I am sick of posters like this giving believers a bad name.
To be honest, I have begun avoiding anyone who is religious or claims to be spiritual.
I realize ARSe is mentally ill (manic phase of bi-polar most likely) and he is the minority, but almost all the religious people I have known eventually became aggressive and try to force me to follow them.
I don't have spiritual conversations with anyone. I respectfully excuse myself when someone starts preaching. I never tell anyone my religious or non-religious views (except on this forum).
However, in the past month, an old lady at the grocery store grabbed my hand and started yelling that her church was the "one true religion", my neighbors are claiming that god speaks to them and that all Catholics should be killed, a friend from childhood (we have been friends 30 years) joined a new church and become very hateful to anyone not a member (he wont talk to me anymore), and an insurance rep was wanting me to join a fantasy football league, which sounded like fun, but then he started calling everyday preaching Mormonism and getting louder and more controlling for no apparent reason. This was just random people in the past month, not to mention the typical religious shunning from my JW family and friends.
I never told any of these people that I'm an atheist, never made a single religious comment. I just wanted to talk about football, frozen dinners, or the weather, but it never works out that way.
I would love to have a conversation about normal everyday things with a believer. But once they start talking about religion, and they always do, it becomes an aggressive demand for my submission to their beliefs.
I'm not attacking anyone just pointing out my recent experiences with spiritual people and why some may avoid the religious. While it may seem the minority of spiritual people are aggressive, it really isn't.
