# Okay extreme fundies, If God didn't want me to exist, then why do I? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 13, 2002, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425 "2002-12-13T04:09:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![l1I235](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@l1I235](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l1I235)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/1 "2002-12-13T04:09:18Z")
A poster on another message board goes on and on of how Bob Jones University is a great Christian Institution, that holds up biblical beliefs, etc. I had heard bad things about BJU in the past, but decided to do a little research for myself. Then I come across this, written by Bob Jones III, Univ. President- (From [Letter from Bob Jones University re: Interracial Dating – The Multiracial Activist](http://www.multiracial.com/letters/bobjonesuniversity.html)) > [@](#): > > God has made people different one from another and intends those differences to remain. Bob Jones University is opposed to intermarriage of the races because it breaks down the barriers God has established. It mixes that which God separated and intends to keep separate. Every effort in world history to bring the world together has demonstrated man’s self-reliance and his unwillingness to remain as God ordains. The attempts at one-worldism have been to devise a system without God and have fostered the promotion of a unity designed to give the world strength so that God is not needed and can be overthrown. What?!?! Where, oh, where does the Bible say that? Yes, I know the policy has been removed. And yes, I’m still mad! I hardly think that Bob the 3rd totally dropped his beliefs because Larry King pressured him on Larry King Live. This imbecile even **admits** this isn’t in the Bible: > [@](#): > > Although there is no verse in the Bible that dogmatically says that races should not intermarry, the whole plan of God as He has dealt with the races down through the ages indicates that interracial marriage is not best for man. We do believe we see principles, not specific verses, to give us direction for the avoidance of it. This is not anti-Christian. I am a devout Christian. This just makes me royally mad. My Mom & Dad are both Interracial; So are both sides of my family back several centuries. If God did not want these so-called “barriers” to be broken, then why did he allow it to happen? If God wants us so different, then why do Christians want to evangelize everyone? I mean, they’re supposed to be different, right? Let 'em stay that way! I don’t know the God that you know, and I can only hope that the God that I know will someday soften your heart. Ladies & Gent’s, a round of applause for my very first OP 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![l1I235](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@l1I235](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l1I235)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/2 "2002-12-13T04:15:15Z")
One thing- I just wanted to add that my outrage at Bob Jones III and the Univ. former rule has nothing to do with the poster or messageboard that sparked my research. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/3 "2002-12-13T04:17:05Z")
Well, we all know that Jesus Christ was a blond haired blue eyed European Protestant! :rolleyes: The only thing I can explain is that they’re nutjobs. They’re convinced Catholicism is evil and the Pope is the Antichrist, BIG BAND and SWING is banned on campus, and if you’re a man who is married and living off campus, your wife must wear skirts at all time. For reals. Sometimes, I wonder about the fundies-I truly believe that if some of them were alive back then, they would have been with the Pharisees-because they’re so Letter of the Law, so restrictive-and Jesus was a hippie-Jewish radical. C’mon, people THINK!!! God gave you a brain, he wants you to use it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/4 "2002-12-13T04:19:18Z")
May I ask though-is it the board I’m thinking of? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![l1I235](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@l1I235](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l1I235)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/5 "2002-12-13T04:23:41Z")
They always like to ignore the fact the Protestantism branched from Catholicism, don’t they Guin? Or my favorite: the reason many of them are protestants- a king who wanted a divorce. shhh! that doesn’t count!! ---
**Author:** ![l1I235](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@l1I235](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l1I235)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/6 "2002-12-13T04:24:54Z")
Yup. A sharp one, she is. ---
**Author:** ![JonScribe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3be4f8/32.png) [@JonScribe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonScribe)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/7 "2002-12-13T04:26:04Z")
Well, for your first OP, and in the Pit no less, I’ll have to give you a B+. Good sense of outrage, link provided and a demonstration of the basics of coding. The only thing missing for a Pit thread, is a healthy dose of obscenities, real or created. Otherwise, nice job. ---
**Author:** ![l1I235](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@l1I235](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l1I235)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/8 "2002-12-13T04:29:38Z")
Dagnabbit, you bleedin’ not nice person! You bloody better well be happy now. Feh. (I know I lose pit points, but thats about as bad as my swearing gets 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/9 "2002-12-13T11:36:19Z")
Anyone read the letter to the end? > [@](#): > > We believe prejudice to be Biblically wrong, and it is not tolerated in the student body. That’s priceless. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/10 "2002-12-13T11:46:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*C’mon, people THINK!!! God gave you a brain, he wants you to use it. \*\* Yes, we are all individuals We must think for ourselves. Tell us more. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/11 "2002-12-13T12:24:19Z")
Actually the Book of Ruth comes out in _favor_ of interracial marriages. I’ve just quickly rescanned it, and Ruth is indeed a Moabite, not a Jew, and she is one of the direct ancestresses of David himself. Then again, there are some folks who would prefer not to be confused with the facts. I’m sorry. It really bothers me that these people are directly contradicting the Book they base their faith on – “We don’t care what it says; this is what we believe!” CJ ---
**Author:** ![Earthworm\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f07891/32.png) [@Earthworm\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earthworm_Jim)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/12 "2002-12-13T12:35:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mademoiselle \* > \*\*What?!?! Where, oh, where does the Bible say that? > \*\* Page 900. [/simpsons] Personally, my favorite part is that you’ve got a bunch of fundies who know and understand Gods plan. That’s priceless. ---
**Author:** ![ouisey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9fc29f/32.png) [@ouisey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouisey)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/13 "2002-12-13T15:17:02Z")
Esther is another good example. ---
**Author:** ![Velma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/85e7bf/32.png) [@Velma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velma)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/14 "2002-12-13T15:32:37Z")
Wow. I went to a Christian college that looks like Animal House compared to this place. I’ve never heard of a denomination that believes interracial marriage is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/15 "2002-12-13T16:08:06Z")
The arguement that Bob Jones presents is not as un-Biblical as it may appear, although he stretched his conclusions FAR beyond what the Bible actually said. That different races exist because of “differences that God has established” is based at least partly on Genesis Chapter 11, which is the story of the tower of Babel: > [@](#): > > _NIV version_: Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. > They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar > Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” > But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” > So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel -because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth. Jones’ allusion to “one world government” is in reference to the state of the world before this event allegedly took place, and according to this passage, such a unification of mankind is obviously against God’s will. On the question of races being seperated, it’s more hazy. God may have seperated men from each other _at the time_ by creating different “languages” (language, in this usage, thought to be euphemism for racial, ethnic, and cultural differences) but nowhere does it indicate that he expected this state of affairs to last forever. People have been interpreting the Bible in all kinds of weird ways for millenia, and BJ’s interpretation is no stranger than a lot of others. Also, just based on what the OP quoted, he doesn’t actually say that any race is inferior, just that according to his Biblical interpretation, God wants them to be seperate. I know that sounds racist, but it really isn’t, according to a strict definition of racism. Although I don’t agree with BJ on this issue in any way (I’m dating a half-black, half-Asian woman as I write this) I can understand why he would logically arrive at his conclusion. It’s really not all that different thanJewish people wanting their kids to marry other jewish people. Its the same logic at work. It may be faulty logic, but it’s not automatically racist, either. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/16 "2002-12-13T17:36:35Z")
Great OP. Kudos to **Mademoiselle** for a great Pit rant, on her first thread yet! 🙂 That said, I take umbrage at: > [@](#): > > the reason many of them are protestants- a king who wanted a divorce. Well, uh, in the interests of fighting ignorance, that’s not quite the truth. Wanna debate it, or was it just a “hey, let’s bitch about Protestants, and this case in point comes to mind” sort of remark? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/17 "2002-12-13T18:05:19Z")
People think up all kinds of crazy interpretations. I swear, I could find a Bible verse to justify a rule stating we can’t wear purple on Fridays or something. I mean, look at snake handlers? Or Biblical literalists? People like Fred Phelps? I think I also saw a reference to “Serpent Spong.” And then, at that same place, someone talked about Saint Polycarp. Hmmm…just got me to thinking. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![l1I235](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@l1I235](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l1I235)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/18 "2002-12-13T18:13:48Z")
Well Poly, I am a Protestant, and always have been proud of it. However, please do enlighten me! I don’t mean to debate; in my admittedly short experiences Protestants I have met (here in the US) are Anglo-Saxon; and are Protestants because they branched from the Church of England. Of course I knew about Martin Luther; however his following (I thought) was marginal before Henry the 8th converted, in order to divorce Catherine of Aragon, in order to marry Anne Boleyn. (Forgive the spelling) My problem is that many fundies do so much hatred-filled Catholic bashing, when essentially all Christianity branched from the roots of the Catholic Church. Would you enlighten me mousier? ---
**Author:** ![l1I235](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@l1I235](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l1I235)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/19 "2002-12-13T18:28:10Z")
Scriptures can be construed to make it look like they support anything. At risk of violating Goodwin’s law, Hitler was doing “the Christian thing” during the holocaust, and had Scripture to “back it up” Christians shouldn’t try to justify whatever bigoted beliefs they have with some obscure scripture in the Bible; they should perhaps look to the Bible first, not the other way around. (mlle, hoping no one mis-interpets that last paragraph) ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425/20 "2002-12-13T18:58:02Z")
Well, notwithstanding the fact that most Lutheran families are Lutheran because their ancestors were and that dates back to the Reformation and has nothing to do with the Church of England, and many churches with “Reformed” in their name derive from Calvin, I do take your point – you do have the Episcopal \> Methodist \> Wesleyan \> Holiness \> Pentecostal sequence, with people stopping anywhere along that sequence. But, at rock bottom, the understanding of the Anglican Communion is this: Like the Orthodox, the Church in the West was divided up into national churches supported by the crown in each nation: the Church of Sweden under the Swedish monarchs, the Church of France under the French monarchs, etc. All were united into the Catholic Church under the spiritual leadership of the Patriarch of Rome, AKA the Pope, but had their local church government run by a Primate, ordinarily an Archbishop, who worked with and for the Pope and the monarch as appropriate. (Naturally, there were some problems where authority overlapped, but we’re talking the everyday process.) Throughout history, kings tended to make marriages that benefitted their realms, marrying the daughter or sister or niece of a neighbor monarch to tighten an alliance, marrying the heiress of a neighboring county or duchy to bring that under their rule, and so on. When such marriages violated the specifics of canon law, the Pope was pleased to grant dispensations; when there was a need to put away a wife and remarry owing to lack of interfertility, the Pope could be counted on to grant an annulment (_not_ a divorce; an annulment is an official declaration that, contrary to appearances, what seemed to be a marriage really was not one, as in the apocryphal case of the guy who gets drunk and wakes up next to a strange woman who claims he married her the night before – there was no real intent to wed there). Henry VII had arranged one of these marriages for his son Arthur, to Catherine the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain (Ferdy, by the way, was one of those kings who married for dynastic reasons, Isabella being heiress in her own right of Castile, the large central region of Spain, while he was king of the smaller Kingdom of Aragon in the northeast). When Arthur died young, Catherine was married to the new heir, Henry. They had one daughter who lived, Mary, and a half dozen miscarriages. Eventually Henry decided that having married his brother’s widow (which was a violation of canon law from which the Pope had granted a dispensation) was actually a sin, and he was being punished for it by not fathering a male heir. Simultaneously, he developed the hots for Anne Boleyn, which was a second contributing factor in his request to the Pope to annul (not divorce) Catherine. However, the Pope was, reasonably, in Rome, which was at this time occupied by the troops of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and coincidentally the nephew of Catherine. Charles did not want his beloved aunt put away, and the Pope, looking at the troops outside, was pleased to deny Henry his request for an annulment. There was precedent in Germany and France for the local church to revoke the Pope’s authority over a given canon law issue and retain authority in the local Archbishop’s Court. Henry decided to resort to that, to have himself as monarch and defender of the faith (a title the Pope had given him for writing a treatise against Luther’s heresy) declared Head of the Church in England and deny the Pope’s authority to grant or deny annulments, just as the Kings of France and Holy Roman Emperors had done in the past. As it happened, however, this was at the beginning of the Reformation, and the Church of England, which dates at least back to St. Augustine of Canterbury in the 500s AD, never negotiated for reunion with the Papacy as the previous instances of such rebellion had ended with. It remained a slightly-schismatic branch of the Catholic church for about 40 years, until a later Pope, influenced by Philip II of Spain who was making war on the first Queen Elizabeth, excommunicated her and her subjects. And that is more or less where things have stuck ever since. There have been “swervings” in Anglican theology more towards Protestantism and more towards Catholicism, but we’ve always maintained the status of a “bridge church” that is truly Reformed and truly Catholic in our beliefs. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/okay-extreme-fundies-if-god-didnt-want-me-to-exist-then-why-do-i/142425.md?page=2)