Dumbest/weirdest/most Repulsive Argument Or Story A Fundy Ever Told You?

[nutrichuckles93]

5 minutes ago, Wertbag said:

Last Friday my wifes uncle was diagnosed with terminal cancer and has been given 2 weeks to live. He comes from a family of 8, 7 of who are normal caring loving people and 1 Christian fundy (the guy who sends Hovind and Ham dvds to the family for Xmas pressies).

7/8 of his siblings visited their sick brother and offered their help and support... The Christian gave him a phone call and said "Its your own fault, God is punishing you for your sins, your judgement is at hand". The family hated him before for his horrible comments against women and other races/religions but the lack of empathy for your own brother has been the last straw with the whole family breaking all communications with him. They have been saying why the nice good hearted brother has to die while the hatred spewing fundy lives to continue his ranting, there is no justice.

Holy shit. I just....holy fuck.

[rjn]

2 hours ago, Wertbag said:

Last Friday my wifes uncle was diagnosed with terminal cancer and has been given 2 weeks to live. He comes from a family of 8, 7 of who are normal caring loving people and 1 Christian fundy (the guy who sends Hovind and Ham dvds to the family for Xmas pressies).

7/8 of his siblings visited their sick brother and offered their help and support... The Christian gave him a phone call and said "Its your own fault, God is punishing you for your sins, your judgement is at hand". The family hated him before for his horrible comments against women and other races/religions but the lack of empathy for your own brother has been the last straw with the whole family breaking all communications with him. They have been saying why the nice good hearted brother has to die while the hatred spewing fundy lives to continue his ranting, there is no justice.

 

So sorry to hear that.

 

Hopefully the fundie sibling will be taught some justice by living isolated and bitter for the remainder of his pathetic existence.

[Lilith666]

At the Mother's Day event, which of course was a maudlin gathering to sniffle about Jesus: People like babies because babies are "fresh from heaven," while adults are tainted with the sin of the world. We all need to become like children, who are Jesus's little sunbeams. More rambling about the wisdom and purity of 3-year-olds. Out of the mouths of babes, etc.

 

Also, the speaker said she had stage 3 cancer, but took medication for it, and the doctor was shocked when the last couple of blood tests were normal. Silly doctor, he doesn't know that gawwwwwd works miracles! Cue smug superiority about special relationship with Jesus.

[ag_NO_stic]

I have several stories I could probably give, but they mirror so many on here that they wouldn't surprise anyone.

 

The two that popped into my mind are more personal and emotional for me. One talk with my mom and one with my dad. FYI, I mention rape in one. I don't really believe in "trigger warnings" but I felt it'd be nice to give the heads up.

 

Mom: I don't understand how you can reject God when he's saved you so many times. It's clear he has some kind of purpose, how do you not see this?
Me: Honestly, Mom, I have trouble believing that. I have a lot of trouble reconciling why God would see fit to "save me" so many times and not care at all about so many other people even one time.

*Mom shakes her head"

Me: You seriously believe that he saved me from those car wrecks, he saved me from [insert emotional stories here], but he just watches complacently while some 6 year old out there is crying both verbally and silently to him or herself while enduring endless rape? Praying for salvation, praying for someone to help them, begging said rapist to stop, and God can't because he's too busy blessing you with a parking space?

*Mom is silent*

Me: How can you be okay with that or with the possibility he will send me to hell, Mom?

Mom: It's not about hell, it's about a relationship with Him!

Me: .....

Mom: Don't you see that we *deserve* it? 

Me: You honestly believe that??! That you DESERVE hell?!

Mom: Absolutely I do!

 

The conversation goes on, doesn't get better, and I pretty much end it with mentioned how disturbing I find it all and Mom saying that it doesn't matter how I see it, it matters how God sees it. It repulses me and disturbs me to no end that my parents worship this god and I just had to get it out.

 

 

The other one with my Dad:

 

Me: I don't understand why you can worship a god that will send me, your daughter, to hell for eternal torment if I don't end up believing again.

Dad: I value God more than you, honey. The only thing I can do is pray that you will be redeemed, but God is more important.

Me: And you can't see why that is painful to me?

Dad: No, not really. Because you have control and can change it.

Me: I thought you believed God is sovereign and that I've been predestined.

Dad: I don't know the mind of God or how free will works with predestination. All I can do is have faith and pray.

Me: What will prayer do if I've been predestined? 

Dad: It doesn't do anything, but I can still hope that his will changes.

Me: But if his sovereign will is better than yours why would you want it to change?

Dad: I obviously don't want you to go hell, Jess.

Me: But you're choosing to believe that.

Dad: (the kicker) Choosing not to believe something doesn't make it not true.

 

______________________________

 

The disconnect is so painful. I cannot understand why they don't look into it at all, unless it just doesn't disturb them. Sorry if that was a bit too personal it just stings to think about, seriously stings. It's so disgusting and this thread was fitting. :'(

[nutrichuckles93]

I would be tempted to laugh at the absurdity of their views if that wasn't a true representation of how your parents speak. That is just disgusting that that is how they really speak to you. It is just so beyond me how people can hear those words come out of their mouths and not realize the implications of those words. I am so, so sorry that your parents refuse to even TRY to understand an alternate point of view.

[ag_NO_stic]

 

I would be tempted to laugh at the absurdity of their views if that wasn't a true representation of how your parents speak. That is just disgusting that that is how they really speak to you. It is just so beyond me how people can hear those words come out of their mouths and not realize the implications of those words. I am so, so sorry that your parents refuse to even TRY to understand an alternate point of view.

 

I would be tempted to laugh too, but it comes out as anger and bitterness towards them. Then I get the "You're so bitter, it looks like you have some things to work out with God. Don't worry, he's growing your faith." It's like I'm so emotional because what you believe is disturbing and I want you to be free!! Thanks for your kind words though, it's a relief to come on here and see that other people see how irrational and ridiculous it is. I'm just shy of the bible belt, it's EVERYWHERE.

[sdelsolray]

I would suggest a few things:

 

1)  Don't take ownership of your parents' beliefs.
 

2)  Instead of talking with them "in their sandbox", try a different approach.  When they make a theistic claim respond with your belief/position instead of questions or statements concerning their beliefs.  Example:

 

Parent:  We know you are going through a period of doubt and that your faith is being challenged.

You:  Yes, that has been going on for some time.  I conclude that religious faith is empty and shallow.

Parent:  Without faith in Jesus you are lost.

You:  I do not believe that is true.

Parent:  Your behavior is harmful to us.

You:  I'm sorry you feel that way.

Parent:  Why do you continue to hurt us?

You:  Religious indoctrination and peer pressure are the most common techniques to maintain theistic memes.  Many remain in the fold.  Some do not.  You are of the former.  I am of the latter.

...Etc.

 

The conversation could heat up.  If it does, maintain the moral and intellectual high ground.  Example:

 

Parent:  Well, you have chosen to burn in Hell.

You:  I do not believe in hell, or an afterlife.  You do.

Parent:  The devil has grabbed hold of you.

You:  Just not in any way you can demonstrate.

...Etc.

 

3)  Set boundaries.  Example:

 

Parent:  We want you to speak with our pastor about you rebellion.

You:  I will not do that.

 

[ag_NO_stic]

 

I would suggest a few things:

 

1)  Don't take ownership of your parents' beliefs.
 

2)  Instead of talking with them "in their sandbox", try a different approach.  When they make a theistic claim respond with your belief/position instead of questions or statements concerning their beliefs.....The conversation could heat up.  If it does, maintain the moral and intellectual high ground.  

 

3)  Set boundaries.

 

You make insanely excellent points. The boundaries are difficult for me, because I want to demonstrate "willingness to consider them" in the hopes that they will reciprocate. Of course this doesn't happen, but I want so badly for that to happen. The second suggestion makes so much sense to me, I have always catered to their world view in discussions, I rarely (if ever) "level the playing field."

[Lilith666]

Sdelsolray has good advice. Because your parents are entrenched in their beliefs by wanting those beliefs to be true, you'll get nowhere by applying logic or morality. This is especially evident because, sadly, they value their beliefs above their own daughter.

 

Your dignity and integrity are more important than their feelings about something they could choose to reject as immoral. I used to argue endlessly with my parents, until it became too tiring to repeat the same arguments over and over and be met with "I know in my heart..." I started to feel a little degraded, too, getting all worked up over stupidity that wasn't going to change. In the end, it doesn't matter if your parents don't accept you. You yourself are free of Christianity's slavery, and being miserable is their own decision.

 

Why would anyone choose to be so abject? "I'll do whatever you want, master! I'm sinful and evil, I deserve to be tortured and so do my evil children! You're more important than anything, master! I'll let you control my whole life so I can go to heaven! Just please save me from death and oblivion, master!"

[ag_NO_stic]

You know what is really interesting to consider? I am soooo much more interested, willing, and even passionate about "evangelizing" my agnosticism lol. I'll talk to any Christian about it, but I used to feel guilty that I didn't want preach at people who weren't "saved." It's like my subconscious knew it was bullshit.

[nutrichuckles93]

 

You know what is really interesting to consider? I am soooo much more interested, willing, and even passionate about "evangelizing" my agnosticism lol. I'll talk to any Christian about it, but I used to feel guilty that I didn't want preach at people who weren't "saved." It's like my subconscious new it was bullshit.

Same. Granted, I'm a fairly shy and introverted person, but I think I couldn't evangelize because deep down I knew it was bullshit what I was being ordered to sell.

[Bedouin]

Not really a story, but more a memory from my fundie upbringing in the Church of God in Christ.  The choir used to sing this little ditty, during the devotional portion of the service:

 

It's gonna rain down fire!

One of these days!

It's gonna rain down fire!

One of these days!

 

Sung in 4/4 timing, briskly, with glee, in classic call and response from slavery days in the fields.

 

Sick.

[sdelsolray]

 

I have several stories I could probably give, but they mirror so many on here that they wouldn't surprise anyone.

 

The two that popped into my mind are more personal and emotional for me. One talk with my mom and one with my dad. FYI, I mention rape in one. I don't really believe in "trigger warnings" but I felt it'd be nice to give the heads up.

 

Mom: I don't understand how you can reject God when he's saved you so many times. It's clear he has some kind of purpose, how do you not see this?
Me: Honestly, Mom, I have trouble believing that. I have a lot of trouble reconciling why God would see fit to "save me" so many times and not care at all about so many other people even one time.

*Mom shakes her head"

Me: You seriously believe that he saved me from those car wrecks, he saved me from [insert emotional stories here], but he just watches complacently while some 6 year old out there is crying both verbally and silently to him or herself while enduring endless rape? Praying for salvation, praying for someone to help them, begging said rapist to stop, and God can't because he's too busy blessing you with a parking space?

*Mom is silent*

Me: How can you be okay with that or with the possibility he will send me to hell, Mom?

Mom: It's not about hell, it's about a relationship with Him!

Me: .....

Mom: Don't you see that we *deserve* it? 

Me: You honestly believe that??! That you DESERVE hell?!

Mom: Absolutely I do!

 

The conversation goes on, doesn't get better, and I pretty much end it with mentioned how disturbing I find it all and Mom saying that it doesn't matter how I see it, it matters how God sees it. It repulses me and disturbs me to no end that my parents worship this god and I just had to get it out.

 

 

The other one with my Dad:

 

Me: I don't understand why you can worship a god that will send me, your daughter, to hell for eternal torment if I don't end up believing again.

Dad: I value God more than you, honey. The only thing I can do is pray that you will be redeemed, but God is more important.

Me: And you can't see why that is painful to me?

Dad: No, not really. Because you have control and can change it.

Me: I thought you believed God is sovereign and that I've been predestined.

Dad: I don't know the mind of God or how free will works with predestination. All I can do is have faith and pray.

Me: What will prayer do if I've been predestined? 

Dad: It doesn't do anything, but I can still hope that his will changes.

Me: But if his sovereign will is better than yours why would you want it to change?

Dad: I obviously don't want you to go hell, Jess.

Me: But you're choosing to believe that.

Dad: (the kicker) Choosing not to believe something doesn't make it not true.

 

______________________________

 

The disconnect is so painful. I cannot understand why they don't look into it at all, unless it just doesn't disturb them. Sorry if that was a bit too personal it just stings to think about, seriously stings. It's so disgusting and this thread was fitting. :'(

 

From your post I quite reasonably conclude you are totally aware of the emotional and psychological dysfuctions both of your parents suffer.  I also conclude you no longer suffer from those same maladies.  Good for you.

[ag_NO_stic]

 

 

From your post I quite reasonably conclude you are totally aware of the emotional and psychological dysfuctions both of your parents suffer.  I also conclude you no longer suffer from those same maladies.  Good for you.

 

Why thank you, good sir, and a good day to you.  

[rerics]

We have a friend who had a stroke several years ago, but happily made a full recovery. While she was in the hospital, one of her family members made a crack that the reason why she had a stroke was due to her being a lesbian.  

 

I don't know why this kind of stuff still surprises me, but it does.

[ConsiderTheSource]

 

We have a friend who had a stroke several years ago, but happily made a full recovery. While she was in the hospital, one of her family members made a crack that the reason why she had a stroke was due to her being a lesbian.  

 

I don't know why this kind of stuff still surprises me, but it does.

 

rerics is continues to surprise this LGBT father too.  

What irritates this father is the fact that they full expect a free pass for such comments, and insist on making ME the bad guy for defending my daughter'a basic human dignity.  Grrrrrr.

[FreeAtLast]

I asked someone about this verse when I first started questioning (Thomas Paine had pointed it out in The Age of Reason):

 

 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. ¹⁶ “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. ¹⁷ Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, ¹⁸ but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." - Numbers 31:15-18

 

Why would such a good God allow this? 

They said the parents had to die because of their sinfulness (not sure where they got that from) and because they were demon possessed (what?).

 

Basically they made up something that wasnt even in the story to justify their religion (classic).

 

They told me that these children had to die because of their parents sin nature, and that the children where also demon possessed and had genetically inherited evil from their parents. That they were born evil and depraved. 

 

As for the young girls who the Israelites dragged off as captives to be subjected to the most grotesque of sexual violations? "I dont know, but God must have a good reason to allow it."

 

So much for family values.

 

And this is why I am sick of Evangelical Christianity. 

[Tsathoggua9]

 

I asked someone about this verse when I first started questioning (Thomas Paine had pointed it out in The Age of Reason):

 

 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. ¹⁶ “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. ¹⁷ Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, ¹⁸ but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." - Numbers 31:15-18

 

Why would such a good God allow this? 

They said the parents had to die because of their sinfulness (not sure where they got that from) and because they were demon possessed (what?).

 

Basically they made up something that wasnt even in the story to justify their religion (classic).

 

They told me that these children had to die because of their parents sin nature, and that the children where also demon possessed and had genetically inherited evil from their parents. That they were born evil and depraved. 

 

As for the young girls who the Israelites dragged off as captives to be subjected to the most grotesque of sexual violations? "I dont know, but God must have a good reason to allow it."

 

So much for family values.

 

And this is why I am sick of Evangelical Christianity. 

 

Yeah, it was passages like this, read as a child, that made me doubt that the bible was written or inspired by any sort of benevolent deity.

[ag_NO_stic]

 

I asked someone about this verse when I first started questioning (Thomas Paine had pointed it out in The Age of Reason):

 

 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. ¹⁶ “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. ¹⁷ Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, ¹⁸ but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." - Numbers 31:15-18

 

Why would such a good God allow this? 

They said the parents had to die because of their sinfulness (not sure where they got that from) and because they were demon possessed (what?).

 

Basically they made up something that wasnt even in the story to justify their religion (classic).

 

They told me that these children had to die because of their parents sin nature, and that the children where also demon possessed and had genetically inherited evil from their parents. That they were born evil and depraved. 

 

As for the young girls who the Israelites dragged off as captives to be subjected to the most grotesque of sexual violations? "I dont know, but God must have a good reason to allow it."

 

So much for family values.

 

And this is why I am sick of Evangelical Christianity. 

 

Yeah, interesting how "god" sounds like whatever the cultural norms were at the time.

[FreeAtLast]

 

 

Yeah, it was passages like this, read as a child, that made me doubt that the bible was written or inspired by any sort of benevolent deity.

 

Agreed. It makes me both sad and frustrated that good, decent people continue to force themselves to believe in this depraved nonsense.

As Hitch said, "Left to themselves, good people will do as much good as they can and evil people will do as much evil as they can. But if you want a good person to do something evil...that takes religion." 

Only now do I understand what he meant. The person who said these things to me is a very kind, good person. Only religion could warp his mind to accept such horrific stories as not just divine, but good.

[FreeAtLast]

 

 

Yeah, interesting how "god" sounds like whatever the cultural norms were at the time.

It is isn't it?

[yunea]

This wasn't told to me specifically. 

 

Recently, a local very young minister founded his own church and got a lot of media attention. He was this annoyingly happy guy who had many followers. Many also thought he was in the wrong. 

 

Then people figured out that he was having an affair with a guy from his own praise and worship group, and everything went downhill for him super fast. He attempted suicide by driving his car off the road, and ended up in a mental hospital (rumour has it he lost his marriage too). He's now trying to pick up the pieces and somehow make sense of his life, and also not lose his faith in the middle of all this crisis. 

 

I follow his blog, because these days I really feel bad for him.

 

What I see in the comments in his blog? Lots of stuff that I'm sure is not helping him get better (but homosexuality IS A SIN yadda yadda etc). But today I saw a gem.

 

"I rejoice in my heart. I see the kiss of failure has made you turn back to Jesus." 

 

  

 

[TABA]

3 hours ago, yunea said:

This wasn't told to me specifically. 

 

Recently, a local very young minister founded his own church and got a lot of media attention. He was this annoyingly happy guy who had many followers. Many also thought he was in the wrong. 

 

Then people figured out that he was having an affair with a guy from his own praise and worship group, and everything went downhill for him super fast. He attempted suicide by driving his car off the road, and ended up in a mental hospital (rumour has it he lost his marriage too). He's now trying to pick up the pieces and somehow make sense of his life, and also not lose his faith in the middle of all this crisis. 

 

I follow his blog, because these days I really feel bad for him.

 

What I see in the comments in his blog? Lots of stuff that I'm sure is not helping him get better (but homosexuality IS A SIN yadda yadda etc). But today I saw a gem.

 

"I rejoice in my heart. I see the kiss of failure has made you turn back to Jesus." 

 

  

 

 

Wow, this guy needs to deconvert so badly...

[yunea]

Agreed, @ThereAndBackAgain. 

[Lydie]

11 hours ago, ThereAndBackAgain said:

 

Wow, this guy needs to deconvert so badly...

 

This reminds me of the film 'I am Michael'. The story of a gay blogger and activist who 'decided to stop being homosexual and choose to be heterosexual'. He went to bible school and got married to a woman. I think this was around 2014 and I wonder how long he can keep it up.