I’ll try and keep it short. I I’m a 24 year-old male. My coworker is a 29 year-old male. he is very religious. He constantly brings it up in conversation and it got to the point to where it became too much. so I politely asked him to not bring it up so often to me as I do not believe and I’m not interested. he took that as I must not know enough and need to be saved. so after he wouldn’t let it go for a couple days. I finally decided to speak my thoughts on the situation and we got into the topic of the problem of evil. If you know you know that’s not the point. anyway it started out pretty civil and peaceful. But slowly overtime it’s gotten worse and worse. It always starts peaceful but then he gets upset and starts attacking me personally saying I’m immature I wouldn’t get it or I just want things to be the way that I want things to be. which really doesn’t make sense given the argument, but I digress. It really doesn’t bother me given how obvious it is that he is frantically losing the argument, but I realized I’ve started to enjoy it. Part of me thinks that’s OK given that I had already asked him not to bring it up, but there’s no part of me that kind of thinks I’m an asshole.
NTA, but you need to stop engaging. Christians have special privleges now and whining about being victimized, which could cause you a lot of problems.
NTA, I have no idea why Christians still persist to try to convert you after you’ve already made up your mind you don’t want to believe. Then start to take it personally. Like, respect the answer and move on? You’re not the problem as you’ve asked and he decided to take it up a notch and can’t handle his own fragility when it comes to his religion.
Exactly. And then when you finally have had enough and blow up on them they play the “persecuted Christian” card.
ESH. You both need to stop or this is going to go extremely poorly. Tell him that in order to maintain appropriate professional boundaries, you can no longer discuss religion in any way. If he brings it up again, remind him that’s not an appropriate topic for office conversation. Any further and you need to go to your manager.
The risk for you is if someone overhears you saying something negative about religion, they can make your life miserable. It’s not worth it.
NTA. They started it with their own actions. You aren’t antagonizing them you are returning their energy. Maybe he will learn boundaries.
To avoid getting in trouble as they may try to spin this it is best to report their behavior to your supervisor and HR that they are making you uncomfortable. They aren’t even allowed to talk about their religion in the work place if you have asked them to stop
ESH. Him for harassment, and you engaging with it. When he failed to stop after you asked, your next step should have been to HR.
ESH even though in terms with beliefs I side with you. I also have had my fair share of obnoxiously vocal religious co-workers that make me deeply uncomfortable whenever they bring it up at work. But as inappropriate as I find it, my coworkers have the right to do so, and I live in a country where religious speech is protected.
Here’s the deal: depending on where you work and what kind of HR you have in place, you could have a calm talk with a manager and/or HR to say that this coworker constantly talking about religion is making you really uncomfortable. You don’t have to offer anything beyond that. That is IT. You were primed in a position to do that. Doing this now would be obvious who reported your coworker and this could be seen as an act of retribution.
If you don’t have that kind of team or HR in place, you could have probably just said, “Hey, man, for personal reasons I’m really uncomfortable when conversations turn to religion” and if he pushed back say, “I respect your religious beliefs and I hope you’ll respect mine in return, so please know I’m not comfortable speaking about this anymore.”
Instead you kept poking the bear and doing the exact same thing that he does to you. You both have your ankles firmly dug into your beliefs and there is no point in trying to “save” the other by either “saving” you or getting your co-worker to let go of a deeply embedded belief system that is probably woven into ever other part of their personal social life and family. At this point by continuing to engage in this conversation at all, you’re both creating a toxic work situation. Get HR involved. This is a work place. Even if you hated each others’ guts you should be professional.
I always put my hand up say I don’t discuss religion and walk away. Stops it every time. NTA
>AITA for debating religion with a coworker
You didn’t. He debated religion with you. Even though you explicitly asked him not to. NTA. But he is. Next time he starts tell him to stop,shitting where he eats. Also, go to HR. Discussing religion at work is extremely unprofessional. He is creating a hostile work environment.
NTA if people want to try to shove their religion down your throat it’s totally fair to let them know it’s all bullshit.