What Do Your Never-Been-Christian Friends Think About Christians?

[Vomit Comet]

NBC = Never Been Christian. As in, they weren't raised Christian and didn't get "saved" as teens or adults. Or if they were raised "Christian", it was so watered down and inconsequential that they may as well have been raised agnostic.

 

NBC Friends could also include your spouse, or your brother (if you weren't raised in it but converted later in life and then deconverted), or your cousin, or your dad, or whoever else.

[dB-Paradox]

I don't have any NBC friends...actually, come to think of it, I don't have any friends at all

[Franko47]

It's interesting, this topic, since it's hard to find someone in our Americo/Canadian society that hasn't at some point been approached by a religion, a religious cause, or had family members who did so.

 

Most of my NBC friends, if they qualify for this term, really don't care. Some of them believe in UFO's, some of them don't. Some of them are extremely ethical with a strong moral center, some of them are more open to worldly temptations.

 

I think if you've never been inside the bottle at all, you just don't have the same issues about Christianity than those who have "been there". Most NBC's really don't care about religious matters. I have an uncle like that. He can brush off fundies, JW's, Mormons, and so on with just a smile and a "gee, I don't know, but thanks for sharing". He's never been religious and never will be. He's never laid awake at any time in his life wrestling with any religious, spiritual or mythical dilemma in his head. He really doesn't give a shit.

 

It would be nice to be like that, although he's not that philosphical about things. A little shallow, maybe. I find a few of my NBC (never-been-Christian) friends to slightly fall into the "I don't think that deeply about life and shit" crowd. Maybe.

[Taphophilia]

Funny you should post this today. My boyfriend sent me an article today "Counterproductive Attacks on Religion."

 

He was raised in liberal Christianity and his father is a nuclear physicist. While, yes, we went through much of the same intellectual process of coming to the realization that Christianity is not true, he has never had to deal with the residual baggage. He thinks fundamentalists are the minority of Christians.

[Vigile]

I answered with my grandfather in mind. His mother was 'saved' by some 7th day guy that rode into their little wild west mountain town on a horse when he was a kid. She then proceeded to make his and his brother's and sister's lives miserable with a series of unreasonable rules and a constant barrage of scripture and church.

 

My grandfather was a genius and he never fell for any of it and ended up hating his mother and her religion. He married an xian and my grandmother went to church her whole life and raised my father in it, but my grandfather just stayed home and quietly stewed over it.

 

He told me a few years ago "If my brothers and I knew then what we know now we would have shot that little preacher man and buried him in the outhouse."

[Vigile]

BTW, I live in a society of NBCs. They could care less about religion over here and don't give it a second thought. I suspect they would be shocked by the level of religion in the US and it would be a puzzle to them much like the snake worshipers do to the rest of us.

[OpheliaGinger]

I have a never been Christian friend but he was raised in the CoC but never accepted it; he always saw and questioned the flaws and holes in the stories.

[Vomit Comet]

I was from the Ass of God, just like Sarah Palin. During the election I tried to explain to everyone just how bat-shit she is, in large part by virtue of her religion. And they looked at me like I was crazy. They just weren't capable of comprehending.

 

Yeah, most my friends are blissfully ignorant of this shit. Although the ones that were raised by a more-serious-than-average Catholic parent are a little teeny tiny bit able to get it, but not much.

[oddbird1963]

I have a co-worker who is a NBC. His parents made him go to a Catholic church, but he never believed.

 

He accepts a culture of Christianity as a fact and even attends an Episcopalian church with his wife and kids.

 

He considers literal interpretation of the Bible to be lunacy and would rather our society be much more secular but thinks he'll win the lottery 12 times in a row for 12 consecutive weeks before that happens especially in Texas in the South.

 

It's good to have him around. We have hush hush conversations about religion and non-theist philosophy.

[Andy]

I only know two such people, and they just don't think about religion at all. They're vaguely "anti-Christian" if the subject is brought up, but they are never the ones to bring it up.

[Loren]

I didn't answer the poll questions due to the fact that they were all set up as a spectrum. In questions 1,2,4 and 5, if I had answered with any single choice, it would mislead from the social truth that I could place friends at different places, depending on who they are.

 

For instance, to the question, 'Are any of your NBC friends more 'anti-Christian' than you are?" I could truthfully answer both yes (for some) and no (for some).

 

Question 3 was the only one I could answer in a meaningful way. And I didn't answer that one due to the first choice provided being a bit weak and watered down.

[Vomit Comet]

He thinks fundamentalists are the minority of Christians.

 

Yes and no. In any given American town, about half of all the churches there will be fundamentalist. This means that fundies are a disproportionate proportion of the American churchgoing population: the people that actually go to church and actually participate. And of course, they're much more likely to crack open their wallets.

 

The fundie churches in America are meaner, leaner, and pound-for-pound far more influential and noisy than their mainline/liberal counterparts. Many liberal Christians fail to understand this off in Happy La-La Land.

[R. S. Martin]

He thinks fundamentalists are the minority of Christians.

 

Yes and no. In any given American town, about half of all the churches there will be fundamentalist. This means that fundies are a disproportionate proportion of the American churchgoing population: the people that actually go to church and actually participate. And of course, they're much more likely to crack open their wallets.

 

The fundie churches in America are meaner, leaner, and pound-for-pound far more influential and noisy than their mainline/liberal counterparts. Many liberal Christians fail to understand this off in Happy La-La Land.

 

Are we talking about liberal Christians or never been Christians? I think there is a distinct difference when it comes to personal beliefs.

 

I didn't vote either because the poll questions don't apply at all to my situation. As I say in my profile, mine was a double deconversion--cultural and theological. I would say the cultural change was by far the most traumatic and will never be complete. I would be interested in seeing this kind of poll for refugees from Afghanistan or someplace like that. I wonder how similar the experiences would be.

[Cracked]

I voted thinking only of my wife. She was born and raised in China.

 

She thinks xtians are nice and interesting people, but she doesn't want to be one.

[HRDWarrior]

The only friend I have who was never christian or raised with those ideas (or any religious ideas) doesn't really care about religion - and therefore really is clueless as to what I went through. The only ones who've seemed to have at least some semblence of understanding are those who have also left religion, even leaving a fairly liberal, open christian sect seems to enable the ability to understand.