This is why local elections are important. These assholes are trying to make the public schools extensions of their church, and force every child to conform to their narrow ideology of who those children are.
Precisely. This is why we have the Johnson Amendment, and I'm beginning to think we need additional tools to remove the influence of radicalist churches from what should be a secular education system.
Whoa! In the US. Most of the Deep South would take one look at such a document and scream "PERSECUTION!" at the top of their lungs. These people effectively identify themselves with their religious beliefs. Setting them aside is inconceivable to them, mostly because they've been taught that that's how it should be.
And it is that level of indoctrination that just scares the whee outta me.
And it's for people like them we have religious private schools* who are approved by the Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale, they can teach what they want but say goodbye to theses sweet government funds.
* We also have religious private schools partially funded by the state who must teach what is teached in public schools and illegal schools for those not satisfied with legal bigoted schools (in the few last years my government cracked down more severely on them).
It's largely irrelevant. Sure it might've stopped the pastor bringing Ms. Shaw up on stage. But if it's true they have 8,000 votes when a School Board winner gets about 10,000-11,000 votes maximum in this district, the 'churchy' candidates have a great chance of winning *without* any overt or explicit support by the church.
There is sadly not much that can be done short-term when a community is largely overrun with folks like this. Stronger state regulation is your friend. Population flow and mix into- and out-of the district so as to change the demographics is your friend. Strong alternative candidates are your friend. But this is one of the prices of democracy; majority election of government officials stinks when the majority in your neck of the woods is a unified singular cult of bigots.
The IRS needs a shit load more funding and an entire new branch focusing solely on church state cases like this.
And we need to remove the No Religious Test clause, because it clearly doesn't work. It needs to be replaced with mechanisms to specifically target christians and excise them from schools, hospitals, government positions and so on.
Frankly, we also need something like the denazification programs in post WWII Germany, just aimed at christians. And education about Christianity's fucked up, genocidal history needs to be mandatory in every curriculum nationwide.
There are some varieties of non Abrahamic religion that don't deliberately destroy what they touch, but that is probably the most generous view of all religion I can muster.
Judaism doesn't operate in nearly the same way as Christianity does. It's typically the opposite.
It's really easy for those of us in the US and the anglosphere to assume that our experiences with Christianity (which is almost uniquely toxic and abjectly evil) to be the same way all religions work, but that's neither true or fair. Christianity has an effective monopoly in these parts, so it's likely the only religion we have any real experience with, but that experience doesn't extrapolate out.
Religions are way too disparate in doctrine (or lack thereof) and practice to make blanket statements about "all religions".
Christianity rose out of Judaism. There are sects of Judaism in the US that are just as toxic as Christianity is. While there are subsets of all three Abrahamic religions that are much less toxic than the right wing, all of them hearken back to the same core beliefs.
The difference is that the vast majority of Jews are non-proselytizing while the vast majority of Christians are proselytizing. Judaism, both traditionally and theologically, has zero interest in making converts or telling other people how to live their lives.
Given that "proselytization," and "telling other poeple how to live their lives" are the big bones of contention here, I think Lucius' point is a good one. In terms of social interaction, for evangelical Christianity vs. mainstream Judaism, their differences are much bigger than their sames. So much bigger that we can even generally count mainstream Judaism amongst the "supporters of secularist government" group, like ourselves.
Fundamentalists of any religion have more in common with each other than they do with non-fundamentalists of their own religion. Fundie Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists (who am I missing?) should all live in the same country and leave the rest of the world to the rest of us.
Christianity and Judaism in their current forms are not remotely comparable. Christianity is effectively shitty fanfiction. The Bible and the talmud are not interpreted at all similarly. Bluntly, they don't share the same beliefs.
Hell, atheist Jews are totally fine and have been for centuries. Judaism cares much more about orthopraxy than orthodoxy.
Ultra orthodox Jews are a minority. Authoritarian christians are the majority, and they're also in power. And almost always have been. The two aren't comparable.
Theologically and doctrinally Christianity and Judaism are apples and oranges.
Conservative Christians can never stop trying to mark their territory in the public schools, paid for with everyone's tax dollars. It's actually an open admission as to just how weak their arguments are that they are so driven to get to children before they have reached the age of reason. When people become convinced they're operating under divine sanction, they can make an excuse for absolutely anything.
Damn. And this is California, not Alabama or Georgia or anywhere in the Deep South (though I do acknowledge pockets of right-wing stupidity in the Golden State). I'm pleased to know that the Freedom From Religion Foundation is alert to this mess and is doubtless monitoring and filing actions as appropriate. Sadly, we're talking about November of 2024 before the miscreants can be ejected from office and someone with a touch of sanity can take over the reins.
They boast of 8,000 registered voters in their church. There is no guarantee that the Nazis can be removed from office, especially when they tell their congregation NOT to vote their conscience, but to vote the bible.
Maybe so, but if they want to continue to inject religion where it doesn't belong, they may find themselves spending more time in court than in school!
“So then I just walk in front of the pulpit, bless the candidate and say how great he or she is and that I’m voting for them, and then go back behind the pulpit,”
Step 1. Create a strawregulation.
Step 2. Create a loophole to get around strawregulation.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: My LCMS minister father adored the separation of church and state and would have strongly objected to these idiots. He might very well have shown up in his clerical collar at a school board meeting to tell them they were wrong. I miss Dad. He would have turned 100 a few weeks ago.
I can only hope that these kids will rebel one day and join the ranks of agnostics and atheists. My upbringing included 8 years of Catholic school indoctrination and plenty of rosaries at home. My siblings as well. Most of us are now atheist, agnostic, or no religious preference. One of the six of us is a right wing evangelical Catholic - sadly. But those are pretty good odds.
My early ones were from a meeting with a radial arm saw in 8th grade. I had just turned it off, so I didn't lose any fingers, but my shop teacher did take the opportunity to show the rest of the class before handling the fact I was about to pass out.
Tell ya what: Let's take over that megachurch of theirs and teach the scientific fact of evolution. Or teach about the true age of the universe (13.8 billion years as opposed to 6000 - 10,000 years. Shit, even the Hindus are closer than the cristers. Hindus guessed it to be 4,320,000,000 years).
Wonder if that would be ok with Calvary Chapel Chino Hills? I'm guessing not.
He's probably the most visible and influential of the fundamentalists in Calvary Chapel who think that even trying to adopt a civil facade (,while maintaining the same toxic fundamentalism , mind you) is akin to pledging allegience to Satan.
Not the 33 year sentence we and the Justice Dept. wanted, but Enrique Tarrio, former head asshole of the Proud Boys, got 22 years for his role in the insurrection of Jan. 6. He fucked around, he found out.
I suppose a lot of Republicans will think 22 years is still excessive...the same people who believe that filching a roll of toilet paper in the aftermath of a hurricane means you deserve to literally get shot to death.
California is currently ranked 20th Overall in Education. Thanks to these religion-addled lamebrains, expect those numbers to go south faster than a duck in winter.
Rankings after a certain point are moot, since they’re tearing apart the entire system. If all the states have shitty religious run schools, we’re just lining the crap up by pile size and not by any worthwhile metric.
It would be great if some enterprising prosecutor would go after churches like this one for conspiracy/racketeering. There are a number of grounds for doing it, with conspiracy to rig elections springing immediately to mind. They're pretty obviously guilty of it. But of course "religious liberty" would get in the way. As characters in Loony Tunes used to face the audience and say, "I can dream, can't i?"
You can count the number of church prosecutions on the fingers of one hand pretty much. I'm afraid it ain't going to happen unfortunately. I would break out the champagne if it did though.
This is why local elections are important. These assholes are trying to make the public schools extensions of their church, and force every child to conform to their narrow ideology of who those children are.
Precisely. This is why we have the Johnson Amendment, and I'm beginning to think we need additional tools to remove the influence of radicalist churches from what should be a secular education system.
The Johnson amendment is toothless until someone in the IRS grows a spine.
The Republican party keeps the IRS starved for funds. And the Republican party loves fascist religions. Hm.
You only need one, a secularism charter*, but not sure it would be acceptable anywhere in your country.
* School board parents who sign it plead to let their religion at home.
Whoa! In the US. Most of the Deep South would take one look at such a document and scream "PERSECUTION!" at the top of their lungs. These people effectively identify themselves with their religious beliefs. Setting them aside is inconceivable to them, mostly because they've been taught that that's how it should be.
And it is that level of indoctrination that just scares the whee outta me.
And it's for people like them we have religious private schools* who are approved by the Ministère de l'Éducation Nationale, they can teach what they want but say goodbye to theses sweet government funds.
* We also have religious private schools partially funded by the state who must teach what is teached in public schools and illegal schools for those not satisfied with legal bigoted schools (in the few last years my government cracked down more severely on them).
I am ignorant of how most state laws and regulations work. I have a hard enough time to keep up with my country 😁
And yet those are the same people who would force these kids to sign one that would force them to be Christians.
It's largely irrelevant. Sure it might've stopped the pastor bringing Ms. Shaw up on stage. But if it's true they have 8,000 votes when a School Board winner gets about 10,000-11,000 votes maximum in this district, the 'churchy' candidates have a great chance of winning *without* any overt or explicit support by the church.
There is sadly not much that can be done short-term when a community is largely overrun with folks like this. Stronger state regulation is your friend. Population flow and mix into- and out-of the district so as to change the demographics is your friend. Strong alternative candidates are your friend. But this is one of the prices of democracy; majority election of government officials stinks when the majority in your neck of the woods is a unified singular cult of bigots.
The IRS needs a shit load more funding and an entire new branch focusing solely on church state cases like this.
And we need to remove the No Religious Test clause, because it clearly doesn't work. It needs to be replaced with mechanisms to specifically target christians and excise them from schools, hospitals, government positions and so on.
Frankly, we also need something like the denazification programs in post WWII Germany, just aimed at christians. And education about Christianity's fucked up, genocidal history needs to be mandatory in every curriculum nationwide.
They'd just play bagpipes. Baptists already claim a lineage without the Catholic Church from the original churches Paul set up.
Play bagpipes?
Claim all those evil monsters weren't 'True' Christians.
Ah. I hadn't heard "play the bagpipes" as shorthandfor No True Scotsman before.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
But they don't TELL you their affiliation in ballot info, so how are voters to know?
Everything religion touches, it destroys. This is especially true of education. Superstition despises knowledge with a passion.
Everything Christianity touches. It's not fair to tar other religions with the same brush.
There are some varieties of non Abrahamic religion that don't deliberately destroy what they touch, but that is probably the most generous view of all religion I can muster.
Judaism doesn't operate in nearly the same way as Christianity does. It's typically the opposite.
It's really easy for those of us in the US and the anglosphere to assume that our experiences with Christianity (which is almost uniquely toxic and abjectly evil) to be the same way all religions work, but that's neither true or fair. Christianity has an effective monopoly in these parts, so it's likely the only religion we have any real experience with, but that experience doesn't extrapolate out.
Religions are way too disparate in doctrine (or lack thereof) and practice to make blanket statements about "all religions".
Christianity rose out of Judaism. There are sects of Judaism in the US that are just as toxic as Christianity is. While there are subsets of all three Abrahamic religions that are much less toxic than the right wing, all of them hearken back to the same core beliefs.
The difference is that the vast majority of Jews are non-proselytizing while the vast majority of Christians are proselytizing. Judaism, both traditionally and theologically, has zero interest in making converts or telling other people how to live their lives.
Given that "proselytization," and "telling other poeple how to live their lives" are the big bones of contention here, I think Lucius' point is a good one. In terms of social interaction, for evangelical Christianity vs. mainstream Judaism, their differences are much bigger than their sames. So much bigger that we can even generally count mainstream Judaism amongst the "supporters of secularist government" group, like ourselves.
Exactly.
Roman province of Palestine was a hot bed for religious nutjobs (Sicarii and Zealots).
Fundamentalists of any religion have more in common with each other than they do with non-fundamentalists of their own religion. Fundie Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists (who am I missing?) should all live in the same country and leave the rest of the world to the rest of us.
Christianity and Judaism in their current forms are not remotely comparable. Christianity is effectively shitty fanfiction. The Bible and the talmud are not interpreted at all similarly. Bluntly, they don't share the same beliefs.
Hell, atheist Jews are totally fine and have been for centuries. Judaism cares much more about orthopraxy than orthodoxy.
May I suggest you take a moment and read/listen to this? It's from 2014, but I think you'll find it good info to have.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/534/a-not-so-simple-majority
Ultra orthodox Jews are a minority. Authoritarian christians are the majority, and they're also in power. And almost always have been. The two aren't comparable.
Theologically and doctrinally Christianity and Judaism are apples and oranges.
May I suggest you talk to some Jewish folks.
Conservative Christians can never stop trying to mark their territory in the public schools, paid for with everyone's tax dollars. It's actually an open admission as to just how weak their arguments are that they are so driven to get to children before they have reached the age of reason. When people become convinced they're operating under divine sanction, they can make an excuse for absolutely anything.
Damn. And this is California, not Alabama or Georgia or anywhere in the Deep South (though I do acknowledge pockets of right-wing stupidity in the Golden State). I'm pleased to know that the Freedom From Religion Foundation is alert to this mess and is doubtless monitoring and filing actions as appropriate. Sadly, we're talking about November of 2024 before the miscreants can be ejected from office and someone with a touch of sanity can take over the reins.
Disturbing as hell...
They boast of 8,000 registered voters in their church. There is no guarantee that the Nazis can be removed from office, especially when they tell their congregation NOT to vote their conscience, but to vote the bible.
Maybe so, but if they want to continue to inject religion where it doesn't belong, they may find themselves spending more time in court than in school!
It's a win for them, money for fines, settlements and lawyers fees don't come from their pockets.
OT
Breaking News Headline: "Judges reject Alabama's congressional lines, will draw new districts to increase Black voting power"
GOOD!
They did the same thing here in Ohio, and we've YET to get an equitably drawn congressional map here. Expect a long and drawn out mess.
Wisconsin too.
For good or can it appealed all the way to the sc ?
Today's ruling was from SCOTUS. And incredibly it was unanimous.
Somebody slipped Clarence a hallucinogenic.
Either that or Harlan Crow doesn't live in Alabama or do business there.
If you had that kind of money, would *you* live in Alabama? Texas maybe (no income tax)
Or replaced him with a double.
We couldn't be that lucky. Though I admit pod people would be better than the current conservative Justices.
He would be better
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rantanplan
Or somebody's got some really good blackmail on him.
Other than his wife ?
We'll see.
“So then I just walk in front of the pulpit, bless the candidate and say how great he or she is and that I’m voting for them, and then go back behind the pulpit,”
Step 1. Create a strawregulation.
Step 2. Create a loophole to get around strawregulation.
Step 3. Repeat as necessary.
Just like they run their religion. They make up the rules and find a loophole to keep them from going to hell.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: My LCMS minister father adored the separation of church and state and would have strongly objected to these idiots. He might very well have shown up in his clerical collar at a school board meeting to tell them they were wrong. I miss Dad. He would have turned 100 a few weeks ago.
I miss my dad, too. He passed a few years ago just shy of his 97th birthday. He would not have suffered these fools gladly either.
tots and pears
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/05/1197202616/enrique-tarrio-proud-boys-jan-6-sentence
Idk, he might be able to trade tots and pears for cigarettes.
Or distill his own vodka.
Excellent!
https://imgur.com/gallery/psTHAPr
I can only hope that these kids will rebel one day and join the ranks of agnostics and atheists. My upbringing included 8 years of Catholic school indoctrination and plenty of rosaries at home. My siblings as well. Most of us are now atheist, agnostic, or no religious preference. One of the six of us is a right wing evangelical Catholic - sadly. But those are pretty good odds.
You went to a Catholic school? How many scars do you have? 😜
I lived across the street from a catholic church/school and I have scars.
They were from crashing my bike in their parking lot, but still. : )
I was going to say my scar was from hitting a wall while playing soccer. I also got one on my hand from a loose piece of metal on the school bus.
My early ones were from a meeting with a radial arm saw in 8th grade. I had just turned it off, so I didn't lose any fingers, but my shop teacher did take the opportunity to show the rest of the class before handling the fact I was about to pass out.
The later ones are from doctors.
You used to cut people's arms off?
I was Freddy's apprentice, but then he started killing the hot guys and I got out of the business.
My jr. high shop teacher did have missing fingers.
They put a wall on the pitch? Seems a strange thing to do.
Indoor, 3rd grade. I was not...coordinated.
Ah, the war on the floor.
(OK, that's actually Arena Football, but still...)
Fess up, now. You overuse your hands for something, too, don't you? (If memory serves, the nuns called it "touching yourself.")
Tell ya what: Let's take over that megachurch of theirs and teach the scientific fact of evolution. Or teach about the true age of the universe (13.8 billion years as opposed to 6000 - 10,000 years. Shit, even the Hindus are closer than the cristers. Hindus guessed it to be 4,320,000,000 years).
Wonder if that would be ok with Calvary Chapel Chino Hills? I'm guessing not.
Trolly troll Greg Sprung has been banhammered again. Many thanks, Hemant.
Weird. His comment says it is from "Greg Spung (Banned)", but it is still up and I replied to it.
If the comment gets deleted then we don't get to point and laugh.
Hemant does that. Sometimes it's Banned and sometimes it's Removed/Banned, With R/B it's gone, period.
Just in case, I flagged it as "Banned sock puppet".
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XqJqZKL8uEU
Yesterday, Greggy Poo would've branded you a racist for this. :)
As long it's not Hemant or any of you who say it
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yN3lUM-r6bk
He has two adult daughters. I wonder how many times they set foot in a public school.
Of course it's Hibbs.
He was the jackass who fought COVID restrictions.
He's probably the most visible and influential of the fundamentalists in Calvary Chapel who think that even trying to adopt a civil facade (,while maintaining the same toxic fundamentalism , mind you) is akin to pledging allegience to Satan.
The guy is a major asshole.
OT
Not the 33 year sentence we and the Justice Dept. wanted, but Enrique Tarrio, former head asshole of the Proud Boys, got 22 years for his role in the insurrection of Jan. 6. He fucked around, he found out.
I suppose a lot of Republicans will think 22 years is still excessive...the same people who believe that filching a roll of toilet paper in the aftermath of a hurricane means you deserve to literally get shot to death.
California is currently ranked 20th Overall in Education. Thanks to these religion-addled lamebrains, expect those numbers to go south faster than a duck in winter.
Rankings after a certain point are moot, since they’re tearing apart the entire system. If all the states have shitty religious run schools, we’re just lining the crap up by pile size and not by any worthwhile metric.
*Insert Jeff Goldblum meme here*
https://images.app.goo.gl/Vrd6GJ4iEbYe6F9r6
It would be great if some enterprising prosecutor would go after churches like this one for conspiracy/racketeering. There are a number of grounds for doing it, with conspiracy to rig elections springing immediately to mind. They're pretty obviously guilty of it. But of course "religious liberty" would get in the way. As characters in Loony Tunes used to face the audience and say, "I can dream, can't i?"
You can count the number of church prosecutions on the fingers of one hand pretty much. I'm afraid it ain't going to happen unfortunately. I would break out the champagne if it did though.