The closest I’ve come to a fundie (as my faulty memory sparks to life) is when I was still volunteering at a local hospital. I was wheeling a lady from the front lobby to the lab for some bloodwork. Halfway there, she offered me some tracts, and I turned them down, since I was (technically) an employee of the hospital and not allowed to accept anything of the sort from patients (I love making up policies). THEN, when we got to the lab, she grabbed my hand (and that lady was strong) and began to pray over it fervently in Spanish. It took two nurses and my own efforts to pry her off of me. ::shudder:: It still creeps me out to think of it.
Actually, Guin, that’s a very likely place for a tract to be found. Handicapped people often find god, because they need something to believe in; something to console them for having gotten a shit deal. And there are just as many K-mart-shopping fundies as there are materialistic social climbing ones. Poor people also need something to believe in.
I found the “Last Rites” Chick Tract on a bench on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach this weekend. Dr. Boyfriend, a Buddhist, read it, and was shocked at the nastiness of the thing (this particular one is anti-Catholic).
The other day I saw a bumpersticker that read “In case of Rapture this vehicle will become unmanned”, and I started quivering with rage at the degree of self-righteous pomposity this displayed. These fundies have carried the 16th c reform concept of ‘faith alone’ to a whole new irritating level.
And doesn’t the damn book say that NO ONE will know when it’s coming?
Argh!!!
Uh, M.K. this sounds like the kind of thing I would put on my car as a joke. Not saying that they weren’t serious, (like the “You’d smile too if you were going to heaven” bumpersticker) but they may have just been cracking one.
I very much doubt it, cleosia. I’ve had several discussions with people who believed the rapture stickers to be juuuuuust fine. No joke, these people are really assuming they’re saved.
Does anyone else have the mental image now of Satan in full mountain-climbing gear, lashed to the side of a gothic cathedral, furiously using hammer and chisel upon a gargoyle, while a beaming man (beaming with Jesus’ love, of course) stands below in the center ring of a crudely painted bull’s eye, blissfully whistling away his troubles?
Kudos, John C, I guess you’re the only Bugs Bunny fan besides myself.
We got on their ‘Don’t EVER go to this house’ list. My wife did the best PMS/Linda Blair/bad hair day/I’m gonna eat my kids rant on these people I’ve ever witnessed. I almost felt sorry for them, but then I thought ‘fuck em, it’s our privacy they’re invading’. I love my wife!
My condolences to those of you who have suffered from the Fundies.
My family went through its own version of Fundie Hell a couple of years ago. My brother had a friend who was a devout atheist. He was annoyed by the hypocrisy of most fundamentalists, and he made no secret of it. This was alright with my brother, who agreed with him, and the two were very good friends right up until the friend died of a heart attack.
His funeral service was very loose and informal, with family and friends giving their memories of him. But then the preacher, who the friend’s father had brought in, went up to the podium and began to speak. Instead of talking about the friend, he told us how he had been saved, and how we could be saved too if we would pray, and to help us he was going to lead us right there and then. He also made a point of telling us, loudly, exactly what would happen if we didn’t join in and get saved right now. Nobody said anything (what do you say at a funeral where the preacher places the guest of honor in Hell?) but it really rattled everyone who knew the guy.
Well, I haven’t really had any run-ins with the major Fundies at any point, but there is a recurring incident at a church that I go to. It’s not my regular church, but it’s up by my grandmother’s house, and since my Dad has decided that everyone in our family should go to Church every Sunday, we go to that one when we visit my grandmother. Anyway, there are two priests who are randomly rotated up there. One of them can get a mass done in about a half hour, and should therefore be given sainthood, but the other is, well, a different story.
See, this priest, to say the least, has some fundie blood in him. Whenever he gives a homily (Pretty much like a sermon; it’s when the priest shares his own thoughts on stuff), he decides to tell everybody all the different ways that people suck and we’re all going to Hell. His list of hellbound sinners ranges from the ultimate crime of abortion (in his mind), to people who don’t say the rosary and go to church daily. Every time he starts talking about this kind of stuff, I just want to run down the aisle screaming at him. I swear, if I was ever gonna smack a priest, he’d be the one.
A man who prays to God every day is constantly annoyed by his atheist neighbor. The religious guy prays to God to help him get a better job, make more money, help his family get along, etc . . . However, the religious guys job still sucks, he’s broke and his wife and kids hate him. His atheist neighbor, on the other hand, has a great job, all kinds of money, a beautiful wife and lovely kids.
Finally the religious guys drops to his knees and starts praying (again) “Oh Lord, why do I, who prays every day, asking for your help and guidance, continue to suffer. While my neighbor, who doesn’t even attend your church, seems to get along so much better than me?”
Suddenly, the clouds part, heavenly music starts up and a brilliant shaft of light comes down out of the sky to illuminate the praying man. In a voice as powerful as a hurricane, the voice of God says . . . "Because he doesn’t fucking bother me all the time!!"
RiverRunner: Excuse me Mr. One-Post-Wonder, but would you care to point out exactly what hypocrisy you see is here? I fail to see it…
Yer pal,
Satan
[sub]I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Four months, one day, 13 hours, 20 minutes and 58 seconds.
4942 cigarettes not smoked, saving $617.78.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 3 days, 3 hours, 50 minutes.[/sub]
"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endorsement, honey!*[/sub]
Men’s Room, L.A.
(Buck Fowler, sung by Kinky Friedman)
I saw a picture yesterday
In a men’s room near L.A.
Lying on the floor beside the throne.
Had I not recognized the cross
I might have failed to know the boss,
I thought, “Lord, you look neglected and alone.”
I picked it up with lovin’ care,
I wondered who had placed it there,
When l saw there was no paper on the roll.
I said, “Lord, what would you do
If you were me and I was you,
Take a chance, save your pants or your soul ?”
Then a voice said,
“Kinky, it’s Jesus here, you know that I ain’t no square.
Well, I’ve got these pictures of me,
I mean statues, you know they’re everywhere.
Well, I may seem I come from Liverpool,
And then on the other hand I may come from France,
But if you don’t get off that toilet, well I’m just gonna have to dance.”
I saw a picture yesterday in a men’s room near L.A.
I work with a Fundie, God help me. He loaned me a book to read (sorry, I’ve repressed the memory of the title). I read about 5 pages of the introduction, saw the line, “We will show incontrevertible proof that Job built the Great Pyramid of Giza as a sign to the heathen Egyptians,” before I gently and firmly closed the book and went into hysterics.
Two of my other co-workers/friends are practicing Pagans. It took them months to get the Fundie to stop trying to convert them. He still feels sorry for them, he told me, because he likes them, and it’s a shame he’ll never get to see them in Heaven. I told him he was probably right about not seeing them, because he’ll be behind the big wall God put up to make the Christians think they’re there by themselves.
I, too, have found tracts in the restrooms. One of my favorites was from the baptists, about all the crimes against God committed by the Catholics over the years.
Ever hear of Truckstop Ministries? They leave New Testaments, pamphlets, and tapes at the diesel island for the truck drivers. The tapes have titles like, “God is my dispatcher” and “Roll those 18 wheels for Jesus”. Put a piece of scotch tape over the little holes and, hey, free blank tapes. They hold church services in the trailer of a semi all over the state, a different truck stop every Sunday.
Riddle me this; at what point does it cease to be a fundamental religion and become a cult? Because it seems to me that the really, really serious ones are slowly cutting themselves off from society and edging closer and closer to the land of the funky Kool-Aid.