07-02-2021, 06:31 AM
(07-01-2021, 09:05 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:(07-01-2021, 01:05 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(06-29-2021, 07:27 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote: If the majority is going to be atheistic, I don't see why someone religious would marry an atheist or agnostic, date them, or be close friends. I think a "safe space" is justified because we are the minority and the majority persecutes us especially online. Until the culture becomes less hostile towards religion, we need safe spaces to survive and our own clubs and groups.
Interfaith marriages happen all the time. Marriage between a person of religion and a person without religion likewise happen often. Unless one specifically asks for someone of a particular faith (as in a dating site that, for example, says that it connects Catholic singles) it is possible to end up befriending and dating atheists and agnostics.
Hostility toward religion is usually selective. If one has antipathy to people of certain sects -- and I am not going to name names -- then you are unlikely to meet people of these sects as possible dates. (They generally stick to themselves, and for good reason. Getting along with them in a marriage if one is not already part of their sect practically requires that one fully convert to the religion and culture. Again, draw your own conclusions on who they are, as their sexts have characteristics of a cult).
Atheism and agnosticism do not preclude a moral compass.
As we're becoming the minority we can't afford to have inner faith marriages or friend circles. We can evangelize but filling the friend circles or marriages with nonbelievers is a mistake. The nonbelievers would win and dominate the conversation and the believers would be left without support. I think that the Millennial and early Zoomer believers in the US take our religious beliefs more seriously though because we can't take being in the majority for granted. We see the mainstream culture as hostile so we have fewer lukewarm people.
You still have the power to evangelize through example. You can seek to make religion an enriching and desirable part of life to people who have some gaping void in their lives.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.