Little Fundie Pamphlets

[CaptJodan]

Just a few minutes ago, while working my not so stressful job in a University Library, I found a small pamphlet titled "Discover 4 Simple Laws And Solve Lifes Greatest Mystery." Having aboslutely nothing better to do, I flipped through it and was none too terribly surprised to find it as a little Fundie booklet. (who else would claim to be able to solve the mysteries of life) Law number 3 of four I just couldn't help but post here.

"A youth once borrowed a fast car, and in a drunken stupor, sped thorugh his home town at 120 m.p.h. Since everything was horse-drawn in his country town, there was no laws against speeding. So the council passed a law saying that 60 m.p.h. was the maximum speed, and that any transgressors would be fined $100 dollars for every m.p.h over the speed limit. On his way back through the town, the speedster decided to pull the same prank. He was apprehended, tried, and found guilty by his father, who was the towns only judge. He was fined $6,000, and because he had no money and no words of defense, the youth was led off to prison.
As he sat in despair in prison, his father appeared at the door, and told him that he had sold all his own prized possessions and paid the fine for him. The son couldn't believe that he loved him so much. They embraced as they never had before, and walked off in a new-found relationship, bonded together with love."

The next page reads "That's a picture of what God did for us through the Gospel". And then goes into more words of "wisdom".

Now, I know it's just a story, but....this is a college campus. Nowhere does it say this story is a parable, or if supposed to be true. But I found it so utterly hilarious as either that the entire message was lost on me. Is this the level of creativity we should be expecting from our fundie friends these days?

Has anyone else run into these little pamphlets or books that seem to have stories or messages that seem so badly thought out that you can't help but laugh in a quiet library, perhaps?

[Dalton]

I think someone was handing similar stuff out at the St. Patrick's Day parade one year. My brother chided me for throwing it out. Apparently he thinks that sort of thing is sacriledge. What he doesn't realize is that I'd gladly...nah, won't say it.

[Morilore]

One time my high school class was going to a college fair, and on the way from the bus to the building we were fortunate enough to run into fundie tract-distributors. My crazy Russian friend took the initiative to get into an argument with them about abortion rights.

"Abortion has been linked to breast cancer."
"How? By who?"
"Real.. scientific people."

Just about an exact quote. Well, anyway, the feel of it.

[FedRebel]

"A youth once borrowed a fast car, and in a drunken stupor, sped thorugh his home town at 120 m.p.h. Since everything was horse-drawn in his country town, there was no laws against speeding.

What kind of backwater town still is solely horse-drawn?

As he sat in despair in prison, his father appeared at the door, and told him that he had sold all his own prized possessions and paid the fine for him. The son couldn't believe that he loved him so much. They embraced as they never had before, and walked off in a new-found relationship, bonded together with love."

Father: Hey there you no good drunk, you're out of here

Son: Why? How? I still have a month left of my sentence

Father: I sold everything I own, (since I condemned you to this Hell hole for your crimes so you could pay your debt and learn your lesson) I feel that you meant no wrong so I paid your fine by selling all that I own.

Son: Great! Thanks dad! You're the greatest!

*later"

Son: Where are we?

Father: Our new home, the overpass over I-95

Son: Is this a joke?

Father No son, I told you I sold everything I owned

The next page reads "That's a picture of what God did for us through the Gospel". And then goes into more words of "wisdom".

So let me get this straight...

Backwater shithole town = Eden
speeding car = tree of knowledge
prison = banishment from paradise

So what about the last part?

...and they seemed to skip the plauges, humanites use as gambling chips, and the rapture

Now, I know it's just a story, but....this is a college campus.

Christian or public?

Nowhere does it say this story is a parable, or if supposed to be true.

It's definately made up

And it attempts to appeal to students at your campus

[The Guid]

Just a few minutes ago, while working my not so stressful job in a University Library, I found a small pamphlet titled "Discover 4 Simple Laws And Solve Lifes Greatest Mystery." Having aboslutely nothing better to do, I flipped through it and was none too terribly surprised to find it as a little Fundie booklet. (who else would claim to be able to solve the mysteries of life) Law number 3 of four I just couldn't help but post here.

"A youth once borrowed a fast car, and in a drunken stupor, sped thorugh his home town at 120 m.p.h. Since everything was horse-drawn in his country town, there was no laws against speeding. So the council passed a law saying that 60 m.p.h. was the maximum speed, and that any transgressors would be fined $100 dollars for every m.p.h over the speed limit. On his way back through the town, the speedster decided to pull the same prank. He was apprehended, tried, and found guilty by his father, who was the towns only judge. He was fined $6,000, and because he had no money and no words of defense, the youth was led off to prison.
As he sat in despair in prison, his father appeared at the door, and told him that he had sold all his own prized possessions and paid the fine for him. The son couldn't believe that he loved him so much. They embraced as they never had before, and walked off in a new-found relationship, bonded together with love."

The next page reads "That's a picture of what God did for us through the Gospel". And then goes into more words of "wisdom".

Now, I know it's just a story, but....this is a college campus. Nowhere does it say this story is a parable, or if supposed to be true. But I found it so utterly hilarious as either that the entire message was lost on me. Is this the level of creativity we should be expecting from our fundie friends these days?

Has anyone else run into these little pamphlets or books that seem to have stories or messages that seem so badly thought out that you can't help but laugh in a quiet library, perhaps?

What ignorant nonsense. Its nothing like what was done in the Gospels. Jesus lays down his life, confronts death and meets despair and seperation from God despite being sinless. That is so much more than selling some possessions! Or are Fundies really that in love with their "prized possessions" that they consider it remarkable that someone sells them to make bail on their own son?

[wilfulton]

I've a few of those things keeping my waste basket from floating off.


Hmmm...as for the rest of the article, in my experience towns and other built up areas don't have many places where a person, drunk or no, could get a car up to a 120 mph without coming to a sudden stop with the aid of a rather solid object. In addition, I find it unlikely that a person who is a judge (who would have a background as a lawyer) would exactly be so hard up for $6000 as to have to sell everything, rich kid now.

Mrrrh... now about the idea of "borrowing" a fast car, and "in a drunken stupor," is horribly irresponsible. Kid would do time for DUI at any rate, if he's in a stupor! Okay, maybe some backwater town someplace has no law against speeding because horses don't go fast enough to worry about, but the state at any rate as laws against drunk driving.

An attempt to appeal to the college age maybe, but a pathetic one at that.

[NecronLord]

Jesus ... meets ... seperation from God

Error. Does not compute with Jesus as God.

[dworkin]

Chalk another one up to the ACME evangelism kits.

It's the only explanation I have for the continued cheesiness of evangelism these days. Every god-damned fundie whack-a-loon spouts the same damned speil. They are just like Wile-E-Coyote constantly ordering his traps from ACME. And like all ACME products they fail spectacuarly. So, they go back to ACME.

Where are the new good arguments dammit!

[Turin]

I had an experience a bit like this the other day. My 3-year old daughter brings me over a book that she want's to read with me. I look at the book... didn't recognize it but that's not that out of the ordinary (we've quite a kids book collection donated from friends and the like) and it's a typical reading primer, so I sit down and start reading it with her.

The first page is two people playing in a garden all happy ("can you find the snake in this picture?"), then the next page "oh no, the waters are rising!" Then the next "Thank the LORD, the waters have receded." You get the idea. As an atheist, I immediately asked my (agnostic) wife where the fuck the book came from. Apparently some fucktard fundie workmate of hers had slipped our kid the book while she was over for a baby shower recently. What kid of asshole does this sort of thing?

But the whole thing was done as a "can you find 4 squares in this picture?" "can you find Jesus in this picture?" Obviously the book skipped over the "and then God killed all the little babies of Eygpt" parts.

[Davis 51]

So let me get this straight...

Backwater shithole town = Eden
speeding car = tree of knowledge
prison = banishment from paradise

So what about the last part?

Selling his "prized posssessions"=God sacrificing his own son.
Shows that fundies believe their children to be "possessions"
I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I read that story.

[SyntaxVorlon]

I've a few of those things keeping my waste basket from floating off.


Hmmm...as for the rest of the article, in my experience towns and other built up areas don't have many places where a person, drunk or no, could get a car up to a 120 mph without coming to a sudden stop with the aid of a rather solid object. In addition, I find it unlikely that a person who is a judge (who would have a background as a lawyer) would exactly be so hard up for $6000 as to have to sell everything, rich kid now.

Mrrrh... now about the idea of "borrowing" a fast car, and "in a drunken stupor," is horribly irresponsible. Kid would do time for DUI at any rate, if he's in a stupor! Okay, maybe some backwater town someplace has no law against speeding because horses don't go fast enough to worry about, but the state at any rate as laws against drunk driving.

An attempt to appeal to the college age maybe, but a pathetic one at that.

Any state that had travel by horseback probably would have had laws against drunk riding, because it typically would cause death....It's what killed Gengis Khan.

[CaptJodan]

What kind of backwater town still is solely horse-drawn?

Oh but there's just so much material there to laugh at besides just that. I suppose you can try to make a case that it's an Omish (sp) town, but it'd have to be a pretty conservative one.

Christian or public?

Public. University of Central Florida, in Orlando. Our free speech area is often filled with the fire and brimestone types spouting off nonsense, but that kind of stuff usually isn't allowed in, say, the library. Of course this isn't the first time I've found these types of things laying around, and I've even been approached while trying to eat quietly my dinner before having to go back to work and they'll come up and start pushing.

It's definately made up

And it attempts to appeal to students at your campus

I wouldn't go so far as to say the students on my campus are the brightest bulbs in the box. Many people can't seem to read the signs of "don't do this" on copiers, computers, tables, etc. But I would expect better writing than this on a college campus. More creativity. It's a terrible story filled with so many impossibilties that you can't possibly take them seriously.

I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I read that story.

As did I, which is why I had to post it.

Besides the fact that there's this really isolated backwater town that only now figured out a speed limit may be necessary, there are any number of other logical problems with this story.

1. Clearly since this is a town with no cars, this kid had to somehow drive his horse to the nearest town that has a modern car. Quite a trip out, I'm sure, since it's described as a very isolated place.

2. Between the time he left and the time he came back, the council had already come up with a new law. Their town's lawmakers are insanely fast, because we're assuming that this young lad is STILL in a drunken stupor, after all speeding wouldn't be enough of a sin. They see the car, they all call a town meeting and immediately pass it on the books.

3. This one's my favorite. Our young lad comes back through town, at 120 mph, probably trying to get back to his horse he left a few hundred miles in the other direction only to...you guessed it. Get pulled over by the horse drawn police officer. God is clearly working miricles in this town too, as he was able to get those horses up to the same speed as this car.

4. It just so happens that his father is the judge of the town, and the only one at that.

5. The afore mentioned judge that didn't have 6,000 dollars to spare without selling everything he had ever owned and prized.

6. The happy go lucky Disney ending, where the father loves his son so much and they live happily ever after.

It's just so...so stupid. I should expect better from a university.

[wolveraptor]

If this town is entirely horse-drawn, it implies a complete self-sufficiency. As such, no modern roads are necessary. How the hell does he manage to get a car up to 120 mph hour on a dirt roat without sliding off on a sharp turn and dying?

[bilateralrope]

As I see it the father passes a sentence on his own son that the son can't pay . Then the father selles all his own stuff to pay the fine he handed down to his son. So basically he decided to make things worse for himself and to not punish the person who did the wrong. Did I get this right ?

Since its a backwater town, I'll assume that conflict of interest isn't a problem for them

[Darth Wong]

Just a few minutes ago, while working my not so stressful job in a University Library, I found a small pamphlet titled "Discover 4 Simple Laws And Solve Lifes Greatest Mystery." Having aboslutely nothing better to do, I flipped through it and was none too terribly surprised to find it as a little Fundie booklet. (who else would claim to be able to solve the mysteries of life) Law number 3 of four I just couldn't help but post here.

"A youth once borrowed a fast car, and in a drunken stupor, sped thorugh his home town at 120 m.p.h. Since everything was horse-drawn in his country town, there was no laws against speeding. So the council passed a law saying that 60 m.p.h. was the maximum speed, and that any transgressors would be fined $100 dollars for every m.p.h over the speed limit. On his way back through the town, the speedster decided to pull the same prank. He was apprehended, tried, and found guilty by his father, who was the towns only judge. He was fined $6,000, and because he had no money and no words of defense, the youth was led off to prison.
As he sat in despair in prison, his father appeared at the door, and told him that he had sold all his own prized possessions and paid the fine for him. The son couldn't believe that he loved him so much. They embraced as they never had before, and walked off in a new-found relationship, bonded together with love."

The next page reads "That's a picture of what God did for us through the Gospel". And then goes into more words of "wisdom".

Now, I know it's just a story, but....this is a college campus. Nowhere does it say this story is a parable, or if supposed to be true. But I found it so utterly hilarious as either that the entire message was lost on me. Is this the level of creativity we should be expecting from our fundie friends these days?

Has anyone else run into these little pamphlets or books that seem to have stories or messages that seem so badly thought out that you can't help but laugh in a quiet library, perhaps?

Usually, I just laugh and say "what kind of moron falls for this tripe" and then throw it out. Fundies are so accustomed to preaching to the choir that they honestly don't know how to argue a point. They love these stupid little parables which assume that you already believe what they're trying to teach you, and they don't even realize that if you're a nonbeliever, the parable has no effect at all on you, other than perhaps amusing you.

[Guardsman Bass]

If they want to make it more accurate, they need to change it to be like this:

FATHER: Isn't this a wonderful house, my son? There is everything you need here; food, water, a bathroom. Just don't go outside.

SON: What?

FATHER: Don't go outside, because I've made sure that if you do, you will die.

SON: Wow, is that a car?! *goes outside*

FATHER: Dammit, what did I tell you about going outside?! Get the hell back in the house, and you ain't never coming back outside again?

Later . . .

Basically, the story makes no mention of the fact that Christ (supposedly sent by God) is supposed to be "saving" us from a fate that God condemned us to.

[Maku]

I usually follow the Wong method of having a laugh and throwing it out. I hate it when they hand you the little pamphlet before you realise they're nutty Christians instead of promoters for some store or product.

There are some upsides though. I was at my local shopping mall a number of years ago when someone handed me a pamphlet. I looked at it and was puzzled for a minute as it was rambling on about honey and bears and other such nonsense. When it finally got to the 'Jesus saves' part and I realised what it was I whipped out my lighter, set it on fire and threw it off the 2nd storey (I was on the outside balcony part of the mall at the time of course). Although it was fairly juvenile behaviour on my part, it was worth it to see the look of utter horror and astonishment on the face of the Christian muppet who handed it to me in the first place.

[The Guid]

Jesus ... meets ... seperation from God

Error. Does not compute with Jesus as God.

Please don't make me try and expalin the trinity... or how I am supposed to see it.

[Spyder]

I once went to a Christian primary school. There was one time where they read out a similar story.

Two men were walking through the jungle, one of them beleived in God, the other didn't. The one that didn't saw lion tracks on the ground,
"We'd better be careful, there's a lion nearby." The Christian then responded, "no there isn't."
"Yes, there is look at the tracks. Definitive proof that there is a lion!"
"Nope, no lion." The Christian said.
"Well, ok. Why don't you think there's a lion there?"
The Christian then said, "How could I believe you when you say that those tracks are proof of the lion when you fail to see the proof of God?"
"What? What proof?"
"Look around you, everything you see, the trees, the animals, even the lion are all proof of God's work."
The other one turns around, surveys his surroundings then suddenly says "Hey, you're right. What a fool I've been!"

I think that story had the opposite effect on me to what the author intended. Almost immediately my thoughts were 'hang on, there's a disparity between the total number of explainations behind lion tracks and those behind everything.' The seed of doubt was planted, I started distancing myself from the religious teachings, suddenly the logical flaws in all of them were obvious. I was originally intended to go to a Christian High School, I made sure that never happened. I went through high school an athiest.

[PeZook]

[snip the first part]
The Christian then said, "How could I believe you when you say that those tracks are proof of the lion when you fail to see the proof of God?"
"What? What proof?"
"Look around you, everything you see, the trees, the animals, even the lion are all proof of God's work."
The other one turns around, surveys his surroundings then suddenly says "Hey, you're right. What a fool I've been!"

...and then the lion ate them both.

What the fuck? Most fairy tales I've read made more sense than this little story. I honestly cannot see the message I'm supposed to pick up.

I think that story had the opposite effect on me to what the author intended. Almost immediately my thoughts were 'hang on, there's a disparity between the total number of explainations behind lion tracks and those behind everything.' The seed of doubt was planted, I started distancing myself from the religious teachings, suddenly the logical flaws in all of them were obvious. I was originally intended to go to a Christian High School, I made sure that never happened. I went through high school an athiest.

I can relate to that somewhat...I went into a church a few months ago (sightseeing, it's a beautiful piece of architecture), and as there was mass going on at the time, I stopped to listen to the priest. After more than seven years of not practicing religion in any form at all, I have realized that nothing that priest said made any sense at all.

It is the same with all of those little pamphlets and tracts you can sometimes receive while walking down the street - as Darth Wong said, they are tailored to preach to the choir, failing miserably at convincing unbelievers of anything other than how insane their authors are.

As for the story with the car, I've though of something strange that can be inferred from it...please, bear with me for a second:

It is obvious the Father character is a methaphor for God, and his son - a similar representation of humanity that was punished and then saved. Now, the son (humans) break a certain law (the speeding ban) and get punished by God for it. Now here's the funny part...

Since obviously the father in the story was bound by laws of the community, and hence couldn't just decide his son should get off with a slap on the wrist, are we to inferr that the biblical God is bound by some higher laws that he is unable to break at will (so that he had to start this entire circus with Jesus to save humanity), and thus is not all powerful?
I'm sure the fundies would disagree, but that's the conclusion that can be drawn from this little parable.

[Dooey Jo]

Christ (supposedly sent by God) is supposed to be "saving" us from a fate that God condemned us to.

No no, don't you know? We condemned ourselves to that fate™.


Nice story there, by the way. If everything was horse-drawn, how the fuck would they be able to measure the difference between 60 and 120 mph? Wait a minute... what the fuck was the point of having everything horse-drawn in the town, anyway? That did not make any difference on the story, what-so-ever! Except perhaps, to show that, only in a back-water religious shithole, would a father sell every valuable thing he had, just to get a drunk-driving and speeding son out of jail. I don't know one father that would do that. Mine sure as hell wouldn't.

And just what the fuck is it supposed to mean anyway? That god sells a few extra rare and valuable souls to Satan, just to save one bad person, who will be super-happy and hug god every day?