Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Dear God, save me from your insane followers

It's been churning for about a week. I was driving to work in Salina (not usually where I work) and I managed to come across one of those preaching stations near the low end of the dial here in Tulsa. We'll call him Preacher Bob (my generic guy name). Now, I didn't hear ALL of the story, but here's what I did manage to pick up:

Woman is in church/goes to bathroom/gets left a note in her purse saying to read such and such book that discredits the Bible or something. Preacher Bob then tells us how we should "be careful about what we read." He also goes on to say that "getting both sides of the story isn't always needed and can sometimes destroy a person." He sums up with, "No sir-ee, you don't need all the facts to know the truth."

Does anyone else have a problem with this? Let's start with phrase 1 "be careful what you read": Why? Scared that I might learn something new? Or just scared I might learn something that contradicts what preachin' you're doing?

Instead of breaking apart phrase 2 (you don't need to know all the facts), let's apply this non-logic to other areas of our life, shall we?

Scenario 1:
So, you're suspecting that your spouse/girlfriend/lover/etc is cheating? Just go ahead and move them out of the house/kill them/break up with them! Your suspicions are enough! No sir, you don't need all the facts!

Scenario 2:
Next time you get into your car, don't worry about looking left when you turn onto a road/cross an intersection/stop at a stoplight. After all, you've got half of the facts zooming to the right of you.

Scenario 3:
By all means, take accutane and have a baby. You don't need all the facts, anyway.

I'm sure that this can be applied to less dramatic situations as well.

Here's the oddity/issue I have:

Because I live in Oklahoma where rednecks abound and logic is sometimes skewed and because I hear Preacher Bob and his affiliates a LOT on the radio, I KNOW that there are probably faithful listeners. Fine. I know that there are faithful listeners who will listen to what I heard last week and stop reading. Shame! And scary, I know that there is probably at least one simpleton out there that heard Preacher Bob and will do something really dramatic (like scenario 1) because of what he said.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

*sigh* Over the last few years it has become blatantly clear to me how easily people are manipulated.

I think it's really sad.