365 Comments

Sexual predators never change, and every professional who deals with them knows that. No amount of Jesus is going to make any difference. I have very little use for the clergy in general, and see them as social parasites who contribute little of value to the world. They do so while living off the labors of others. I loathe the members of the clergy who hide behind their clerical collars and magic books to abuse others. In the end, the people in the pews who enable them are culpable in their crimes.

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I'm willing to consider predators can change - or at least, control - if they are undergoing a solid, science-grounded treatment and therapy program.

This, however, is not that.

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Also, it would take continuing treatment and monitoring after they complete the in-patient part. I am assuming that this place will just give them a slap on the back and make them pinky swear that they won't do it again.

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Pinky swear not to do it again while they tap their noses and cross their fingers.

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If you can't trust a man of God, who can you trust?

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Clergy are right up there with Wall Street analysts and bureaucrats in US Department of Education as jobs that could and should be eliminated for the good of the world.

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I guess that "moral failings" is the newest euphemism for sexual assault.

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'Christian morals'; an oxymoron.

Really, if you have to find your morals in a bronze-age book, you are looking in the wrong place. That book is full of very questionable ideas of what is ethical. I sometimes wonder if Christians understand what empathy is and how it plays into what is moral. No, instead of considering other people, let's pray away the feelings we have.

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The Catholic church has similar "rehab centers" for rapist clergy, and it seems that the focus is similar: fasting and prayer for their sins, never a thought for the victims of their abuse. Predatory clergy are a feature, not a bug, of religion.

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I know one of the RCC’s rehab centers is located mere steps away from an elementary school.

So, not gonna ease my mind with that one. Not that any of them ease my mind, they’re all just vacations for the clergy and cover for criminal behavior.

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“I wondered if I truly had a spirit of sexuality on me and if I would ever get it off.“

How sad that she thought it was her fault and something she has to change about herself. You don’t have the “spirit of sexuality on you”, that is something religious men made up to excuse their shitty behavior.

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"a spirit of sexuality on me' Who on earth does that NOT apply to? I know there are some (very few) people who identify as asexual, but I'd venture that upwards of 99% of the human race have "a spirit of sexuality on them." It's part of who we are. Hell, it's part of nature, period. But trust religion to find a way to pretend that the huge majority of humanity, not to mention the rest of the natural world, are in some weird way morally defective. But I suppose if you can persuade enough people that humanity is "fallen," there's a good living to be made.

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But the idea that all of humanity is morally defective is the entire basis of the Christian religion. (The hate (self-hate) came later)

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I'd say they go hand in hand, but whatever.

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That's the point, so far as I've ever been able to tell. Training girls to grow up into perpetual victims for the men in their lives is point.

Complementarianism is little more than Christian code for the woman knowing it's her job to cook, clean, and produce offspring as the husband demands without complaint or question. Sure, they try to pretty that up and say that the husband is supposed to love his wife and treat her as an adored partner, but at the end of the day, the wife is still required to obey the same way a slave would be. Any authority figure from a church would get the same abject obedience since to fail to obey would pretty much be a one-way ticket to burning.

You're right, Jones doesn't have and never will have a 'spirit of sexuality' on her; she's a victim of the system working exactly how it's supposed to. I just hope she finds a way to see that in the near future.

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Jesus forgives them, why can't you? /s

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If Jesus wants to show up and make that forgivness clear, I'll go along with it. Not a minute sooner.

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The grace of god is as non-existent as the physical existence of Jesus. The Christian rehab is a pure whitewash.

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Any day now.

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Matthew 24:

34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

....Looks at watch.....

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All they do is heap damnation and persecution on me. IF their godthing gets its impotent little ass over here to tell me to forgive, I will laugh in its face.

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On a Facebook post where dude says why do you put stuff in Jesus’ hands when he has hole in them, a woman went off about how Jesus died for us it’s the ultimate love blah blah blah, I responded with the following…

He didn’t die for me, he died for his dad’s/own ego. I mean, he didn’t even really die and we all still go to hell according to the story. So, he was made uncomfortable for a weekend, then got to go up to heaven for the rest of eternity, gets all sorts of love and gratitude while everyone else still has to walk on eggshells to avoid eternal punishment for minor and limited naughtiness. It isn’t like Jesus is taking our punishment in hell for us. Or even that there are that many people who get crucified in the first place, or no one will ever get crucified again because of Jesus.

And doing this was not love. Love would be forgiving people without the big show of an offering like that. Just forgiving them. Or not making a hell to send folks to for wearing mixed fabrics, or touching a woman on her period. Love would be providing basic human needs to all, no matter what.

Then there’s the fact that god wanted to forgive us by sending his son, and allowing us to find one of the most horrific ways to kill him. Like what is that? I don’t like how you treat people, all violent and greedy, so my son here will tell you how you should treat people. To make sure you understand the lesson, you get to murder him in an incredibly grotesque manner, the more diabolical the better. Then spend centuries bragging about it by putting the torture device used to murder my son everywhere you can, sometimes with an image of him still attached. Make it out of precious metals and rare, expensive jewels and adorn your body with his tortured remains as a reminder of his lessons on how to treat people. It’s just so beautiful.

Why, oh why do people like this so much?

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In all seriousness, that is some of the worst gaslighting to come out of the Christian faith ever. All too often the person saying that is the perpetrator, and they're directing this at their victim who is already under enough peer pressure to 'forgive and forget' to squash an elephant. It's effectively a way to weaponize the concept of forgiveness.

Don't get me started on how often I was told to forgive bullies when I was a kid, there is no need to turn this thread into some sort of twisted therapy session.

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At a facility like this, one can only hope that Christians have the same aversion to fire codes as they do to moral responsibility.

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$4.5 million for holy-roller rehab... but if the 𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘴 ask for the same $4.5 million for 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 recovery, all you'll hear will be crickets and the distant, ethereal sounds of paint drying. Bet they'd spend another $4.5 million on lawyers just to keep the victims from getting their $4.5 million, too.

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This place is going to be called Club Pred.

The "major sins" of the (patients?) at this place are probably in three categories: sexual, chemical, and financial. Some cases would involve all three, but one would be the primary diagnosis, (a term that only licensed psychotherapy professionals should ever use) and the others would be secondary to that. If well-qualified behavioral professionals are NOT in charge of whatever they do to and for the attendees, then I can only assume that the main treatment there is to prescribe more of what enabled the disorders to get worse in the first place: More religion. Massive infusions of Jesus have a long history of failure in treating sexual predation behaviors, addictive behaviors, and chronic theft behaviors.

This place is going to explode with scandals from within its walls and scandals from its "graduates" after they leave.

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I'm reminded of the old 'promise ring'. That was a good signal of who not to date; a stint at this recovery center is a good signal of who not to hire.

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I was always under the impression those things weren't worth the cheap gold paint the tin was painted with.

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Hey, if J-boy can turn water into wine, turning tin into gold should be a cinch for him.

By the way, when he walked on water, why didn't the entire Sea of Galilee turn to wine? Was he wearing insulated sandals, or what?

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He's not Bacchus. He had to actually exert effort to change water to wine.

Though that would have been one hell of a Bacchanalia.

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He could switch it off. Like Data could switch his emotions chip off (at first).

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"I wondered if I truly had a spirit of sexuality on me and if I would ever get it off."

Can someone please explain to me what the fuck that even means? For 2000 years the christian church has been filling people's heads with pious-sounding rubbish like that. And it is nearly always done to get people to think that they and their natural feelings and inclinations are the problem, not the villainous shamans who promote it all.

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That is the saddest part of the whole thing. She's been brainwashed to think that she somehow provoked the attack. So on top of the horror of the attack itself, she has these feelings of guilt. Sad but very Christian.

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Shame is far stronger than guilt. Shame makes you defective by nature. Guilt only means you did something wrong. Religions push shaming as a force for controlling others.

Darrel Ray, "Sex and god"

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It means it was her fault somehow for having a demon because she didn't Jesus hard enough.

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Which is pretty much what I said.

By the way, how the hell do you "get a spirit off"? Does it groan when it gets off, or does it just lie there, smiling?

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"I've been slimed"

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Can you get slimed online? I'm asking because I don't know. *SPLAT!*

OK, OK, I got my answer. Anywhere I can get some water? *SPLOOSH!*

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That's how you get Viggo. Do you want Viggo?

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Ask the Thetans. Makes as much sense.

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Ask the gods of Kolob?

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That means it's all her fault.

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But then how does the goddamn pastor qualify as NOT have "a spirit of sexuality on hum?"

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He does but that’s different because he is a man. If you don’t understand that, you’ll never be a Christian.

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Looking at the price tag on the rehab center, I’m guessing there will be some pretty sweet amenities. So criminal clergy go to this place, live it up with no responsibilities, wait for folks to forget what they’ve done, then go back to life as though nothing ever happened, only to repeat the process the next time they “falter”.

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Circling the wagons and protecting the perp, never protecting the victim.

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And the wagons are all velvet lined, plushly upholstered and air conditioned. If they weren't, you can bet these villains would have found some other con to work.

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Why spend $4.5 million on a recovery center when we already have the perfect place to put these pastors? Prison.

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But how would they get a new congregation of vulnerable women?

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With this Supreme Court we might be able to wrangle it so preachers go to the prisons full of their victims of choice. Kavanagh would go for it.

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Looking it up on Google maps, I see another red flag. It's within a thousand fucking miles of a school, library and/or playground.

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To be fair, every place far enough is governed by international treaty.

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To be even fairer, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a perfect location for this facility.

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Maybe a few thousand feet below.

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"Are there licensed therapists and psychologists and other professionals"

Hahahahahahahahahaha! .... seriously?

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It sounds quite remarkably like the country clubs, er, I mean treatment centers where the Catholic church sends child-raping priests. Much more often than not, those centers are run not by mental health professionals but by...priests. "What's that, Fr. O'Catholic, you raped little Timmy Smith? Boy, have we got a vacation for you!"

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I can believe there might be *one* somewhere in the former European colonies.

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So, a resort for them to chill at after the Public Apology to the Ceiling. A place to hide out until the next scandal distracts the rubes and they can come back to the grift full time. Seems legit./s

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A "pastoral recovery center," eh? I suppose it's meant to help them recover after truthful allegations regarding sexual misconduct and far more serious charges. The question becomes: will it help them recover from the financial penalties from successfully litigated lawsuits against them, never mind the irreversible damage to their reputations (such as they were) that inevitably result?

Shall we also mention the ridiculous euphemism: "pastoral recovery center." I suppose that sounds better than: "half-way house," especially considering that's what they're really talking about.

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https://www.channel4.com/programmes/father-ted/on-demand/21521-009

That's 2008 (I think). Father Ted looks more like a documentary every day.

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A haven for non-repentant sinful pastors, I bet.

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Be fair, these are Evangelicals, they can't just hide in the Vatican. ;)

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Who do you think gave them the idea for the place?

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