Anyone else tried posting on a general "religious debates" forum?

[grympy]

I got talking with an older guy in the sauna at the gym, as you do .Turned out he's an ordained baptist minister. I made the comment that the fall out from the end of my marriage made me feel as if I was being punished.  That statement  was about feelings, not belief.  Anyway, he said "god doesn't work like that", missing the point, but  I was so impressed.  He turned out to be a great bloke. 

Yes, even in the fundagelical world there are some wonderful, empathetic, kind people. They are not all assholes just because the environment tends to favor such.

My late wife had an uncle and aunt who were that saintly sort of person that most fundagelicals can only imagine themselves to be. If there were genuinely good, compassionate things done in their rural church, it was because of them and in spite of their idiot pastor. The uncle organized local men to build handicapped ramps for people who were temporarily or permanently impaired; he took it upon himself to check up on various shut-ins and do odd jobs to keep their houses functioning; as a couple if you needed wise advice you would be informally directed to their home for a listening ear and sound, practical advice.

It is my observation that they managed to be virtuous in spite of their church, not because of it.

 You have just  described my late mother, who died this year at 92.  Mum was a Catholic convert (at age 40). She was what I call  a 'small'c' christian'. She gave witness to her  faith by the way she lived her life.   At mum's largish  funeral, I met  some people who mum had helped, about whom I knew nothing.