• Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    5 months ago

    I had an older relative that watched The 700 Club like it was the news. This honestly is just mid-level crazy for them. Rest in piss Pat Robertson, you absolute fuckhead.

    • Wogi@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Fun fact you can permanently scare off Jehovah’s witnesses by offering them a random object and insisting that it’s absolutely not cursed or possessed. Really insist that the thing you pulled out of the junk drawer is absolutely not possessed and is simply a gift that they need to accept.

      You will never see them again.

        • Wogi@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Arguably, yes.

          Listen I know they’re annoying, but the people standing at your door aren’t the problem. It’s the cult they’re in.

          Telling them there’s a demon in your house is likely to cause them a decent amount of psychological distress. They literally believe in demons, they literally believe those demons want to get in to their home, and they literally believe it will destroy their life, get them kicked out of the cult, and separated from their only support network. Even though you and I know none of those things are true, (well, being disfellowshipped is a real thing) they believe they are and it’s going to fuck with their head.

          That said, they won’t stop unless you scare them away, and that’s probably the most harmless way to do it.

          • dudinax@programming.dev
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            5 months ago

            I bring them in, offer them tea and tell them what I think of the bullshit. After a few trips they come in for tea and we talk nicely about other things.

            • init@lemmy.ml
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              5 months ago

              You should tell them about how you think your teapot must be cursed… Halfway through tea time.

      • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        You can also make them never come back by saying ‘convert the car’ then hitting the keyfob and saying ‘see it even talks back’.

    • owenfromcanada@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      They used to, but since thrifting came into style, they mark up the possessed stuff to the point where you might as well go buy brand new possessed stuff.

  • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    You can trust him since he looks like a possessed thrift store doll of Dorian Gray whose painting has just lost its magic and time is still deciding which parts of him to fuck up first.

  • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    Okay, I’m a hard atheist (meaning I have a positive belief that no gods exist), but I’m not really using that to make this point.

    People who actually believe this kind of thing should be considered candidates for clinical treatment. This is not “I believe that Jesus was god” level stuff. This is complete tinfoil hat levels of crazy. If they didn’t get a free pass because their beliefs are considered a religion, I honestly think we’d have a lot more people in treatment.

    I don’t know if the Pat Robertsons of the world actually believe this kind of crap or not, but some people obviously do. There’s a hypothesis you occasionally see floated that the Nigerian prince scam emails are written that badly on purpose because you know if someone falls for them, they’ll fall for anything. I really have to wonder if that’s what’s going on here.

    • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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      5 months ago

      People believe all kinds of whackadoodle shit that has nothing to do with religion and they don’t get committed for it, because just believing wrong things isn’t the sole criterion for that sort of thing. Also involuntary committal is basically a kind of prison that requires no crime and no prescribed sentence length, which has been enormously abused over the years. Lowering the barrier to that is not a good idea.

      If you meant “candidates for clinical treatment” in some way other than involuntary committal then it wouldn’t work because people who believe things… believe them. They don’t see their beliefs as a problem requiring treatment.

      • Bizarroland@kbin.social
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        5 months ago

        And really even treatment is just to enable people to function in society.

        You can believe that the dishes and shirts that you bought from the thrift store have demons in them all you want as long as you go to work and pay your taxes and aren’t a danger to yourself or others.

        Speaking for myself, my house is almost completely full of thrift store things and I have no demons here whatsoever.

        Maybe I’m just lucky, or maybe Pat Robertson doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.

        The phrase that I circle back to specifically in the Christian religion about these sort of things is that the wicked see evil everywhere, because you see what’s inside yourself.

      • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        Yes. I use the term “hard atheist” because in my experience that’s the term that people who aren’t necessarily familiar with atheism get on the first read. I think I first came across it being used by Dennett or one of those guys, but I can’t remember at this point.

  • Xatix@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Luckily, the kids in Bangladesh don’t believe in Demons, thats why buying new is so important!

  • tygerprints@kbin.social
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    5 months ago

    I never found a demon-haunted doo dad at a thrift store, but one time I found this ornate gold and black cat statue about four feet tall, very Egyptian looking and they wanted $4 for it, so I bought it. I’m into that kind of garish stuff. Anyway the guy at the register actually said, “what if it turned out to be an enchanted statue, and once you got it home, it turned into a beautiful man.”

    And I was like…!! cheapest date ever.

  • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
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    5 months ago

    My wife used to live with some people who refused to let us bring her dresser into the house until they got some dried sage to burn around it.

    Still not sure what that supposedly did, but the magic plant smoke apparently drove out the ghosts.

    • can@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      the magic plant smoke apparently drove out the ghosts.

      Doesn’t sound unreasonable to me

  • HikingVet@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    I read a book that had a similar premise. Fucked if I can remember the author and title.