To think my friend is great but talking a lot of crap?

[Botox5578]

Single and struggling. A friend of mine is a devout Christian, I respect that fully but unfortunately it's not something I will ever be.
She's been trying to get me to meet someone through Church, again no disrespect whatsoever but I am not interested in dating somebody deeply committed like she is (I am not saying everyone is, but they seem to be in circles she moves in)
I was honest to her about it.
She understands, but says couples should always wait until marriage before having sex as men who do this are less likely to cheat. I don't believe that's true, tbh.

I told her once again that waiting until marriage is not something I believe in or am interested in, even though I respect her beliefs.

I don't want to make her uncomfortable or disrespect her beliefs, but I have absolutely no interest in dating someone like that. I guess I just need to be firm about it.

Why is she allowed to make you uncomfortable by always going on about her beliefs?
Tell her you're not interested and to drop it, your sex life and how you wish to conduct relationships is none of her business.

Why are you struggling? You say you’re single and struggling. Why?

She sounds like a pain! I fully respect her beliefs and she can live by her own rules but she shouldn't impose them on others.

She's always wanted to get me into church. I go with her every now and again, I am interested in the community sense of it but Christianity is my friend's life and it will never be mine.

I am just struggling following a break up and some bad luck, but I know I'm better off single ATM to work on myself.

I’m no longer religious, but I have friends who are (including two vicars and a rabbi), and I’m fairly sure they’d all really frown at your friend’s behaviour. It seems as though she’s somewhat taking advantage of your vulnerability to try and convert you. It’s a tactic that many less scrupulous religious groups use, because people who are lonely and don’t have a strong community around them are easily attracted to a ready-built “home”.

But joining a religion should happen because someone has a genuine intellectual and spiritual attraction to the faith, not because their life is difficult and they’re being love-bombed by unscrupulous members of that religion.

A Christian philosopher - I forget which one - said “faith is not a bandage; it’s a wound”. Truly committing to a faith will make you question many things about your life. The whole point of many religious rules and teachings is that they set the followers apart from the secular world. They aren’t meant to be intuitive or easy to follow, but to encourage you to resist many natural and normal behaviours and to impose artificial controls on your body and mind (like forbidding consensual sex outside marriage, forbidding masturbation, forbidding certain foods, prescribing fasts and other penances, controlling friendships between opposite sexes, prescribing or forbidding certain types of clothing, encouraging you to think of sexual or angry thoughts as unnatural and sinful, requiring you to give a proportion of your income to the religion, and so on).

Anyone who acts as though committing to a religion will be easy is lying to you. They aren’t truly interested in your wellbeing, as a non-religious person would think of it; their focus is on some supernatural part of you that they believe exists and needs “saving”. They may genuinely think that this is best for you, but it will make your life hard in a lot of ways unless you also develop a genuine faith that matches theirs.

I’m so sorry to hear that life is hard for you at the moment. Church can really appear to offer that sense of ready made community, and it’s hard to find that in a secular setting. But maybe, if you do feel that you’re lacking that in your life, you could explore something like volunteering, joining the WI (I’ve heard some branches are pretty fun!), finding a community choir, or taking up some kind of hobby that gets you in touch with others? It sounds to me as though you really want to belong somewhere - but you’ll only really find that by looking for groups based on a shared value or interest. Church community may be welcoming, but you’ll always be something of an outsider if you don’t share their values - or you’ll have to hide your views to fit in, which will be miserable for you.

In any case, I truly hope things get better for you and you start to find your people.