How many real world examples do they need to understand that women and children are statistically much safer with drag queens, transgender people, and other LGBTQIA+ individuals than the bigots yelling against them?
Amen. I distinctively remember hiding in club bathrooms with my trans/gay friends and putting on make-up to escape potential threats from the creeps lurking on the outside.
There is no horror that cannot be, and has not been, justified in the name of religion. Organized religion excuses a lot of mental illness and covers up a lot of criminality. That said, as awful as this man and his ilk are, the real fault lies with the enablers who are too lazy or too gullible to think for themselves. I don't know what the solution is here, but victims have to keep coming forward, because they're being listened to far better today than they were just a couple decades ago.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. The whole psychology of Authoritarians and Patriarchal types is interesting. Are there really 5,000,000 associated with this ministry? That is a lot of people who want to be told just what they want to hear from this guy. And his wife sounds like she just arrived from The Stepford Factory.
Five million taken against a country with something like three hundred and forty million is a pretty small percentage. I think the real point is, there are always going to be people who find thinking for themselves painful to the point of being life threatening. Preachers and other cult leaders seek these people out, and vice versa the herd instinct being what it is in the human species. While the situation may seem insurmountable, a look back gives me a little reason to hope. We've come a long way in my lifetime, and the long game does not favor organized religion.
The problem is, this particular victim was ignored and tossed aside like a used rag doll. Brown got away with a crime without any repercussion. Her reputation is in tatters, while his reputation is glorified in a sense. Tell me what do you think will happen when this happens in the future, because we all know it will? No one will come forward because they will be tossed aside as well. In their eyes, the perpetrator becomes the victim.
I came to a view about life, love and sex a long time ago:
As long as people are adult and consenting, they can do what the heck they like. Swinging from the chandeliers. Gimp masks. Twosomes. Threesomes. Orgies. Whatever. I'll get upset and angry if people are not adult and/or not consenting.
In this particular case, the lady didn't like being kissed or slapped. Not consenting.
Fr, it's always been so strange to me that people get more freaked out by consensually weird sex stuff than they seem to be bothered by sexual assault/abuse/harassment that falls within sexual norms.
A combination of a lack of imagination, plus indoctrination against anything that might be even slightly out of the ordinary strikes me as likely candidates for causation.
In Yorkshire they've got a saying 'There's nowt as queer as folk' - meaning that there are all sorts of people. ('queer' in this case means quaint, unusual, maybe even going so far as weird). On this basis using the yardstick of consent* to judge people's sexual activities strikes me as preferable than sinfulness or morality or whatever.
With this in mind I have read some really worrying developments, inasmuch that there are efforts to amend the teaching of sex and relationships to children and young people, so that they no longer cover consent, e.g. what it means, how to give it, how to withhold it and similar issues. That's a humungous worrying sign!
(*includes the presumption of participants being adult, at least for this note.)
If the lead minister of a church isn’t allowed to sexually harass his female employees and congregants, what’s the point of running your own church? I’m surprised the board of elders even bothered with an investigation. Well, we knew what they were up to when they hired the first “independent” investigators. They only changed the team to make it look like they were doing the right thing. This is the result they were going to get no matter who they hired and what they found.
I really don’t understand how anyone can trust a single religious organization. They must truly be desperate to ignore all of history in regards to religions, especially (but not limited to) Christianity.
I agree with most of your cynicism, but it sounds like the "independent investigation" in this case was actually independent and actually investigative. So I would not lump Firefly in with the church elders as assisting in the cover-up.
I didn’t, Firefly was the second investigation team they hired because the first was shady. The board of elders were going to ignore whatever was found by whichever investigators. Firefly did their job, and did it correctly.
Didn't we already see this scenario ? A religious organisation has its reputation in tatters following sexual scandals, hire an independent organisation to conduct an investigation, reject the conclusions, say "See ? Everything is good" and the abuse start again.
My first exposure to Brown was a couple of decades ago. He was being interviewed and made the claim that the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement began with violence (meaning the Stonewall riot). Did he say anything about what prompted the violence? About the continual harassment of LGBTQ+ people by the police, specifically, or by society, in general? Of course not! He wanted to paint the entire LGBTQ+ community as violent and dangerous. 🤬
Violent pushback against decades of systemic violence against them does not make the LGBTQIA+ community violent and dangerous. It shows that they are normal, willing to defend themselves, and ready to stand against injustice. IOW, heroes.
Genetic fallacy. "Some gays in the 70's illegally rioted" has zero to do with whether gays deserve to be allowed to marry. Unless Mr. Brown wants to be put in jail for giving smallpox-laden blankets to native Americans - because that's his basic argument here.
“ he has linked homosexuality with pedophilia and said that a potential president in a same-sex marriage would “contribute to the further degeneration and moral confusion of our society.”
Unlike a President who is a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, fraudster and conman.
I shudder to think what a conversation between Brown and a certain former Secretary of Transportation would sound like. One side would be sputtering and grasping at straws, while the other delivered facts and cogent observations.
Once again, we need to draw the distinction between a religious sin and a crime according to secular law. Michael Brown is clearly guilty of both, but apparently has no desire to recognize his secular responsibilities or consequences of his actions. He and his supporters will do everything they can to obscure his responsibility to the law, never mind maintain his ministry.
What is needed now is that law enforcement needs to step up and do their job, presuming they have the guts to do so.
Trump may very well be the ultimate scofflaw, and to counter him, it needs to be demonstrated that the ultimate scofflaw can still fall victim to the law he disregards.
Seems kinda marginal in terms of probability of success. We've got, what, a victim statement and not much more? This is not to throw any shade on Ms. Erin, but rather to say that there is a big difference between "happened" and "demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt."
A civil suit with it's lower standard ("more likely than not") would have a much higher p(win)...but that would need to come from the victim, and it doesn't appear she intends to pursue it.
These people are so repressed it’s a sickness. Glad to see more and more stories coming to light. Back in the day, ministers were gossiped about in the shadows as having “bedroom eyes” for all the ladies of their churches. Nothing is more pathetic than a man of power covering up his predatory and misogynistic behavior and then asking his God for forgiveness instead of those he’s harmed. Lame, low effort way to avoid any accountability. I refuse to offer these folks any pity.
I don't have my calendar handy, so could someone go check and see if today is, in fact, a day ending in Y? I feel like it probably is one, but it'd be nice to be sure.
I am impressed that you remember ..... I'll struggle with my French days: Lundi, Mardi, Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi & Dimanche. Clearly I am missing one .... :-(
Completely off-topic: You'll have seen me mentioning the Penguin Atlas of World History once .... or twice .... That started out as the dtv Atlas and on the basis of its success dtv brought out other Atlas books, including one about the German language. Like its history cousin, it has got all kinds of maps, charts and graphs, including one which indicates where people say 'Samstag' and where they say 'Sonnabend'. It's on page 186.
Good on Erin. Good on Firefly. Since this is a private organization, short of a prosecution or civil suit their independent report is pretty much the best thing we could expect.
What we can hope for now is a drop in numbers and revenue. If that happens, I'm guessing the elders will reconsider their support for him and he'll decide to retire to spend more time with his family (cough).
Yeah, I always go around to the junior staff who work for me, I hold their hand, kiss them on the lips, and slap their butts. But I do it in a non-exploitative way! Trust me! /s.
Nancy, his deeds made him look like a predator. He admitted doing these things. As a wife, you don't have anything negative to say about your husband having an affair a married church co-worker? I mean, sure every marriage is different and you do you, but I sure wouldn't be speaking out proudly about my husband's conduct.
And guess what? From now on, it's going to be on you too. Before, when you didn't know, not your fault. But he's not going to stop having affairs and harassing women, and now that you know, and the church does nothing, your choices are help put a stop to your husband's s**t or be a willing accomplice through your chosen inaction.
Surely a church would not mislead its followers by pretending that a letter of support was from the miscreant’s wife when it wasn’t? Please say it ain’t true!
Nancy's probably been gaslit so hard herself she's just regurgitating it at this point. Doesn't make her blameless by any means, but there's good odds she just can't handle that her husband is an abuser and other Christians think it's her job to manage that.
I feel ill just typing that out. Some days I'm just incredibly grateful I got lucky enough to have a way out.
Christians here in the US commonly rush to 'forgive' their leaders of any kind of sexual abuse while immediately 'blaming' the victim of the crime for said abuse. In this case, we also see the other most common problem with Christian sexual scandals - namely, there will be no actual consequences for Brown or atonement made by him, since the folks with the ability to do anything about it don't care about the victim or the crime enough to demand better. As my beloved said earlier, another day ending in 'y' for the Christian leadership machine.
Men are not ravening beasts with no self control and should not be allowed to pretend they are; allowing this to continue does neither men nor women any good. Sexual abusers, be they male or female, should suffer the consequence of their actions; if they want to engage in the forgiveness process they should atone for their previous behavior. Refusing to insist on both consequences and atonement undermines the forgiveness process and devalues both the victim and the abuser as human beings. This mandatory-and-instant 'forgiveness' Christians are practicing these days with their leaders isn't even window dressing anymore, it's making a mockery of their beliefs for the world to see. It's not just that the victims deserve better, it's that other Christians and bystanders outside the church deserve better, too.
Well, that didn't take long. The new pope just declared war on us unfaithful and built a lot of strawmen.
“A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”
My faith tell me abrahamic religions are a plague to humanity.
The new poop can put his bigotry and hate for those who don't conform to its narrow vision of humanity (white straight cis male only) in his asshole (top, bottom or both).
This faith that he talks about – belief without evidentiary support – is the real plague. It is fundamentally irrational. I have thought for the longest time that, once one irrational thought or concept is allowed to flourish, there is no limit on additional irrationalities that can follow. To me, this is religion in a nutshell.
It is precisely why religion is dangerous and why I will have nothing to do with it.
Sure, it's fun to be irrational, silly. I do so frequently, especially with my puddy cats. My favorite humor is that of the absurd and hyperbolic, both of which can be pretty irrational. But not for one second would I take an irrationality and treat it as though it were real or serious or in need of universal agreement.
My apologies if I'm getting all serious here, but Pope Bobby hit a nerve with his crap ... and yeah, frankly, I'm enjoying my indulgence in a rant.
You forget, Bobby. We have the recorded history of your sect of Christianity and all the horrors it has inflicted on humanity for almost two millennia. Remove the plank from your own eye first, you hypocrite.
Have to comment again about this, to wit: DAMN, BUT THAT PISSES ME OFF! For all this man's experience, he can't bring himself to see the point of view of an atheist. He assumes a priori that faith is a necessity and that we HAVE to be brought back to it. This insults our intelligence, our integrity, and our desire to determine our own lives, independent of an unqualified authority.
Bobby needs to open his mind to some possibilities he clearly hasn't considered. Congrats, bub. You just fucked up with us.
News Bulletin, Bobby: I lack faith, and I don't blink when I say so. I have no use for your god or your belief system and sure as hell not for any form of faith. To me, it's nothing less than gullibility with lipstick put on. To borrow from a renown and respected astronomer, "I don't want to believe; I want to KNOW." I would vastly prefer to orient my life toward reality and not to some ill-conceived superstition which has nothing to do with what IS ... and I should mention that my life has all the meaning I assign to it.
Ah, so it's already time for a derisive nickname, is it?
"Pope Loo" might be too easily confused with his official name, and also kinda feels like low-hanging fruit. I'd suggest something cat themed, but that's also a bit on the nose, and I also have far too much respect for cats, so... 𝘩𝘮. Gonna have to noodle on this a bit.
I would call him pope Leo childfucker number whatever. I am sure some right wing catholic would come by and threaten me with death for my complete lack of respect for the new pope childfucker. Oh well, I will say again: I respect your right for you to believe in imaginary deities. HOWEVER I AM UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO RESPECT AND/OR FOLLOW YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.
Not. A. Drag. Queen.
How many real world examples do they need to understand that women and children are statistically much safer with drag queens, transgender people, and other LGBTQIA+ individuals than the bigots yelling against them?
Do you remember my proposal from a while back? That every minister is required to be accompanied by a drag queen whenever he is leaving his house?
It would be a very effective public safety measure.
Amen. I distinctively remember hiding in club bathrooms with my trans/gay friends and putting on make-up to escape potential threats from the creeps lurking on the outside.
There is no horror that cannot be, and has not been, justified in the name of religion. Organized religion excuses a lot of mental illness and covers up a lot of criminality. That said, as awful as this man and his ilk are, the real fault lies with the enablers who are too lazy or too gullible to think for themselves. I don't know what the solution is here, but victims have to keep coming forward, because they're being listened to far better today than they were just a couple decades ago.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. The whole psychology of Authoritarians and Patriarchal types is interesting. Are there really 5,000,000 associated with this ministry? That is a lot of people who want to be told just what they want to hear from this guy. And his wife sounds like she just arrived from The Stepford Factory.
Five million taken against a country with something like three hundred and forty million is a pretty small percentage. I think the real point is, there are always going to be people who find thinking for themselves painful to the point of being life threatening. Preachers and other cult leaders seek these people out, and vice versa the herd instinct being what it is in the human species. While the situation may seem insurmountable, a look back gives me a little reason to hope. We've come a long way in my lifetime, and the long game does not favor organized religion.
I hope you are right! It is why they are trying so hard to get theofascist christianity into the public schools - recruitment is way down.
About 2800/1700/1500 years of brainwashing, wars, forced conversion, and still none of the abrahamic religion managed to convert all the population.
And not one whit of proof among the lot of them! My grandparents were all skeptics. I am so glad I got that from them.
A civil lawsuit ? It's probably too late for a criminal ohe.
That's a question for a lawyer. I don't know the answer.
The problem is, this particular victim was ignored and tossed aside like a used rag doll. Brown got away with a crime without any repercussion. Her reputation is in tatters, while his reputation is glorified in a sense. Tell me what do you think will happen when this happens in the future, because we all know it will? No one will come forward because they will be tossed aside as well. In their eyes, the perpetrator becomes the victim.
He Sinned! He repented! Jesus has forgiven him! Glory be!
I came to a view about life, love and sex a long time ago:
As long as people are adult and consenting, they can do what the heck they like. Swinging from the chandeliers. Gimp masks. Twosomes. Threesomes. Orgies. Whatever. I'll get upset and angry if people are not adult and/or not consenting.
In this particular case, the lady didn't like being kissed or slapped. Not consenting.
I am angry!
Fr, it's always been so strange to me that people get more freaked out by consensually weird sex stuff than they seem to be bothered by sexual assault/abuse/harassment that falls within sexual norms.
A combination of a lack of imagination, plus indoctrination against anything that might be even slightly out of the ordinary strikes me as likely candidates for causation.
In Yorkshire they've got a saying 'There's nowt as queer as folk' - meaning that there are all sorts of people. ('queer' in this case means quaint, unusual, maybe even going so far as weird). On this basis using the yardstick of consent* to judge people's sexual activities strikes me as preferable than sinfulness or morality or whatever.
With this in mind I have read some really worrying developments, inasmuch that there are efforts to amend the teaching of sex and relationships to children and young people, so that they no longer cover consent, e.g. what it means, how to give it, how to withhold it and similar issues. That's a humungous worrying sign!
(*includes the presumption of participants being adult, at least for this note.)
Pretty sure you're not alone with that anger business!
👍👍👍
Christianity is forever about circling the wagons and the victims be damned.
May this ministry of misery continue to bleed adherents and find itself on the scrap heap of history.
If the lead minister of a church isn’t allowed to sexually harass his female employees and congregants, what’s the point of running your own church? I’m surprised the board of elders even bothered with an investigation. Well, we knew what they were up to when they hired the first “independent” investigators. They only changed the team to make it look like they were doing the right thing. This is the result they were going to get no matter who they hired and what they found.
I really don’t understand how anyone can trust a single religious organization. They must truly be desperate to ignore all of history in regards to religions, especially (but not limited to) Christianity.
I agree with most of your cynicism, but it sounds like the "independent investigation" in this case was actually independent and actually investigative. So I would not lump Firefly in with the church elders as assisting in the cover-up.
I didn’t, Firefly was the second investigation team they hired because the first was shady. The board of elders were going to ignore whatever was found by whichever investigators. Firefly did their job, and did it correctly.
Didn't we already see this scenario ? A religious organisation has its reputation in tatters following sexual scandals, hire an independent organisation to conduct an investigation, reject the conclusions, say "See ? Everything is good" and the abuse start again.
My first exposure to Brown was a couple of decades ago. He was being interviewed and made the claim that the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement began with violence (meaning the Stonewall riot). Did he say anything about what prompted the violence? About the continual harassment of LGBTQ+ people by the police, specifically, or by society, in general? Of course not! He wanted to paint the entire LGBTQ+ community as violent and dangerous. 🤬
Violent pushback against decades of systemic violence against them does not make the LGBTQIA+ community violent and dangerous. It shows that they are normal, willing to defend themselves, and ready to stand against injustice. IOW, heroes.
Genetic fallacy. "Some gays in the 70's illegally rioted" has zero to do with whether gays deserve to be allowed to marry. Unless Mr. Brown wants to be put in jail for giving smallpox-laden blankets to native Americans - because that's his basic argument here.
“ he has linked homosexuality with pedophilia and said that a potential president in a same-sex marriage would “contribute to the further degeneration and moral confusion of our society.”
Unlike a President who is a convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, fraudster and conman.
I shudder to think what a conversation between Brown and a certain former Secretary of Transportation would sound like. One side would be sputtering and grasping at straws, while the other delivered facts and cogent observations.
I doubt Brown would last long.
Once again, we need to draw the distinction between a religious sin and a crime according to secular law. Michael Brown is clearly guilty of both, but apparently has no desire to recognize his secular responsibilities or consequences of his actions. He and his supporters will do everything they can to obscure his responsibility to the law, never mind maintain his ministry.
What is needed now is that law enforcement needs to step up and do their job, presuming they have the guts to do so.
When you have a religion that acts as a Get Out of Jail FREE card, it means you never have to say you're sorry and never have to apologize or atone.
No wonder xtians worship Trump, a man they claim as one of their own.
Trump may very well be the ultimate scofflaw, and to counter him, it needs to be demonstrated that the ultimate scofflaw can still fall victim to the law he disregards.
Seems kinda marginal in terms of probability of success. We've got, what, a victim statement and not much more? This is not to throw any shade on Ms. Erin, but rather to say that there is a big difference between "happened" and "demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt."
A civil suit with it's lower standard ("more likely than not") would have a much higher p(win)...but that would need to come from the victim, and it doesn't appear she intends to pursue it.
These people are so repressed it’s a sickness. Glad to see more and more stories coming to light. Back in the day, ministers were gossiped about in the shadows as having “bedroom eyes” for all the ladies of their churches. Nothing is more pathetic than a man of power covering up his predatory and misogynistic behavior and then asking his God for forgiveness instead of those he’s harmed. Lame, low effort way to avoid any accountability. I refuse to offer these folks any pity.
Damn, still can't find my shocked face. Oh well.......
It's probably on the Voyager probe, headed out of the solar system right now. That's where I left mine...
Here's mine:
:|
Once again, predators protecting their own kind. This should come as no surprise to anyone, anymore. Just more of the same old bullshit.
I don't have my calendar handy, so could someone go check and see if today is, in fact, a day ending in Y? I feel like it probably is one, but it'd be nice to be sure.
I just checked my calendar, the days end with n, n, e, d, u, i, and t.
In German, they mostly end in "G,", except for "Mitwoch" and "Sonnabend."
I'll dispute 'Sonnabend' - it's Samstag!
(Sonnabend is only used by some (weird?) people, living south of the White Sausage Equator .....)
I learned both in high school, so I thought "Sonnabend" should be mentioned. No big deal. 😝
I am impressed that you remember ..... I'll struggle with my French days: Lundi, Mardi, Mercredi, Jeudi, Vendredi & Dimanche. Clearly I am missing one .... :-(
I used my German a couple times on business trips to Munich, ages ago. Just wish my "Wortschatz" was a bit better.
Samedi :), like the Baron in Voodoo.
map ….
Completely off-topic: You'll have seen me mentioning the Penguin Atlas of World History once .... or twice .... That started out as the dtv Atlas and on the basis of its success dtv brought out other Atlas books, including one about the German language. Like its history cousin, it has got all kinds of maps, charts and graphs, including one which indicates where people say 'Samstag' and where they say 'Sonnabend'. It's on page 186.
You made a typo, it's "enduit", not "ennduit"
So, the week starts with Tue, then Mon, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat and we skip Sun?
T'as tout compris.
Can confirm. The English name for the current day of the week does indeed end in "y".
1) still not a drag queen
2) “messianic Judaism” doesn’t exist. It’s just Christianity with extra steps. Ugh. Those folks make me itch
Good on Erin. Good on Firefly. Since this is a private organization, short of a prosecution or civil suit their independent report is pretty much the best thing we could expect.
What we can hope for now is a drop in numbers and revenue. If that happens, I'm guessing the elders will reconsider their support for him and he'll decide to retire to spend more time with his family (cough).
"...[𝑛]𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑎𝑠 ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑉𝐸𝑅 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛..."
Yeah, I always go around to the junior staff who work for me, I hold their hand, kiss them on the lips, and slap their butts. But I do it in a non-exploitative way! Trust me! /s.
"𝑈𝑛𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦, ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑑𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑡ℎ. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑀𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝐵𝑟𝑜𝑤𝑛."
Nancy, his deeds made him look like a predator. He admitted doing these things. As a wife, you don't have anything negative to say about your husband having an affair a married church co-worker? I mean, sure every marriage is different and you do you, but I sure wouldn't be speaking out proudly about my husband's conduct.
And guess what? From now on, it's going to be on you too. Before, when you didn't know, not your fault. But he's not going to stop having affairs and harassing women, and now that you know, and the church does nothing, your choices are help put a stop to your husband's s**t or be a willing accomplice through your chosen inaction.
It was published or recorded under her name, we can't be sure she is the one who is behind it.
Surely a church would not mislead its followers by pretending that a letter of support was from the miscreant’s wife when it wasn’t? Please say it ain’t true!
Sorry, can't do that.
Nancy's probably been gaslit so hard herself she's just regurgitating it at this point. Doesn't make her blameless by any means, but there's good odds she just can't handle that her husband is an abuser and other Christians think it's her job to manage that.
I feel ill just typing that out. Some days I'm just incredibly grateful I got lucky enough to have a way out.
Christians here in the US commonly rush to 'forgive' their leaders of any kind of sexual abuse while immediately 'blaming' the victim of the crime for said abuse. In this case, we also see the other most common problem with Christian sexual scandals - namely, there will be no actual consequences for Brown or atonement made by him, since the folks with the ability to do anything about it don't care about the victim or the crime enough to demand better. As my beloved said earlier, another day ending in 'y' for the Christian leadership machine.
Men are not ravening beasts with no self control and should not be allowed to pretend they are; allowing this to continue does neither men nor women any good. Sexual abusers, be they male or female, should suffer the consequence of their actions; if they want to engage in the forgiveness process they should atone for their previous behavior. Refusing to insist on both consequences and atonement undermines the forgiveness process and devalues both the victim and the abuser as human beings. This mandatory-and-instant 'forgiveness' Christians are practicing these days with their leaders isn't even window dressing anymore, it's making a mockery of their beliefs for the world to see. It's not just that the victims deserve better, it's that other Christians and bystanders outside the church deserve better, too.
I IS FORGIVEN!!! jesus told me so.
Well, that didn't take long. The new pope just declared war on us unfaithful and built a lot of strawmen.
“A lack of faith is often tragically accompanied by the loss of meaning in life, the neglect of mercy, appalling violations of human dignity, the crisis of the family and so many other wounds that afflict our society.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/new-pope-leo-xiv-declares-war-on-lack-of-faith-in-fiery-first-sermon/ar-AA1Eu51R?
My faith tell me abrahamic religions are a plague to humanity.
The new poop can put his bigotry and hate for those who don't conform to its narrow vision of humanity (white straight cis male only) in his asshole (top, bottom or both).
This faith that he talks about – belief without evidentiary support – is the real plague. It is fundamentally irrational. I have thought for the longest time that, once one irrational thought or concept is allowed to flourish, there is no limit on additional irrationalities that can follow. To me, this is religion in a nutshell.
It is precisely why religion is dangerous and why I will have nothing to do with it.
I love to be irrational 😁
Sure, it's fun to be irrational, silly. I do so frequently, especially with my puddy cats. My favorite humor is that of the absurd and hyperbolic, both of which can be pretty irrational. But not for one second would I take an irrationality and treat it as though it were real or serious or in need of universal agreement.
My apologies if I'm getting all serious here, but Pope Bobby hit a nerve with his crap ... and yeah, frankly, I'm enjoying my indulgence in a rant.
Sometimes that's how it works.
Sorry, I was trying to joke to show I knew you weren't talking about me.
As always, my friend, it's all good. 😉
I've noticed. ;)
Child abuse enabler says what?
You forget, Bobby. We have the recorded history of your sect of Christianity and all the horrors it has inflicted on humanity for almost two millennia. Remove the plank from your own eye first, you hypocrite.
Blow it out your ass, Leo.
Have to comment again about this, to wit: DAMN, BUT THAT PISSES ME OFF! For all this man's experience, he can't bring himself to see the point of view of an atheist. He assumes a priori that faith is a necessity and that we HAVE to be brought back to it. This insults our intelligence, our integrity, and our desire to determine our own lives, independent of an unqualified authority.
Bobby needs to open his mind to some possibilities he clearly hasn't considered. Congrats, bub. You just fucked up with us.
I don’t need “faith’ to know that murder, rape, incest, theft, etc are wrong. Faith sure doesn’t stop his cult from doing those things.
News Bulletin, Bobby: I lack faith, and I don't blink when I say so. I have no use for your god or your belief system and sure as hell not for any form of faith. To me, it's nothing less than gullibility with lipstick put on. To borrow from a renown and respected astronomer, "I don't want to believe; I want to KNOW." I would vastly prefer to orient my life toward reality and not to some ill-conceived superstition which has nothing to do with what IS ... and I should mention that my life has all the meaning I assign to it.
Keep your faith. I have no use for it.
Ah, so it's already time for a derisive nickname, is it?
"Pope Loo" might be too easily confused with his official name, and also kinda feels like low-hanging fruit. I'd suggest something cat themed, but that's also a bit on the nose, and I also have far too much respect for cats, so... 𝘩𝘮. Gonna have to noodle on this a bit.
Just call him Pope Bobby. Works for me.
Poop booby ?
I would call him pope Leo childfucker number whatever. I am sure some right wing catholic would come by and threaten me with death for my complete lack of respect for the new pope childfucker. Oh well, I will say again: I respect your right for you to believe in imaginary deities. HOWEVER I AM UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO RESPECT AND/OR FOLLOW YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.