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Disillusion: I love the smell of Xians in the morning |
Posted by
callei on Saturday, December 13, 2003 - 12:17 AM PST
I was taking the bus to work every morning, a mellow ride with few weirdoes, whiners, or boom boxes. It was restful. I read and watched the old oak tress thru the window. I liked it. Except...
There is one stop at which the bus always lingered, where a man with a megaphone stood all day preaching free form. He wears a mini umbrella on his head. His amp, when he is using a microphone, is covered in fish stickers and "Jesus loves you!" stickers. When the bus pulled up, he walked to the open door and, though his bullhorn, told us about how we were all bad people doing bad things.
Normally I find this sort of thing amusing. I mean I love to see people being themselves and letting loose. And for the first few weeks this guy was a hoot. I would put down my book and listen to what he was saying. I would watch the faces of the other passengers and see what they thought of it. And I gotta' say its neat to see 20 people all look guilty at once for some unnamed "sin" on a bus.
Most days his message was innocuous enough; be kind to children, call your parents, be nice to a stranger today, don't get married unless you really mean it and so forth. Nice personal messages that might even have made a personal impact on "believers" and didn't piss the rest of us off.
Then one day he turned mean. Instead of "You are all sinners because you don't call your mother often enough", he put one foot on the step into the bus and told us that we were all liars and that, among us, were devil worshippers that kill babies, that we shouldn't trust each other, should turn away from each other, should read the bibble and only the bibble (and me with a murder mystery in my hands!) and on and on.
I don't know that I have ever felt the vibe in a room go change so fast or go so mean before. Normally it was a nice sleepy, companionable feeling. People making room for other people and their hangovers. But that day, for the rest of the ride, people were sitting up straight and standing as far from each other as they could. The usual low hum of people talking stopped totally. We rode in a hostile, cold, fearful silence.
I wonder what made him preach hate like that. I wonder what made him take it out on that bus. I wonder if he talked like that most of the time and I had just been lucky and been there only for the nice bits before. But mostly I wonder why we were already to hate each other.
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Average Rating : 3.9
Total ratings : 9
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I love the smell of Xians in the morning | Login/Create an account | 19 Comments |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by Comedian (eccentrically_long@yahoo.com)
on Dec 13, 2003 - 06:52 AM
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Told you guys that Metairie was wierdo central. THat many track homes with a mall-theatre that empty can't be good.
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by callei on Dec 13, 2003 - 01:12 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://http:// | that is the creepy thing, it wasnt in Metairie. the guy stands around at the courner of elk (I think) and Canal. Like 4 blocks from the weirdness that is the French Quarter.
IF he was IN the F.Q. I could understand it. We get lots of rabid bible thumpers there, but not in the quiet part of Canal Street. |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by Comedian (eccentrically_long@yahoo.com) on Dec 13, 2003 - 09:16 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://http:// | Elk... is that four blocks down from FQ on the west, or east? Cause once you go past Harrah's they really start to creep out of the woodworks. |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by Anya on Dec 13, 2003 - 12:02 PM
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That's what happens when someone gets scared of their own shadow and need to blame someone and/or hate someone...easier to blame something other than the self.
...Did anyone ask about how many criminals and thieves were under his church? I mean come on...someone needs to encourage him to brag about how much better his church is.
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com)
on Dec 13, 2003 - 02:59 PM
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"But mostly I wonder why we were already to hate each other."
because all of us at some very early age before true memory took over learned that the freak with the megaphone is ALWAYS RIGHT.
Either that or it's the fact that 99% of people who are "getting along" are simply killing time between fights. It sucks but it's true.
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by callei on Dec 13, 2003 - 04:58 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://http:// | See i was thinking that it was too much effort to go hate people. I mean when you are overworked, hungover, and busy having a life, where do you get the time and energy to hate people?
I have enough trouble finding the energy to bother with people at all. If Im going to take the time to care about someone, I want there to be some kind of return on it that doesnt involve the police and law suits.
Is this one of those "brother's keeper" xian things? Where they have to "care about" (usually meaning punish) each other all the time so that the other people dont go "astry" and hope that the other people are "careing" about them so that they dont go "astry"? |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com) on Dec 14, 2003 - 10:10 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://bettie_x.tripod.com/ | I think this is less of a "brother's keeper" syndrome than it is "lookitme lookitme" syndrome. And it IS easier to find fault with someone you don't know than to put the effort into getting to know them and making an acutal DESICION *gasp* on whether to enjoy their company in the future. Of course that's average person thinking, guilty until proven otherwise and fear/hatred of the unknown. Maybe the guy THINKS he's a brother's keeper, like an overprotective, judgmental, or stern mother, but in reality he's just a wack with a megaphone. Just like my crazy uncle THINKS that he's behaving appropriately when he weaves his bike into traffic and stands on the side of the road giving a steady line of traffic the state bird. But in reality he's a wack on a bicycle. |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by daria_4 (-)
on Dec 14, 2003 - 06:10 AM
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If he really was preaching the "harmless" stuff up until that point and you weren't just catching the good times, I'd wager that something happened in his personal life to bring on the hateful stuff. His daughter had an abortion he just found out about, his son is dating an atheist... something along those lines.
The other stuff, while it mattered to him before, was safe material--something he knew he could get away with and probably even win some people over with. But now that his life isn't so peachy keen anymore, he's either "saving" others so they don't let the same things go wrong or he's just balls to the wall pissed about it--or both.
That's just my take on the sudden change. I could be way out in left field. I've seen that pattern of preach before in the church I used to go to. It was actually amusing at the time, since I knew the preacher's daughter was doing way worse things than he ever actually knew about.
As for being so ready to hate each other; I'm no philosopher, so I don't have any grand theories. While being nice (or at least polite) takes less energy than being mean and hateful, people--on the average--are easily persuaded. We're not all good on the inside. Sure, on the whole most people probably are. But a human being has a balance of good and bad emotions; plus plenty of inbetween stuff. Once you get their imaginations going on one or the other, who knows what you'll get. Some people were probably concentrating on what was true about themselves of the stuff he had just preached, which could easily lend to a standoffish posture. Others were probably looking around trying to figure out what of the hateful message was true about their busmates, and as their imaginations got to going, they were definitely going to be wary after they figured out what they thought was wrong with everyone.
In essence, the best answer I can give to why everyone was so ready to hate each other is that they were pretty much sheep material. Hopefully, there were others on the bus like you, callei, who were thinking twice and taking notice of what was going on.
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by Anya on Dec 14, 2003 - 09:34 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://kirashi.envy.nu | Just wait...there will be one religion again and someone will find another excuse for people to burn in Hell. Then it will be the same thing all over again... |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by Kira (mod_complexathotmaildotcom)
on Dec 14, 2003 - 10:22 AM
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I used to think that Brother Jed* was harmless enough, until one day he brought his brood of 25 or so offspring to campus with him. Nothing like seeing a 7 year old kid wearing a shirt that says:
Got
Aids
Yet?
I just don't get it. Why focus so much on hate? And then poison the minds of your children with it?
*For those of you who've never had the pleasure, Brother Jed and his band of merry fundamentalists travel around college campuses (primarlily in the midwest?) spreading the gospel. They generally go to the larger outdoor public spaces and stand around and wave signs and scream at people for wearing shorts and tanktops. The scary thing is, they don't work. Just preach and travel, all funded by donation. I know he had his own newsgroup at some point, devoted mainly to people complaining about him.
And yes, he has a web site.
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by feralucce (Iwouldliketokillyou@gofuckyourself.com)
on Dec 14, 2003 - 08:32 PM
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Plyn: I dunno... I remember that guy... something was sooooo odd about him... there would be time were I wold approach and he would not see me, and the tone would change... it was odd... and I never liked the guy anyway... but perhaps, like tarantino in little nicky... dude can see something..
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by callei on Dec 19, 2003 - 06:39 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://http:// | I know you know who Im talking about. and hells yeah he can see stuff. Its just that most days its the happy dead (probably teasing him!). Mr. Rainbow hat man has always been a loose cannon on that corner, but I dont recall him going all brimstone before. |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by Arthegarn on Dec 15, 2003 - 07:52 AM
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Well I don't know, Callei, but I see no nice bits there. hey, c'mon, telling people they are going to hell is not nice, period. "Lesus loves you" goes fairly bad with "you are going to hell"
I have my own opinion about those people, anyway, and I think there are two kinds of them. One of them deserves my respect no matter how misguided they can be, the other does not. This one guy sounds like the second but then again I wasn't there and I don't have an evidence to form an opinion. Perhaps I'll meet him in the Shmeng party :P and I can review this topic then :P
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by callei on Dec 19, 2003 - 06:43 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://http:// | well for an American Christian, this is nice. At least he was saying that someone loved someone. That is a step up from most of the ones that preach in public areas. Most of the street corner or park preachers just say that you are going to hell, GOd hates you, and throw yourself under a bus. |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by MystryssRavynDarque (A1Mandi04@aol.com)
on Dec 18, 2003 - 07:56 AM
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I'm surprised that I have not yet seen anyone in my town do that, but it doesn't mean there isn't someone out there doing that right now. I live in a very Christian, conservative town that is very unaccepting of most people who are not like them. There is a man here that drives around in a car that is painted with Christian symbols and scriptures. I call it the Christmobile. He doesn't like people to look at him though, and this girl in my world religions class wanted to take a picture of his car for our project and he gave her the evil eye about it and followed her in his car for a while. She was really scared about it. People need to stop being so fanatical about everything and let people live their lives and be happy. Isn't that what we should be trying to acheive in life? Happiness. No, I don't want people to be happy by torturing others if that is what makes them happy, but I am sure there is something else like chocolate that could make them happy. Love to everyone.
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning
by Domkitten (saradevil@saradevil.com)
on Dec 18, 2003 - 09:29 PM
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For some reason this really made me think of how the only section of the church that seems to really have taken hold in Korea is the door to door, street pounding, prayer thumpers called Jehova's.
It's interesting though, in a country that is still 75% buddhist, that you have a small minority christian sect this is fairly high and mighty.
One day in class a few months ago we were talking about things we like to do for holidays, we generally talked about the Korean holidays, except for one of my students who started talking about Christmas. Oddly, as soon as he started to speak about Christ his entire outlook in class, and attitude towards his classmates changed and became immediately less accepting of their beliefs.
As with your gentlemen bringing down the vibe on the bus, he managed to destroy a perfectly good discussion with his sudden need to preach at us.
I don't know where all the negativity in Christianity comes from, it's certianly not what Jesus had in mind, I think most of the problems probably arose with the Apostle Paul and his inability to really accept the role thrust upon him on that dirt covered road. I think he saw the light, and became the most unconciously hostile person ever. And, since he was at the same time rather rabid about spreading his beliefs, also singal handedly responsible for the downfal of a fairly happy go lucky religion.
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by callei on Dec 19, 2003 - 06:36 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://http:// | I think that is giving Paul too much credit and robbing todays fruitcakes of the responsibilty for thier own actions. There were what 15 apostles? And only one wanted a personality cult. I wonder if the percentages are the same today, 1 in 15, that want to aggrandize themselves and get back at all the people that made fun of them in Kindergarden.
Im also a bit thrown by the idea that christianity is a "happy go lucky" religion, since it was a slave religion and those are rather known for being grim, violent, and vengeful. It is also a "Doom' Day" religion and those are rarely very "happy" except where massive death is concerned.
One can pull sound bytes out of the bible and make something that is happy go lucky (like some of the new cults/sects that are out there right now) but that is really more of a Christianity derivative, rather like the various flavors of Wiccan out there. Only newer with less history validity.
Anyway the point i was aiming for, why there is so much negativity in Christianity, might have something to do with thier premise that they can do only wrong. If they do something good, well that was God doing it thru them, not them. while if they do something bad, then it was all them (ok in some cases it was the devil). And that being able to do only wrong (or haveing no personal say in what they do, bad or good) and believing that there is only good and bad, not good bad and indifferent for example, tears their minds and hearts up, making them less than sane.
Or Christianity is negative because that is how it was designed, perpetuated, and is kept alive today. And, unless you are Christian, you cant blame all that on one man (who man or may not have written all that people say he did or done all that people say he did) who died along time ago. |
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Re: I love the smell of Xians in the morning by Anya on Dec 22, 2003 - 08:20 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://kirashi.envy.nu | I personally do not think that Jesus would have such actions in mind, either. He didn't really write anything of his own so there's a lot of debates on what he truly wanted, though.
A lot of people say every book was valid for its time; some say they have to mean everything today; etc. That's probably my biggest problem with the sects nowadays, they cannot agree with Biblical interpretations.
I personally do not think any religion is happy-giddy...mainly because of their histories as well as the people involved. There's negatives in positives, for lack of better words. Whether it's facing the price of being that religion, the regulations, etc, there's negatives as well as positives.
Sucks to hear about the person destroying the conversation. I think I would have made his life a bunch of living Hells if he tried to preach down on me (or anyone else in the room) like that, lol. I would not be trying...he'd probably be enraged by my Devil's Advocate side. And frankly, I would be laughing deep inside. Then again, that's my more cynical side of my nature calling to me...it'd depend on how far he went on his preaching.
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