"Liberal believers are going to be the people who ultimately bring change to their own religions."

[Manifestor_of_Light]

113. Yep. That is exactly why we have no real friends.

I just want to get away from them. They don't want to know what I believe and are just dying to tell me they will pray for me and I gotta have faith. They wouldn't understand anything except what they've been brainwashed to believe. They refuse to listen to anyone but their ignorant preacher.

Even in the book club, they would talk about what God wants and how Christianity is special and what makes God angry. Even when the book we were discussing had nothing to do with Christianity.

And one guy said in an email exchange, "You'll be sorry to know I go to church and sing in a choir because I enjoy it". I said I was not sorry because I was glad he enjoyed it. I sang in and directed quite a few church choirs and played the piano for them, because I enjoyed it too. So I quit talking to him and I thought he was the only truly educated person I know here--he has a degree in German Lit. from Rice University and we could talk about classical music and opera.

Then he started arguing with me about Nietzsche and I said "I'm not gonna touch that". He's read it in the original German and doubtless knows it better than I do, like he was superior to me.

These were supposedly educated people. We gave up going to the book club because we really wanted to just get up and leave when this started. These people spend a great deal of time thinking about god and jesus and how everything is a huge moral struggle to them.

The place to talk about God is in church, not the book club.

We baffle the people in town, because we don't go to church and we painted our house blue (which they thought meant 'a buncha Messcans musta moved in') and have Tibetan prayer flags outside. And we put up a big fence to keep people out. Small town people have no boundaries.

The rich people go to the Methodist church but the Baptists run the town.

A lady at the bank said she had a degree in mathematics and would talk to hubby about that. He has a BS and MS in physics and loves math. He said something about evolution one day and she said "I don't believe in evolution but I don't want to talk about it."

We're retired and have two acres and a family home in a little town.