all kinds of different connotations. I don’t believe that human beings have a sort of dualist soul. When people say “soul,” they often mean consciousness—our subjective experience of being alive, of thinking and having emotions. Other animals clearly also have this experience; and our closest primate relatives have extremely similar consciousnesses to us. The only thing that separates our consciousnesses from chimpanzees is that we have a higher degree of learned behavior, which allows us to evolve complex cultures and everything that entails (including art, philosophy, language, and religion). It seems obvious to me that consciousness is an emergent property of our physical brains (the concept of emergence is itself quite fascinating and I wish more religious people would familiarize themselves with it).

To answer your question about God—I call myself an atheist because I understand the word “God” to mean a divine being with a personality that interacts with human beings and history. Now, some people understand the word God much more broadly and abstractly, believing that, for example, that God is some “clockmaker deity” that set the universe in motion but never checks up on it now—or that the Universe itself (or some mathematical force animating it) is God.

That’s just semantics to me. I certainly don’t believe in any gods described by human religion. Yahweh, the god of the Bible, is clearly a fictional character in the mold of a standard Mesopotamian deity. The Hebrews were culturally very similar to the Babylonians, the Bible contains many stories (like the flood and the creation of humans from clay) nearly identical to Babylonian myths, and the Hebrew god Yahweh has many identical traits to the Mesopotamian gods Marduk, Sin, and Enlil. I fail to see how any rational person can “have faith” that Yahweh exists but casually reject the existence of all these other gods as “Babylonian myths.”

Futhermore, the Bible—without which you’d have no basis to believe in Yahweh in the first place—is both largely false and largely immoral. Like other Mesopotamian texts, it claims that the sky is a solid dome that holds up an above-sky ocean, that sun and stars revolve around the earth, and other pre-scientific nonsense. These are not “metaphors,” this is actually what ancient people believed. Morally, the Bible contains many of the same laws as the Code of Hammurabi (an earlier Babylonian legal text). It not only condones (Lev. 25:45) but commands (Dt. 20:10) slavery. It calls for the stoning of unbelievers, disobedient children, and nonvirgin brides. And most disgustingly, in my opinion, the Bible is the only religious text I’m aware of that actually commands genocide (Dt. 20:16, and see also the entire book of Joshua). It boggles my mind how anyone can actually say with a straight face that this barbaric book was inspired by a “benevolent” God and should be a moral guidebook for humanity.

@Qingu “I think your response to me has more to do with arguing and debate in general than with any specific subject of debate, like religion.” My response to you was simply me disagreeing with your position pertaining to my question. I’m against people trying to covert me, not sharing or educating me. The specific subject of debate being why some try to convert me to their particular religion despite my objection. Of course, not solely religion itself. Obviously, my issue is merely one aspect of many concerning religion. I don’t know how you missed that unless you thought I was trying to be a dick. I assure I wasn’t, nor was i trying to argue with you just for the sake of arguing without having a point.

I did misunderstand your point about religion being taboo for some and how ridiculous it is that some are against discussing it openly. To be perfectly clear, I am completely open to discussing religion and its ideals or beliefs even if they are not my own. I’ve haven’t ceased to be curious. What I am not open to is being pressured join the flock as if their way is the only way. But as an atheist, you see nothing wrong with that. Hmmm… okay. To be honest, that’s what caused the misunderstanding. That boggles my mind. Your the first atheist I’ve encountered to ever feel that way. This made me realize I must have been generalizing atheists. I learned something new. However, I still disagree with you in this respect: I know that one can still share their religion by talking about it with out having to pressure someone into it joining it. To clarify once more, this is simply where I stand on the subject aforementioned. It’s not me arguing in general.

@SuckaFreeCitizen, I have a feeling we probably both misunderstood each other! I wasn’t saying you were being a dick. I just felt like your points in your post could be generalized to deal with any kind of pushiness, as opposed to just being limited to religious pushiness. I’d assume you’d get just as annoyed with a Republican who never shut up about trickle-down economics and constantly tried to convert you to believe in free-market fundamentalism.

Also, I think one of the reasons I’m not bothered by religious evangelicals is because I’m basically an atheist evangelical here. I love arguing about religion, and when someone actively tries to convert me, that means I then have free reign to try to convert them! But again, I think this can also be generalized—I’m a fairly argumentative person in general, and I’d feel the same way about a Republican trying to pressure me into Republican ideology. I’d interpret that as an opening for me to argue back. But if you’re less enamored with arguing in general, then I can certainly understand getting annoyed in either case.

@Qingu Well, this was a good exercise in saying what we mean and trying to come across in a way that is more thoroughly understood! ^_^ I do like to debate or argue. Sometimes it’s just reflexive. Although, having a handle on being purposeful and reasonable is something I try to lean more toward, but I’m not always successful. “Atheist evangelical”? That’s hilarious. I’ve never heard that phrase before. I might borrow that in the future.

If someone wants to make you more like them, it might be their way of working through doubt they have about themselves. I know it is frustrating sometimes when people assume you aren’t happy because you’re different from them. Not much (besides anxiety) will come from trying to please the kind of people who think you need to be fixed without even bothering to get to know you. I think it is better to put your energy into becoming more informed about how you think the world works and what the meaning of your life is.