Friday, April 3, 2009

   Religion and Politics
Two of my friends recently had a falling out. These are two people that have been friends for over 20 years. The topic: politics.

One of the two individuals was starting to believe a number of political conspiracy theories & most of the conversations with him were turning in that direction. He is obviously very passionate and concerned about these subjects. My other friend was pretty blunt about what he thought about those ideas. It did not go over well.

Now, for me, I had a number of in-depth communications via e-mail with the conspiracy theorist addressing specific topics. I took the route of spending a lot of time researching the issues to get my facts straight & did not summarily dismiss his feelings. My arguments did not persuade him & his arguments were emotional & did not hold up under rational scrutiny. That is not to say I proved him wrong. There is a big difference between highly unlikely and impossible. I put his concerns into the highly unlikely category, but still communicated that I understood his fear. We left it at it would be better if we could talk about it over a pint of beer & left it at that. I have had some superficial conversations with him since then, but have tried to avoid the politics topic.

My other friend took the route of basically calling him crazy. His last update indicated that he was saddened that his friend felt politics were more important than friendship.

This led to me to think about two highly emotional topics - politics and religion. These topics are very emotionally charged. I think one of the main reasons for this is that they go beyond casual conversation. Political views and religion are both tightly bound to a person's definition of self. These decisions and beliefs really define a person's explanation of the world around them & also plays a big factor in defining themselves. So - if a person treats these subjects callously, it can really feel like a personal attack and lead to... well, broken friendships.

The other topic that comes up is what is a friend & how important are they? I realize that is a topic waaaay too big for this measly post. I will suffice it to say that as people change, some of the changes can be great enough that there really is nothing but the past to base a friendship on & I do not believe that is enough for any kind of real friendship.

Take care & I hope everyone is doing well.

-bunraku


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