I'd LOVE to say ''yes,'' but, unless THEY went out of their way to keep religion away from our friendship....it would be all over. This actually happened to me, with a woman I worked with and with whom I had a great friendship.

She ''got religion''....and, before I knew it, she was cutting ties with me, simply because I know where a lot of ''bones are buried,''....an affair she had while married, etc. It wasn't anything I did...it was her, realizing I reminded her of a ''former'' life.

I miss the OLD Pattie....and I do NOT love the ''new'' one.

One of the things I hate most about religion is intolerance towards those who don’t share the same beliefs. Breaking ties with a friend simply because they decided to start believing in fairy tales would make me a hypocrite.
That said, If that friend started trying to shove jeebus’s holy stick down my throat every time we saw each other, I wouldn’t want to hang out anymore.

I tolerated Bob Dylan when he did it. I’m sure I’d extend the same courtesy to a close friend.

This is really simple. I think we all stay friends with our friend who has a little less free time on Sundays and gets accssess to the badass section of the tattoo shop (cults get all the best tattoos). And I bet we all ditch the guy that spends all our time together explaining why we are going to hell, and demanding his non religious wife where a burka or magic underpants... In some cases we take his wife with us.

Atheist don't get offended by faith, that's not our stick. We just don't like outhers imposing their values, world veiw and politics on us the saying "my invisible friend made me do it".

You better be able to prove your invisible friend exists or stop being an asshole.

To be honest, I'd remain a friend but would likely distance myself a bit.

I do have a friend who seemed pretty open minded though quite gullible. Ever since the election, she has become super Christian, seemingly in response to her dislike of Trump. She references Jesus so often that it is hard to relate to her much any more. She also got into selling some product that she is constantly talking about, so that's another reason for distancing myself from her.

I'm sure it's just a phase she's going through, but I don't feel the genuine warmth I used to feel with her. She seems to have an agenda and wants to feel a kinship to other believers in her religion and product line. Not a lot of time for non-believers - and that's kinda mutual from my standpoint.

That being said, if he becomes a fundamentalist “believer,” it’s him (and/or his new friends) who are going to make that decision, way before I have to worry about it.

Probably not. In my experience the newly religious, not unlike brand new atheists, tend to want to try and convert everyone around them to this amazing news thing they've found.

Probably not. I am not that good at pretending to tolerate anyone's delusions.
It would be a lie for me to try to overlook a change like that.
I'd be questioning their mental stability instead.

Mostly it depends on the persons. I would say that it is most unlikely that a nonreligious person would suddenly become religious. Once truth has been seen it is very hard for it to be “unseen”.

THE VOTES ARE IN!
61 Voted as of 6/14/18 7:58am CST
47 said they would remain close friends
14 said they would not remain close friends

This was a very tough "yes" or "no" question and there were plenty of valuable caveats in the comments. This was fun and very insightful. I hope you enjoyed it too. Thanks everyone!