Your description of your circle of friends is familiar; one of the greatest benefits from joining our UU is the new circle of friends that we've gained and like yours they span across quite a range of the religious spectrum, although in our case not including current members of the mainstream churches (Catholic, Anglican, etc) since they are members of our congregation, but there are plenty of former Catholics and so on. We do have a number of practicing Pagans as well as practicing Quakers and other Christians. On the non-believer side we have secular humanists, secular Jews, and atheists, and of course these latter groups overlap.
What we don't have at our UU are any members whose beliefs or practices are founded in hate, at least not that I know of. And that's the striking difference for me. I'm currently struggling over my relationship with some family members who self-identify as Christians but constantly spew hatred, most of it racist, all of it hard right-wing. My sister is Youth Minister of a Vineyard church and it has been shocking to me the things she posts on Facebook. I'm working through whether and how much to become estranged from her. I'm not sure I'm ready to discuss this personal struggle here but wanted to mention it because it has a connection, for me, to this topic of tone and civility in this group. I do want to be able to express my own beliefs here without feeling muzzled but I also don't want to become the flip side, not even if it's the liberal side, of a hatefest. This is apparently not always easy but maybe by trying we will find that even our occasional failures will help guide and inform us to that end. If you notice me creeping over the line, please "shove me in the shallow water".
= new reply since forum marked as read