Perhaps God WILL help you, but also help yourself a bit? Maybe?

I’m not an atheist, I’m going to call myself on the sidelines on the god issue at the moment. A fallen catholic deciding whether to get up or not.

A couple we know, they’re god’s people. He loves them, they love him.

But their got-damned selfish, idiofuckingotic behavior is getting on my last nerve. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

I got to know this couple about 8 years ago. She’s a busybody - she has to run all the groups/committees and what have you. She was a secretary at the high school where her (and mine) kids went. She was in charge of homecoming, the athletic boosters and cheerleading. She was also this incredibly loud and abrasive voice of constant nagging to the principal about…well, about everything from the temperature of the water in the showers to what an incompetent teacher this guy or that guy was. Every time something got done, whether she had something to do with it or not, she’d crow all about how God saw what needed to be done and guided people.

Of her four kids, one daughter is not quite up to the standard of the others. She ‘runs with a fast crowd’. This one got badly hurt in a car accident her senior year. Broken ribs, back injuries, ruptured kidney. Guess what? It was god’s will. It was his sign that she needs to slow her life down.

A year later, her husband became really sick. Something no one could figure out. Some blood level was way out of whack, his glucose was around 500 - just some sort of complete breakdown. And little wonder because this woman is ALWAYS volunteering him to do things. Network things for offices of people from their church, building bookcases, furniture, roofing - whatever. I’d a killed her and said god told me too, but both of them feel that they are so blessed that god lets them have what they have that they have to share. (I’ll come to that later).

Eventually they lose their house to foreclosure because he’s missing so much work. They knew it was coming, and never once tried to find a way to finance and keep their house. They waited for the sheriff to come, and prayed.

Now we come to the meat.

Another friend of ours is a realtor. He went to them with an offer. He bought a house near their old one that needed a lot of renovation before it could even get an occupancy permit though. He bought the house, and signed a contract with them that required them to get the house to pass inspection, loaned them money to get building materials and even helped them find volunteer labor a few weekends. I painted their family room walls. They would pay him $XXXX/month in rent and at the end of three years, he would consider that their down payment, they would find their own financing and they could buy.

The house was a fucking mess, and didn’t pass inspection. Did they go back and try to fix what the inspector pointed out? (exposed painted plywood floors, exposed wiring, faulty roofing) Nope. They went to church that Sunday and asked everyone to pray that the inspector’s report would be appealed so that they could inhabit the home god gave them.

'Scuse me, I thought our friend Steve gave it to them? Anyway… A month later, during which time they literally lived like gypsies from suitcases in other people’s homes (because god gave them such a loving group of friends), they moved into their home. Remember the husband this whole time is unemployed. The wife in this same time has started and quit two part time jobs because they were horrible places to work.

Did I mention that both places she got hired were places that various friends went out of their way to get her hired at? So, my friend the tax accountant I’ve known my whole life and whom I’d trust with my life - he’s a sexual predator and is doing shady deals with people and if she stays there she’ll have to tell someone so she quit without notice.

Another friend who’s the national sales/implementation director for a HUGE company that does tech training for megacorporations got the husband a job doing training. Training he wouldn’t have to travel for, just get around the Chicago area. A plum job in other words.

What’s he do? Fucks it up is what he does. Takes tons and tons of days off ‘sick’. It’s an exempt job, but he seems to think if over the course of a few weeks he works more than 8 hours, he gets time off. Yes, it was explained to him. He just thinks that’s unfair. His wife meanwhile, is working at the chiropractor’s office I go to. One day, I walk in and who’s there? The husband. Building a bookshelf. On a sick day from his other job. Fuck yes, I made a phone call. Later, we all find out that he’s been building cabinets, designing leaflets and doing a LOT of freelance work on days he’s supposed to be at work.

Know why? Well, as he explained to me himself, because god has given them so much that he needs to give back. I asked if he shouldn’t give back on his own time, and he completely failed to see the distinction.

Whatever.

Over this past Christmas, him and the whole family went to Mexico for two weeks to build shantys for mexicans. He didn’t have time off from his job to do this, but he did. He came home to get fired by the friend that went out of the way to hire him in the first place. And then him and his wife began this low level harassment/rumor mongering campaign against the friend - alleging he had improperly used one not-for-profit’s mailing list for another one’s benefit.

Yeah, it got like that.

How does the friend respond? Well, Mike’s a good guy. One of those big hearted, not hypocritical ’ i know the pope can be an ass, but I’m an Irish Catholic anyway’ guys. Mike responds by finding someone else who will hire this guy.

Next week, I hear the wife talking to someone about how wonderful her god is because he came through with work for her husband when they really needed it.

God=Mike.

Last night I got an e-mail they sent to about 100 people. Their second son, having returned from Iraq is getting married. They’re holding the wedding in their backyard, and they would love for the friends that god gave them to all pitch in and sponsor or give something from their hearts to bring the event off. Tents, food, drink, even get this - if anyone could make the bride a dress.

They just know that god will provide again for them, like he always has.

I sure hope the fuck he does, because I know a lot of folks around here that aren’t lifting a finger for these people ever again.

Know how many times any of us has ever heard the words ‘thank you’ from them?

Next time I hear it will be the first.
PS: When the contract on the house came due, they found financing and bought the house. The wife bitched to everyone that would listen about the fact that Steve made a nice profit on the deal. Uh, yeah - he’s a fucking realtor, you bet your bubbly ass he made a profit.

Pops Mercotan always told me never to help a lame duck over a fence, because they’ll crap in your hands every time.

I’ve always wanted to give someone a vial of blood and explain by saying I wanted to give them something that came from my heart.

I don’t get some people.

What’s the problem with exposed painted plywood floors?

–missing the point as always

I don’t think God really has anything to do with this - I think those people are just plain crazy, and God is their flavour of insanity. I try to limit my exposure to crazy people, and it sounds like your friends are learning the same lesson, Mr Bus Guy.

This might be the one time that Christian Fundamentalists and Darwinists see eye to eye.

Oddly enough, she’s the only one in the family I can sit and talk with.

Lisa - “Uh oh. The Christian Science Monitor has a flat tire.”
Man 1 - “I’ll get the spare.”
Man 2 - “No! … We must wait for God to jack us.”

I know somebody like that…but not quite so messed up.

The details are slightly different and the names have changed, but I swear this is the same story with some people I know.

I’ve learned you just can’t help some people and that no good deed goes unpunished.

Many years ago, I read an essay by either Mark Twain or John Steinbeck, I can’t remember which. He described the history of the study and cure of hookworm, which took doctors and scientists many years of research, deduction and recommendations of how to avoid infection. After all this, cases of hookworm infection went way down, and not-so-bright folks instantly proclaimed that “it was all God’s doing!”. Um, no. It was the accomplishment of medical science.

You just can’t reason with folks like these. They reverse-engineer every good event so that it was God’s doing, and every bad event is chalked up to the turning away from God.

Once they lose their ready supply of willing helpers, I’m betting even odds that they don’t blame God for abandoning them - much less themselves for being such screwups - but the people around them for being “selfish.”

And in thinking about it, that was a rather insensitive comment I made. My apologies.

Whatever happened to that old bit about God helps those who help themselves?

That always reminds me of this joke:

Not to derail the thread, but when I saw the thread title I thought this might be about the fact that the Duggars are having another baby.

I, too, know people like this. As someone upthread said, god-flavored crazy.

BWHAHAHAHAHA!! That’s BRILLIANT.

Sadly, once the willing friends dry up, they will simply pack up and move on to a new group of friends. My sister and her husband could be the family in the OP. When their friends stop giving them cars and paying their motgages, they find new friends. Always through the church. They don’t believe the g-d crap anymore than I do – they just use it to further the cons/scams they are running.

They won’t change, they’ll just become slicker.

I always liked this one:

I mentioned that to a similar-minded coworker once; her response was that Benjamin Franklin said that, not God. :rolleyes:

ENugent - damn you, you stole my joke!