Thursday, December 15, 2005: Untitled

Alright, time to depart from the list for a second in order to relay a conversation which I had with Mr. Fundie two or three hours ago. The direct transcript is as follows:

I: I have a major disagreement I have to get off my chest.

Mr. Fundie: Alright. Do that.

I: Yesterday, I didn't say it yesterday because I had to catch a bus after school, but um, when you were on the topic of sexual identity and homosexuality, you said "You take a Christian and they will except them." (pause) And I...

F: Well, bu-but-but remember now I qualified that, right? Eighty per cent of our country says they're Christian, they're not. You might get two out of ten who are. But anyway so I'm not saying 80% us are reallyisticly[sic] buying in to that. 'Kay so...

I: Like, what? You're saying they're just saying their Christian to fit in.

F: Yes, right. And if it can, it's convenient of them to be a Christian.

I: Hm.

F: But I don't think they're conservative and probably [unintelligible].

I: 'Cause it seems like, you know, most of the people who disagree with homosexuality or are non-acceptant of homosexuals use argument like, you know, um, "God doesn't like this way" blah, blah, blah, blah blah. You know, mostly Christian arguments for not accepting homosexua...

F: Well, yeah, n, homosexual marriage, not homo, see now, these, you got to make sure you sh, well, you know.

I: Oh, well ,k...

F: No, you, because,

I: You know, lots of thing like, you know, um...

F: Oh, [unintelligible], some of them, ultra rights, I don't buy any of that either. Yeah. No.

I was saying something at that time, but it's hard to hear over his voice.

I: ...hardly the, you know, "Christians will accept homosexuals".

F: B, er, well you don't think they do?

(pause)

I: Sometimes, sometimes not.

F: Right. And that...

I: ...Yeah...

F: ...to me puts it to that 80%...

I: ...Ah...

F: ...who claim they're, they're Christians they're not. So, yeah.

I: Yeah, 'cause it's, yeah, it just sounded to me like you were doing a generalization.

F: Oh, I do that a lot in here, so I wish you'd have caught me in class so we could have said it in class.

More unintelligible simulspeach on my behalf.

I: (Unintelligible)

F:(laughing) (odd noise), what? We had to speak about it?

I: Yeah, usually, like, you know [I should quit doing that], um, when I disagree with anyone about anything religious it takes like an hour or so to (laughing).

F: Okay, well maybe they should settle down, too. Because that, I-I, they're, there're times when I'll through out because I want an argument, I want a response.

I: Ah.

F: 'N' people won't see [possibly a poor pronunciation of "say"] anything. Or the[y] will go off in the wrong direction, like they started to do with the homosexual deal, but I don't want to talk about that.

I:Yeah.

F: I want to, you know, just, I want to talk about (pause) you know, genetics as compared to, um, choice, or whatever, 'n', you know, I don't know if that will ever be solved.

I: Yeah, um, I think the current scientific thought is, like, genetics.

F: Well, again, 'n' it's, you know, just, you go to the Christian conservative, 'n' I don't classify myself in the ultra-conservative right wing. But, like I said yesterday, I-I-I, what I don't understand is that, where were all the homosexuals [35 years ago, when he was in the army, for nothingness's sake], 'n' I know what my friend will say, 'n' I have, mmmmmmmmm, four friends who are gay. 'N' I will, 'n' they will say to me, "they just didn't dare," (unintelligible) I just can't believe that, you know. Maybe.

I: Well, varying times like, um, earlier times there were, um, like you were saying at an earlier point, with the Roman Empire...

F: ...Ah...

I: ...with like, the, yeah, the more homosexuals then, because it was more acceptable. You know, like, um...

F: Well, the guys were neutered. You know, so they, they couldn't, er, have sex with the king's wife, or whatever, they were, nymph [a kind of ancient Greek goddess, who was highly attractive and playful], or whatever they called them.

I: Er, eunuch.

F: Munichs, right.

I: Yeah. Um, I thought that was just their bodyguards, like...

F: Well, yeah, (unintelligible), and house servants, and maidservants, and things like that. Right, yes, but they wanted them safe.

I: Yeah.

F: But the thing is, that's what brought the Roman Empire down, too, that they had no rules. Whatever you wanted to do, you could do it.

I: I always thought it was the Vandals.

F(at "it was"): And I'm not saying that if you legalize homosexuals that's what'll happen. But (long pause) I (pause) wanted an argument I didn't get one except it went the wrong way[lack of punctuation intentional]. So, um, I do generalize, yeah, I will generalize with marijuana, too. Um, I will generalize with (unintelligible). Um, and I'll look for the kind of argument I want. You know? So, don't 'esitate to-to-to, even come back a day later and it would've been fine if you'd have questioned me today about that.

I: Yeah.

F: During class (unintelligible). I-I know it's tough to get this group (pause).

I: Yeah.

F: Serious enough to ever discuss anything like that, because you will have a couple just gay-bashing, an'-an' I'm not going to tolerate that.

I: Yeah, I know.

F: N-n, It's not polite, it's not, mature.

I: That's very common in this region.

F: (pause) Y-well, it is. Um. (pause) People are getting really polarized in our country I mean I don't know, (unintelligible), you start looking at things like, "well, I'm a black American," 'n', "I'm a Hispanic American," 'nd, "I'm a Chicano American," 'n', "I'm a Spanish American," and, "I'm an Irish American," 'n' I'm still from a generation who said: "all of you guys: black, white, red, yellow, you all fought in a wars to preserve our freedom. We're Americans, we're not (pause) we're not individuals. We don't need five languages here. You know, we need one, where we can all communicate and love each other. We don't, we don't need to be (long pause) you know, individuals. (unintelligible). We're, France is seeing that, I think. France thought they could just let the Muslim, two or three billion Muslims, come in. And continue with their language and their own religion. And, not to provide them with anything, just land. 'N' the next thing you know, we've got riots. Why do the riots happen if they had (pause) complete (pause) autonomy. You know.

I: Huh.

F: What? (pause) My daughter would love to discuss with you, she-she loves debate.

I: Yeah.

F: I-see I got practice on her. I will make some outrageous statements 'n' then she'll...

I: ...Yeah...

F: ...jump all over me.

I: You see, I get jumped on a lot, because, um, I'm an Atheist, and this is a heavily religious area, so, like...

F: They claim to be. There's what, four churches per block everywhere in this town You know I've left three churches because they were anything but religious, we've got so many (pause) so many (long pause) churches (pause) that, um, profess to be Christian. But in our country you do surveys, our country says 80% of our, our country, er, is Christian. But if that was the case, why would we be anti-gay? [Because God hates fags.] Why would we be anti-black? [Because it's the mark of Cain.] Why would we be, er, what else do we (unintelligible) rich? [Because God wants His people to be successful.] Why do we (pause) we attack? [Because God is jealous and Christians are His servants on Earth.] (unintelligible) Christians (unintelligible).



I: Well, you know, um, to varying degrees, you know, like, um, a lot of (unintelligible), again (unintelligible) the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and things like that. Whereas pro-gays, (pause) um, focus on, um [I couldn't think of anything], I think I once heard a line, um, "You can use The Bible to back up anything." Um, "except homosexuality," was actually the line, but, um, I don't know.



F: Er (pause) But-but in order for it to justify anything, you'd have to believe it's the true spoken word of God, 'n' if you don't believe that, then you can't be Christian anyway. You can profess to be one...



I: ...Yes...



F: But you're not going to be, yeah.[Wow. So if someone uses The Bible to back up their stance (which most, if not all, Christians do) then they are true Christians. He just wrecked his entire argument. I guess he's just so Christian that contradictions just come naturally to him.]



I: (unintelligible)



F: Well, I-I, you know, a Muslim can have his beliefs, an' believe that, er, Mohammad, you know, received direct, um, information from God. You can be, er, an Atheist, who believes in, what? No higher power?



I: Er, yeah.



F: Okay. Um, and then (unintelligible). You know, 'n' then I have a friend who's 84 years old, he's a college professor out in [town name omitted]. He taught his last class last spring, 'n' (untypable stuttering) he was finally going one class a year. And, said, my friend sent this book to his wife, and him, and he started to question life, and is this all there is? And when I visit with him I say "no, I've got forever to live." [That's awfully arrogant of you.] And you have 70 years if you, 76 years if you follow national average. And then what's left for you, nothing.



I: Yeah.



F: Emptiness. A black hole.



I: Mhm.



F: I said, "at least even if The Bible isn't true, I've lived my life, where I've tried to be good to other people, and I know that I will live an eternity." [The arrogance is astounding.] So, I can believe that, I don't care if you do. I, I wish you would. [That means you care.]



I: Well, I generally, you know, am nice to others, but I don't see the sense in eternal life, but, that's that.



F: Right. And, I-I, my daughter's boyfriend, er, ex-boyfriend, now, um, 's family, said: "I don't know why you need The Bible, I don't know why you need church." He says: "We're great to people. We love people, we're kind to people, we give money to people." (pause) That's good.



I: Yeah.



F: But, are you going to have eternal life? Why wouldn't they? [Same reason they don't have trolls and færies in their yard.] Wouldn't you, wouldn't that, kind of, if thought you could have an answer wouldn't you want to know that answer? [It's 42]



I: Errr. Yeah. But, you know, I can't seem to find anything that like, you know, except for mythology [And science. Forgot to mention that.] and that's all The Bible is to me.



F: You know what I'm going to do for you? I'll bring you a book tomorrow. [That book never came.] Er, I had a class, an archeologist came in and talked about the archeology of The Bible. The Bible has 26000 proofs that it's authentic. [I've heard them. "This prophecy about a whore dieing is exactly what happened at the world trade center," or "if it weren't true people wouldn't die for it's principles," and other such nonsensical rubbish.] But then they went to the next biggest one was manuscripts of, some of the great writers, um, I can't even think of it now. (unintelligible) er, let's see, Horatio, it's not Horatio, well some of the great, er, scientists of their time. [Remember: back then a scientist was really just a philosopher.] And they have, like, 200 manuscripts, 500 manuscripts, these are all things that are personal eyewitnessed, eye accounts [Or are they just assuming that because it agrees with their precious book, which is based upon the old myths which the writers of that time liked to relay. Oh, wait, these are fundies. They're most likely saying that since they saw someone swim it was Jesus walking on water, and so forth.] of the miracles that Jesus performed, blah, blah, blah. So, (unintelligible) that it kind of opened my daughter's eyes, because she's not, she believes in a higher power. Er, but she's not around,'n' she's not calling Him "God". But I asked her, "well, what is your god? 'N' who's your god?" Then she gets angry with me. (unintelligible) you have a higher power, she said: "yeah," I said: "okay. But that big book that you read out of," I said, "what does that believe?" Then she got angry 'n' I said: "okay, that's fine. You know that whatever you have is fine. Um, for you, it's not for me. So it's okay for you. I don't need to force anything. 'Cause it won't matter. You know, you can't force things on people. People will just, this 84 year old guy is, now, he says: "you know, I've lived a good life, but if this is all there is to it, it really hasn't been much." (long pause) I've loved every day I've lived.



I: Well, my life's been pretty good.



F: But I guess that's, that's my only thing. Um, 80% of our country professes to be Christian, and if they're Christian, the way they treat (pause) each other, is horrible. I wouldn't even want to be a Christian if I had to do (unintelligible).



I: Yeah.



F: That-that these people do and that they say. You know. (long pause) Well, I wish you would have, er, I hope though that. You-y-y-you (unintelligible) if you, er, I hate to say this, (unintelligible) make some exaggerated statements, if you would, er, come back the next day and say: "you know, [Fundie], you were talking yesterday and I thought: 'hey, I disagree with you'"



I: Alright.



F: I'd love that. (Rest is unintelligible)



So, there you have it. All of the intelligible portions of my conversation with Mr. Fundie, in which he got off topic like a madman, tried to convert me, used one of those moronic "not a true Christian" arguments to say that anyone who doesn't get the same thing out of the parts of The Bible which he's read or heard as he did isn't a Christian, an contradicted himself in more areas that I mentioned.