In public, how often do you talk about religion, politics, etc.?

Because talking about it in real life leads to uneccessary arguments with people.

Especially when dealing with faith, when you are talking about matters of faith, most believers will rarely look at the historical facts and will explain away everything because they don't want to turn a critical eye to their entire belief structure.

And what is the point of getting together with friends and arguing, that is how you ruin friendships.

This is an internet message board, some people hide behind their anonymity here, and feel free to express their thoughts....the Arab spring was based a lot on the free flow of information that is cracking the foundations of their governments. People can speak freely without worrying about the bully pulpit coming down and smacking them back in-line.

DD

 

The opposite for me. My best friends are the ones I argue with the most, because at the end of the day, we can appreciate that it's all hot air.

 

I work with a bunch of bigtexxxs, eventually all conversation ends with Obama is the devil. They claim he is usurper. Then they claim taxes are too high even they are lower than they have been a long time.

 

This.

 

Lol at dmc delving into middle school level existential questions about life. It's always cute when the cookie cutter corporate types break out of their shackles and begin to think about things that haven't been ingrained in them from a textbook with guidelines, stipulations and restrictions. But cheers, better late than never.

The more importance you give to structured education, the lower your creative intelligence is. And when your creative intelligence is limited, your social intelligence suffers as a result of people being bored by generic conversations with no wit, insight or humor. Girls often think - I could be curled up with a book twirling my vibrator instead of listening to this idiot.

It's why intelligent women love being in my company and having conversations with me - it's not textbook or predictable, yet it's extremely stimulating and pushes the boundaries of what they think is perception. The ignorant peg it on my looks and raw sexual magnetism, but that isn't that rare of a commodity. Having an untamed brilliant mind is the real magnet.

Pushing the boundaries of the human thought process is a huge part of intellectual intelligence, and the ability to conversate with the heavy hitters. Politics and religion are the fathers of propaganda - they're tools for mass manipulation. Unfortunately, the majority of people aren't able to conceptualize such power without getting emotionally involved - so they avoid it in favor of water cooler talk that allows their emotions to stay at an equilibrium, easily allowing them to shift back to the mundane tasks at hand.

In short, not everyone is cut out to debate. Not everyone wants to jump into a vast topic that requires knowledge of economics, diplomatic relations, corruption, greed, power, insecurities, etc. At the same time, people have a belief system they've been clinging to since birth and pushing them outside of that comfort zone can bring the claws out.

So in this era of smothering PC conversations, keeping it real isn't always the best option to lube up a social occasion. At the end of the day, most people would rather relate and keep things light. This allows them to live in the fantasy that they aren't being judged, have so much more to offer others beneath the surface, and no one really knows them except their lovers and family. In the west especially, it's all about the mystique of personal boundaries and needing 4-5 permits before you can step inside them.

But when you live the life of a rockstar... there are no limitations.

 

I don't discuss religion unless I'm asked to first. Something like 90% of the people I know don't believe in God, and in fact find the idea of a higher power ridiculous; something like 90% of the people I don't know (or don't know well) feel the opposite way. And I'm not typically inclined to disabuse them of this notion as I know it provides comfort to them and typically their beliefs aren't causing a real problem with me or with the world, though the beliefs of the groups to which many of them belong are another matter entirely.

I do discuss politics openly, honestly, and passionately, both with my friends to the left and to the right of me. And, believe it or not, I have both kinds. But we tend to respect each other as smart people and as ethical people and when we talk, even when we argue, we are seeking common ground. Not compromise, but places where we can arrive at common ground. Let's say the abortion issue. I can agree with my pro-life friends that it would be better to have less abortions in this country; and then we have a debate over how best to accomplish that goal. Or we talk about the character of this politician or that one. Sometimes I like to handicap the Republican primaries with my Republican friends. We like to discuss who would be strongest against the Democrat, we like to discuss the ups and downs of various candidates and policies.

I grant you I have like 3 friends like that and about 20 with whom I enjoy arguing a bit less as they are to the left of even me (or even less patient than I am). Many of them are GLBT who feel Obama hasn't acted quickly enough on behalf of their causes though he has done amazing things, changed the lives forever of GLBT America already just with DADT and hospital domestic partner rights, not to mention finally being not just the first president but even the first person that ever seriously contended for president to come out in favor of gay marriage.

I argue with my friends, fiercely, still, about the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act. The vast majority of them want a single-payer system, vehemently, and I vehemently agree with them. But I fall on the 'moderate' side of that argument, warning against "the perfect being the enemy of the good." I remember an especially heated health care argument with an unemployed friend complaining that she couldn't afford the mandate. I said how much money do you make? She said none. I said, your health care will be free under this law. That didn't slow her down.

There are, in a way, after you remove the absurdity of the human condition and the general meaningless of the universe (Camus' proposition that the only relevant philosophical question is the one of suicide), which is obviously a given, there are few things in the world to discuss.

Off the top of my head I would say there are meaningful ones and trivial ones (again, once accomplishing what Camus would call the requisite amount of "sleep" to ignore the fact that nothing is meaningful).

Few meaningful things, apart from matters of romance, friendship and family, do not find their root in politics.

It's a natural fact that avoiding serious topics allows for more pleasant conversation around the Thanksgiving table or wherever. But to make a policy refusing discussion of politics with a friend or family member is to dismiss him or her as a worthy person with whom to discuss serious matters.

 

I talk politics all the time with my friends. Religion? I'll talk about that with them as well, but not with more casual acquaintances, unless they bring it up, and even then I usually skate around and past the subject. I'm just not a religious guy, and while I'm more than happy to discuss it, I've found over the years that I usually end up regretting making the effort. It's much easier to have those discussions in D&D if it's with members like Max or rhester, who generally don't go round the bend talking about the topic, and if one of them does, I find that they had reason to.

 

Because on the internet, you can look up sources, and other **** you wouldnt normally know before you post.

 

This.
Some people it seems just Google something and post the first link they find; credible or not.

 

Some of the best political discussions I've had were with taxi drivers, oddly enough.

 

I have too.

 

I work at a very diverse consultancy with a founder who can be considered leftist by some conservatives here. If you could make one right guess who he invited for the keynote at one our conventions, I'll give you a cookie.

Nonetheless, I mostly dance around conversations due to my amenable disposition, so there are times when I feel I could be misleading or hypocritical, but moreso that I sound like a politician. In those cases it's usually about business and economics as I know enough to avoid claiming corporations are the debil and yet even more to have any shred of faith in our glorious "privatize the losses, socialize the gains" invisible hand of Uncle Sam sham financial system.

I have a good idea who would agree with me, but there are times when I'm surprised at people who I peg wrong, and it's usually for the better. In the end, I don't give a rats ass to 90% of the Vietnam-era spawned hot button issues. It could be my "millennial" quality or the fact that governments are always full of **** and looking outward to how other countries solve their problem often removes yourself from having emotional conviction to the garbage drama created by mainstream news.

There will be a day when I'll be old enough either to send young kids off to some foreign land while I hog the credit or laurels, or have the demographic power to bring in some slimebag who can, and that will be an interesting meeting I will have. Maybe that guy will murder me through forgetting...

+1 on the cab drivers. They are epic. Memorable ones are when I talked to a B'hai from Iran, a Jamaican who lived abroad from Europe, and some other dudes no one will likely care that I know.

 

Cab driver discussions are a testament to the huge value of social interaction.

 

Some examples from the top of my head:

I've had...

...a black taxi driver in San Diego, upon learning I was from Germany, telling me Adolf Hitler was his idol and that he was right about killing all the Jews.

...a Turkish taxi driver and devout Muslim in Munich telling me that he took his 5 year old daughter to an anti-Israel demo in Germany and was so proud when she chanted "Death to Israel". He said that it would maybe not be necessary to kill them all but Bush and all Israeli politicians should be killed.

...another Turkish taxi driver in Berlin try to convert me to Islam and tell me all these absurd things, mixed in with equating Obama and Hitler. I had already had a few beers, so I asked him to take me to Burger King and ordered a Burger with bacon.

...an Afghan cab driver in London tell me that he wished the Taliban would win in Afghanistan and that he fought there himself and that the only reason the West would "wage war against his country" were an abundance of "rare earth elements" the West wanted to exploit in Afghanistan. He also said that all Jews were warned before 9/11 and were not in the building. The Turkish taxi driver in Munich said the same thing. This seems to be a very persistent belief in the Muslim world.

 

So tell us, how is the race/nationality of these people relevant at this discussion, or their views? What if they were all German, but said the same things?

How is your race/nationality, then, relevant to things we hear from you?

 

The race of the taxi driver in San Diego is relevant only because it makes his statement even more absurd than it already was that he would have been one of the first targets for Hitler to kill. I tried to say this to him to explain what a horrible person Hitler was, but it did not impress him at all, he still said Hitler was his idol anyway.

The nationality of the other taxi drivers is relevant only insofar as I have the impression (from taking taxis hundreds of times a year, and the majority of taxi drivers in Germany apparently being from Turkey or the Middle East) that their views are, sadly, somewhat representative of the views of the majority of them. It's less the nationality that seems to drive this, but the ideology most of them adhere to. You follow the same ideology, you are somewhat educated, and yet you also equate Obama and Hitler, and you hate Israel.

 

Yea, coz this really happened. Lol. Do you believe your own delusions?