What is your criteria for friendship in the Yahoo Answers Religion and Spirituality Category?

Question

First and foremost for me would be respect, not just for me, but for one another.

Selfishly, I would also go with intelligence, and try not to talk to uninteresting or unintelligent people.

While I would say religious beliefs are not a determining factor, I would say that scientific understanding of the natural world would be. For example, I wouldn't neccessarily seek out friendship with someone who believes that Adam and Eve from Genesis is a genetic ancestor.

Politics isn't that much of an issue, but the rationale people use I think would be, example is gay marriage, if someone told me they were against gay marriage because of the Bible, its probably a good bet I wouldn't seek them out for friendship.

What are your thoughts, and criterias?

Answer 1

Sense of humor. Intelligence. Willingness to laugh at themselves. Openness. Honesty. Integrity. Civility. And Consistency

Answer 2

There are some people on here I have become fond of...and I have family and friends that have joined and participate as well, but for the most part I have only really gotten to know a couple of people to the point of saying we are friends.

I am a snob about intelligence as well and I try to be more accepting and loving of those who are not as blessed as some others, remembering there are many kinds of intelligence or combinations of intelligence.

Religion has never been a criteria for me as far as friends are concerned and I have several long time off line friendships with people of different beliefs. On this forum though, I would have to consider at the very least attitude and willingness to be tolerant.

Politics...not a factor, but a lot of people do not like mine, I do admit. Maybe something is not a criteria if others take care of it as far as I am concerned, lol.

On Yahoo Answers, how people respond to and treat others is probably the strongest criteria I would have that would govern the development of any kind of friendship.

Answer 3

I'd my criteria is very lax, as long as you are not an insulting person then I would be able to converse, I don't think it is possible to make a good friendship with someone you met on line, as someone else mentioned an on line friend yes. I don't care what people think or believe, I realize that people have differing opinions and we can't all agree all of the time but as long as they respect my opinion I will get along with them, I will respect every bodies opinion even though I may not agree with them, I think that it is sad when one side questions the other about their biases, can't even see their own and goes on to insult that belief or line of thought. I am not here to change minds, I am interested in knowing how and what people think.

Answer 4

Even though at times I can be harsh in my answers because I believe that what i believe is the truth, but I am not scared to be friendly to anyone. Although some of my answers can sound rather sharp to a person who doesn't know me I am actually here in my house enjoying myself and laughing at times. Some of the answers that I see, that I don't agree with, are downright funny and I enjoy both sides. Even though I do hope that ALL receive salvation. I think I am loving people anyway, while stating the truth as I see it. I correspond with people on my e-mail and I am not mean to anyone. If I encountered hatred or whatever I just wouldn't talk to that person anymore or at least not about that specific topic.

Answer 5

Openmindedness, tolerance, some intelligence is nice you don't have to be super intelligent as I am not the most intelligent person on this forum but I'm no dummy either, caring,loving, non-judgememental, sense of humor is important, witty but funny, non insulting as I hate to be put down or insulted, compassionate, honesty, loyalty, integrity,passionate, and there are some other things that I can't think of at the moment but I think you get the big picture.

Answer 6

Generally people that are respectful, but not ones that seem overly happy. They creep me out.

Inteligence definetly helps. It's so hard to talk to the idiots.

Religion isn't too much of a factor, unless they're the kind of person that goes "My religion is right and you are wrong." That gets really annoying, it doesn't matter what your beliefs are.

Politics are harder to get into on here. That is why there's a "Politics and Government" section. I used to frequent that one too, but this one is more interesting.

Kind people are always nice. I'm more likely to be friends with them.

Some people off the top of my head on here that I like: Jim Darwin, Pangel, Kallan, acid_zebra, J.P., Smarty Pants, and Gandalf. Zhukov, the Russian Alien, is okay. He can be kind of offensive sometimes. And Kjelstad is cool.

Answer 7

Hmmmmm. A variety of things.

For example, Muslimah's kindness and respectfulness. Pangel's compassion and tact. Laptop Jesus's sense of the absurd. Mav's adorable way with words, and her message of understanding. Paladin's humanity, Kjelstad's straightforwardness, Louis's/ShoNuff's irreverence.


And then there is commonality - I'd say that I've invited more neo-pagans of various types to be my 360 friends than people of any other religious group, but it's certainly not exclusive.

And I sure do miss Endora.

Answer 8

I don't think I could add anything original to your list. Someone that I would consider to be a friend in any aspect of my life would have qualities that I hope they would see in me - intelligence, sense-of-humor, and above all, a respect for others.

The belief part is a little more tricky. Respect does mean being open to hear someone's ideas, but being able to maintain anything prolonged with someone who doesn't share your core beliefs doesn't seem likely, at least not in this forum.

Answer 9

For me it would be respect. but mostly that those professing that there christians speak the truth. God's living beathing words straight from the Bible not twisting the words around.
That those who talk about God do it in a mananer that is approprate to talking and walking the Christian life. So one who may not believe everything you do but is open minded and is willing to learn about what you believe and or willing to talk about the differences with out judgemateliness or will go in attack mood. I don't think it's far that someone come on to a Christian sight or answer a question . unless they are truly being sincer but it happens that is only a stepping stone to maybe sharing with them.
Being able to stand up for what you believe, keeping your faith alive in your heart, living your life the way God calls you too, and willing to share with others or be open minded to what they have to say even when you know they are lying and you have the truth in your heart.

Answer 10

As this one guy I used to know told me, "if I don't see you again, the hell with ya." And you know I haven't seen him since.

BUT, this is the R&S section, which means, the last time I checked, that we talk about religion and related things here.

And, by the way, I do respect you. And if I am against gay marriage, just why, can't that be a logical answer, not based on religion? Because you won't let it be. Why can't it just be against nature? Because you won't let it be.

And, my thoughts on this are that you do not want to have friendly exchanges, what you want is to debunk religion. Call me intolerant because I see somethings as just being wrong, period.

It doesn't matter anyway we will never meet.