How do you react to disagreement on religious (or other) beliefs when it involves friends or family?

Or just beliefs in general.

Say you have a friend with strikingly differing beliefs than you on controversial topics, and your friend casually mentions his opinion on these topics from time to time.

Do you tell him/her your opinion even if you know it might cause tension in the relationship, or do you change/avoid the subject for the sake of foregoing unnecessary conflict?

Depends who's right. :p

If you believe every word of this book:
http://www.ancient-future.net/biblealone.jpg

You should tell him you're right. If you don't, you should read the Bible. :)

Outside of the internet, I just nod and change the subject.

I think it depends on the other person. Some people are genuinely eager to get into civil discussions concerning their beliefs, others not so much. I feel I can pretty well gauge how open a person is regarding such discussion simply by the frequency of them bringing it up.

I'm not usually one to initiate such conversation, but I certainly won't shirk it just to exhibit false PC'ness.

The owner of the company I work for is Catholic. He knows my position regarding the church. We never discussed it at work before, but had a nice (albeit disagreeable) discussion regarding our viewpoints on a plane ride back from a work function. It hasn't strained our professional relationship at all, but perhaps that's just because he was the one who brought it up first. Had I approached him with it, it may have turned out differently.

Overall, I tend to be passive in initiating conversations about it. Once it's been brought up and my opinion solicited on it - I can be fairly aggressive.

Again, it all depends on the person(s) involved. Like fallinghouse said, the internet is where I most actively and unabashedly participate in discussion regarding religion.

What femme said. I try to avoid it with family members, but my friends like debating when drunk so we can get into it and it won't bother our relationship at all.

I react with kind words and thoughtful commentary, ALWAYS being respectful of another's opinions and ideas.

I'm probably more aggressive on the internet but when I'm around friends and family, how likely I am to initiate conversation depends on how different the religious beliefs are between us. But then again have a friend who's a hardcore Christian and it's not exactly rare for us to debate our beliefs and such.

i generally listen to their side of the story, only butting in when i see an obvious flaw... then again i'm always interested in what other people believe so i always listen with a childish grin on my face. I don't care whether its my best friend, my mum or some guy on the street, i will approach their beliefs pretty much all in the same way

I react with kind words and thoughtful commentary, ALWAYS being respectful of another's opinions and ideas.

Well not here on TOTSE. :p

Online or in reality, I don't respect ideas that are not worthy of respect.

I don't go out of my way to start a religious arguement, but if someone pushes their religion on me I will destroy them in a debate.

Depends who's right. :p

If you believe every word of this book:
http://www.ancient-future.net/biblealone.jpg

You should tell him you're right. If you don't, you should read the Bible. :)

Word. The best parts of that book are where it condones slavery and gives instructions on how to treat slaves and how slaves should act. Some heathens were like "slavery is wrong" and i was like "nah man it's okay as long as you do it like the bible tells you."

Depends who's right. :p

If you believe every word of this book:
http://www.ancient-future.net/biblealone.jpg

You should tell him you're right. If you don't, you should read the Bible. :)

That's the book where the guy told Moses to kill babies and sacrifice animals right?

I react with kind words and thoughtful commentary, ALWAYS being respectful of another's opinions and ideas.

If you were like that on TOTSE, it’d be for the best. Being antagonistic merely pushes people away and makes them close minded.

As for how I react to disagreement, it really depends on context. If their beliefs are causing no harm, I leave them alone (it’s not like I know anything for sure, so why shatter their dreams for something that‘s probably unreal too?), except when in a philosophical discussion. I expect a philosopher or scholar to be able to take criticism (they’re really just awful if they get offended and antagonistic, and are best to ignore).