BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?

Subject: Anybody see a guy with the giant cross?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:08 PM

I was driving through "downtown" Charlottesville the other day, when I saw a white guy toting a HUGE cross, with little wheels on the bottom. I pulled up beside him and asked, Aren't the wheels cheating a little? He answered, well, I've been 5 times across America spreading the Word of Jesus, and I've walked several thousand miles in the last 2 1/2 years, so I need all the help I can get. So, one question is, has anybody else seen this guy? I wasn't sure if I could believe him or not.

The following conversation then ensued:
Mrr: Can you stop to talk?
Guy: Sure! (resting cross on ground). (So I pulled over out of traffic and got out of my car.)
Mrr: Hi, I'm an atheist (we shake hands).
Guy: Well, maybe I can change your mind.
Mrr: Well, maybe I can change yours!
Guy: He's shown me the Kingdom of Heaven!
Mrr: I'm not worried about Heaven, I'm more concerned with this life.
Guy: (starts to describe Heaven, then kind of does a doubletake) - But if you don't have God in this life...
Mrr: I don't see the need for that hypothesis.(quoting somebody, anybody remember whom?)
Guy: Well, he also showed me Hell! Do you know what that is like? All darkness, all screams, and every voice is saying Lord Jesus, get me out of here!
Mrr: What about the Hindus? (thinking: Do they all speak English, and are they all Christians, in your Hell?)
Guy: (blank look)
Mrr: I mean, what are the Hindus yelling? Surely they aren't praying to Jesus, since they don't believe in him.
Guy: Oh, Christianity just hasn't reached the Hindus yet. But they will be enlightened.
Mrr: Does that mean that what they believe is wrong?
Guy: They will hear the Word of Jesus.
Mrr: So, does that mean that what they believe is wrong?
Guy: You aren't listening, I said that the Word of Jesus just hadn't reached them yet.
Mrr: So, does that mean that what they believe now, before hearing about Jesus, is wrong?
Guy: All you are interested in is fighting.
Mrr: No, I really am trying to understand what you believe. Is what people who belong to other religions believe, wrong?
Guy: Christianity just hasn't reached them yet, we're only 2000 years old.
Mrr: But is what they believe wrong?
Guy: They will know the truth.
Mrr: So, is what they believe false?
Guy: Yes.
Mrr: Then, we really aren't so different after all.
Guy: (blank look)
Mrr: You think that anybody who follows any other religion is wrong, and I think that anybosy who follows any religion is wrong. In other words, you think 5 billion people are deluded, and I think 6 billion people are.
Guy: I want to pray.
Mrr: You can pray for me if you want to.
Guy: (reaching for my hand) Take my hand and we'll pray together.
Mrr (backing away slightly) No thanks, you can pray on your own time. I'd rather talk. (thinking but not saying, I don't want to talk to your imaginary friend, or listen to your voices)
Guy: Well, if you won't pray, I'm out of here.

And he picked up his cross and walked off down the road, with me thinking a) he's a lousy evangelist if he can't even TRY to convert an atheist, and b) boy, was that guy a loony tune. I tried to contact our local newspaper, but they didn't have a photographer to send out right then, and I haven't heard that anybody else talked to this guy. It was very interesting. But I'm really fishing for ken of whether he's for real in his claims of trekking across the USA, somebody somewhere must have seen him if that's the case.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see a guy with the giant cross?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:20 PM

(title should read Anybody see THE guy with A huge cross, sorry!)

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see a guy with the giant cross?
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:22 PM

COuld it be this guy: walking on the water scoll down for the picture...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see a guy with the giant cross?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:23 PM

Clearly you carry a tape recorder or you've got a great memory.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Sorcha
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 04:41 PM

I seem to recall that he came through Wyoming some time ago. I'm not sure, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 05:00 PM

Wow. Well, at least he seems to be harmless...sort of. :-) I wonder what he would think if he found out how many Hindus do know about Jesus, revere him, and consider his teachings entirely valid (while not themselves being members of the Christian religion).

And then...regarding the "Kingdom of Heaven"...that could mean a state of mind, in which case Earthly life is not necessarily separated from the Kingdom of Heaven, but could be the very same thing under the right conditions of awareness.

One is in no position to think someone else's beliefs are "false" if one has precious little knowledge or understanding of those beliefs. In this respect, most people are deluded, some atheists included.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 05:29 PM

Wow, Mrrz -- you're a dingdong daredevil with wheels on!!

Good show!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 05:33 PM

Do we get to nail this guy up at easter?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 05:45 PM

All I can say is, if he rolled that thing all the way through Wyoming, God has GOT to be on his side. Now, as for his powers of persuasion, you'd think he'd have honed them to a higher degree by now. "Believe in Jesus, but if you don't, stop arguing with me!"

Somehow I think the great evangelist St Patrick wouldn't have found a rational argument a stumbling block, even if he didn't tote a 500 lb cross.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 09:39 PM

I didn't see the Jesus man, but I did see and talk to the Englishman who walked around Ireland with a refrigerator on wheels (because he could, in case you were wondering).

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: GUEST,Smokey
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 09:54 PM

I've seen him, or some one like him a couple of times in Fla., we seem to collect them, maybe it's the heat.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Amos
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:31 PM

I think it's your governor, actually....

A

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: GUEST,Smokey
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:41 PM

No that governor died, we now have Jeb Bush and I don't think he walks anywhere, he's the presidents brother and a Republican to boot. Smokey

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:52 PM

How did the guy with the refrigerator keep it powered...fuel cells? If it wasn't powered, why bother dragging it around?

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 10:55 PM

I read about him awhile back...he is one of many who have a bigger 'mission' than they do rational arguments about it.

There is some other guy who simply builds crosses around the country. He finds some nice spot along a highway, maybe on a hill, and convinces the owner to let his crews put up a plain wooden cross.

In certain ways, they are preferable to the ones who knock on my door every few months and insist I am in danger of losing my immortal soul. (I live 3 blocks from a Jehovah's Witness Temple, and only a couple miles from the East coast Mormon Temple)

and I'm not sure whether they are preferable to those who send me these letters .....I can at least toss this in the recycling, but others are being taken in by it and losing money....

well, let the fellow wheel his cross, and hope he doesn't get run over by some unlucky soul ..ummm..person...like Mrrzy

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: BK
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 11:15 PM

Saw this guy, I did! W/in the last month or so, somewhere around Columbia, MO. Kinda wondered abt him, I did - for abt 3 nanoseconds - seems like I was accellerating down the on-ramp, & the freeway merge took my attention away.. Never think too much abt such folk, as long as they don't directly involve me... Slime-bag polititans are another story...

Cheers, BK

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 11:18 PM

Tell the Jehovah's Witnesses you're a Mormon, and direct them to the Mormon Temple if they have any further questions or comments.

Do the exact reverse of that with the Mormons!

This should save you quite a bit of time and aggravation...I hope.

I'm one of those who thinks it's downright impossible for you to lose your immortal soul...but don't worry, I am not trying to recruit members for any group! :-)

Back when there was that free Christian magazine all over..."The Plain Truth"...I thought it would be fun to create one called "The Complex Falsehood" and place it in free giveaway boxes next to "The Plain Truth". The idea was to make it look as similar as possible, only it would be sponsored by Satan, with a little picture of Old Nick in the corner on the cover saying: "Our Founder". It could then have been filled with articles that basically said the diametrical opposite of the stuff in "The Plain Truth", only in a very serious and persuasive manner, of course. The problem was how to find enough people with the time, inclination, writing talents, money, and bizarre satirical instincts to do it properly.

I decided it was a project best left in the realm of sheer fantasy...

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 11:26 PM

The refrigerator wasn't powered. He just dragged it along on a wheeled cart contraption. He was really quite dull.

Now, my all time favorite strange person had to be Moondog, who used to stand on the corner in front of the Warwick Hotel in NY, hawking his sheet music, dressed as a cross between a druid and a viking.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Jul 02 - 11:30 PM

I've wondered who the guy is who sits behind the goalposts holding up the number of some biblical verse. I would almost swear that it is the same guy regardless of where the game is being telecast from.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 12:01 AM

Well, Dicho, I decided to see if I could find something about that. Apparently it is always John 3:16 which they quote. There's an interesting comment on it about half way down this page: from a Catholic perspective as near as I can tell. I didn't explore it a lot.

And then, there was this comment from Misc. Media:

(My fantasy: To hold up signs displaying the verse numbers for the passages about Onan spilling his seed, or David spying on the bathing Bathsheeba, or a sequence of the verses that turn out to be "And Judas went into the potter's field and hanged himself," "Go thou and do likewise," and "Whatsoever ye do, do so quickly.")

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 12:36 AM

Hey, Guest--how were the Druid and the Viking dressed?

--seed

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 08:22 AM

Kat - Ha! Ha! Ha! Thanks for this morning's best laugh!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: GUEST,Ard Mhacha.
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 09:40 AM

The John 3-6 nuts are at almost all of our Gaelic Games in Ireland, and always behind the goals.

The fans of both sides usually have Jim 3-7 or whoever is the star forward on their team. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 10:48 AM

I know, I know...been there---done that. I live with it 'cause I love the friction---and the lady I'm with if not the density and the dogmas of some nice people if you look at other parts of their lives. Teaches me a ton o' stuff---about myself and them. It's a reason I used to listen to Limbaugh. Just wanted to know real well what the enemy was up to and thinking. These days they help us get our groceries at the store...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 12:37 PM

But Moondog provided a service. For a price he would write you a poem on the spot.

Little Hawk - years ago when NYTimes was on strike, a few anonymous insiders produced a paper called "Not The New York Times". Many bought it because it looked exactly like the original but caught on when they read the headline stories about Pope John Paul John Paul (John Paul II) and how the combined in sync footsteps of thousands of marathon runners brought down the bridge and killed hundreds.

But no. I haven't seen the man with the giant cross.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 12:42 PM

I saw a doormat in a catalog the other day that said:
We found Jesus
We love our vacum
We gave at the office

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 12:51 PM

gee, kat...you found the elusive link to the pics of nude cyclists that everyone was looking for! *grin*...even male ones!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 01:04 PM

The Misc. Media is Miss. Media on my machine, Kat. It turns up "Not Found."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Mickey191
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 02:32 PM

I've seen the Wheelie fellow on Trinity Network,which I watch occasionally for entertainment purposes. Sometimes it is better than the comedy channel The strangest assortment of people with one thing in common- they all want money. Also, most seem to pay an inordinate amount of attention to their hair. Even the men. I've also noticed great amounts of jewelry with lots of sparkle. I stop laughing when I see one lady in particular, in an orphanage handing out 29 cent dolls to children and acting as if she'd given them a new life. What crap!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 03:30 PM

Sorry...I've fixed the link now...no more nudies, now, BillDee!**BG**

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: IvanB
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 05:37 PM

We saw the guy with the cross somewhere, possibly Myrtle Beach. We were on our way to dinner and he was walking down the side of the highway with his cross. Saw him again, not having made all that much progress, when we returned from dinner.

And, Bill D. I read a couple years ago that the guy who planted the crosses on hillsides along the highways had died. I believe he died owing quite a bit of money for crosses and that he had not been able to afford putting them up for several years before he died. Apparently the donations for doing so just couldn't keep up with his zeal.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 06:21 PM

kat--evidently, you didn't scroll down far enuf!..*big grin*

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 07:29 PM

Well, jeez, I sure didn't! Wow! Those are quite the bicyclists! Thanks for being so dogged, so diligent, so determined to make sure I didn't miss such, BillDee!!**bg** That is quite a site! I love what he had to say on pansexualism!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Jul 02 - 09:38 PM

'so dogged, so diligent, so determined "..??

....naawwwww, I am just addicted to surfing and 'intuiting' that there might be something interesting on a page that took so long to load!...*grin*...as I read some of the text, I saw references to Seattle festival..and WOW!...I want a job painting riders next year...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Jul 02 - 12:43 AM

hey...I was on a DeeRoll...what can I say?*g* Yeah, I saw those perky tits...they must've read your book...I can just see you out there painting on 'em!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: khandu
Date: 21 Jul 02 - 02:38 AM

Okay, maybe this will be a musical thread! Arthur Blessit, (Yes, that is his real name!)born in Mississippi, has trekked the whole world carrying a 90 pound cross. He once was in the Guinness Book of World Records for having been the man who has walked the greatest distance. I met Arthur several years ago and found him sincere in his beliefs. After having been healed of an anuerism (sp?), he started carrying the cross in 1968. I lost track of him in the late 80's, however, I do not think he is the same man that Mrrzy ran into. The man she met did not sound like Arthur.

Now, as to the "musical thread" bit...Barry McGuire ("Eve of Destruction") stepped out of a bar many years ago, quite drunk, according to him. The first person he saw outside the bar was Blessit carrying a cross. McGuire asked Blessit "What's happening?" Blessit responded, "Jesus!"

McGuire said it haunted him afterward and , as a result of the meeting, he became a Christian.

BTW, Mrrzy, I am a Christian, but I disagree with the attitudes and tactics of most Christians I see and/hear. To answer your question, I think the Hindus are wrong, along with the Muslims, Buddhist...and the Christians!

Due to our limited perceptions, as well as our tendency to be right in our own eyes, and a myriad of other reasons, we (speaking of humanity in general)fall far short of the Ideal.

Life is a wonderful, yet difficult, journey. We all go through enough hell just living it. So I think it would be amiss of me to give others more hell just because they may believe (or, disbelieve) differently than I.

You are Atheist, I am Christian..so what?

khandu

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 10:07 AM

No, he wasn't Arthur, and he doesn't seem to be the Walks on Water guy either. Wow - we have SEVERAL of these folks around!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 10:29 AM

Speaking of atheists, I found out something interesting yesterday. A good many buddhists could be termed "atheists" by the common definition, since they do not believe in a sentient, sumpreme being at all! What they do believe is that earthly life is a form of sense-based illusion and suffering, and that the ego is a false construct. The key teaching of the Buddha is that life is suffering. In order to reduce this suffering, one follows rightful conduct or "darhma"...in order to eventually attain an egoless, desireless condition termed nirvana. In that condition, one is simply merged with the infinite, ceasing to exist as a separate entity at all.

So...they DO believe in a spiritual purpose in life, but they ARE atheists! (depending on how you define atheism...)

How about that?

Perhaps the main respect in which a buddhist differs from a western atheist is this: the buddhist thinks this life is unreal and that only spirit is real. The western atheist thinks this life is the only reality and that there is nothing else ("what you see/touch is what you get").

We oughta start a thread on how to define the word "atheist"...

(I add to this commentary that probably not all buddhists believe precisely what I said in the foregoing...but some of them apparently do...and what the heck is it that atheists believe? The answers to that might vary widely, depending on which one you talk to. *GRIN*)

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 10:56 AM

The guy with the fridge is a famous English comedian called Tony Hawkes, who did the fridge trip as a bet with fellow comic Arthur Smith.

He serialised the story for radio; probably the funniest bit was when a champion Australian surfer took the fridge surfing. The story had it that when he had got himself, the fridge and the board up on a perfect comber, he opened the fridge and took out a cold beer............

Skipjack

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: rea
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 12:33 PM

I saw a guy with a cross on wheels in Poughkeepsie, NY back in the fall. Might be the same guy. We all laughed when we saw him, even though some of us are (rather liberal) Chrisitans. It's just... silly.

Chatlottesville, VA? I live near there. Cool.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 12:35 PM

Rea, where are you?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 12:47 PM

"The fool who persists in his folly will become wise."

This seems to me a remarkably harmless and unthreatening way for the man to bear witness to his beliefs, and demonstrate his conviction that these things really matter. He's doing his preaching with his feet, why should he have to do it with his tongue as well?

I imagine if we'd had the dialogue with his unspoken thoughts instead of Mrrzy's it would have read a bit different.

And if it all seems a bit daft to outsiders, well, we are fine ones to talk. That's precisely how most people think when they see and hear us up to our shenanigans.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 12:50 PM

I would have LOVED to hear his unspoken thoughts! It would have been a hoot, I bet!

He should do it with his tongue if that is what he says he's doing - walking around with a cross doesn't spread the WORD of god, does it?

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 12:58 PM

Thanks Skipjack, for the name of the frig guy. It is all coming back to me now. I also recall that for a comedian, no one who encountered him down at the pub thought him particularly funny. Difference in laughing at you as opposed to with you, I suppose.

When the locals found out what the premise of his trip was, they responded with an attitude of--ah, what a howl, another Brit coming to catch us out at being foolish. Yawn.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 01:03 PM

It's a bit hard to hear unspoken thought, by definition.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 03:30 PM

atheist = someone with no invisible means of support.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 04:11 PM

Hee hee! Art, good one!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 04:18 PM

I like that too. And as with any good signpost, it points in both directions.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 04:25 PM

Bottom line - this guy really exists. I was thinking I'd been taken in by some weirdo... esp. when I couldn't find him on the Internet looking through news stories. Stranger than fiction, again, is this wonderful life.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody see the guy with the giant cross?
From: little john cameron
Date: 22 Jul 02 - 10:54 PM

Ah don't think this is the man we are lookin for but interesting just the same.Arthur Blessit