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What's the most amusing encounter you've had with a religious person?

Last year I was in Salt Lake City and one of my fellow British touring companions asked a mormon "what do you do about divorce? I mean, you know like 'normal' people just get divorced - what happens with you mormons"?

We were in a lift in one of the church's main buildings and I can only remember the cringey looks on the faces of the other people in the lift - I can't even remember what the poor man said ?

ValJ 7 Sep 27
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0

This one is for you @Meili.

Speaking of Mormons, I was riding my bicycle to the local library. The trip took me by the local Mormon church. I was stopped for a traffic light by the church when three Elders (young Mormons on their mission) walked across the street in front of me. When the light changed I pulled up beside them and asked, "Three elders, and I'm the only one on a bike? What's wrong with this picture?" We all got a laugh out of that.

I design T-shirts as a hobby and that conversation actually inspired two designs. The second is for kids.

0

I can think of a few things that I laugh at now but weren't funny at the time.....

The funniest thing I can think of, though, was something a guy pulled on me when I was religious. I was a Mormon missionary (sorry!) and my companion and I were knocking doors. We knocked on one door and a guy opens the door wearing colorful tight undies and an open robe, and had an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth.

Never one to be deterred from sharing the good word, I proceeded to focus my gaze unwaveringly on his face and introduced myself and my companion to him as Sister --- and Sister -----. He abruptly pulled his robe closed and tied it shut. I paused for a second and then, as though nothing had happened, announced that we were from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He snatched his cigarette from his mouth and pocketed it in his robe. By that point I was forced to notice his antics so I asked him if he'd heard of us (obviously) but he said, "No, never." Ha, ha.

Poor unenlightened guy turned out to be smarter than I was....

@ValJ Not thanks to this guy but he sure made the journey more entertaining.

0

Poor misguided fools.

0

Someone actually asked me to remove the good without a god bumper sticker on my car they said the proof of God was all around me I politely said go away! And may your God go with you.

@ValJ of course next to the plate below stand up for science

Bumper stickers can be great conversation starters, if you're open to hostile engagements, that is! One of the weirdest bumper stickers I ever saw attempted to capture a wide range of hot button issues, a few decades ago: "Nuke the Unborn Gay Whales for Jesus!" I laughed so hard when I first saw it that I almost rear-ended the guy!

@p-nullifidian I always liked
Jesus is coming
Look busy

2

I was chatting with a guy at work one day way back in the early 90s and the discussion came around to music. I mentioned one of my favorite bands was AC/DC and he actually looked shocked and said in all seriousness "That's the music of Hell." I replied "No, I'm pretty sure they're from Australia. So far as I know, Hell hasn't put out an album." I then spent the next 5 mins trying to explain to him that it's just hard rock, it's not evil.

I doubt I got through but I did find his reaction amusing.

@ValJ Yeah, it would've taken years of de-programming but 5 mins was all I was willing to give. I'm sure he still lives in fear of AC/DC to this day.

4

A couple Mormons showed up at the front door. I greeted them enthusiastically and asked them if they were the people responsible for The Book of Mormon. They said "Yes, are you familiar with it?" "Familiar? It's my favorite Broadway show!! It's absolutely hilarious!!!" They left. "Thanks again!!!"

@ValJ I'm a convert. LOL! Haven't seen BOM, but I love musical theater.

I have wondered about showing them the South Park episode.

@ValJ I happen to have a favorite performer, my 16YO daughter. =]

0

I would say almost anytime the Jehovah's Witnesses stop by. (I must add that since putting a plastic Spiderman on my door window, none have knocked. Pretty sure my new addition of a Buddha head by the door outside won't win any over either.)
Anyway, I tried, always, to be polite....... I would say if I went to "church" it was the nearby Unitarian. To which they would always ask: what is that. And I would start a history lesson with them starting as non Trinitarians and suddenly the JW's were like we are long lost cousins. Uh, no.

0

I don't think I've ever found humor in religion. At least not that type of situation. I find more ignorance than anything

1

One year, we had a big family gathering for Christmas, and my sister-in-law went on a tirade about how the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe and Lord of the Rings movies were all causing people to turn away from God and were causing people to become witches. I made no effort to conceal the laughter, and pointed out that C.S. Lewis was very much a Christian author and that was strongly reflected in the series, and J.R.R. Tolkien was a combat medic and that the Lord of the Rings was an allegory to his WWI experience. Neither series has anything, whatsoever, to do with witchcraft. She had nothing to support her arguement and just fumed.

1

As an x jw I have seen those exact same contorted looks on the faces of believers. And this applies to all questions that are alien to their belief system. It is a high control cult that micromanages every aspect of their lives.

4

I was in a store one day, looking at soda for work and trying to decide what I wanted to buy for the week. This guy was across the aisle from me, looking at the nutrition label on different bottles of soda. I don't know if it was his wife or his mother, but she was a little older than he was. He appeared to be in his early 20s with a brown bomber jacket and a 50s haircut. She said something to him about how he shouldn't even bother looking at the soda because she wasn't going to get any. It was bad for you. Then she looks over at me, I'm a bigger guy, and starts telling me that I would do good to cut soda out of my diet too. It was in a "nice" way though. Like she was concerned for my health.

She then proceeded to ask me if I had jesus in my life. When I said, "No thanks, I'm good." She says, "Are you, really? Are you sure? Because everyone needs to get right with the lord before they pass." So she starts going on and on about how her church is the right one and how they don't do any of that evil speaking in tongues crap and how, if I ever changed my mind and wanted to be saved, I should make my way over to their church because they were really accepting of everyone. I gathered that right away based on the criticism of my diet based on my weight.

So, I get back out to my car, where my girlfriend, at the time, was waiting. She's Methodist, but is accepting of the fact that I'm not religious. I'm laughing because I thought the situation was funny. I told her, "You'll never guess what just happened. I was just proselytized to in the store." The best part is, my girlfriend was an english major in college, so it threw me off when she looked shocked and said, "OH MY GOD! SOMEONE PROPOSOTIONED YOU FOR SEX IN THE STORE?!" After I finished laughing, I said, "Proselytized to, not prostituted to. Means they tried to convince me to join their church."

2

I don't think of my encounters with religious people as "amusing." I'm usually trying to avoid them.

2

I was working with a Mormon in Alaska in the early 1985-ish. He had been living in Las Vegas and had disconnected his car heater which apparently was a common thing to do at the time in a hot dry climate. So two things about this guy.

  1. He had never worked in a professional environment before (it might have been his first job out of college) and didn't own a jacket. His girlfriend came up to Alaska and the next day he showed up at work with a new shirt, tie, and a Harris Tweed jacket. But he hadn't taken off the tags that are sewn onto the outside of the sleeve. I took him aside to tell him to cut them off before the client came into our office. He refused thinking I was just pulling his chain and wouldn't do it until enough other people said it too.
  2. Now the car thing is relevant. He didn't get it fixed when fall and winter came around. He had no heat, no defrost, and useless wipers. I saw him driving into work bundled up with mittens on keeping a little hole of visibility by going back and forth wiping the inside and outside of his windshield.

I don't run across religious people much...

Of course now I think of a different one. It was IT consulting in North Carolina. This one particular guy kept trying to convince me to come to Jesus. When he realized I wouldn't, he proceeded to tell me the story about how he and his bride had consummated their marriage in the limo on the way to the reception. 🙂 I guess he figured I wouldn't be there long and would be completely unperturbed. He was right.

1

The husband would just probably take another wife and would stop visiting the first one. From what I saw on a documentary some of them have two or three wives and usually they all live in separate houses with their offspring, in most cases all next door to each other. The husband rotates sleeping with the wives and I suppose if he didn’t divorce any of them he would just stop visiting that wife for sex. If she wanted to leave altogether and get a divorce I suppose there would be nothing stopping her, but that would probably mean leaving their sect or being thrown out.

@ValJ Sounds like a misogynist’s charter to me. Can’t understand the women going along with it.

@ValJ
How come I didn't think of that ???

@ValJ
I certainly would be arrested but truthfully I was unable to manage the one. ??

@Happyheretic One is more than enough for most sane men. At least one at a time....I know there are some serial monogamists out there too but that is a whole dufferent kind of crazy!

@Marionville
Agreed, I have watched several documentaries on polygamy. Most involve breakaway cults from the mainstream cult of Mormonism. All of their "pious" explanations of having several wives are very unconvincing. Some marry girls as young as fourteen. These men are pedophiles and deviants.

@ValJ That would be because the older more powerful men kick out the younger more attractive men.

@ValJ not really. Smith began his B.S. in New York, moved to the Midwest and headed to the territories due to violence against and from his "tribe."

@Happyheretic Agreed...that too.

@Meili I think young and old makes no difference they are all indoctrinated to believe that they have dominion over women.....and the women are indoctrinated to believe they are!

@Marionville I was responding to the comment about how there was a scarcity of men on the frontier. They claim that because of the dangers back then, men were often killed and so polygamy was needed to provide husbands for all the women. Whatever the truth is about then, now polygamous communities are known for kicking out young men on a regular basis in order to maintain the male/female ratio. It's terrible for the young men who are raised to believe rejection from the community is akin to damnation, besides the fact that they are suddenly left without any support during their teen years. They are usually around sixteen or seventeen when it happens.

@Meili Okay, I misunderstood what you meant, they are an abominable sect in the first place....I didn’t know that about the young guys. I hope some of them get the scales lifted from their eyes and see that they are the lucky ones to be out and free from this irrational and controlling group.

3

I was protesting against Mitt Romney at a Florida-Georgia football game years ago and these two girls came up to me. They said "We're ex-communicated Mormons".... it was the highlight of the day!

Awesome!

1

We were too poor to be able to afford a divorce. So we would just go into the back yard and burn the marriage certificate lol

An old acquaintance told me that his parents got divorced then got back together. The father said they didn't need to get remarried because as "good" Catholics they were never divorced in God's eyes.

@Beowulfsfriend Saves buying a cake

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