Born-Again Christians: Most annoying people on the planet?

Why don't you just tell her you're not interested? So she's sensitive, so what? Apparently you are too and she's on your last nerve. You're all grown ups, so what's the problem?

"Aunt, please don't send me any more Christian literature. For the LAST time, I'm happy as I am. I mean it!"

Can you treat your family members like that with out it becoming a problem? Not in my family, diplomacy is required.

Yes, we can. It needn't be said with heat, just firmness. I don't see where diplomacy is an issue. We just make statements.

Here's the magnet I proudly display for anyone who comes in my kitchen to see.....




Francis, you've never met a born again?

You are truly blessed.

Ah, Kick.

I think I'm above all this, and I'm now getting obnoxious emails from the cousin who went so far as to visit me, back in north north. (Which is to say that I loved that they visited me, very important to me.) Obnoxious emails from my pov, of course. Delete city. I don't want to shut her off communicating happily with me... am working up to a few sardonic replies, within a general friendly reply. We didn't hit politics/religion when they visited, and talked easily about other stuff.

At my age, it is berserk not to say my mind, y'all know me, I will at some point, but I want my expression not to be defensive, out of anger, bla blah. Calmo!! The weird thing is, my ex could talk with her and her husband, especially her husband, a john bircher, fgsakes, at Thanksgiving, and I'd be off talking in some other clump, the kids, or the kitchen crew, lest I explode into small bits.

Learning to express oneself is the business of adulthood and goes on and on.

So, my first question is, does your aunt/mother have a sense of humor?

i was going to suggest you tell her the book was very helpful, it's propping up the short leg on your couch

I have done all that. It lasts only for a limited time. They can't help themselves. How could they? A beloved family member of theirs is going to spend eternity in the lake of fire!

Meet ya there Kicky, we'll make smores...

RH

Yeah, damn right. It's f*cking exhausting.



Yeah, but it's hard to tell whether she will react with laughter or tears to any particular joke. She's a little emotionally unstable.

Here's something else about this particular aunt that puts an extra twist to this whole thing. When she was about eighteen, she joined a real live cult, ran away from home to live with them, and then had to be forcibly kidnapped back from the cult by my uncles and her father. You'd think that would give you a healthy dose of cynicism when it comes to blind faith. But of course, they don't think their faith is blind.

You got a deal.

Both excellent ideas. I and Rockhead will await your arrival at the beach house on the lake of fire.

Re: Born-Again Christians: Most annoying people on the plane

On the same theme:






Pray for me too, pitcher boy

heh....

I find my magnet particularly funny, because it's not directed toward all christians, just the one's who are also narrow minded, bigoted a-holes.

If someone complained about it, I'd ask them if they were people it was referring to.


kicky, how often do you see, talk to various family members? Who ususally initiates the calls/visits?

I'm not thinking of you stopping interactions, I'm just curious.

With my mother for instance, it was always me who had to make "the call"....for some reason, any call worthy holiday, or her B-day, MY B-day, or if I caught wind of any dramatic event, I was ordained to be the one who called them, not the other way around. If I didn't call, I was uncaring.

Do you relatives initiate these contacts?

kicky- The fact that your aunt was once in a cult, and has not learned her lesson yet, is very telling. She is obviously a person who is not comfortable unless she is being led around by the nose, and one belief is as good as another.

If this religion keeps her out of the padded room, so be it. It may just keep her from tipping over the edge. If she sends you an E Mail, hit "delete". If she sends you a book, bring it over to Goodwill, or if you don't want to make that effort, toss it in the trash. I think that you are becoming involved in something that is totally unnecessary, and then you are getting upset.

People have the right to believe what they wish. And other people have the right not to buy into it!

Your best defense is a sense of humor, and a clear knowledge of who YOU are!

Absolutely. Why get yourself all twisted about something so minor, in the scheme of things?

Re: Born-Again Christians: Most annoying people on the plane


I haven't scrolled through the other posts on this thread so I may repeat what someone else has said...

They want someone else to make all the decisions for them because thinking for yourself is scary. As a group of people and as individuals they seem devoid of humor or the flexibility to accept differences in others.

Hey wait a minute, that last sentence sounds like the politics forum in able2know. And it sounds a little like me sometimes, although I'm sort of delightful and humorous at times...

I'd love to have a family of born-again Christians just so I could argue with them.

I sense a reality TV show in the making...

I talk to my parents every week. They have pretty much gotten the hint that I don't like talking about this stuff though. Mostly. Every once in a while my mother can't help but mention something about how we're approaching the end times or that she's praying for me for some reason or some other goofy delusional stuff, but for the most part, it's not a topic that we discuss. I also visit my parents every couple-few months, when I see my brother and his wife, who is also super way born-again annoying. It's funny though...my brother is born-again, and so is my father. But they seem to also have enough respect or restraint to keep away from that topic with me.

Anyway...the crazy aunts I talk to once in a blue moon, but recently I made the mistake of responding to an e-mail that these pinheads were sending around to each other and all their jesus-crazy friends, basically saying that Barack Obama could be a muslim terrorist. It was so stupid, I just couldn't help but set the record straight for them.

After that, this particular aunt decided to e-mail me back a couple times. She asked me about my beliefs and I responded by giving her a short summary, and also telling her how I don't really like talking about this stuff because it is a dead end for me.

Of course I then got a longer response from her with more crap about god and jesus and more questions.

I ignored that one. Then a couple weeks later I got this book with a note inside, saying that everytime she thinks of my beliefs, this book comes to mind, so she bought it for me.

This is what is so annoying. These people are so programmed that if you leave any room for hope on their part, they will drive you up the f*cking wall trying to save your soul.

So you can see that mostly I am insulated from all this by distance, and I do, for the most part, just ignore it when they start in on it, but sometimes I get these flare-ups of anger about it. Probably because I can remember when they were just regular people who went to church on sunday and then didn't much talk about it the rest of the week. Back then we could talk about this stuff and they were at least somewhat reasonable. But that was back when I had a family, and not these pod people I deal with now. Now it's not even worth discussing. It just turns into a jesus-love-fest and another opportunity for them to save my eternal soul. Ironically, it's kind of what I think hell might be like, if there were such a thing.