More Credibility If You Sinned

[TheYoYo]

And like I always say: you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, but you can catch even more flies with bullshit.

 

Unless you are in England where people put vinegar as topping on their food.

 

I am kidding of course.

 

Well, honey on chips would be pretty weird, what're we supposed to do?

 

(Or maybe we have a massive fly problem, so have to put vinegar on our chips to repell them - who knows? )

[Mongo]

I don't now have any idea if it was real or not or what the guy's name was, but it left an impression on me for a long time. He spoke with complete sincerity and utter conviction. If he was faking it, he ought to have gotten an Oscar.

 

Credibility is a really important issue to me and cuts at the heart of xtian living.

 

Prior to deconversion, one habit I developed was to do a mental credibility check on what people said. I started doing that because I detected a gap between what I observed and what what said as testamony.

 

As a person who grew up around two people who use weasel words and slice and dice facts, I was mentally prepared to question the credibility of these stories.

 

I was often in the vacinity when miracles and personal transformations were reported to occurr. I noticed that many of the people who reported the miracles (large and small) or movements of the spirit often exaggerated the circumstances.

 

The exaggerators were usually outgoing, talkative and loud; the kind that get noticed - leaders.

 

It was strange. When I saw "rain", they saw a "downpour". When I saw someone "hurry to the alter" they saw someone "run to the alter".

 

The stories would get repeated over and over and often exaggerated by a third party who was never there. Eventually someone would claim at a prayer meeting or from behind the pulpit... "Billy was so eager to get the devil off his back he flew to the alter. Nobody ever went to the alter faster than Billy."

 

Every now and then, if the story is told over coffee someone might make a small correction. The response might be one of "Oh yea, I forgot" as if it were just a misdemeanor. A more sophistocated liar might split the difference, "Yea, I guess it wasn't a downpour but it was raining pretty hard. I was soaked!"

 

I think that once the preacher or leader goes to a new church... these exaggerations take on the appearance of fact.

 

I don't believe these people are consciour or diligent liars. They don't scheme and craft their deceptions. I believe the truth grows over time as their memory fades and the few people that know the truth either move on or lack the courage to speak up eventually doubting their own memories. Over a period of retelling the exaggeration the lie becomes fact in the mind of the liar.

 

It got me thinking, "If they exaggerate about the circumstances of something, why wouldn't they exaggerate the power of god's ability to change their own lives. Who did god really change?"

 

It seemed to me that the ones that told the most fabulous tales were also the ones who made the biggest claims to god's transforming power.

 

The speech patterns seemed to show that they were always having the mostest, bestest, worstest and leastest experiences. They never had a normal story like "I ran through a red light", it was always, "I was so distraught over (put "burdon" here) that I ran through a red light. I was sure I was going to meet my maker. That 18 wheeler was 5 feet away from crushing the side of my car. I don't know exactly what happened (the tip off) but I thought I saw god move that truck a full 10 feet sideways and go around me. Praise gaaaaawd!!!"

 

This may be fine at a bar where lying about your age or your income is par for the course but it seems to be a clear contradiction of moral integrity.

 

This was one of the many things that led to me deconversion.

 

Mongo

[godlessgrrl]

Unless you are in England where people put vinegar as topping on their food.

 

I am kidding of course.

 

Ooh! I wonder if you can catch more flies with Marmite than you can with bullshit...

[Vomit Comet]

It is also a way of living vicariously through someone else.

 

Anybody heard of Teen Challenge? Victory Outreach is actually kind of a spin-off of them.

 

I would practically cream my shorts every time I heard the testimony of some former Mexican Mafia assassin who killed 200 people in and out of prison, or of someone who was a higher-up in the Oakland Hells Angels or something. Vicariousness was very much a part of it, in hindsight.

[HRDWarrior]

I also tend to wonder how many of these so called "great conversions" only happened once the person was already maturing (mentally I mean, not physically). Sure, they give the credibility to Jesus, but I would hazard a guess that a large percentage of these people would "out grow" their "sinful ways" whether they "found Jesus" or not.

[OnceConvinced]

Great observation Mutate and something I never thought much about, but you are absolutely correct. One thing I have pondered lately and what you are saying confirms it to me even more, is that the evangelist, the faith healer, all those guys are like the Hollywood celebrity of the churches. They are wined and dined, travelled around, treated like royalty, all at the cost of the churches they visit. It's a lucrative business and it's no wonder so many con-artists are going around pretending to be faith healers while doing simple tricks to fool their audiences. People exagerate, people lie simply to gain that celebrity status. Doesn't take much to exagerate, especially when you know gullible Christians (who really want to believe you) are going to be impressed by your testimony.

[PaulQ]

I catch flies with fly paper. It's a sticky trap they can't get out of.