I still do have relationships with people of my religious past. Some of them know that I am agnostic and some do not, but I often find myself being distance from them because everything is about Jesus and I just don’t want to hear it, honestly. Now that I am in a different place in my life, I want to surround myself with people who have similar beliefs as me. However, it feels like they’re far and few in between.

Why would you not still be friends, after all it would be so boring if our friends had the same point of view as we have.

I have never had an issue with friends or family regarding their religion or my lack of religion.

When I was in college I was a very devout Christian among other Christians. But I stood out as one who went above and beyond the call of duty. I had the admiration and respect of those around me. Many would come to me for guidance in their walk with Christ. One guy even called me God Jr. It was a scenario where most of those I associated with were living lives that were falling short of the Christian mark. In some senses I was the standard-bearer of what a Christian should be. One of the dear friends I had at the time was a gorgeous blond girl who spent time on her back. It was quite easy for her to catch a guy's eye. She would confide in me about her short falls and lean on my friendship.

Cut to twenty years later. I had turned my back on the entire lump of shit that is Christianity or any religion for that matter. I get this call from her. I was so glad to hear her voice. She sounded great and told me I would be so proud of her because she had been walking a straight line for Jesus. She had been redeemed, washed in the blood etc. Then, here it came. "How are you doing? Still serving the Lord, I know. But how is everything else?" I just laid it out there. "Nope. Not serving the Lord anymore. I have totally and completely walked away from the whole deal". She was dumbfounded. "No! Trey, you were the example. You were who we looked to." I explained how the whole thing just became nonsensical to me. The conversation ended. I tried to reach her a few time subsequently, but got nothin'. Have not heard from her since. That was about 10 years ago.

I have three sisters:

Sister one - deeply religious, preaches at local churches.

Sister two - casually religious, a 'sort of' believer, but not a regular church goer.

Sister three - as atheist as I am myself, though not as actively so.

All three are the finest people I have ever known.

I have religious friends. They aren't fanatics and it isn't something we talk about. They aren't my closest friends, but I like them.

I have a number of friends who are Christian, a couple who are Buddhist, and even one Jahova. I also have a ton of pagan friends.
Even one of my partners believes in a God. We don't all have to agree to build connection

I have given up on religious people!

Even relatives!

Most family members are Protestant and dead, my fathers half brother families are mormons mostly alive!

All the Mormon boys went on Mormon missions to avoid military service, no one should be allowed to use religion as an excuse for war, when religion is the cause of almost every human conflict since the beginning in some form or other!

If you did not want to serve tell the truth you did not want to sacrifice yourself, do not use religion as your excuse!!

That is my opinion as an veteran, over fortyfive years ago, who was shot, stabbed, shot down, and blown up in more than one conflict!!

It's much harder with some people than others.
The die-hards make it damned near impossible.
I've had to cut a lot of them out of my life.

The great problem is the fanatism! That is why we need to keep a neutral state without a official religion, the beings humane needs to learn living with each others without impose beliefs and rules based in faith to anothers groups who thinking in the different way, while the humanity don't understand it, we will keep
seeing a religions wars and beliefs fanatism.
Respect to the neighboors rights and private property is all to me.

Define friendship .

Yes. I have several religious friends. It's not particularly difficult or unusual for me anyway. I don't shove my beliefs (or lack thereof) at anyone and expect the same in return.

I have a few friends that are pastors, I'm sure I try their patience. One especially I communicate with fairly frequently. He was an enormous help when I had an out of control teenager. He truly has a heart for people, the most loving man I've ever met. His church is doing a program on spirituality and sexuality, I've asked for a transcript. Not for me, but my daughter just came out, and her religious daddy is having conniptions. Actually he's more concerned that she is atheist than she is gay, but neither one is to his liking. Anyway, I will let her check it out and then pass it on to her dad if she wants. I will do anything to support my kids.

All across the board, it doesn't matter to me. Friendship last until they try to talk me into their stuff

If I did not maintain friendships with religious people I would have very few friendships .I very rarely discuss this subject.

Friendships or relationships?

I have many atheist and religious friends and we make sure we do not impose our religion and views on others, nor do we criticize others' religions. It is very possible. This will only work if your friend is not radical or fanatic.

I live in a state that has the most megachurches per square mile. So you can't toss a quarter with out it hitting some sort christian. Most of my friends are either christian hindu muslim or Buddhist. Im the odd non believer. Though if you knew us only by personality and life choice you would think I was the christian and they're were the heathens lol.

Yes, all of my close friends are Christians (here in retirement) and they know I am agnostic.I think I am more willing to talk religion than they are for the most part. I overheard one say to a visiting preacher about me: "We try not to let him get started!"

I am far removed in terms of years and geography from my past faith, but I have very good relationships with my two surviving brothers, one of whom is still in the faith, and the other is neutral. We get along fine. My family is pretty good at minding its own business. That is, I realize, unusual when it comes to fundamentalists. It's probably an artifact of our family coming late to the party ... my parents converted in their 40s, and my 3 older brothers were already out, or nearly out, of the nest. I was a late arrival and the only one in the family to know nothing but fundamentalist dogma throughout childhood.

I get along very well with religious people so long as they afford me the same courtesy of respecting my boundaries and not giving unsolicited advice on personal matters. But I don't live in the Bible Belt or some other strident enclave of fundamentalist hegemony, either. In such places, and on the Internet, they can be real asshats. And that's the real problem in my relations with theists.

It seems most of the people here are either liberal Christians or nones. Few discuss religious beliefs but I would say it depends on the level and content of discussion. Our dentist, who is fabulous, is a 7th Day Adventist. She does not discuss her religion but has a book in the lobby. My late partner relished in hiding the book whenever she went to the dental office. On the mainland (we say Amerika) is an optometrist who is a JW. Same thing; he has their bibles out and she hid them. She went in for an exam once and saw some of his leaflets in the room and asked about them. He proudly started to talk about them and she told him it was in bad form to push his ideas on his patients and to put them away and he did. Whenever, she (or myself) went in for an exam he made sure to remove his propaganda.

A small handful of my friends from high school/college are still religious but pretty damn liberal and quiet about it. My sister is the closest of such examples. But yeah that’s about the only way it works for me. I don’t mind to burn a bridge if you so much as share something idiotic on Facebook. As such, I don’t have that many friends left, but the ones that will still speak to me are each worth scores of polite, stuffy acquaintances.

I had a Mormon friend who died a few years ago. Our perceptions of religion didn’t define us. We had plenty of things in common that had nothing to do with religion. Most people do. For many people religion is a small, or nonexistent, part of their world.

My experience is that many atheists find reasons to have problems with people they could be friends with. There is no religious divide, just a people divide!

I have a lot of religious friends and I never discuss my lack of religious beliefs with them.

Most of my family that matters are dead, or like my stepdad, not in their right minds. As for my daughters, they both claim to "believe in their own way." I keep telling them this is what is wrong with religion in the first place. If you do not believe that god did blah blah blah for me I will go someplace else where they do believe it. Such is the nature of religion.

I would imagine most everybody has a friend like that. I know I have several.