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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
 Posted - 07/13/2010 : 07:55:05
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My brother-in-law and I are good friends. We are both musicians. He plays drums for his Evangelical Church's worship band. He has invited my wife and I to come to church to see him perform. He does have a history of trying to convert me. He has not come to see any of my bands perform yet but I know that he would if he was available. I'm not sure if he is inviting us so that we can simply see him perform or if it is a way for him to try and convert me...or maybe it is a little of both.
If he was performing at a normal venue I would have no problem going to see him perform. I just hate the idea of going to church to do it. I've had the opportunity to hang around with the leaders of his church and quite frankly they creep me out.
I feel kind of bad for not wanting to go because I know that he would come see me perform...but it's at a damn church!
What would you do?
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Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Hawks
SFN Regular
Canada
1383 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 08:04:48 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
What would you do?
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I'm pretty sure that I'd hate his music and I hope that I'd just be able to say (a little more politely) that it wouldn't be my cup of tea. My problem is that I tend to be quite polite in real life, so I might just go anyway...
If, however, the guy did try to convert me, I'm fairly sure that I'd simply tell him to stop it. |
METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
It's a small, off-duty czechoslovakian traffic warden! |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 08:37:11 [Permalink]
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Tell him up front that you don't want to deal with him, or anyone else, trying to convert or preach at you, and that if it happens you will be departing in that moment. If he is your friend then he should understand.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 08:38:52 [Permalink]
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Me, I'd go. It'd be a favor to your brother-in-law (which could be returned) and a lot of gospel music is very good.
Go and enjoy the show, but don't sign the guest resister.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 09:14:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Me, I'd go. It'd be a favor to your brother-in-law (which could be returned) and a lot of gospel music is very good.
Go and enjoy the show, but don't sign the guest resister.
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In all honesty worship music makes me angry. I just can't stand it. It is so lame. Give me a good heavy song about Satan though and I'll be pumping my fists in the air with joy.
The only reason I would go is to support his musical endeavors, not because I would like the music.
Your reminder not to sign the guest list is quite a wise thing. I wouldn't have thought of it. |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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astropin
SFN Regular
USA
970 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 10:22:35 [Permalink]
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I'd probably go....I wouldn't like it, but I would do it.
Any attempts to convert me would be immediately met with "you're not going to win this one". |
I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies.
You are free to believe what you want to believe and I am free to ridicule you for it.
Atheism:
The result of an unbiased and rational search for the truth.
Infinitus est numerus stultorum |
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tomk80
SFN Regular
Netherlands
1278 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 11:30:14 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Ebone4rock
What would you do?
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I'd go. But I've got a pretty wide music taste and played in church when I was young (mostly in small band settings accompanying choir). I don't have a problem with church music (hymns, psalms, gospel) and can really enjoy it, if the composition is not too boring.
I he'd try to convert me I'd ask him politely to stop.
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Tom
`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll- |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 11:57:43 [Permalink]
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| I'd probably go and hate it too. I might choose not to say anything until after. Only after I know how terrible it was or wasn't for me, would I be able to tell him how much I would appreciate not seeing him in this one type of setting again and why. With family members you want to show support where you can, if you can. Especially when asked. This is the first time, right? Once you go, he can't say your closed minded or didn't try. That's what you'll get, an out for life. Without feeling a little bad, like you kind of do now. SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
| Edited by - sailingsoul on 07/13/2010 11:59:25 |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 12:05:31 [Permalink]
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Just be careful those Free Methodists have a trick where if you hear a sermon, you are officially on the hook. I went to one where the sign out front said "the most dangerous place on Earth!"
I for one wouldnt go, only because he has a history of trying to convert you. If he is still trying then he is being disrespectful. HAs he had other non-church events which he has not mentioned? |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 12:12:06 [Permalink]
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| HAs he had other non-church events which he has not mentioned? |
Not yet. He just started jamming with this group a couple of months ago. There is a Christian coffee house in town that has bands like his on a regular basis. If they played there I would have no problem going. |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 14:30:39 [Permalink]
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Since you don't seem to believe in God, the purpose of the church as a house of worship is irrelevant to you.
I would ignore the building's status as church and consider it "just a building" for the purpose of this visit. I would go, but I would also tell him that I'm uninterested in a conversion, and if being proselytised at, it would just put me off even more than I already was. But I would go to listen to his performance.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 15:34:52 [Permalink]
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Wear your 'Darwin Fish' t-shirt. And have your "Honk if you eschew Jesus" bumper sticker on
your car. (just kidding :) |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 18:01:52 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
Me, I'd go. It'd be a favor to your brother-in-law (which could be returned) and a lot of gospel music is very good.
Go and enjoy the show, but don't sign the guest resister.
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Gospel Music: Can actually be pretty good musically if you can tune out the underlying god-walloping.
Christian Rock: Awful, horrible tripe, both musically and lyrically. Would send me for the exit at Mach 4. |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 21:47:00 [Permalink]
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| I've decided that life is too short to spend any more time of it inside churches. The only exceptions I make are for funerals and weddings. |
"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 22:11:06 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
I've decided that life is too short to spend any more time of it inside churches. The only exceptions I make are for funerals and weddings.
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I concur, HH...I make those same exceptions. If there's ever a church to admire (the grandest of cathedrals pale in comparison) it's the universe we all live in. |
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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sailingsoul
SFN Addict
2830 Posts |
Posted - 07/13/2010 : 22:29:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Randy
Originally posted by H. Humbert
I've decided that life is too short to spend any more time of it inside churches. The only exceptions I make are for funerals and weddings.
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I concur, HH...I make those same exceptions. If there's ever a church to admire (the grandest of cathedrals pale in comparison) it's the universe we all live in.
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Amen! SS |
There are only two types of religious people, the deceivers and the deceived. SS |
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What would you do?
