Agree to disagree?

[beetiger]

Prompted by several discussions, on LJ and elsewhere, over the last week or so.

[Poll #288769]

Feel encouraged to discuss in more detail.

Comments

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Generally, so long as said person and I recognize each other's rights to hold oposing opinions, and can be civil to each other, we can be friends.

If someone doesn't believe that I have a right to hold my opinion, then we have trouble, regardless of how deep or shallow the issue is.

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

I was thinking something along the same lines. I can deal with a vast gulf of opinion as long as I feel like the other person is arguing on fair terms and would seriously consider any counterargument I give them. If I get the prevailing sense that their opinions are fixed, I'm wrong by definition in their little world, and they persist in making unwarranted assumptions about me and my beliefs without really listening to me, I don't feel too much guilt in letting them go.

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

I don't even care if their belief makes them automatically assume that I am wrong. So long as they (and I) can be respectful and civil about each other's right to be wrong, and doesn't make me a bad person because I'm wrong, we're cool.

My belief is that Christians are automatically wrong. Theirs is not the only god, and is not the only path to a happy afterlife.

Yet I have friends who are Christians... because they can believe that I'm damned for being a heathen, and still be friends with me... and I can respect their belief that they've got the only game in town, without viewing them as less amiable people for that.

Now, you start thinking that I'm less of a person because I'm a heathen and damned, and we're not going to spend much time together.

You see what I'm illustrating?