Angels on your body?! Even I hadn’t heard that one before.
I don’t say this often, but these folks really are batshit crazy.
Comments
Trackbacks
-
[...] Angels on your body. Posted on June 27, 2009 by Grommel Et ginn awer mëll Läit. [...]
A reasonable blog on atheism, religion, science and skepticism
Follow Patheos
Atheist:
Subscribe through RSS
Follow Patheos on
Faith Channels
Religion Library
Topics
Resources
Copyright 2008-2012, Patheos. All rights reserved. Terms of Service | Patheos Privacy Policy
“Batshit crazy” might not even cover it. I don’t know how these people go through every day in a constant state of delusion.
Practice…practice….practice.
It’s quite easy… Look at the people who believe in Horoscopes, Numerology, Homeopathy, Tarot……….etc. ad infinitum…
Angels on your body! lol !!!
I’ll use that from now on :)
Crazy fools …
“I annoint my car with oil before every journey and asked God to send his battling angels to protect me!”
How does it affect your gas milage?
I thought it was to prevent car accidents?? But I’m thinking a dash of defensive driving might work too, dunno.
Is it just me or do all these good Texan Christians seem terrified of reality?
My god, it really pains and upsets me to see people so incredibly paranoid and brainwashed. It’s really frightening.
Hah, I just wrote down “my god” without even thinking about it. That really shows how ingrained into our culture this is. I don’t really mind the cultural aspect though. Makes things interesting.
If anyone asks me why I use the word “God” so much since I’m an atheist, I’d just reply “Because I’m using his name in vain.” I figure it would piss off a fundie someday.
I try to invoke Zeus instead, as often as possible, but swearing “by God” is definitely an ingrained habit. I have to fight the urge (not hard) to say grace when I sit down to a meal, and I haven’t done that for years… being raised a certain way sure has a strong impact.
I took care of that “grace” thing by taking a second or two to be thankful that I have a meal to eat when so many poeple do not. I went through some pretty hard times in university, so I don’t take food for granted anymore!
Wow when the people started falling over… wow… “I USED to be a homosexual”… that’s pretty awful to have to restrain your sexual desires because of popular decree…
The anointing oil for her car is no different at all from any ‘primitive’ tribal belief in witchcraft and magic.
Of course you’ve got to always bypass the intellect before even trying to get Jesus into your heart. Because just answering when you ask would hurt your free will. Unlike a tsunami, which doesn’t conflict with your free will at all.
That nice witnessing man who says that Jesus is going to be there really soon is maybe dead by now, one of the many millions who have waited for naught, spent years and decades of their lives not reading, learning and instead waiting for calls on the phone, and talking about only one thing.
All these methods seem a little desperate – avoid the intellect, just profess, just say the words. Pick up the people who are really at the lowest point they can get, where any offer is more than they have, even if it’s just company for a few minutes. If they really help the homeless, getting them a home and a job, that’s a thousand times more than folding hands or putting your big hair in front of the cameras. And it’s worth some respect. Not all believers are hypocrites.
I think not even all of those wealthy televangelists are hypocrites – it appears that some are really just not aware how much more than everyone else they have, living in their kitschy porcelain-and-gold world, taking it literally for granted.
Getting people in a crowd, in a captive audience for hours, in conditions probably of relative heat, dehydration and undersugaring to fall into euphoria and hysteria is easy. You could yell anything at them – preachers of voodoo, Islam and I don’t know how many more religions use the same techniques. Many of the great prophets in various religions wandered the wilderness, the desert, lived as hermits and ascetics, fasted and abstained from fulfilling basic physical needs. And then came the voices, the visions, the tongues and the demons.
To worship sparks of a brain.
Humanity.
Um…. Not to be pernickety, but just, you knoiw, for future refference:
“Undersugaring” = Hypoglycaemia (lit. low blood sugar).
Kthxbai!
Srsly. It happen laek dat.
Thanks, I had the word somewhere in my mental dictionary, but I just couldn’t find it and was too lazy to look it up :) I notice that English uses many more latin and greek terms when talking about anatomy and medicine than German does. I’d guess that almost every American and Brit would instantly know what ‘diarrhea’ means for example, whereas I’d suspect only about 5% of Germans would.
What do Germans call it? “Mein shaet ist vater-ish”?
IMO if you’re not saying “batshit crazy” very often, you’re doing it wrong! ;-)
This is typical here in Dallas.
I felt a bit worried for the couple who were living on the street, who seemed to be so grateful that anyone, even weird cultists, gave them any attention at all. Maybe some sane people should be ‘witnessing’ so that people like that get some respect and help without catching crazy as well. Anyone know any good songs?
The homeless couple mis-took it for real care and concern. The truth is that they want to raise the numbers of the converted for every night, so by ensuring that they became christian BEFORE they got the money, 2 more converts was pretty much a sure thing. Wish atheists could entertain or help out people like this, without an agenda, but out of real care.
“do you want a joint or a pot?” lol.
Daniel, were you that kind of christian?
Maybe the reason the first Bush was more rational then his son was because he spend less time in Texas.
Don’t we have some very intelligent atheist contributors on Daniel’s threads? I thought we did – I had to re-think some of my attitudes toward Texans lol.
Sorry, I meant “intelligent atheist contributors from Texas”.
Louis is fab.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSFrNOnvtls&feature=related
I don’t know how Louis kept a straight face through all of this!
I don’t think he finds it particularly funny; that’s how he’s able to get normally recalcitrent people to open up – he’s non-judgemental with them. If they’re worthy of mocking, he lets them mock themselves without contributing himself.
These poor people – they are so sincere in their beliefs! And they have absolutely no awareness of how insane it all is! How can they waste life like that? Living for an afterlife we have no idea will even happen?
“I USED to live in the bars… gay bars!”
This video was awesome. I’d never heard of Louis Theroux before, he’s awesome. Great sense of humor and really intelligent. It was like watching an anthropologist inserting himself into a native population.
It was a fascinating anthropological exercise. He seemed able to suspend disbelief, at least while in front of them. Was he really tongue-in-cheek? I know he’s done other sketches on religion too.
The youtube link posted above has him doing the same type of thing with the fucking Phelps family of “God hates fags” fame.
He thought they were nutcases. Watch his face when they look away and the camera is on him — he’s in the middle of a looney bin, and he knows it.
Anthropological exercise is the correct word!!
My wife and I watching this whole thing last night, and it was awesome in a sad way.
Has anyone here ever tried handing out Atheistic literature….?
I have thought about going downtown and peacefully offering “Atheist Tracts” to people. Of course the results would probably be a mix of reactions from people.
I use to do “street witnessing” when I was a believer, so I know the risks involved.
Has anyone here ever tried it?
Is there any point to doing so?
I discussed this with my boyfriend, who lives in the bible belt in Atlanta, Georgia. He was tired of getting religious tracts all the time, and having people yell out “The lord is coming – are you ready?” Nobody ever does anything about it – they just let these people preach and shourt.
But. He thought if he would shout out “The lord isn’t coming – there is no god”, he would probably be arrested immediately.
Certain parts of the world are not yet ready for atheists. Too much mis-information, baggage on that word. Maybe if a tract was written out very carefully, so as not to alert the reader that it’s atheist literature, there might be a chance of getting away with it. But then we’re stooping to the same low level as the crazies. I don’t know – I’ve thought about plastering people’s cars with atheist information while they are in church. Whatcha think?
I can’t remember where I read that report about the witness group at Spring Break (was it linked from this site maybe?), but the empirical evidence suggests that barely anyone even reads the tracts, and at most a handful of people will seriously consider what they’re hearing in a whole week. No, I don’t think it’s worth it. Ministries sell the tracts they print to believers who are credulous enough to buy them and think they make a difference.
I just looked up what they charge for the tracts. For example a pack of 100 of those million dollar bills costs $6. Commenters at Christian blogs say they hand out hundreds every week. There are hundreds (thousands?) of people witnessing in the US every weekend. That means that from these tracts alone, which require zero creativity once they have the basic template plus a few minutes of verse and apologetics copypasta, a ministry can make thousands of dollars a week, tax free(?).
I actually thought “The Familly” were okay (though I had to out aside preconceptions to do with Charles Manson) and at least entertained while they proseletyzed. Plus, they actually gave that homeless couple some money and offered to help them find a place to live and jobs, etc. I know that religion is no prerequisite for charity, but these did seem like good people. And I wanna get “flirty fished” by the brunette.
It seemed like she was using that tactic the whole time to me.
including inside the car and at home.
I love Louis Theroux… hadn’t seen this one before. Two favorite moments… 1. The make-up guy (and the entire make-up/getting ready for the TV show clip) and 2. The moment he asks the minister if perhaps the reactions are not the holy spirit, but the human psyche latching on to something that feeds some psychological need. The minister actually pauses, as if he’s never heard this before, and his answer is less than convincing.
Sad to say…I was raised in this shit. It took me a long time to get over it, not because I am stupid, but because I was denied knowledge and I was clueless. Even now the scars remain.
Y’Know… The GoTel ministries guy might be just as deluded as anyone, but I’ll be darned if he doesn’t seem like a really, really nice guy. He’s what some of my neighbors here would call “a good soul”.
It takes a special person to play through all those “you suck” and “F You” voice-mails and not be the slightest bit phased.
lol!! at 41 min, it looked like they where getting tazed. Don’t taz me bro don’t taz me! ahahha
Angels on his body? *ugh* *shudder*
Angels don’t do anything about fixing a beer gut; looks like you gotta do it yourself.