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

Formula That Never Fails: More Jesus = Less Morals

Christian wife-beater Stephen Green

It never fucking fails.  Inversely proportional: the more Jesus that comes spouting from some ‘holier-than-thou’ moral crusader’s pie-hole, the more effed-up shit they’re hiding and the less morals they possess.

From Joe.My.God.:

Infamous anti-gay activist Stephen Green, who is well known as a British version of Peter LaBarbera, is being divorced by his wife. Because he’s been beating her with a piece of wood.

Caroline Green was often punished by her husband Stephen for failing to be a dutiful, compliant wife, but his final act of violence against her — the one that prompted her long-overdue decision to divorce him — was all the more chilling because it was coldly premeditated. Stephen Green wrote a list of his wife’s failings then described the weapon he would make to beat her with. ‘He told me he’d make a piece of wood into a sort of witch’s broom and hit me with it, which he did,’ she recalls, her voice tentative and quiet. ‘He hit me until I bled. I was terrified. I can still remember the pain. ‘Stephen listed my misdemeanours: I was disrespectful and disobedient; I wasn’t loving or submissive enough and I was undermining him. He also said I wasn’t giving him his conjugal rights. ‘He even framed our marriage vows — he always put particular emphasis on my promise to obey him — and hung them over our bed. He believed there was no such thing as marital rape and for years I’d been reluctant to have sex with him, but he said it was my duty and was angry if I refused him.

Green’s wife also claims that their son had to be hospitalized after a beating from him.

This man is one twisted psychotic sack of crazy.  On his protests against BBC, his loving, Christ-like followers did this:

‘As a result of all this lobbying, we received death threats — awful stuff arrived in the post,’ recalls Emily. ‘Someone threatened to burn us all alive in our beds.

‘We were terrified — but Stephen treated the reaction with glee. He thrived on controversy because he could go on TV and get publicity.’

Read the whole grisly account HERE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1351585/Stephen-Green-rails-immorality-voice-Christian-Britan-private-wife-beater-says-partner.html#ixzz1CdZBKJn4

The Stephen Greens in this world have real effect on people, from the unfortunates subservient to them, to the religious zealots who take the teachings of madmen and act on them.  These are not nice people.

 

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.

Toddler Starved To Death For Not Praying

This baby wouldn’t say amen after the prayer for mealtime.

A 19 month Philadelphia boy, who was found dead inside a suitcase, was starved by religious group members, including his mother because he wouldn’t pray after meals.

Three members of the cult called 1 Mind Ministries and the toddler’s mother were charged with first-degree murder.

The investigation revealed that Javon Thompson, almost 19 months old died in his mother’s arms after he was not fed since December 2006. Police found the suitcase with the remains of the child in April 2007, after they received confidential information. According to court documents, members of religious group did not seek for medical care, letting Javon die of hunger.

Bishop Eddie Long’s Ties To Dominionism

Pastor Bishop Eddie Long

A good read on Talk To Action about Long’s ties to Dominion Theology, which works to dissolve the separation of church and state, and is becoming the mainstream in charismatic/evangelical movements.  Also read this on TTA  about Long’s “apostolic” authority over 79 churches around the country and world.  From the first link (bold emphasis added):

[snip] Like the apostles and prophets of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) and other Dominionist networks, Long does not believe in separation of church and state. And similar to the NAR prophets, Long believes that God gives messages directly to him to pass on to his flock.  In his book Taking Authority he states,

God has strongly communicated to me His displeasure with our nation’s growing acceptance of the mythical “separation of church and state” heresy.  I am convinced this so-called separation was never the intent of our nation’s founding fathers – it is merely a device fraudulently created by an errant Supreme Court totally apart from historical precedent, tradition, or even the will of the people.

Also, like many other New Apostolics and Dominionists, Eddie Long is known for his extensive charitable work.  And also like the New Apostolics, this work is at least partially intended to provide access and gain authority over government as mandated in  dominion theology.

[…]

First, gOd does not communicate with Eddie Fucking Long or any other religious huckster.  This bullshit about the U.S. being a christian nation pisses me off because it shows their total ignorance of, not only U.S. history, but world history.  We are a “christian nation” only in the sense that christianity is the majority religion that people follow — not because we were founded on a christian theocracy.  This nation was founded by people who fled the tyranny of church rule over state, not to set up their own theocracy.

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

The Pope Needs A Miracle

Pat Condell owns the Pope (aka “God’s Rottweiler”) — Pat can be the atheists’ Rottweiler!  I love his response to the Pope’s statement that ‘priests are G0d’s gift to the world‘ (yeah — makes me choke, too.

Pat: “as if God said, ‘Hey, world! I’ve got a gift for you.  I got it specially.  It’s a predatory class of self-serving parasite who will suck out your dreams and grind them to dust, who will poison your naturally joyous and spontaneous natures with the leaden and life-draining emotions of guilt and fear, and who will lead you away from the path to wisdom and enlightenment and straight into a box canyon of superstition and dogma solely for their benefit, and you are going to lap it up like puppy dogs.  Any questions?  No, I didn’t think so.   Well, just for that, I’m going to let them rape your kids as well, and get away with it.  Enjoy!’ “

Video after the fold …

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: