What is Digg?297 Comments
- baroo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+203poor kid.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+165One of the dangers of fundamentalism is that it fosters an intractability, an inability to compromise with others who believe differently. They constantly push their religious views on others because they have defined their views as the Truth and disagreeing with them is not a simple disagreement, it's nothing less than rejecting God and embracing Evil. And so people who believe differently tend to be dehumanized in their eyes. When someone tells you that "Muslims are nothing more than savages who need to be nuked", or that "atheists lack religion and therefore lack morals", you can bet that person's dehumanization stems from fundamentalism.
One of the basic freedoms of the United States is freedom of religion--the idea that one has the right to his own religious beliefs. For fundamentalists, this freedom is in fact a great evil because it prevents them from using government institutions from "saving" people. And so they rail against it, often to the point of denying that separation of Church and State is a fundamental component of the Constitution. - taylorhayward, on 10/12/2007, -11/+130As far as I know they can't hit hosted students. Time for them to learn the words, "f&ck you" in Polish.
My parents sent me to a Christian Camp. I ran away... twice. I dressed as a devil on costume day, and tormented my captors regularly. I was not welcome back.
(true story) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+127"fundaMENTALists"
- masgrada, on 10/12/2007, -6/+107Hahahah... that happened to a Brazilian foreign exchange student at my high school back in the day. She ended up with Mormons and HATED it.
- Hellman109, on 10/12/2007, -14/+95FUNdamentalists
- gardnert1, on 10/12/2007, -2/+75i wonder what would have happened if he had told them he was atheist
- elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -12/+85fundamentaLISTS
.. Wait, I think I screwed something up, there. - ZenMojo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+80This guy reached into the crazy grab bag and drew out a big handful. I've known plenty of Mormons and Baptists and none of them are like that.
No sex for 17 years? What the hell!? - t3hNinj4, on 10/12/2007, -2/+66No sex for 17 years? That's craz...
Oh, wait, I'm going on 20. Nevermind. - brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -7/+68"I've known plenty of Mormons and Baptists and none of them are like that."
The Mormons and Baptists are actually very fragmented churches that have hundreds if not thousands of sects. Most Baptist churches you will find are independent, preaching their own custom brand of christianity.
I never understood as a christian why some denominations say that drinking alcohol is a sin. You only have to look at Jesus' first miracle (turning water into wine), or Paul telling Timothy to "have a little wine" for his stomach problem to see that it is drunkenness and not drinking that is condemned in the Bible. To believe otherwise would be to believe that Jesus was a sinner. - newyawker, on 10/12/2007, -8/+64Why can't people just keep their damn religion to themselves? What *****.
- nitsuj, on 10/12/2007, -5/+52
funDamENTalISTS - Mulo, on 10/12/2007, -8/+55This crap makes Americans look like total ***** overseas. A bunch of bible thumping narrow minded primitives.
- jodokast, on 10/12/2007, -2/+47Fu.....ah f*ck it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+49fundAMENtalists!
- monergism, on 10/12/2007, -10/+51Find some different Christians. Not all the same. Kinda like the Muslims.
- Yez70, on 10/12/2007, -7/+46Doesn't anyone feel scared the above post could also describe the Taliban?
- SammyJr, on 10/12/2007, -4/+42He lasted a lot longer than I would have. I would have ditched them at the airport. I hate fundies.
- ZenMojo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+46FUNdaMENtalists.
- woody56292, on 10/12/2007, -7/+44yeah I am christian but just reading about these " fundamentalists" makes me sick. If they really acted like that, then I must say, they are severely misinterpreting the will of God. ( if they are even hearing it )
- reddevil3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+39I'm a foreign student here in the US, and I had a bit of an unsettling experience down here in Birmingham, AL. I was sitting in the university's library yesterday reading Newsweek which had this on the cover: "The politics of Jesus."
After reading it a white guy comes buy who says hi, and I say hi back. He sees the Newsweek on the desk and asks me if he can read it. I said go ahead. Then he asks me where I am from, and I tell him (Pakistan). Then he starts: "Oh I knew a lot of Iranis and I don't know why Christians and Muslims fight and fight. We all worship the same God blah blah blah." I tell him I'm actually agnostic. He goes: "O RLY?". He says that he was once an atheist but he was so down at one point that he found Jesus (I get worried at this point). He goes on this rant on how the Gospel and Jesus saved him and how atheism leads to nowhere (He was so loud that everyone in the library was wondering what the hell was going on). I was playing my DS at that time and I had to close it. I made up an excuse that I had a class and then left. The guy was definitely weird.
Avoid fundies. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42they wouldn't want him anymore, obviously.
As a sidenote, last time I met a mormon, she was dancing naked at a strip club. - woody56292, on 10/12/2007, -4/+39yeah but they wanted him to help build a church in HIS country. I am all for building churches, but not if you are kidnapping ( not literally ) and using a child against his will. ( he had a choice but it was a very difficult and forced decision )
- kevinmotel, on 10/12/2007, -8/+42i made a religious teacher cry...in 4th grade. i don't even remember what i said, though i feel bad for making her cry
- jenny867, on 10/12/2007, -5/+38What a total nightmare.
- muvment256, on 10/12/2007, -28/+60I've always had some distrust of organized religion as a whole, but recently, its become a serious hate. Religion is the worst thing to happen to an intelligent species. If god does exist, would he have endowed the whole species with intelligence and rational thought and then ask us to ignore these things in order to believe in religion?
- GliTCH82, on 10/12/2007, -3/+33Coming from a Muslim family, I'm actually surprised to find out that there's a lot in common between what this guy endured for 6 months and how I was raised for years. Of course, the only difference is that by my parents' standards our family is actually considered moderate and normal, and on the other end of the spectrum the crazy ones are the Muslim fundies, which I'm sure don't even need to be mentioned.
My mom always ends everything she plans on doing with the words "insha allah" which directly translates to "god willing".
Of course, I don't really do that, and I chose to take only the best from both sides of the world. I like to think of myself as fairly moderate by global standards, and I hold secular views for society and government, leaning slightly towards the conservative side when it comes to issues such as finance, criminal justice, and social welfare. - nogami, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31Yup, there's no great difference from rabid Muslim fundamentalists and rabid Christian (or any other religion) fundamentalists. They've all convinced themselves that they're morally and religiously "above" everyone else and it's their duty to ***** on everyone else's beliefs. And if you can't convert them, or silence them peacefully, well...
Currently, fundamentalism in North America is largely non-violent, but you don't have to have a great imagination to think that it might not be quite that much of a leap... - HoustonRH7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+28I had a similar experience... I was sent to a Christian military school (Chamberlain-Hunt academy, in Port Gibson, MS)... and I'm a radical atheist. They used God as a reason for everthing, and would always pray over you before they paddled you.
I ran away as soon as I could. - Miyazaki, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25I genuinely feel sorry for the guy, that must have been a horrible experience. But this line made me laugh.
"I hated that sentence. When I didn't want to go to church one morning, because I had hardly slept, they didn't allow me to have any coffee."
The horror!!! - exipolar, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28the Taliban are Muslim fundamentalists if you were not aware. I hate how the media hides the religious aspects of world events in cowardice behind the excuse of "religious respect"
- delong, on 10/12/2007, -2/+24@brstirlson:
I assure you, the "Mormons" are not a highly fragmented religion. The LDS Church rules from Salt Lake. There is one schismatic - the FLDS Church in southern Utah that are polygamists and are a very small and isolated community on the Arizona border.
As a rule, LDS folks are really the most pleasant, if boring, religious people you will ever meet. Of course, I live in Utah so the missionaries aren't knocking down my door. You really can't tell the difference between a Mormon and non-Mormon. They aren't evangelicals like Baptists, and you'd probably get a real good tongue lashing if you ever made the mistake of comparing the two in front of a Baptist. - pintomp3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+25they have every right to believe what they believe as truth. forcing those beliefs on someone else is wrong.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -20/+42I couldn't read past 1 paragraphs of this crap.
Those so-called "Christians" are nothing of the sort! Those are religious zealots who've lost COMPLETE TOUCH with the outside world and what purpose a Christian's supposed to serve.
I've been to Poland (Czestachowa, if I spelt it correctly) on a Missionary trip, and I have nothing but the nicest things to say about the Polish people. They were completely warm to my missionary group because we were *real people* (students) who didn't force Christianity down their throats.
Lead by example, not by rebuking! This host family should be shunned! - kelkitty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+22Also, they don't just DROP exchange students off at someone's house. They volunteered or REQUESTED that they host an exchange student. It was not his choice to be in that house, it was theirs. They asked for a Polish student to come stay with them so they could use him for their own ends.
- Gazpacho, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21I've lived in the south all my life, and up until the past year I've always attended church. Unfortunately, spreading the word and bringing lost souls to Christ is a big thing with Christians (or should I say Baptists?). From what I can recall, many preachers would say the more people you helped to convert the more "jewels you would have on your crown in heaven".
- adam84a, on 10/12/2007, -4/+23Wow, I read the comments before reading the story, and expected this to be an exageration of a family that just tried to share it's faith with their guest...... boy was I wrong. I'm a Christian, some may even consider me a 'fundamentalist' but these people are insane, and after reading that story, I was only able to draw one positive thing from it.... they aren't currently breeding.... thank God !
Things like this probably anger Christians more than any other group because those of us that actually have read the Bible, know this is not how Christ would have us behave. - AbortedFetus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22That's cruel and unusual punishment.
- Rndm_Tngnt, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Yeah. That's Winston-Salem, all right.
It's not so bad as long as you're in the School of the Arts bubble or the Wake Forest booze haze. Otherwise, get out while you can. - exipolar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20@hitori
no matter how many people believed something false, it would still be false.
The problem is that humans will take that amount into consideration as an assumption of it's truth, which is still an assumption and not reason - gameguy43, on 10/12/2007, -8/+26i got a kinda crappy family for my homestay in japan. they were just plain boring. i sat at home while okaasan watched soap operas. also i felt uncomfortable when my mom hit my little sisters. my stay wasn't that long, and i was being hooked up by the person running the program, so i wasnt in a position to complain. Japan pwns tho, i wanna go back and live in one of the more artsy, edgy places, like harajuku.
- surfit, on 10/12/2007, -6/+23"i wonder what would have happened if he had told them he was atheist"
It didn't say he was, him being Polish means there's a very high probability that he's catholic or from a catholic family. I think his main point was these people were so stuck in their own weird religious mindset, that they didn't give him much thought and therefore made his life hell. - basye, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16This really pissed me off! We've hosted numerous students in our home, and not one time forced anyone to pray, go to church, preached to them, etc. It's always voluntary, and we are careful to respect their space. These kids are far more mature than most American kids the same age, and they are usually curious enough to want to know what this part of our culture is all about. What that host family did was abusive, and is a shame to those of us who try to do it right.
- chaimpot0k, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19"When I got out of the plane in Greensboro in the US state of North Carolina, I would never have expected my host family to welcome me at the airport, wielding a Bible, and saying, 'Child, our Lord sent you half-way around the world to bring you to us.' At that moment I just wanted to turn round and run back to the plane.
LMAO. Shoulda, woulda, coulda! - ZenMojo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22People are people.
- sebnukem, on 10/12/2007, -6/+22At departure time, I would have bought them a copy of The God Delusion to thank them for their "hospitality".
- toppgun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15I actually presented a speech in school today about how religion of all types must be kept out of the public domain and must stay private. I think it went pretty well. It was very controversial. Afterwards a relatively moderate religious kid came up to me and told me it was inappropriate and I should never say that again under any circumstance (said much nicer than how he said it). It proved my point of religious intolerance. I am a junior in high school.
- gk128, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20These are the people that give religions a bad name. Sure you love God and all that jazz, but don't force it on those who don't want God's love the way you do.
- upsidedork, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17And yet they claim it's the gays who're recruiting children.
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