Brother Jed Returns to Campus
Yes, everyone’s favorite fire and brimstone street preacher, Brother Jed, is back on campus this week. Like the swallows returning to Capistrano, Brother Jed or one of his ilk migrate to campus every year to tell everyone they’re going to hell. Here’s a good picture of Jed explaining the birds, the bees and eternal damnation:
Jed’s been trolling college campuses for decades now. He was once a wild and crazy ol’ polecat himself, but Jed found Jesus while on acid in a commune in Morocco. Seriously. A few years ago, Jed had a crazy-time throwdown with former UO professor and noted psychotic Deb Frisch.
Robert Langdon creeped very carefully down the dusty steps into the secret Catholic archive vault. The steps were very dusty and old, like a very old bookcase that had not been dusted in a long time.
“Where are we going?” asked Francesca Cannoli, who was beautiful and Italian.
“To the secret Catholic archive vault to find an artifact – something cryptic and seemingly illogical.”
“Such things exist underneath the Vatican!?” Francesca asked.
“Yes, let me explain,” Robert said. “Back in the 14th century, the Catholic church began hoarding vast amounts of cryptic, seemingly illogical items under their Pope Palace because they feared someone might discover them. You see, in a very tangential way, all the cryptic artifacts lead to a big secret that only the Catholics know about.”
“Wow, I wonder what the secret is!” Francesca said.
Robert knew the secret because he was very smart, but he wasn’t going to tell. He was like a man playing cards who didn’t want to show the other players his cards.
“I can’t tell you … because you’re a spy!”
[END CHAPTER]
The Catholic Church is the True Church.
I can think of a few Patriarchs who might disagree…
Sean, are you going to go the Szaz route and argue that there aren’t delusions, only extreme preferences? I mean, that’s cool and all, but we might as well quit there because it’s only a small jump to Foucault and hyperreality and…well…metaphysics and epistemology aren’t really my bag.
That said, assuming there are such things as delusions, yeah the guy is deluded. EVEN if you grant the existence of some kind of omnipotent invisible, pink sky unicorn AND assuming that his ostensible purpose is his true purpose (I have my doubts) standing in an amphithetre and yelling at a bunch of hostile people is very, very unlikely to make any of them agree with you. If he thinks that’s an effective tool, well, he’s delusional.
If he’s doing it just for the attention, which I sort of suspect with this kind of thing, he at very minimum believes the demonstrably false claim that the earth is 6000 years old. Which, yeah, is delusional. What are we to call clinging to demonstrably false factual claims? “Different Narratives?” PoMo delenda est, man.
This is all, of course, assuming that he’s not just a cynical attention whore and actually DOES believe his own bullshit. I suppose it’s possible that he’s just a cynical manipulator who gets his rocks off by screaming at strangers in public, wouldn’t be the first, and in that case he’s not delusional … just a dick.
The Catholic Church is the True Church.
He’s not crazy. You as an economics major should know that he just has a way different utility function than most people.
I think people’s default resistance to religion gets in the way of realizing that, too.
Oh yes, it takes such bravery to be a deluded sociopath!
Don’t get me wrong, Jed has every right to be as delusional and foolish as he wishes, but if everyone would just ignore the fuckwit instead of gathering around to participate in his theatre, he would leave. Which would be a net gain for the every day student, although maybe a net loss for the Eugene street performance community.
My ODE opinion piece on Brother Jed
Ah…I see she’s still out there winning friends n’ influencing peeps…NOT
LULZ</a?
Oh Nooo……… I bet the Emerald will do a three page exclusive on it.
Sean,
get pictures – particularly if Her Vileness shows up.
Of course, this time, it’ll be a violation of her probation, as she’s banned from the UO campus…be sure to notify either EPD or LCSO on their non-emergency numbers.
Kirk
By the way, it’s Jed, not Jeb. Jed Smock.
Oh man, I totally thought he wasn’t coming around this year! I am so going to see him.