I should note that I'm not at all surprised that she ignored your beliefs to push her own. I probably should have clarified that EVERYONE who holds strong beliefs without really having come to them in a thoughtful, considering manner tends to behave in this way.
I have a friend who's both Christian and a Republican but who hangs out with gamers. You can guess the kinds of attacks he gets to suffer. One time, I was over at his place hanging out and working on a project for school (this was a few years ago when I was making The Dress) and we got to talking about religion. He was floored that even though I'm agnostic, raised by athiests who are both rabidly ACLU and a die-hard democrat, I was able to listen to him talk about his faith without attacking him.
I was able to do this because I'm comfortable with what I believe, and someone, even someone I respect, disagreeing with me doesn't in any way diminish me.
Another time, I was in a chat room, and a guy who was really into being flamingly gay (this is one of the first things he would tell people when he met them) logged in and immediately said 'I hate christians!' A bunch of people agreed with him. I pointed out that if I'd logged in and said 'I hate gay people!' I would have been banned from the chat room and flamed into the ground. Eventually, we talked it around and he wound up altering the statement to be 'I strongly dislike Christians who forcibly try to convert me and don't shut up when I say I'm not interested.', which I agreed with.
All of that having been said: While I appreciate that religious organizations are getting involved in the relief effort and I'm glad that they're able to offer spiritual guidance to those who want/need it, if I were to hear of ANY organization whose help was conditional on them being able to go out and preach to people who weren't interested, I would hit the roof. I've heard of some organizations doing this sort of thing in similar situations, and it smacks of either bribery or blackmail, but either way it's a very nasty practice.
no subject
I have a friend who's both Christian and a Republican but who hangs out with gamers. You can guess the kinds of attacks he gets to suffer. One time, I was over at his place hanging out and working on a project for school (this was a few years ago when I was making The Dress) and we got to talking about religion. He was floored that even though I'm agnostic, raised by athiests who are both rabidly ACLU and a die-hard democrat, I was able to listen to him talk about his faith without attacking him.
I was able to do this because I'm comfortable with what I believe, and someone, even someone I respect, disagreeing with me doesn't in any way diminish me.
Another time, I was in a chat room, and a guy who was really into being flamingly gay (this is one of the first things he would tell people when he met them) logged in and immediately said 'I hate christians!' A bunch of people agreed with him. I pointed out that if I'd logged in and said 'I hate gay people!' I would have been banned from the chat room and flamed into the ground. Eventually, we talked it around and he wound up altering the statement to be 'I strongly dislike Christians who forcibly try to convert me and don't shut up when I say I'm not interested.', which I agreed with.
All of that having been said: While I appreciate that religious organizations are getting involved in the relief effort and I'm glad that they're able to offer spiritual guidance to those who want/need it, if I were to hear of ANY organization whose help was conditional on them being able to go out and preach to people who weren't interested, I would hit the roof. I've heard of some organizations doing this sort of thing in similar situations, and it smacks of either bribery or blackmail, but either way it's a very nasty practice.