Have you ever personally had dealings with the religiously insane?

I have. They are in my family. My brother is one of them, we don't speak anymore. If you have ever talked to one of these persons, perhaps you know like me exactly how easily manipulated they are. My brother is similar in personality to fred phelps, the funeral picketing idiot.

If the religiously insane had their way, untethered by state restrictions, well, we'd all be seriously fucked.

Some will say I'm way off base here, or that my feelings are skewed because my brother is such a jerk, but, believe me, you can hear them call into cspan, see what they write online, they are seriously insane, and on the edge of total panic and this makes them dangerous. No kidding, dangerous to our nation. Dangerous to the whole world.

Hyperbole? Broad generalization? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

This is America--and Reagan put the mentally ill on the street. Bush put them in the Justice Department. There's no escaping the brainwshed.

I've got them in my family, and not five minutes ago I got a knock at the door from some Witnesses. Dangerous, hateful, and harmful. Religious zealotry is the at the core of all of the world's problems.

Some of them in very influential positions, too.

I haven't really encountered the people who see Jesus' face in a forkful of spaghetti on a Pizza Hut billboard ad, like that one guy in Atlanta.

But. 'Have gone to battle with many who want mandatory prayers in school, the Ten Commandments posted every 20 feet of public space, certain books banned, and so forth -- the hyper-moralist bunch who want to denounce and deliver consequences to "sinners."

A most unpleasant bunch of folks.

My parents, my brother, and some extended family.

I started a thread here awhile back explaining what it's like to be raised in a fundamental Baptist, extreme RW household - when I was a born skeptic and never believed any of what they wanted me to believe.

I cut off ties with my parents in 2006 - my stress level was so high in dealing with them, that my doc wanted me to start taking anti-anxiety drugs just to be able to handle them. Um, no.

The evangelical right has a disturbing stranglehold on this country - and it's people like my parents who keep it thriving.

I have one cousin who is in CA. When those cult members died, I called my Mama to see if he was one of them.

That was the group that thought God was coming to take them on a spaceship or something. I have some very religious

relatives who I can still talk to. Then there are the wingnuts who want to save the world in a biblical sense - me included.

I avoid them like the plague! (I am not snarking on CA. That was just where this particular group was.):crazy:

I really think they believe the devil left me in place of the real

child my parents should have gotten. BTW my parents were religious,

and I know they wondered too. However, they were good parents. It was

the rest of the rest of the family who were really nuts.:evilgrin:

I was raised by fundamentalists who hated anyone of a different religion or color. I have a brother who is as nutty as they come. We basically never see each other, and that's good, because he thinks I'm going to hell and I think he's a nut. They think they're God's chosen and that's the end of the subject.

trying to make everyone believe that life begins when the sperm enters the ova.

life begins when the new born takes the first breath and lives to take the second breath and third. and for the next 24 hrs. to see that the new born continues breathing. if successful then life can be said to have begun for that particular new born.

the religiously insane hate women.

Otherwise, yikes, watch out. They are Catholic, but REALLY hard-core - almost like fundie Catholics.

liberal Democrat until she was "born again". I asked her if she believed that Jesus was a liberal. She said "Oh yes, He was the biggest liberal of all time! But the Bible doesn't say that we should believe the things He believed, only that we accept Him as our Saviour because he died for our sins".

Oh, and on adoption (she was VERY anti-choice) she said "No, I would NEVER adopt a child. You don't want some stranger's kid coming into your own family and polluting it".

:crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

Then she married a zealot & within a few years, she too was a zealot. They had trouble getting pregnant & I asked if they considered adoption. "Oh we would never adopt! We might get a homosexual child!" They went on to have three children of their own & I wonder what they will do if one of their children is gay.

the Bible doesn't say that we should believe the things He believed

Jesus to Simon - "Feed my sheep."

Also, 1 John 4:10 (http://multilingualbible.com/1_john/4-10.htm)

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

I am trying to gently meet them somewhere in the middle, but they are firmly entrenched in their religious fervor.

Frankly, I think that fanaticism in ANY form is just creepy as hell--irrespective of how it manifests. Fanatics are NOT limited only to the subject of religion and it is dangerous to think so.

Yes, I'll grant you that some of our higher profile wackaloons have been driven by some form of religious fanaticism, but I personally think that Coulter and Limbaugh are pretty damn creepy and what they are doing has NOTHING to do with a religion except maybe the religion of hate.


Now, having said all that, I know a man who lost a hand 50 years ago in a farm accident. His church tells him that if his faith is "strong enough" that hand will re-grow. After about ten years in that church he still has one hand, and e's still working to "strengthen his faith." These are the same folks who are running around talking about The Rapture solving the problem of Global Warming and saying Obama is the Anti-Christ...

:eyes:

I doubt they are any more dangerous than a Weekly World News Story about Bat Boy, and they are probably slightly less credible.


Regards!


Laura

Social, political and business cover.

Serial adultery, theft.... Hell, run down the Ten Commandments and the only one I'm not aware they've broken is "Thou Shalt not Murder."

Unlike the truly religiously insane, they believe in nothing but sex and wealth.

so I have to work with a few. I'm pretty open about my non-belief and every damned one of the uber-religious thinks their mission is to show me the way to salvation.

Recently a woman who has been trying to save my soul for an easy two years now, showed me her desktop wallpaper; a picture from the Hubble. "That's God's eye" she told me.

I said "no, that's a nebula."

"What's a nebula?"


Not only easily manipulated like you say but also not the sharpest tools in the shed either.

I think many of them are in the south. My parents were sort of fanatical in their early days. My father stole a pornographic movie from a movie house because it was bad. My mother joined the Catholic religion to be a rebel. My aunt was a Catholic nun. I think she was genuinely spiritual, but also very stunted in her world views. I think religion has great value, but people often misuse it.

I was thinking about it, and I remembered I have experienced religious oppression in the workplace, working with "Christians". One woman was very very popular and she thought paganism was evil and Harry Potter etc. I felt like she would make a big problem for me if I tried to debate it with her. But then workplace is always full of conflicts like racial prejudice, bully bosses, sexual harassment, etc, etc.

We have a lady in our church chior that seemed sane enough prior to GWB. At this point she's just full on whackjob and the rest of the chior desperately wishes she'd quit.

I live in Athens and there are still more than enough religious whackjobs even here

Religion is a mental illness.

I even used to be one , once upon a time when I was young and completely (almost) brainwashed by the "church"
although I always felt like something was "off" and slightly embarrasing about the whole thing. I am a happy non-conflicted Athiest now, and have been for years

friday night hubby and i talking about future and he told me that he didnt see i could live here much longer. woirking on 20 yrs. he thinks i will be nutty, well more nutty before long. and unknown to me, he has been looking at future and a way and when he will be able to adjust life ot get out of this area.

i have HUGE expereince with the fundies in many ways the last decade. i see them naked. and it isnt so awfully pretty. we embrace nakedness. not always a good thing.

my brother who values education and especially for his only daughter has totally fucked up her future because he has bought into the rw bullshit that public school is evil. here we sit at the beginning of a school yr and after two years of failur at homeschool she should be going into 10th grade adn there is no place for her. not in public, private and all homkeschool has failed.

now being the true rw'er that he is, all the blame is on the liberals, when reality, is he was conditioned to fear, allowed it to interfer with his parenting and good decision making and sits in a mess

i have lots of examples

I live in SC, only because it's cheap and we are living on a fixed income. My youngest daughter is started college in two weeks and my youngest son is in 10 grade at the public school. I never had these kids involved in any organized religion here. Which means my kids, and myself are all excluded from lots of social events. I never had a need to get around these people, especially the women. I always felt bad for my kids but I didn't want them to be brainwashed. I wanted them to become of a certain age and then they can decide what works for them. I'm not anti-religion but just weary of other humans telling other humans want to think.

I'm also planing to move out of here in a few years. We are lucky that my husbands income travels with him but I really shouldn't be here. My youngest daughter sees herself in NY by aged 21 and my youngest son wants to move somewhere up north also. Possibly with the prices dropping a bit in the housing market, we can finally look into it.

I understand your isolation. I have chosen to be that way, for now, but I would like to find a nice group of friends that accept you the way you are and still enjoy your company. I find that difficult here, they all want to change you. I'm fine just the way I am-thanks.

i am from calif. christian. not fearful of christian cause i am one. not rejecting teaching or anything else. not knowing the fundie i naively and innocently walked my lambs into slaughter. lol lol. but i was never sorry for their experience. 6 yrs, starting prek they were a part of this "family". what a lesson it was for them to walk in true christ lite, turning other cheek, recognizing and seeing the hypocrisy in love and understanding of their conditioned ahte and fear..... and tehn, when it got too bad, i pulled them out, llol, nov of 2004.

we have not walked around these people and even four years later my kids stand amongst, are a part and liked. i was always liked. i would say to them, you hate me too? oh that would send them into a quandry cause.... i was so nice and full of love and how do you point the finger and say evil when so clearly not. they would say, exception, all but you, yada yada.

but i am tired.

i jsut cannot do it anymore.

In Tennessee? Surrounded by them, am related to them, and they just don't understand why I won't attend family reunions, etc.

A few are becoming less insane, but too many are still full on insane. The types who believe that the newspaper is an instrument of Satan because the paper's printing the truth about the 'god chosen' Dimson** and republicans. The ones who can't accept the truth about Dimson** and why he's the most hated man on the planet and give the token, 'I'll have to ask the preacher about that or see what the members of my Bible study class have to say.', are just plain nuts. :crazy:

Practices law before the Atlanta U.S. District Court.

You tell me.

As Sam Kinnison would call it "the buckle of the bible belt". Home of Oral Roberts and numerous other Fundie icons. Anybody that prays for war to bring on Armageddon so they can be "raptured" is someone to be at least viewed with suspicion. It's one of the reasons I moved away when I got the chance.

I try to stay as far away from them as possible.

Stalked and harassed for three years by a fundy religious cult who believed I was possessed by the devil after I'd posted some observations about them online. They had the political access and financial resources to make it happen with impunity - no doubt emboldened and enabled by the newly repressive political climate in Amerika these days.

:thumbsdown:

concluding that because I don't believe in fairy tales any more she has to pay the price. She wouldn't elaborate just said you won't see me in your house again. I said no problem and went about my business! There's more to it but that is how it ended.She wacko imo.

Hell I had one dude I used to work with who tried to convert the whole damn office.

I used to go to a born-again church but I basically dropped out because I couldnt take it anymore. That place was so damn depressing - everyone there had serious self-loathing issues. I swear every one I met at that church was like "Oh yeah if I wasnt religious, I'd do lots of drugs, drink my ass off, bang lots of hookers and so on". :eyes:

Yeah, these are some scary motherfuckers.

so, yes.

There's one next Saturday, but I'll probably miss it. Fundie cousins who I haven't seen in 3 years. I guess I got tired of talking to people who believe they're never wrong.