How Religiously Diverse Are Your Friends??

[umsami]

I think it's great that MDC (and other online forums) can bring together people of different faith--who may or may not have met in real life. It got me to thinking how diverse people's friends might be in real life...


OK... I forgot Muslim and I'm Muslim. Make "Muslim" part of other. :

[kristenok18]

What a great poll! I'm interested to see how the results progress as more people vote.

[cappuccinosmom]

All varieties of Christian (including several types of "other" ), atheist, agnostic.

My parents have a much wider range of friendships, and when I was growing up we had Hindu's, Muslims, Buddhists, and probably others I forget, eating supper with us. My parents worked in a hospital at the time and always felt sad for the foreign residents stuck in our little mostly-white semi-rural town. So they invited them home for meals and holidays.

[ziggy]

Bah'ai
My best friend in Middle School and her family were Bah'ai

Christian--Protestant
All but one of the girls in the bible study group I go to

Christian--Catholic
The family I used to nanny for, and one of the girls at Bible Study

Jewish--Orthodox
A few friends of my girlfriend.

Jewish--Conservative/Reformed
My girlfriend

Hindu
At least three that I've lived with.

Pagan/Goddess/Wiccan
Uh, yeah, my entire student body. And then some. Yay hippie college. And a few friends from church.

Buddhist
The people at my school who aren't Wiccan or Pagan? They're buddhist. Some are actually Buddhist. Some think they are.

Atheist/Agnostic
Everyone else in my life?

Other
Lots of Muslim buddies, and I'm a Unitarian Universalist (not qualified by anything else) as are lots of my buddies.

[anj_rn]

Forget my friends I have Reform Jews, a Buddist, Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics, a wiccan, and Deists in my family.

[Dar]

Um, I tried to vote, but I really don't know what religion many of my friends are. I mean, I can generally figure out Muslim amd Jewish from the holidays, but I'm fairly fuzzy on the various varieties of Christianity people claim.

I also forgot that I have a couple of Hindi friends... and I'm not sure what my Chinese friends believe...

[2xy]

DH and I are atheists. Many of our friends are atheists or apathetic agnostics.

But I have a friend who is Pagan, another who is Jewish (not orthodox), and a few more who are non-denominational Christian. My mother and many of my family members are Buddhist. I know a lot of Catholic people, but am not close friends with any Catholics at the moment.

Strangely enough, out of all the "religious" people I know, my mother and the Pagan friend are the most intensely religious, and are the most likely to shove their religion at you and/or get defensive if you don't agree with their views. It sort of goes against commonly held stereotypes.

[javilu]

I do not have a religion, but I do believe in God. My family is fairly evenly split between Catholicism and agnosticism. My husband is an atheist, as are many (maybe most) of my friends. I sometimes wish I had more "theist" friends.

[Tuesday]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

I do not have a religion, but I do believe in God. My family is fairly evenly split between Catholicism and agnosticism. My husband is an atheist, as are many (maybe most) of my friends. I sometimes wish I had more "theist" friends.

My dear Puffnstuff - you stole my post! I'm in the same situation. You're not alone.

[MusicianDad]

Lets see I voted:
Christian--Protestant
Christian--Catholic - DH is Catholic
Jewish--Orthodox
Jewish--Conservative/Reformed
Hindu
Pagan/Goddess/Wiccan
Buddhist
Confucian or Shinto
Atheist/Agnostic - I'm Agnostic
Other

Under other comes: Muslim.

ETA: Because I forgot to mention it on my first run through of this. I forgot to vote Christian - Other (my dad, mom, brother, pretty much my whole family), and Sikh (it's impossible to live here and not know at least one Sikh.

DD is currently undecided on the religious front.

Religion isn't all that important to me, but it comes up at least once in a while where I am concerned just because I love learning about different religions. I also live in a religiously diverse area so it's really easy to meet people who have different belief systems.

Some people are even surprised by some of the other people I am friends with because they fall into the very concervitive side of their religion. For instance, my closest Muslim friend is very much devout Muslim. And one of DD's friends in from a family that is much the same (which is awesome for her, because it opened up a whole new world of style for her, and her friends mom is a seamstress too). The best part (from the POV of a dad) is she comes home with new styles that are very different from what you find in the stores around here, no low cut anything.

[Magelet]

In terms of friends and family, mostly
jewish-reform/conservative
pagan
atheist
and other. lots of "spiritual but not religious" folks in my life.)

I associate with folks of other religions, but don't have that many friends and most seem to be those catagories. I mean, I know christians of a few sorts (ok, actually that would be catholic and not religious atm, different throughout my life), but well mostly, folks in my life are jewish, pagan, atheists and spiritual but not religious.

[xekomaya]

Do you mean friends or people I know? I tend to make most of my friends within my own religious group. I have a few friends who are secular/non-religous. Not sure if they would claim a certain religion, but they're nonpracticing. The rest are either traditional Roman or Eastern Catholics.

Although when I was voting, I totally forgot DH is Protestant. lol

[Proxi]

Most of my friends are agnostic, which drives me nuts lol! I know this is sooo judgmental (and I am trying to work on it), but I am much more accepting of any religion versus people who are just agnostic. I want to be like, "BELIEVE SOMETHING ALREADY!!!" At least atheists believe in nothing religious. Nothing is something in my books haha.

I know it is the silliest pet peeve to have, especially since most agnostics are great people (as in most of my friends lol!) but for some reason I just want them to at least TRY and find out what they believe. Maybe cuz I went through a spiritual crisis when I was 12 and I expect everyone should go through the same thing at some point, I dunno.

[MusicianDad]

Agnostics believe something, heck many of them even believe in God/no God. The main basis of their belief is that the existance of God can be neither prove nor disproven whether you believe in it or not.

For the record, I am an agnostic who searched for 10 years for what he believed in, and the only conclusion I came to is that we can never truly know what is real until the end.

[2xy]

I'll go a step further than MusicianDad. I'm an agnostic atheist.

I know that gods cannot be proven or disproven (agnostic), but believe they do not exist (atheist). Knowing and believing are such different things.

As for not knowing what is real until the end, that isn't necessarily so. If, at death, you just cease to be, you won't know anything.

[DaughterOfKali]

I never realized it before but only 2 of my friends are Christian. The others are: UU; Pagan; Buddhist; Athiest.

[Ellien C]

Pretty diverse, but I live in a diverse area and I work with many people from India - so it gives me exposure to Hindi and Muslim. And then I'm in a hobby group that attracts a lot of pagan/wiccans. I think a lot of it depends on where you live. I'm in a good-sized city. I think if I lived in a smaller town it would be a lot harder to have friends of so many faiths and cultures.

[KaylaBeanie]

Originally Posted by 2xy

I'll go a step further than MusicianDad. I'm an agnostic atheist.

I know that gods cannot be proven or disproven (agnostic), but believe they do not exist (atheist). Knowing and believing are such different things.

As for not knowing what is real until the end, that isn't necessarily so. If, at death, you just cease to be, you won't know anything.

This is pretty much me these days.

Anyhow, I have a very non-diverse group of friends. Most are just your general 20-something-college-student-agnostic variety, but I have one who is a devout Evangelical christian, one who is a Unitarian Universalist whose line of thought is almost identical to mine, and one who is Lutheran.

[Ruthla]

My circle of aquaintances (people with whom I enjoy spending time with even if we're not close or don't see each other often) includes: Catholics, Fundamentalist Christians, "Torah Observant Christians", Protestants, non-denominational Christians, Muslims, Pagans, Athiests, Agnostics (with a variety of religious backgrounds), Orthodox Jews, Reconstructionist Jews, completely un-affilliated Jews, Jews at various stages in the path from non-observance to observance, and people whose religious background is a mystery to me because religion isn't important in their lives so it's never come up in conversation.

Most of these individuals are from my local homeschooling group, which attracts a lot of people in "non mainstream" religions, who don't quite "fit in" with local public schools OR many of the "christian flavored" homeschool groups in the area. Others are relatives, neighbors, or classmates of my kids.

NONE of them are the "push your religion on other people" types- we're all of the "This is who I am and I respect who you are, and I'd love to learn more about how you live" type. Anybody other than that wouldn't become my friend. Actually, I have met some narrow-minded Christians IRL, but they didn't try to convert me- they just didn't really accept me and we never hit it off. I try not to travel in the same circles as those individuals.

[blizzard_babe]

Christian--Protestant
Christian--Catholic
Christian--Orthodox
Christian (Other) -- LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.
Jewish--Conservative/Reformed
Hindu
Pagan/Goddess/Wiccan
Buddhist
Atheist/Agnostic
Other... A whole lot of "other"

I think that's it, but I'm not sure. At one point I could have also marked "Orthodox Jewish," but when completing this survery I realized that the friend in question is someone I haven't talked to in years and don't have a current e-mail or phone number for, so I guess we're not friends then, huh?

For the record, I'm a... um... Non-Practicing Catholic? Secular Polish-American Catholic? Agnostic-Leaning Chick Who Enjoys a Good Polka Mass And Connects With Many Buddhist Teachings? I'm not as confused as it sounds. I guess it makes sense that I tend to attract friends despite varying spiritual/religious beliefs... I'm such a messed up melting pot myself .