Real Life Fundie Encounters - Part 4

[saintmom]

So I'm not sure if this was a fundie sighting, but, I'm curious.  I'm a part owner of a small retail gift and decor store in a small town in Canada.  I had a young woman come in the other day, she had on a long floor length skirt, t shirt and some type of black head covering that covered mostly the mid to back part of the top of her head, and her hair was in a bun which was also covered.  Accompanying her was whom I could only surmise was her father, as he had the typical fundie haircut, collared shirt, jeans and dress shoes, and he never strayed more than a foot away from her.  What got me wondering was that he refused to make eye contact with me, like at all, even when I asked if he needed any assistance.  He eerily reminded me of JimBob. Maybe he was absolutely stunned by my amazing beauty , but it was just strange.  They both also had southern USA accents.

 

 

[omilona]

I am at the pediatrician’s office. Across the waiting room is a Hasidic woman with Wig+hat, long skirt and opaque seamed tights with her 6 kids from 8 to new born. What completed the look was a black eye like a panda.  What would possess anyone to tolerate living like this?

[EowynW]

A fundie told me that the reason women with preeclampsia often go into labor early is that the body knows the baby will be safer outside and is trying to save it. Okay then. Personally I view it as the body trying to get rid of what is hurting it, but whatever rocks your boat I guess. 

[Jana814]

1 hour ago, EowynW said:

A fundie told me that the reason women with preeclampsia often go into labor early is that the body knows the baby will be safer outside and is trying to save it. Okay then. Personally I view it as the body trying to get rid of what is hurting it, but whatever rocks your boat I guess. 

Oh my!!  

[PigtailHeadband]

I saw my first ever real-life fundies yesterday! I was on the subway and three girls got on, all wearing mid-calf length skirts and t-shirts. I didn't think much of it, but quietly thought, "wow, such Duggar-esque outfits, lol".... Lo and behold not two minutes later they pull out the tracts and start handing them to certain riders. I live in Boston so this was an unexpected sight to see! 

[sleepy_doggos]

I don't know where to put this, but need to vent!

I sat down with my mom to watch the rerun of Joy duggar's birth episode today. I watched in peace for a while, made some negative comments about Joy and Austin's lack of prenatal care, etc. And then my mom said why do you watch if you don't like them? You don't have to watch. I STUPIDLY decided to reiterate that I don't hate them as people but hate the lack of education & forced lack of options for women especially: that they see the only choice for women as wife and mother and have to live at home until marriage and obey their husbands and fathers. She said she sees wife and motherhood as the highest calling and doesn't see what wrong with it. Ugh... Stupid, pointless conversation ensues, then she complains about Josh being off the show (punished) for his adultery. I said, "Mom! He's not off the show for adultery, he molested his sisters!" and she defended the way they handled it, saying they did the best they knew at the time. Backstory: my mom grew up in a home with mishandled sexual abuse between siblings. So when I pointed out that they handled it the exact same as her mother, she snapped back and kept saying "they did the best they knew at the time!" while I said, "they did nothing!"

But what it comes down to, as she says, is that they are happy and don't show their boobs and don't have sex before marriage, therefore everything they do is ok. [emoji51][emoji19][emoji35] so frustrating.

[Lisafer]

10 minutes ago, sleepy_doggos said:

I don't know where to put this, but need to vent!

I sat down with my mom to watch the rerun of Joy duggar's birth episode today. I watched in peace for a while, made some negative comments about Joy and Austin's lack of prenatal care, etc. And then my mom said why do you watch if you don't like them? You don't have to watch. I STUPIDLY decided to reiterate that I don't hate them as people but hate the lack of education & forced lack of options for women especially: that they see the only choice for women as wife and mother and have to live at home until marriage and obey their husbands and fathers. She said she sees wife and motherhood as the highest calling and doesn't see what wrong with it. Ugh... Stupid, pointless conversation ensues, then she complains about Josh being off the show (punished) for his adultery. I said, "Mom! He's not off the show for adultery, he molested his sisters!" and she defended the way they handled it, saying they did the best they knew at the time. Backstory: my mom grew up in a home with mishandled sexual abuse between siblings. So when I pointed out that they handled it the exact same as her mother, she snapped back and kept saying "they did the best they knew at the time!" while I said, "they did nothing!"

But what it comes down to, as she says, is that they are happy and don't show their boobs and don't have sex before marriage, therefore everything they do is ok. so frustrating.

I feel ya! I told a family member when Doug Phillips (is a Tool) had his fall from grace, and she was all "Oh, well even David sinned in the Bible, and he was a man of God..."

Nooooo. That's not how it works! Nooooo!

[sleepy_doggos]

I feel ya! I told a family member when Doug Phillips (is a Tool) had his fall from grace, and she was all "Oh, well even David sinned in the Bible, and he was a man of God..."
Nooooo. That's not how it works! Nooooo!

It's not how it works at all! Happy/religious/"forgiven" =/= a truly good person.

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

Hare Krishnas are my neighbours. Great, just f’ing great.  They have a large community only a few miles away. There are 17 children and 30 families living on 3500 acres. I don’t know how to post a link yet but google Hare Krishna Venebles Valley BC if you are curious. The worst part is our beloved guy who ran the area dump/recycling depot has retired and quess who they hired. Yep, one of the hare k people.  This means every 2 weeks I have to interact with this man. This makes me very unhappy as I don’t play well with cult people.  The worst to me is the kids who have no choices!

They had an accident last winter where TWO LITTLE KIDS and their mom died due to a faulty propane appliance.  Rufus bless me and help me keep my big mouth shut. 

[Aine]

4 hours ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

Hare Krishnas are my neighbours. Great, just f’ing great.  They have a large community only a few miles away. There are 17 children and 30 families living on 3500 acres. I don’t know how to post a link yet but google Hare Krishna Venebles Valley BC if you are curious. The worst part is our beloved guy who ran the area dump/recycling depot has retired and quess who they hired. Yep, one of the hare k people.  This means every 2 weeks I have to interact with this man. This makes me very unhappy as I don’t play well with cult people.  The worst to me is the kids who have no choices!

They had an accident last winter where TWO LITTLE KIDS and their mom died due to a faulty propane appliance.  Rufus bless me and help me keep my big mouth shut. 

I'm going to admit that I don't know a huge amount about Hare Krishnas. They were a presence where I grew up and mostly I danced with them as a kid and even now, I have two long-term friends who are lifelong Hare Krishnas and they don't seem in anyway different to me from any other religious person and aren't pushy and it isn't the focus of my friendship with them at all and it really doesn't come up that often. I do know there can be differences between branches or temples with the Hare Krishna movement though.

I clicked on two articles when I Googled "Hare Krishna" and it didn't seem as overwhelmingly "this is a cult" as some other fringe groups. Can you, @Don'tlikekoolaid or anyone else point me to a good article or resource that explains the issues with this group? I don't doubt that there are but I'd like to learn more.

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

@Aine I don’t know too much about this group other than people around here don’t seem to like them.  They are very isolated and the ones I’ve seen in town are very hippy granola type looking, which is fine but they don’t seem very friendly.  My opinion, however, is based on one encounter.  They have a website which makes them look better than they are in real life.  I haven’t learned yet how to post a link but here they are 

saranagata.ca

I have had encounters with them in the 70’s and 80’s and was not impressed with them at all.  I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do up there except for the kids. People here tell me they have put a thick veneer of nice over themselves and that’s fine but I don’t want to have to deal with them at the dump.

[Aine]

10 minutes ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

@Aine I don’t know too much about this group other than people around here don’t seem to like them.  They are very isolated and the ones I’ve seen in town are very hippy granola type looking, which is fine but they don’t seem very friendly.  My opinion, however, is based on one encounter.  They have a website which makes them look better than they are in real life.  I haven’t learned yet how to post a link but here they are 

saranagata.ca

I have had encounters with them in the 70’s and 80’s and was not impressed with them at all.  I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do up there except for the kids. People here tell me they have put a thick veneer of nice over themselves and that’s fine but I don’t want to have to deal with them at the dump.

Without some facts, I find not wanting to 'deal with someone' doing their job because they have a different religion, so long as they don't try and force their religion on you while they do it, to be against the spirit of the right to free religion. I believe you when you say that there may be hard facts- I just don't know them. But I don't think anything you said in that post is enough to "not want to deal with them at the dump" anymore than my neighbor two doors down doesn't want to "deal with the Muslims who run the dang gas stations in this dadgum town" according to him. We do have multiple gas stations in our town run by Yemeni immigrants. They're totally proper and polite and hard working. They don't push their religion on me or anyone else to my knowledge. The only time it ever came into an interaction with one of them was when I got to the station while he was doing his evening prayers and I was the only one in there and he rushed to come to the counter and I told him to go and finish his prayers.

To be clear, I'm not defending Hare Krishnas, I just don't 'get' the issue of them working at the dump unless they're proselytizing there or not doing their job or there is clear evidence that particular branch of Hare Krishna (or all of them everywhere) are involved in something criminal or untoward. I'm hesitant in my interactions with Catholic priests, even after being raised Catholic and my parish priest and one of the most significant people in my life being a whistleblower on pedophilia in Australia and his actions showing me all that can be good in a religious leader. I still don't trust them. But I don't ever thing that I don't "want to deal with them" as a flat out judgment. 

As I said, I'd be keen to read any resource that lays out the sins of Hare Krishna. I'm sure they're out there if I go searching but if someone has a recommendation, I'd like to read it.

[Bethella]

@Aine Here's an article that talks about Hare Krishnas and their history. It sounds like their image has been rehabilitated in the last several years. Before that there were acknowledged cases of child abuse and accusations of brainwashing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/27/after-50-years-hare-krishna-believers-are-no-longer-berobed-white-hippies-who-drum-up-donations-in-airports/?utm_term=.2a2fc49bf499

This article from wikipedia is noted as having some issues but goes more in to the problems with the religion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_Krishna_Consciousness#Problems_and_controversies

While this one from NPR discusses their beliefs. 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90643796

[Aine]

19 hours ago, Bethella said:

@Aine Here's an article that talks about Hare Krishnas and their history. It sounds like their image has been rehabilitated in the last several years. Before that there were acknowledged cases of child abuse and accusations of brainwashing.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/27/after-50-years-hare-krishna-believers-are-no-longer-berobed-white-hippies-who-drum-up-donations-in-airports/?utm_term=.2a2fc49bf499

This article from wikipedia is noted as having some issues but goes more in to the problems with the religion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_Krishna_Consciousness#Problems_and_controversies

While this one from NPR discusses their beliefs. 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90643796

Thank you! I'm going to check these out now. I did see the Wiki article and the controversies section when I did a quick Google but none of those problems seemed anymore appalling than pretty much all mainstream religions face to cause as much contempt as someone not wanting to deal with someone of that religion as they did their job.

But I'm going to read these and see if they do indeed deserve such contempt. Thanks @Bethella- I know I seem lazy but I have clinical work and dissertation and manuscript and class work up the wazoo at the moment and I didn't want to spend time reading a resource that maybe wasn't comprehensive or was very biased so I just wanted to see y'all's recommendations.

[Lisafer]

On 9/11/2018 at 8:18 PM, Aine said:

Without some facts, I find not wanting to 'deal with someone' doing their job because they have a different religion, so long as they don't try and force their religion on you while they do it, to be against the spirit of the right to free religion. I believe you when you say that there may be hard facts- I just don't know them. But I don't think anything you said in that post is enough to "not want to deal with them at the dump" anymore than my neighbor two doors down doesn't want to "deal with the Muslims who run the dang gas stations in this dadgum town" according to him. We do have multiple gas stations in our town run by Yemeni immigrants. They're totally proper and polite and hard working. They don't push their religion on me or anyone else to my knowledge. The only time it ever came into an interaction with one of them was when I got to the station while he was doing his evening prayers and I was the only one in there and he rushed to come to the counter and I told him to go and finish his prayers.

To be clear, I'm not defending Hare Krishnas, I just don't 'get' the issue of them working at the dump unless they're proselytizing there or not doing their job or there is clear evidence that particular branch of Hare Krishna (or all of them everywhere) are involved in something criminal or untoward. I'm hesitant in my interactions with Catholic priests, even after being raised Catholic and my parish priest and one of the most significant people in my life being a whistleblower on pedophilia in Australia and his actions showing me all that can be good in a religious leader. I still don't trust them. But I don't ever thing that I don't "want to deal with them" as a flat out judgment. 

As I said, I'd be keen to read any resource that lays out the sins of Hare Krishna. I'm sure they're out there if I go searching but if someone has a recommendation, I'd like to read it.

I liked your post because I had some of the same feelings, and I also don't know much about Hare Krishnas. But I'm totally in favor of people working honest jobs, no matter what their religious beliefs. I worked with a JW once, and despite the group's cultish teachings, she was a sweet person who never attempted to proselytize. She was fired for her religion, which pissed me off--terribly unfair. 

I'll even indulge in friendly chat with the JWs who come to my door handing out tracts. I worry that being harsh would just drive them deeper into isolationist beliefs. Now if they were being rude or pushy, I'd tell them off, but they've always been quite courteous. The rudest person who ever gave me a tract was a Christian--poked me in the arm with it, and when I turned, he shoved it in my hand and walked off as fast as he could. Dick.

[EowynW]

A very chatty catholic former homeschooling fundie lite Mom has discovered my knit group.  Lord help. 

[sleepy_doggos]

A very chatty catholic former homeschooling fundie lite Mom has discovered my knit group.  Lord help. 

Good luck!!

[Don'tlikekoolaid]

@Lisafer and @Aine thanks both of you for your input, I’ve thought hard about you both have said and have decided to not judge and give this man a chance.  Also I want to know more about their sacred cows and whether or not they they were shipped from India or if they are American bred Brama cows.  Thanks for helping me not be an asshole. ?

[Lisafer]

11 hours ago, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

@Lisafer and @Aine thanks both of you for your input, I’ve thought hard about you both have said and have decided to not judge and give this man a chance.  Also I want to know more about their sacred cows and whether or not they they were shipped from India or if they are American bred Brama cows.  Thanks for helping me not be an asshole. ?

That's great! Of course, if they start behaving in unacceptable ways, absolutely speak up if you feel like you need to! 

[Aine]

On 9/14/2018 at 8:40 PM, Don'tlikekoolaid said:

@Lisafer and @Aine thanks both of you for your input, I’ve thought hard about you both have said and have decided to not judge and give this man a chance.  Also I want to know more about their sacred cows and whether or not they they were shipped from India or if they are American bred Brama cows.  Thanks for helping me not be an asshole. ?

@Don'tlikekoolaid, I'm glad you weren't offended and you will give the man a chance  I'm working my way through those Hare Krishna articles and it seems like just like many mainstream religious groups, they've had some bad eggs given power but that most of their beliefs don't seem harmful and they've taken steps to remove the bad eggs? I'm only a couple of articles in though.

Of course, as @Lisafer said, don't put up with unacceptable behavior just because it's their religion. I'm interested to see if your interactions with him bring about any interesting stories.

[newyorkgirl52]

On 7/25/2017 at 8:55 PM, divadivine said:

I live on the north westside of Indianapolis (very close to the suburbs of Carmel and Zionsville, if you know the area.) Anyhow, I ran out to pick up some Qdoba for dinner tonight. Qdoba is across the street from Walmart. When I was leaving the parking lot, I noticed a few people walking down the sidewalk on 86th Street (busy area, you don't see a lot of people walking up here unless they just got off the city bus.) I noticed knee length skirts & long hair.... and another group.... and another. Lord, it was a whole gaggle fundies. I don't know if they had been on a tour bus and they were walking to dinner at the fast food restaurants on 86th street or if they were out trying to win souls for Jesus. I wish I could have gotten a photo- just to show everyone how many there were out on the sidewalk. No clue if there is an event in the city this weekend or not, but it was a fundie invasion. 

maybe there's a local fundie conference or "rally"? do you normally have that many in your town?

[EmiGirl]

2 hours ago, newyorkgirl52 said:

maybe there's a local fundie conference or "rally"? do you normally have that many in your town?

Pentecostals have a youth conference in indy every year.

[EowynW]

My very fundie mother in law just posted this. I am so unbelievably angry. 

[sleepy_doggos]

My very fundie mother in law just posted this. I am so unbelievably angry. 

Wow. Classic propaganda tactics. I'm sorry@eowynw :/ it just sucks to know people who suck.

[EowynW]

1 hour ago, sleepy_doggos said:

Wow. Classic propaganda tactics. I'm sorry@eowynw ? it just sucks to know people who suck.

I I tried to thoughtfully and reasonably politely engage on the post but it just went downhill. And eleventy billion fundies came out of the woodwork to post on it.