This is such an important question. I keep thinking that someone should pull together all of our experiences and write a book. What recovering fundamentalist wouldn't buy it?!!!

In my own family, some members have made very little movement away from the nondenominational evangelical religion we grew up in. Some are more conservative than ever. I find that those doors for conversation simply aren't open.

The only thing that seems to soften things a bit is nurturing my personal relationships with them. (Sometimes I feel like doing the opposite because their selfish false cruel dogmas are so offensive to me!)

As long as I am true to myself and we keep the other aspects of our friendship, at least they are reminded that godless people aren't all bad people. Just by being myself, I am oppening a wedge in that ugly teaching that says only Christians have a moral core. Everyone else actually DESERVES to be tortured for eternity. And it is a good reminder for me that despite their immoral and false beliefs, they are basically decent people --like me.