Get off my plane, mind-melded Fundie zealots!

[Drain_Bead]

But I don’t see the logic here. First, Brian didn’t say that the shirts touted their charitable deed, so will you concede that this particular group didn’t waste their charitable funds on shirts touting their charitable deeds?

sigh

As I said before, THIS PARTICULAR GROUP’S CHARITABLE ACTS WERE NOT AN ISSUE UNTIL YOU MADE IT SO!

Here’s your original quote from this thread.

Is it not possible, even likely, that these people were undertaking this trip so that they could help people and make a difference? Is it conceivable that they may have been returning from someplace where they had helped build a school for some small, impoverished community? Or could they have been assisting in a big city soup kitchen for the homeless?

Now, I told you time and time again that the purpose of the trip was most likely NOT charity. I explained it to you in damn near every possible way, as did Brian. Now you’re saying that sure, it might have been a tent revival, but maybe they did some charitable deeds sometime during the trip. Whether or not charity occurred during the trip is pretty much irrelevant to the story at hand. If I’m going to a comic book meeting in Cleveland, I can give $5 to a homeless guy I see on the street. That doesn’t make it so that my comic book meeting is now a charitable event. I can get a t-shirt commemorating my comic book event, and I can wear it with a bunch of people, and I can be a stark raving asshole in public. But I can’t defend my actions on the fact that I gave a homeless guy enough money to get a quart of Ripple (and had I not gotten the t-shirt, I could have given him $25 instead of $5). And these fundie assholes with t-shirts are still not entitled to be assholes in public just because they helped a few people somewhere else.

However, now I have to address something that’s really cheesing me off. When you said “is it not possible,” we went away from the land of reality and started into the land of hypotheticals. I said “well, it’s possible, but it’s not likely, and here’s why.” I was trying to bring it back into the land of reality. But now, your first quote above refers to the original group again, as if our entire journey into the world of Make-Believe was a discussion of what actually happened! Until you can learn to separate reality from fantasy, I see no point in arguing with you. This sort of debate-and-switch maneuver really pisses me off. You’re missing so many points that I wish I could stick your head in a pencil sharpener.

[Ivar]

A close friend of mine is a Lutheran pastor in southern MN, and I love it when he refers to Evangelicals as “fucking fundies” or “damn fish people”. I myself am an atheist, yet he doesn’t push his beliefs on me. We both allow each other to have our own beliefs and we allow each other to discuss our beliefs (or lack thereof) in a sane and cogent manner. Faith is a personal choice, about a relationship between one man and his God, whoever that may be; my freind understands that and respects me for my beliefs.
That’s what it is all about and it’s refreshing to see that, especially in a pastor.

On another note, I have to avoid the t-shirt wearing fundies every wednesday when they canvas downtown minneapolis during lunch. They approach everyone they can. Is it too much to get some lunch in fuckin peace and quiet? At least I can pick out the yellow t-shirts from far away.

really far away.

[FallenAngel]

Quote:

"I shant go into great detail, but I was attending a funeral of someone who was very close to me. It was traumatic to say the least. This person had died in an auto accident. I was distraught and crying, but holding together. After the service I approached the minister and simply said, “Thanks for your kind words.” To which his response was ,“Son, are you a Christian?”

I have a similar one. In 1993 a good friend of mine from back in high school got dumped, got drunk and smoked a shotgun one afternoon. He was the first one of the old gang to die (we were 23 at the time), and it hit us all very hard because Skip had such a zest for life.

The church where the funeral was held was not a particularly fundie denomination (Methodist, I think), but when the preacher got up there, he started in with how well loved Skip was, what a good person he was and how he was going to hell for “casting aside the Lord’s greatest gift” and taking his life.

The entire place was shocked and enraged, as you can well imagine. Here are 140 people +/- who have just very suddenly and stupidly lost someone they loved and the preacher is saying that no matter how good a person Skip was he’s roasting forever because of a single act.

Then one of the few miracles (being a rabid athiest I don’t stumble across too many of those) I’ve ever witnessed took place. Skip’s grandfather stood up and shouted “How dare you do this and run down my grandson at his funeral!” The preacher started to say he wasn’t running down Skip but was running down sin. That’s when the whole place lost it and shouted the preacher down until he left the podium, at which point some of us took turns sharing our memories of this man we loved and what he meant to us.

Afterward not a single person spoke to the minister or shook his hand at the cemetary.

[jab1]

I heard a man say, “Well, I’m sure she was nice and all, but if she didn’t turn her life over to Jesus, she’s now in the pits of Hell.” He was talking about Princess Diana, right after hearing of her death.

---

I was approached in the Orlando (FL) Library by a couple who were “witnessing” and managed to get rid of them by complaining to a librarian. At the library, if you print something off the Web, you have to pay ten cents a page. (That’s page of paper, not per web-page.) This lovely couple printed off at least a hundred pages, tucked them into a backpack, and walked out without paying a dime. (The library foolishly uses the honor system to get people to pay for their print-outs. It’s foolish because some people have no honor.)

I later met this fun pair on the bus on the way home. I asked them if they paid for what they got, and they got indignant, saying no one should have to pay for it, their taxes covered it. (I must have missed that exception the last time I read the Ten Commandments.) Then they tried to convince me that God placed us on that bus together so I could hear His story from them. I pointed out that we were on the last bus of the day, that I was going home, that I had no choice about being there if I wanted to get home and why were THEY there?

“We go wherever the Lord tells us to go.”

“Does He ever tell you to get lost?”

---

A woman I once worked for was absolutely convinced that God caused the space shuttle Challenger accident. “He’s telling us that Man was not meant to fly in space, in His heaven. It’s the Tower of Babel all over again.”

---

I’ve had to stay in Christian missions when I was down on my luck. After choking down some of the most awful food I’ve ever eaten and complained, someone would almost inevitably say, “Well, that’s what the Lord has provided us. Take it up with Him.” (This was in Long Beach, CA.)

I said, “How come He provides much better food over at the Orange County Rescue Mission? Do they pray better?”

(BTW, if one of Noah’s sons was cursed for looking at his father’s nakedness, why do they allow fifty to a hundred men to shower together at missions?)

---

At another mission, a preacher stood before us and told us that the Jews got what they deserved from Hitler. I’ll say this for the people who ran the mission: That preacher was never invited back.

---

But the absolute worst (or best, depending on your point of view) was the sermon wherein the preacher talked about the most wonderful thing he’d ever heard, that one of the Manson family, convicted of participating in the Sharon Tate murders, had come over to Christ. “He’s going to be in Heaven, my brothers! He’s going to be with the Lord! No matter how bad the sin, Jesus will forgive you if you just ask!”

And it occurred to me that Sharon Tate and the other victims, if this preacher was right, would be in Hell. And I decided right there I would not believe in a religion wherein it was possible for a murderer to go free, but his victims get eternal punishment.

That was twelve years ago. I have not regretted my decision.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

My gripe with the FundaLooneys----Book Burning

Don’t say they don’t do it—Baptists do. I’ve seen 'um.

Touch my personal library, Bubba, & you die like a animal.

( pldennison will object to the last statement.)

[ultress]

What it all comes down to, there is a time and a place for everything. The scene at the airport and on the plane did more damage than it did good. Sure Christians should stand up for what they believe in, but there is a right way and a wrong way.
I have to agree with Satan on this one.
The discussion on the t-shirts. Our youth group has made up t-shirts to sell before, the money being used to fund their trips and such, that could have been the case here also, with the shirts being sold and the money going back into the church to be used on necessary things, such as missions. Just a thought.

[notquitekarpov]

At least Satan’s fundies were optional extras you only run into now and again. I used to travel regularly to Brunei on Royal Brunei Airlines as the country got increasing heavy on Islam. First off it was a pretty usual airline only no booze - fair enough. Then they started a freaking prayer to Allah before take off over the PA like part of the safely announcement or something! OK keep cool - they do it every flight so it won’t be tempting fate…

I fly there for the first time in years the other month - the prayer has gone from around 30 secs to about 5 minutes. What I immediately wanted to know was what had happened in the interim that made them think that 30 secs wasn’t cutting the mustard. Would you want to fly on an airline that implies it is relying on the power of prayer as it’s main flight safely critical system ?!?

[Captain_Justice]

The discussion here reminded me of a tornado that ripped through an area just north of here in the middle of July. Not that Tornadoes are incredibly uncommon, but this one killed a few people, and thus much time was given to it on the evening news. I had a couple of thoughts that I managed to say about this whole thing that this discussion of fundamentalists reminded me of:

There was a tornado at a campground here in Alberta. It killed at least 10 people and tore up a campground at Pine Lake, by Red Deer, So the news has been focussing lately on the suvivors and their stories. And I’m not trying to belittle the fact that they had been through a tough time and have seen things that are rarely seen outside of war zones and other tornado disasters.

However, the media has been giving them their fifteen minutes of fame, and some of them are just lapping it up like they’re the next Brittney Spears or something. And worse, the vast majority of them are giving thanks to God for saving them. I remember an interview with one old woman who had been thrown out of her car, and bounced around the countryside for a bit. She had cuts, bruises, a broken hip (of course!!)and was confined to a hospital bed. But what she said was a demonstration of a kind of a really disturbing sort of logic.

“It shows you that there’s someone ‘up there’ watching out for you.”

No, no it doesn’t at all. If there was someone “up there” watching you, then you wouldn’t have been in the fucking tornado to begin with! As a matter of fact, if there is some one “up there” who was responsible for this, then you obviously deserved to be messed up by the forces of nature as punishment for the sins you have committed. And don’t weep for those lost in the “tragedy,” because God obviously decided that it was “their time.” They probably did something really bad.

It’s probably better for society that these sinners were killed. Who knows what un-godly havoc they may have caused?

People never see that a belief in the Christian God has those sorts of implications. If something good happens, “Praise be to God!” And, if something bad happens, well, “He does work in mysteripus ways. God’s will be done.”

And I thought that my mighty Public Relations engine was good.

Still thinking about the woman and her thankfulness to the good lord, I was continually troubled by her complete and total ignorance. Thank God for keeping me safe. Praise the lord for saving one of his flock.

But don’t thank the firefighter who cut you out of the wreckage with the jaws of life. No thanks should go to the paramedics who stabilized your condition en route to the hospital, where you should give no thanks to the doctors and nurses who worked double shifts to save you and the rest of the tornado victims. Don’t thank the person who donated the three units of O-negative blood that you needed for your transfusion. Nor should you thank the scientists at the company that developed the artificial hip that the no-good doctors would use to replace the one that was broken while God was busy making sure that you were safe by running a tornado through your campground.

No, it was God. Silly me. How could I be so blind?

[Chupacabra]

*Originally posted by notquitekarpov *
** Would you want to fly on an airline that implies it is relying on the power of prayer as it’s main flight safely critical system ?!?

**

I respond to that with another quote taken from a Miami Herald account of the NTSB report of Egypt Air 990:
“`I rely on God,’ replies a second voice, believed to be that of Batouty then flying the plane. The co-pilot repeated the phrase several times.”

Obviously the co-pilot’s actions and the actions of annoying airport fudies aren’t on the same level (I’d much rather be annoyed than killed), but I think they are comparable. I am always concerned by people who say all of their actions are in the “hands of God”. People who do this are effectively explaining away any responsibilty for any of their own actions. That, in turn, gives them the ability to do all sorts of crazy things, from annoying people in airports to crashing airplanes. They can always say, “God wanted it to happen” and never feel the slightest bit awkward or guilty about it. The religious wars that plague world history are only the result of a more virulent strain of religious fundamentalism. As far as I am concerned, “fundamental” belief in anything is bad.

[AuraSeer]

AerynSun wrote:

I also take great issue with anyone who thinks sharing their beliefs with me allows them to: 1) touch me without my permission - this is battery, people, and don’t be surprised to have your hand smacked away…

Ah, I suppose I’m not the only person to have this complaint. It bugs me a lot when strangers try to put their hands on me.
One time at college, some guy tried to preach at me while I was on my way to class. I have no idea what he was talking about, but I was running late, so I ignored him and kept walking. He apparently didn’t like this, so he reached out to grab my arm, saying: “The Lord insists that you hear his messAAGHH!”
That last bit came out at about three octaves higher than his normal voice, because he thought I’d broken his wrist. I hadn’t, but it was pretty well sprained-- I’m sure he was unable to grab anyone else with that hand for a couple of weeks. (I didn’t mean to hurt him, but I got a bit carried away. Did I mention that the class I was late to was in martial arts?)
Anyway, I like to think that there’s a moral to this story. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s in there someplace. =B^)

[Jasonbee]

The biggest problem with religion…faith… is that you have to have it to have it.

I’ll explain. Faith was once described as the belief in something you know is not true. That’s kinda harsh. I would say it’s more of a over-riding trust in something you have doubts about, to the point that you ignore the doubt-sometimes completely.

I personally find that frightening. It means that you believe in something ‘because’. Not for any reason, other than ‘because’. ‘Because’…it’s in the bible, someone said so,

My problem with the fundamentalists is that they believe in something so strongly, that they can no longer accept the possibility that they might be wrong.

Usually, that’s the way to find them.

1: But what if you’re wrong?
2: I’m not. (Because)

That’s where my mistrust comes from.

But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

(Apologies to Dennis Miller)

[Marlitharn]

One of my college professors had a strict southern baptist upbringing. I thought she was the coolest person alive when she told us she was thrown out of the baptist church at the tender age of fourteen. Her crime? Every Sunday her bus passed the town’s black baptist church. One day she asked her minister why, if it was the same God and the same religion, they didn’t all go to church together. Sacrilege! Outrage!

She also told us that since her parents had the usual strict baptist horror of cards, alcohol, tobacco, music, or anything else that might be kind of fun, she could have a wild old decadent time just turning the radio on, lighting a cigarette, and drinking a beer while playing Solitaire.

My favorite response when someone asks, “Have-you-accepted-Jesus-Christ-into-your-heart-as-the-one-true-savior?”

“Yes, I did, and it was the best sex I ever had.”

It’s fun watching a Fundie’s face turn purple.

[Sterra]

Drain Bead actually templates are just for alot of shirts… for one shirt you could just draw on it with clothing type marker or use some other machine for imprinting drawings onto teeshirts

[Pike236]

I don’t know when people’s morality and depth of belief started being judged by how much T-shirts cost to make, but, at least in Reno, it’s about $9 a shirt to make 12. The more you make the less it costs, but I don’t think these guys broke the bank just to get a few shirts printed up commemorating whatever it is they were doing. Personally, I hope Satan misread the situation and they were actually trying to get people to lead lives filled with more selfishness and hate, but that might just be me.

[Rich_Mann]

“In case of Rapture this vehicle will become unmanned”

Two questions:

1. How do they know that the vehicle in question is male?

2. What is it about the Rapture that would tend to emasculate it.

[sirdiesel]

Excerpt from religious discussion from freshman-year Global Studies class:

Me, trying to make a point: “Well, if there is a God–”

Overly religious girl, out of nowhere: “But there IS a God.”

Me, ignoring her: “If there is a God–”

Her, interrupting me again: “But there IS a God.”

You get the picture. Not as bad as some of the stories in this thread, but irritating nonetheless.

[Shirley_Ujest]

I’ve read through most of the posts here…
Hot air balloons frequently fly right over our house.Once, one landed right in our back yard. Quite exciting. It’s usually the same two gaily colored balloons. A new one, burgundy with a large silver crucifix on it is apparently apart of this balloon companies stable.

The pilot of the Silver Cross balloon was coming in low, clipping the tops of a few trees before he gave flame/heat and got enough altitude again to make it to a clearer section to land.

As he nicked the trees, one of my godless neighbor’s yelled,
“What the hell happened to your co-pilot!”

I almost peed my pants.

[Shirley_Ujest]

The previous year, however, the Christians called the cops on the Pagans four separate times. Usually for being naked, but once for holding the Circle

Would they have called the cops if you had formed a trapazoid?

[Kepi]

*Originally posted by Drain Bead *
You’re missing so many points that I wish I could stick your head in a pencil sharpener.

Sorry, Drain. My intent was never to piss you off like this. Just hoped you could possibly consider things from a different perspective. It’s apparent that you have no desire to do so, however.

I did appreciate the discussion though. In light of your statement above, however, I think it would be best if I just let this one go.

[Mockingbird]

[QUOTE]
*spiritfood *

As for the “I’m going to heaven and you’re not” attitude that is supposedly behind the “rapture” bumper stickers, I think you are misreading the attitude behind those things. We believe that one must accept Jesus to get into heaven. Period. You are certainly entitled to not believe that. But any believer who agrees with me about that one essential point of salvation, if they are interested in following the intructions of Jesus as laid out in the Bible, would want others to receive salvation also.

**I think you are missing the inherent arrogance of the sticker. Just because your perception is that it isn’t, doesn’t mean others don’t take it differently. I think it is arrogant and a touch pretentious. There are so many faiths and ways to believe… ever thought that you might be wrong?

Faith is only as strong as your ability to be able to test it via questioning and searching for truth. Most Xians I’ve seen couldn’t hold air in their faith for fear of it puncturing holes in it. If Christianity was so strong, then why do they have to rise up in arms any time there is a movie or television show that is contrary to their beliefs? If their faith was suitably strong, they’d be able to ignore it rather than throwing an Evangelical Hissy Fit and claiming that Satan was behind it.

To paraphrase: “I know Satan, I’ve worked with Satan and have been friends with Satan, and you(Insert NBC/CBS/ABC/FOX) are NO Satan!”**

Several people posting in this thread seem to take it as an insult of some sort. It’s not like we’re trying to keep anybody out of heaven. It’s not like we’re saying that people can’t go based on things which are out of their control. (A ridiculous example of this would be if someone said that only white people could go to Heaven.) You have a choice. You have heard that we believe that Jesus said that anyone who chooses Him gets to go to heaven, and anyone who hears this and does not choose Him does not get to go to Heaven. It sounds harsh and illogical, but that’s what I believe, and I do at least have some Scripture to back me up. I could spend all my time wondering why the Christian concept of salvation doesn’t make sense, but I have don’t have to understand it, jsut accept it.

**See… blind faith kills. You do need to understand something to be apart of it, otherwise you are a drone. Service does not mean following without reason, nor do I think any deity would want that. It is because Christians are kept removed from their god by layers and teachings that say that divinity can not be experienced directly. This is just putting control into the few chosen instead of opening up spiritual enlightenment to the many. Not to mention the money making that would drop off if you stayed home, made your own altar, and prayed there. Jim and Tammy Bakker would have never become so rich if more people would do that.

By the way… some people have said over time that only white people get into heaven.

A lot of us also get sick of Xians saying that their god is the only game in town. Their are other gods and goddesses that predate Yahweh. Interesting how the early gods and goddesses were made the demons of the current one they choose to worship. The holidays were mostly stolen from those deities, and everything was watered down for the dry and humorless Xian palate. And you wonder why some of us are pissed off?**

Finally, I aksed that question about being intolerant because I see nothing but intolerance for my beliefs running all the way through all 3 pages of this thread. And it’s OK, this is America, and you are allowed to say those things, but I think it’s somewhat inconsistent to accuse us of being intolerant of other religious belief systems when you guys, by and large, are just as intolerant by the things you have said about us.

**Perhaps if your people didn’t feel they had to shove their views down our collective throats, condescendingly refer to us as confused and misguided, and try and SAVE us, we’d have a more friendly attitude. My faith does not require me to proselyze. If someone wants to know my beliefs, they ask, and if I think they’re going to listen, I share. But… as I have learned with far too many Xians, the question of what do you believe in will be quickly changed into: why your beliefs are wrong and why I am here to save your heathen pagan soul.

My soul’s already spoken for. And the arrogance that a religion that is fairly new in the context of the history of the world thinks that it should be a spiritual monopoly is beyond arrogant. So, if you feel there is intolerance, focus on your people behaving like others had a right to exist in peace and maybe you’d get more of the tolerance that others should be getting as well.**

[*In short: I do not approve of the behavior of many of the Christians you have mentioned, and I am just as disgusted with it. But I do not apologize for the message that Jesus is the only way.

**More Xian arrogance. Jesus is the only way. I’m sending my karma now to run over your dogma. And Silent Bob and Jay are riding shotgun.

Say my name three times and see me in the morning.**