fairytales and crazy people who look "normal"

[miriam_e]

Normally I am very optimistic about the human race. We are amazing creatures. Each generation is smarter than the last and we are becoming a more moral and peaceful species. And then something happens to make me wonder if we have any hope at all.

This morning I was visited by two nice old ladies who drove here to bring the word of the lord to me. They looked normal but by any rational standard they were completely insane -- utterly divorced from reality. They happily held completely contradictory concepts in mind simultaneously without any inkling that something was wrong. I swear they didn't hear a word I said, because of course I would have been an emissary of the devil sent to try their faith.

These complete whack-jobs believed that before the flood people lived to an age of 900 years, that all life in the universe was created just several thousand years ago and the fossils are a cunning lie by god to trick us, that the mythical flood was the result of incredible masses of water, being held up high in the air by magic, dropped at god's command. They believe in the absolute word of the bible and that it holds no errors. They believe that being gay is unnatural despite it being a feature of every species on the planet. That it is alright to enslave other people, that women should be the servants of men, that conducting campaigns of mass murder upon those who believe in a different god is okay, that witches (you should kill them) and ghosts exist, and that you should be good to your neighbor. Stark staring mad!

What is it with some humans and fairytales? The weirder, the crazier, the more harebrained the idea, the stronger the compulsion to believe in it. It makes me incredibly sad that such delusion persists and is so actively cultivated.

Absolute lunacy!

Comments

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

What is bizarre is that people take the stuff from the Old Testament as Gospel, when the real Gospels are further in the back of the book.

It never ceases to amaze me that people who hold that killing others under certain circumstances and simultaneously purport to have some Christian belief think they are doing the Lord's work, or that intolerance of certain groups is A-OK.

This also irks me into people associating Christianity with these absolutely bizarre interpretations of the Bible, when the true and core messages of Christianity are completely devoid of these hateful ideas. I can completely understand how Muslims get upset when the fundamentalists and zealots pervert their religion and regular Muslims end up looking like the bad guy.

Fundamentalism and evangelism I think are the true enemy of religious harmony and understanding.

[sharpblonde.livejournal.com]

It never ceases to amaze me that people who hold that killing others under certain circumstances and simultaneously purport to have some Christian belief think they are doing the Lord's work.

Never mind that little thing at the beginning stating "Thou shalt not kill"...

The thing that bothers me is that so many people use the bible as an excuse to not think... Wasn't Jesus always telling stories to illustrate points? Doesn't interpreting those stories, especially after hundreds and hundreds of years of translation and bastardization of the original bible, logically require you to THINK about what might be meant?

Okay, I shall stop preaching to the converted and simply state that sometimes it is mind boggling how dumb people are.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Absolutely.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I'd dispute that we can ever have religious harmony and understanding. It would be nice, but I think the religion meme wouldn't allow it.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

Well I doubt it too due to other factors, but those two are primary antagonists to the process.