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

Cindy Jacobs Wonders If God Killed Birds

Maybe god will stop killing birds when Cindy stops dressing up in her hooker outfits?

via Raw Story, JMG

Egyptian Muslims Make Themselves Human Shields For Christian Mass

A ray of hope for religions getting along?  Probably not, but this is great.  [link]

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy, a Muslim arts tycoon whose cultural centre distributed flyers at churches in Cairo Thursday night, and who has been credited with first floating the “human shield” idea.

Among those shields were movie stars Adel Imam and Yousra, popular Muslim televangelist and preacher Amr Khaled, the two sons of President Hosni Mubarak, and thousands of citizens who have said they consider the attack one on Egypt as a whole.

“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly Street. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”

[…]

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I Had A Prophetic Dream About Lou Engle

In this dream, Lou Engle was wailing his arms about, rasping out his demented bile to the mesmerized flocks swaying to the rhythm of his voice, when out of nowhere, came came two she-bears (mama grizzlies, I think they were) and ripped him apart, blood spraying over the writhing worshippers.  This dream that I really, really had (I mean, why would anyone just make up stories like that?) is a “seed-thought from the Heavenly realm” (really, it is) and it’s a stern warning directly from God, according to the self-claimed “prophet” Lou himself, who declares that dreams are the Word of God.  No longer is the Bible the only word of God, you see, now it’s Lou’s “dreams, thoughts, intentions, and directions”.  And people just lap it up.

From Right Wing Watch: Engle: Dreams Are The Word Of God

Engle spoke for an hour and a half straight on the dangers of ignoring or trivializing the messages that God speaks through dreams, warning that prophets cannot be concerned with appearing “fanatical” or “out of our minds,” declaring that everything he has done in twenty-five years of ministry has been “founded on the word of God” that has been “delivered through the prophetic ministry of divine ideas, thoughts, intentions, and directions, and by the grace of God, we have picked up most of those seed-thoughts that have come from the Heavenly mind-realm … and I have found that those dreams were not just tickling fancies, they were the word of God and they have created movements that shake nations”

It is dangerous, Lou warns his followers, to ignore or trivialize these for-real-he-swears prophetic dreams — so just drop your money in one them there “collection stations” located throughout the crowd for your convenience.  It’s sad that people, lots and lots of people, fall for demented shysters like this.

Lou Engle has called for the christian youth of America to rise up and resort to force if they have to, to be as radical as islamic extremists.  This call has been made by other well-known Dominionist leaders.  It  seems to be working.

Bryan Fischer: Too Many Bastard Children Being Born

Those bastards!

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association says too many bastard children are being born and married people should be obligated to produce at lease three children.  Great.  Yeh, we need more children’s lives fucked up by the abuse and indoctrination of religion.

We want married couples to have more children, not fewer. Our problem is not that married couples are having too many kids, our problem is that they aren’t having enough.

Our fertility rate right now is barely at replacement level, and that’s with 40% of our children born out-of-wedlock — bastards, to use the quaint and correct term (dictionary: “bastard: a person born of parents not married to each other”). That’s not name-calling, it’s telling the truth.

…

The last thing we need is any public policy that encourages married couples to have fewer children. In fact, the American standard ought to be a minimum of three children per married couple.

God’s original instruction to our first parents was to “be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth.” This command, which theologians call the “Cultural Mandate,” has never been rescinded. It’s still in effect today, just as much in effect as it was when first uttered 6,000 years ago.

In order to “multiply” – that is, to grow in number – each couple has to have at least three children.

That 40% figure overlaps heavily into the 80% self-proclaimed christian population.  Please, for the sake of our country’s Good Christian Heritage™, we must stop with all this “irresponsible procreation”.  Bristol, Sarah?

High School Students Wear Shirts Calling For Death To Gays

On a day for raising awareness of bullying at a high school in the Chicago area, three students wore t-shirts reading “Straight Pride” on the front.

Cool.  I am up with Straight Pride.  I am all for it.  Go, straight people!  But the front of the shirts wasn’t the problem.

The back of the shirts had gentle christianists’ favorite loving Bible verse calling for gay people to be put to death, with “death” in capital letters, btw.

Not. cool.

The comments by “christians” after the news stories are predictably appalling.  Of course, now these poor, oppressed christian students are having their faith under attack for not being able to freely threaten people with death!

What the fuck do you think would happen to a non-christian kid if he were to wear a t-shirt with the slogan “Too Many Christians, Not Enough Lions”?  What would have happened if a white-supremacist’s kid wore a shirt calling for Jews or African Americans to be put to death?  They would have been expelled immediately with no question.

Christians, it’s time to dump those verses — you cherry-pick every damn thing else — dump the death threats.  It would only be Nth-hundredth time that the Bible has been changed over it’s history.  Learn about this disgusting book that you praise, and maybe actually read the goddamned thing once in a while.  If you are a christian, and you think that it is acceptable to the rest of civilized society for your Stone Age death threats, you need your fucking head examined.

via Twitter, stcharles-il-patch .. Daily Herald ..

The Dark Ages vs. Bryan Fischer, Tony Perkins et al.

A single quote from the Dark Ages that nicely sums up today’s christianist leaders and “culture warriors:

What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church … a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them. – Martin Luther [1483-1546], Table Talk, published 1569

And a few more that describe them quite well.  Religion today, as always, is used to justify any deed they do.

God does not work salvation for fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin vigorously…. Do not for a moment imagine that this life is the abiding place of justice; sin must be committed.

Sin cannot tear you away from him [Christ], even though you commit adultery a hundred times a day and commit as many murders.

Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes a-begging. [Martin Luther, Table Talk]

Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but–more frequently than not –struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. [Martin Luther, Table Talk]

Martin Luther and Johann Tetzel burning each other's books, circa 1518

Equality California Finds Noose Hung On Door

 

image from EQCA Facebook page

This is what it’s all about.  No matter how it’s packaged and marketed, no matter how loudly they preach about their “christian love”, what this is all about is raw hatred.  Their “culture war” is waged on adults, but the casualties are kids who have to grow up and live in this world.

Kids see and hear this hatred being spewed by religious leaders and preachers who then pass it on to teachers and parents.  Kids take this hatred to heart.  Bullies take these lessons on hatred and act them out.

The toxic leaders of the Religious Reich refuse to accept responsibility for the messages they preach that snuff out children’s hopes for life and a future; these vile Men and Women of God™ even blame the children for the treatment they receive.  Their message: gay kids deserve bullying, torment, death and hellfire.

 

Maggie cannot figure out what her organization is doing that would cause anyone harm.

Well, Equality California found this noose on their door a couple days ago, called in to report it and the officer told them “Sometimes you just have to live with being a victim”

Then the officer told them his car was broken into once, because, you know, getting your car stereo stolen is just like someone coming to your door and suggesting you should kill yourself.

The sign pictured is one that a NOM supporter displayed at one of their Indiana stops on their Hate Bus Tour.

via JMG

Christianist Leaders Mandate Bullying Gay Kids, Who Deserve Death, Anyway

Yes, they say that in so many words.  They state that it is their Christian Duty™ as Authentic Christians®.  (the really Authentic Christians® like Clint McCance, for instance!)  In fact, they even have a Duty to exercise “God’s Perfect Hatred” towards gays.  Gay kids deserve all the bullying they get.  Gay kids deserve suicide. And if the bullying and physical assaults don’t work, they deserve long lives of torment, disease and loneliness or incarceration and forced conversion therapy because they’re like alcoholics and murderers!

All together, now: “See? — no way are kids killing themselves because of anything we say!” – says the Religious Reich.

First, I gotta say that I cannot contain my anger about this subject enough to avoid using foul language in this post.  (well, duh! but, I may edit out the cursing later, maybe not)  As it is, I get very angry about a hell of a lot of …  most OK, everyfuckingthing that these mentally ill religious extremists come up with, but the stuff coming out of them lately concerning kids and bullying and suicide is way over the fucking top.

See, I got my anti-gay bullying from, specifically, two adult teachers — I have touched on that in another post on bullying.  I didn’t get it from other kids, really.  I was well-liked enough by other kids as well as teachers.  And I was never sexually abused; I didn’t even have sex until I was eighteen!  So today, when I hear adults mocking and attacking these children who are victims of their relentless religious bullshit, I want to punch them, I want to knock some fucking teeth out of a few of those simpering pussies who call themselves Men of God™.  They make me want to fucking puke.

Regardless how much they preach about their “christian love” or about how much they are “protecting” the children, they DO NOT care about children or families or anything but preaching fear and lies and condemnation to reap profits.  And, child abuse?  The Church (all religions, but Christians are the subject of this post) … the Church is the fucking hands-down winner on perpetrating, permitting and perpetuating child abuse.

Well, some of the most hating-est, self-appointed christian leaders in this country have gotten together with a written joint proclamation (I will list some of it below with my annotations) to spell out their Moral Christian™ obligation to make sure that they and their little indoctrinated offspring get to harass, beat and incite violence onto possibly queer kids (some of whom are their own kids) — queer kids who need to be made aware that they are subhuman garbage whom God created and despises and will torture and burn  forever in the Hell that He created just for those disgusting little queers.  Praise Jesus!  Praise His Name!

Ann Coulter On Twitter: “Pederasts”

If it weren’t for the fact that so many people actually like Ann Coulter, this wouldn’t deserve much notice.  Apparently, Barron, of GOProud, loves the fact that Ann Coulter perpetuates the shamelessly willful lies of the christian extremist reich and eqates gay men with pedophilia and pederasty.

Funny thing is, “@bujeeboo” is apparently a heterosexual woman, from reading her tweets, blog and bio, so I’m really not sure how Ann Coulter thinks @bujeeboo (or gay men) would fit the definition of a “pederast”.

Americans United: Stop Christian Proselytizing By The Military

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is demanding the cancellation of the Christian “rock concerts” at Fort Bragg aimed at proselytizing soldiers and civilians.

An evangelistic rally jointly sponsored by U.S. military personnel and evangelical Christian churches and ministries violates the U.S. Constitution and must be cancelled, says Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The “Rock the Fort” event at Fort Bragg this weekend targets both military personnel and adults and children in the surrounding community for conversion to Christianity. This clearly violates the separation of church and state, attorneys with Americans United informed Army officials in a letter today.

“It’s not the Army’s job to convert Americans to Christianity,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “This event is totally unacceptable and must be canceled.

Christine O’Donnell And The “Ex-Gay” Scam

This lady is an incredible piece of work!  Besides her long record of many-faceted scumbag behavior, lies and looney statements, Christine O’Donnell is another Christian scam artist making a buck on the “ex-gay” therapy scam.

Also, Christine “dabbled in witchcraft” (video below the fold) … She must be put to death according to her unchanging, infallible, holy scriptures.  By letting this admitted witch/sorceress live, other innocent Christians can be at risk for demon possession, or, something.  Christians, pick up those stones and do what you know is commanded in God’s Infallible, Unchanging Word.  And none of this “oh-we-follow-the-New-Testament” bullshit.  Jesus himself allegedly said (allegedly, because Jesus probably never existed, and even if he did, the NT was written after he allegedly died by people who never met him) that he was not here to throw out the Old Laws, that you must keep “every letter” of the Law.

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

Paranoid Delusions Of Eugene Delgaudio

Paranoid, delusional Christian Liar Eugene Delgaudio

All I can say is “Wow”.  Christian leaders will stop at nothing to beg for money.  Eugene Delgaudio claims he’s spent $800,000 fighting the Evil Homosekshuls™ who are constantly calling and stalking him and his family.  And now, says he, the constant death threats have turned into “actually” trying to kill him.  Yeah, Delgaudio says these things are happening but he does not elaborate one bit (because he’s fucking lying).  Just his wording alone makes it clear what a shameless liar and con artist he is.  The man is either truly paranoid and delusional (all of these people act that way), or he is deliberately spinning fantastic tales to con people for their money (they all do that).  The more that these religious leaders speak out, the more it shows what they are.

From Joe.My.God.:

“As the Radical Homosexuals gain more and more ground in Congress, my hands are tied. Life here in Washington has been a virtual Hell for me. I put off sending you this email for a while because I didn’t want to worry you. You see, I’ve gotten death threats and I never take them lightly. But when they go beyond threatening and actually try to kill me, it’s a whole different story. There’s more my friend.

“In the past, strangers follow my family around town. Idling cars sit across the street at all hours of the night. The threatening phone calls, the death threats and the outrageous lies… oh, it’s endless… but thank the Lord for He truly blessed me with a family so strong, so brave… and yes, so supportive! I’ve taken precautions to protect my family. Some things I’ve told you about, but some things I must keep confidential or they’d be in more peril. Will you pray for my family and me? That the Lord would keep us safe? I covet your prayers!” – Eugene Delguadio, executive director of the anti-gay group, Public Advocate Of The U.S., in a lengthy paranoid and bizarre email requesting emergency donations because he’s spent $800,000 (riiiight) fighting the homosexual menace.

If you want an even bigger laugh, check out some more of his “homos are out to get me” paranoia.

ROFL @Delgaudio!  No, the “endless outrageous lies” are what comes from Delgaudio and other pathological liars like him.  And, why does he need to suck money out of believers, anyway?  Shouldn’t his gOd and the prayers of the faithful be enough to protect him from any harm, and most certainly from the Evil Homosekshuls?  That’s what one would think.  That’s what the Buy-Bull says.

Rekers’ Apologist Alan Chambers Forgets The Victims

apologist for George Rekers

The president of Exodus International, Alan Chambers, in his absolutely nauseating defense of George Rekers, completely ignores the victims: untold numbers of families that have been ruined by his lies during his 30-something year career scam span.

It’s sickening, the pretentious holy bullshit, the tired christian victim cliches: poor, poor Dr. Rekers, he “fell from grace”.  That’s all they’re about, worried about their “walk with the Lord”, their “salvation” and the next life, while fucking up the real one we all have.  Chambers says:

“As it turns out, that young man happens to be a prostitute. … Dr. Rekers actions, at best, lacked an enormous amount of discernment. At worst, he is guilty of leading a double life.”

Really? … “as it turns out”?!  Oh, I think he discerned quite well in his search for a “luggage handler”.  He knew right where to go, and there was no malfunction of “discernment”, no “oh, I just accidentally logged into this male escort website with my username and password”, there was no “what? oh, my goodness, you’re a what?”.  As for the “At worst” part of your sentence.  Rekers is obviously living a double life, d-f; this is not something he whimsically fell prey to, from a chance temptation from “Satan”.  The “At worst” part is the untold pain and heartache he brought onto the children and families against whom he bore false testimony.

“Despite the familiar human desire to throw the stone in my hand at Dr. Rekers, I cannot. He is a human who seems to have made a mistake. He is a Christian who seems to be guilty of practicing what he has preached against. It is that fact that alone causes the deepest feelings of anger to arise no matter what side of the debate one falls. Regardless of any sexual impropriety, his actions were not above reproach and that has hurt his excellent reputation.”

Fine, keep your stones, I have a pile at my feet I’ve been collecting — I’m throwin’ ’em back.  Rekers did not “make a mistake”.  He has intentionally lived a fraud, professing “Christ”, putting on this grand act of morality (to hide the fact that he has none), getting paid thousands of dollars to sit in a witness chair in a court of law and lie and dehumanize and defame good people, trying to deny children their chance at a warm and loving home, children who were thrown away by their heterosexual parents, children who no one wanted.  The judge in the Florida case said the kids under the care of the gentlman were “thriving“.  The oldest didn’t even know what a book was; he hoarded his food at meals, because he was afraid; it took a month for him to talk; Rekers wanted to condemn those kids to be shuffled around, unwanted and unloved.