no act of kindness - however small - is wasted.

Em - 24 - Primary Teacher - I watch the fundies with confusion from the UK.

[undercoverduggarblog]

I can see you are 25. Is ur husband also 25? If you live in the UK, i think 25 is young to be married :). Or maybe me and the women i know are all old English brides 🤭😉😂 xx

is this my mother in law

[fundiebible-deactivated20230220]

Also, why does living in the uk have to do with if 25 is young or not?

btw I’m 23 getting married less than a month before my 24th birthday

[bae-tes]

Average age at first marriage US for women is 28 and it's 31.5 in UK so I do think women here get married later on average. Not that it says anything on whether someone is ready or not. I'm 25 and only one of my same-age friends is married (and I've still never been to a wedding, that was meant to be my first, damn you covid). And also not that the anon needed to comment on other people's age at marriage!

(First baby average is age 26 in USA and 29 in UK so again later - both v region / socioeconomic dependent)

[precious-and-neat-fundies]

This list of potential names from Erin and Chad's gender reveal video certainly hits Erin's "unique" requirement.

Harbor

Brighton

Finley (what they went with)

Avonlea

Ireland

Scotland

[spurgie-cousin]

Ireland and Scotland???? 

Very glad they didn’t go down that route. That’d be like the Rods naming one of their kids Portugal. 

[fundiemental-shitposts]

Ireland makes me think of Alec Baldwin’s daughter, but Finley is the only other one of these I don’t totally hate for a person’s name.

At least none of the options are Heistheway or Kolter or Spurgeon, I guess.

[bae-tes]

As someone who comes from Brighton, Erin is very much... not Brighton, UK style.

[precious-and-neat-fundies]

My mom is a scientist and she works with many scientists who believe in god and are Christian. But is it the more extreme fundies who deny science? Even Neil degrasse Tyson says there’s a possibility of god. Can fundies at least say that there’s at least a possibility of science being true it’s like isn’t the whole point of Christianity is having faith?

This is hard to answer because everyone has their own reason for coming to conclusions and there is nuance to every person's opinion. This is just the path I've seen most often in Christian conspiracy theory accounts. To be absolutely clear, I am speaking only about fundamentalist Christians, not Christianity as a whole.

Generally Christian fundamentalists believe that the Bible is the infallible and inerrant word of an omniscient, omnipotent, and loving God. His word has been preserved for generations and is in our hands today as he intended it to be interpreted. They can rely on the Bible as being 100% truth and that is a huge factor knowing you are secure in your foundation.

For most mainstream Christians, if science contradicts anything in the Bible (I give a couple of examples of this here in a previous post about flat earth/"Biblical cosmology"), they can say "oh that contradiction doesn't shake the foundation of my religious faith, because the Bible was written by men who were interpreting the world in the context that made sense to the audience of the time" or "maybe that was parable to make the concept easier for the intended audience to understand" or some variant.

On the other hand, if the foundation of your faith is that your Bible is The Perfectly Perserved Word of God, when scientists say the Bible is wrong about some things (like evolution or supposedly the earth's shape) it's going to be harder to reconcile. If you "know" the full Bible is your Objective Truth, then the science about evolution (or whatever contradicts the Bible) must be wrong.

From there it's easy to ask: If scientists are wrong (or lying) about subjects that contradict the Bible, then what stops them from lying about other subjects? They've already proven themselves to be easily fooled (at best) or maliciously trying to manipulate the masses to reject God (at worst), so how can you trust them?

Tl;dr: Fundamentalist Christians tend to view the world in black and white, so if anything goes against what is in the Bible it's easier to reject science. And from there it's easier to just "question everything" that mainstream media wants you to believe.

[fundamental-cactus]

And to add to all of this, many fundies are KJV only believers, but as far as English translations of the Bible go, it is actually full of far more errors than some of the newer, easier to read versions.

[fundieuniversity]

Honestly a lot of regular Christians that I know reject the mainstream science too. However, when talking about it they provide biblical evidence to support their arguments. The as for me and my house podcast did an episode about evolution vs creation where they provide a lot of evidence for their arguments. Definitely worth a listen if you’re interested in hearing the other perspective!

[jingersnosescrunch]

I wonder if this is an American Christian thing. Mainstream and fundie Christians both reject a lot of science. Obviously fundamentalists are more extreme (and/or more vocal).

Fundie snarkers from other countries, are Christians there anti science?

[jedidiahjunior]

When I was in youth group at my church (in Sweden) a pastor told us that she OF COURSE believes in the Big Bang because “we’ve learned more about science since [the bible was written]”

[bae-tes]

I went to Catholic school in the UK and learnt evolution, age of the earth etc. following the scientific method. I know the Catholic Church official doctrine 'allows' for evolution anyway though.

I now teach in a Catholic school and we teach history from earliest man and include specific early examples of civilisation like Skara Brae, we discuss the differences between neanderthal and homo sapien communities too and relationships education is covered. I have issues with that as it requires a focus on sexual relations between married men and women only but it does touch on the existence of contraceptions for our oldest pupils (10-11 yo), even if it is discouraged. A mixed bag overall, as is often the case with Catholic Church teachings from my non-religious perspective.

[pickledchickenetti]

My teenage coworker, who was not alive in 2001, was just like "Why are people still so big on 9/11? We lost nearly as many people yesterday and none of them cared."

This is exactly what I've been saying for the last two weeks.

[pundamentalism]

Many of us tend to view the importance of an event or issue through the lens of our personal connection/proximity to it. My father talks about JFK's assassination and Vietnam the same way that my generation talks about Columbine and 9/11. They were important national events, but also happened at pivotal points in our lives. So they mean more to us than someone that didn't experience them because of how they make us feel or remember things. Or, on another level, how we look back at the series of events that followed and their impact (I know the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan do that for me - we fought so hard to stop them from happening/continuing (the wars) and it didn't make any difference in the long run).

Covid is affecting us now, so we're giving it our focus, but of course those who don't believe it's a big deal don't give those numbers the weight we do. Once it passes, most of us will go back to ignoring the millions of preventable deaths around the world from war, poverty, and disease, just like we did before. The only thing I can think to compare it to in my lifetime is the AIDS epidemic. Many in the US ignored the deaths because it was somebody else's problem (or people they thought were "less than"'s problem) until it was their own problem. The fact that it orphaned an entire generation in Southern Africa wasn't even on their radar, since they didn't think it had anything to do with them. I know for me the Ebola outbreaks had a huge impact on my family because of their location, while to others that had no connection, it was something to make jokes about.

Sorry for the long post, and I totally get your coworkers point, and yours. I'm not a person that posts "Never Forget" every year or puts flags in my yard, and I hate all the things that happened as a response to 9/11. But I do think it is something that marks a big before/after change in my own life, which of course wouldn't be the same for someone who wasn't alive or was too young to remember a "before". I think everyone eventually has something like that, even if other impactful events happen later in their lives.

[pickledchickenetti]

I understand what you're saying, but as someone who was alive and remembers 9/11 well, I just don't feel the same way. Yes, I remember where I was when I heard the news, and how I heard the news, and how I felt in the time following. But as a white person in the midwest, it didn't change my life in any way, and as an adult looking back, it just seems absurd to post "never forget", throw parades, or basically treat it like a national holiday. What happened that day was horrible, but I guess it just doesn't feel to me like it should be a huge before/after thing that should keep getting all of this hype every year.

[fundamental-cactus]

Agreed. As a western Canadian, the only way my life changed was at the airport. I never understood the naming every victim every year. Remember, but I think it is also important to move forward.

For the record, I clearly remember 9/11. I was in grade seven and getting ready for school.

[bae-tes]

People in the UK keep asking if I remember 9/11. No. It was the week before my fifth birthday and I was on a different continent. Now, the removal of the statue of Saddam Hussein and the Iraq protests I do remember, much more in my vicinity. My father was anti-war and my mother was more ambivalent.

Even 7/7 which directly affected me in my close proximity to London growing up, doesn't tend to be anywhere near as pivotal now. It happened. For 2 years, I refused to go on the underground because I was an 8-9 year old kid when the attacks happened and the thought terrified me. But now... it all just bleeds into one awful situation of war, death and destruction with my country causing a heck of a lot more of it to the innocent people of the Middle East than anything else. Maybe it's my age (25 this week) but my whole life has been shadowed by the War on Terror and any one event sort of stopped getting my focus years ago, however tragic that one event was.

Idk. 9/11 is an interesting reminder in how events can be used for political gain rather than in remembering the terror and horror for the families and communities. It's just a shame the non-war, pro-left-wing-values groups don't manage to coop events in the same way (I'm thinking the Grenfell fire now).

[bae-tes]

A week into teaching my new class at my Catholic school and the contemporary Christian music was out for an impromptu singalong instead of geography or French.

So if you have any recs guys, please send them my way. It turns out this may save my sanity.

[filthyfundie]

touting pregnancy / labor / parenthood as the most worthwhile thing in life, the ultimate value, the end all be all, and then confirming a pregnancy in a walmart bathroom is quite the juxtaposition to me.

[precious-and-neat-fundies]

Feminine Not Feminist Instagram: August 5, 2021

The first picture seems like she dgaf about converting people because like... how would that convince anyone to be a Christian?? I know she's a Calvinist but to tell a questioning soul "the Bible is true because it says it is" is not at all helpful! I ended up sending her a question asking if she felt her page was for the general population or just aimed to a Christian audience.

Second picture I only am including because I have a very similar engagement ring. Mine is just a bit bigger and moissanite, but I had a quick moment of "oh no the ring I chose matches the aesthetic of someone who two slides earlier admitted to not caring about visual beauty of objects" lol

[bae-tes]

It's a fairly common conversion tactic I've seen before. I went on the Alpha course a couple of years back and only managed 3 sessions. I was raised Catholic so I already knew what Christians believed, just didn't believe it myself, but with deaths in the family I wanted to explore spirituality again.

First session, they tried that exact 'proof'. 'Well, it's true because Jesus resurrected.' How did they know Jesus resurrected? Well, they tried C.S. Lewis' argument of he's either a fool, a fraud or he's Christ. I looked at all these lovely Christians in front of me and said 'but how do we know Jesus claimed to be Christ?' and they looked v surprised anyone asked them that. 'Well, because of the Bible.' Obvious follow-up of how do we know the Bible is true 'because Jesus said so'. That went in circles. They then tried for sources that prove it but I was a history student and could pick holes in that too.

Only managed 2 more sessions because the whole course was built on the premise that you either already believed and this would convince you further or the first session would have changed your mind.

I don't think they were being malicious, they just really couldn't see why it wasn't convincing for someone who hadn't already decided they just believed it.

As for the second picture, it's protrude/protruding, Anneliese.

[jingersnosescrunch]

Thank you for sharing your experience at alpha! I’ve been told by Christians that it isn’t a conversion process but exploring the spirituality. I kind of figured it wasn’t actually like that…

[bae-tes]

The videos they use for Alpha are online actually. First one here. It's very little more than the video - just discussing it afterwards. In the course I went to, it was about 50 people and only 3 of us weren't already members of the Church.

I think it's meant to be a conversion tactic. The founder certainly viewed it as that. It's just not very good! It primarily seems to be used to reaffirm the beliefs of Christians that they are right and here's proof, now let's talk about Christianity. I heard from someone who managed all sessions that it ends up moving onto talking in tongues later.

[pickledchickenetti]

Purely out of curiosity, what are everyone's emotional support movies?

[fundietrash]

Princess Diaries, Sound of Music, Pride and Prejudice (‘05), Totoro

[undercoverduggarblog]

p&p 05 and prisoner of azkaban

[lensflareduggar]

Napoleon Dynamite, Funny Face, Kiki's Delivery Service

[bae-tes]

Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, 10 Things I Hate About You

[totallyrobophobic]

translation: "we openly prey on the vulnerable"

[bae-tes]

I'd love to see their faces if a Muslim or Hindu group did this to a Christian country. But it's fine because they're right and everyone else is wrong.

[precious-and-neat-fundies]

Feminine Not Feminist Instagram: August 5, 2021

The first picture seems like she dgaf about converting people because like... how would that convince anyone to be a Christian?? I know she's a Calvinist but to tell a questioning soul "the Bible is true because it says it is" is not at all helpful! I ended up sending her a question asking if she felt her page was for the general population or just aimed to a Christian audience.

Second picture I only am including because I have a very similar engagement ring. Mine is just a bit bigger and moissanite, but I had a quick moment of "oh no the ring I chose matches the aesthetic of someone who two slides earlier admitted to not caring about visual beauty of objects" lol

[bae-tes]

It's a fairly common conversion tactic I've seen before. I went on the Alpha course a couple of years back and only managed 3 sessions. I was raised Catholic so I already knew what Christians believed, just didn't believe it myself, but with deaths in the family I wanted to explore spirituality again.

First session, they tried that exact 'proof'. 'Well, it's true because Jesus resurrected.' How did they know Jesus resurrected? Well, they tried C.S. Lewis' argument of he's either a fool, a fraud or he's Christ. I looked at all these lovely Christians in front of me and said 'but how do we know Jesus claimed to be Christ?' and they looked v surprised anyone asked them that. 'Well, because of the Bible.' Obvious follow-up of how do we know the Bible is true 'because Jesus said so'. That went in circles. They then tried for sources that prove it but I was a history student and could pick holes in that too.

Only managed 2 more sessions because the whole course was built on the premise that you either already believed and this would convince you further or the first session would have changed your mind.

I don't think they were being malicious, they just really couldn't see why it wasn't convincing for someone who hadn't already decided they just believed it.

As for the second picture, it's protrude/protruding, Anneliese.

[blessedladyplexus]

Josie reveals that after talking to specialists, she is gonna have antibody issues for life and it will get worse with each pregnancy. They want to see how her next pregnancy goes before deciding whether to continue having more or stopping. | Josie Balka IG Stories

[bae-tes]

She's also shilling isagenix (an mlm) in the same set of insta stories. Shared an affiliate link for vitamins(?) but when you get to the isagenix page it says let Josie Bates help you so seems like she's signed up.

Guess it might actually turn a profit if you've already got an audience.

[bae-tes]

Today was my last day with the kids (got two teacher training days then I'm done too). They were a hard bunch but we survived another covid year, got almost all the work done and had a laugh along the way and I'm going to miss their faces tremendously.

Also huge shout out to the parent who found out I was vegan and literally went out and bought me a new present because their original chocolates wouldn't do anymore. Must have spread the word as well as I got very little dairy chocolate this year and multiple vegan cakes and sweets and chocolate boxes. (Please stop buying teachers such nice presents, we appreciate it but my goodness do I not need/deserve it all)

[fundamental-cactus]

Wait. You’re just finishing now? And I though we (Canadians) went late until June 30th.

[fundiesimsfamily]

I finished last friday! Nice to have parents thinking about you.

One of the parents of my childeren let her make a rapportcard for me, but she can't wright yet, so the question 'what does the teacher that makes you laugh' she answered with 'tatq'. But I liked the smiley where my grade was supposed to be.

[bae-tes]

Ha I love kids sometimes. I had some beautiful cards from them all and lots of hugs at the end of the day. Difficult job but rewarding!

[bae-tes]

Today was my last day with the kids (got two teacher training days then I'm done too). They were a hard bunch but we survived another covid year, got almost all the work done and had a laugh along the way and I'm going to miss their faces tremendously.

Also huge shout out to the parent who found out I was vegan and literally went out and bought me a new present because their original chocolates wouldn't do anymore. Must have spread the word as well as I got very little dairy chocolate this year and multiple vegan cakes and sweets and chocolate boxes. (Please stop buying teachers such nice presents, we appreciate it but my goodness do I not need/deserve it all)

[fundamental-cactus]

Wait. You’re just finishing now? And I though we (Canadians) went late until June 30th.

[bae-tes]

UK never finishes until the end of July. Our terms roughly go:

1: 1st September - 25th October

2: 1st November - nearly Christmas

3: New year - end February

4: Beginning March - Easter

5: Easter - end of May

6: June & July

So you get a 2 week break at Christmas and Easter, 1 week at October, February and May and then around 6 weeks in summer.

Usually not such a problem but we're in a heat wave and my classroom was 33 degrees today.

[bae-tes]

Today was my last day with the kids (got two teacher training days then I'm done too). They were a hard bunch but we survived another covid year, got almost all the work done and had a laugh along the way and I'm going to miss their faces tremendously.

Also huge shout out to the parent who found out I was vegan and literally went out and bought me a new present because their original chocolates wouldn't do anymore. Must have spread the word as well as I got very little dairy chocolate this year and multiple vegan cakes and sweets and chocolate boxes. (Please stop buying teachers such nice presents, we appreciate it but my goodness do I not need/deserve it all)

[bae-tes]

In what is finally some good news - my mortgage in principle has been arranged and I may actually be able to buy a house! Found one I liked yesterday, fingers crossed.

Whoopee!

[fundiesarefunny]

Not sure who cares or follows the Roloff family still but I know we’ve critiqued these two before

Anyway, they’re expecting again.

[countingandsnarkingon]

Is #2 even a year old? I don't know why I'm continually surprised by this but, here we are again.

[19fundiesandcounting]

I’m pretty sure that #2 was born in January 2020. I’m also kinda shocked that they’re having another, they really remind me of Jinger and Jeremy (in the worst way) and I thought that they would only have two kids.

[bae-tes]

I can see them having 4 or 5 so they've got a 'large' family to show off for their marriage counselling biz and as a kind of 'we're Christians so we have a large family' kind of move. We'll see what happens after #3 though.

[filthyfundie]

lord help Amy’s engagement rates if Jill and Derick ever do decide to start talking. clout chasing by touting someone else’s story is her last claim to relevancy and I’d be thrilled to see it go.