A Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and an atheist walk into a coffee shop...

Nice sentiments. Problem is, even with people who are NOT usually a-holes, is that people talk about a lot of things over coffee (and caffeine famously encourages gab). The trick is to walk the fine line between forthright expression of one's own religious (philosophical, political, entertainment, sports) opinions and going into attack mode. If the friendship and respect is strong enough, people are often able to differ without disharmony taking over. However, sometimes, sadly or not, friendships are naturally lost when differences over core isssues and foundational beliefs are so vibrant and strongly held that people just cannot maintain a friendship, as I have observed happening over the Iraq war, science vs. fundamentalism, etc....

cheers to that!

well said.

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http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=15227539

Nice.

Oh you're so enlightened! herp derp

Sounds nice as a quote, but not practical.

Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe in a specific objective morality. Atheists may believe in an objective morality or that morality is relative. Regardless, each of the 4 have different believes on what objective morality IS.

So, you probably believe rape is objectively morally wrong. So, you would never have a coffee and become friends with someone who believed rape was morally okay to do under certain circumstances. You would despise a person like that.

So you have to take that into account. Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Atheists, with different beliefs about what objective morality is, are going to despise and reprimand something about the other.

Christian theology for example teaches that ALL SINS are equal, and there is no moral difference between a person who rapes and a person who has consensual sex outside of marriage. Both of these are moral wrongdoings, according to Christian teaching. No one would ever want to be friends with a rapist, and that's the equivalent of asking some Christians to be friends with a fornicator,


Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.