Who's the craziest woo-woo person you've ever run into?

[Odin2005]

A few years ago at college I ran into a girl who was a crazy mix of Born-Again Christian and New-Age crackpot with some very wacky hatred towards science and technical fields and people working in those areas. She was going off on rants about the evils of "soulless, godless materialism" turning people into compliant robots and destroying "God's Creation". I happened to mention my Asperger's and this doofus asked "so do you have a soul?" :eyes:

[salvorhardin]

1. I once had a fundamentalist xian tell me I was morbidly obese and "diseased" 'cause I was an atheist

Yelled this at me from the cab of his pickup truck on Main Street with his son next to him in the passenger seat. That morbid obesity, chronic pain and a bum leg were god's punishment on me for failing to believe. I was rather astounded. While the community I was living in was pretty religious, this was also Central New York where religion is normally considered a private matter. That was the first time anything like that has ever happened to me, and I had lived in that area for almost all of my forty years. Also, while I'm a pretty "out" atheist and never hesitate to tell people I don't believe when asked in addition to being pretty vocal on the internet where I don't exactly hide my real name, I'm not quite sure how this man who was a complete stranger to me could have known I was an atheist. Perhaps he just inferred from my obesity and limp that I was a non-believing sinner.

Anyway, I know that's not the kind of woo-woo you meant. That was definitely the craziest though (not counting a couple of inept internet stalkers).

[Odin2005]

2. Wow, what a jerk!

[Deep13]

3. That would be my Mom.

I'm an intellectual snob because I won't read Sylvia Brown's book.

[CreekDog]

18. Oh yeah, Sylvia Browne is reliable

asked about the Iranian Hostages...no answer
asked about the local kid who disappeared off the streets of SF...no answer

but she knows about whatever little problem you have with your family. she knows *that*.

:eyes: :boring:

[Warpy]

4. One in an apartment building

in Boston. He was carrying a bible and one of those toy canes you win at carnival side shows. He shoved the bible in my face and hit me with the cane screaming about not suffering a witch to live.

I smacked him with the bag of garbage I was carrying and slammed the elevator door and hit the button for the top floor. As I heard the footsteps approaching, I hit the button for the main floor, made my escape, and informed management of what was going on.

He was arrested that night, running around the parking lot naked and screaming he was on fire.

Now that's crazy.

[Odin2005]

5. Wow, that's a lot of crazy!

[Warpy]

6. Him or me?

You'd think getting smacked with a bag of garbage would be off the wall enough to slow him down.

[Odin2005]

7. Him! Your actions were perfectly justified!

:)

[TZ]

8. Someone in my family hired a pet psychic

I never met her personally but from what I heard about her, she qualifies....

[CreekDog]

19. I can accept that a pet can be psychic

but how are you supposed to understand what they are saying?

[TransitJohn]

23. And what do you pay them?

:evilgrin:

[salvorhardin]

9. Do truly mentally ill people count as woos?

I just remembered this guy in college. He was ex-military and truly believed the government had used him in secret black ops assassination programs. He claimed to have used "nuclear bullets" to assassinate several African and South American leaders and to have received several secret Presidential commendations. His proof of this was a photo of his unit with Jimmy Carter.

He also thought he was the reincarnation of King Arthur and that everyone he knew (in this life) were his reincarnated subjects. And, though he didn't personally know them, he believed that his favorite band, Jethro Tull, were the reincarnations of his court musicians. Naturally he really believed in tarot, astrology and free energy too (claimed he had seen a working zero-point generator).

He was also, quite literally, a paranoid schizophrenic and was eventually recommitted after making sexual advances at the little girls from the local elementary school who had been recruited to be in the theater department's play.

[salvorhardin]

10. Oh, and she wasn't really crazy, but there was this little old German lady...

As a kid I also knew this little old German lady who had immigrated here as a teenage girl before World War I. She believed gnomes inhabited her garden and she would leave little offerings of cookies and such out for them at night. The food was gone in the morning so that was her proof. But she wasn't really crazy. She and her late husband had been very successful merchants, and in all other ways she was completely sane and very sharp for her age. Also, she thought things like astrology and psychics were complete bunk. She just happened to think little people lived in her garden.

[Warpy]

11. Well, they did

and I'm sure they were grateful for the cookies.

What, you didn't think I was talking about birds, squirrels and chipmunks?

[trotsky]

12. Honestly, here on DU.

Can't name names because that would be a call-out, but unlike the rest of you, I've never met people who are as f'ed up as the woos on this board.

[TZ]

13. .

If you ever come to the DC area and meet my family I can introduce you to some...:P

[trotsky]

14. You're a magnet for weird, Sue.

Lived here all my life and never got accosted by a religious nut. You spend an hour at the Megamall and have to fend one off. :)

[TZ]

15. Runs in the family

Back when my mom was still single, she told me about this one idiot guy who would not stop hitting on her no matter how mean she was to him. He finally said "You know what lady, you got FANGS!!!" :rofl:
She would see him occasionally from time to time at her favorite place and she would go "Hi, Fang!!" :rofl:
Snark runs in the family too..:)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

17. I'm sort of in that predicament as well.

I usually keep to myself. I've had bosses, coworkers and colleagues that have been creationists (especially when I lived in Indiana). I had fellow students that believed in the veracity of the Bible (Catholic H.S.--what do you expect?). But I've never even heard of Indigo babies until DU. I never even knew it was an option to reject Germ Theory.

[semillama]

16. I got you beat.

My old boss (before he got canned) hired this woman for a lab manager position in our archaeology division. She seemed normal at first, but got progressively more open about her woo, which I think was probably connected to heavy drug use and maybe even mental illness. Examples of her woo/crazy:

-Claiming that the tree root stains that we sometimes find while looking for archaeological features (postholes, pits, etc) should be treated the same as archaeological features, since she could see the trees' souls and they were equal to humans.
-on the same project, complaining that a shallow prehistoric pit she was excavating wasn't anything important, then freaking out when she mistook a small piece of white gravel in her screen for a human tooth, running around and screaming "I knew it! I knew it was a burial!!!" Later, she told the father of one of our employees who had come to visit that the feature contained an "oxidized baby burial".
-Claimed that she was abducted by aliens, then claiming she was an alien
-enjoyed calling her co-workers unethical while simultaneously breaking all sorts of lab rules and losing artifacts

She was also a total hippie, of course.

Needless to say, we fired her. Apparently she ended up on some farm commune in eastern Kentucky and started reproducing (shudder).

[Warpy]

20. Yeah, I worked with one

She was an RN, a Vietnam vet. We knew she was a little off, she saw dead people. However, she was a good nurse and those are hard to find, especially in specialty units at night.

Then we found out she was keeping "dossiers" on all of us and calling the FBI daily.

When the FBI contacted the unit director, she got canned.

[Odin2005]

22. Schizophrenic for sure.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

21. Two or three years ago, while I was at college

there was a girl that was a friend of a friend. She claimed to be psychic and that one of her friends was possessed by a demon. She was working on getting rid of the thing. The supposed demoniac was party to a dispute under arbitration by the school, and I had told an RA that at least one of the witnesses was batshit crazy, and that the claimant in the dispute had reportedly engaged in self-destructive behavior (under the influence of her "demon.") The charges were dismissed, but the guy was soon expelled under accusations from the same group of girls. Our "psychic" was soon committed, for what I don't know. I haven't heard from anybody at that school in years, thankfully.

[mr blur]

24. Shit, I must lead a dull life!

I never meet the kind of loonies that you folks do. Of course, over here we lack the droves of religious weirdos that seem to infest all your neighbourhoods.