why people hate religous idiots

 My stepson who suffers from SSA and is bipolar, just announced he is going to fast for 40 days.

he is a 60 year old pre diabetic, and should not be doing this: both Islam and Catholicism does not encourage fasting over age 60. But never mind.

Recently he is on a religious kick with his cult like parachurch where there is a rule or bible verse for everything in your life.

His inspiration is the cult leader who got Josh Duggan and his family into trouble.

.....

the trouble is that his wife, who is an ex catholic and involved in a charismatic church that keeps her very busy, agrees with him and sees nothing wrong with it.

The power of fasting to purify the senses can be a good way to help prayer, but excuse me if I am cynical: too often it seems to be a way here to manipulate God into doing what you want, which by definition is magic, not religion.

this is the same reason that I have actually written letters to the editor criticizing those fake "prayer experments" where they compare patients prayed for by a group of people to those who were not prayed for, and voila, they decided prayer worked.

I pointed out in my letter that there was no true "control" group, since many people might be prayed for by family etc. (this is especially true for Catholics, who quietly pray and serve God but don't wear their religion on their sleeves or obnoxiously pray out loud for them).

A lot of this is because these Protestant groups reject the long standing lessons of the ancient churches: Instead, they pick and choose bible verses that go along to confirm what they believe or want.

then they go around bossing everyone around them to tell them about it, and encourage them to do the same.

Sorry I prefer Catholicism. Yes we have our ubertrads (which Pope Francis hates) and our uberliberals (who are allowed to push heresy and ignore sin) but hey, whatever:

If Protestantism is the church of what's happening now (flannery oconnor's quote) then Catholicism is the church of everyone.

Right now, I have only been to church once since I left the hospital (a week in the hospital with Dengue fever in early November).

 

Kuya was taking me to church but now it is crowded and I doubt I could make it rhough the service which is crowded for the holidays. But partly I am emotionally repeled by the thought of church: A demonic oppression I am sure, but maybe a bit of agorophobia and fear I will faint or vomit in the long service in a hot church (which I have done in the past).

Sigh.

All of this annoys me: because they are holy holy and openly Christian. And they are good to me, so I should not complain.

But this fasting is not of the lord, but of pride.

And if he drops dead, what happens to the rest of us?