Pat Robertson -Praying over used items - Merged

[SamuraiKatz]

Do you think the Duggars and other like minded families who buy used and save the difference pray the demons and familiar spirits off those items???

Pat Robertson strikes again.

Not breaking the link cause goes to youtube.

[pixydust]

When I was a young fundie we had to pray over anything used or anything that was given to us by a non-Christian (so Christmas/birthday presents from my mom's family). Thankfully, we did this at home and not in front of people! :oops:

[Jiraffe Jirl]

I just read the SODRT stickie on ATI, apparently Gothard once thought Cabbage Patch dolls were demonic and needed to be prayed over/burned. O.O

My fundie family loved used crap, no praying needed. I doubt the Duggar's pray over their used Coach bags, it seems like something more charismatic fundies would do.

[Lillybee]

According to Pat Robinson, used clothes may be possessed.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/25/r ... d-clothes/

[Helena]

I think that was a spoof question.

Signed,

Carrie

;)

[EmiGirl]

I just read the SODRT stickie on ATI, apparently Gothard once thought Cabbage Patch dolls were demonic and needed to be prayed over/burned. O.O

My fundie family loved used crap, no praying needed. I doubt the Duggar's pray over their used Coach bags, it seems like something more charismatic fundies would do.

And according to my exATI husband, they caused infertility.

[wild little fox]

There are a lot of belief systems who may feel like this about used items. My neighbor is Native American. When i was young she bought her foster daughters clothes. If they didn't like the clothes the girls had me try them on and then they would be given to me lol!! I scored some clothes because she didn't want our spirits to mix. It only happened twice or three times, but I ended up with a nice cartigan sweater I wore for years.

I've also heard several Pagans warn about used things having taken on the bad intentions from previous owners.

Personally, I think some people may be sensitive to vibrations left by others. But to be a Christian and be that superstitious, that goes against God being the most powerful god in the Universe. So, to me it does not make sense for a Christian to feel that way. It is giving Satan too much power. JMHO

Eta: content.

[wild little fox]

And according to my exATI husband, they caused infertility.

I've heard that, too. Most likely from one of the escapee ex-fundie girls.

[miffy]

I think Gothard must be confused between the movie Chuckie & Cabbage Patch Dolls. The former is possessed & evil, the latter are simply frightening to look at.

[Lulu]

Thats the reson I buy some items used rather than new. I love walking round our local oportunity shops and thinking about who used the stuff and if they were happy and what were their fvorite TV shows :shhh:

[maybeizfundie]

Personally, I think some people may be sensitive to vibrations left by others. But to be a Christian and be that superstitious, that goes against God being the most powerful god in the Universe. So, to me it does not make sense for a Christian to feel that way. It is giving Satan too much power. JMHO

:clap:

That is absolutely true. ATI folks feel this way but the "spirits everywhere" idea also exists among some charismatic/pentacostal people. *Everything* is demonic. Spirit of lust, spirit of thyroid disease, spirit of bedwetting (look that up on youtube if you want a rabbithole of insanity to go down). And once you attach all these scary evil spirits to everything, you gotta pray over everything because you never know where a demon might be lurking reading to jump on you and turn you into a tool of the devil. :twisted:

[jenny_islander]

This attitude leads to so much pointless suffering! Anybody out there see a blog, years ago, by a "homesteading family" (muddy pastures, barbed wire, scrawny livestock, and junk--and the father was too busy "praying" by himself in the woods all the time to do a lick of work) whose dog was ripped up by a coyote or raccoon, but they concluded that it must have been a demon, prayed over the poor terrified animal's open wounds, and left it on the porch in freezing temperatures, just as it was?

Jeri Massi calls this the cootie theory of spirituality. If you're a fundamentalist, cooties are everywhere. Trying to keep them off eats up your life. And you end up doing stupid things like giving bleeding, possibly rabies-infected animals anti-cootie treatment and calling it good.

[August]

I always knew fabric softener was evil.

[MamaJunebug]

A devout (read: kool-aid-soaked) Jehovah's Witness friend told me this with all solemnity and sincerity back in high school. "Used furniture can have evil spirits." Even then as a true-believing Lutheran, my thought was, "Who spoke at your meeting this week, a new-furniture store owner?"

I was such a nascent skeptic ;)

In a related topic, the sanctity of items. My TSU is of Native descent and we enjoy powwows, which generally are social get-togethers, with spirituality-oriented things associated in varying degrees depending on the organizers. One custom is fairly uniform: if an eagle feather hits the ground, there's a time of prayer/meditation/quiet words of reproach to the dancer from whose regalia it fell.

That's the background for my story: a Native friend & I attended a class on Lutheran beliefs and the pastor mentioned that he sometime had to set his Communion case (containing wafers, wine & cup) on the floor when visiting shut-in members.

He said that the first time this happened, he had a moment of guilt: was it disrespectful to put this case in the floor? -- and he said he quickly reasoned that he wasn't intending disrespect; moreover, God had made the materials that went into building the floor and God's power is infinite, thus it was not a problem.

Made eminent sense to me and fair sense to my friend. Gotta love those Lutherans, some times!

[formergothardite]

And according to my exATI husband, they caused infertility.

The CP dolls apparently are more powerful than God!

We used to have to hide all of our forbidden toys when ATI families would come visit. Barbies, CP dolls, trolls, Candy Land, Smurfs, Rainbow Bright, all evil. This was even before we were in ATI, so I'm not sure why my parents did that. I think they always said they didn't want to offend them, but hiding our toys was weird.

[salsa]

I've heard that, too. Most likely from one of the escapee ex-fundie girls.

OT - really? How did they come up with THAT idea? A doll causing infertility?

As to praying over used clothes, I can see that happening among a myriad of fundies and charismatics. I had an acquaintance once who believed she had the power to discern spirits*. Bonfires in her backyard were a regular occurance. Books, clothes (not even used ones; if she'd been around someone she thought had a demon, she'd burn those clothes if she thought the demon spawned off onto what she was wearing, or onto her or her family), you name it.

I was at a meeting once at someone else's office and I felt cold. I noticed a sweater hanging on a coat rack and asked if I could borrow it. The woman who owned the sweater said, "Yes. There's lots of peoples' spirits on that sweater." I don't know her specific beliefs, but she was not specifically Christian, so couldn't have been a fundy or charismatic.

* I say "believed she had the power" because even though some people are intuitive and perceptive, in her case it was exgtreme enough that, in my opinion, crossed the bridge into paranoia and seeing things that weren't there.

[Miss M]

I wish anyone could remember this blog so I can try to find it, sounds like a family I know from Texas!!

This attitude leads to so much pointless suffering! Anybody out there see a blog, years ago, by a "homesteading family" (muddy pastures, barbed wire, scrawny livestock, and junk--and the father was too busy "praying" by himself in the woods all the time to do a lick of work) whose dog was ripped up by a coyote or raccoon, but they concluded that it must have been a demon, prayed over the poor terrified animal's open wounds, and left it on the porch in freezing temperatures, just as it was?

Jeri Massi calls this the cootie theory of spirituality. If you're a fundamentalist, cooties are everywhere. Trying to keep them off eats up your life. And you end up doing stupid things like giving bleeding, possibly rabies-infected animals anti-cootie treatment and calling it good.

[AuntCloud]

Can't remember for the life of me where I've read this, but apparently, in the game of "would you rather...", people would rather wear a sweater that has been rolled in dog doodie than a clean and washed sweater that belonged to a serial killer.

I'm a little shocked by the spirit/demon talk. Are we back in the Middle Ages?

[lilwriter85]

It is n't only fundies who have fears over buying used things. There is superstition in several cultures about this and often some people do various cleansing rituals over things they buy or receive.

[pudding]

So, how can people like these live in rented appartments or houses? Must be full of spirits and ghosts and whatever?

I'm glad I never believed in anything like that.. that demon and superstition stuff sounds super exhausting...

[Loveday]

I have a friend who once told me she'd traced all the problems she'd been having to a copy of The Lord of the Rings that had been left in the back seat of her car by one of her son's friends. :? Once she got rid of that, all her problems dramatically disappeared. I tried to point out that one, unlike Harry Potter, LOTR is generally approved by most Christians and was even in the library of many Christian schools in the area; two, demons and spirits don't possess books; three, she was being superstitious which is not what Christians are supposed to be (I said that in a more tactful way, of course! :lol: ); and four, all her problems had been solved in the normal way by people helping her out or by her own resources. But she wasn't having any of it. That book--that she didn't even know was there for weeks!-- had created such a spirit of evil in the back seat of her car that it had affected every aspect of her life.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I know someone who has a lot of HP stuff in their home--books, posters, collectibles, etc. Their grown son is a fundamentalist Catholic and firmly believes that because of all this stuff there's a dark cloud of demonic activity floating around the house. Kind of like a Dark Mark hanging overhead, I guess. :doh:

[ILoveJellybeans]

Life must be scary for someone that paranoid.

[MamaJunebug]

Life must be scary for someone that paranoid.

When some friends of ours moved to the Saint Louis, Missouri area, they were frantic to find something "outside the outer belt (the I-270 highway loop around the metro area). Why? Friends of theirs -- fundamentalists from the Saint Charles area -- told them that anything "inside" of I-270 was drugs, prostitutes, gangs, all of it.

The same friends of theirs firmly believed that someone had sat down in a movie theater, felt a sting, got up and found a hypodermic with needle, and a note, "Ha ha, you have just been infected with the AIDS virus!"

Firmly. Believed. That.

And I used to wonder why so many people equated Christianity with nuttiness.

[AuntBea]

Not sayin' he's a fundie (but maybe on the same step of the crazy staircase) but didn't Billy Bob Thornton say he had a phobia about antique furniture for similar reasons?

[merrily]

Can one pray over the supposed decreased tormented souls contained in used tampons?