Things Fundies Say On Facebook

[Positivist]

I wish I was making this stuff up. And I can't figure out why anyone still goes to this church.

That is hilarious! Thanks for posting. I don't know how you do it week after week! Crazy.......

[Positivist]

OK, here's mine. Damn facebook will drive you to atheism almost as fast as the Bible!

 

May I ask my Facebook family, wherever you may be, to kindly copy, paste and share this status for one hour to give prayer of support to all those who have family problems, struggles and just need to know that "someone cares." Please do it for all of us, for no one is immune. I hope to see this on the walls of my friends just for moral support. I know someone will!! I did it for...very special people in my life...xxx We all have Family problems and we all need prayers!!!!

 

Uuuuuuh, 'cause *that* will work.....

[Thought2Much]

I wish I was making this stuff up. And I can't figure out why anyone still goes to this church.

That is hilarious! Thanks for posting. I don't know how you do it week after week! Crazy.......

Honestly, here's what I try to do most weeks:

 

I run the worship song overheads, so I don't actually have to pretend like I'm worshiping, since I'm sequestered in the dark sound booth. I'm actually happy my wife volunteered me to do this. Then, when the worship is over and my wife goes upstairs to teach Sunday school, I "find things to do" elsewhere in the church. Sometimes this means I just hang out in my car during the sermon. Sometimes I go help my wife with the kids. This keeps me from hearing too much of my father in-law's sermons. However, sometimes he manages to sneak a whole week's worth of amazingly stupid statements into the stuff he says before and after the worship, but before the kids are dismissed to Sunday school. And then, there's communion Sunday once a month, where he talks for over twenty minutes sometimes about how important communion is, even if every single person at church that day has taken communion at our church before, and probably hasn't forgotten the previous month's twenty minute lecture about how important communion is.

 

Some days I do just treat the church like a sociology project, observing and making note of the insanity so I can post updates about it online. Posting this stuff online is about the only way I have to safely vent how I really feel.

[TheBluegrassSkeptic]

Today's offering, and from a young family member, I'm ashamed to say.

 

"If God brings you to it, he will bring you through it."

 

Puke.

Wow, I guess we should give that little gem of wisdom to the boys that Penn State pedo raped and abused huh?

[Positivist]

And then, there's communion Sunday once a month, where he talks for over twenty minutes sometimes about how important communion is, even if every single person at church that day has taken communion at our church before, and probably hasn't forgotten the previous month's twenty minute lecture about how important communion is.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some days I do just treat the church like a sociology project, observing and making note of the insanity so I can post updates about it online. Posting this stuff online is about the only way I have to safely vent how I really feel.

Some people (aka pops-in-law) just love to hear the sound of their own voice, I swear! I can see how that would drive you nuts. Ick.

 

Well, we love your updates and hearing about the lunacy. You are in a tight spot and I hope we can be a support here! Please keep writing about it.

 

Peace.......

[Positivist]

When GOD solves your problems, you have faith in HIS abilities; when GOD doesn't solve your problems HE has faith in your abilities.

[puking]

Let me translate:

When GOD "solves" your problems......you're on your own.

When GOD doesn't solve your problems.......you're on your own.

 

Wow! Sign me up! Powerful stuff we're talkin' about here.

[Sybaris]

One of my "friends" posted this today:

 

Saw this obituary today:

Richard James Miller, 97, passed peacefully from this life on Wednesday, November 16th at 2:30 am at his residence. He is survived by his loving family, including his wife; Elsie May (Barker) Mille; whom he married on October 10th, 1933...........died at home and was married 78 years, I want to know his secret. He was active in Christian work, I'll go with that.

 

I'll go with the Japanese, on average, beating those numbers all to hell.

[Eugene39]

Two posts today from someone. Maybe someone can make some sense of this, if there is any sense to be made of it. He posted an article about the recent discovery that neutrinos are faster than light. The other day he posted that we are close to discovering the "realm" that God lives in.

 

Y'all, this changes everything. Einstein's Theory of Relativity, All of the String Theories, all of Hawking's theories about dark matter and the origin of the universe, everything!! If the C in E=MC2 is not the speed of light, then all of the theories based on that assumption are innaccurate. (Not necessarily false, but innaccurate.) What do you think about this?

 

Followed by this:

 

 

Can you imagine being Stephen Hawking right now, learning that your life's work and all your theories are innacurate because the cornerstone of all your work has been disproven? Now is a good time to be praying for him that he will surrender his life to Christ. He has encountered the claims of Christianity, as evidenced in his involvement with scientific forums with the Catholic Church, among other things. Pray that God will cut through all of the baggage (even if it comes from some of his exposure to church) and reach his heart with the truth.

[Thought2Much]

If only Christians realized that rather than being annoyed by things like this (an experiment showing that neutrinos may be moving faster than light), that this is what scientists live for. This is exactly why they do experiments. Every scientist dreams of coming up with something that breaks the current theory or challenges the status quo. Somewhere, a group of scientists is practically giddy over the fact that they're getting weird results from the LHC, and they're tripping over themselves to see how they can understand the world better through this.

[bdp]

Status update one of my friends just posted: "When the Devil is knocking on your door..Simply say "Jesus could you get that for me"...."

[blackpudd1n]

Status update one of my friends just posted: "When the Devil is knocking on your door..Simply say "Jesus could you get that for me"...."

 

I'd love to see them explain that status to a psychiatrist- auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, interaction with hallucinations of a religious nature... Religion must make a shrink's job difficult!

[DesertBob]

This keeps me from hearing too much of my father in-law's sermons. However, sometimes he manages to sneak a whole week's worth of amazingly stupid statements into the stuff he says before and after the worship, but before the kids are dismissed to Sunday school.

Back when I attended a midwestern Bible Institute I nearly became involved in a serious relationship with a PK and have often thought that had history twisted slightly differently for me I might have had a minister for a father in law myself. Now the daughter was a fair lass with a dulcet alto voice who sang in one of the touring groups at that school and eventually because a deejay at a Christian radio station and on bad days in the ensuing years I wondered what possessed me to not pursue that relationship as she was sending me every signal in the book that she was interested, even some I was already capable of recognizing at the tender age of 18. And then I would tell myself, what would it be like to have a controlling father in law like that who would inculcate his kids with the need to reflect well on him and his ministry and by extension would have veto power over most anything I might want to do in my married life? Indeed, the guy who eventually hooked up with this gal had his heart broken because Dad felt their relationship was moving too fast into tonsil hockey territory and therefore was not blessed by god, so she broke up with him, as instructed by Dad / God.

 

Anyway I feel for you as I could easily be in your shoes right now as I think I was too self aware to not eventually lose interest in Christianity, even were I installed deep inside the system. Hang in there and kudos to you for putting up with it. You clearly love your wife and family, and I deeply respect that.

[DesertBob]

Status update one of my friends just posted: "When the Devil is knocking on your door..Simply say "Jesus could you get that for me"...."

 

I'd love to see them explain that status to a psychiatrist- auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, interaction with hallucinations of a religious nature... Religion must make a shrink's job difficult!

Meh, I don't think most Christians actually hallucinate this stuff. They imagine it in their inner dialog the way other people fantasize about standing up to someone they don't have the spine to stand up to in real life, etc. It's a way of visualizing the alleged unseen spiritual warfare realm that surrounds the visible world. After awhile the inner fantasy realm becomes a habit and becomes accepted as having equal weight to the "real" world. But that's not the same as actually hearing and seeing things.

 

Now some people are more prone to intermix imagination and reality. If we let our minds drift we might see, say, a frolicking lamb in the shape of a passing cloud. Some people find it easier to interact with that as if it were real. My fiancee is like that, if she lets herself, she can create whole realities in her head and if she were looking for escape she could spend time living in them. Sometimes we read to each other before bed and I've known her to doze off and intermix what she's listening to with a dream, such that she totally remembers what I read with complete recall but thought I was reading it to her while we were eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant rather than in our bed; it's jarring for her to wake up when I finish and realize she's not really munching on that delicious taco! I don't see this as pathology, just different wiring -- it's more common in my experience in people with high levels of creativity and/or good intuitive abilities, particularly if they are bright. Now combine that kind of personal wiring with religious ideology and you have a ripe environment for people to have "visions from God".

 

Of course some religious people are certifiably bonkers, but we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to conclude that. Religion, I believe, taps into the subconscious in fairly sophisticated ways, relying on the fact that a percentage of the sheeple will be particularly susceptible and thus can be held up as examples of seers and prophets to the other, less mentally porous types. These people will share their "experiences" and the others will be pulled along by their enthusiasm.

 

--Bob

[Sybaris]

Status update one of my friends just posted: "When the Devil is knocking on your door..Simply say "Jesus could you get that for me"...."

 

I'd love to see them explain that status to a psychiatrist- auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, interaction with hallucinations of a religious nature... Religion must make a shrink's job difficult!

 

 

Reminds me of the "God told me to do it" defense in criminal cases. Only in cases of proven temporary/acute insanity does that work but even then the motivational statement is incidental.

[blackpudd1n]

Status update one of my friends just posted: "When the Devil is knocking on your door..Simply say "Jesus could you get that for me"...."

 

I'd love to see them explain that status to a psychiatrist- auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, interaction with hallucinations of a religious nature... Religion must make a shrink's job difficult!

Meh, I don't think most Christians actually hallucinate this stuff. They imagine it in their inner dialog the way other people fantasize about standing up to someone they don't have the spine to stand up to in real life, etc. It's a way of visualizing the alleged unseen spiritual warfare realm that surrounds the visible world. After awhile the inner fantasy realm becomes a habit and becomes accepted as having equal weight to the "real" world. But that's not the same as actually hearing and seeing things.

 

Now some people are more prone to intermix imagination and reality. If we let our minds drift we might see, say, a frolicking lamb in the shape of a passing cloud. Some people find it easier to interact with that as if it were real. My fiancee is like that, if she lets herself, she can create whole realities in her head and if she were looking for escape she could spend time living in them. Sometimes we read to each other before bed and I've known her to doze off and intermix what she's listening to with a dream, such that she totally remembers what I read with complete recall but thought I was reading it to her while we were eating dinner at a Mexican restaurant rather than in our bed; it's jarring for her to wake up when I finish and realize she's not really munching on that delicious taco! I don't see this as pathology, just different wiring -- it's more common in my experience in people with high levels of creativity and/or good intuitive abilities, particularly if they are bright. Now combine that kind of personal wiring with religious ideology and you have a ripe environment for people to have "visions from God".

 

Of course some religious people are certifiably bonkers, but we shouldn't be in too much of a hurry to conclude that. Religion, I believe, taps into the subconscious in fairly sophisticated ways, relying on the fact that a percentage of the sheeple will be particularly susceptible and thus can be held up as examples of seers and prophets to the other, less mentally porous types. These people will share their "experiences" and the others will be pulled along by their enthusiasm.

 

--Bob

 

I don't disagee.

 

lol all I was trying to say, was, imagine you are a psychiatrist, most of whom, in my experience tend to lean towards agnosticism or atheism. You're in a psych ward, with a patient in front of you, whom you are trying to assess, and they say something like that to you. Is the patient having a religious experience due to their illness, or is the patient religious, and also has an illness, or does the patient have an illness, is religious, and is having an exacerbated religious experience due to the illness? And as a psychiatrist, how would you respond if someone said to you, "when the Devil is knocking on your door... Simply say, Jesus, could you get that for me?", especially if you haven't quite established yet why the patient is having this religious experience, or if it is even anything out of the ordinary?

 

You know, I might email my shrink and put that scenario to him and ask him that question. I'd like to hear that answer!

[blackpudd1n]

Status update one of my friends just posted: "When the Devil is knocking on your door..Simply say "Jesus could you get that for me"...."

 

I'd love to see them explain that status to a psychiatrist- auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations, interaction with hallucinations of a religious nature... Religion must make a shrink's job difficult!

 

 

Reminds me of the "God told me to do it" defense in criminal cases. Only in cases of proven temporary/acute insanity does that work but even then the motivational statement is incidental.

 

Over here, a defense on the grounds of insanity, for want of a better word, is called a Section 22 defense. In order for a Section 22 to be effective, the nature of the illness suffered is taken into account, along with other factors, such as a major life change, the person going through stress, whether an event triggered the crime, and whether or not the person was taking their medication at the time. Generally, it's also only applicable when a lack of premeditation is obvious, unless, say, the premeditation occurs as a result of delusion/psychosis. The charges may be dismissed, but the court may impose conditions such as hospitalisation until the person has recovered, and/or regular injections of medication, which, if missed, may mean another trip back to the psych ward.

 

I have a friend who knew a guy with bipolar, and had been living medication-free for years and was managing his condition quite well. However, something in his life triggered an episode suddenly, and when the police turned up, he stabbed one of the officers. The man's brother was able to inform the police of his condition, which the police were able to verify, and as such did not press charges against the man as he was clearly unwell at the time and not his normal self. He underwent treatment and that was the end of it.

[espresso]

Thanks for this thread--now I am looking at the crazy comments for their entertainment value and they are a lot easier to deal with.

 

Here's one from today--it was someone I don't know responding to a friend's post about a great sermon she had listened to:

 

"Me too! I shall never make white sauce again without rethinking my attitude towards Jesus as King. I like it when everyday things become reminders of how amazing God is!"

 

I would totally have been that person making that comment years ago. No wonder this stuff is so hard to shake...I'll never make white sauce again...ROFL!

[lilcoppertop]

"If you want to know who God is using , just look at who has the most fingers pointed at them !"

 

-sigh- Where is the logic? Especially when they're doing a lot of the finger-pointing...in the "beware of that person! They are gravely deceived." way.

[midniterider]

Status update one of my friends just posted: "When the Devil is knocking on your door..Simply say "Jesus could you get that for me"...."

 

Metaphor of idiocy...lol

[bronxo]

'Through prayer, more happens than we could ever hope for'

[stryper]

so I shared this.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-giberson-phd/creationists-and-young-christians_b_1096839.html?ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false#access_token=AAAAACuIpepUBAF7tLZAZAGew6v2b1o7rGavkKlwiq2aZBo57tM3IbrT57ydwkoRzQQIBsh5KCZCcyuWafBHFsUMkI1FDnBwnlNhcoJSoyNojQ5RgebaN&expires_in=3891

 

TL:DR Creationist lack of objectivity toward science driving young people away from the church.

 

 

Friend 1)

 

That's silly. Christians believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. The Bible says that God created the world. Therefore Christians believe that the world was created by God. For Christians to teach otherwise would prove them NOT to be Christians, since that would be to say God either didn't inspire the Bible, or didn't know what He was talking about. If young people leave the Church because they disagree, that's their own decision. It's not the Church's responsibility to teach anything other than what the Bible teaches, regardless of how the scientific community or general public may respond.

 

Friend2 (Southern baptist Aunt)

amen sister

 

i actually found this to be quite funny. Loved this: 'evangelicals are not making much progress in accepting well-established mainstream scientific ideas about origins.' especially the 'well established mainstream ideas' part. oh so true. Just 'ideas'.. and ones that have for the most part been proved to be false. but i wont take time to go into that. dont want to argue, but somethings ya just cant let fly without speaking out. God created the world. If you don't believe that now...that's you choice. You will believe it someday

 

 

I choose to not engage in "debate" I simply responded to my Aunt. "Actually, No I won't"

[midniterider]

I think it's sad that the xians feel obligated by their imaginary friend to post their drivel on FB. The beginning of the world was such a long time ago. Why live in the past? :-)

[Cryptic]

One of my friends posted this verse:

 

 

Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, Him I will destroy; The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, Him I will not endure.

PSALM 101:5

 

 

I honestly don't know what to make of it.

[Deva]

One of my friends posted this verse:

 

 

Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, Him I will destroy; The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, Him I will not endure.

PSALM 101:5

 

 

I honestly don't know what to make of it.

 

 

Beats the hell out of me, too.

[R. S. Martin]

I finally started unfriending family members just because of this. My newsfeed is alot more empty now. but I can see the stuff I care about.

 

I'm still quite new at Facebook activity. There are Christians from my graduate school on it whom I don't think are fundies or if they are they are too busy to evangelize. But yesterday I got a friend request from my cousin. I looked at her info page, and yikes! She supports practically every fundy organization on the continent. Just when I thought it might be interesting to see her family photos, it noticed that she has over a hundred friends. *Shudder* One thing I don't need is fundy hordes saving my soul. So far as I can see, Facebook is extremely unprivate, no matter how private and secure you try to set things. I decided to risk her displeasure and ignore. Rather than go back and unfriend after the damage is done. I've read too many things on these forums like this thread.