This distraught mother asks Margo Howard how to save her atheist daughter from the flames of hell:
Our daughter started college a year ago, and we’ve noticed during her visits home that she’s not the sweet, innocent girl we sent away for higher learning. We raised her with strong Christian beliefs, but lately she’s saying that she’s joined an atheist club on campus and is questioning everything we taught her. Now my husband refuses to let her in the house and is threatening to turn her in to the FBI.
I’ve tried to cure our daughter and reconcile with her, but nothing seems to work. I’ve prayed over her at night while she sleeps, enlisted friends in a phone prayer tree and even spoken to my priest about the possibility of an exorcism.
I’m at my wits’ end. How can I recover my daughter and keep her from hell?
If the mother thinks trying to “reconcile” involves an exorcism, she is sadly misguided.
It seems the daughter finally got free of her parents psychotic beliefs, and the parents are willing to do anything (even calling the FBI) to keep her in their cult.
Thankfully, Margo’s answer is very good, though I doubt the mother will listen:
Your husband is pathetically misguided if he thinks he can call the FBI to report the “crime” of your daughter joining an atheists club. Ditto for the exorcism. This young woman is not possessed, demonic or doing weird things; she is merely thinking and questioning the religion she grew up with. I would encourage you to understand that all people, your daughter included, have the right to think for themselves, particularly about something as meaningful as religion.
Now that’s something I can say “Amen” to! Let your daughter think freely, and instead of threatening her, love her and support her in what she thinks is right.
Another “only in the USA” story… :(
The mother is clearly and quite severely mentally ill, and as such, should be hospitalised for urgent professional treatment for her dangerously delusional state of mind.
Any juvenile dependents should be immediately removed from her ‘care’.
I mean it.
But I am from Australia, and so am not prey to this bizarre specific deference that you Yanks seem to place upon religiously induced criminal acts.
Ditto the UK. We tend to read about them with disbelief, saying “This must be a joke, right?”
Sadly, they’re mostly not jokes at all…
I’m not sure if ‘criminal’ is right, but if two parents are sat there frothing about calling in the FBI, they are certainly ‘delusional’, and I suspect an investigation by the authorities would find that this manifests itself in other ways, some of which may be more dangerous, negligent or actually criminal.
That said, I don’t think the authorities *should* intervene here. It’s not against the law to be wrong or stupid.
I suspect that the FBI thing may have to do with political ideas the daughter is trying out.
Really? Delusional and criminal?
Obviously, she’s overreacting and seriously disrespecting her daughter’s rights, but neither of these is criminal. And in trying to “cure” her, she’s reacting to a centuries-old theological belief that she’s certainly been taught her entire life (the belief that her daughter will go to hell if she’s an atheist.) In the context of her belief, the way she’s acting makes sense; still stupid and awful, but that doesn’t mean she’s mentally ill, just really ignorant.
No, it actually doesn’t make sense. If she believes in god so dearly, then all her appeals should go to god. If she’s already at her wit’s end after asking god, I don’t see the clear thinking going on by asking an advice columnist, or applying secular agents to her supernatural problem. This is a desperate woman with perhaps an even more desperate husband who should both look back on the steps they’ve taken to try to override god. Should wake them up, but it’s not a perfect world yet.
In the end, religion never makes sense. But I agree with Katie, probably the mother thinks she is acting in her daughter’s best interests. It’s kind of sad, really, but just praying isn’t going to harm her daughter, either.
Prayer would not hurt her daughter, but she ran out of hope after that didn’t help either. Then she started applying cuckoo business to the rational world. Not saying that never works either – take a sick person to a doctor, pray a lot, the patient gets well. Take the same sick person to a faith healer instead, probably not so much. As it is applied in this case, god and all the prayer didn’t change things, so she asks a mere mortal advice columnist what the next step is, or the FBI. There must be something on earth we can do, someone on earth we can ask to fix this?
I am curious about the exorcism option. That makes more sense in her context. She thinks satan has her daughter.
http://www.stmichael.pair.com/ritualofexorcism.html
I wonder how the daughter would feel about that. In all, she is of the age of majority, she may be kicked out of the house, however. I wonder what magical crap she might be susceptible to, at least say what her parents want to hear. I wonder what I would say if someone attempted to exorcise “the demons” out of me. I wonder if the ritual elements of the exorcism procedure are as relatively harmless as they sound or if it can cause psychological trauma (especially in people whose parents are so desperate contrasted with, say, me, who would laugh at them), or if they step it up to anything violent if the demon fails to leave.
I agree she is being disrespectful but do somewhat understand what she is thinking. Like you said she has probably been taught this her whole life and she has also been taught that to question what you have been told is a sin. All religions do this since thinking tends to cause doubt.
Wow I am shocked that someone actually give good advice when it comes to religious views. I have never heard of Margo but that reply was very good.
Exactly who is showing deference here?
I don’t know she might be on to something with the extra prayer. My mom goes to mass once a week just for me, plus the other 2 times she goes and lately ive been getting back in touch with the catholic community on campus. They have free food and there is always a debate to be had.She also as been talking about me visiting this camp to help me expel my demons. Place called Exodus International, I’ll never go, but ive thought about. Do you think prayer might have something to do with my second thoughts
“Do you think prayer might have something to do with my second thoughts”?
Nah, I think prayer has to do with me don’t having an accident when I was coming to work. Oh, and me receiving a mail from a friend I didn’t know about for a long time. But i don’t know how is that prayer can’t avoid me having toothache and I should get to the dentist. Maybe with a prayer tree…
I would say it is guilt more then the praying. As I understand it catholics are big on the guilt thing. LOL
Your mom goes to mass just for you…obviously she cares about you, and I think that would be enough to give you second thoughts. So it’s not the actual prayers, it’s the fact she *is* praying (doing anything she thinks might help you). It’s hard to break from our parents’ expectations on something so important as religion.
ITA, I think the effort and caring she is demonstrating are the motivators. Prayer is just one of the tools she is using to demonstrate her concern about you.
It’s emotional blackmail, thats what it is. The problem is that it’s working, this is what I get for keeping them in my life. It’s crunch time at school, guess I just want a hypothetical miracle
No, your own actions are your own responsibility. You don’t have to join up with any catholic community if you don’t want to, even if your mother goes to church every day.
You would be wrong to break away from your family, instead just make it clear that you aren’t interested in their religious views. If they break away from you, when they look back and ask why they will possibly see that it was them and not you that abandoned them.
“They have free food and there is always a debate to be had.” And beer? Reason enough for me to go there.
Please, let it be a parody!
Anyway, I don’t understand the logic -even considering they seem to be christian fundamentalists- of a prayer tree. It’s God going to do something, based on the number of people who asks him? Why aren’t they praying for world peace and the end of famine?
And that woman should have more Faith: suposedly God answers -positively- all our prayers, so her daughter will come back to the cult. If not… maybe her daughter has choosed well.
This is nothing. See the link below:-
http://www.alternet.org/story/140221/
Oh. Em. Ef. Gee.
You know how we sometimes make fun of religious folks for refusing to face things that are uncomfortable? You know how they look at reality and stick their fingers in their ears and yell “LALALALALALALA ICANTHEARYOU ICANTHEARYOU LALALALALALA!!!!”
I just had to do that to this article. First I checked for a April 1 release date. Then I scanned it for a “From the pages of The Onion”, or something. ANYTHING.
Then I just had to run from the page screaming LALALALALALALA…..
Someone PLEASE debunk this story, so I can someday sleep again….
I had same reaction. PLEASE DEBUNK THIS. I hated Bush and all, and I am an atheist, BUT OMFG!!!
Unfortunately, Dark Matter’s link (below) is dated Sept 21, 2007! How did I not know about this?
Try this link:-
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/21/52726/1703
LALALALALALALA!!! LA! LALALAlala…*Sob*
Wait a second… the phone prayer tree didn’t work? That seems odd.
Oh, it worked. It’s just that God is an atheist, and he also wants her to be an atheist.
God’s a freshman?
Hahahahahahaha!
You know, there is some sense in that. If God were like the xians claim he is and wanted people to have free will, then it follows that he would want them to challenge authority and be atheists.
Or he’s just a dick.
There is no reception in heaven. God should switch his cell company so he won’t be missing all these prayer trees.
He should probably switch to Verizon.
I like the irony of the sigh that guys is holding in the picture. Who’s the moron?
And of that of my previous post.
*sigh*
I live in the US, and therefore know it isn’t a parody.
Would that it were. I enjoy Margo Howard, and find her a sensible, intelligent writer with good ideas and a good sense of humor.
Holy shit.
I feel so badly for this girl. She’s, what, nineteen years old? So she’s finally gotten the information she needs to start questioning her religion. That doesn’t mean she’s full of demons. This is a young woman who is just coming into herself – becoming independent, figuring out what she wants to do with her life – and part of that means deciding whether the religion she’s given her childhood to is worth the rest of her life as well. This sort of questioning – of herself, of her parents, and of her beliefs – is an incredibly important phase in her maturity.
By insisting that she reconvert immediately and without question, her parents are essentially demanding that she remain subservient to their opinions. They do not only want her to reconvert; they want a permanent child, programmed to believe without question everything that she hears. This is, after all, the only way to save her soul.
Unfortunately – but perhaps fortunately for the daughter – they are going about it completely the wrong way. By shunning her and setting up elaborate – and doomed-to-fail “prayer trees”, they are helping her to realize the veil of mistruths and self-delusion that she has been brought up under. By refusing to converse on a rational level, they reveal that there is nothing truly rational about their religion.
And, quite sadly, by doing this to her now – during a tumultuous and frightening period of her life when she is no doubt emotionally vulnerable – they are damaging their chances of ever reconciling. Meet your child with fear and antagonism – no matter what the problem is – and I guarantee you they will never trust you completely again.
Actually I have know a few people that see demons in everything from shadows to why people get mad. There are many smaller churches around here where I live that the members see demons in anything that effects their lives in a negative way. I didn’t find the attitude of the parents as anything to far fetched but it is delusional as I see it.
The parents were raised to believe that living in fear is how one should live and they can’t understand any other way of living.
…insisting that she reconvert immediately and without question….
…demanding that she remain subservient….
…they want a permanent child….
…believe without question….
And I would add, …obey authority….
These statements are representative of authoritarian social attitudes. The parents expect this of their daughter because it is the role they have accepted for themselves within their community. Adopting this approach makes one highly vulnerable to manipulation. A prayer tree isn’t just about praying. Is it surprising that they are looking for ways to manipulate her instead of listening and talking to her?
I also think this ties in to posters who “declare the truth” without substantively responding to critique. We’ve seen this social personality type in various and creative ways.
I really, really, really, really, really wish I was shocked by this story.
But I’m not.
Edit: I really wish I didn’t find this story believable.
I’ve seen this doozy before – the rest of the internets seem to think it might be a Poe.
I’ve seen this before and I always got the feeling that it was a fake. The writer uses some evangelical terminology and cliches, ‘ prayer tree’ and then switches to Catholicism, getting a priest for an exorcism. I’ve heard of evangelicals performing exorcisms before but its always with their pastor not a priest.
It seems like someone either made a ridiculous mash-up of crazy christian parents or an editor tried to reign in some sense to an all-caps loony email that is typical of the crazy religious. To be honest I doubt this kind of person would be writing to an advice column anyways, this is the kind of thing that someone like that would try to keep as in-house (or in-church) as possible.
Even if it was a fake at least the response was spot on.
There wouldn’t be any contradiction if the parents are Catholic charismatics.
Scary-as yet hilarious. And I’m sure Margo meant to say “meaningless” instead of “meaningful”.
What I still fail to grasp is why religious types feel questioning one’s beliefs (especially if one was raised into those beliefs instead of choosing them) is a bad thing. Surely if you start wondering whether your belief in God (or whatever) is true, and you end up deciding that it is, your faith will be stronger for it? It just seems proof that religious groups are aware of how much bullshit they’re spreading, and that if people are allowed to think about it for even a moment, they’d see straight through the facade.
It’s a direction of thought that is pretty much alien to most people on this board. Taking the parent in question as an example (regardless of the question of her true existence), the mother and (supposedly) father have ABSOLUTE CONVICTION of the truth of their faith. Thus, they see any questioning of the ABSOLUTE TRUTH as moving away from god, and assume that anyone who doesn’t accept the ABSOLUTE TRUTH as being either blind, stupid or evil. Questioning, in and of itself, becomes a wrong, with only blind acceptance being a good thing.
I’ve encountered it in real life. Quite frightening, actually.
Another religious parent freaking out over an atheist kid. Doesn’t really surprise me. What’s really interesting about this is the whole “calling the FBI” aspect of it.
Clearly Dad thinks there is something so unAmerican about being an atheist that the FBI would want to know about it. I suspect this thought process isn’t all that uncommon. After all Bush I basically said atheists aren’t really American. If your president feels that way, how much of a stretch is it to think the FBI would want to know about it.
And if the FBI were interested, what would their course of action be? Take her into custody, deport her, execute her? Is that the effect parents would be after, or are they after the institution and some of the people the daughter got mixed up with. Upon some thinking, well yeah, some people are this dumb. It could be a fake letter. It could be a fake letter someone made up, or something embellished in a real letter or compilation of real letters to pull an audience. But I still think some people are this stupid. They might actually consider something like this to be an abduction of their daughter, and call the FBI on those other folks, which makes more sense. It just wasn’t elaborated in the letter what they think the FBI would need to do about this if god already gave his answer.
Why isn’t anyone here screaming, “Show me the proof!”? This comes from a woman’s advice column that publishes advise to anonymous people that personally submit their queries directly to her. How do you know the columnist is legit? How do you know the query isn’t a crank? An advise column is intended to be outlandish, the print version of Jerry Springer. Why isn’t he referenced in this blog? Oh yeah, he has no credibility.
Also, Daniel, if I didn’t know any better I would think you were trying to intentionally mislead people with the included photo – say it ain’t so. For one thing, you’ve cropped the photo to exclude other signs that my seem less relevant to your story – http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/109/t/000909.html and the spelling mistake is likely intentional as part of a spoof protest – http://unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=1590 In short the photo has nothing to do with the story.
YEs, and it’s not like that photo has been used ALL OVER THE INTERNET, including by Daniel on at least a dozen other stories, is it? Get a brain, morOn.
I don’t think anyone thought this photo was taken at the scene and that wasn’t my point. The point is that it is intentionally misleading telling you what to think before you even read the post. Also, take away the photo and you have a post referencing and commenting on an advice column. The horoscope column will be next I imagine. Maybe this is what Daniel means when he says, “Read widely with an open mind.”
Where is the documentation of the call to the FBI? Where is the FBI press release? There is no outside documentation. Any story needs to have at least two sources before you can consider whether it could be true. Without documentation this story defaults to “not true”.
Fair enough. By that standard, please provide me outside documentation and at least two reliable third-party sources for Genesis. Oh no, that defaults to “not true” too, doesn’t it?
When you are considering evidence for the validity of ancient documents, most scholars would concede that in some cases you have only one source available. You have to consider that ancient historians were not writing to a modern audience, so they weren’t writing to modern journalistic or scientific criteria. Perhaps you would consider corroborating evidence of a different sort such as two major world religions, who don’t particularly like each other, both vouch for the events in the life of Abraham. Many cultures in the world have a flood myth or a creation myth that begins with the world covered in water. This really just scratches the surface, but if you’re really interested in the validity or invalidity of Genesis and the Bible as a whole, look into the topic of Biblical textual criticism. People have been asking these questions for centuries and scholars have been hashing it out for just as long so its not something I can do justice in this venue.
LOL. Ancient historians were Herotodus, Thucydides, Plutarch, etc. Paul of Tarsus was not a historian.
An important part of the contribution of many modern historians is the verification or dismissal of earlier historical accounts through reviewing newly discovered sources and recent scholarship or through parallel disciplines like archaeology.
Are you aware that a global flood could not possibly have happened? Evidence presented in favor of flood geology has been evaluated, refuted and unequivocally dismissed by the scientific community, which considers such flood geology to be pseudoscience.
Perhaps that would be meaningful if they did not share a common origin.
PS: While flood myths are common to practically every culture on the planet, most of them are significantly different in detail.
PPS: The abundance of various conflicting flood stories is evidence that they are all mythical, not that they are all variants of some truth.
What is a historian? Is a cave artist a historian? I would say yes. The people that you mentioned are arriving a little late at the game. Yes they are occupational historians, but where did they get their information from? Does someone have to claim to be a historian to be credible?
I never said Paul was a historian, nor would I. His books were almost entirely instructional.
As far as a global flood is concerned, maybe you should broaden your horizons a little. Science provides us with the answers to many things, but not everything. I guess you have to weigh for yourself – almost every culture on earth having some memory of a global flood vs science providing little evidence for said flood.
As far as the common link with Abraham goes – why do you think the Arab nations believe they descended from Abraham? I wouldn’t consider myself an expert in this field but I would suggest there are genealogies to back up their claim.
If you have 20 witnesses to a car accident, you will likely have 20 different versions of that event, some of them directly conflicting. Now tell all those people to tell all their children and their children’s children, etc for a few thousand years, hop in your time machine and see how much their stories resemble the initial event. Chances are the only thing they will have in common is “there was a car accident”.
Then you’d be wrong. A historian is an expert on history. Giving a historical account does not make you a historian, except in a very loose sense of the word that does not confer an implication of reliability, which is not what you meant. It is not a legal move to say “the authors of the Bible were historians because they wrote about history” and then “the authors of the Bible should be taken seriously because they were historians”.
I think you misunderstood. Science has not provided little evidence for the flood, science has provided an abundance of evidence across many disciplines that the flood could not have happened and did not happen.
Here is a simple objection: If the great flood were saltwater, it would have killed all the freshwater fish; if it were freshwater, it would have killed all the saltwater fish.
Another: There is not enough water on the planet to flood the globe. All the atmospheric water (between the planet’s surface and space) would account for about one inch of water worldwide. Submerging Mount Ararat in forty days would require forty feet of water per day, about 20,000 times more water than exists in the air. Where did the water come from and where did it go?
If you have 20 witnesses to a car accident, you will likely have 20 different versions of that event, some of them directly conflicting. Now tell all those people to tell all their children and their children’s children, etc for a few thousand years, hop in your time machine and see how much their stories resemble the initial event. Chances are the only thing they will have in common is “there was a car accident”.
This analogy would be more accurate if the accounts described two planes crashing, four boats crashing, three trucks crashing, two pedestrians walking into each other, five geese colliding, etc., and you concluded that the accounts support your story that there was a two-car collision involving an ’85 Honda Accord and a ’94 Saturn SL1.
Ack, messed up the quote tags. At the risk of appearing to spam comments, reposting it:
This analogy would be more accurate if the accounts described two planes crashing, four boats crashing, three trucks crashing, two pedestrians walking into each other, five geese colliding, etc., and you concluded that the accounts support your story that there was a two-car collision involving an ‘85 Honda Accord and a ‘94 Saturn SL1.
So according to you, it’s not reasonable to regard any of the oral or written records before the professional historians showed up? That means your history cuts off around 500 BC.
Once again your trusty science has failed you as it doesn’t bother reporting conflicting evidence. For example, what about fossils that are vertical, stretching through multiple layers of sediment? Were they sitting upright, waiting for millions of years to become covered in dirt in order to become fossilized?
I’m not sure, but I think tests have already been done that suggest fish can adapt to either within a few generations. There are already many species that can inhabit either, such as salmon that spawn up rivers. Also, if we are talking about a flood on a young earth, as in the Biblical account, the oceans would not have been salty yet, all that developed after the flood.
How do you know? The topography of the earth could have been dramatically different at that time, shallower oceans and smaller mountains.
“Also, if we are talking about a flood on a young earth, as in the Biblical account, the oceans would not have been salty yet, all that developed after the flood.”
Are you a young earth creationist?
If not, so you should consider that humankind hasn’t been here since earth was created. We know that. When we go some time in the past, we don’t find human fossils. we find human-like fossils. And if we go even backwards, we will find that apes also dissapear. Then we will find that mammals dissapears.
The point is, since humankind has existed, sea water has been salt. So for the great flood to have happened with human witnesses, sea water was salt then. Moreover…
“How do you know? The topography of the earth could have been dramatically different at that time, shallower oceans and smaller mountains.”
We know pretty well earth’s topography as far as some million years ago. Mountains arise and then get eroded, doing them smoother. Mount Ararat formation is estimated in Neogene, more concretely around 5 million years ago. And not, in that time there weren’t humans around.
“Once again your trusty science has failed you as it doesn’t bother reporting conflicting evidence. ”
Yes, we can trust science, better to trust a book. You have forgotten than Mount Ararat was a volcano, and that’s a coincident point with “Lord of the rings” volcanoe… I’m pretty sure we will find Orc’s fossils there.
“For example, what about fossils that are vertical, stretching through multiple layers of sediment?”
Can you provide references of that being common arund a geologic period? Anyway, we indeed can found fossils in vertical, but that’s usually because the layers of sediment are vertical, because of a geological fault.
Regional floods are pretty common. At the end of the last glatiation, vast costal areas where indeed overflown. Flood myths could be related to those events. But nothing like a worldwide flood.
You should keep in mind too that some pyramids were built before the period the Bible attributes to the universal flood. We don’t have egyptian accounts of that flood, neither scratches on the pyramids because of it.
I am telling you that I have roughly the same level of certainty that the American Civil War did happen, as that the Great Flood did not happen. You clearly did not read the link. Not that my conviction alone should convince you, but doesn’t it at least make you curious? Some more examples:
Zoology (general): Could animals have traveled from elsewhere? If the animals traveled from other parts of the world, many of them would have faced extreme difficulties. Some animals, like sloths and penguins, can’t travel overland very well at all. Other animals, such as koalas and many insects, require a special diet; how did they bring it along? Many island-dwelling animals would be easy prey for other animals on the mainland; when mainland species like rats or pigs are introduced to islands, they drive many indigenous species to extinction.
Zoology (ichthyology): If the flood water was fresh, it would have killed all the saltwater fish. If the flood water was salty, it would have killed all the freshwater fish.
Geology: There is worldwide agreement between “apparent” geological eras and several different (independent) radiometric and nonradiometric dating methods. There are many geological features that took millions of years to form, and would have been destroyed by a global flood, such as the polar ice caps.
History: There is no mention of the flood in the records of Egyptian, Chinese, or Mesopotamian civilizations, which existed at the time. These records are independent of, but supported by, dating methods such as dendrochronology and carbon-14. There is also no water damage on the Great Pyramid of Cheops and many other ancient structures.
Pathology: Many diseases can’t survive in hosts other than humans. Many others can only survive in humans and in short-lived arthropod vectors. The list includes typhus, measles, smallpox, polio, gonorrhea, and syphilis. For these diseases to have survived the Flood, they must all have infected one or more of the eight people aboard the ark.
Genetics: There is too much genetic diversity in modern plants and animals for them to have spawned from a single pair, or seven pairs, a few thousand years ago.
Paleontology: A flood would have washed over everything equally, so terrestrial organisms should be roughly as abundant as aquatic ones in the fossil record. Yet shallow marine environments account for by far the most fossils.
Dendrochronology: Tree ring records go back more than 10,000 years, with no evidence of a catastrophe during that time.
Meteorology: All the atmospheric water on Earth would account for about an inch of water worldwide. Where did all the rainwater come from? Where did it go?
Shipbuilding: Wood is not the best material for shipbuilding. It is not enough that a ship be built to hold together; it must also be sturdy enough that the changing stresses don’t open gaps in its hull. Wood is simply not strong enough to prevent separation between the joints, especially in the heavy seas that the ark would have encountered. The longest wooden ships in modern seas are about 300 feet, and these require reinforcing with iron straps and leak so badly they must be constantly pumped. The ark was 450 feet long [Gen. 6:15]; could an ark that size be made seaworthy?
The Great Flood myth was clearly written by someone who didn’t know what a penguin was, or where rain comes from, or that China existed; someone who didn’t know that a worldwide flood is impossible.
Despite this evidence, you are still open to the possibility that the Great Flood occurred; yet you are skeptical of the claim (made in a verifiably real advice column, which is what this article is about) that some parents response to their daughter’s atheism was extreme and irrational? Really?
Dude, SUPERevolution
“Where is the documentation of the call to the FBI? Where is the FBI press release?”
?
Apologies, I thought it had mentioned they actually did call the FBI. Apparently the fictitious characters didn’t make it that far.
I hope that’s a fake too. Some of the commenters have said the same. I know that’s pretty difficult to believe in my country. But the fact is, american’s here don’t think that’s impossible between his fundie neighbours.
“Si non é vero, é ben trovatto” then
Sorry, more explicitely, I don’t think Daniel here is saying that person is real. It may be a Poe too. But you really would be so surprised if it would be real?
1) You are right, it may not have happened at all, but I have no reason to think it didn’t. I’ve had people email me with stories similar to this about their parents. So it’s plausible, but I suppose someone could have been writing this as a joke. Your point? This could be said about any news story anywhere.
2) You’ve got to be kidding. The photo is an internet meme, and it’s hilarious.
3) I suggest you chill out and enjoy life — you come off sounding pretty tightly wound! You must be a Jesus worshipper.
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