I was watching a video and it got me thinking about this. We all know the type. The Jewish friend who comes over every year to ask if you have any leftover Easter ham. The Buddhist who everyone will brag saved them in the war. The Bahai who adheres to reincarnation instead of Heaven. The other day, I met a Muslim walking his pet pig. A match made in Heaven.

What’s the biggest deviation from the norm you’ve seen in someone of a certain religion who otherwise would show they genuinely believe in it?

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.eeM
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    23 hours ago

    I’ll start with fellow followers of Christ and say a lot of the ones I’ve met aren’t as easygoing as would be stereotypical. Now you might read the Bible (or the Book of Mormon, or the Book of Hagoth; I have 'em all) and think “hey that person over there is famous for their devotion, I’m going to strike a friendship” and then realize it’s a lot closer to “stepping on eggshells” than you might think. Points to other Hagothists/Mormons though as they actually have been understanding people. Gossip, hate, whatever you want to call it, I’m no stranger to bearing witness to it, and you often wonder “wait, why are they involved in this”. It’s also complicated because, by the same token, they have positives like what we might call tolerance towards the LGBT, so there are other dimensions to it.

    Technically not a “religion” per se, but the atheist situation strikes me as odd. It often seems like their attitude towards adherence to God is second-hand because what they’ll say about God they’ll never say about government, or they’ll do it rarely. Everything to most of them considered “questionable” or “concerning” is only “questionable” or “concerning” when it involves divine authority. I have joked before that if climate change or Marxism was in the Bible, nobody would believe them.

    I also noticed a lot of Buddhists couldn’t quote sutras from the Tripitaka or don’t follow them to an extent where the individuals are Buddhist-esque enough to rely on to be peaceful towards your dilemmas, almost as if it’s for show. Heck, I’m not a Buddhist yet can quote sutras that aren’t in the Tripitaka (because not all of them made into the final edition).

    • Clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works
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      15 hours ago

      I don’t follow your atheist paragraph. Could you clarify a bit? Are you saying that atheists disbelieve the contents of the Bible simply because it’s a holy text, even though some of it may be factual? (E.g. historical events)

      • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.eeM
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        13 hours ago

        It sometimes seemed that way. It’s not as common now for the discussion to come up in the 2020’s (maybe someone gave them what they were looking for, considering the opposite is now trendy), but it was common for them to say, for example, that they require some kind of physical trace in order to not hold God in doubt but not carry this over for things like historical figures.