And a good time was had by all » « What I learned yesterday

I went for a walk in Minneapolis, near the atheist con

I spotted different breed of street preacher. He was ranting at the top of his lungs about “the Tao” and something about kundalini.

How refreshing, I thought.

Then he started raving about the Jews are an abomination and predicting the Pope will die in 48 hours.

I decided not to bother debating him.

It was right near the Mary Tyler Moore statue, if someone else has more fortitude than I do.

And a good time was had by all » « What I learned yesterday

Comments

  2. birgerjohansson says

    In the TV series “Lucifer” there was an “interesting” meeting between the protagonist and a street preacher. I would definitely want to watch something similar.

  3. birgerjohansson says

    And if the Pope does not die, he will claim the Catholic Church has a team of voodoo practicioners to cover up the fact that the Pope is dead by having Zombie Pope walk around. If they make sure visitors do not speak the language, the translators can cover up the “braaains” talk.

  6. StevoR says

    predicting the Pope will die in 48 hours.

    Step 1 : take a recording.

    Step 2 : Come back in 49 hours & show preacher said recording.

    Step 3 : Unless Pope actually does die within 48 hours..

    Which seems unlikely but not impossible given Pope’s age and fragile health. But probly not.

  8. StevoR says

    @ John Watts : “Another candidate for Trump’s cabinet.”

    Nah, he’s overqualified. Also too reasonable… & not rich enough.

  9. says

    Slightly tangential, but Important:
    http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/amanda-marcotte/113605/an-atheist-s-unnerving-descent-into-hallow-the-prayer-app-beloved-by-maga-celebrities
    and
    Considering this comic today 19 april, it is a very interesting comment on how some people deal with clarke’s third law:
    ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’
    https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur
    Wiley Miller has always been a lot more than just a funny cartoonist

  10. gijoel says

    I had a similar experience on Thursday. There was a Hari Krishna band banging drums at the front of King George square with a guy on a mic shouting about how much Jesus loves them, behind the band.

    It felt like I was living in a cyber punk future.

  11. says

    “Ranting about the Tao?” Seriously? The Tao Te Ching is about the least triggering thing you can read. That guy’s either a loony or a racist idiot.

    The fool hears of Tao and laughs aloud. If he didn’t, it would not be Tao.

    IIRC the Tao didn’t say anything about people who rant about it…

  12. woozy says

    ” That guy’s either a loony …”

    I think we can take that as a given. As he’s a street corner preacher.

    “… or a racist idiot”

    Not a given but evidently supported.

    “The Tao Te Ching is about the least triggering thing you can read.”

    I remember once a saw a sandwich board sreetwalker whose boards warned about the wages of sins and to avoid a huge list of things. The usual lust, fornication etc were on top and then television, red meat, plastic, etc, then some really weird ones barley, for example and finally… sitting. Sitting is sinful and unhealthy.

    So… people can get triggered by anything.

  13. birgerjohansson says

    Shermanj @ 9
    Lots of celebrities have a chrisis and go through a religious phase. Hopefully Ms. Stefani will leave that phase behind like Bob Dylan did.
    And now I will immerse myself in previous issues of God Awful Movies, no doubt running headlong into more anti-semitism.
    At least the street preacher did not do a David Icke, and obsess about alien lizard jews.

  16. KG says

    Er… the Pope has died. 07.35 CET, which would be 00.35, 21 April in Minneapolis. So if your walk was on 19th (the day you wrote about it here), your ranter got it right, provied he meant within 48 hours! But this raises the question – did J.D. Vance tell him about his plan to poison Pope Francis?

  17. StevoR says

    @6 & 7. Well, shit :

    Pope Francis died on Monday aged 88, a day after making a much hoped-for appearance at Saint Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, the Vatican said in a statement.

    “Dearest brothers and sisters, it is with deep sorrow that I must announce the death of our Holy Father Francis,” said Cardinal Kevin Farrell in the statement published by the Vatican on its Telegram channel.

    Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-04-21/pope-francis-dies-catholic-church-vatican/103550594

    Pity, Francis couldn’t have held on another day or so. Shame – literally shame on him – that he headed a group that protected, covered up for and enabled so many child molesting evil scumbags like Pell and an authoritarian patriachial organisation that’s just so evil and done so much harm to the world.

    Score 1for the street preacher – albiet predicting an old sick man will die soon is not the hardest prediction in the world to get right. I wonder how long he’s been predicting that for?

  18. beholder says

    Holy shit, the pope’s dead.

    Well, that means PZ has to debate him and prove that he’s better at Kundalini awakening and drawing Tao hexagrams. I don’t make the rules, it’s the law of atheism.

  19. mordred says

    So, the old man in Rome really did die. Time to grab Laotse and Chuangtse from the shelve and start daily practicing Taiji again I suppose.

  20. StevoR says

    @18. “Holy shit, the pope’s dead. Well, that means PZ has to debate him ..”

    Not much point trying to debate with a corpse..

Leave a Reply