Reply #83: Some additional thoughts.

[JoePhilly]

I find that people who act the way your aunt and her pastor do, see themselves as better than you.

They see their own religious views as vastly superior to yours, and they use their self-proclaimed superiority, as a license to tell you which topics you can have an opinion on. Some of your other family members may have already give in to this pressure, and they may expect you to do so as well.

In your OP, you mention that they claim that they will "pray for you". What they mean to say is that THEY are the judges, and that as JUDGES, they are in a position to speak to God on your behalf. They find this necessary because as they see it, YOU are screwed up, and unable to engage God directly on your own. You can't be trusted with that ... they need to do it for you.

The ultimate reality is that these people see themselves as above you. Only they can interpret the bible, you can not.

They do this to intimiate and control you. Which is why you are being told to "stop, to stay out of it, and to shut my mouth. I am not to have an opinion."

In my own case, I won out over those who tried to control me by becoming more knowledgeable then they were. Not just about bible quotes, but about the history of the bible, and the history of religion itself.

I'd recommend books by Bart D. Ehrman and Karen Armstrong to start.

Over time, I reached a point where those family and friends who wanted to control my religious thoughts knew better than to talk nonsense around me. And so after a time, it was they who withheld their views and opinions on such things.