Ever notice that there are some people that just want to tell others about their religion. I’m not specifically referring to evangelizing, try to convert someone, just that they. love talking about church, their pastor, the most recent sermon, or something else related. I think that many of these just assume that whoever their speaking with holds at least a similar belief, and that discussing their belief is okay. It’s never considered that the person they are conversing with just may not care. In fact, maybe that other person holds different beliefs or none at all.
Many people are too courteous to just come out and tell the person that they’re really not interested in their religion. I know I’ve been in that situation where the believer finally runs out of gas, and walks away. I find myself automatically rolling my eyes in relief. I really don’t want to be rude to another person, but maybe there’s a point when the person requires a gentle, but firm, verbal slap in the face to wake them up to the fact that no one really cares.
I used to share a large cubicle with a guy who only spoke about two topics: cars and Jesus, neither of which I cared about but discussing replacing a transmission was far preferable to telling me how the Lord has been working in his life recently. He’s a really nice guy though, and even though I considered issuing that same verbal slap, I could just never bring myself to do it. It wasn’t like I was spending eight hors listening to that nonsense, but hey, two or three hours over eight? That was quite enough. Of course, he was unaware that I’m an atheist and probably wouldn’t have kept up the banter if he knew. Or maybe it would’ve become worse, I don’t know.
I tend to believe that he would’ve just moved on to other victims so maybe I was actually performing a service to my co-workers. I think it really comes down to those people that want to talk about their belief continuously to develop a sense of who their audience is and maybe instead of assuming everyone is interested in what their talking about, allow for the fact that not everyone, in fact most, are completely uninterested.
Conservative Skeptic 
I’m firmly in favor of people keeping their beliefs to themselves unless ASKED about them. I look at it like someones phone carrier. I really don’t care who their phone plan is with unless I ask.
If they begin to proselytize on me, that’s where I’m not shy to speak up to shut them up.
“No thank you, I don’t want to hear about your beliefs and I don’t give a damn what your scriptures have to say about anything. Sorry to be so closed-minded but I’m only prepared to engage in reality. So I’m going to spell it out for you now as clearly as I can just to avoid any future misunderstandings. I don’t care if you’ve got a written formula for converting lead into gold. Keep it to yourself.”
Evangelizing to people who don’t want to hear it is such a tasteless thing to do. It’s like exposing yourself in public. Whatever happened to good manners? Like the village idiot who walks around blowing a whistle at people because he thinks it makes him important when all it does is single him out AS the village idiot.
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Well, my former colleague was never evangelizing me. He had no idea about anything I believed, as I said. He just enjoyed talking about church and what amazing the things the Lord had done for him. It was annoying, but that’s about all. I wasn’t the only one, he did this with, I just happened to be a captive audience as we shared an office space.
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I think Thomas Jefferson said it best:
“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
I don’t care what people believe in. They are welcome to their faith and whatever form they wish to express it in. As long as it doesn’t harm others or themselves. They have a right to their beliefs, even though I do not respect the beliefs themselves. It’s when they use those beliefs as a licence to impede on my rights in order to get me to abide by their standards, then I care about their beliefs the same way I care about rabies or typhoid.
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I think Thomas Jefferson said it best:
“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
I really don’t care what a person believes in. They are welcome to their faith and whatever form they wish to express it in. As long as it brings no harm to anyone else or themselves. I respect their right to their beliefs , even though I do not respect the beliefs themselves. It’s only when they use those beliefs as a licence in impinge on my rights in order to abide by their standards, then I care about their beliefs the same way I care about rabies or typhoid.
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