h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

regarding the question in the lead to this this conversation about turning down a blind date on grounds of race.

have to say i wouldnt.

but i would be very likely to turn down a date, blind or otherwise, on grounds of religion. certain religions have a bit of a reputation for beng intollerant. i find intollerant religions intollerable. which i guess makes me a biggot.

but there you go.

i would never dream of trying to impose my opinion apon others and it drives me mad when people try to do it to me. i could never stand to be with someone who believed i should 'convert'.

i know most religions are not like this, and there are good and bad people in every religion,

but now i am waffling, and its not really relevent anyway, so just ignore me

FABT

"i would never dream of trying to impose my opinion apon others and it drives me mad when people try to do it to me. i could never stand to be with someone who believed i should 'convert'."

Ooh, that's a bit harsh, isn't it? I mean, how do you know they're even GOING to try and 'convert' you, if they ARE religious, before you've even met 'em? :D

And, hey, surely a non-religious person (like me) is going to try and convert just as much (like me)? :D

i dont think i explained very well.

i would not be able to tell, (obviously because i am not psycic) who would be on the conversion missin thingy. what i was trying to say was that it would be one thing that would totally put me off somebody.

i would never try to discourage someone from believeing what they believed, they belive it and i firmly believe taht you cant change opther peoples beliefs. this blind date analogy wa a bad one for me because i would never go on one, it was really just ebcause they point raised in the introduction raised this in my mind.


is that clearer?

FABT

'but i would be very likely to turn down a date, blind or otherwise, on grounds of religion. certain religions have a bit of a reputation for beng intollerant. i find intollerant religions intollerable. which i guess makes me a biggot.'

I suppose it does, really. It's tarring everyone with the same brush - of course there are unpleasant followers of any religion, but that doesn't make the religion innately bad. In Malaysia, there are always people trying to make us see the error of our ways and convert us to Christianity, but that doesn't mean that I would refuse to go out with someone of that faith, purely because of what some religious zealots are trying to do with my ancestral tablets. It is, however, an attitude that is by no means uncommon; look at the moves in the USA at the moment, with the Christian Right arguing for 'racial profiling', and the right to stop and interrogate anyone of an Islamic or middle-eastern background passing through an airport, without any real basis.

Oddly enough, I was in the pub last night, and realised that between my friends and myself we had a representative of each major religion. Some of us didn't drink because of it, but I only thought about this today - it's never mattered to us what our religion is, we're friends because of who we are as individuals.