Comments on: Congressman’s Wife Casts Demon Out of VCR

By: Former Bible Beater Wishes Famous Relative Had Been A Stronger Influence on Priest Friend « Rechelle Unplugged

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 14:15:01 +0000

[...] a few months back when I wrote about my first and last abortion march where the congressman’s wife laid hands on the VCR and tried to cast a demon out of it? Well, my friend’s mom was visiting that weekend and I told her about participating in the [...]

By: precia

precia — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:49:42 +0000

When I was a kid, my mother (Jehovah’s Witness) would always blame Satan if something went wrong. If we got a flat tire, it was because Satan didn’t want us to make it to the meeting. There were demons around every corner, I shit you not. She never attempted to cast anything out of even the most troublesome appliance, though. Maybe we would have had fewer flat tires if she had.

By: Lori

Lori — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:43:37 +0000

Ok, so maybe PW is all you say she is. So why let that color your perception of Christ?? And I am neither young nor stupid and I enjoy her cooking tutorials d/t the fact I am more than a but challenged in that area… ;) Me likey lots of pictures… lol

By: Rechelle

Rechelle — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:26:24 +0000

On second thought – Yes – I can see how you might come to that conclusion. What I was trying to say and perhaps not very well was that some people are very adept at crafting a perception of themselves to appeal to lots of people. They are like politicians. They figure out a certain formula – a certain perception that keeps lots of different people satisfied and then they continually send out signals to remind these groups. It’s like squirting out a pheremone. The christians are made happy when they see a cross or read about homeschooling or hear her swoon about how much she loves her husband. The more liberal homeschoolers are made happy when she makes tiny digs (almost imperceptible digs) at too much religion in her homeschooling curriculum. The conservatives are happy because she is rich, white and successful. The old people are happy because she doesn’t cuss. Young, stupid women are happy because of all the photoshopping that makes her world seem like a princess fairyland. The only people that see through all the bullshit are repelled and don’t come back – unless like me – they are mystified and keep trying to figure it all out. My experience with that blog was critical in leaving my faith behind. It made me realize that people can freely manipulate faith to promote themselves, which made me start to see that the BIBLE manipulates faith to promote itself. Once you dismiss faith – the bible reads like political propaganda. It is sickening. I am grateful for the immense dissatisfaction I had with my own blog vs her blog because it made me extremely dissatisfied with my life in general and that made me start asking very hard questions. I suppose jealousy played a role in this, but mostly I was stupefied at the success of that blog. The writing is bad, the photos are so fake, the instructions on cooking and photography are inane and make your head shrink. That blog is mostly about a seductive perception that lots of people want to identify with and sort of hero-worship her. Once I realized that it wasn’t about the writing and it wasn’t about the fake photos – I started to see exactly what was really going on. It was all about marketing the self. Creating a persona that people want to buy into. I can’t do that. I am not wired that way. I can only be my own thorny self. The thing is – that in the world of blogging – there is this idea that what you are getting is the truth. So if you are good at manipulating the truth to please the most people – you win.

By: Rechelle

Rechelle — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:58:20 +0000

Rosie – Feel free to use it. Spread the word! It’s not verbatim of course. But the general idea is certainly there.

By: Michael Mock

Michael Mock — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:45:10 +0000

@ Lori, Oh, and On Second Thought: I think you’re misreading the account. Rechelle is not saying that those things caused her to leave Christianity. She’s saying that they caused her to start re-evaluating her Christianity, and in the process of doing research/reading for that, she came to realize that she couldn’t really accept any of it.

I don’t know, maybe I’m reading too much into her reply… and I’m certainly reading it in conjunction with her Parable of the Window from a previous post; but I think you’re confusing the trigger with the cause(s). You’ve heard of the straw that broke the camel’s back? Like that.

By: Rosie

Rosie — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:37:04 +0000

“Fill this room and this VCR with your holy spirit and let the message of this movie be heard…”

Please, please, please give me permission to use this in my book.

By: Ipecac

Ipecac — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:12:28 +0000

AnnB,

I understand where you’re coming from, I was a Christian for about 30 years. But I finally examined “faith” critically, realized that it made no sense, that Christianity was no different from the tens of thousands of other religions, and that there was no proof that any of it was the truth. And it just fell away. Once you’re on the outside, the Santa Claus analogy makes perfect sense.

Yes, there are the rare exceptions of atheists who go back to religion. But it’s a big planet with a lot of people.

By: On second thought

On second thought — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:46:53 +0000

It’s hilarious! God didn’t make me as rich and famous through my blog as I’d like, so OFF WITH GOD!

By: oh

oh — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:33:28 +0000

So you became an atheist because you were jealous of that other successful blogger, and because your husband was mean to you. It’s sad — before reading your bitter rant above, I’d always considered you a successful blogger in your own right, and felt it was really admirable that you and your husband persevered though all those ups and downs of marriage. Just shows that happiness is a matter of perspective eh.

By: Lori

Lori — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:05:38 +0000

So, because your husband was a jerk (that was my impression when I read your explanation) you are mad at all christianity now? The “servitude” the Bible talks about is not one of, um, “door-mat-itude” if you will. I know A LOT of christians have a warped way of looking at the whole “head of the house” scriptures and I haven no idea why they took such beautiful, loving scriptures and made it (nearly) abusive to women. It bothers me and saddens me. Serving others (to me) is about loving them like you love yourself, which is in the Bible also (as I am sure you know). I truly am sorry you went thru such a glitch in your marriage. I have been there (and have several years of counseling to show for it! LOL) and it is never fun or easy. I have always thought it odd society expects two “imperfect” people to get married and have a “perfect” marriage. Ridiculous really. I commend you for staying with your husband and working things out. I wish you hadn’t tossed Jesus out the window during your bumpy ride but that is your choice to make…

By: Jadehawk

Jadehawk — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:05:27 +0000

Rechelle, that was an awesome explanation!

By: Ted Powell

Ted Powell — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:34:09 +0000

Wow. Sometimes visiting several web sites in a row can result in interesting juxtapositions, but this takes the cake. After posting the comment just above, I started going through the sites that had popped up in my web feed aggregator. The second one to have something new was lol god, where sometimes things are funny, and sometimes they are social commentary.

By: Linda Joan

Linda Joan — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:12:40 +0000

Hello Dear Rechelle,

Whew! Thank you for responding. I am thinking about what you wrote. I love you , you dear girl.

By: Ted Powell

Ted Powell — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:12:39 +0000

Rechelle, I love it. Your whole comment was golden. But one sentence really jumped out at me. Here it is, with emphasis of one word added by me:

R: I began to understand the christianity was one of millions of other religions that are all man made to explain the unknown.