I've seen plenty of 'Christian' families I would never want any part of. Focus on the Family was Biblicaly sanctioned child abuse. There is no horror that cannot be justified in the name of religion.
Anyone who would beat a dog or any animal is pure shit and shouldn't be allowed around children either. If you are still an xtian, despite any protestations you might make such as "I don't approve of this "or "NALT" , you do approve and are complicit in the ongoing abuse of children and animals.
What Dobson espouses is called "negative reinforcement". And every single reputable developmental psychologist warns against using negative reinforcement as a tool for discipline. But Dobson obviously succumbs to the "spare the rod and spoil the child" mindset of Biblical teaching, which was written long before anyone truly understood how humans think.
I can no longer remember the details, but some years back I ran across a really horrifying account of parents who would beat their kids for NO REASON AT ALL, because there was nothing in that Biblical injunction that said the kids had to deserve discipline or punishment; it said they needed to be beaten regularly just for its own sake, because beating them was somehow supposed to be good for them in and of itself. Yeah, THAT'S how twisted some TBs® can get. (And that's even giving them the benefit of the doubt that they're sincere, not just sick sadists looking for an excuse.)
Positive reinforcement works far better as a long-term way of changing behavior without creating all the anxiety and other issues associated with punishment.
Considering that I have helped abused women and kids including spending a good chunk of my own money doing so and spent decades taking in abandoned dogs, I do not appreciate being told that I am complicit or approve of abuse. If I thought that Christianity taught that we should commit abuse then I would leave the faith but I'm not going to do so because some Christians are abusive. That would be akin to blaming all atheists for the abusive behavior of some atheists. I understand that you were greatly harmed by believers and I wish that had not happened but please don't tar all of us with the same brush.
You (Christians) don't need a make believe deity to do those things. There's no trophy from God, there's no heaven, there's no hell. Nobody's listening to your prayers. You don't 'gotta believe.'
I can't speak for other believers but my faith encourages me, even when I don't feel like it, to help other people in need. I understand and appreciate that people like you can help others without reference to any kind of religious belief. From my perspective, it's a shame that religion can be a tool of abuse. I acknowledge that and try to do with my limited power what it takes to help others get away from that.
No. I believe I said that we should not rule out a foster family just because they are conservative Christians. What's important in the foster care system (one that I know more about than I wish) is to match the kid with the right foster family. If the foster family cannot respect the child then that child should not be placed with them.
That's not what you said, only after repeated push back by other posters did you retreat, without admitting you were wrong and then you claimed that those same abusive xtian foster parents would be okay to place other non-lgbt children with.
Don't gaslight me. This is why I consider you to be so dishonest. Have you no shame at all?
His religion has rules on how to beat your children, how to treat your slaves, how to have sex and oppress women, demands obedience in all things, its foundation is built on hierarchy that relegates the majority of humanity to abject poverty in service to the upper echelons, then yes, we can absolutely say that Christianity teaches that men should commit abuse. You can’t cherry pick the foundational principles of your religion. No matter how many times you go to the cafeteria and pass by the worst options, you still support the cafeteria that is selling the dogshit sandwiches.
Day after day there are stories here about how the religious use their religion as it was intended by harming people, and day after day there’s another excuse about how it’s just these bad people and not the faith, it’s not religion’s fault. “But it helped me be a better person, despite defending even the bad folks within, and the terrible strictures it forces on the world.” It’s shit. You just try to couch the shit in your own morality, that you assume is good (but it’s really not that good).
We can’t paint all of Christianity with the bad brush, but he’s more than willing to paint Christianity with a good brush trying to paint over the huge chunks of rust and debris making up the majority of the surface and structure. He’s never liked the mirror we place in front of his face, he keeps looking at the romanticized painting he commissioned when he considers his self image.
David, I’ve said this many times, and in contrary to what other people have said. I think you’re a good man. I think you work at it and are conscious at it. I can recognize it because I had to work very hard not to become the man my parents “intended” me to be, although they were quite successful with my brothers.
As I said many times, my oldest friend in the world— 63 years now— is an evangelical Christian. He is has good a man as anyone could be. Is Christianity almost estranged us 40 years ago, and we were not as close as we were as boys, but I still recognize that he is a good man and still my friend. The great irony is that his parents, very conservative Christians themselves, were largely responsible for my coming out to be a decent human being.
So I do not categorize allChristians with the same brush dipped in tar. But I also recognize that far too many Christians have ignored what Jesus had to say about his kingdom not being in this world. Power over others is what they want, even if it’s their own children.
And that is what you have had to struggle with here at friendly atheist. And I admire you for sticking it out.
I’ve also said many times I don’t care what people believe, what I care about is what they do with it. And that is why I say I think you’re a good man.
"Christians have ignored what Jesus" Maybe that's because there is no real evidence of the Christian Jesus with his virgin birth, miracles and resurrection. All of if make believe bullshit.
It’s possible that it was all make-believe bullshit, but I tend to think that he was a real person. But his actual story was quite different from the one that people believe, and certainly quite different from the magic myths and miracles of the New Testament.
It’s all quite possible that he was simply a legend. Or he was an amalgamation of characters who are running around at the time— see Judas the Gallilean.
My own suspicion based upon not a huge amount of evidence was that he was a business proposition concocted by Paul. We know that Paul’s letters— assuming any of them are real because we know at least one is not— came before the gospels. This is a good reason to think to think that the magic and myths and miracles were a later addition at the time when people needed the magic myths and miracles. Paul was certainly unaware of all of them.
If you want to read an interesting book on the subject, I would suggest thiering’s “Jesus and the riddle of the Dead Sea scrolls.” she was criticized for her scholarship, but I couldn’t criticize her for her logic
If your response is “Don’t assign institutional/cultural guilt to individual believers like me", I think that's a reasonable critique.
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In my personal view, there are people who work to help others, and there are people who enjoy harm befalling others.
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I don’t think religion causes either by itself.
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The difference I’m pointing at is that religion can give people a way to place their “goodness” or “badness” outside themselves — onto God, doctrine, the church, the mission, the family, “biblical order,” etc. There, it becomes much harder to judge, question, or hold accountable. For people who consider their religion the highest authority, gives "bad people" a potential get-out-of-consequences-free card.
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That doesn’t describe every believer. But it does describe a lot of the machinery being criticized in this article.
Religion as I understand it ought to be a spur to exit bad behavior and to engage in truly loving and serving others. But, as someone who has read a lot about the history of Christianity, it's all too obvious how religion can be used as a tool of oppression and abuse. I try to do what I can but I make no claims to sainthood.
"I would leave the faith" Making comments and replies on Friendly Atheist is a good start if one is honest about one's beliefs. Unfortunately many never are and don't question their religion. Mostly out of early indoctrination and fear.
Nonsense. There's as many different kinds of Christian as there are different kinds of people. All mainstream denominations condemn the abuse of children and animals - because it's inconsistent with the words of Christ. Fundamentalists are the authoritarian outliers and it's just plain dishonest to attack normal Christians for the fundies' immoral behavior.
Bullshit. Christianity is a collection of hundreds of different sets of religious beliefs, and your claim is true only of some minority of the Christian groups and populations.
These sweeping pronouncements are sophomoric. You're oversimplifying to the point of dishonesty.
Christianity provides zero benefits to its deluded followers or society as a whole. It keeps adults mentally stunted, waiting for some magic reward when they die instead of living their lives.
Mostly I think they're just abusive asshats who used Dobson's crap as an excuse to act out they way they've always wanted to. Dobson gave them PERMISSION, and they ran with it.
Good advice, until you translate from christianese. "Humility" = bowing to god only, not apologizing to the real human in front of you. "Listen" = just wait until they stop talking before you talk, not pay attention to what they are saying. "Acknowledge where you've fallen short" = tell them you failed by not jesusing harder.
Focus on the Family only focuses on the grift and the power.
FotF could stand to take their own advice. They never will, because they are convinced beyond any unconvincing of their own rectitude. That organization deserves to be WRECKED, taken apart, piece by piece, it's staff brought on the carpet and scolded for their utter lack of sensitivity or empathy.
Then maybe, just for a laugh, told to "go and sin no more."
I know I wasted way too much precious time trying for my parent’s approval that never came. It isn’t as if parents are never wrong, because more often than not they are the problem. I had the honor of knowing the late Dr. Eli Chesen who wrote a book titled, “Religion Can Be Hazardous To Your Health.” It was about his time spent as a psychiatric resident treating women who came back from a week long revival meeting in a very bad mental state. He told me the proudest and most frightening day of his life was when James Dobson devoted an entire program to attacking him.
That's true. I have helped friends who were involved in what I considered to be abusive religious groups. One poor soul was a woman who spent a good chunk of her life in a Christian group where they took advantage of her and she was never able to get those years back. I understand the hate and disgust that those on this board have for Christianity because I have seen how it can be used as a way to oppress and abuse others. If I thought that was inherent in Christianity then I would leave it but it doesn't have to be that way. But, in the meanwhile, I get on my guard when it comes to religion.
My guess is that you’re a Christian for the same reason you speak English: that’s what you learned growing up, you’re familiar with it, you’re comfortable with it, it’s something you share with family and friends and so gives you a sense of community, and you’ve never seen any good reason to prefer something else instead. But there’s absolutely nothing about either Christianity or English that’s mandatory or inevitable. Neither of them can possibly meet any objective standard of truth, because there are no such standards for what are, at core, arbitrary, culturally induced practices. Neither of them is in any way obviously superior to other languages or religions that are common (equally arbitrarily) elsewhere in the world.
There’s one significant difference between language and religion, tho. In the modern world, we all absolutely NEED language to be able to communicate with our fellow human beings. But none of us NEEDS religion.
The other significant difference is that hardly anybody ever killed or tortured their fellow human beings for using the “wrong” language.
In my case, I came to Christianity from a non-religious background. But, I agree with you that Christianity is what I was exposed to growing up in the United States. I do see good reason to not go with other systems of thought or religions but we're not here to proselytize in this forum. Well, if you take using a different language as a sign that one belongs to a group different than yours then language has been a reason to go after others. That's why countries usually try to standardize on the same language to minimize differences which could lead to conflicts. Of course, our politics demonstrate that a common language does not necessarily lead to common positions or common goals or to unity.
Hello David! Please keep on doing what you are doing! I'm a firm believer it is PEOPLE who determine the fate of 'religions' although some people let 'religious beliefs' control them. They do this for so many reasons--anger, power, delusions, hatred, etc--weaponizing the very worst of that particular religion to dehumanize others. In such a case, they ironically become the very 'idolators' the they condemn (the very Pharisees they hate!) because they refuse to see the Divine in ALL people, no matter which walk of life they may come from.
I'm reminded of this particular verse from the Bhagavad Gita, which may resonate with you:
From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion comes bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost, a person falls down and is ruined.
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I hope all will be well as people must wake up and start helping each other.
We definitely differ in terms of our beliefs but I think we agree that people have value in themselves being created in God's image. Thank you for the verse. I am not that familiar with the Bhagavad Gita but the pattern of what can happen once anger takes over is all too familiar to me.
Authoritarianism requires force because it is unnatural.
Force might work on a child, but your children grow up and you grow older. You bullied your children and expected something other than resentment, anger, and broken relationships. You lied to your children about your values and openly betrayed those values.
I'm not particularly sorry your children broke free. Nor am I sorry you will not have the same chance to hurt your grandchildren.
James Dobson gave you permission to be the person who you always were.
Change if you are able. If not, well, loneliness is the fruit of the toxic authoritarian tree where every branch is against the others trying to grow to the top.
Damn. The poison that James Dobson and Focus on the Family have dealt in for the last who-knows-how-long is positively staggering in its impact and the consequences from it. Hemant states rightly that few organizations if any can be held more culpable for being as divisive of the family unit. The insistence on our-way-or-the-highway, the utter failure to understand the point of view of members of the LGBTQ+ community have given rise to tragic and avoidable outcomes, because FotF cares more about their doctrine and their dogma than they do about actual PEOPLE.
If there were a hell, James Dobson should be roasting on a spit in it.
What he did to that poor dog was criminal. That he has about as much regard for the kids whose parents he advised to abuse is so indicative of his contempt for humanity that it flummoxes the language needed to describe it.
And yet no one had the guts to call him on it and STOP HIM. There's a real tragedy.
“I can’t believe my very own children would turn their backs on me. All I ever did was beat them and abandon them for being demons. How could they possibly see that as abuse!?!”
Well, gorsh! Perhaps with drawing your love or expressing it as violence isn’t all sunshine and roses. Whoda thunk it? Everyone outside your christofascist bubble thought it.
The woman who abandoned her gay son, calling it disrespect, said others shouldn’t judge her because context is laughably blind. “I gave up on him but now he won’t talk to me. Boo hoo, woe is me.” Please dummy, this is what you wanted.
I've said for many years that Christianity is a religion of conditional love. One of their most prized and touted bible verses, dearly beloved by the Graham family and every church I've been in, is John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Got that? You, too, can live forever, you just gotta do this one teensy weensy little thing, BELIEVE IN HIM. And, of course, the God of the Book is a patriarch who believes in keeping wives and children in their lowly assigned place. Unconditional love my sweet patootie!
This was a column that certainly focused on my family, brought up a lot of memories— not even painful, not in these latterdays.*
Several things you might say STRUCK me. The reference several times to “woke Therapist.” well, that rather is the point, isn’t it? That’s what therapists are supposed to do: WAKE YOU UP! But far more interesting is the implication of the word woke. Everything becomes a culture war issue. Everything becomes politicized. Everything becomes a cause for contempt. Even your relationship with your kids, or their relationship with you.
Paraphrasing hamlet twice: “there is nothing so true on heaven or earth but wishing will make it so.”
But it also reminded me of what happened in my family because of the gay issue. I came out at 21, finally. By 31, I was pretty much estranged from my parents. I tried several times until my father died, and then again for a year after he died. And each time, I finally gave up. I was a straight A student, an athlete, a successful writer, a recognized musician, three degrees, well liked by teachers and friends. Nothing mattered so much as that I was a young man that liked other young men. I tried for years to talk to my parents about it, to bring them to a place of understanding and acceptance, but they were interested in neither. They did make some small concessions, but it was clear that they weren’t changing anything they were thinking on it.
EVENTUALLY, I JUST GAVE UP. AND MUCH TO MY SURPRISE, I FOUND MY LIFE WAS SO MUCH BETTER WITHOUT MY PARENTS IN IT.
I also noted the persecution narrative these examples hemant gave. BENDING THE KNEE! And this was coming from the very people who promised that every knee shall bend to their God on a stick. Because this is something I also noticed in my decades as both an activist and a counselor. This is something I wrote as an expansion of something that Armistead Maupin wrote:
“When you're gay, and not being directly and enthusiasticaly tormented by so-called Christians, psychiatrists, policemen, well meaning but completely ignorant and blind moralists or "family values" types, or your own family, you spend your life accommodating the sensibilities of "normal" people, the common sense of people who can't be bothered to think, let alone ask a question.
You learn to bury you own feeling and honor theirs, hoping that they will meet you somewhere, anywhere, in between. It becomes your job, and yours alone, to explain, to ignore, and to forgive, over and over again, their transgressions against you, who have done nothing except to exist, and to offend, frighten, or entice them by doing so. There is no way you can get around this. You must do it it if you want to have a life that you can enjoy, and not have it poisoned by the deep well of your own anger. You do it if you want to be a human being.
But you learn something from this. They are not the enemy. They, too, are victims of the real enemy. That enemy is the closet***. The best offense against the real enemy is to live your life without shame, fear or hiding, with authenticity and kindness.”
But it wasn’t just me, and my parents could never see that it wasn’t just me. Both of my brothers positively hated our mother, and with good reason, I think. Neither was a total asshole, although one of them was in there trying. He was also a kid, at least at one point. And the other one? He was like me, gay, but so far deep in the closet that is only friends were coat hangers. So far deep in the closet that he never even told me about himself until after he had wrecked his life, which was definitely courtesy of our parents telling him what they told me: that he was worthless and useless. Fortunately, that did not take with me, but it absolutely did with him.
And he ended his life in a Mexican desert, dead by suicide or murder or both.
But this brings me to the one Lesson I learned from my relationship with my parents. The purpose of any relationship with anything or anybody— parents, siblings, money, God, alcohol, drugs, you name it— is that it makes your life better by the fact that you are in it. And if it’s not going to make your life better, and you’ve made every effort to have it make your life better, then it’s time to get out of that relationship.
I noticed that the examples in Hemant’s column were all of the parents and what victims, martyrs, and saints they were. Funny thing, but that’s exactly what my mother pulled. None of her three sons showed up for her funeral. According to my sister only my sister and a childhood friend of my mother’s that I didn’t even know existed showed up for her funeral.
And I’m sure she never heard of Dobby’s Son.
* did you see what I did there. No, we weren’t Mormon.
*** and idjits like Dobby’s son. DId you also see what I did there?
Although my parents were not conservative xtians, one of them disapproved of 'my choice' to be LGBT and urged me to get 'treatment' and also told others they were embarrassed by me. They told me they raised me to be an xtian. This was during the 1980s. That parent and I were estranged for a few years. I did not come to family gatherings, respond to phone calls or talk to them. Eventually another family member made them realize how fucked up their choices were.
My parents had no idea that I am bisexual, though my mom would likely have been more accepting. My dad? Not a chance. My dad was RIGHT. Just ask him. He'll tell you ... or he would if he were still alive.
It took me a long-ass time for me to accept who I am, but I managed it ... in spite of both of 'em.
I still remember all those times I listened to FotF segments where James still couldn't understand why kids, who became atheists and rejected their parent's "teachings," left their Christian parents to become law abiding citizens and excellent parents to their own kids while those who stayed with their Christian parents become harden criminals and delinquents while the answer to all of this is right before his very blind eyes.
His own "family advice" is what making kids abandon their "Christian families" and reject all their "teachings" to take on a much better lifestyle that makes them highly upstanding citizens and great parents to their own kids.
If these kids reject all of their "Christian upbringings" FotF teaches and advocates that in some extreme cases lands a lot of parents in prison, then so will I.
My mother emotionally abandoned me by the time I was 13. All i every wanted from her was an acknowledment that it happened. A simple " I'm sorry I hurt you" would have gone a long way.
Narcissist parents are very good at this and they don't even require any particular religious belief to behave in this way. I'm sure belief in any rigid dogma only makes their parenting skills more nightmarish. I'm sorry this happened to you, I know how painful it is. I spent years trying to explain my experience of how I was treated back to my mother in just the *right way, believing that if I could do so correctly she'd finally understand and at the least stop invalidating my feelings. It took decades for me to understand that she's not capable of that. Find a good therapist and don't let your mom hurt you more. You are a good person and you deserve happiness.
I have known people in that situation. My wife is one of them. All I can do is to be there for her and try to love her the best that I can. I hope that you have others who can be there for you. What I can tell you from what I've seen in life, is that it's not your fault. No one deserves to go through what you have.
Calling Focus on the Family "conservative" is something of an understatement. They are, in fact, a designated hate group
splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/focus-family/
It's time to start treating them as haters.
To be fair, "conservative" and "hate group" are pretty much synonyms.
Tis true, alas.
I've seen plenty of 'Christian' families I would never want any part of. Focus on the Family was Biblicaly sanctioned child abuse. There is no horror that cannot be justified in the name of religion.
Anyone who would beat a dog or any animal is pure shit and shouldn't be allowed around children either. If you are still an xtian, despite any protestations you might make such as "I don't approve of this "or "NALT" , you do approve and are complicit in the ongoing abuse of children and animals.
What Dobson espouses is called "negative reinforcement". And every single reputable developmental psychologist warns against using negative reinforcement as a tool for discipline. But Dobson obviously succumbs to the "spare the rod and spoil the child" mindset of Biblical teaching, which was written long before anyone truly understood how humans think.
I can no longer remember the details, but some years back I ran across a really horrifying account of parents who would beat their kids for NO REASON AT ALL, because there was nothing in that Biblical injunction that said the kids had to deserve discipline or punishment; it said they needed to be beaten regularly just for its own sake, because beating them was somehow supposed to be good for them in and of itself. Yeah, THAT'S how twisted some TBs® can get. (And that's even giving them the benefit of the doubt that they're sincere, not just sick sadists looking for an excuse.)
Ummm ... "TBs?"
I think you know it without knowing that you know. Your reply just below references "true believer". That would fit.
That is absolutely horrific. And so, SO typical of hardcore Evangelical Christians.
Positive reinforcement works far better as a long-term way of changing behavior without creating all the anxiety and other issues associated with punishment.
The most ignorant are the most confident.
Probably the shortest definition of the Dunning-Kruger effect I've ever heard!
Like a couple of someones we know that keep coming here when they have no reason to.
Correct.
Considering that I have helped abused women and kids including spending a good chunk of my own money doing so and spent decades taking in abandoned dogs, I do not appreciate being told that I am complicit or approve of abuse. If I thought that Christianity taught that we should commit abuse then I would leave the faith but I'm not going to do so because some Christians are abusive. That would be akin to blaming all atheists for the abusive behavior of some atheists. I understand that you were greatly harmed by believers and I wish that had not happened but please don't tar all of us with the same brush.
You (Christians) don't need a make believe deity to do those things. There's no trophy from God, there's no heaven, there's no hell. Nobody's listening to your prayers. You don't 'gotta believe.'
I can't speak for other believers but my faith encourages me, even when I don't feel like it, to help other people in need. I understand and appreciate that people like you can help others without reference to any kind of religious belief. From my perspective, it's a shame that religion can be a tool of abuse. I acknowledge that and try to do with my limited power what it takes to help others get away from that.
You espoused placing LGBT children in hostile christian foster homes. Keep patting yourself on the back, hypocrite.
No. I believe I said that we should not rule out a foster family just because they are conservative Christians. What's important in the foster care system (one that I know more about than I wish) is to match the kid with the right foster family. If the foster family cannot respect the child then that child should not be placed with them.
That's not what you said, only after repeated push back by other posters did you retreat, without admitting you were wrong and then you claimed that those same abusive xtian foster parents would be okay to place other non-lgbt children with.
Don't gaslight me. This is why I consider you to be so dishonest. Have you no shame at all?
^^^Complicit^^^
His religion has rules on how to beat your children, how to treat your slaves, how to have sex and oppress women, demands obedience in all things, its foundation is built on hierarchy that relegates the majority of humanity to abject poverty in service to the upper echelons, then yes, we can absolutely say that Christianity teaches that men should commit abuse. You can’t cherry pick the foundational principles of your religion. No matter how many times you go to the cafeteria and pass by the worst options, you still support the cafeteria that is selling the dogshit sandwiches.
Day after day there are stories here about how the religious use their religion as it was intended by harming people, and day after day there’s another excuse about how it’s just these bad people and not the faith, it’s not religion’s fault. “But it helped me be a better person, despite defending even the bad folks within, and the terrible strictures it forces on the world.” It’s shit. You just try to couch the shit in your own morality, that you assume is good (but it’s really not that good).
We can’t paint all of Christianity with the bad brush, but he’s more than willing to paint Christianity with a good brush trying to paint over the huge chunks of rust and debris making up the majority of the surface and structure. He’s never liked the mirror we place in front of his face, he keeps looking at the romanticized painting he commissioned when he considers his self image.
Not just built on hierarchy but PATRIARCHY AND THEOCRACY, meaning both to be implacable authorities. To which I say: NO FUCKIN' WAY!
This
David, I’ve said this many times, and in contrary to what other people have said. I think you’re a good man. I think you work at it and are conscious at it. I can recognize it because I had to work very hard not to become the man my parents “intended” me to be, although they were quite successful with my brothers.
As I said many times, my oldest friend in the world— 63 years now— is an evangelical Christian. He is has good a man as anyone could be. Is Christianity almost estranged us 40 years ago, and we were not as close as we were as boys, but I still recognize that he is a good man and still my friend. The great irony is that his parents, very conservative Christians themselves, were largely responsible for my coming out to be a decent human being.
So I do not categorize allChristians with the same brush dipped in tar. But I also recognize that far too many Christians have ignored what Jesus had to say about his kingdom not being in this world. Power over others is what they want, even if it’s their own children.
And that is what you have had to struggle with here at friendly atheist. And I admire you for sticking it out.
I’ve also said many times I don’t care what people believe, what I care about is what they do with it. And that is why I say I think you’re a good man.
"Christians have ignored what Jesus" Maybe that's because there is no real evidence of the Christian Jesus with his virgin birth, miracles and resurrection. All of if make believe bullshit.
George Carlin was right! 😆
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tp0UNcjzl8
It’s possible that it was all make-believe bullshit, but I tend to think that he was a real person. But his actual story was quite different from the one that people believe, and certainly quite different from the magic myths and miracles of the New Testament.
It’s all quite possible that he was simply a legend. Or he was an amalgamation of characters who are running around at the time— see Judas the Gallilean.
My own suspicion based upon not a huge amount of evidence was that he was a business proposition concocted by Paul. We know that Paul’s letters— assuming any of them are real because we know at least one is not— came before the gospels. This is a good reason to think to think that the magic and myths and miracles were a later addition at the time when people needed the magic myths and miracles. Paul was certainly unaware of all of them.
If you want to read an interesting book on the subject, I would suggest thiering’s “Jesus and the riddle of the Dead Sea scrolls.” she was criticized for her scholarship, but I couldn’t criticize her for her logic
Thank you for saying it. It means a lot to me. I appreciate you as well. You demonstrate that one doesn't need to be religious to be a good person.
Thank you for the compliment.*
* I wasn’t fishing for compliments. 😘😜
If your response is “Don’t assign institutional/cultural guilt to individual believers like me", I think that's a reasonable critique.
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In my personal view, there are people who work to help others, and there are people who enjoy harm befalling others.
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I don’t think religion causes either by itself.
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The difference I’m pointing at is that religion can give people a way to place their “goodness” or “badness” outside themselves — onto God, doctrine, the church, the mission, the family, “biblical order,” etc. There, it becomes much harder to judge, question, or hold accountable. For people who consider their religion the highest authority, gives "bad people" a potential get-out-of-consequences-free card.
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That doesn’t describe every believer. But it does describe a lot of the machinery being criticized in this article.
Your version of God is a projection of your own soul. If you're kind, you will have a kind God. If you're a sadistic bastard, then so is your God.
Sorry, would rather have no gods and freely think for oneself.
In Your God We Trust? 😆🤪
Jimmy Carter taught us that, he was as good a man as ever was, and seemingly tried hard to be everything the fundamentalists are not.
Religion as I understand it ought to be a spur to exit bad behavior and to engage in truly loving and serving others. But, as someone who has read a lot about the history of Christianity, it's all too obvious how religion can be used as a tool of oppression and abuse. I try to do what I can but I make no claims to sainthood.
"I would leave the faith" Making comments and replies on Friendly Atheist is a good start if one is honest about one's beliefs. Unfortunately many never are and don't question their religion. Mostly out of early indoctrination and fear.
Believe what one wants.
Good luck with the Christian death cult. 🤪
If you're actively working to heal those who are victims of Christian abuse then this does not apply to you.
Nonsense. There's as many different kinds of Christian as there are different kinds of people. All mainstream denominations condemn the abuse of children and animals - because it's inconsistent with the words of Christ. Fundamentalists are the authoritarian outliers and it's just plain dishonest to attack normal Christians for the fundies' immoral behavior.
Xtianity is a delusion that prevents society from progressing.
Bullshit. Christianity is a collection of hundreds of different sets of religious beliefs, and your claim is true only of some minority of the Christian groups and populations.
These sweeping pronouncements are sophomoric. You're oversimplifying to the point of dishonesty.
Christianity provides zero benefits to its deluded followers or society as a whole. It keeps adults mentally stunted, waiting for some magic reward when they die instead of living their lives.
Absolutely worthless mythical nonsense.
Oh no, our scam is falling apart, time to blame the people we scammed for their lack of faith
"Blame the victim." It's what they do, what they have done, and likely what they will continue to do until they are STOPPED.
They have no mirrors in their homes. Convenient way to avoid pointing at their reflections.
WHAT "reflections???" 🧛♂️
What an incredibly funny and on the mark reply! I wish I had thought of it.
Did you ever think that they were emotional vampires, and mirrors were useless?
I bet you didn’t.
Mostly I think they're just abusive asshats who used Dobson's crap as an excuse to act out they way they've always wanted to. Dobson gave them PERMISSION, and they ran with it.
𝑅𝑒𝑏𝑢𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦, 𝑎 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑙𝑒𝑑𝑔𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑛 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑟𝑡.
Good advice, until you translate from christianese. "Humility" = bowing to god only, not apologizing to the real human in front of you. "Listen" = just wait until they stop talking before you talk, not pay attention to what they are saying. "Acknowledge where you've fallen short" = tell them you failed by not jesusing harder.
Focus on the Family only focuses on the grift and the power.
FotF could stand to take their own advice. They never will, because they are convinced beyond any unconvincing of their own rectitude. That organization deserves to be WRECKED, taken apart, piece by piece, it's staff brought on the carpet and scolded for their utter lack of sensitivity or empathy.
Then maybe, just for a laugh, told to "go and sin no more."
Excellent translation.
Truth. Anyone with a close relative that was raised evangelical knows this all too well 😞
Notice that the 'religion of love' promotes nothing but hate and abuse:
Telling people they are broken because they don't accept magic and supernatural nonsense
Inventing the fake disease of sin
Physical and sexual abuse of children
Physical abuse of animals
Dehumanizing and oppression of LGBT people
Treating women as property and lesser human beings.
Stealing money from the poor based on the lie of an afterlife and 'eternal salvation' while doing nothing for society.
𝑁𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 '𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒' 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑢𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒...
𝑅𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔.
-- Aron Ra
TBF, I consider most of what they do "sin" -- against people, animals, the planet...
I know I wasted way too much precious time trying for my parent’s approval that never came. It isn’t as if parents are never wrong, because more often than not they are the problem. I had the honor of knowing the late Dr. Eli Chesen who wrote a book titled, “Religion Can Be Hazardous To Your Health.” It was about his time spent as a psychiatric resident treating women who came back from a week long revival meeting in a very bad mental state. He told me the proudest and most frightening day of his life was when James Dobson devoted an entire program to attacking him.
That's true. I have helped friends who were involved in what I considered to be abusive religious groups. One poor soul was a woman who spent a good chunk of her life in a Christian group where they took advantage of her and she was never able to get those years back. I understand the hate and disgust that those on this board have for Christianity because I have seen how it can be used as a way to oppress and abuse others. If I thought that was inherent in Christianity then I would leave it but it doesn't have to be that way. But, in the meanwhile, I get on my guard when it comes to religion.
My guess is that you’re a Christian for the same reason you speak English: that’s what you learned growing up, you’re familiar with it, you’re comfortable with it, it’s something you share with family and friends and so gives you a sense of community, and you’ve never seen any good reason to prefer something else instead. But there’s absolutely nothing about either Christianity or English that’s mandatory or inevitable. Neither of them can possibly meet any objective standard of truth, because there are no such standards for what are, at core, arbitrary, culturally induced practices. Neither of them is in any way obviously superior to other languages or religions that are common (equally arbitrarily) elsewhere in the world.
There’s one significant difference between language and religion, tho. In the modern world, we all absolutely NEED language to be able to communicate with our fellow human beings. But none of us NEEDS religion.
The other significant difference is that hardly anybody ever killed or tortured their fellow human beings for using the “wrong” language.
In my case, I came to Christianity from a non-religious background. But, I agree with you that Christianity is what I was exposed to growing up in the United States. I do see good reason to not go with other systems of thought or religions but we're not here to proselytize in this forum. Well, if you take using a different language as a sign that one belongs to a group different than yours then language has been a reason to go after others. That's why countries usually try to standardize on the same language to minimize differences which could lead to conflicts. Of course, our politics demonstrate that a common language does not necessarily lead to common positions or common goals or to unity.
Hello David! Please keep on doing what you are doing! I'm a firm believer it is PEOPLE who determine the fate of 'religions' although some people let 'religious beliefs' control them. They do this for so many reasons--anger, power, delusions, hatred, etc--weaponizing the very worst of that particular religion to dehumanize others. In such a case, they ironically become the very 'idolators' the they condemn (the very Pharisees they hate!) because they refuse to see the Divine in ALL people, no matter which walk of life they may come from.
I'm reminded of this particular verse from the Bhagavad Gita, which may resonate with you:
क्रोधाद्भवति सम्मोहः सम्मोहात्स्मृतिविभ्रमः । स्मृतिभ्रंशाद्बुद्धिनाशो बुद्धिनाशात्प्रणश्यति ॥ ६३ ॥ (BG 2:63)
From anger, complete delusion arises, and from delusion comes bewilderment of memory. When memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost, and when intelligence is lost, a person falls down and is ruined.
------------
I hope all will be well as people must wake up and start helping each other.
We definitely differ in terms of our beliefs but I think we agree that people have value in themselves being created in God's image. Thank you for the verse. I am not that familiar with the Bhagavad Gita but the pattern of what can happen once anger takes over is all too familiar to me.
Authoritarianism requires force because it is unnatural.
Force might work on a child, but your children grow up and you grow older. You bullied your children and expected something other than resentment, anger, and broken relationships. You lied to your children about your values and openly betrayed those values.
I'm not particularly sorry your children broke free. Nor am I sorry you will not have the same chance to hurt your grandchildren.
James Dobson gave you permission to be the person who you always were.
Change if you are able. If not, well, loneliness is the fruit of the toxic authoritarian tree where every branch is against the others trying to grow to the top.
James Dobson did for child rearing what Donald Trump did for politics.
'Nuff said.
"but she refused to “bend a knee to woke behavior.”"
When someone says "woke" like this, it's a sure sign that they're an abject moron.
Woke=being a decent human being that cares about others.
Woke: “Anything we don’t like and our religion tells us to hate!”
Ask them to define "woke". They will fail.
And ask what is the opposite of Woke? Must be Clossd?
Woke, I have always believed, is willing to learn and listen and except the fact that you don’t know it all, but want to learn.
The opposite, therefore must be you are too stupid to learn or listen.
The opposite of "woke" is "in a coma."
👆🎯
Damn. The poison that James Dobson and Focus on the Family have dealt in for the last who-knows-how-long is positively staggering in its impact and the consequences from it. Hemant states rightly that few organizations if any can be held more culpable for being as divisive of the family unit. The insistence on our-way-or-the-highway, the utter failure to understand the point of view of members of the LGBTQ+ community have given rise to tragic and avoidable outcomes, because FotF cares more about their doctrine and their dogma than they do about actual PEOPLE.
If there were a hell, James Dobson should be roasting on a spit in it.
Dobson died last year. His hate lives on.
What he did to that poor dog was criminal. That he has about as much regard for the kids whose parents he advised to abuse is so indicative of his contempt for humanity that it flummoxes the language needed to describe it.
And yet no one had the guts to call him on it and STOP HIM. There's a real tragedy.
I hope he had a second of clarity before the lights went out for good to realize he’d blown his life on a fiction.
He carried his Delusion to the grave. Then lights out: no realization, no punishment, no reward. That's how life works. Christians can't accept that.
Unlikely. He was a true believer, after the Eric Hoffer concept, which made him dangerous as all hell.
The joke’s on him, the sap.
“I can’t believe my very own children would turn their backs on me. All I ever did was beat them and abandon them for being demons. How could they possibly see that as abuse!?!”
Well, gorsh! Perhaps with drawing your love or expressing it as violence isn’t all sunshine and roses. Whoda thunk it? Everyone outside your christofascist bubble thought it.
The woman who abandoned her gay son, calling it disrespect, said others shouldn’t judge her because context is laughably blind. “I gave up on him but now he won’t talk to me. Boo hoo, woe is me.” Please dummy, this is what you wanted.
Some people would rather play the victim than admit they had a hand in the process of alienating their children
They are abusing them, the one lady admitted the concussions, because she is too stupid to understand what they are!
I've said for many years that Christianity is a religion of conditional love. One of their most prized and touted bible verses, dearly beloved by the Graham family and every church I've been in, is John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." Got that? You, too, can live forever, you just gotta do this one teensy weensy little thing, BELIEVE IN HIM. And, of course, the God of the Book is a patriarch who believes in keeping wives and children in their lowly assigned place. Unconditional love my sweet patootie!
Free will as long as you do what I say.
Well!
This was a column that certainly focused on my family, brought up a lot of memories— not even painful, not in these latterdays.*
Several things you might say STRUCK me. The reference several times to “woke Therapist.” well, that rather is the point, isn’t it? That’s what therapists are supposed to do: WAKE YOU UP! But far more interesting is the implication of the word woke. Everything becomes a culture war issue. Everything becomes politicized. Everything becomes a cause for contempt. Even your relationship with your kids, or their relationship with you.
Paraphrasing hamlet twice: “there is nothing so true on heaven or earth but wishing will make it so.”
But it also reminded me of what happened in my family because of the gay issue. I came out at 21, finally. By 31, I was pretty much estranged from my parents. I tried several times until my father died, and then again for a year after he died. And each time, I finally gave up. I was a straight A student, an athlete, a successful writer, a recognized musician, three degrees, well liked by teachers and friends. Nothing mattered so much as that I was a young man that liked other young men. I tried for years to talk to my parents about it, to bring them to a place of understanding and acceptance, but they were interested in neither. They did make some small concessions, but it was clear that they weren’t changing anything they were thinking on it.
EVENTUALLY, I JUST GAVE UP. AND MUCH TO MY SURPRISE, I FOUND MY LIFE WAS SO MUCH BETTER WITHOUT MY PARENTS IN IT.
I also noted the persecution narrative these examples hemant gave. BENDING THE KNEE! And this was coming from the very people who promised that every knee shall bend to their God on a stick. Because this is something I also noticed in my decades as both an activist and a counselor. This is something I wrote as an expansion of something that Armistead Maupin wrote:
“When you're gay, and not being directly and enthusiasticaly tormented by so-called Christians, psychiatrists, policemen, well meaning but completely ignorant and blind moralists or "family values" types, or your own family, you spend your life accommodating the sensibilities of "normal" people, the common sense of people who can't be bothered to think, let alone ask a question.
You learn to bury you own feeling and honor theirs, hoping that they will meet you somewhere, anywhere, in between. It becomes your job, and yours alone, to explain, to ignore, and to forgive, over and over again, their transgressions against you, who have done nothing except to exist, and to offend, frighten, or entice them by doing so. There is no way you can get around this. You must do it it if you want to have a life that you can enjoy, and not have it poisoned by the deep well of your own anger. You do it if you want to be a human being.
But you learn something from this. They are not the enemy. They, too, are victims of the real enemy. That enemy is the closet***. The best offense against the real enemy is to live your life without shame, fear or hiding, with authenticity and kindness.”
But it wasn’t just me, and my parents could never see that it wasn’t just me. Both of my brothers positively hated our mother, and with good reason, I think. Neither was a total asshole, although one of them was in there trying. He was also a kid, at least at one point. And the other one? He was like me, gay, but so far deep in the closet that is only friends were coat hangers. So far deep in the closet that he never even told me about himself until after he had wrecked his life, which was definitely courtesy of our parents telling him what they told me: that he was worthless and useless. Fortunately, that did not take with me, but it absolutely did with him.
And he ended his life in a Mexican desert, dead by suicide or murder or both.
But this brings me to the one Lesson I learned from my relationship with my parents. The purpose of any relationship with anything or anybody— parents, siblings, money, God, alcohol, drugs, you name it— is that it makes your life better by the fact that you are in it. And if it’s not going to make your life better, and you’ve made every effort to have it make your life better, then it’s time to get out of that relationship.
I noticed that the examples in Hemant’s column were all of the parents and what victims, martyrs, and saints they were. Funny thing, but that’s exactly what my mother pulled. None of her three sons showed up for her funeral. According to my sister only my sister and a childhood friend of my mother’s that I didn’t even know existed showed up for her funeral.
And I’m sure she never heard of Dobby’s Son.
* did you see what I did there. No, we weren’t Mormon.
*** and idjits like Dobby’s son. DId you also see what I did there?
Although my parents were not conservative xtians, one of them disapproved of 'my choice' to be LGBT and urged me to get 'treatment' and also told others they were embarrassed by me. They told me they raised me to be an xtian. This was during the 1980s. That parent and I were estranged for a few years. I did not come to family gatherings, respond to phone calls or talk to them. Eventually another family member made them realize how fucked up their choices were.
I was lucky. My parents accepted me and loved me for who I am.
My parents had no idea that I am bisexual, though my mom would likely have been more accepting. My dad? Not a chance. My dad was RIGHT. Just ask him. He'll tell you ... or he would if he were still alive.
It took me a long-ass time for me to accept who I am, but I managed it ... in spite of both of 'em.
Hugs from a fellow, well, lady B.
Pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady B! 🙋♂️
I still remember all those times I listened to FotF segments where James still couldn't understand why kids, who became atheists and rejected their parent's "teachings," left their Christian parents to become law abiding citizens and excellent parents to their own kids while those who stayed with their Christian parents become harden criminals and delinquents while the answer to all of this is right before his very blind eyes.
His own "family advice" is what making kids abandon their "Christian families" and reject all their "teachings" to take on a much better lifestyle that makes them highly upstanding citizens and great parents to their own kids.
If these kids reject all of their "Christian upbringings" FotF teaches and advocates that in some extreme cases lands a lot of parents in prison, then so will I.
Dobson, that dumb schmuck, couldn't see the forest for all those gol-darn TREES! 🤦♂️
For the love of Mike, even dog trainers don't beat dogs anymore. And the thought of beating a *12 lb dog* with a BELT makes me sick to my stomach.
He was a sick wingnut. I wish I could have had the chance to use the belt on him after hearing about his abuse of this dog.
I've said it before: If you want to know how people will treat other people, watch how they treat animals.
Torturing animals is often the sign of an early serial killer right? :)
Just look at Dahmer. Tortured, mutilated and killed animals in his childhood/teenage years.
But that's okay. He became a born-again Christian in prison, so all good. Right?
Yes.
Especially cats because they have clear boundaries and ask for consent 🐈⬛. If I meet a guy and he doesn’t like cats, bye!
My mother emotionally abandoned me by the time I was 13. All i every wanted from her was an acknowledment that it happened. A simple " I'm sorry I hurt you" would have gone a long way.
Narcissist parents are very good at this and they don't even require any particular religious belief to behave in this way. I'm sure belief in any rigid dogma only makes their parenting skills more nightmarish. I'm sorry this happened to you, I know how painful it is. I spent years trying to explain my experience of how I was treated back to my mother in just the *right way, believing that if I could do so correctly she'd finally understand and at the least stop invalidating my feelings. It took decades for me to understand that she's not capable of that. Find a good therapist and don't let your mom hurt you more. You are a good person and you deserve happiness.
my mom was a narcissist. and i have spent many, many years in therapy. that's why i am still on the right side of the grass. Thanks you all of you.
I like the family scapegoating abuse substack info often
I have known people in that situation. My wife is one of them. All I can do is to be there for her and try to love her the best that I can. I hope that you have others who can be there for you. What I can tell you from what I've seen in life, is that it's not your fault. No one deserves to go through what you have.
Thanks. Fortunately,I have a wonderful found family who is there for me every day.
I'm glad to hear this. You are fortunate and they are fortunate to have you.