WTF, Commercial?

[fenderlove]

There's a carpet retailer in here in Tennessee that has, for years, used little children spouting "Made in the USA" catchphrases and waving cheap plastic flags in their commercials. Well, now they've hit upon a new gimmick- claiming that their carpet was made "by the Heavenly Father." *head-desk* I sorta want to go into their business and demand that their carpet better not only be resistant to wine spills but should turn water into more wine to refill my glass.



There are a lot of businesses around here that use the tactic of claiming to be a "Christian business," but they are the ones most likely to cheat and gouge their customers. I told one fellow who owned such an establishment (that had improperly installed tires to my mother's van and then refused to fix it), "I wouldn't care if you said you were a Satanic business as long as you did the job correctly!" He acted like I had slapped him and then got all holy-roller on me for "daring" to mention the "S-word" (No, Mr. Connery, that's not swords. :D) in his Christianly business.

Of course, I had the lady who owns the local Christian bookstore throw a loaf of bread at my face in Wal-Mart because she said that my Greek Orthodox cross was a "mark of the Beast" and that I was "one of the damned!" I don't know why I didn't just walk away, but I tried to explain to her to calm her down.

Me: No, it's just an Eastern Orthodox cross.
Her: Eastern? *gasps* Terrorist!
Me: It's Eastern Orthodox Catholicism.
Her: *starts wringing her hands and shouting* CATHOLIC DEVIL! DEMON! DEMON!

God, I hate this place so much. One of these days, I'm going to go to the print shop and have a small yard sign made that reads "ZEUS" in big bold san-serif letters to combat the huge amount of "JESUS" signs that people have in their yards. Yes, neighbours, Jesus is going to care more about a useless plastic sign in your yard than the fact that you treat others like garbage.

Comments

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

My mom has already put a kibosh on the Zeus sign. She fears that our yard and house would be vandalized, and she's likely right.

My mom's Eastern Orthodox, and my dad's Roman Catholic, and I was raised neither, allowed to come to my own belief structure. Even if I was either form of Catholicism, it would be heretical here, and not being able to claim a sect growing up made it extremely difficult to get along in a social structure in which people's first meetings in school, ball games, and even job interviews usually goes like this- "Hello. Nice to meet you. Where do you go to church?" I used to tell people when I was a kid, "I don't associated with an organized religion." Other kids didn't get it, my teachers didn't understand, and I even had other kids' parents refuse to allow them to attend my birthdays and such. I had people tape pamplets to my lockers and put Bibles in my bookbag. I wasn't alone in being treated badly, of course. There were a few others who got this treatment- a Roman Catholic girl, twins who practiced Hinduism, and my friend who was openly Atheist. My whole school experience can be summed up with an argument I got into with a math teacher who didn't know how to teach the subject matter.

Me: Why do you move the X in the equation there? Shouldn't you move it there instead?
Her: I wouldn't expect a heathen like you to understand.
Me: What's that supposed to mean? I just want to know why you're writing the equation like you did instead of how the book shows us how to do it?
Her: If you don't believe in math, then you don't believe in JESUS! He created everything!
Me: The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion, and you're confusing me, so none of this is Jesus' doing.
Her: Go to the principal's office!

And that was what my first twelve years at school were like.

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I guess that's the only thing good about Texas - lots of Catholics. Mostly Latino, though, so sort of looked down upon.

All moot for me, seeing as I'm atheist. (Scott won't even say he's that, because it means he believes there's no god, and he doesn't want to believe in ANYTHING! hehe)

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Heehee, that reminds me of a scene from Metalocalypse:
Nathan Explosion: So, where are we now?
Pickles the Drummer: This is the church of the atheists. They don't, uh, believe in God.
Nathan Explosion: Oh, like Toki and Skwisgaar?
Skwisgaar Skwigelf: No, we are nihilists. We don't believe in anything.
Nathan Explosion: But can't nihilists also... not... believe in god... too?
Skwisgaar Skwigelf: Well, I, uh... I don't know. No. They won't let you.