brahma

I am in a little bit of a quandry. I have a coworker who is a christian. He is a nice guy and we have never discussed what we believe. I am incidentally catholic by birth and atheist by choice. Last week during lunch I was responding to a post on this board and needed to refer the bible. I tried the online versions but needed to look at the book itself to find the passage I needed. So I went to my coworker and asked to borrow his bible. He lent it to me and I returned it after posting my rebuttal to the 'bible truths' someone had posted on this board.

Now what has happened is that my coworker concluded that I am a christian and has told our common boss and some other christian coworkers. They have a little email group and even meet to pray sometime. Well, yours truly has been included in the email list. I have been getting spiritual emails and invites to christian rock concerts.

It is not so easy to confront them and tell them I am an atheist. We all work closely on our project and I know our common boss is a pretty religious guy. I am worried anything I say may affect our professional relationship, at the same time I dont want to keep them under the wrong impression either.

Any thoughts on what I can do to diffuse the situation?

Viti

eww....I often use the "I am really searching, but maybe God has not chosen to call my heart yet, do you mind giving me some time and room for this to happen as is meant for me?" It sucks and is manipulative...but it has always backed the fundies off me (I use this ONLY if our professional relationship or personal relationship is more important and could be damaged by the atheist/fundie disagreement....we all gotta have friends and we all gotta eat)

If they mean nothing to me or can't hurt me emotionally or financially...I am very up front

This is not popular around this board...but I don't believe in shitting where I eat

Marduk

I agree with Ladyshea, especially if your boss is one of them, don't make waves, can you politely 'just say no' to the at work prayer group thing, you don't want to get in too far or you soon will be a full time makebelieve Christian.

brahma

I could say no to attending prayer groups, but everytime I get an email about some christian worship I feel guilty that I have not been honest with these folks. Added to that is the irritation of having to read some scripture passage in my email.

Its early days yet so I have not been under any pressure. However, I am afraid that it wont be too long before I become as marduck puts it, a full time makebelieve Christian. I want to nip this in the bud.

copernicus

I don't know anything about the company you work for, but large corporations have explicit policies about the content of email. In my company, it is considered an abuse of company resources to send religious messages.

In any case, the best policy here is to explain that you aren't really very religious. You just wanted the Bible to look up some passages for a friend. If pressed, you can just say that you aren't very relgious by nature, but you appreciate their attempts to include you in their circle. After all, it was done in the spirit of friendship. They had no idea that it would actually offend you.

Echo

Brahma,

Maybe if you politely let them know that religion is a private affair for you and that you make it a point not to be involved in religious discussions in the workplace. They'll probably just assume you're shy and/or had a bad experience discussing religion at work once before, and let it go.

And you're right, best to nip it in the bud now before they end up thinking they've been deceived by you.

Godless Sodomite

I'd echo what Echo said. You can be honest and not make waves by refusing to get into religious discussion at work.

-Jerry

brahma

[I don't know anything about the company you work for, but large corporations have explicit policies about the content of email. In my company, it is considered an abuse of company resources to send religious messages.]

My company has such policies too, but no one pays any attention to them. This is one of the things I like about working here

[After all, it was done in the spirit of friendship. They had no idea that it would actually offend you.]

Exactly. Thats what made me feel bad about the whole thing. Anyway, I spoke to the guy who I borrowed the bible from and told him that I would prefer not to receive emails at work. In fact I gave him my hotmail address (the one I check once a year) if he wanted to send something. I am still waiting to see what effect this all has. Maybe the next team meeting will clear it all up.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

voltaire321

Oooohhh.... I used to work with the OP so now my imagination is going wild trying to figure out who it is! Return my phone call Brahma! :-)

-Voltaire

brahma

Voltaire - I dont think you know these guys, we have moved to a different group now. Did you leave me a msg? I didnt get one. I'll send you the details via email or we can chat about it one of these weekends over a beer