"My Half-Year of Hell With Christian Fundamentalists"

[Courtesy Flush]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,448350,00.html">This poor Polish exchange student apparently drew the short straw, and got stuck living with a fundy family...

<snippage>

"When I got out of the plane in Greensboro in the US state of North Carolina, I would never have expected my host family to welcome me at the airport, wielding a Bible, and saying, 'Child, our Lord sent you half-way around the world to bring you to us.' At that moment I just wanted to turn round and run back to the plane.

Things began to go wrong as soon as I arrived in my new home in Winston-Salem, where I was to spend my year abroad. For example, every Monday my host family would gather around the kitchen table to talk about sex. My host parents hadn't had sex for the last 17 years because -- so they told me -- they were devoting their lives to God. They also wanted to know whether I drank alcohol. I admitted that I liked beer and wine. They told me I had the devil in my heart.

My host parents treated me like a five-year-old. They gave me lollipops. They woke me every Sunday morning at 6:15 a.m., saying 'Michael, it's time to go to church.' I hated that sentence. When I didn't want to go to church one morning, because I had hardly slept, they didn't allow me to have any coffee.

One day I was talking to my host parents about my mother, who is separated from my father. They were appalled -- my mother's heart was just as possessed by the devil as mine, they exclaimed. God wanted her to stay with her husband, they said.

"God's will"

Then, seeing as we were already on the topic of God's will, the religious zealots finally brought up a subject which had clearly been on their minds for a long time: They wanted me to help them set up a Fundamentalist Baptist church in my home country of Poland. It was God's will, they said. They tried to slip the topic casually into conversation, but it really shocked me -- I realized that was the only reason they had welcomed me into their family. They had already started construction work in Krakow -- I was to help them with translations and with spreading their faith via the media.

</snippage>

I'm convinced that fundamentalism is a mental illness.

[Reverend_Smitty]

1. Poor kid...

at least he got to spend time with some non-crazy host parents before he left...and we wonder why the rest of the world hates us

[philosophie_en_rose]

2. Poor guy. Exchange programs need to be more available to students.

The second that this family started proselytizing, the kid should have been able to contact the exchange program for another family or some intervention.

[MountainLaurel]

7. I was wondering about that

Whether he could report them to the exchange program so that they are banned from hosting, now that he's out of that situation.

But imagine being a teenager across the world from home and feeling like you have no other recourse. :cry:

[Kutjara]

3. "I'm convinced that fundamentalism is a mental illness."

It certainly is, probably a sidebranch of obsessive-compulsive disorder, with some badly skewed sadomasochism thrown in. Whatever the detailed clinical definition, fundamentalism is certainly a psychosis, and one that endangers the country as a whole.

[Courtesy Flush]

4. Not just this country

Islamic fundamentalism is the same thing. It's funny how the christians can see how crazy it is when somebody else is doing it.

[B3Nut]

5. Islamic and Christian fundamentalism

differ only in degree, not in kind. Fundamentalism destroys reason in that an adherent must shut out any evidence, no matter how obvious or empirical, that contravenes any of the belief system's edicts and tenets. Some of the strains of more extreme Calvinism (Christian Reconstructionism springs to mind) could very easily be pushed over the edge into violent action, as could the militant Pentecostal groups. I'm a recovering fundamentalist myself, so I speak from some experience with regards to the mindset and thought patterns. I feel horrible for the poor kid in this story, he landed with fundie teetotallers, some of the worst and most irritatingly delusional people one could have the misfortune to fall into the company of. Glad he's back in saner environs.

Todd in Beerbratistan

[xchrom]

10. every year that goes by with out the second coming or the rapture

in this new millenium almost insures a violent reaction from at least some few.

further -- if 06 represents a watershed of nervousness on the part of the public with christian conservatives -- this backs folk into a corner even faster.

this will not have a happy ending for some.

[CatholicEdHead]

6. Poland is pretty conservative Catholic

And it is still so soon since JPII passed away. They will not be remotely open to change for at least a few generations. Any Fundie Baptist church will go nowhere and fall flat.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. But of course in the fundie mind, Catholics aren't Christian

so it doesn't count. :eyes:

When the Soviet Union fell apart, there were fundies all over the Internet, just itching to go evangelize Russians. They were astounded when I told them that Russia had a thousand-year Christian tradition.

[TheMightyFavog]

8. You know what else pisses me off.

Whenever I see the fundies in my dorm evangalizing the Forgien students on campus.

Way to torpedo their native cuture, assbags.

[Fuzz]

9. I had much longer than that

:(

[lildreamer316]

11. I'm SO EMBARRASSED.

This is my hometown.
How absofuckinlutely wonderful.
Going to hide now.

[BlackVelvetElvis]

14. WS is my home too.

I think I'll go hide under a rock now.

[Initech]

13. That's truly bizarre.

Of course, every program comes with a Catch-22. But that one truly sucks.

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

15. ah christian fundies

I must admit, as much as I dislike them, I do find them rather entertaining. Though I'd suppose I'd find them quite irksome if I was forced to live within the same living quarters...

Heh I've realized that it is typically the more convinced people are that they are correct the more I regard them with skepticism. The way I see it any retard can prove themselves right, it takes a person of real intelligence however to turn right around and shred their own argument apart. Needless to say when it comes to religous fundamentalism we find people who cannot conceive of the possibility of being incorrect about anything, when doubt is an evil in any belief system or philosophy I cock an eyebrow.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts" Bertrand Russell ... though, there is a pecular irony to posting such a quote on DU of all places...

[Courtesy Flush]

17. Good quote

I printed it an taped it to my office door.

[bumblebee1]

16. That's odd.

Michel doesn't look like the devil to me. He's just a normal young man. I don't expect fundies to understand any other culture than their own.