Current Events, Politics

The Cause

175 Comments

A fundamentalist can survive without many things such as the friendship of those in his community or the pleasures of his current culture but no fundamentalist can go very long without A Cause to champion. For the wiles of the devil infect every corner of our universe and we must spare no effort to fight him wherever we spot his hand at work. No personal cost is to great, even if it means going to the effort of switching shampoo brands to avoid giving money to Satanists.

Of course, most of these causes don’t really require an effort that rises to the level of shampoo-switching. In fact, most of the things that alarm and inspire (these things almost always to together) fundamentalists require no real action at all. But they are a lot of fun to talk about. And it’s a great feeling to be informed while everyone else is walking around closing their eyes to a situation they do not wish to acknowledge.

Be instant in seasons and (mostly) out of season! Rail against movies nobody has ever heard of! Condemn government actions that may or may not actually have happened! And be quick to speak and slow to hear those who point you to the liberal bastion of misinformation and propaganda known as “Snopes.” Just wait, they’ll see you were right all along when they’re being hauled off to reeducation centers and made to use that devil shampoo.

Is there not a cause? Yes there is! There always is.

175 thoughts on “The Cause”

      2. Congratulations on your first first! That’s two long time posters this week who got their first first. I’m glad mine occurred not long after I began to post here. Now I don’t even try for it anymore. :mrgreen:

        1. I don’t ever try for it anymore either. In fact, I like wandering in after the conversation has already begun. It takes a lot of pressure off. “First” has to be the most brilliant because they set the tone of the whole thread. (At least that is what I tell myself to help me sleep at night)

        2. First? That means I would have to be out of bed by 8am. Not happening. Maybe I will hire an amanuensis to get me my first first.

    1. Snopes (and, let’s be honest, the Internet in general) has made such a skeptic of me. If anyone tells me anything even remotely urban legendish, I immediately have to look it up on Snopes.

      In that sense, I think being on the Internet has actually been pretty good for me… it’s certainly strengthened beliefs I have (because I’ve considered them in more depth than before) and helped me get rid of some incorrect beliefs (again because I actually sat down and thought about why I believed them). So I agree completely. Snopes and similar sites should be absolutely mandatory!

    2. While our church is pretty much down the party line on many things, one thing our pastor is good at is the snopes patrol. We have the usual black helicopter folks in our church who like to send around the stuff that validates whatever bandwagon they happen to be on, and if pastor catches wind of it he sends out a snopes report on it debunking it. That is refreshing.

    3. At least Snopes.com does research and cites sources, which most of the conspiracy-theory mongers out there do not do.

      1. BigGary, you now have me convinced that you are a successful stay-at-home mom or dad. You are ALWAYS here and you are ALWAYS spewing out liberal propaganda. I had to literally laugh out loud at your latest post about how Snopes “does their research.” I’ve got to hand it to you, you are a clever comedian with posts like that. 😀 Anyone with even the slightest sense of awareness in the least knows that Snopes is nothing but a leftist tool whose purpose is to spread propaganda. But aside from that specific issue, your continuous aspersions against Christianity make me jealous. Is this a side job, or are you such a good instigator that you can actually make a living at this? And most importantly, where do we sign up so we can join you and get in on this Amway-type, work-at-home job?

        1. Stuart, can you share an example of where Snopes bends and misrepresents the truth? Better yet, an example of where they outright lie?

        2. Busted. I make millions of dollars writing comments on Stuff Fundies Like. For details of how you, too, can get rich doing this, just send Darrell Dow an e-mail with “Give Me Money” in the topic line. 😈

        3. This site is no longer fun or funny. Instead of being a way to poke fun at the quirks of fundies, it’s turned into a mean-spirited collection of people who just can’t get over their past. But at least I’m not the only one who’s tired of the constant Socialist, anti-Christian spin put out by this blog. Socialism has never worked in the long term and is usually endorsed by blue-collar, uneducated folks who aren’t smart enough to know any better than rail against “the rich people.” It’s laughable to see the constant jabs on this board at fundy colleges and how “ignorant” they are, while at the same time the poor people on this board aren’t smart enough to see that Obama is purposefully doing his best to destroy the economy.
          Jeremy, I don’t mean to be unkind, but if you aren’t even bright enough to realize that Snopes is a leftist propagandist’s tool, then I’m at a loss as to where to even attempt to try to have a conversation with someone so blind.

        4. I’m guessing that means you aren’t going to share any of the examples I asked Stuart for?

        5. Well, that’s the first time anybody has ever accused me of being a Socialist. That’s just funny.

        7. I’m just curious: How do you figure it’s “socialist” or “leftist” to make fun of people boycotting a huge capitalist corporation?

          Skepticism toward those boycotts is, after all, the subject here.

    4. What gets me is, the level of fact checking at Snopes is generally what was demanded of a high school senior writing a paper back when I was in school (get off my lawn). What do they teach them at these dining-room-table and church-basement schools?

  3. I have recently been informed by a reliable fundy source that the Illuminati card game predicted 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, and it is also predicting terrorist attacks and mass chaos at the London Olympics. She almost seems to be looking forward to the Olympics, when (she believes) she will be proven right.

    1. So she plays the Illuminati card game? She’s seen the cards predicting these evils?

    2. Illuminati is a card game?
      From the way some people talk about the Illuminati, I was expecting it to be something much grander. 😕

        1. Yes it is. It make you believe you’re playing Uno, but, in reality, you’re playing Skip-bo.

    3. Sounds like my Fundy aunt and cousin who were all a tingle for Y2K -they also knew that Jesus was going to bring the rapture and add to the confusion. FREAKS!

      1. I got in big trouble in 1999 teaching at Christian school over Y2K. During a current events discussion a student raised his hand and said “my uncle has researched Y2K and he went to two conventions…” And before it even went through my head, I responded “Does he have a life?”

        I probably deserved to be reprimanded for that one, but I didn’t mean to say it.

  4. I have to say, I am guilty of believing everything at first. Then my kids tell me, (Without even having to look it up) “Check Snopes, Mom.” and then I am all, “oh. yeah. I guess it could be made up…” I forwarded an opportunity for “Free Disneyland Tickets” to my entire mailbox simply because they had a picture of the Disneyland logo on the link. For some reason that made it believable. My daughter said, “Yeah, Mom, cause nobody could do THAT!” I guess some old fundies never die, they just change what they trust in.

    1. lol! I have filters for people like you. It includes e-mail address and anything with FW in the subject line. 🙂

      1. LOL, I will quote Michael Scott from the Office… “When the deposed prince of Nigeria asks you personally for help, you help him.”

  5. I have a friend back in Michigan (yes, fundy) who was always boycotting everything for different reasons. She’d tell me to boycott this or that and I’d always tell her you can’t boycott everything. I’ve done it for a while at times and then quit because it became too much trouble. Besides what good does one or two people do? Especially when they don’t write to the company and tell them why they’re doing it? 😥

    1. Boycotts can be effective if they are well-organized, widespread, and persistent.

      In the 1980s, a boycott of Nestle succeeded to get the company to change its marketing of infant formulas in poor countries.

      In the 90s, the mere possibility of a boycott got Starbucks to agree to a Code of Conduct on the plantations that grow the coffee Starbucks buys.

      More recently, the threat of a boycott got the Mt. Olive pickle company to implement better working conditions for the people who grow and harvest pickles for the company.

      But all of these boycotts were based on real, well-documented problems that had clearly-defined solutions. That’s way different from boycotting something because your hairdresser’s cousin’s friend heard the company is somehow Satanic.

      1. Actually, some lactivists still boycott Nestle and promote the boycott on their blogs.

        The problem is that these companies are actually huge conglomerates, so you have to avoid hundreds of products.

        1. That may be a new boycott. The big one, led by INFACT, ended in the late 80s.

    2. When the Baptist thing to do was boycott Disney, I mentioned at church a movie we had purchased for the kids. In a very horrified voice, I was asked how I could support them and their support of “those lifestyles”. I asked what I should do in five years or so when my company (a major airline) did the same thing. “Oh, they would never do that!” In less than two years they extended health benefits to “partners”.

      It amazed me how few preachers in the area condemned/boycotted the entity supplying much of the money being placed in the local offering plates.

      1. When your politics threaten local people’s meal tickets, you’ve left off preachin’ and gone to meddlin’ …

        2. Thanks for the update, Ungodly. Your information seems to be more current than mine.

  6. Well, you have to give the Fundys their due. Their boycott of Waldenbooks that began in the mid-80s was finally successful in driving them out of business. Their demise had nothing to do with Amazon or their inability to change with the times; it had everything to do with that boycott. If I remember right, it had something to do with their sale of pornography, which never really made sense since every bookstore has porn if you use the Fundy definition, and 90% of them have actual porn somewhere, even if it is behind the counter.

      1. Waldenbooks is going out of business?? I hadn’t heard about that. Where will I get my books? 🙁

        2. Well, that’s good to know. It didn’t make the news in Korea. Thanks for the info. 😳

  7. Reading I Samuel 17:29 in the modern versions is one of the things that caused me to leave Fundyism. When you begin to see how much Fundy theology is based on personal interpretations of a translation based on a 400-year-old language, it opens your mind to the fact that these guys are wrong.

      1. I looked up this verse. In KJV, David says ‘Is there not a cause?’ Newer versions have another phrase, to the effect of ‘I was just talking.’

        O heard several sermons on having a cause — Jesus (or whatever the MOG wanted done).

      2. Tiffundy,

        Darrell mentioned it in his original post. I see some other folks got what I was saying. I wrote that right before I went to work, and sometimes what I am thinking doesn’t make it out very clearly to my fingers on the keyboard.

        1. Sorry, I was thinking more along the lines of why that particular verse caused you to leave, I gathered it was more of a misuse of the phrase for someone to get what they wanted from the flock than the 400 year old language.

  8. This may be a dumb question, but is the above picture a legitimate fundy gripe? Do they really pull the inverted 666 and horn off of that logo, or is this merely indicative of the type of thing a fundy would be upset about?

    1. No, it’s real. At least it was real about 40 years ago anyway. That, and flouridated water will be the end of America as we know it… and look. Here we are at the end.

    2. There was a huge rumor storm beginning in the 1970s that the company with that logo was run by Satan worshippers and that the logo somehow refers to the Black Arts. There was absolutely no truth to it, but the rumor just won’t die. For a while, the company even ran ads saying, “Hey, it’s just a picture of the moon and some stars,” but denying rumors like this only seems to help publicize the rumors (that’s why I’m not saying the company’s name). People remember the crazy story, but not the denial. Finally, the company gave up. If you look at new packages of its products, they don’t have the moon and stars logo. But there are still e-mails flying around telling everyone to boycott the soap company.

      1. During the height of the Procter & Gamble urban legend (whose origin partially traced to Amway), somebody in my college gang got hold of a lot of stickers with Betty Boop against a “Man in the Moon” backdrop similar to the P&G logo.

        We called them “Betty Boop, Procter, and Gamble” and used to wear them stuck to our foreheads and right hands. Just to be weird.

      1. I kind of feel like part of my fundy adolescence is missing because I never heard this wild tale. How a person could actually believe this and then PREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH it is beyond me. Amen?

        1. “Whatsoever the man-o-gawd preacheth is so”, many is the time I have been quoted that verse from 1 Pastors 13:69.

  9. My dorm supe had a personal boycott against everything Disney. His claim was that it is run by queers.

    He is probably right, but isn’t most of Hollywood?

    Besides, even the most unyielding dogmatists can learn to exercise a little tolerance every once in a while, right? I mean, Rush Limbaugh had John Elton sing at his wedding (his fourth) for goodness’ sake.

    1. My mom is the fundiest of the fundies, but she LOVES Glen Beck. She is willing to overlook the fact that he is a Mormon and says that he is a “GOOD” Mormon, “The kind who will go to heaven.” I am not sure what she bases this on except maybe because she likes everything else he stands for. Who knows.

    2. No, no, no! You’ve got your conspiracies mixed up. The gays run Broadway; it’s the Jews who run Holly-weird.

        3. I want to get a food truck, call it BilderBurger, and name all the sandwiches after conspiracy theories.

        5. The baskets are Longaberger. My stepmom was obsessed with them. She and a bunch of ladies from church even made a pilgrimage to the giant basket-shaped factory in Ohio. 🙄

      2. Wait. I thought it was the fact that the Jooos run the banking “cartel?”

        I didn’t realize so many fundies were that into Ron Paul until this year when my SIL sent me an email stating she was supporting him in the primaries.

      3. Well, it’s a well known fact, Sonny Jim, that there’s a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.

        1. One of the wealthiest people in the world, Rupert Murdock, does run Newscorp, which owns Fox, many radio and TV stations around the world, The Wall Street Journal, and countless other newspapapers. There’s nothing secret about that. It’s not a conspiracy; it’s just a fact.

        2. Are these the people who put the secret ingredient into Kentucky Fried Chicken that makes you crave it fortnightly????

  10. Oh the Proctor and Gamble symbol. Our fundy church railed against them also. It was pretty funny. The wanted everyone to throw away every proctor and gamble product we had. My mom said, “we just got a who pile toothpaste on sale, no way am I throwing it away”. The pastor told my dad “you need to keep your wife in line”. Dad looked at him and said “YOU tell her that…” all the while mom was giving him “the look”. Fun times…

    1. Well, and it is silly to throw away stuff you already bought… For pete’s sake. They already GOT your money for it. SHEESH! Logic is not a strong point with these people. (We were told not to buy anything with that logo on it though)

    2. Just curious if the pastor used scripture for “keeping your wife in line.”

      1. “A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal.”- Proverbs

        I’m guessing that was the verse since he was clearly supposed to treat her like a disobedient pet.

        1. He was supposed to punish her for not doing a completely stupid thing the pastor wanted her to do. I wouldn’t punish a pet for that.

          As for punishing my wife … She’s an adult. Why would she sit still for that?

        2. What was his suggestion as to the method of punishment? Was he supposed to beat her? Spank her? Believe it or not there is a site that advocates a husband spanking his wife, I think it was called Christian Discipline or something like that. Unbelievable!

          And what good would it do to throw out something she already spent her money on? If she wanted to stop buying the product that’s one thing but throwing it out after the money has been spent is wasteful and foolish. Leave it to a fundy preacher to sugguest such a thing AND for a husband to “punish” his wife as though she were a child. I’d love to get in the face of an idiot like that and really let him have it! 👿

  11. I am offended by the 13 stars in the logo. They no doubt signify the end of the Mayan’s 13th Baktun and herald the end of the world in 2012.

    Are Proctor and Gamble in league with the pagan Mayans in the destruction of the world? Can your toothpaste cause the Apocalypse?
    Come to the Prophecy Conference™ at ‘Possum Holler Baptist Tabernacle and find out!

    1. So what does that mean for the 13 stars in the original U.S. flag? There must be a connection!

      1. Since the founders were all good, godly Baptists I think that may just be a coincidence. Unless…….(dunh dunh dunh)…..Satan knew that he was eventually going to take over this country through Satanic deodorant and inspired them to include Georgia.

        1. “…inspired them to include Georgia.”

          It’s because the devil needed someplace to “went down to”.

  12. Reminds me of this –
    http://www.larknews.com/archives/320

    I’ll admit, one of my favorite guilty-pleasure passtimes is browsing the internet for the crazy reasons this-or-that is demonic. I think my personal favorite was an article PROVING that paisley print was Satanic.

    1. A family boycotts everything except potatoes.

      That’s the logical conclusion of trying not to buy anything with ties to anything you disagree with.

      And what makes them so sure potatoes are OK?

      1. Potatoes are favored by the Irish, and the Irish are a bunch of Mary-worshiping papists. Therefore, potatoes must be of the devil.

      2. Potatoes came from the South American Inca pagans. They were transported to Europe and North America by the Catholic pagans. Potatoes are obviously Satan’s preferred plant.

    2. Now if they were talking about reprints of Ian Paisley’s sermons, they might just be right.

  13. I remember when Seasame Street and Dr. Rogers supposedly had evil agendas. So did Dr. Seuss. And the Smurfs! They never made clear exactly what those ‘agendas’ were.

    1. Mostly their “agendas” involved children wearing unisex clothing, which would weaken a child’s developing sense of propriety and gender roles. Also, the kids on those shows danced, and we wouldn’t want our children to see that and get the impression that dancing can be a fun form of exercise rather than a worldly form of hedonistic debauchery.

      1. Dr. Seuss was evil because he wrote books using lists of sight words when sight words were the big thing replacing phonics. Phonics is of God. Sight words are, therefore, of the devil. Reading Dr. Seuss will cause satanism and the end of the world.

        1. Wow–it’s a good thing they never got hold of Dr. Seuss’s one cartoon book for adults: The Seven Lady Godivas (no, really; I have a copy that was my father’s).

        2. Oh, no! The problem with Dr. Seuss is his antipathy toward authority! That Yertle the Turtle had NO RIGHT to burp and knock the King of the Pond off the top of the heap–and just who did Bartholomew Cubbins think he was fooling when he refused to take off his hat to the MOG, oops! King?!? And the Lorax with all his environmental nonsense. We must keep the children AND the adults away from such heretical philosophy!!!

        3. My mother hates Dr. Suess anyway and she’s nowhere near Fundydom. She thinks the pictures are just plain ugly.

    2. It all depends on what you define as an evil agenda. Remember the guy who wrote a book (linked to in a previous installment of SFL) saying the Care Bears and My Little Pony are evil because they “encourage children to express feelings, especially feelings of love”?

      Now, I might have my own objections on aesthetic grounds to those cartoons, but it isn’t because they encourage expressions of love.

  15. My uncle works for P&G, that caused a few tense moments while we were in fundyland. There were also the transcripts from the Donahue show that no one could produce but we all knew were there. Maybe the shampoo boycott had something to do with half the church being Amway distributors.

    1. My husband works for a P&G owned company. They are definitely evil. They pay well, give regular raises, provide excellent health benefits including preventative care, profit sharing and retirement. Plus Easter is a paid holiday. We mourn their satanism every day. :mrgreen:

    2. I remember hearing that Amway either started or helped the “P&G = SATANIC” rumor along. Stick a shiv in the Heathen competition.

  16. Fundamentalism majors on the minor things — nonissues — while ignoring the true things Christianity is supposed to be about.

    This seems to be to be the sort of stuff Paul warned about in Colossians 2:20-21, the “rules” about “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.” Paul called this sort of thing “worldly”, a “false humility,” and “a wisdom with no true value, in reality resulting in fleshly indulgence.”

    When I was at my fundamentalist church these speculations and lies that people get over the internet were passed on. I would check them out and report to them that they were passing on a lie. Their defense? “It could have been true! Better to pass it on!” They did not even want to look to find out if something was true or not.

    After a while you begin to realize that the “nice people” at the church have some very very “not nice” qualities about them, a twist in their character.

    1. “It could have been true! Better to pass it on!”

      That reminds me– I have no absolute proof that you don’t practice bestiality. I guess I’d better tell everybody you do it.

    2. I had a run-in with the “It shoulda been true” crowd last week. My father posted a quote on Facebook that purported to be from Hitler and in favor of gun control. I replied that in all of his writings and public speeches there is no evidence that Hitler said that. (I cannot believe I was defending Hitler from slander) Anyway, my dad reposted it with a note that Hitler may not have actually said it but it was certainly what he thought.

      **FACEPALM**

      1. LOL because if you can’t find sources to prove that he said it, it’s much easier to read Hitler’s mind and tell us all what he was thinking. pretty funny 😀

        2. As Dorothy Parker wrote (about someone else), “He was bad enough plain, without making him fancy.”

      2. Finally, somebody defends Hitler. lol you may have won the battle, but you lost the war on that one.

        1. Unbelievably, Hitler hated smoking as well, wanted to ban it. I supposed you can’t be wrong all the time… 🙄

      3. It isn’t actually defending Hitler, but rather defending people who happen to support gun control from being unfairly linked with Hitler.

  17. A few years ago some of family members decided to boycott Walmart because they were supporting gay rights. They determined that pulling their money away from Walmart would get them to change their minds. So they decided not do any business with Walmart . . . except buying Walmart’s large containers of yogurt . . . which they fed to their dogs. 😐

    Gotcha. So you’re saving $.29 per container of yogurt. Doesn’t that mean your standards can be purchased for less than a buck? 🙄

    1. I have done some Wally World boycotts, but this isn’t why. Business practices were why. I still don’t shop there very often.

      1. My personal boycott is more because I would rather spend money where people are knowledgeable and helpful. I never knew our town had so many village idiots until Super Wal-Mart opened.

        2. I dislike Walmart as well. Our Zellers has turned into a Walmart and I’m not happy about it. I used to like Walmart but the advertizing is false, for an American company why is everything made in China? But everyplace is like that anymore, and I’m fed up with it. Here in Canada it’s the same thing, everything made in China. 🙁

    2. I know a couple that both quit their jobs at Walmart because of this supposed gay rights thing. They ended up losing their house because they couldn’t find jobs.

    3. I half boycott Wal-Mart. I go everywhere else first. If I can’t find what I need elsewhere, I’ll go there. It’s because of their business practices.

      1. Same here. I will drive 30 minutes to a bigger town and go to Target and Harris Teeter before I will venture into the Wal-Mart that is 2 minutes away. (Helps that Target and Harris Teeter are in the same shopping center.) Now, in their defense, the CS is pretty good. But all the village idiots hang out at Wal-Mart. Plus, I have nearly had a couple of head-on collisions with people suddenly turning down the wrong way in the parking lot, just to get a space near the door.
        So yeah, pricier stores for me before I will venture into a Wal-Mart. My life and sanity are worth more to me than saving an extra buck. 🙂

        1. I have gone to the Wal-Mart near here to buy groceries, got a full cart and spent just as long in the check-out line as I did picking out the groceries.

          Coincidentally, I haven’t set foot in Wal-Mart in over a year! 🙂

  18. Did you hear that President Obama chose to spend Independence Day in Paris this year, because he hates America and he loves France?

    No? Good, because he didn’t. He spent the day in Washington, hosting a naturalization ceremony for active-duty U.S. military personnel and celebrating his daughter Malia’s birthday (yes, she was Born on the Fourth of July).
    http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2012/07/04/americans-celebrate-independence-day-4/

    But there was a story circulated on countless conservative blogs and radio shows saying he would be at an Obama campaign fundraiser in France. Because, you know, he hates America … 😥 (There was a fundraising event in Paris, but Obama never planned to attend.)
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48066916

    Oddly, these stories did not mention Mitt Romney, who used to live in France and speaks French.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyP2M0DTch8

      1. I actually understood most of what Romney had to say…probably because he was speaking so slowly.

        1. Ouch. As a fluent French speaker, I made it through 24 seconds. His accent is HORRIBLE.

        2. Nobody’s saying he speaks French WELL. But at least he’s making an effort.

          For the record, I don’t think it’s a bad thing that Romney lived abroad and that he speaks some French. But it becomes ironically interesting whenever Obama gets attacked for seeming too “foreign”: father was born in another country, funny name, lived abroad for a few years, ties to a “strange” religion. All of which also describes Romney.

  19. I bought into the whole Proctor and Gamble boycotts in the 80’s. I was a stupid sheep. I repent in dust and ashes.

    1. When you know better, you do better. Thank God we all know better now!

      Arise, Bob M. Wash thy face and change thy rainment, for the days of thy repentance are fulfilled.

  20. I remember hearing about this from my mom. We never had proctor and gamble in the house because of this theory – wouldn’t want to be bad Christians you know!

  21. This is so funny. Growing up as Southern Baptist/ fundy homeschooler, I always had a slightly negative impression of that company, but I never knew exactly why. I bet this is why.

  22. I was going to a very conservative Southern Baptist church in the late ’80’s that I think swallowed every conspiracy theory going around. I remember being told that P & G’s logo proved they were of the devil!

  23. J.H. Christ! I thought the Proctor and Gamble stuff ended in the ’90’s? Ughhhhhhhhhh!

  24. And it’s a great feeling to be informed while everyone else is walking around closing their eyes to a situation they do not wish to acknowledge.

    This is the base, fundamental appeal of conspiracy theories–and a lot of Fundamentalist “distinctives” and causes. Conspiracy theorists always spout off about “sheeple” who don’t, can’t, or won’t grasp the “truth” they have. Fundies are their Christian counterparts. Notice how often Fundies start discussions with “Did you know…” and proceed to explain how things “really” are. It’s Gnosticism run through the secularist wringer, then picked out of the dump and recycled as Christian conspiracism.

  25. Dungeons & Dragons. It was amazing what kinds of stupid crap people would swallow about that game.

    I knew a kid in our town who bought a whole shelf full of D&D stuff with the money he earned from his after-school job, and one day his parents took it all out back and burned it while their clergyperson prayed over it in order to save his soul. They also forbade him to see any of his former fellow players ever again on pain of being sent away to the kind of “school” where they “straighten out” kids by breaking them first. He told me all this in a whisper in the stacks at the public library and then begged me not to even look at him at school anymore. I was just another member of the group, but some of the guy players had been his best buds until then.

    He left town as soon as he graduated and I never saw him again. Gee, I wonder why.

    1. Wow. That is a sad story. I remember rocking MtG back in the day – all hidden from my parents of course. I think I still have a Chimeric Idol and Seprazzen Skerry floating around somewhere…

  26. Color me suspicious, but many years ago my former fundy pastor preached against the local Christian bookstore because they were selling things that were not fundy-pastor approved. We were cautioned against patronizing them.

    Shortly thereafter the fundy church expanded their onsite bookstore (this was the first bookstore expansion, not the second one. I was gone by the second expansion…but it wouldn’t surprise me if he preached against buying books anywhere but there…just IMHO, of course).

    Years later our pastor encouraged the boycott of Starbucks over their campaign of putting statements from various authors on their cups. It was around the same period of time when the church expanded its coffee shop and moved it into a new, fancy building.

    I always question if the church or pastor would personally benefit from a specific boycott. It does not always work that way…except for the times it does. 😉

    1. “Cui bono”? (“Who benefits?”) I’ve found that this little adage is key to explaining countless political and doctrinal positions people take.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono

      For example, in the Salem Witch Trials, it turns out that a big land dispute was going on. The people on one side of the dispute just happened to discover that many of the people on the other side were witches. Draw your own conclusion.

  27. When I was growing up, we boycotted McDonald’s because they gave money to Planned Parenthood. When the grandparents were in town one day, they wanted to take us for ice cream, and my brother said, “No, we can’t go there. They kill babies in there.”
    Now one of my friends is on a mission to get us all to boycott JCPenney because of a picture of two lesbians in their recent ad. We’re also supposed to boycott Starbucks for not supporting the military and OREOs because of… something. Somehow I don’t think my $4 coffee will make a big dent in their budget.

    1. This is called “market power of the buyer” (for Walmart, Starbucks, etc., it is virtually zero). If you don’t want to give your money to someone on principle, don’t. But don’t think for a minute that it will change the corporate business model/strategy.

  28. Dont forget if you play connect the dots with the stars you also get 666 gasp the horrors. Stop rolling my eyes and move on to a new a better conspiracy. The fact that they changed the logo proves everything that was said about the logo is right. =)

  29. I remember feeling guilty every time I had to fill up at a Mobil gas station, because we all know that the red ‘o’ in Mobil is red because it has something to do with Lucent technologies which definitely has something to do with Lucifer.

    1. Oh, I remember hearing the Lucent Technologies theory. I don’t remember the specifics, but I would always feel like the end was near when I saw their commercials (the plain ones with the guy talking and the words being typed on the TV screen).

    2. Lucent, Lucent, Lucent. I was on board at the beginning. Made some great $$ with them and then the bottom dropped out and everone got the Lucent Logo treatment. (if you remember their logo was a hemorrhoid blot) Now we know why.

  30. Too bad the fundies don’t stop boycotting the perceived bad guys who are ‘out there’ and start dealing with the very real bad guys who are within.

    Also, as far as Snopes is concerned, there is a page on facebook called “Hoax Slayer” that is run by a single guy who lives in Queensland, Australia. It is a very well done page that specifically addresses the hoax ‘shares’ that go around facebook. Love that page 🙂

    1. “Too bad the fundies don’t stop boycotting the perceived bad guys who are ‘out there’ and start dealing with the very real bad guys who are within.”

      Ding! Ding! Ding!
      We have a winner!!!

      :mrgreen:

  31. I was five or six when the preacher at my old legalistic fundy church was spewing this stuff. I remember coming home one Sunday night and mom had us go through all the cabinets and drawers and throw everything out that had that logo on it.

  32. I remember about the same time the P&G and D&D horrors were occurring, the “backward masking” of rock & roll albums was also a big deal at my church. I heard “it’s fun to smoke marijuana” in Queen’s “Another One Bires the Dust”, not to mention “my sweet Satan” in Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. I remember being told something about how our brains retain information BACKWARD within our subconscience. And the evil lyrics would allow the devil would gain control of our minds, causing us to want to do drugs, have sex, kill our parents and commit suicide. 

    Then along comes Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) during the PMRC hearings:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FbBpvoYKpc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    Honestly, in my young mind, the blasphemous thought “maybe my parents ARE full of crap” surfaced…….much to my demise. 

    I have to remind my kids sometimes how lucky they are……..

    1. Hmmm. I heard both “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Stairway to Heaven” as a teenager.
      So far, my parents and I are still alive and well.

      1. Hey, my little girl already dances to Queen and she isn’t even born yet!

        *wonders what she is really doing to her poor, unborn child by listening to that devil-worshippin’ rock n’ roll*

        😛

  33. Why is 666 the number of the beast? He bought the house across from 665.

    668: The number of the guy living next door to the beast.

    What is 0.666? The millibeast.

    333: Half a beast.

    660: The approximate number of the beast.

    $715.95: The price of the beast plus 7.5% sales tax.

    $656.66: The Walmart price of the beast.

    Phillips 666: The gasoline of the beast.

    Route 666: The highway of the beast.

    666 F: Oven temperature for roast beast.

    00666: Zip Code for the Beast (Puerto Rico).

    60606: Alternate Zip Code for the Beast (Chicago, Illinois)

    Zip codes in Topeka, KS. all start with 666.

    June 6, 2006: Birthday of all beasts in this century.

    Why is 666 the number of the beast? You try to count that high and see how human you feel!

    Is 666 an evil number? Yes. So is 667 (the beast plus 1), and so is 777 (the beast plus 111). In fact every counting number after the beast is beastly!

    666 = 2*3*3*37. Since these numbers make up the beast they must all be evil!

    What is the age of accountability? 1 year, 10 months approximately. By that time they have lived 666 days and now the devil has them, especially if you haven’t been spanking them already! Dr. Dobson recommends starting at 18 months! http://www.focusonthefamily.com/popups/media_player.aspx?MediaId={78CED799-4E7B-4EE5-8C15-476D72DA6D74}

    1. My son came *this* close to being born on 06/06/06. I was pretty disappointed, really.

    2. When Reagan retired from the White House, I read that Nancy Regan got the street number of the house they moved to changed from 666 to something else.
      Make of that what you will.

      1. When I was in the throes of fundy-dom, one of the addresses we lived at was 663 and across the street was 666. I would often just for the fun of it attempt to go soul winning there but I never got an answer to my knock. For the fun of it also I’d tell the person I was with, it sure feels eerie here! LOL! :mrgreen:

  34. Man. The company I work for does its lion’s share of business with P&G. The funny part? The company was started by a Christian couple. The current owner is a Christian. The VP is a Christian. My dad and I both work there; we’re both Christians. I guess we’re all wrong and are helping promote Satan’s agenda. Rats.

    1. Exactly. You should have realized that what God wants is not for Christians to be salt and light in their community by populating every non-sinful area of business and society and being gracious there. No, no. What better way to ensure that businesses act Christian than by withdrawing all Christians from business, haymen? And as an added bonus, all the out-of-work-for-conscience sake people have lots more time to go door-to-door witnessing and attend revival meetings. Plus, now that they have no money, they can’t afford to buy the stuff from the wicked companies anymore. God works in mysterious ways…

  35. I had never seen a detailed explanation of how a Satanic plot could be extracted from an Art Nouveau-style commercial logo with (or so I heard) an allusion to the 13 colonies to add that extra sales boost from patriotism.

    This . . . this is unbelievably stupid.

    He has a curved horn coming out of the top of his head? Made of curly hair? And one coming out of his beard? Made of curly hair? And three of the stylized curls, but not the other stylized curls exactly like them, are sixes? And the whole thing is some kind of shout-out to people who . . . sprinkle goats with baby powder before sacrificing them to their Dark Master? What?

    Okay, I thought I had reached the depths of stupid crap in my adventures as a D&D player in a town full of fundamentalists, but this is beyond stupid. This is be-stupid. I could sell these people anything. I could sell them lint out of my dryer filter if I could figure out a way to slap a Jesus fish on it.

    Or there are people so anxious to feel righteously oppressed that they will repeat anything that sounds vaguely like it sorta maybe could be true if you turn off your God-given reason and use your skull only as a place to store snot.

    In any case, there are enough of them in the U.S. to force big corporations to spend money in order to make them go on to the next hapless target. I am literally laughing out loud through a scared grin. Satanist hairdos! Now I’ve seen everything!

    BTW, according to the court documents here (http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/242/242.F3d.539.99-20590.html), Amway was a major vector of this rumor. A million ninnies and/or Perpetua wannabes may have repeated it, but somebody has to have started it. Always follow the money.

    1. “… use your skull only as a place to store snot.”

      (Writing this down to steal later …) 😈

  36. On the subject of the Fundie obsession with Back-Masking…. a friend of mine once tried playing some of his old vinyl Rock-and-roll LP’s backwards to see what message he got.

    What he heard was “You are ****ing up your gramophone needle, ha ha ha!”

    1. Yes! I forget which evil occultic Satanic rock artist did that, but somewhere out there is a record that tells it like it is.

      1. Found it! It’s Bouncing Off the Satellites by The B-52s. c/ The loooove shack is the little ol’ place where/Weeee can worship SA-taaaannnn! *twang a lang a lang twang twang c/

        Clarification for humorles fundamentalists reading along: No, they do not in fact worship Satan. Also, the female members’ wacky hairdos from their Top 40 days are not Satanic messages.

    3. Why is it that only Fundy preachers have record players that spin counter-clockwise?

  37. “The Cause”, no matter how silly/unfounded it might be, is so important in fundamentalism because it gives the sheeple something to focus on besides the glaring problems going unsolved within the church itself. Like the fact that they have no friends in the community (and therefore no witness in the community) because they have no love of anyone outside their own limited views. 😥

  38. I am still amazed at how widespread and coordinated these campaigns were back in the 80’s when you consider that there was no internet at the time.

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