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David_Gerard comments on Thwarting a Catholic conversion? - Less Wrong Discussion
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My formerly agnostic girlfriend of over 5 years just joined a local Catholic congregation.
The best thing you can do for your friend, is to be a friend. Listen to her and support her as a fellow human being. If you have an agenda for what you want her to be, she will most likely be able to sense this.
Just be her friend and accept her for who she is. If she finds that the Catholic community doesn't accept her wholeheartedly, be there for her. If she finds acceptance there, then accept that too.
Hating people for being wrong is a seductive and tricky thing and can lead to unproductive situations. Limited but generous forgiveness and acceptance are optimal strategies in an imperfect world with imperfect communications channels and fallible actors. (Refer to: Axelrod's Prisoner's Dilemma tournament, and a Tit-For-Two-Tats.)
There's always the possibility she will change her mind again. Ask yourself, would you want to be permanently shunned because you didn't come to the correct conclusion fast enough? What would you think of a community with members that acted in that fashion?
Is she someone likely to be prone to spiritual binge-and-purge? Does she tend to be intense about beliefs or the lack thereof in general?
She tends to feel everything more intensely, resulting in a great deal of anxiety, but hides this behind a poker face. Many people, including her relatives, thought she'd become a nun before she started going out with me.
Gotta love that phrase.
Some people seem to need something to believe, and they are often quite driven people. It may not be religion - we've seen a few around LessWrong, who give up religion and pursue the Singularity with the same intensity, or go the other way.