The last few days have been fairly eventful. Not so much because of midterms, but because, for some reason, a couple has come to our campus (with their two pre-teen children and their obviously single female friend in tow) to stand outside in the Pentacrest all day every day and tell the students why they are going to hell. Why did they invade our campus uninvited? Apparently, seeking knowledge and progressive ideas is evil, and thus, we will spend eternity burning in the fires of Hell. They came, not so much to tell us how to avoid Hell, but to let us know that they are going to Heaven and we are not. Note to curbside evangelists: Get a job!
But I have been misleading by writing “for some reason.” The reason is, of course, that these people are in dire need of attention. They must show everyone how holy they are (these people refer to themselves as “saints,” by the way) or, in other words, how much better they are than everyone else.
FYI: I found out that I am condemned to the fires of Hell because I have pierced ears. I’ll probably see all of you there, because here’s what else gets you into Hell: everything.
I was raised as a Methodist and left the church many years ago because, well, because of people like those mentioned above. The last straw was when I went to talk to my pastor after a dear friend had just passed away, and he essentially told me that she was in Hell because she had smoked pot. I realized that I didn’t want to have anything to do with a group of people who would casually tell a sixteen-year-old that her newly departed friend is going to spend the rest of eternity being tortured by centaurs or whatever the fuck mythological creatures supposedly reside in the netherworld.
What is with Christians, anyway? Or any religion for that matter, but the fact that Christians have this idea of a place where people spend the rest of time being sodomized by a satyr in a Viking helmet while simultaneously standing up to their calves in broken glass with the best bloody mary ever mixed sitting just…out…of…reach. Damn. I’m sure other religions have a similar idea of eternal punishment of some kind, but I don’t like the religion I was raised with, so I’m not going to bother studying up on other ideas to rebel against.
Oh, yeah. You may be wondering how these “saints” that I mentioned above make money if they don’t have jobs. Apparently, they go from town to town insulting people until someone punches them; then they sue that person. Great, huh? I might also be impressed if the “saints” themselves weren’t so pathetic. Their poor kids. They just sit there in folding chairs, staring blankly, with absolutely no emotion, and saying nothing. I kind of suspect that they’re not live children, but robots or dolls or something. Robots would certainly fit in with my conspiracy theories about organized religion.
Thanks for the news about the radical right coming to spread their gospel of judgement and severe punishments for minor or petty offenses.
ReplyDeleteThey haven't changed. Used to be back in Waterloo, in the early 70's, they garnered much publicity by
advocating that righteous Christians who wished to convert their children fallen away from the fold and driven to 'insanity' (=disbelief-in-Christ=insanity to them, and my father esp.) by rock and roll and other cultural abberations must, using forcible methods where necessary, eliminate all trace of their children's sin.
So parents, incl. mine, burned my records, my few magazines and books and esp. my personal letters and pictures of classmates, esp. girlfriends.
I was just like those children who sit blankly on the benches while they protest, before I broke from their iron discipline. It has been a long time, some 40 years ago, but still parts of my memory return to functional as I suffer from PTSD, (recently by a terrifying flashback)that resulted from trauma I suffered from the brutish spankings, forced immobility and silence, and general physical and mental abuses.
This kind of childraising prepares them for a kind of world that does not exist outside their cloistered sects. Sometimes their churches don't even know how severe they are, nor any of their friends.
They failed to force me to conform to their standards and beliefs by seizing my property, attempting to change my social identity and threatening me implicitly (in case of noncompliance) with throwing me out if in violation.
Their attitude against medical intervention changed and I was hospitalized at the Mental Health Institute, Independence, IA, and treated for schizophrenia, though that was just from the emotional deepfreeze I had suffered. What prompted them, at age 19 while I was unemployed, was me asking to borrow the car and for one dollar for beer. My mother convinced a sheriff that her car had actually been stolen and she had been beaten and threatened with a knife, none of which was true.
She lost her temper and failed to bring me under 'control,' though my other plans for that trip had been known for days and she had only objected when I had mentioned a quart of beer to soothe my feelings over my own car's engine
failure.
I wish I could have remembered that only 3 1/2 years before then, my father had tried to kill me by setting up a tractor accident. He only succeeded in creating a significant brain injury.
It is just so incredibly wrong to raise kids with the iron fist of control by fear, which is ultimately internalized by the children.
Comment addendum; of course, 'elvis' and 'evils' are phonetically and alphabetically if not philosophically linked by five letters which though frequently published, are seldom fully understood. Pentacrest. Five letters. Incredibly vast and vague
ReplyDeletemeaning(s.) (Plural is optional, as is actual democratic plurality in many 'popular' brand elections; think about it.)