I guess I need to keep my big yap shut but I just can't help but divulge the appalling nonsense I've learned about the Mormon church with non-Mormon friends. But they, most being of one Christian persuasion or another, invariably come out of the woodwork and approach me with proselytizing overtones about their church. Currently I have 3 born-again Christians and 2 Catholics trying to convert me. One of them even purchased a pro-Jesus book and wrote what amounts to his testimony inside the front cover before giving it to me.

And I can tell that all of them think they have a good chance of bringing me into their fold...at first. But I find myself using my critical thinking to dissect their beliefs and defend my agnosticism. It gets very tiring and I find that I have to verbally dance just so to both defend my beliefs and to retain the friendship.

Do the rest of you find this happening as well? Any tips on handling such situations? Should I just keep my religious thoughts to myself?

Dipsnort, I haven't had too many BACs or Baptist types try to approach me but I've had a lot of new age-y types try to convince me that their path to peace would do me some good. Like you, my skepticism sensors tend to go off the charts with anything claiming perfect happiness and answers to all my many questions.

One of my best friends from Jr. High who is always into some MLM or weird holistic health stuff contacted me after over a year of no responses to my e-mails and the first thing she wanted to offer me was a discount on her services to help me through something she called "The Process". Apparently she would hypnotize me and send me into my past life where she would draw out my various past life personalities and ask them why they continue to haunt me, what I should learn, and how to help me move to the next stage. I'm pretty sure I was a skullery maid in my past life and the limitations of emptying the chamber pots of the spoiled aristocracy had clouded my perspectives.

Anyway, I sent her a nice note declining the offer but reassuring her that I was genuinely interested in her life, her children, her recent divorce, and wanted to catch up on all sorts of things. She was sorely offended and suggested that by turning down whatever scheme du jour' she was into at the moment was in essence denying her very soul and removing her voice in the matter.

It's probably because in a past life I was a witch doctor and cast spells on people that caused mental laryngitus. If so, then I want to channel that voodoo creature and cast several spells on some talk radio guys that can't seem to shut the hell up. It would be a humanitarian service and I'd probably get thousands of awards if I could find a way to make all those voices stop.

Facebook is also a way that many people pester with some of the most innane crap. It's like inviting junk mail into your private space and every two minutes there's a ding that more junkmail has arrived.

The same friend that tried to past life regress me kept sending stuff for the Christian Coalition and other right wing organizations. I deleted most of them but finally I asked her to stop sending such stuff and she was sorely offended. There I go again, taking the voice away by politely declining someones junk mail. I'm a meany.

Yes, I've had several Christian friends decide to tell me how worried they are about my spiritual well-being. With my new critical thinking skills, neither case went well.

I also have a New Age friend. I can now relate to a bit of her stuff, but most of it is still way too out there for me.

I dont know. I guess that you're gonna have to settle for having some really cool christians for friends, along with some totally non-understanding people, who will never be able to "get it" and gather clues, about where we've been. And in further defense, of what has really worked for me, you only need one really true blue, listening ear of a great friend to get what you might need and make it through this period.

I hope you don't mind me turning to the other side of this same page for just a moment, too.

Straight up and forward as I can plainly state it, I am a christian. Now having once been an awful Mormon and a Catholic, it's the large mega-church of the non-denominational appeal, along with fantastic small groups. That finally won me over as the method for housing my own personal and spiritual growth. But, trapped in the half-breed world of having some experience on both sides, constantly seems to get an under appreciated value from a lot of casual run-in's with nearly every sort of person. By that, what I mean is, I understand where people are at and where they might be coming from. I really do "Get It" and don't have any great wish to suffer unnecessary and undo scrutinizing for the rest of my life, from what sometimes seems like all of the sides.

Critical Thinking ganks Proseliting every time

Although I do believe in Reincarnation and Past-Lives there is no way I'd let anyone I didn't know personaly & trust, to do it. Plus, we live in the now and the past is what it is - behind us. Something to learn from yes but not to be obsessed by.

Everyone has given up trying to convert me to their way of thinking/worshiping. The Self-Rightous bigots who shout hatred in town will only ever get their firey words doused by my water pistol

That's a pretty common theme for me as well. I find the best answer to that to be that I chose to live the golden rule, treat other people the way I want to be treated and just generally be a good person. And IF there is a God and he doesn't think that's good enough to allow me into his "heaven" he's not a person I would want to associate myself with anyway. I haven't heard anything but agreement in that principal yet (although you can usually see the wheels turning for their next response--they just can't come up with a good one so that's where the religious part of the conversation ends).

That's pretty much what I end up saying as well.