JBB’s Final Thoughts Episode 12: Dear Mr. Atheist, Part 2: Talkin’ About Your Best Friend’s Marriage (In Bad Faith, episode 21): There’s more than two-sides to this debate and it’s certainly not about who has the IQ or Morality high ground. It is like talking about your best-friend’s marriage. Please check out one YouTube video that I stumbled upon during the production of this video podcast that is completely unrelated to religion, etc. called Trichotillomania: 6 years of selfies show beckie0’s fight, posted by BBC Trending. It’s a wonderful profile on a young woman’s choice to use her YouTube posts as a means of coping with her health and image-issues. Amazing stuff out there. Also, here’s a link to JBB’s Final Thoughts: Dear Mr. Atheist, Part 1. (IBF 20).

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Joe Bustillos here with tonight’s final thought…Don’t tell me my experiences aren’t real…Experience of Love…Discussions about Reality are difficult to separate from experiences…Some raised religious & haven’t known anything else
Some raised were religion had no role & missed nothing

Some have gone from one side to the other & are convinced that their former life was a joke. Some from the more militant versions have walked away/stopped practicing & don’t think about it enough to do anything about it. And some have switched sides and are still deeply confused…

We all want to be or appear to be rational, but at it’s core it’s deeply personal. I mean, who are you to tell me my experience isn’t real… that goes for both sides…If we really believe in the ideals of every person choosing their own life’s course than we have to be prepared to let others choose paths that do not make any sense to us…The best analogy to this problem of dealing with those who are not of your tribe is like dealing with your best friend’s marriage or lifestyle… you may not understand the attraction or even feel like it’s unhealthy.

If or when they want to talk about it you can lend an ear first and if they’re open to it offer your five-cents, but it’s not your place to tell them who they should or shouldn’t be with, and if you really care about them you’ll be there for them to celebrate the happy moments and console them through the sad ones and hopefully they can offer you the same.

And that’s kind of it… any thing more isn’t your place… this is from one friend to another… from the Christian to the Atheist or the Atheist to the Christian, basically they’re living in a lifestyle that you don’t necessarily understand… are you still willing to be friends?
If so, you might be surprised at how deep or meaningful the friendship can be. if you can’t be friends because of this one issue, that’s your choice…

Obviously you aren’t close enough to bridge the gap and that’s too bad,
but that also makes you all the more ill-qualified to judge the other’s lifestyle or relationship.

Also, Don’t make the assumption that your side has either the moral or rational high-ground, I’ve known Christians whom I highly respect for their intelligence and scholarship and some who are egotistical dicks, and surprise the same is true on the atheist side…
And there’s nothing that tells me that either side has more of either quality, ’cause guess what, we’re all of the same species, we’re all humans… I remember a Catholic friend telling me that he always thought Protestant girls were looser.. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, ya know what I mean? That would be the cardboard-cut-out version of what people really are like and not helpful at all… Wink, wink, nudge, nudge

You can and must choose the road that works best for you… beyond that, if you don’t want someone dictating what you should believe in then maybe you shouldn’t do that to others. If you really care about them then your best gift is to be their friend, to be a friend to those who are not of your tribe or faith.I’m joe bustillos, and that’s tonight’s final thought… Catch you next time…