Lupis Noctum

Just curious as to other people's methods for dealing with this particular social ill.

I've lived in a couple of places that were plagued by various jesus cultists banging on my door way too early to hand me a tract and attempt to spread their mental virii. Got to the point that I kept a full bucket of water by the door to cool the fire in their bellies. Between that, and answering the door naked, I finally earned a spot on the no-go maps of the various local cults, and rarely get bothered.

Anyone else have stories or tactics to share?

Marriage as a general institution is on the decline finally in the US. More and more people are waking up to the fact that a couple does not need to have a "legal" marriage to swear fealty to one another and have a long term relationship.

If the main issue is the tax, insurance, and various legal benefits that are accorded to legally married couples, shouldn't the fight be on that battleground instead? Those archaic laws and practices affect every non-married couple, not just gays and lesbians.

Pushing to promote the concept that any two or more people who choose life together can be a family seems to me to be more useful overall than making even more money for divorce lawyers... If two or more people care to have a ceremony to celebrate their commitment to one another, they don't need a pat on the a$$ from a judge or a priest...

Several times in your Big Book, Jesus mentions that he will return within the lifetime of his contemporaries; people who were at that time listening to him speak.

Even by your own calendar, it's been a couple of thousand years, and he's not back yet. So, either there's a secret group of incredibly long lived Jews out there someplace still surviving, or perhaps it's all hogwash.

How do you TruBelievers<tm> work this simple fact in to your overall hypothesis? Or is it simply one of the many facts that you ignore in order to hang on to your delusions?

I was answering a question someone had just left, and by the time I'd finished composing my thought provoking answer, the question had been removed by yahoo answers.

This was a simple question about whether or not it might be about time to abandon religion in favor of science and reason. Nothing offensive per se, unless you're a bible jockey of course.

Has anyone else noticed such activity on the part of YAnswers? Besides the obviously prejudicial act of placing the religious discussion outside the Folklore & Mythology section of course...

With the growing popularity of online shopping, is a mom & pop style used book store worth opening in this day and age? This, plus the fact that we're definitely in the post-literate age, makes me wonder if our idea to open a used bookstore in such a climate is a good one.

Any opinions or advice would be appreciated!

If a medical doctor sees a patient with, let's say, a broken arm and while treating the injury notices signs that the patient has another medical condition that may be even more serious, the ethics of his profession would demand that he at least mention this to the patient and suggest treatment for that as well. No one would consider a doctor who would do otherwise a "good doctor."

Why then are people in the mental health indusrty unwilling to tackle the mental illness of religion? Even the accepted definition of delusion excepts "religious faith" as delusion, but any other acceptance of unreality as reality can be considered delusional.

My question then is this: If the mental health industry is ignoring one of the most wide-spread mental illnesses out there, aren't they comitting a serious breach of both ethics and common decency?

I'd like to hear from mental health professionals please, not wandering jesus freaks :)

Not since Monty Python's Life of Brian have I come across such a great send up of the TruBelievers<tm>. Click the link, have a look, laugh your a$$ off.

http://www.jhuger.com/kisshank.php

Hopefully a few believers will read it too, and instead of flaming about it, they'll realize that this IS their line of patter and wake up. Hope springs eternal. Or they'll start looking for Hank and shouting "You bunless cut-wienered kraut-eaters!!!"

If Nike ran an ad that featured Jesus walking on water in a pair of Air Jesus sneakers, christians would stop buying Nikes and do everything they could to decry Nike, Inc. Same with ads featuring water into Coke, Jesus on the cross wearing a Polo shirt, you get the idea.

Why then do christians support politicians that pretend to be jesus freaks just like them to get votes? Shouldn't the delicate sensiblilites of TruBelievers<tm> be offended when a politician resorts to demagogy to sell you the product that is himself?

If Nike tried to take advantage of your gullability to sell you shoes, you'd be pissed. Then why don't you get just as upset by the same thing from politicians?

Hate to break it to you, but abortion, for example, will probably never be made illegal for the same reason that recreational drugs will never be made legal. It's too easy for them to get you to listen when they bring up either topic... If abortion was illegal, what would they rant about? Root canal?

Here's a link to the most succinct summary of the evolution of the christian god from pre-Judaism to his current status that I've found.

http://home.comcast.net/~theseeker/Yahweh.htm

Not that it'll faze the too-far-gones, but it might help a few fence sitters to understand that yes, it's just a bloody story...

If a gay couple gets married in one of the states that allows it, are they still legally married if they move to a state where it's not recognized? Does the couple still get the "benefits" i.e. tax stuff, spousal rights, etc?

Started thinking about this when I realized the possible parallels between the federal attitude on marijuana and the attitude of some states. It's a not widely known fact that producers of legal marijuana in states that approve of its medical use must still hide from the feds...

The link below is a wonderful summary of the observations of the theistic neurosis. Read it, then study the christians questions and answers. You'll find that it's quite accurate.

http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Neurosis.htm

My only complaint is that it focuses on the fundies, my own observations have shown these characteristics in less critical forms of the illness.

For those of you who haven't seen it, My Name Is Earl is a sitcom about a guy named, you guessed it, Earl, who's lived a life of basic naughtiness and found that his life sucked. He got hold of the idea of karma, and is now trying to make up for his lifetime of bad deeds by undoing them, and hijinks ensue.

The point is, Earl doesn't know a damned thing about Eastern philosophy. Hell, he refers to karma as an entity half the time, as if "she" was personally watching and grading him on his actions.

This reminds me so much of christians who jump on the bandwagon with no real idea what their religion actually preaches. They hear that Jesus is this cool d00d that died for them and if they believe that they live forever and their enemies are punished. Forever. And that's all they need to run with. That or some other fantasy-inspired fantasy.

At least Earl got hold of a benevolent idea... Could be worse, he could be shooting abortion clinic personnel...

After absorbing a metric ton of bs from the god squad, especially those with the ball balls to call themselves scientists, I felt like I'd seen their rationalization patterns before.

"Look at <insert biological process here>! It's too gosh darned complex to have just HAPPENED that way! Isn't that proof that God exists?"

Back in tha day (the land we called The 70s), there was a little Swiss conman called Erich von Daniken. He wrote a little book called Chariots of the Gods? that sold millions of copies and prompted von Daniken to write a half dozen or so sequels to stretch his 15 minutes to 17.5 minutes.

Chariots of the Gods? used the same premise. von Daniken's "evidence" of the aliens that apparently visited earth throughout history consists mainly of pointing at things like the pyramids and saying "What else could it be? Humans couldn't build that! Isn't that proof of aliens?"

Hell, even his book title ends with a ? instead of a !...

Friend of mine lent me a trade paperback collecting the adventures of Battle Pope, and I'm still chuckling over it.

It's vaguely a post-Rapture tale with the last pre-Rapture pope (a hard drinking two-fisted womanizer) not making the grade to get in to heaven. Actually, only two people did, lol. He dies, gets a buff new body and is sent back to rescue Micheal from the clutches of, guess who, Satan, with Jesus H. Christ himself as his dimwitted incompitent sidekick. If I have to explain to you why Jesus wearing a t-shirt that says "What would I do?" is funny, you probably won't get it...

It's so over the top, I can't imagine any but the most irredemable jesus freaks not getting a chuckle out of it. Does a lot to put the original stories in perspective too. One nice thing about ripping off characters from a 1500ish year old work of fiction, no copyright problems at least...

burn a book?

shoot a doctor at an abortion clinic?

protest someone's stay of execution?

kill someone because they didn't agree with them philisophically?

kill their children because a god told them to?

tell someone what they couldn't read or view?

get something they don't agree with legally banned?

beat the hell out of someone because they're the wrong color?

beat the hell out of someone because they had different sexual practices?

send someone to prison for selling the wrong literature?

seek to make the sale of something as innocious as a rubber dick illegal?

refuse medical treatment because their god didn't approve?

demand that fantasy be taught alongside fact in schools?

I think it's obvious where I'm going with this. I could sit here all day and cite examples of abberrent behavior by TruBelievers<tm>. Question is, when did these people get appointed to be custodians of ethical behavior rather than shunned or locked up as madmen?

Christians will bore you to tears with the idea that everything in the world, both good and bad, is part of God's Ineffable Plan! So then why do they care if anyone:

doesn't believe the things they do?

doesn't dress the way they do?

doesn't have sex the way they do?

uses words they don't like?

reads books they don't like?

smokes, drinks, shoots, or snorts things they don't like?

has sex with someone they wouldn't?

makes art that they don't like?

plays or makes music they can't stand?

has opinions that are different than theirs?

I could go on and on, but here's the point (finally!)

Anything that happens is, according to them, part of God's Big Unknowable Nonsensical Inefficent Pointless Bloody Plan.

So who the hell are they to be interfering with their very own god's way of running things? Ya'll gonna be surprised if you're right about the whole afterlife gig and them there pearly gates don't open for people jacking with The Plan...

Seriously... Shouldn't the "Jesus was god's kid" people and the "Jesus was an astronaut" people join forces?

So many of the silly stories in the christian's bible become much more plausable when viewed from a "sci-fi" kind of perspective. Virgin birth? In-vitro fertilization. Noah's ark? Easy to round up 10 million species when you just need a cell sample. Walking on water? Telekinesis or anti-gravity. Raise the dead? With advanced technology, that's a walk in the park.

I know, there's already plenty of folks out there that follow this essential concept, and many science fiction stories have been written from that perspective.

But with the christianoids trying to sell themselves as scientists with stuff like the "intelligent design" label for creationism, how long can it be for them to try to get the whole book off the fantasy shelf an on to the sci-fi shelf at the bookstore?

A long time ago, in a manger far far away, a little savior was born... Chapter IV: A New Pope?

In a recent post, God's pal Donald Shaw had this to say regarding faith:

"To every man is given a measure of faith. When driving down the street at 55 mph, you have faith that the other cars will not get into your way."

Now I don't know about the rest of you, but that's not how I drive. When I drive, I keep my eyes open and constantly assess the ever-changing situation, developing theories about both the general traffic flow and the possible actions of nearby drivers, rejecting and/or updating these theories as I progress towards my destination. I know that because of silly things like the laws of physics that high-speed impact with another vehicle would be counterproductive to my survival, and plan accordingly to incorporate this in to my overall plan to get from point A to point B.

Don apparently gets in the car and trusts in the Lord God above to keep him and others from wrecking...

Who do you want running the country and your life? People like Don or people like myself?

Seriously... Shouldn't the "Jesus was god's kid" people and the "Jesus was an astronaut" people join forces?

So many of the silly stories in the christian's bible become much more plausable when viewed from a "sci-fi" kind of perspective. Virgin birth? In-vitro fertilization. Noah's ark? Easy to round up 10 million species when you just need a cell sample. Walking on water? Telekinesis or anti-gravity. Raise the dead? With advanced technology, that's a walk in the park.

I know, there's already plenty of folks out there that follow this essential concept, and many science fiction stories have been written from that perspective.

But with the christianoids trying to sell themselves as scientists with stuff like the "intelligent design" label for creationism, how long can it be for them to try to get the whole book off the fantasy shelf an on to the sci-fi shelf at the bookstore?

A long time ago, in a manger far far away, a little savior was born... Chapter IV: A New Pope?

...has this person ever had sex? And if so, what kind of psychological trauma did the person who allowed it suffer?

Those who condemn sex are usually the ones not getting it. Religion generally prohibits or outright condemns this most natural of acts. Thus, people who aren't getting any are attracted to a club that exalts their condition. People who are regularly getting a good genital workout don't tend to suffer from a need to decry the activites of others.

Help promote sanity. F*ck a christian today. It's a dirty job, but someone needs to do it before they weld our zippers shut... ;)