“Attention at Poughkeepsie” is how announcements begin over the sound system at Poughkeepsie station. Trains and stations have nothing at all to do with this post although Poughkeepsie has an extremely nice station – built into a rockface and designed by the same people who gave us New York’s Grand Central.
No, this post has to do with the signs that appear outside of one of the churches on the arterial road going west through the city. Take this one from this spring:
What does that even mean?
If you believe everything you read then surely you are a gullible fool. Right? So, if you are a gullible fool you should read the Bible? What? To get fooled some more? I’m assuming here that the folks who put up the sign are fundamentalists and believe the Bible to be literal truth. But … I could be wrong.
In any event, humming a little Porgy and Bess seems in order:
The things that you’re liable
To read in the Bible
It ain’t necessarily so.
But then, the Gershwins gave those lines to the drug dealing Sportin’ Life so maybe it’s complicated.
And then there was this one:
I’m sure the people at this church are really nice community-minded folks. But this sign reminds me of the rabid, insurrectionist-leaning, anti-vaxxing churchgoers still in thrall to the former guy. If that were to be the case – and if they were they to be magically disappeared – the rest of us would be too busy celebrating with relief to bother about signs
And then this one appeared this summer.
This particular fast-food outlet has a notorious reputation for homophobia. And so – again – what does this even mean?
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There is actually a place that supplies churches with such signs. I enjoy the ones from more liberal churches that display the opposite messages.
It beggars belief how willing certain groups are to revel in their inability to understand their fundamental self-contradictory beliefs.
Ah yes, the old 'everything in the Bible is true even when it contradicts itself' saw. I don't remember Jesus mentioning Chik Fil A as a standard for treatment of others, maybe it appears in the Book of Facebook? (Gert's question about Poughkeepsie reminds me of the Metro North ticket sellers when I lived in the Spuyten Duyvil neighborhood and they always asked, "One monthly ticket to Spit and Devil then?")
"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that Chik-Fil-A should do to you, do ye even so to Chik-Fil-A: for this is fast food and their profits."
Spit and Devil - yes. Had thanksgiving there once.
I won't be going to that church ! ( Or any other...) By the why how does one pronounce Poughkeepsie? Puff, Po, Pow???
Puh - kip - see
https://vimeo.com/212210369
"I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, though, and through."
"The wind was rough along the lough as the ploughman from Poughkeepsie fought through the snow, and though he hiccoughed and coughed, his work was thorough."
well written; a delight to read; much to muse over but I read the first sign differently: to me it said, if you believe all you read then read the Bible and believe what is there: it has truth and is worth believing --
That sounds reasonable from a logic point of view. Or at least one of them.
Wondering whether the person who came up with this had any notion of the ambiguity of the language.
A version of that is what I feared it meant. The "Bible" contains much that makes good sense. (The "Sermon on the Mount" - Mathew 5-7) - for example, is a pretty good guide for living.) But also much that represents the worst in how to be. (Or at least reflects the distant specific times when it was written and the thoughts of those who wrote it.)
Obviously, I do not know the folks who put up the signs - but assuming they are fundamentalist in Biblical interpretation - I wonder how they wriggle around some of the stranger byways of Deuteronomy.
Delightful!
My flabber has never been so gasted!
Crikey! And now I feel a collaborative rhyme/ doggerel verse coming upon us. Well, let's say, me.
I'm a pheasant. No, that's not right, I'm game!
Will work on it!
Meanwhile:
"You are not a pheasant plucker
You're a pheasant plucker's son.
You are sitting plucking pheasants til
The pheasant plucker comes."
Etc.
"I takes the gospel whenever it's pospel" (but with a grain of ungodly dubiety).
Very unattractive signage. I definitely would not give that permission!
If memory serves - the good folks in Reading (Berks., UK) blocked the opening of this particular fast food joint on the basis of the homophobia of its owner.