#also this did not come to my dash naturally thank gd

[jellybeanium124]

a saw a post on here the other day that said something like "when someone says they can't do something because of their religious beliefs and you just have to be like 'ok.'" it was clearly incredibly dismissive and disrespectful, and I'm beginning to think a lot of you don't know or care how to respect other people's religious beliefs and choices.

Obligatory piss-on-the-poor disclaimer: I'm very sorry if you were raised very strictly christian, and yes, evangelicals trying to turn my country, the united states, into an evangelical country, pisses me off too. I believe in the separation of church and state, and I do not think religious beliefs should play any part in government or science. (in fact, an interesting tidbit I like to bring up is that jews do not believe a person becomes a person until they take their first breath, so fetuses are not people and stillbirths are not people, if we were going to make abortion laws according to jewish beliefs, then you could have abortions, theoretically, right up to term.)

back to the main point. if someone choses to honor religious traditions for themselves, and is not trying to force it on anyone else, then you fucking respect them. you don't scoff at a hijabi for wearing a hijab, you don't try and trick your friend who keeps kosher into eating pork, or even just act dismissive of it because "you know that's not real right? that your god doesn't exist and his rules are dumb and you're dumb for following them?" like what the actual fuck. how can some of you have so little respect for your fellow humans? and this applies to individual christians too. like as long as they're not being weird and pushy and in constant proselytizing mode, then you don't fucking make fun of them either. like this doesn't just apply to all us minority religions which aren't Big Evil Christianity.

I don't think some of you grasp that this stuff is like, important to us? Judaism is important to me. Following the traditions (ok not all of them, I am reform and eat bacon lol), and one day passing them on, is important to me. Keeping my faith and culture alive is important to me. I can't even come up with a metaphor to explain the importance of religion to people who follow one because any comparison would feel incorrect.

most of my friends are atheists. sort of comes with the territory of being a gen zer lol. and guess what it's literally fine? none of them try to "debate me" or make me feel like an idiot because I do believe in gd. I've actually had some really good conversations with one of my friends about all this stuff.

You don't have to agree with your friends' religious practices. You can think "I would never chose to do that myself." As long as they are choosing it for themselves and not harming anyone, though, you have to give them fucking respect. It's their life.