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| Printable Version of Topic Click here to view this topic in its original format ExChristian.Net Open Forums > Backlash and Reactions > Fundies In High School Posted by: Tanz May 26 2004, 06:03 PM I remember I was in High School when the Columbine shooting happened. It was an indeed a tragic event, committed by to selfish, woe-is-me assholes that indeed hated Christians...as well as everyone else. But I remember the backlash after that; people saying that the reason this happened was because God wasn't allowed in public schools. I remember a few times a few Fundy students would try to bust him in, by writing Bible quotes on the chalkboard before class, praying together before class, or displaying their Bibles. Or the type that shouted out some religious phrase at a pep rally. It was like they were political prisoners fighting an oppressive regime...which I'm sure many Christians see themselves as. My question is, did anyone remember Fundy attempts to Evangelize their school? Do share... Posted by: Luck Mermaid May 26 2004, 07:09 PM I graduated from the kind of school where no fundamentalist ends up going - they'd be seen as a great big hipocryte and be laughed at. My highschool was trying to get people to FINISH school, nevermind parade around in angel costumes. Half the kids had social workers, and the other half could have used them lol. So I can just seem some fundamentalist kid saying 'We must all worship Jesus!" and I don't think it would fly. Once you're in that school, the jig's up. But I do remember people putting various strains on me, sometimes because I was raised Jewish and sometimes because I chose to be Pagan. People had a problem with it - and I played up that angle. As long as everyone was scared I would make them vomit snakes, they stayed the hell away from me and didn't embarrass or hurt me - at least that was my rationale , although I probably got teased alot more for being Pagan and interested in magic. I rember being at this blonde girl's house once - you know the type of blonde girl. She ain't pretty. She's one of those norther blonde girls that isn't spectacular but has pretty light blonde hair and believes in Jebus, and is fine worshipping him as long as you don't have to, you know DO anything - l9ike when I asked her for help before exam time when I REALLY needed it and she blew me off to watch a movie in Drama class and told me I shouldn't bother because I'd just fail anyway - had a sleepover at her house to which I was kindly invited - which was actually nice of her considering how satanic her parents and her probably thought I was. I had cast a couple of spells that day already, and her cousin wasn't too fond of me and my magic trip , running the ouija board and whatnot, and I remember her cousin or something saying something like about how I was into magic and how she didn't like me cause of it or something. And this annoying, seemingly mildly inbred blonde christian gal said that I wasn't really into that, I just did it to get attention, it was just make believe - she was acutally right. I don't think it's make believe, but I did do it to get attention. And my best friend, a complete asshole after the seventh grade, and a staunch Catholic - stood up for me, saying that I really believed in it and that it was real. I probably owe her an apology on that. You've heard of fundamentalist xtian teens? Well I was a fundamentalist anti-xtian teen, and my friends were kind enough to forget it or use me to channel their agression at xtianity when they couldn't ask the right questions and find out their own form of what it all meant for them, and that was quite coool of them. A catholic defending a pagan against little miss blonde perfect white but not pretty inbred who would probably shit her pants if anyone in her family ever married a negro. Posted by: spidermonkey May 26 2004, 07:17 PM Tanz~ I too was in high school when the Columbine shootings happened. I remember a noticeable increase in fundyism among my peers (I was still a fundie at the time). There were quite a few people in my youth group who were going all out in trying to brainwash..oops I mean convert, their classmates. I wonder how the fundies would have responded if the shooters had been fundies who hated non-xtians, and everyone else. Posted by: SpaceFalcon2001 May 26 2004, 08:14 PM My high school was semi low key. Everything revolved around christianity, but it wasn't spoken for the most part. Most people would use public speaking as a forum for how great christian camp was (Camp akida here in ohio) and christmas stories were the norm. Posted by: Shadfox May 26 2004, 08:54 PM I only had to deal with a few fundies. Only one made direct conversion attempts. I was known as an avid reader of horror books at that time, and this made me target for preaching by this one individual. He was Native American and Christian fundamentalist, a perverted combination on the same level as a Jewish Nazi. He was also a drug addict and eventually a drop out, but he still had the piety to preach to me about "Satan's literature." There was girl in my public speech class that was so far gone in her faith it was scary. She's the type that would crack spiteful comments in the middle of a supportive speech for gays. I was the timid, intellectual type and for some reason she stuck up for me occasionally, but she was so cold and extremist I believe such gestures were just her trying to look good and get the upper hand on me. Posted by: Stargazer May 26 2004, 10:01 PM Don't even talk to me about fundie high school students. My school was packed with them. *shudders at the thought* Posted by: AggieNostic May 27 2004, 07:14 AM QUOTE (Tanz @ May 26 2004, 09:03 PM) I remember I was in High School when the Columbine shooting happened. It was an indeed a tragic event, committed by to selfish, woe-is-me assholes that indeed hated Christians...as well as everyone else. But I remember the backlash after that; people saying that the reason this happened was because God wasn't allowed in public schools. What does that even mean? Don't Christians believe their God is omnipresent? Are they saying if more people had prayed and performed other religious rituals, that God may have actually taken an interest in what was happening there? ... and perhaps struck the Columbine perpetrators down? Why can't the Xtian God do the right thing for once? Without having all of this pray-and-praise-me strings attached? Sounds an awful lot like the jealous god of the OT. QUOTE (Tanz @ May 26 2004, 09:03 PM) My question is, did anyone remember Fundy attempts to Evangelize their school? Do share... I remember. It was Yours Truly (with shame and anguish written all over his face). Posted by: Pandora May 27 2004, 01:39 PM Well, I went to a very religiously diverse school in California so there really wasn't a whole lot of zealotry going on. Fundamentalism did manage to weasel its way in occasionally though. I remember there was this one hardcore group of fundies operating in our city during the time I went to high school. They're biggest motto was "Jesus Saves From Hell" and they had all kinds of signs and stickers that had this motto on them complete with flames licking in the background. They literally plastered the back of every road sign in town with these damn stickers... I think they had too much time on their hands because this is a big city. About once a month these wonderful folks would picket in front of our high school. Why? I have no idea. I guess we were just lusty, sinful teenagers and that was enough. And our science classes taught evolution. Some students were angered by their presence... others were amused. I used to watch people heckle the fundies at lunch for kicks. You barely had to do anything to get these people riled up and they weren't allowed to step onto school property to do anything about it. It was hilarious. I think the city eventually cracked down on these people for being religious vandals because they moved to another Bay Area city. I was on the train a couple months ago and I saw a house just off the tracks that had an entire side of the house painted "Jesus Saves From Hell"... again with the yummy flames. During high school I also had two friends who were what I refer to as soft fundamentalists. I was agnostic at that time and they knew that... they were fine with it. They were on personal missions to evangelize the school though. They were under the delusion that no one could possibly be as happy as they were until they accepted Jesus. They wrote "Jesus Freak" and "WWJD?" over everything they owned. They organized Meet Me At The Pole at our school and belong to a xtian club. They were very nice people... just very misled. I remember I had biology with one of these friends one year. It was inevitable... one day evolution came up. All my teacher had to do was say the word 'evolution' and my friend was on her feet. Before she could say anything I pulled her back down so that she wouldn't make a fool of herself. She sat there for the entire class muttering under her breath about what bullshit evolution is and how gawd created Adam from a scoop of dirt... blah blah blah. Posted by: AlwaysDrowning May 27 2004, 03:25 PM Fundie mania was a plague at my high school. During this time though I was at an unstable stage and kept going back and forth between being a fundie myself and a strong atheist (hypacritical I know, I am ashamed). However, during one period around my junior year when I was a hard atheist I was attacked by an entire class about being atheist. Somehow or another the topic of religion came up in class and everyone there assumed everyone else was Christian but I mentioned that I was atheist. Then came the furious barrage of fundies shouting at me "your going to hell!" I shit you not, the entire class except for my 1 atheist friend in there was yelling at me just for admitting I was atheist until the teacher told them to calm down. Also, we had this First Priority program for Christian and that Meet At The Pole stuff as well. In my particular school's case around 65% of the school attended that mess, and the majority of the rest of the school was also Christians except for a small group but were the passive Christians. Hmm reflecting on that has made me angry and rekindle my hatred for Christianity. Posted by: phoenix May 27 2004, 04:46 PM not my high school, but the high school that was in the same town as my college... every year during the graduation ceremony, they thank god and sing christian music. my boyfriend's brother, who graduated this year, protested it. unfortunatly, there were too many xtians, and it still went on... Posted by: Kaiser Soze May 28 2004, 01:56 AM Being a born and bred English-person the predominance of Christian sentiment in high school wasn't really that much of an issue for me; the vast majority of my peers were sort of passive atheist in their perspective. However, there was this one teacher, who has now thankfully gone to join her God whose self-superior, condescending Christian attitude led us to lock horns more than once. Essentially her attitude towards me and my peers revolved around the preconception that our "reasoning" on the issue was in some way synonymous with our age, and that therefore her own line of argument concerning belief was fundamentally superior, ergo we would at some point "come around" to her way of thinking. The biggest backlash SHE suffered from me was when she invited me to one of her church rallies. She belonged to the Elim church I think, although i find it hard to be certain. they all look and sound the same to me. I'd recently realised (and consummated) my own bi-sexuality, and what we were subjected to was essentially a gay-bashing of the lowest order. When i got up and started to walk out she asked me where I was going. i told her I was going to find some nice altar boy to screw. That didn't go down very well at all. Posted by: Luck Mermaid May 28 2004, 05:16 AM QUOTE Fundie mania was a plague at my high school. During this time though I was at an unstable stage and kept going back and forth between being a fundie myself and a strong atheist (hypacritical I know, I am ashamed). I'd say honest and searching. Re: Altar boy... NICE! If you watch Queer as Folk there's a couple of really funny senes in it, like one where Justin and this other guy go to a church where this pastor goes on about how gays are going to burn and how god loves you, and then after, the guys tell the pastor about the sin of eaching shellfish (it's in the same place as the gay sin) and he says they nee the love of jesus and they tell him that if he should be able to eat shrimp they should be able to eat cock. Posted by: I Broke Free May 29 2004, 08:35 AM I graduated from high school in 1978. I do not recall any Christian proselytizing going on at all, nor do I recall anyone's religion ever being discussed in a serious fashion. Religion was a total non-issue on campus as far as I could see. Was my experience unusual? Would the over 40 crowd like to comment on this. Posted by: bob May 29 2004, 05:35 PM QUOTE (I BROKE FREE @ May 29 2004, 08:35 AM) Was my experience unusual? Would the over 40 crowd like to comment on this. IBF, I can't remember what I had for breakfast, and you want me to remember high school? I graduated in '76 in Virginia Beach, VA. We were just a couple miles from CBN/700 Club/Pat the Rat. I think if it hadn't of been for the diversity caused by the large military complexes in the area, we probably would have been required to speak in tongues every morning. I don't remember any proselytizing going on. Posted by: Killswitch May 29 2004, 10:51 PM Ahh... memories. When i was in high school (1994-1999) the big thing was being a "jesus freak". All the cool kids were in the..oh crap.. what was the group that met once a week before class, talked about god, and then prayed.... shit i cant remember. But, the whole thing was that "club" had a solid 200 people in it, to the point where we used the school's auditorium. I was in this group for the first couple years...oddly enough, mainly because of peer pressure. There was tension in the ranks, as well. Rumors of *gasp* leading members having premarital sex, chewing tobacco... horrible, awful things It was around the end of sophmore year that i started becoming my own person, and thinking for myself. It was so amazing, too. It made me feel good, a few years later, to realize that i wasnt the only one who made the decision that it was all a load of horse hockey. If nothing else, i wish i could talk to some of those people, who's stories have got to be interesting. What made you change your mind? how did that belief solidfy the last 5 years? or did you stick with it? I would venture to say that most of the people who stuck with it, never left my home town. Religion doesnt bode well for someone who sees the world! at least what i grew up with. Posted by: Lokmer May 31 2004, 12:19 AM Yup, in high school I was one of the leaders of the Christian club at school. Mostly, we were interested in providing a safe place from persecution. Of course, it never dawned on us that thinking we were "persecuted" in a VERY religious town dominated by two protestant megachurches that drew 6,000+ people each in a town of 60,000, three Christian schools, one mormon temple, and about two dozen smaller churches and one very large catholic parish, was more than a little stupid. Of course, we believed those things because that's what we were taught at church. The great irony was that my two best friends among the faculty were an atheist (my physics teacher and chess partner) and a new-agey Glide Memorial attendee (my lit teacher and close friend for many years after). The things a reasonable, intelligent person can be convinced to believe when sequestered in a subculture never cease to amaze me. -Lokmer BTW- Pandora, welcome! It's great to meet another Bay Area person on these boards! Posted by: benja burns May 31 2004, 03:02 PM In my middle school (not so much in high school) there was a group called FCA, the Fellowship of Christian Atheletes. Was that the group you had in your school, KillSwitch? Posted by: I Broke Free May 31 2004, 03:46 PM QUOTE (I BROKE FREE @ May 29 2004, 12:35 PM) I graduated from high school in 1978. I do not recall any Christian proselytizing going on at all, nor do I recall anyone's religion ever being discussed in a serious fashion. Religion was a total non-issue on campus as far as I could see. Was my experience unusual? Would the over 40 crowd like to comment on this. Perhaps my high school experience was unusual. I went to to high school between 1974 and 1978 in the burbs of Los Angeles. I do not recall any religious groups on campus (3,200 students) nor do I even remember discussing religion with anyone. It was just a non-topic as far as I can remember. Like most California schools the student body was quite diverse, perhaps that would explain it. There was no clear religious majority. Posted by: Grand Atheist Jun 1 2004, 09:07 AM I go to junior high next year. I'll report my story as it happens. I'm also going to tell my close friends next year that i'm bi. lets see how this goes over! Posted by: mandylibra1979 Jun 2 2004, 03:30 PM I graduated in '97 from a high school in poverty stricken southwest Virginia. Fundamentalists Christians ran rampant. In fact I was one of them at the time. I vividly recall a boy who went to our school who was an Atheist. He was brought up in an Atheist home. Anyhow, I can remember questioning him but I always felt horrible for not trying to understand him better. I hated when people were mean to him because he was an Atheist. Looking back I can see just how close-minded and hypocritical I actually was. I feel ashamed just thinking about it. I am so glad that I have finally opened my eyes. I am glad for all of us that have. Posted by: I Broke Free Jun 2 2004, 05:43 PM QUOTE (mandylibra1979 @ Jun 2 2004, 07:30 PM) Looking back I can see just how close-minded and hypocritical I actually was. I feel ashamed just thinking about it. I am so glad that I have finally opened my eyes. I am glad for all of us that have.[/font] Don't be too hard on yourself. I think we can all relate to your story. I did it too. I'll forgive you, if you forgive me. Now GO! And pester no more!! Posted by: MrSpooky Jun 2 2004, 10:19 PM They used to throw rocks and trash at me because I was wiccan. Posted by: Grand Atheist Jun 4 2004, 09:36 AM Oh, that's terrible, MrSpooky. Posted by: Killswitch Jun 7 2004, 09:41 AM The Rednecks/Grits would throw corn at us "hippie fags" while playing dixie on their stereos. I wish i was making this up! Posted by: Luck Mermaid Jun 7 2004, 10:49 AM "hippie fags"??? I'm sorry, but that's funny. LOOOL. I wish you were making it up too...and the fact that we both are conscious enough to wish that... and that it wasn't? HILARIOUS!!! Posted by: Lanakila Jun 12 2004, 12:18 PM My 15 year old son had a girl in his speech class give a sermon instead of a speech. It was obviously coached by one or both of her parents and was about a half hour long, instead of 3 minutes. Proselytizing all the way. This was in Newport News VA just a few months ago folks. Virginia is so fricken fundified. The teacher of this speech class is from Kenya and didn't know that a sermon wasn't allowed. Posted by: PseudoGod Jun 12 2004, 03:04 PM QUOTE (mandylibra1979 @ Jun 2 2004, 03:30 PM) Looking back I can see just how close-minded and hypocritical I actually was. I was a hypocrite in HS, no doubt about it. But I think for different reasons. I was a professed Christian, but wouldn't be caught dead hanging out with other Christian kids as part of a group or clique in school. I was way too worried with trying to maintain a certain image with my "cool" friends, and being seen with fundies would have definitely been bad for my image, lol. I actually went to a pretty big HS (I think 2500 kids) because I lived in a small town where there was only 1 HS for the whole county. It was very white, I think there were only 2 black kids in the whole school. And of course like every school, there were cliques like jocks, rednecks, stoners, partiers, punks, nazis, metalheads, surfers, dweebs, geeks, rich kids, poor kids, etc. I definitely fell into the partier group, which seemed to be subgroup of a collection of people from the other groups. I guess jocks/cheerleaders were probably the most popular kids, but even for them if they didn't party they were not really considered "cool". I think even the partier jocks didn't like the goody-goody jocks all that much. God high school is so tragic. Anyway, in the large scheme of things fundies were almost a non-issue because they were considered either geeks or wierd and nobody really paid much attention to them. And if anyone did pay attention to them it was usually because someone was making fun of them.... Posted by: humanwill Jun 14 2004, 04:08 PM ughhh i was one of those punk ass jesus freak apostolic holiness pentecostal nuts now i wanna run in a feild naked and live in a hippy commune and stay high all day Posted by: Nivek Jul 2 2004, 09:37 PM I was a freekin' Fundie_Magnet.... 6 feet of usually pissed off Sporty Riding, had a job, haD to be at SkuLLe or else, black leather clad, find me down in metal shop working on my bike, leave me the fuck ALONE type a'kid... Every week some snotheaded kid had to try and "figure me out and get that salvation working". Found chickentracks in and on my locker everyday... The day I got out of class and found some dipfuck touching my Harley with his annionted paper damn near ended up with me in backseat of the policees car... Poor kid may never have handed out another tract comic in his life... After that attempted assault and my general reputation as a *hard nut* the fundies from the Morg, Xorg and anyone else took a shot at me... Coffee shop, out fishing, at the bowling alley, even down in the back room of my favorite gunshop, they just had to interupt my life with the same banalities and generalities of their religions.. After the religious mess my folks and my Dad's parents had brought me through in my younger years, I had BTDT, had zero desire to hear any more... My Senior year, 1978, found me short of credits, was told I had to do several classes over in a summer session. Cool, I could kick back, do some dummy time in the Cow College Adult Ed. Classes were easy, did my time in eduKashUnaL pennance, turned in my grades to the office lady. Told to come back to SkuLLe in September, as some classes I needed were not done yet.. Class of '79 rolled around with same harrassment from fundies.. Back then there was no official relief from harrassment.. The fundies would send their girls around and have them chat me up, knowing a teen guy isnt often gonna pass on catching a *lookers* eye and ear.. Several of the girls succumbed to temptation and rode with me on the Harley.. One such removed herself from her congregation and took up with a buddy of mine.. Until I left the town where I graduated from HiSkuLLe, I was barraged almost daily with jebus and fundie_gahwds emmisaries.. Being an *I don't give a shit* sort in a world of religious do-gooders can drive a kid to drink... n Posted by: SpaceFalcon2001 Jul 2 2004, 11:44 PM Eh. Times like this I wish I'd gone to a nice Jewish school. Public school was far too christian for me. Posted by: Fringe Aug 2 2004, 12:01 PM I was one of the fundies. I still feel slightly bitter about wasting the better part of my teenage life. Posted by: spidermonkey Aug 8 2004, 11:55 AM QUOTE (Fringe @ Aug 2 2004, 04:01 PM) I was one of the fundies. I still feel slightly bitter about wasting the better part of my teenage life. Same here. I think of all the time I could have spent planning for my future and having fun, and I kick myself in the ass for messing around with that fundy shit. One summer I didn't work because I wanted to get "closer to ghod" before starting college. I sacrificed nearly $3,000 in earnings because I sat on my ass and prayed. My first semester in college (I took college classes in high school so I was really a senior in high school) I took a speech class and we had to do a short 2-3 minute speech. I did one on prayer in schools. There was a guy in my class who was REALLY nasty to me after I gave that speech. I later saw that same guy harassing some traveling fundy preachers who were standing in the middle of the student center plaza and yelling about hell. Now that I look back on the nonsense I spouted in that speech, I'm ashamed of myself. Posted by: chefranden Aug 8 2004, 03:37 PM Back when I was in HS, yes HS was already invented, I don't think that there were 60 fundies in the whole damned city. About 40 went to the assembly church down on the fringes of Shaw Town. That was always a weird area anyway. The other 20 had a little chapel across the ally from my bedroom. Every Wednesday night the strangest noises came out of that place, and kept me awake half the night. Mom said she and her sister went in there one night when she was still in HS (we lived just across the street from her parents) and that they scared the shit out of her and my aunt. They left with those people hooting at their sinful selves. She told me never to go in there. I used to imagine that they were killing cats or calling up daemons, sure sounded like it anyway. Half the kids I knew in HS went to the same church I did, and were in the Luthern youth group there. I was the only serious Xtian in the group. Everyone else was going out to Big Falls for beer and heavy petting, every friday night. Dang, what was I thinking? Nothing religious was done in school, except at christmas. I didn't even know what evangelism was. I didn't know what sex was either, so you can't say I was real bright. Posted by: Aryan Aug 10 2004, 05:50 AM QUOTE (I BROKE FREE @ May 29 2004, 11:35 AM) I graduated from high school in 1978. I do not recall any Christian proselytizing going on at all, nor do I recall anyone's religion ever being discussed in a serious fashion. Religion was a total non-issue on campus as far as I could see. Was my experience unusual? Would the over 40 crowd like to comment on this. Same here, class of 66. Nobody walked around school shoving a Bible in your face. Nobody worried about what church you went to. Nobody worried about if you were saved or not, that was your personal business. Nobody went screaming to the Supreme Court, if a child brought a pencil to school that said "Jesus Loves You." The kids that went to church together normally hung out together at school. It was click thing, that had little to do with religion. Even though most people only went to church for weddings and funerals, we still considered ourselves to be Christian. What we have here in America now is a cultural war. Religion is just one aspect of it and there is no middle ground Posted by: Slayer-2004 Sep 27 2004, 05:41 AM QUOTE fundified THanks . I have a new word ! Well , curses ... back in high school I was a fundi . ( Psycho fundy freshmen to sophomore year , and a liberal theistic evolutionist junior to senior year ) Now I must deal with college fundies . Luckily Im as good at debating offline as I am online - I think fast . So most of the fundies leave me alone because they know Ill just own them if they open their stupid mouths . Powered by Invision Power Board (http://www.invisionboard.com) © Invision Power Services (http://www.invisionpower.com) |