Oregon To Prohibit Faith-Healing Defense

It’s about fucking time:

Oregon is getting ready to end legal protection to parents who abandon modern medicine in favor of faith healing when treating their children’s illness. House Bill 2721 would eliminate faith healing as a legal defense for parents who rely only on faith healing or other spiritual practices to heal sick children.

The change in law can be understood as a direct response to the Oregon City church, The Followers of Christ. The church is notorious for allowing sick children to suffer and even die rather than seeking medical attention. The church preaches a religion based in faith-healing, a religion that rejects modern medicine in favor of prayer and the anointing of the sick with oil.

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Continue reading on Examiner.com: Religion: Oregon to eliminate faith healing as legal defense – Portland Humanist | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/humanist-in-portland/religion-oregon-to-eliminate-faith-healing-as-legal-defense#ixzz1EzmOLq3Y

There is currently no opposition to this bill from any side.

Christian Privilege Saves Child-Murdering Parents From Prison

 

Christian child abusers Herbert and Catherine Schaible

A Pennsylvania fundamentalist Christian couple, Herbert and Catherine Schaible, are spared prison after being found guilty for murdering their child with prayer and they are allowed to keep their seven remaining children to abuse for Jesus.  (That’s what you call “irresponsible procreation”.)  Cases like this make a good argument for regulating and prohibiting certain religious beliefs and practices that are just fucking dangerous.  The law already prohibits some religious practices, such as polygamy and slavery, yet allows parents to murder their children as long as they believe in magic powers.  Hopefully, however, that may be changing — prompted by the long history of child abuse and neglect by the Followers of Christ Church cult, the state of Oregon has just introduced a bill that will ban faith-healing as a defense for killing your kids.

Churches like these overstep the generous bounds of religious freedom granted to them.  Forcing kids, who cannot consent, to suffer needlessly through these ‘faith-healing’ rituals and to die horrible, painful deaths because their brainwashed, idiot parents are told to believe they have magic powers.

Why are these parents spared prison and allowed to keep their other children to experiment on?  They are clearly insane (emphasis mine):

Following the guilty verdict Clark [the father] said: ‘The legal community is trying to force our church group to put them in the hands of this flawed medical system, when they have chosen to put them in the hands of a perfect God, who does not make mistakes.’

About a dozen US children die in faith-healing cases each year, a handful of which spawn criminal charges, according to experts.

It is not the first time the First Century Gospel Church of Philadelphia’s teachings has clashed with the authorities.

And, the authorities admit that it’s going to take a lot of supervision to make sure that these monsters don’t harm their other kids, as they are still under the influence of the cult First Century Gospel Church.

Sick.

via [link] Philly.com and [link] DailyMail UK

Hogwarts School For Christians

Hogwarts School for Christians

Becky Fischer, the dangerously crazy lady of Jesus Camp, who probably does talk to snakes, and who preaches that children must be on fire for Jesus lest they perish in the Fire, to literally lay down their lives like Islamic extremists, now has the School of Supernatural Children’s Ministry.

I just don’t know how to express how wrong this is.  On the home page, nested above the ‘Christmas-shopping-discounts-ad’ button (some items up to 50% off!) and the ‘Donate-money-to-help-us-indoctrinate-children’ button is Fischer’s introduction video explaining that “Children are hungry for the supernatural” and “we have an obligation, if you will, to take them [children] to the next level” of their “God-given spiritual destiny that they were born for” in the power and presence of God (there’s levels?) — and you can get the whole series, 45 hours of it, (she holds up a couple of DVD box sets) for the low-low price of — well, go visit their web store — Prai$e Je$u$!

Ya know, children are hungry for anything that trusted adults will feed them and therefore, we have an obligation to teach them about facts and reality, not fantasy. Indoctrinating children to believe in magic and supernatural bullshit is grossly irresponsible, sick, and so dangerous on so many levels.

More Christian-Based Child Abuse

Children lived in squalor with no utilities, no medical care, no education. (Photo grab from York Dispatch)

Parents kept their five children, ages 2 to 13, hidden away from the world in a condemned house because of “religious reasons”.  Rampant religious abuse and neglect of children is a damn good reason to start taxing and regulating “churches”.  It is time to hold religion accountable for it’s human rights abuses.  It’s time to expose religion for the mental illness that it is.

[…]

They have no birth certificates, were never enrolled in school, never received medical care or vaccinations and had no documentation to prove they existed, police said; no records of home-schooling exist either.

‘Squalor’: For years, they lived in squalor at 734 S. Duke St. with no heat, no electric service, no water, no functioning toilet and a leaky roof, documents state.

But the Johnson family, aware of social workers’ attempts

to find the children, fled that building in July 2009, officials said. Owned by Johnson’s sister, the building was condemned in July 2009 by York City, according to Ward.

Ward and Children and Youth caseworker Jenna Triscari found the children hiding in the bathroom of an East York motel, police said, and Bowers

[…]

Religion = mental illness.  Religion = poison.

Destroying Science In Schools

It is absolutely alarming that they are filling kids’ heads with this garbage in the 21st century.  These “faith-based schools”in the UK are using a very popular curriculum imported from the good ole U.S. of A.  These taxpayer-funded schools also include Muslim schools teaching their own brand of Medieval bullshit.

This is child abuse.  Read at Coburg Atheist:

… They think that you can teach children that the bible (or Qur’an) has all the answers – they even believe it themselves.  This means they are deliberately pushing the next generation backwards.  At this rate, if this was done in all schools, in a few decades we would be back in the Inquisition.

“Oh but that only happens in the backward U.S. South” you say.  Or maybe only in backward Muslim countries like Iran and Pakistan – that’s why they are under-developed.  While it is true that Science text books for children that teach creationism are produced in the U.S., they are moving to the U.K. into “Faith based schools”.  See the following video:

 

Baptist Church Shames Girl For Being Raped By Church Member

Religion is used to justify, excuse and condone any goddamned thing — anything.  Religious doctrine is the polar opposite of everything that is good and right and moral.

This woman waited 13 years to come forward with this.  How many others have been victimized by this sick and vile church in the meantime?  At age 13, she was molested and beaten by a church member, didn’t report it (out of fear of the church).  Later, he was convicted on another molestation.  With that, she got brave enough to tell them that she had also been a victim of that man — they told her to keep her mouth shut and made her go visit the prison and “offer her forgiveness” to her molester, or else God would not forgive her.

Then, at age 15, another church member raped her and impregnated her.  The church made her stand in front of the congregation and beg for their forgiveness, and told her not to go to the police, because it would be “sinful” to accuse a Man of God, or something.  The Church moved her out of state to cover it up.

Now, at age 28, she has come forward and the Christian child rapist, now 51, has been arrested.

“They told me that to be a good Christian, I need to forgive, forget and move on in my life,” she said. “And they told me that a good Christian doesn’t press charges on another good Christian.”

The whole story is sickening.

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via The Friendly Atheist

Eddie Long Preached That Gays “Deserve Death”

The spiritual sons' spiritual daddy

Imagine that you’re a teenaged kid sitting in the pew when your family’s preacher gives his fiery “homosexuals deserve death” sermons.  You hear the sentiment repeated by the trusted adults around you — parents, adult relatives, teachers, all the people on whom you rely for guidance and ‘truth’ and ‘what’s real’ in this world.

You hear the tone of total disgust and fear: ‘queers’ are filthy and evil predators, controlled by actual demons and that (G)od (H)imself (who, you’re told, created them) despises them so much that there is no hope for them now or in the afterlife.  So despised and evil are these monsters, that (G)od sys that they must even be put to death in the here and now.

You, like all the other kids your age, are beginning to experience the natural development of your attractions towards others — you don’t know what sex really is, you’ve never even had sex (or for that matter, never had a life yet) but at some point you realize — omg, they’re talking about you.  You’re terrified.

Now, does it take much more to understand why so many teenaged kids are ending their lives? Does it take much more to understand why so many kids are physically attacked and/or killed?  Or why so many kids are thrown out of their homes, thrown away like garbage by “loving Christian parents”?

Does it take much to understand the psychological impact this bullshit has on a kid?  And, the kids who don’t kill themselves turn out to be, depending on many variables, either happy, well-adjusted adults who’ve learned that nothing the hell is wrong with them, or they totally believe the lies and sink into a self-loathing and self-destructive spiral, or they totally believe the lies and become self-loathing, hate-filled, closeted gay-bashing preachers/criminals/scammers.

“Bishop” Eddie Long’s Scandal Is A Grower

The good Pastor and “Bishop” Eddie Long is cancelling TV appearances as a third victim of his sexual advances comes forward.  Nah!  Didn’t see this coming.

via JMG

Atlanta Anti-Gay Preacher Accused Of Coercing Sex From Boys

Alleged pastoral predator

Atlanta mega-church pastor and televangelist “Bishop” Eddie Long, another anti-gay Christian hypocrite, is being accused by two men, now 20 and 21, of offering cash, cars and trips in exchange for sex.  They claim he started ‘grooming’ them when they were just 14-15 years old.  This fucking hypocrite has preached against the “sin” of homosex, and has crusaded on the national stage against same-sex marriage.

It’s almost as sure as the sun rises in the morning — the louder the religious bigot, the greater the chance that he/she is hiding the very thing they’re railing about.  And the sheeple lap it up and fill the collection plates.  From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

A few minutes before evening Bible study on Tuesday night, several members said they were shocked by the allegations.

Samuel M., 40, of Atlanta called Long “a good man – a man of God. He wants to help everybody… That man loves his wife. When you believe in your pastor, you believe in your pastor.”

Of course you idiots are shocked.  Did ya think the good pastor was putting his sex trips in the church bulletin?  You fucking idiot Christians will believe anything that comes from someone waving a Bible around.  One clue for you idiots: None of these frauds are “men of god” — wake. the. fuck. up.

More Oregon Faith-Healer Parents Face Charges

Look, I know that the vast majority (OK, I’m assuming it’s the vast majority) of Christians have better goddamned common sense and compassion to know when to not take the Bible completely literally.  But the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, Oregon take their faith to the point of severe mental illness and criminal child neglect.  Over the decades, they have filled a graveyard full of their own children.

Because the only good home is a devout Christian home.

Now another couple in the same damn church would have added their 7-month-old baby girl to that graveyard had someone not tipped off the authorities.  The baby’s parents let a tumor grow by her eye, until it got so big it bulged her eye out, pushing it to the side.  Getting bigger and more red and purple, the parents would only pray and anoint the helpless child with goddamned fucking holy olive oil.

And, unbelievably, this man lost his last wife to breast cancer in 2006.  She had never sought or received any medical treatment whatsoever, according to the state medical examiner.  Don’t wanna mess with god’s plan, right?  Now this sick bastard gets him a new wifey, makes a baby that I’m sure was conceived totally only after marriage, I’m sure, because that would just be way too sinful in the eyes of their god.  But, after the baby arrives into this world, no god can help her then, she’s left to total neglect — no, not total neglect, because I’m sure they fawned over her day and night, wiping away the  oozing pus from her eye, anointing her with extra-virgin olive oil and pleading and praying to the goddamned air.

Why?  Why has this church been allowed to continue for decades?  Because it has been taboo to question or criticize Christianity — never mind the endless suffering that it brings.  But it is because of this particular church that Oregon passed a law making it a felony offense for religious freaks who cause harm to children.  But they keep on, praise Jeebus!

This is why unquestioning, blind obedience to religious dogma is dangerous.  Religious extremism is fucking dangerous.  These kind of people are getting all up in our government, either in office or running for office, or influencing those in office, and it is fucking dangerous.  Lou Engle and Cindy Jacobs to name just two — they actually believe that they are literally prophets from God (with the capital G) — they actually believe in all this holy oil shit, and demons, and faith healing, and they are part of the machine working to bring a Christian Theocracy to the United States, and they are very vocal about it.

Source: OregonLive

Oregon City Faith-Healer Parents Found Guilty

Followers of Christ Church

Alot of folks around here have been following this story for quite some time.  The Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, OR (20 miles south of Portland) have a graveyard full of children.  Because of them, Oregon changed the law in 1999 regarding the use of faith-healing as a religious freedom defense.  From the article by Andy Parker of the Oregonian (emphases added):

The last time I wrote about the graveyard, in July, I mentioned that with the burial of 15-month-old Ava Worthington — the Beagley’s granddaughter — a fifth row of child graves had been started.

Jeff and Marci Beagley’s granddaughter, fifteen months old, died on March 2, 2008 at the Christian hands of their daughter and her husband, Carl and Raylene Worthington.  Surrounded by praying adults, she suffered horribly while they anointed her with olive oil and performed the laying on of hands.  Not one tried to help the tiny, under-developed girl and she died.  Suffer, the little children:

U.S. Soldier Waterboards His 4-year-old Daughter

His four-year-old daughter would not recite her alphabet.  She’s terrified of water.  So, this heterosexual freak decided it would be a good idea to grab her, so hard that she had cuts and bruises on her neck, and dunking her head in a bowl of water.

If this had been a m/m or f/f couple the religious freaks would be all over it — “see look, look at what ALL homosexuals do to children!!1!”  But, I doubt any of the anti-gay websites will even talk about this heterosexual deviant freak.

From the UK Daily Mail:

A soldier waterboarded his four-year-old daughter because she was unable to recite her alphabet.

Joshua Tabor admitted to police he had used the CIA torture technique because he was so angry.

As his daughter ‘squirmed’ to get away, Tabor said he submerged her face three or four times until the water was lapping around her forehead and jawline.

Tabor, 27, who had won custody of his daughter only four weeks earlier, admitted choosing the punishment because the girl was terrified of water.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1249191/Soldier-father-accused-waterboarding-daughter-4-recite-alphabet.html#ixzz0exjsodzw

Muslim v. Christian Violence In Nigeria Worsens

Muslim v. Christian

Peaceful Muslims and peaceful Christians in Nigeria have been at each others’ throats for years.  Not even their shared hatred for homos can bring them together in harmony.  It works like an Easy Button in the U.S. with Mormons, Catholics and Protestants, traditionally damning each other to Hell, having found the beautiful common ground of arrogance, ignorance, fear and hatred when it comes to gay people.

“Angry Muslim youths” torched a Catholic church packed with worshippers.  Three hundred dead, and expect more as this latest volley has just begun.  It’s in ever-regressing retaliation that this bullshit continues (everywhere in the world), every generation indoctrinating the next, and it never enda.  People fight and die over this imaginary superstition in their heads.  ‘God’ and ‘Allah’ are creations of men, reflecting exactly the nature and desires of each of their creators.

Prop 8 Trial Exposes Harmful “Ex-Gay” Therapy

Nicolosi's work is "empirically vacuous"

On Wednesday, Ryan Kendall testified in the Prop 8 trial about the horrors he endured at the hands of N.A.R.T.H. and his evangelical christian parents.  The kid’s mother must gotten advice from these sick fucks .  It is absolutely disgusting what these people did to their own kid, all in the name of their invisible god.  The name of god allows them free license to practice psychology without one.  Without the legal protection of “religion”, these abusive “therapies” would be shut down and their operators imprisoned.

Discredited Dr., Joseph Nicolosi of NARTH

While at NARTH, Kendall said his family rejected him:

I went to NARTH from 14-16. My entire life changed. Before NARTH, parents put notes in my lunch, made my lunch. After, they abused me emotionally. Mother told me she hated me, that I was disgusting, repulsive. She wished she’d had an abortion rather than having a gay son. She said she wished I’d had Down’s syndrome or been born retarded.

Christians Will Fall For Anything And Then Lie To Defend It

Christians will fall for any damn thing; just slap on the Name of Jesus™  and you can fool all of ’em almost.  It worked like a charm for Carrie Diddledigits Prejean to get Peter LaBarbera and Maggie Gallagher fawning all over her Holy Godly Morals, and now — not a word  about her, at least not from Peter. (Maggie’s NOM just ‘fired‘ her.)  Anybody with one eye, one ear and half a brain knew what a Lying Skank For Jesus she was right from the start.  These gullible christians think that all gay people are robots, programmed into a “lifestyle” — because that’s what they are told, and they believe what they are told to believe.

Pete and Mag should take a lesson from this Miss DiddleFingers meltdown of lies and scams that Pete won’t even acknowledge — this is just how they target and play their trusting audience; they twist fact and reality and purposely misquote professionals until they’re just as gullible, just waiting for the next Holy Word from O’ Infallible Leaders, or anyone tagging the name of Jesus.  This is the only way that their operations can survive — Repeat the lies until they believe the lies; manufacture phony threat crises to stir up the fear; sustain their fully trusting audience in ignorance and fear and on the defense and they have it made.  Tangible, proven facts and reality no longer matter!