Question from Chris:
I have a friend who I just found out does not approve of equality for homosexuals, doesn’t believe in the majority of science (mainly evolution and plate tectonics), and also makes really ignorant and pretentious comments about stuff he clearly knows nothing about. I see him everyday, at least twice, and have a raging deisre inside me to say something back to him, what do I do?
Answer by SmartLX:
The obvious answer would be to actually say something back to him. You didn’t say why you haven’t done it already; care to comment and elaborate?
Generally speaking, if you want to challenge someone’s position on something, attack the position and not the person. You say this person is largely ignorant of the things he discusses; well, the simplest antidote to that is education. See how he reacts to a bit of evidence, there’s plenty around. Let us know if you want a bit of guidance in your own research.
I can be much more specific if you are, so go ahead and say what’s going on and what you need. From what you’ve said so far, I doubt your friend would read this site and find your writings. That said, you could even encourage him to write in with his own questions and/or challenges. If you warn us first, we can erase your stuff so he won’t see it. Just let us know how we can help.
One thought on “So I Have This Friend…”
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I may be less confrontational than most, but I think if you enjoy other aspects of your friend’s personality, then there isn’t a huge reason to bring it up. And if you bring it up, make it short and sweet, not like “change your stupid opinions or I won’t respect you any more” type of thing. Maybe just ask, why do you think that? And then say what you think and why, and leave it at that.
I suppose it matters how close you and your friend are. Are you like brothers? Do you like sharing everything with each other? Do you two enjoy talking about deeper aspects of each other, instead of just surface level stuff? The closer you are to somebody, the more I understand you wanting to bring it up with them.
A great fact of life is that we cannot control what others think..(well I guess many religions break that rule, don’t they?) But hey, life isn’t about making everybody see things how you see them.
I guess what I’m getting at is, I think nobody else knows whether you should bring this stuff up with your friend more than you do. For instance I know which friends of mine would engage in an intelligent conversation, which ones would be useless to try to talk to, and which ones I don’t necessarily care what they believe.
If you did end up talking to your friend, I’d love to know how it went.