The Fun in Fundamentalism

Yes, I neglected my blog for a week. It was finals week and it would have been quite irresponsible of me to be here writing goofball blogs instead of cramming in the last bits of a semester's worth of information. I don't have one specific topic of conversation this morning - which will surely annoy the stodgiest of you out there. Yeah...you know who you are...with your obsessive love for policies and procedures and mission statements and meetings and reports and action-plans and files and gladhanding....I shall break through the wall and reach you someday...and you shall be free....

Sooooo....I'll just continue with the numbered random thoughts, as that seemed to work well last time:

1. My new Beers of the Week: Shiner Blonde -- apparently you cannot get it in Western Kentucky, but if you travel into Southern Illinois, and get a little lucky, you can find it in gas stations and liquor stores alike. It is easily my favorite of the Shiner brews. It also has a special place in my heart as I discovered it during the Ice Storm this winter. My first memories of it are tied in with memories of grilling and laughing under the dull roar of a generator with my brothers and sister-in-law. Making fond memories out of frozen lemons.

My other recommendation is one I actually haven't yet tried (but it is on deck for this evening): Fat Tire by New Belgium. I've heard great things about it for a long time, but for some reason it seems like I could never find it around here.

2. I picked up the new Green Day album this weekend. Normally new albums/DVDs come out on Tuesdays. So last Tuesday I found myself fuming that I couldn't find it in Best Buy or at Wal-Mart. I even ranted to Aric that it was this town's fault...but I used much more colorful language. For some reason the album didn't get released until Friday. So...call of them orbital bombardment... As for the album...I haven't made it all the way through yet, but so far it has the feel of a sequel that falls flat. Like one of the Pirates of the Carribean sequels. Not bad - still entertaining - but lacking the originality and charm of the first.

3. Callie and I were accosted during the Downtown After Dinner "festivities" on Saturday night. I say that sarcastically as the only entertainment aside from a special performance of the Paducah Symphony, were two musical acts: 1 - a band playing 50s-60s era classics and 2 - some college guys doing barbershop quartet. No really. 10 years ago no frat boy would be caught dead singing in public. No high schoolers would willingly put on musicals and consider it cool. American Idol would have been booed off the air. Boy, do times change....

But I digress....so my niece and I were walking towards the river when this goofy looking chap in a big St. Louis Cardinals sweatshirt and Nikes hands her a fake million dollar bill with some sort of fundamentalist Christian stuff written on it. Then he proceeds to start asking us personal religious questions while his minions (a couple guys like him and some kids who looked like the type to hide in the bushes and shoot non-believers with blow-darts) essentially surrounded us and watched. He wanted to know if we had been rasied in a "good, Christian background" and what we thought happened to us when we die. Of course, our answers weren't good enough - especially the part about Purgatory, which he dismissed completely (and which should have been his first clue that he was dealing with those darn Cath'lics!). Instead he wore this vacant, fake smile - exposing teeth that featured food between nearly every one of them - a condescending nod followed by an equally condescending "yeah...yeah...well let me ask you this..." And his eyes....I've always felt you can tell a lot about a person by looking into their eyes...and this guy's eyes were empty and cold.... So, Callie quickly grew angry with this man's thinly veiled assault on our beliefs and accusatory nature and stopped responding completely, while I took up my own fake smile and condescending tone to match that of our new pal. Why yes, I HAVE told a lie before! Hmmm...well, I don't think I've stolen anything since I was a little kid. What's that you say? The Bible states that if you break the 10 Commandments you're doomed to Hell? Wow...how about that... Then he asks me if I've ever looked at a woman lustfully. Um...yeah...quite a bit, in fact. He replies that the Bible says if a man looks at a woman lustfully then he has committed adultery in his heart. (Doesn't at least one party have to be married for it to be adultery? And how exactly would any of us exist if at some point our fathers didn't look at our mothers lustfully?) He goes on that "knowing what the Bible says about that, what do you think is going to happen to you when you stand before God?" To which I laugh and reply "Well, it's not really up to me!" By this point, I'm losing patience. Callie looks like she's ready to slap someone. And now he's asking us why Jesus died and wanting to know how we participate in His sacrifice. We respond with Communion (his second clue that we're none other than those fiendish Cath'lics!) which earns us another fake nod and "right...right..." He started in on something else about sins that I was not paying attention to and Callie spunkily answered "that's why we go to Confession." And finally! Finally the light bulb goes off in Cardinals sweatshirt's head! He's got a couple of those Cath'lics on his hands! Immediately he stops his whole act, gives me a hand shake and says "I hope you make the right decision." And just like that he and his entourage moved on down the street. We kept seeing them the rest of the night going through the same routine with other groups of young people - mostly teenagers. Callie and I both look younger than we are, but unfortunately for him, we're not weak-minded or easily manipulated. If somebody wants to evangelize their religious beliefs, that's fine and dandy - but don't go around accusing young people, intimating that they're going to hell, picking apart their own beliefs, and basically acting like a holier-than-thou, conceited windbag. People like him give Christianity a bad name.

Afterwards I kept thinking of things Dr. House would have said to the guy. "Those Nikes you're wearing...were they made in the Mexican sweatshop or the one in Southeast Asia? And how is God going to feel about your promotion of the exploitation of children? Hmm...sounds like you could be in Hell with the rest of us."

During the whole thing, I kept thinking of the time on Family Guy when they wanted to potty train Stewie, so they went to the bookstore:
Storeclerk: "Hi, how can I help you?"
Peter: "Well, we're looking for a book to potty train our son."
Clerk: "Well, 'Everybody Poops' is still the standard."
Peter: "Ah, well...we're Catholic, so uh...."
Clerk: "Oh, then you need 'You're a Naughty Child and That's Concentrated Evil Coming Out of Your Backside.'"

Okay...now to respond to Jason's comments from last week (which I just read last night)...

4. No, I haven't seen the Deadliest Warrior....so yes, you were ranting about a show I've never seen and yes, indeed, my references to Spartans and Pirates were completely unrelated. Sorry.

5. I haven't had the Reissdorf, but I've loved ever Kolsch I've ever tried. But I still don't like really hoppy beers and cannot drink pale ales of any kind (literally taste like soap to me).

6. Just to clarify - when I say that it sounds like a horse galloping when Killian runs across the deck...Killian's a cat.

Alright. That's all I have the patience for this morning.