Congratulations to you as well on surviving your Aunt Betty. We all have people like that in our family tree; sometimes a whole tribe of them.
I think one early event was pivotal in innoculating me against fundamentalist interpretations of the Bible or much of anything else, for that matter. Somewhere in Joshua, he's supposedly instructed to kill all the horses because their use in war would undermine absolute faith in God's ability to win the day. That's a cockamamie notion in the first place, and I have no intention of blaming the Almighty for it. But worse, the book claims that God said to hamstring the horses - surely one of the cruelest ways to dispose of them. Not on my dumbest day was I about to swallow that, not even at 5 years old. So of course it got my radar up for other possible contradictions.
When I first moved here, I was so lonesome that I made the mistake of accepting an invitation to a home bible study. Didn't go too well. They were not fond of my offering 'alternate interpretations', because of course they worshipped their beliefs rather than God. Finally one evening a particular woman started an anti-Obama screed; I stood up, slapped my hands down hard on the table, and read her the riot act, starting off with "Cork it, sister!" I suppose that's one reason people call me difficult. I question and disagree with them and don't put up with much ragging on the President.
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