Oh my; I had a religious 'encounter' yesterday. It reminded me of the one I had four or five years ago. This woman said that "every word in the bible was true". I asked her, for example, "Did Daniel come out of the "hungry" lion's den unscratched?" Answer: "God protected him." I said it was evil to tell her eight-year-old son, who was sitting there, these lies.
And then the earlier discussion. This woman, very chatty, said she was home-schooling her daughter. She said she was religious. My reply: "Well I hope you are not teaching religion to her as 'education'". "You do not believe that someone lived to be over 800 years old, like Methuselah"? "Well things were different before the flood." What flood? I didn't know whether to laugh- or cry.
Mental illness is rampant in the world. I am tired of these former drug addicts who are born-again Christians. I was trying to have a lovely Summer day here in Arizona with my kids at the park. I had to be approached by one with her kids. Those drugs were taking over, and, she needed God for comfort. It was like a battle! I had to keep telling her that she needed something to, "Save," her. I didn't need this in my life. She kept going. I was getting weary. But, kept smiling, kept going. In the end, we just said, "Goodbye."
Yes, it is not a step forward to trade one addiction for another. Trading the drug addiction for the religious one is pointless. I quit smoking many decades ago- because it was a dirty, stinking, moronic, costly habit. When I die, I do not want it to be from lung cancer, where it takes years of trying to suck in a little bit of air. And yes, it was very hard to do. I didn't "discover god"; I discovered more reality.
Thanks for sharing your personal journeys. They just force themselves upon you. My Uncle does the same thing. He would bother me about these rheological discussions. Drives me crazy....????