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The notion that it is impolite to discuss politics and religion is a staple bit of folk wisdom dispensed by parents, grandparents, various other elders, and barkeeps the world over.

...but it's not a universal piece of folk wisdom. In fact it's the significant minority

When you consider 68% of the world of the world is composed under the belief structures of the 3 primary religions (christianity, islam, hinduism) and religion is primarily passed from the parent to the child, I find that parents (and so by inference, grandparents) suggesting that it is impolite to discuss religion a hard pill to swallow.

When you take almost all other religions into account, Non Religious people account for around 21% of the world's population, with some of those are agnostic people (like myself).



My grandfather gave me that advice, and he's a member of the clergy. There are varying levels of social sophistication amongst religious people. In general those born into some sort of longstanding cultural religion tend to not bring it up in polite conversation. It's the newly converted noobs, or perhaps a crazy aunt, who ruin the dinner party.


Your crazy aunts don't necessarily need to be religious to ruin dinner parties.

Many of my family Christmas' have been ruined by drunken dancing old women :)




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