Re:Keep Your Identity Small
by menloparkbum on Saturday February 07, 2009 @09:22PM
(#471713)
The notion that it is impolite to discuss politics and religion is a staple bit of folk wisdom dispensed by parents, grandparents, various other elders, and barkeeps the world over.
The notion that it is impolite to discuss politics and religion is a staple bit of folk wisdom dispensed by parents, grandparents, various other elders, and barkeeps the world over.
...but it's not a universal piece of folk wisdom. In fact it's the significant minority
When you consider 68% of the world of the world is composed under the belief structures of the 3 primary religions (christianity, islam, hinduism) and religion is primarily passed from the parent to the child, I find that parents (and so by inference, grandparents) suggesting that it is impolite to discuss religion a hard pill to swallow.
When you take almost all other religions into account, Non Religious people account for around 21% of the world's population, with some of those are agnostic people (like myself).
Re:Keep Your Identity Small
by menloparkbum on Sunday February 08, 2009 @02:10AM
(#471973)
My grandfather gave me that advice, and he's a member of the clergy. There are varying levels of social sophistication amongst religious people. In general those born into some sort of longstanding cultural religion tend to not bring it up in polite conversation. It's the newly converted noobs, or perhaps a crazy aunt, who ruin the dinner party.
I'm not a Freemason, but one of the rules of Freemasonry is that politics and religion are NOT to be discussed while within the lodge.
This is done in part so that no mason will have to justify their personal interpretation of either (and thus their identity) to any other mason while in the lodge.
Perhaps they were onto something (apart from getting drunk and playing ping pong)