189 Comments

The people who are okay with these baptisms would have exploding heads had anyone baptized their kid into a religion other than their own. The evangelicals claim they're being persecuted any time they are prevented from forcing their religion on others, yet they would be the first people to persecute others given the chance. If you want to see what genuine persecution looks like, . . . hand power to the preachers.

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Now I'm dying to know just what that unmentioned incident was and why they're trying to hide it.

Their silence just draws more attention to them.

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They saw a picture of him wearing lipstick. That's crossdressing and not biblical.

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Nov 19, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023

The slinky dress and stiletto heels may have been the final straw.

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Nah, that would have him on administrative leave even faster than groping the boys in the shower.

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The coerced baptism may not have been the reason he got the boot... but it 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 have been.

Also... what 𝘪𝘴 it with this deeply weird association between sportsball and Christianity, anyway? I don't recall the Gospels ever mentioning sportsball. Jesus never taught anybody anything about sportsball, but to listen to sportsball coaches, that weird misshapen lump of rubber they throw around and fight each other over might as well be Baby J himself.

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Nov 19, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023

There's a perception in our zeitgeist that teamwork requires conformity. This is especially evident in sports.

Edit: You even see this in the workplace, despite all the mouthings about diversity.

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Oh yes, I remember all that lip service to "diversity," "equality" and all those other buzzwords to make the company look good. I once worked for a newspaper that constantly railed against sexism, racism, inequality, etc. on its op-ed page, but the work culture was the polar opposite. One of the editors was a serial groper, but women who complained seemed to end getting fired a few weeks later. I once made a joke that if Congress passed a law that newsrooms had to practice what their editorial boards preached, our rag would be in a world of hurt.

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Which one?

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I may get in trouble for this, but is was the Sun Sentinel.

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Glad to hear it wasn't the TBT.

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Christianity and high school football share a lot of the same vibe.

Jesus gave his life for humanity.

Football players give their bones, tendons, and cognitive functions for their hometown.

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Nov 19, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023

That's easy. Manly men are the men who do the manly god's manly work in a most manly man fashion.

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How true! Why, I am overcome with the vapors at the thought of such manly manliness!

*falls gracefully backwards, misses fainting couch, hits floor*

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"Ow!" as a manly man, but an empathetic manly man, I feel your pain.

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Nov 19, 2023·edited Nov 20, 2023

*sigh*

They just can't stop slapping their savior in the face by making their 'piety' public, can they? ( a no-no according to Matthew 6:5-6). They just can't stop disobeying all earthly laws and authorities, can they? (even though their scripture tells them to obey those laws and authorities (Romans 13:1).

JESUS: "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord' yet don't do what I say?" (Luke 6:46)

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What? They can't hear you, Jesus. They're praying loudly, in public!

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Jesus is too weak, that stuff doesn’t work anymore. —Christians in church to their preachers.

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Okay, I gots to know: just WHAT is worse than a mass baptism of an entire football squad?!? In Georgia, no less.

Maybe he's a Democrat and that didn't go over with the school board? 🤪

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Mass circumcision.

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Okay, my wedding tackle just retreated somewhere and I can't find it any more.

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And ‘mohel’ like it.

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Well, looking up the story, it isn’t just the Daily Mail that’s claiming it’s the baptism. But they’re all talking as though that reason is insane to get fired over. Until the SCROTUS and the GOP destroy our democracy, baptizing public school children in your public school position is still unconstitutional.

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Evangelical Christianity is the faith-based equivalent of "if you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalks."

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I knew someone who used to drive on sidewalks when there was a traffic jam. DM had to let him driving me back to my boardschool once because she was sick. She told me later she trembled until I called to tell I arrived safely.

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Do not get me started on the driving in Paris. I’ve visited twice and both times were interesting rides to say the least. Yes, sidewalks were involved, pedestrian vehicle contact and even driving on the wrong side of the street. If you’ve ever seen the Bourne Identity, the one scene was tame compared to my taxi ride.

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Never go to Cyprus then. I can guarantee it's worse 😁

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Yeah, well, I’ve lived in Denver so, I can handle it.

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Does Denver have side cliffs roads with only one way ?

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Not in Denver, it’s a city on a plain, but once you get to the mountains, there are lots of switchback roads with very narrow passes. Nothing like some of the less developed places of the world.

Lookout mountain is in Golden, a part of the metro area but further into the foothills, and the road up that is switchbacks and narrow.

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My dad says in India, turn signals are both a promise and a death threat.

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Drove through Denver last weekend and will be going down again next weekend. Makes me glad I live somewhere with no traffic.

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I once took a bus along the Los Angeles freeway to Anaheim. Seem to me that with few exceptions everyone was at least keeping to their following distances and the speed limit. Apart from one woman who was reading a book resting on her steering wheel – but then we had a cabinet minister who was accused of that years ago. I think NZ drivers are the worst in the developed world – although I haven't experienced Paris.

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We just had to deal with some idiot driving while playing on his phone just yesterday. He kept straddling the lane line and changing speeds, it was similar to driving behind a drunk person. As we passed him to get away we saw him holding g his phone up in one hand directly in front of his face.

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Now imagine that being a Lyft driver and you're the passenger.

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Sad that my first thought was sexual abuse of one of the players. Since he still has his 'teaching' job that's unlikely, but I hate things have gotten to the point where that's my first thought when an unspecified event leads to job loss for a coach or educator.

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I am sure that was the first thought for most of us. It's probably because that, unfortunately, seems to be the norm for coaches, youth pastors, and the like.

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founding

It strains credibility to assume that the coach was ignorant of the law, but so many Christians think that laws are optional for them and compulsory for everyone else. The perverse part of this incident is that Christians spend most of their time IGNORING laws against this behavior, but here they're trying to gain public sympathy by emphasizing that the law IS there, and claiming it's "persecuting" them.

Christian streets: One way only, which is whichever way suits them at the time.

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I can think of several scenarios.

1. Live boy or dead girl? Always a possibility.

2. The incident happened on the way home after a football game. Could be something to do with alcohol. Baptist never recognize the pope, or each other in the liquor store.

3. It really was the mass baptisms, but they don't want to say so. For the obvious reason.

Maybe I'm just feeling cynical today.

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Nov 19, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023

As I said downthread, it's Georgia, the baptisms are highly unlikely to be the cause.

But alcohol (okay Coors) is a better bet than anything I'd come up with.

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Shirley, you're not claiming they have no imagination

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All right, I'll say it. "Don't call me Shirley"

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🤬

*Go fetch her laptop and launch Amazon Prime.*

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Too late! No backsies!

damn Shirleys.

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He baptized the players without their own... parents' permission.

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Not a crime in Georgia.😇

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It should be. It should be a crime in every state.

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Maybe I'm overthinking this. Watching too much TV. Probably thinking conspiratorial even, but...

While we're fighting the spread of christian indoctrination through public schools, they are working on a different plan. Poisoning public education so badly that everyone wants public education shut down for good and everyone move to christian - sorry - charter schools. The upside is they can just sit back and the masses will come to them for indoctrination - sorry - education. They don't have to fight secularist, no worries about the establishment clause, and they can run their schools however they want without tyrannical oversight. Plus freeing up education money will help supplement our waning military spending, and prop up our military industrial complex, which is suffering greatly these days.

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I think you've nailed it. The religious right has been trying to cripple the public education system for decades due to this very reason. They want to control what EVERYBODY's children learn, and they especially want to block that demon secular humanist/woke bullshit like "science -- the portal to a devil's hell." (actually heard that in a sermon once when I was little. I think that's why I found science so intriguing; maybe in the back of my mind, I saw it as forbidden fruit.)

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That's an amazing rebellion story.

I read American Public Education and the Responsibility of Its Citizens; a bit dry, but full of great information. Jefferson considered public education a pillar of democracy, and I think he's correct. When I consider what I read combined with my experience in school, I think children hating school is more than just ordinary not wanting to go to school (and leave their parents). I hated school while growing up, but when I look back, it wasn't school I hated, it was bullying and the odd bad teacher - and if I'm being honest here, a bit of my own laziness not doing homework.

The memes (as coined by Dawkins) of hating school, "public education is failing," and any other negative speak ("Girls are bad at [everything]" - that's patriarchy-speak, a different topic) are really just pervasive ideas that refuse to die. And they are ideas we hold that never originated with us. It wouldn't surprise me if they're fueled by conservative think tanks to continually stoke the fires. They certainly are fueled from the pulpit.

The church used to control the courts. Then about 400-500 years ago, the monarchies took control of them in their power struggles against Rome. Around about the time of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. The church was also the main source of education with its monasteries, minsters, and abbeys, while the wealthy had tutors, and everyone else had nothing. But the Industrial Revolution resulted in parents sending their children to factories to be educated and to work. I've visited several here in England. (Imagine your work place becoming a tourist trap.) Then public education came about by shifting the cost of education onto the gov't, and saving factory owners money.

Basically, capitalism and the monarchy beat out christianity/catholicism, seizing a lot of its power. Christianity is fighting back.

The fight now to control the mind has shifted from homeschooling (which is seeing backlash from people who were homeschooled) to publicly funded privates schools that teach religion. Looking at catholic schools, I wondered at how they get away with it, but then I look at their success in staving off governments around the world in their systemic child molesting cases. They have enough public capital and sympathy within the gov't to withstand the PR damage. This is far from the first battle Rome has endured. And they have always endured.

Now, too many churches don't even report crimes to the gov't, unless it's theft that's going to be covered by their insurance. JWs never report child abuse. They handle all matters internally, essentially governing their own "justice" system internally. Mormons are a private gov't entity unto themselves.

If science is Hell, then I'll jump into the handbasket. In a way I want it to be true, then I get to meet all my heroes.

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“(A Daily Mail headline falsely read, “Georgia high school football coach Isaac Ferrell is fired for holding BAPTISM on school grounds for his players.”)“

As though the baptism was something that should be acceptable. It is not acceptable for a public school to baptize its students. It is not acceptable for a coach to do it, not acceptable for a teacher or an administrator or even the janitor. Baptisms should never happen in schools. (The only exception might be if a church rents the facility on weekends and it has no involvement outside the transaction with the school)

Now, the school is specifically stating it is not the baptism, so to lie about the situation is wrong. Typical of the type of preachers that would demand access to student athletes, though. Good lesson on character, fellas. Quite the opposite of what you’re pretending to instill in the children.

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To be fair, it is the Daily Hate. Not noted for accuracy or nonpartisanship. In fact noted for the exact opposite.😁

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To be even more fair, the fact that it is a lying tabloid matters little to the kristians. So long as it is published in line with their agenda, they will push it as The Godly Truth.

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I read a book of local history here in Wales. It described a 1904 quarrymen's strike. A cruel quarry owner almost let his workforce starve rather than give in to their demand for just an extra halfpenny a week. The book told of the Daily Mail's false accounts of this and had a footnote. 'The Daily Mail is called The Daily Hate.' So it's lived up to that name since 1904 - the strike took place 250miles from Fleet Street, a long distance back then, so it was easier just to make stuff up, a tradition it continues.

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I am going to Wales in February (snooker tournament of course). Yes, I know, this is a totally random and weird comment now. But it is a present from my husband and I've just waited for an opportunity to tell everybody, and you just gave that opportunity to me. Thank you so much.

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Excellent choice.

Wales: God's own country where we speak the language of heaven

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They've been the religion of "𝑫𝒐 𝒂𝒔 𝑰 𝒔𝒂𝒚, 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒔 𝑰 𝒅𝒐" for hundreds of years now and counting.

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O/T: Roselyn Carter has died. Her husband, Jimmy will soon join her. Rest in pure unending love, Roselyn.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries/rosalynn-carter-former-first-lady-dies-rcna62862

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Nov 19, 2023·edited Nov 19, 2023

I know Jimmy Carter has his critics, and I'm not well-informed enough to judge that, but it always struck me that he and his wife were both personally decent people, relatively un-judgemental for Christians, and living closer to the Christian ideal than 99% of Christian pastors.

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Are you kidding ? Obama and him stole the Peace Nobel prizes who were owed to drumpster.

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Wrong award. Trump thought he deserved the Noble Prize.

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With a Thames people of the year cover ?

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My daughter beat Trump to that one. In her final year at uni, she was jointly awarded the Noble prize. It was given annually by a Mr Noble and she and the other recipient got the princely sum of £35 each. Her boyfriend proposed that week and told his friends, fellow-PhD students, that he was marrying a Noble prize winner....and 3 apparently asked in what field and when she was going to Oslo to receive it!!!!!

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I don't think I would've trusted those people about anything regarding geography. The noble peace price is the only one received here in Oslo. All the others are received in Stockholm.

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"persecution"? Yes, by the Christian pastor and the Christian coach. Those kids were victims. Did anyone even ask these boys parents if it was OK? Had they been baptized already and were just doing what the coach wanted so they could look like team players, and they wanted to play. The boys were just being dunk in a tin tub and voila, they were baptized and did they really care. It could very well be the boys laugh their asses off with this Christian grandstand stunt. I sincerely hope so. It seems we hear more and more of this nonsense by clergy in the South. We must uniform our schools throughout this country because kids in the South and other red states are being short-changed.

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In the Top Ten most religious states in the country, Georgia's tied with Oklahoma for 8th.

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The Tattnall County Warriors might want to try something other than Jesus water torture. They're currently 2 - 8 overall and 1 - 5 in the region.

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This might be a clue. He lost the coaching job because he lost. The "incident" might be a tantrum over losing.

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