I'm curious about any anecdotes / insights other DUers may offer - [View all]

Friendships, relationships, professional associations with folks of other faiths, agnostics, atheists, a-religious, none of the above, etc.

Not looking for any personal disclosures, I just have a feeling we all have relationships of one sort or another with folks we know in each of those "labels".

Most of my friends are either agnostic, atheist or a-religious. If religion comes up in conversation it's often in relation to something else - usually national politics. Duh. Or the role religions are playing on the world stage. Or the cultural and historical contexts.

I particularly value the historical / cultural aspects. The settings help provide a bigger picture.

Two specific relationships stick in my mind.

A childhood friend was Jewish. We touched on our different family backgrounds between trying to catch lizards and coaxing money for a coke from our parents. I even visited the kids' Hebrew school until that got nixed. I found it fascinating.

The other was a conservative Christian coworker. We worked in a very diverse public health program, serving a very diverse population. We hit it off as work friends. I admired her sense of humor and her sincere ability to set aside her religious stuff to do the job we were trained to do. (The sense of humor helped a lot, I think.) The program closed, she got married and I hear she's grown more strident with her religious point of view. But in that work setting she was a pleasure to work with.

My point here is there's more than the label. And that we have more in common than our differences or our labels.