Bible Thumpers and Fundies

[tropicsgoddess]

I'm not overly religious or anything but what irritates the shit out of me is how these fucking fundies and bible thumpers like to spit out quotes from the bible and twist them to the extreme. WBC is a fine example of twisting the gays and religion thing. Seriously, gays are not a threat to the world for one and two your perverted ways of "reverting" them to straight is nothing short of torture. Oh and I shouldn't forget the assholes that LOVE to espouse family values and how good of a Christian they are when really they're nothing more than sanctimonious hypocritical assholes. Did you assholes forget the 10 commandments? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not shout the lord's name in vain, thou shalt not worship false idols, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt remember the holy sabbath day and thou shalt honor thine parents. Then you have the "Put Christ back in Christmas" assholes. Okay, Christmas trees are not symbols of Christianity, they're symbols of a PAGAN holiday celebrating the winter solstice. So please go to your church and leave us the fuck alone and celebrate Christmas without you killjoys ruining it, okay! Oh and how can I forget the assholes that love to ostracize other that are not a part of their flock ..whatever happened to love thy neighbor? I thought religion was supposed to be about enlightenment, not about shoving your fucking opinions down other people's throats on how your religion is word like you speak for God when really you're being nothing more than a bigoted asshole. This is why I don't practice religion (I was baptized in Catholicism as a baby, went to church during most of my childhood and stopped going except for ceremonial reasons). </rant>

[HYHYBT]

Symbols mean what they are used to mean. If someone decorates a tree as a celebration of the solstice or whatever, then that's what it's a symbol of. If someone decorates a tree in celebration of Christ's birth (regardless of when that actually happened) then that's what that tree symbolizes. The same for any other decoration with meaning attached. "This practice originated as x" is not the same as, and does not imply, "this practice means x always and everywhere it's done."

[Iseeyouthere]

What people put on their trees to celebrate whatever they are celebrating is all fine and dandy. Some see it as symbolising... I see it as decoration.
Its when they start trying to invade your world and yell at at you to hang crosses on it or something religious when you don't want to that it becomes an issue. People claiming it to be a religious symbol and thus all people must join that religion... or something along those lines of "This is ours... you must be with us to use it".

Fundies are a prime example of religion gone bad with underlining and bolded text in capitals.

They want total control over you and others.
They want to be Mr. Right on the "Road of Wrong"... which means they are right, you are wrong, end of story.
They think themselves superior to others not up to their standards... and even then they are still the better ones.
They want to think they are doing good by doing the only thing they know most of... which is their twisted version of whatever religion they are with.

From some ex-Christian stories I have read, I found out that most of them turned away from religion to become Athiests because of Fundies in their communities or families. Fundies act up, people question their religion, the more they think, the more they question, they leave because things don't add up.

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” - Steven Weinberg

[Rageaholic]

What I love about fundies is how they think they're being persecuted at the drop of a hat. Like the Rick Perry ad, acceptance of homosexuals = war on religion. It's like the moment they lose any power over someone, they cry persecution, think the devil is out to get them, and that there's some huge anti Christian conspiracy behind it. I equate it to a spoiled kid claiming abuse when his parents don't buy him his 100th video game. Just because fundies hide behind religion and try to appear "righteous" doesn't mean they aren't any less of a bigoted fuckbucket.

[telecom_goddess]

Fundies drive me nuts....I know a celebrity who lives in my area and is always quoting bible verses and crap and claims to be such a christian when he is actually breaking commandments all the time...like thou shalt not be unfaithful.

[guywithashovel]

The "Put Christ Back in Christmas" people are pretty annoying. Honestly, I wasn't aware that anyone had taken him out to begin with. They usually cite people saying "Happy Holidays" or "Have a nice holiday" as taking Christ out of Christmas. Personally, I always thought that people said "Happy Holidays" because, well, you're celebrating more than one holiday (Christmas and New Year). Talk about a way to suck the fun out of what is supposed to be a fun holiday.

[Kheldarson]

I'm one of the "Christ in Christmas" people...but that's mostly my response to the over commercialization of the holiday. I'm sitting in a retail job, getting blasted by people over doing my job because they're in a rush...what happened to enjoying the holiday, whatever your religion? So if we focus more on its roots as a religious time of celebrating whatever with gifts as secondary, wouldn't that make the season bright again? That's my reasoning anyway.

[HYHYBT]

Anyone happen to know why New Year's is exactly when it is? I could see its being precisely at the solstice. I could see, given church influence on the calendar, its being either Christmas Day or Epiphany. But I don't see anything to hang what we call January 1 onto, so to speak.

[Kheldarson]

Another pagan custom. One of the Roman gods (actual Roman, not borrowed Greek) was Janus. January is named after him and was his month. January 1 is traditionally his day as he was the god of change essentially; he had two faces pointing opposite directions. His temples had two doors, which on New Year's, both would be opened to allow him to see the old year and the new year.

[SkullKing]

Something that also bothers me, is when they get bent out of shape for stupid things, that aren´t harming them. In my case it has mostly to do with Video Games.

Case in point:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...1#comments-bar

[fireheart17]

Something that also bothers me, is when they get bent out of shape for stupid things, that aren´t harming them.

Hell yes! Case in point: gay marriage. Every time the argument gets touted out, you would think that armageddon is going to arrive the second two gay people get married.

[Andara Bledin]

Case in point:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...1#comments-bar

Bwahahaha. Leave it to Ben to point out when people are being idiots.

^-.-^

[mikoyan29]

I think some people get upset over things because they want to get upset over things. It's alot easier to fabricate something to get bent out of shape over.

[LadyBarbossa]

My Dad's a fundie, Eru help me. As he gets older, it's getting worse and worse, too. You literally can't hold a conversation with him anymore without a Bible verse or mini-sermon being dragged into the conversation. The other day at lunch he popped out at my nephew (who is 19, ffs!) about how gambling is breaking the commandment "Thou shalt not covet". We argued with him for a while because I don't think playing the lottery or slots is equivalent to "Hey, I like my neighbor's truck better than I like mine. I want it. I really want it and I'll have it!" Or "I have lots of single friends to hang out with but that lady's husband/boyfriend is the one I want." Weird thing is, there was NO reason to bring up this topic of conversation, since none of us gamble or ever expressed an interest in doing so.

I haven't talked to him about it, but I'm almost certain he'd get behind Rick Perry in a heartbeat, especially after that ad about the ebil, EBIL gays and how we can't openly celebrate Christmas

[smileyeagle1021]

Fundies are a prime example of religion gone bad with underlining and bolded text in capitals.

From some ex-Christian stories I have read, I found out that most of them turned away from religion to become Athiests because of Fundies in their communities or families. Fundies act up, people question their religion, the more they think, the more they question, they leave because things don't add up.

"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” - Steven Weinberg

First, unfortunately, fundies aren't religion gone wrong, they are religion gone unchecked. Just look at the middle ages, when secularism didn't keep the church in check people were burnt at the stake.
Second, your Weinberg quote hits the nail on the head. An exact quote from my mom's boyfriend on why he left Christianity, "I am a good man, I mean no harm to anyone, and every night I'd go to bed and I'd try to reconcile the atrocities of my religion with my desire to be a good person and the only way I could was to get rid of religion"
Personally, after living in Utah and seeing large scale unchecked religion, I can't disagree with him.

Hell yes! Case in point: gay marriage. Every time the argument gets touted out, you would think that armageddon is going to arrive the second two gay people get married.

This right here, I've told my Christian friends when they claim that Christianity isn't anti-gay, prove it. I've told them that if just once by popular vote in a christian dominated area marriage equality were to be passed I'd believe them, and until then, I'd accept them as good people in spite of the anti-gay teachings of their so-called God but would not accept their hate monger God.

The other day at lunch he popped out at my nephew (who is 19, ffs!) about how gambling is breaking the commandment "Thou shalt not covet". We argued with him for a while because I don't think playing the lottery or slots is equivalent to "Hey, I like my neighbor's truck better than I like mine. I want it. I really want it and I'll have it!" Or "I have lots of single friends to hang out with but that lady's husband/boyfriend is the one I want."

I wonder what his take on people starting their own business or trading stocks. Hell, if gambling is coveting, then crossing the street is coveting (you covet getting to the other side of the street and are willing to risk your life to get it).
As I told my pastor (the day that the "open and accepting" Methodist church kicked me out for being gay) "gambling is only about greed if you make it about greed. Many people are able to gamble for the sake of playing the game, we don't expect to win, we expect that in the long run we will make money, we look at the loss as the cost of playing the game, no different than paying to buy a playstation or xbox... if we win, all the better, but that isn't the point."
They replied "well, no one is perfect, the church only considers gambling a menace, it could be worse, you could be homosexual, they are incapable of receiving Christ's love... oh wait, that's right, we tolerated you when we thought you were misguided hoping to find Christ's love when he won't give it, but now you've shown us your true character. We can't tell you to not come back, but don't expect a warm welcome if you do"
Yeah, and people ask why I will never consider going back to a church... what's the point when Christ will never love me anyway.