Any of you live in the Bible Belt?

[KUSA]

I try to look at it the same way as if they are talking about Santa Clause.

[aces]

Parkers, funny you say that. I'm in a small east tx town.

[Spooky]

Does nebraska count? There are many overly conservative christian types here.

Try speaking latin backwards?

[Strider]

Mississippi here.

Folks around these parts sure do love them some Jesus. You just have to ignore it. If a conversation veers toward religion and you don't want to deal with it, say you're not interested in discussing that. If they keep pushing the subject, fuck 'em. If they can't respect your wishes then they're not worth the breath wasted on speaking to them. Being blunt is something I had to learn. Now, if someone asks me what church I go to, I simply reply, "None." If they say, "May I ask why?" then I say, "No."

It certainly sucks, but it's fairly simple to have friends and talk with people without having to deal with Christianity shoved down your throat. The Facebook posts are easy to deal with; identify who those are coming from and unfollow. Simple. Conversely, you can follow my example and get rid of Facebook altogether.

[KevinM1]

I do. Every single facebook post or idle conversation has God popped into it somewhere.

How do you deal with these people??

Facebook suggestions:

If they do like some of my friends do and share images/posts from religious pages/accounts, you can simply click the little downward pointing carrot at the top right corner of those posts and choose to ignore/block them. That will really cut down the clutter. I've noticed that the religious people in my life simply weakly regurgitate images and posts they like, so that has cut down on about 90% of the religious crap I see.

Conversations are a bit harder. If the people involved aren't people you really want to engage with, you can tweak those particular people's friend settings so nothing they do shows up on your timeline. You'll still be friends with them, you just won't see anything they do. Go to their page and look at their friendship settings. Really handy for the people who just share a bunch of useless shit in general, too.

Hope this helps. Beyond that, just remember that they're entitled to their misguided beliefs.

[Brian37]

Ignore them. People are allowed to express their religious beliefs. Why does it bother you? Can you say "I'm not religious" in a courteous, professional way (at work, i.e.) and dry up some of the occasions?

Let it go, brother (or sister). I live in TN, and nearly everywhere you turn people are talking about their Jesus. If I'm always around these people they know that I won't reciprocate, and it dries up. If I'll never see them again or not often, I just let it go.

Um no, we do not have to "let it go". It isn't a matter of making it an issue in every single case. But minorities, worldwide, no matter the label, have a much tougher time being open in any context, than the majorities they live under.

Religion affects every aspect of life to the believer, including the workplace and school and politics. Those people vote and those majorities far too often make assumptions about minorities and assume that your place as a minority is to know your place and sit at the back of the bus.

It depends on context and case by case and only the individual minority can decide when to open up and when to step back.

[Nope]

I stay in touch with a lot of family and friends through facebook. Most of the religious memes don't bother me because they have a right to express their religion. Now and then one so stupid will come my way that it makes my brain hurt.

[KevinM1]

I stay in touch with a lot of family and friends through facebook. Most of the religious memes don't bother me because they have a right to express their religion. Now and then one so stupid will come my way that it makes my brain hurt.

One of my religious friends linked to a creationist science link that claimed humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time because of vaguely brontosaurus looking cave paintings that could've been depicting anything from a cow to giraffe.

Several of my neurons committed suicide that day.

[Chad32]

I'm in Alabama, which isn't the buckle of the bible belt, but is still one of the notches. I was fortunate enough to have parents who were not very religious, and even the religious people in my community are moderate/liberal christians. They're much easier to deal with than the kind of people on FSTDT. in fact, in my most devout faith if I had heard or read some of these comments I still would have thought them utterly insane.

At one point I was going to four church events in a week, and wondering if there was anything going on the other days, but there are extremists out there that say things I wouldn't expect people to think in the nineties in a first world country. That's for backwards people that belong in a rubber room.

Most people around me don't bring up religion much. There's one sunday school teacher who knows because I used to go to the same church, and he definitely wants me to come back, but he's not screaming immorality and fire and brimstone if I don't get in line.

[Nope]

An example of one of the stupid memes my friends have posted. What is ironic is that the stupidest memes actually go against anything their savior taught.

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