Friendship Tied to the Tracks

I felt badly for many years because I just kind of abandoned my friend Dale when he got into drugs and alcohol. I wasn't sure how to deal with it, he scared the crud out of me, so I just avoided him. Over the last 9 months, we discovered each other and re-opened our friendship on Facebook. I knew he had cleaned himself up and that he was now a religious nut, but, I felt we could still be friends. However, over the last couple of months he went through a personal scare and operation for prostate cancer. The result was that he suddenly went DEEP into his religious fervor. That's what religious people do when faced with the thought of death. They start being more religious in the hopes that they can convinve everyone (including God) they are good people so they can make sure to get their asses into Heaven. That's all religion is about. It's not about helping others to be good. It's about doing good works (as defined by your religious leaders) so you can save your own ass and not go to Hell. He began posting between 5 and 10 different religious messages to Facebook almost on a daily basis. I do not believe in religion. God may exist, I think that question may be open, but the absolute bullshit that people created that they call religion is nonsense and I don't subscribe to any of it. I challenged Dale on several occasions, pointing out the discrepancies and inconsistencies with what he was writing. At first he tried to be a little understanding of me and my position (I was doing it mainly to try to get him to tone it down a bit) but he became more increasingly fundamentalist. He became intolerant, angry, and started suggesting that I should not be allowed to post anti-religious stuff while he was allowed to post as much religious stuff as he wanted. I subscribe to the Freedom from Religion Foundation and he even created posts calling them a CULT. What utter nonsense. He said he felt "sorry" for me and became convinced that "something" was controlling my life. The implication was that I was somehow under Satan's control. This was the last straw. This time I walked away voluntarily. Sick or not, friend or not, I do not have to be abused by any religious nuts just because they feel morally superior to me and decide I need to be suppressed. I asked him when they were going to tie me to a stake and burn me, or call me a heretic and kill me. What's the difference? The same arrogant attitudes and religious hate that has fueled religious murder for centuries will not put any of those freaks into "heaven." If I am going to hell, I expect to see a lot of those persecuting murderers there with me. So this friendship, as screwy as it has been, is now over. I live my life just fine without religious oppression, fear, and arrogant hatred of others. If you don't believe the same things, that's fine, I believe you have that right. But don't you try to deprive me of MY rights.