I am a secular Jew/atheist who lives in the Dirty South, USA, among a lot of conservative and devout Christians without much education. In other words, they take the bible literally and it may be the only book they've read; some are anti-Semitic; some appear to believe that it's ok to try and force Christianity on others, in a kind of Inquisitorial way but without the instruments of torture. That's a little progress.

Recently, I've tried politely to let proselytizers know that I'm perfectly happy being a Jew (I don't even get into the atheism issue with them) with a God who flies solo. It seems to bother them to no end that I refuse to find solace in or don't need an intermediary in the form of a rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed Jesus; I tell them I like God straight up, abstract, formless.

Maybe I'm wondering how anyone can continue to proselytize Christianity at this point in history. But on the other hand, the people I describe in my first sentence above aren't that different from believers of previous centuries: they embrace historical ignorance, especially with regard to the writing of the bible. I'm new to the forum; maybe this topic has already been beaten to death... But I keep pondering the silliness and naieveté

I don’t engage with it. I don’t know, the desire to confront religion left me, and I can’t be arsed.

Even if beaten to death it remains relevant for many of us.
Having been raised by non religious parents with occasional sunday school token attendance for some sort of reason I wasn't aware of at the time I lived non religious until as a vulnerable teenager I was "saved" and dicovered a world of instant social life with stuff to do and a vast disparity gender wise making me suddenly super attractive to the girls at church. This super attractiveness hadn't been my experience until then by the way. Proselytizing was heavily encouraged for various reasons and although money, power etc the usual reason, I actually hit on another reason while reading a manual on converting people from other religions/sects etc. In this book the author was targetting Mormons and writing of their 'missions; where they send 'elders' usually young people far from home to walk the streets saving souls for whatever. The key point the author mentioned was this was to keep the young people busy working for the sect and critically to have them so invested in the sect that it was very hard for them to walk back on it or leave. This was a revelation for this young reader as although the Mormons where targeted I saw this was true frequently across the board and perhaps true of my situation. This was if not the final straw for me, then it was a least a clear warning sign, was I being made so invested that I was trapped? Was I assuaging doubts by forcing others to believe?
Really I think the answer was: yes, I was being backed into a corner and what made it worse was I was actively pushing others into something I was becoming ambivilent at least about. I looked around and saw this very clearly in others, what may be seen as just run of the mill hypocrisy in many ways is a self defence manouver, I must be right, I forced others to believe this stuff and I can't leave as I am too invested, my ideas, my social world, my time.. Better to double down and become more dogmatic, force others to believe. Make the world fit my narrow world, I see this in the USA with the book banning etc. At least my experience of religion although fundie xtian was not the white supremicist fascist version I see here in the USA currently. I wrote previously in another thread many years ago about the last time I walked out of a service and shortly before I just kept walking was when a visiting preacher from the USA (I am not American BTW) came and spoke at a weeknight service I attended, this was right at my should I stay or should I go now period. He praised god for inventing AIDS to kill sinners and encouraged everyone to thank god for this, I declined and said loud enough for people to hear this is not correct and this is not the stance of this congregation, but people still cheered as instructed. I appealed to the elder present to stop the service but they were unable /unwilling, I walked out hoping the senior pastor who was absent would be horrified, but as I walked I thought well they invited this creature to speak unsupervised.
TLDR?
I understand, short version: I ran away giving up all and starting fresh, best decision ever.

What do you think of Rabbi Tovia Singer who is openly proselytizing in the 21st century for Judaism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tovia_Singer

Leucius Charinus wrote:What do you think of Rabbi Tovia Singer who is openly proselytizing in the 21st century for Judaism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tovia_Singer

Interesting, I currently live in NYC and am exposed to all sorts of Judaism, from invisible non religious to ultra orthodox Jews against Israel protests, to Messaianic dancing street preachers asking all passers by : are you a jew? and their buses broadcasting music and messages cruising the avenues.
Really theologically there is no hell as in hellfire and brimstone, eternal punishment in the so called old testament, so jews even the crazy fundie ones are a bit more chill in this respect. Really even refusing to push an elevator button one day a week in not in the same league as actively stripping rights from others.
Adding to there no hell bit, I have to say when I was in the church and being nutured as a future leader it was made very clear to me that although hell and stuff were not biblically/scripturally defendable I should never share this with the 'sheep' as this 'strong meat not milk' that would confuse them.