Lived in Marshall till I was about 22, I think, then moved to Longview for a couple of years. At that time, Longview seemed pretty sophisticated to me! That’s embarrassing to admit. I’ve attended both Fire Ant and Stagecoach Days Festivals. And Marshall’s “Wonderland of Lights,” which my aging, well-intentioned parents still insist on taking me to see every Christmas when I visit. Oh, it’s depressing.
Life got a lot better for me when I left East Texas, but since you’re “not from around here,” you probably knew that life can be different elsewhere. You and Gunslinger have considered getting the heck out, I assume? In my opinion, it’s worth it.
Longview seems like a pretty big town to ME. And I’m from New York. Shows you what kind of backwater Upstate can be.
We are, eventually, escaping. I favor southern Virginia for the landscape and the mountains, although I have no idea what it’s like there socially. At the moment, however, here we stay… I moved cross-country just three months ago, and it’d be fairly unfeasible to try it again at this point in time. Hopefully, Gun’ll get well-established as a photographer and he’ll be able to get a position elsewhere, at which point we can settle down and I can get my butt back to school to get a better job myself. Here’s hoping.
If you’d really love to see the reactions, why don’t you try posting such an OP, and find out? But if that’s all it reads, I don’t imagine there would be very many responses posted, beyond a few that go:
HUH?
The reason for this is because that is inelegantly phrased, and does not bring to mind any images that might be apropos of the subject of cutting off circulation to the brain.
However, if that is merely the thread title, and the OP itself is substantially the same as what racinchikki posted, but targeting Muslim cow-orkers employing similarly objectionable behavoir, I’m guessing you’ll get comparable responses to what racinchikki is getting.
In this area, it is not much better. People are generally too busy to be busybodies, if that makes any sense, although I have heard “They’re good people, they go to church” plenty, along with similar remarks.
Best bet is to hie yourself as close to a big city as you can, where if nothing else the sound of traffic drowns out “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Personal Savior”.
Yea, I find Atlanta is good on keeping away most of the religious crazies. I don’t doubt that they exist, but I only know one person among my circle of acquaintences here who even considers himself a Christian and goes to church. (Not counting the Dopers of course, because I haven’t talked about religion with most of you).
But to be fair, my crowd’s pretty much the “alternative” kinda crowd.
Having spent half my life in New York City and Bawstin, which is more straightlaced but no longer that puritanical, I know little of these conversations at work and in social situations. I only knew one fundie my whole life and he soon gave up when he saw that we thought it was rude to be bringing it up after we said we weren’t interested, but then again he was Bostonian.
If somebody asks you “Have you accepted Jesus”, etc., and you say “Yep!” is that the end of it or not? Do they press you on what kind of Christian you are? I take it being an RC, the Classic Coke of Christianity ;), is not the “right” answer.
The comeback I’m going to use next time somebody asks me if I’ve converted is to say “I can’t do that!” and when they ask why, say “because everything I like is immoral.”
When I was about 12 or 13, this one time an elderly man came up to me and started trying to convert me to Christianity (not sure what sect). My parents were just out of earshot but not out of sight. To this day I wish I had thought up some kind of comeback. Like maybe tell him “if you don’t leave me the hell alone, I’ll fucking scream.” Imagine the look on his face if he heard a 13 year old say “fuck”.
Ditto, I’m hoping someone with better knowledge of the Bible than I have will come up with the verses/passages where this sort of “witnessing” is said to NOT be the thing to do.
In other words, if these so-called “Christians” are that well-versed, then they’d KNOW that it says, in effect, do NOT go around shoving your beliefs down others’ throats.
Reminds of what life was like before I was 17 and got my skeptical (now unabashedly atheist) self out of West “by Gawd” Virginia.
Best of luck to you, and like a few others have mentioned, try to be discreet. You will be ganged up on if are too open about your religious beliefs (or lack thereof).
If I remember correctly, Gunslinger is a photojournalists, right? If so, he’s got to pay his dues at smaller papers like in Longview until he gets his break with a larger metro paper and they get to move.
Homebrew’s right on the money. He’s working his way up the ladder, and at the moment he’s about halfway to the second rung. The time will come, however.
I’m in a similar boat racinchikki, though not quite to the extent that you seem to be experiencing. Another atheist that just moved to Texas…
Being as I’m only a high school student, I can’t comment too heavily on what the Adult Community thinks, but the teenagers here reference religion frequently (Baptist, yes) in places that they don’t need to. It just seems as though they’re trying to flaunt their piety. When regaling me with tales of past expolits where setting is irrelevant, they’ll mention that it took place at church or that this weekend they hung out with their friend Jim from church. Like I care. Like it was relevant. But no one seems to try and convert me. Good for them.
It’s godliness by association. The more time they spend talking about/being at church, the more saved they are and the better seat they’ll get in the Great Concert in the Sky. These are also usually the people who pray extra loud just so everyone knows how hard they’re praying. Some of them feel the need to do it on-camera and solicit donations … for lozenges or something, I dunno. Must not be too kind on the throat to be forever praying at the top of one’s lungs.
By this logic, of course, my father, who is a monk, will be somewhere in the nosebleed section. He is secure enough in his relationship with God (as opposed to what he did with his friends from church over the weekend) that he doesn’t bring it up every waking moment.
