Street preachers... what do you make of them?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Street preachers... what do you make of them?

Stew?

[Bolero]

The atheist group I go to has a "Crazy Christian Debating" meetup once a month, where they all go have a few drinks, then rock up to the regular Saturday night preachers in town and have a go at their arguments.

I've never been, but it sounds like fun.

[Tigger]

The atheist group I go to has a "Crazy Christian Debating" meetup once a month, where they all go have a few drinks, then rock up to the regular Saturday night preachers in town and have a go at their arguments.

I've never been, but it sounds like fun.

I'm sure you'd revel in it, Bolero.
I bet you never heard that before.
I'm sooooooo sorry.

[devogue]

Great article I dug out by Newton Emerson, a top Northern Irish writer (how did I never guess his family were atheist with that name!? ). A lovely sting in the tail as well:

Lately I have started shouting back at Christians. I can tell you exactly when it started. Some months ago I was walking through Portadown minding my own business when the drone of praise suddenly deadened the air, for the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle porta-pulpit was back in town. The porta-pulpit is like one of those trailers country DJs own, with 'Soupy's disco' or (more latterly) 'DJ Soupy' on the side, except that this trailer rolls only for Jesus. "We are all sinners!" yelled some fat guy in a sweater as I walked past and for some reason, after 34 years of ignoring this stuff completely, I turned to him and said "I'm not, and I don't like having your religion forced down my throat." "Ah!" the fat guy in a sweater said with sombre earnestness. "I see you're not saved." Yes it was exactly at that point that I started shouting. It all came out, the years of judgements and condescension and insults, that time in primary school when the headmaster told us God sank the Titanic because a baggage porter said he couldn't, all the sex I never had because nice Tandragee girls don't do that sort of thing he got it with both barrels. And then something amazing happened. The fat guy in the sweater turned around, packed up his porta pulpit and left. If only I'd always known it was that easy I might have had an easier time growing up an atheist in Northern Ireland.

I have no idea why my parents don't believe in God they just say they don't and that "there's no point making a religion out of it". Of course there are plenty of people who lose their faith, but to be born into the faithless is something else entirely. I have no sense of disappointment, disillusionment or loss, no sense of the hole in my soul where Jesus should be. I've also long realised that I'm an atheist for the same reason most people around me are Christians, ie I was raised that way — so there's not much point in claiming some special insight. Few people are demonstrably religious and I've never felt the need to be demonstrably atheistic. At school I mumbled through a million assemblies and yawned through a thousand RE lessons just like everybody else. I was extremely curious about this strange extra dimension my friends had to their lives, with their BB football teams and youth clubs and trips to Bangor, but when you have been warned from infancy that the Bible is 'just a story' no amount of scripture or ceremony can bring you in to faith's circular argument. Regular attempts were made to convert me and they all went straight over my head.

It was only when I got into my late teens that Christians started to annoy me. By that point I had noticed that while I was morally obliged to 'respect their beliefs' the reverse did not apply. As alcohol and fornication loomed over the spotty horizon my friends acquired an astounding level of expertise at leading double lives, usually managing to wash the vomit out of their hair in time for church on Sunday, although any straying from the path could always be blamed on the heathen in their midst. I also had my first up close experience of real, nasty and politically motivated religious intolerance.

Arnold Hatch, an Ulster Unionist councillor and governor at our school, tried to have Seamus Heaney removed from the literature syllabus on grounds of 'blasphemy'. When some of us kicked up a fuss over this we were slapped down in short order (people have been expelled for getting Portadown College in the papers, don't you know). After that I noticed the nastiness everywhere: a Free Presbyterian friend who only shopped in Free Presbyterian shops; the chemistry teacher who wouldn't keep evolution textbooks in the science library; the fact that everybody hated the Methodists and that the feeling was mutual; the Portadown priest who introduced my girlfriend to every available Catholic male in a ten mile radius; the Brethren father who called me up to enquire as to the whereabouts of his daughter by asking "What sort of person are you?" I wouldn't have minded that one so much if she'd actually slept with me.

Christianity in Northern Ireland is above all else a cult of respectability and so adult life only raises the stakes. One by one those around you fall.

Formerly wild couples suddenly marry in church and order you to do likewise, relatives worry rather too loudly about how you'll raise your children, friends and colleagues and strangers express medieval opinions that you must agree with and finally, the last straw, a fat man in a sweater shouts his judgements and insults at the blameless shoppers of Portadown. He made me see the light. Because the simple truth is that Christians are just fucking rude. And from now on, I'm going to be rude right back.

[charlou]

Yep, great article


Only one thing ...

Of course there are plenty of people who lose their faith, but to be born into the faithless is something else entirely. I have no sense of disappointment, disillusionment or loss, no sense of the hole in my soul where Jesus should be.

This seems to imply that all those who were raised theists have issues upon losing their theistic beliefs. My experience is different ... I lost belief in a god thingy (is that the same as losing faith? I dunno ... I just believed in what I'd been raised with until I became better informed and more plausible ideas took hold and the belief eroded and disappeared ... ), and, like the author, I had no sense of disappointment, disillusionment or loss, no sense of the hole in my soul where Jesus should be. What I did and do have is a sense of release and freedom from mental servitude to an imposed dogma which was pretty fucked up on several levels, including aspects that had little to do with the dogma itself and everything to do with the surrounding culture of imposing ideas and manipulating behaviour.


I've had door knockers call to the house, but street preachers? not come across them ... if I did and they insisted on getting in my or my children's face after a polite no thank you, like the door knockers, I'd tell them to fuck off. But if they're passive I'd just walk on by. That goes for any hawker, really.

[floppit]

Yep, great article


Only one thing ...

Of course there are plenty of people who lose their faith, but to be born into the faithless is something else entirely. I have no sense of disappointment, disillusionment or loss, no sense of the hole in my soul where Jesus should be.

This seems to imply that all those who were raised theists have issues upon losing their theistic beliefs. My experience is different ... I lost belief in a god thingy (is that the same as losing faith? I dunno ... I just believed in what I'd been raised with until I became better informed and more plausible ideas took hold and the belief eroded and disappeared ... ), and, like the author, I had no sense of disappointment, disillusionment or loss, no sense of the hole in my soul where Jesus should be. What I did and do have is a sense of release and freedom from mental servitude to an imposed dogma which was pretty fucked up on several levels, including aspects that had little to do with the dogma itself and everything to do with the surrounding culture of imposing ideas and manipulating behaviour.

I second that. If I had any 'left overs' they were no more than perhaps an overly zealous disrespect for the bible, not it's honesty because that warrants no respect but that it's ancient. Now I think of it as an important book, it contains a window into a set of beliefs handed down over 1000's of years and as such deserves a degree of attention. Equally I find buddhist and hindu teaching interesting although I have never delved in the quoran - one day maybe. I actually appreciate my religious upbringing, it's easier to learn to debate and wrangle one book than a whole universe and to a child more engaging, I cut my teeth in debate over that book which eventually led to faith's demise but what a trip - I could not regret.

[Svartalf]

But then street preachers always seem to attract (or prey on) those who are at their most difficult point in life. The homeless, destitute, drug addicts, mentally unstable.... they parasitise these people at a time when they're basically defenseless.

Then again, a great many people who have reached rock bottom have found solace and strength in religion. Perhaps as a last resort it's not a bad thing to embrace the delusion.

It's certainly is cheaper than drugs.

but I'd rather get certain drugs to get predictable effects than become a wild cannon doped up on newfound fanaticism

[Svartalf]

In my area of Norway there really weren't many, and they didn't come to your doorstep either... so when I've encountered them here in Bergen (twice, once Mormon and once just regular flavour Christians) I've engaged them... why don't I believe? Because If I said I did I would be lying, etc... They kept trying to convince me, poor sods... but the preachers I've seen haven't been the kind that'll tell you you're going to fry sometime in the near future.

When you say 'regular flavour', you mean, extreme evangelical?
Where I come from, the regular flavor stays in its own churches and doesn't go about bothering people, even the calvinists have calmed down over the las 4 centuries.

[Eriku]

In my area of Norway there really weren't many, and they didn't come to your doorstep either... so when I've encountered them here in Bergen (twice, once Mormon and once just regular flavour Christians) I've engaged them... why don't I believe? Because If I said I did I would be lying, etc... They kept trying to convince me, poor sods... but the preachers I've seen haven't been the kind that'll tell you you're going to fry sometime in the near future.

When you say 'regular flavour', you mean, extreme evangelical?
Where I come from, the regular flavor stays in its own churches and doesn't go about bothering people, even the calvinists have calmed down over the las 4 centuries.

In Norway regular means protestant... they were just a random Christian couple who wanted to start some sort of discussion group, aimed at Christians. I had an excuse ready

[Svartalf]

Funny, you saying protestant like it was a monolith bloc... Those bible only American style evangelicals have little in common with garden variety Lutherans (or so I hear, most of the French protestants are strait laced calvinists, but they still keep to themselves rather than trying to convert people or picking fights with the pope kissers)

[Bolero]

The atheist group I go to has a "Crazy Christian Debating" meetup once a month, where they all go have a few drinks, then rock up to the regular Saturday night preachers in town and have a go at their arguments.

I've never been, but it sounds like fun.

I'm sure you'd revel in it, Bolero.
I bet you never heard that before.
I'm sooooooo sorry.

Mmmmm... your whole joke is un-ravel-ing before my eyes.
(I'm equally sorry)