Well, I didn’t want to keep the Kansas post at the top, lest the two people in Kansas who use the internet harness a tornado, stuff it in a Fed-ex envelope, and weather-bomb my house. But I don’t really have any stories to tell or anything, so I figured I just throw some stuff out there.
1) This I straight copied from Broadsheet: Hey kids - come have some Rosemary / Garlic Fries, Resurrection Ale(s), Ozzie(s), and some laughs with Broadsheet on Tuesday. Or, just laugh at Broadsheet - she’s gettin old(er).
Grotto bar at Brewer’s Art. I’ll be there between 5:30 and 6:00 and hopefully we’ll be able to snag a table in the catacombs and hang out on a weeknight when it’s not too crowded.
If y’all come - it’ll be cozy. I think we can make the place ours if we want to.
ACWF and I will be there, proving that I actually have a fiance, and don’t just make out with an old sock every night. Oh yeah, you heard me right fellas, we make out every night.
2) Speaking of my tonsil-hockey partner, we were watching a show on A&E last night, and it was some sort of documentary about Satanism. At first I was pretty upset at the documentary, because it allowed rectal-spelunking psychologists and grump-dunking preachers to hold court over the topic. “Repressed memories” and “psychotherapy” were bandied about like they were any type of credible, and not a single person on the documentary stood up and said, “These retards are clearly retarded.” But then, at the end of the documentary, a professor of theology from a Chrisitan college essentially bitchslapped all the people who were using the Satanism fad of the late 70s to line their pockets and stuff their coffers with the cash of the idiotic people who bought into all the repressed memory crap and actually believed/lied to themselves into thinking that they had been raised in a Satanic cult. There was one baptist preacher, especially, who actually gave me chills, he was so fuckin’ crazy. He would keep his “flock” in “couseling” against “Satan” for up to 19 hours at a time, telling them what to think, telling them what had happened to them, feeding them “repressed memories” and then performing “excorcisms” on them. And I was thinking about it last night and this morning, and I really think that religion has the capacity to do as much evil as good. And I know that’s not exactly a news flash, but I think lots of members of most religions have been complicit in allowing the crazies to be the most vocal. Where are the reasonable religious folks to say, “Yes, we have a book that says the Earth is 5,000 years old, but science has mountains of evidence that suggests otherwise, but that doesn’t negate that Jesus had some pretty groovy ideas, so all you crazies just sit down, and shut up.” or “Yes, we know some of our fellow Muslims are engaged in a Holy War against the West, but our religion is a religion of peace, and love, and these assholes are screwing it up for us. I’m sure you Christians don’t want to be associated with the Christian child-beaters, Christian wife-rapists, and Christian clinic-bombers, just like we don’t want to be associated with the suicide-bombers and jihadis.”
So, I guess this is my long way of asking: Resonable religious folks, there’s a lot more of you than of the crazies. Why don’t you speak up more and call them on their bullshit?
3) There’s really not a third thing.
“Resonable religious folks, there’s a lot more of you than of the crazies. Why don’t you speak up more and call them on their bullshit?”
Answer: Because when more reasonable folk respond to these inbred dipshits with, “You’ve got the message wrong–we don’t believe what you’re claiming we do in this religion. It’s time for you to STFU.” they’re accused of not being “good” WhateverReligionMembers, and after a thorough round of hate and bashing, out come the 19 hour counseling sessions again.
Why speak up when you can vote for Bush instead? Oh, wait . . .
It’s sad really. I have only known one person in my life who behaved in a way that made me want to believe in Christianity. I still don’t because it just doesn’t work for me…but my grandmother-in-law is the kind of woman that makes me wish I could.
I guess so long as people need to be right instead of good there’s just no reasoning with them.
2) Hey! Me! Asshole! (You are the asshole. Not me. Asshole.)
just because you don’t make out with an old sock every night, you think you’re better than me!?!
also, the trick is to completely ignore the history channel. the history channel gave up on actual history years ago… unless “the ghosts of the founding father’s hemorrhoids” is history. Or, “what happens when civil war reenactors live under the same roof, stop being polite, and start being REAL.”
Stick to PBS.
It’s nearly impossible to reason with crazies. At best, those reasonable folks would have to trick the crazies into thinking reasonably.
That, or just bitch slap them.
Christians aren’t as gullible as you think. When I was in the Midwest, I dealt with Christians often. It was very rare when I could convince one that the key to Eternal Life was in my trousers. Even when I ran around yelling, “Behold! He has Risen.” I went through a lot of socks out there.
eebmore, you’re absolutely right. I just found a great program on PBS called “Battlefield Britain”. Each episode is a fascinating analysis of historic battles on the British Isles. It gets a bit cheesy with actors doing “first person” accounts, but otherwis it’s awesome.
Regarding reigning in the religious crazies, we need a return to the good old days of massacres between the Catholics and Huguenots, only the reasonable religious people should do the dinner-time stake burnings of the crazies.
We do usually speak up. The problem is that the people who identify themselves with the same “label” use it for their own purposes, act as extremists, and then everyone else says “see, look at those Christians”. They tend to ignore the “every day” Christians.
I was actually surprised that you mentioned the documentary gave a big voice to the religious group until you mentioned how they all appeared crazy, which is what is usually portrayed.
TFG! bwahahahahahahhahahahhaha that made my day!
CBK, I get a giant chubbie everry time i watch battlefield britain. when he opens that great big book thing and an ILM battle plays out on the hood of his rover in the middle of a field in wessex…. AWESOME!
I could write an entire post in reaction to this post, but I’ll just say this:
*really important: it’s not the religion itself that is the problem, it’s people’s latching onto it and using it unhealthily. It’s what people do in the NAME of religion that can be “bad”, not the religion itself.
*some might consider me a “reasonable religious” (others, notsomuch)…and I believe that standing up and yelling at crazy people is a waste of energy. I live my life the way I see fit. I certainly state my opinion where it’s warranted, but putting energy into changing crazy people ain’t my particular bag (and I tried to to it professionally for years, so I know a bit what I’m talkin’ about.) But putting my energy into living my beliefs, now that’s some good times :)
I just want to go on the record that I’ve decided that I want to produce a reality show with opposing war reenactment freaks living under the same roof. that would be freakin’ hilarious.
It seems to me that the people who have the most at stake in how any religion is being projected are the ones involved in it’s practice. If you don’t want yours getting a bad rap, stand up and say something. Otherwise, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and nobody squeaks louder than a crazy person.
i watched that too i think!
and the family whose kids got taken away? did the parents suck helium balloons? otherwise joey lauren adams was using them as ventriloquy dummies.
also, i agree with patti. there was one woman i knew who made me want to have faith, and she still does.
she was always good above right, and though she would tell you what she felt, she would support your decision. and i think her love was the primary force in her- like it should be in any good person, religious or otherwise.
We’re just as afraid of the crazies as you are.
All I could think about while reading your description of the baptist preacher was the preacher in Porky’s and the “flock”…
“So sayeth the shepherd…so sayeth the flock.”
I make out with a sock every night, but i assure you, that sock is fucking HOT.
I would like to think that I’m a “reasonable” Christian, and I definitely cringe at the way that my religion is portrayed by others. There are two problems, one of which has already been mentioned in these here comments: 1) getting crazies to clamp it once in a while is a nearly impossible task, given that they aren’t interested in the idea that perhaps they weren’t given the microphone by all of Christianity, and 2) even “reasonable” religious people can be portrayed as “crazies” by the media - most religions tend toward conservatism and media tend toward liberalism, and therefore the media will cut what a reasonable person says to make them sound crazy if it serves the medias’ own interests (which it almost always does). I’ve been misquoted in a newspaper on the matter of Christianity and other religions… as in, they made it sound like I believed pretty much the opposite of what I’d actually said to them. Editing is a powerful thing. Just like whenever there’s a tornado, all you see are the trailer parks that got blown over… leading the populace at large to believe that all that’s in Kansas are a bunch of trailer parks (i.e. EVERYONE in Kansas is a redneck), which cannot possibly be actually true.
Fuck Kansas.
Well, who do you think wants those soudbytes or video footage? You think the media is going to go after some normal, religious person? No way. Sensationalism dictates you go after the asshats and whack-jobs. They make for better ratings.
I agree with my fellow “reasonable Christians” who’ve commented before me, although I don’t hesitate to share when I feel like someone is being a nut-bag religious freak and making me look bad. I suppose in some ways (um…the potty mouth) I make Christians look bad, too, but then I’m not the kind who shouts it from the rooftops and claims to be perfect. A real Christian would admit very readily that they are far from it. The people you described sounded like whack-jobs, and I’m sorry they made you feel the way they did.