SO glad you said that. I found the characters two dimensional and the acting amateurish, especially that of the father.
My boys hate the older American comedies - laugh tracks. Them - “seriously??? They told YOU when it was funny???”…
The oldest got me hooked on “the Office” - no laugh track.
Which version?
In the original , Ricky Jervais created a truly memorable comic grotesque.
I’ve always loathed our most famous grotesque, Barry Humphrey’s Edna Everage. His humour is sardonic and often cruel.
Having said that, have always loved Gary McDonald’s perpetual innocent, Norman Gunston. Below one of my favourite clips, where Norman Interviews Paul & Linda McCartney. (1975, 3 minutes)
I have a very close Jewish friend and we get along very well to be honest he is so sweet and amazing 
. So yes it can happen 
.
I have had any number of friends who are deeply religious.
There’s a difference between someone who is deeply religious vs. a religious fanatic, and I don’t generally befriend anyone who is a rabid fanatic of anything.
A large percentage of people who work in the medical field are deeply religious.
By some criteria, I am religious. I still follow many Jewish customs, I am a vegetarian, and I spend time reading and studying religious texts.
My main interest in atheism has more to do with curtailing the damage done by religion, rather than for philosophical or spiritual reasons.
And I am open-minded about God’s possible existence . . . but whether we talk about the Abrahamic god, Vishnu, Zeus, Osiris, etc. I have no opinion. If there is a God or gods, it could just as easily be any one of them . . . or something completely different, or no God at all.
And while I’m open-minded on the subject, I’m not so open-minded that my brains fall out.
None of these attitudes preclude friendship with a religious person.
I don’t really have a choice especially when it comes to getting along with my family members who are theists. I live in a small religious town. So most of the people I’ve dealt with are Christians. There are few that I get along with as long as we don’t debate religion or why they think I should be a Christian like them. I have a few online friends that are Christian and we don’t talk about it. We talk about other things and get along for the most part.
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Where I live, I would have to exert considerable effort to track down anyone who would qualify as “devoutly religious” by the standards that apply to the US Bible Belt. Most of our religious practitioners here tend to be anonymous and quiet, and finding a hardcore god botherer is even something of a struggle if you tap the JWs.
There’s also the little matter of age demographics. The vast majority of regular churchgoers here tend to fall into the “age determined by radiocarbon dating” bracket.
We do have a small, and I emphasise extremely small, number of certifiable loons and wingnuts (Stephen Green of Christian Voice (UK) is trying to become our home grown version of Ken Ham with a large leavening of Westboro Baptist homophobia thrown in for good measure), but these people are definitely far-distant fringe lunatics that are mostly considered comedy fodder. Usually, the phrases you hear being used in my location to describe such people include “up their own arse” and “sad bastards”.
Consequently, even if I wanted to try out the possibility of a friendship with a hardcore Jesus freak, I would have to hunt for one, they’re that hard to find here, and under NO circumstances am Ingoing to engage in correspondence with a Christofascist sociopath like Green if I can help it, he’s a candidate for the funny farm.
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Kind of the same here. But I suspect that the species you’re talking about here tend to go in packs with their own kind, and avoid places and persons known for a less than a hallelujah-kind of affinity towards religious jibber-jabber. The regular mythology-followers around here tend to not mention their beliefs. Unless they are asked first, of course, but then again almost nobody really cares asking. At a street corner outside the neares shopping center, local JWs tend to have a “mission station” on Saturdays. Their stand is never crowded, and I think I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve seen passersby stopping there to interact with them. Luckily, they never initiate interactions, so they only speak if they are first spoken to. Which is a relief. We have on a couple of occations had Mormon door knockers here, but my wife scared them away, so they’ve stopped coming.
Somewhat interesting that the same medicine keeping me from running through a forest on a full moon night with nothing on but a shawl made of squirrel hides also keeps people who are generally mentally well in a better state of mind.
Actually sort of comforting. Maybe I’m not as different from others as I suspect. Until I consider that if I miss a dose I’m essentially headed to the psych. Ward for at least a week.
So you have been eating the cheese again? Going to miss your daily dose of natamycin and wood chips?
Yes. The “head” cheese. Keeps me in the game.
Natamycin, also known as pimaricin, is an antifungal medication used to treat fungal infections around the eye.
And here I’ve been using it all this time to treat the rash around my crotch! What a waste of cheese!
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I never let anything as irrelevant as religion come between me and friendship.
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Wow… I"m REALLY late to THIS party. Anyway, might as well go ahead and put in my two cents worth since I’m here…
Personally, I have zero problems being a good friend with Christians. Doesn’t bother me at all if they believe in their god. But due to Christian “love” and “tolerance”, most Christians I have encountered since I made my “escape” tend not to want to hang around very long after they learn of my “lack of faith.” In other words, respecting the beliefs of others is typically a one-way street in most cases.I guess they are afraid their loving god will send them to hell if they hang around me too long.
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I have met Christians, lovely people, but some expressed aloud that it was unwise to mix to often with non-Christians lest they be led astray. It was a long time ago, but from memory I’m pretty sure the devil was invoked.
I’m reminded of Adam Sandler in The Waterbody…
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If I was making my livelihood by lying to people, and making false promises of rich rewards in an afterlife, I would probably warn the idiots listening to me not to talk to people who were smarter than them as well. I’m no dummy after all.
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My sister and brother in law or both religious, we get on great and have even had some excellent late night philosophical discussions on those matters.
Likewise, i host a fantasy football(soccer) podcast with a dear friend who is also a christian and a spurs fan (im arsenal and an athiest, quite the duo) but we get on amazingly and always have done.
Yeah its more then possible providing its either not discusses or that civil dialogue is welcomed.
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