Time to ban children from churches?
- Thread starter dbjork6317
- Start date
Pastor of Texas Megachurch Reportedly Admits 'Inappropriate Sexual Behavior' After Woman Alleges Abuse from Age 12
A senior pastor at a Texas megachurch has admitted to past "inappropriate sexual behavior" with a "young lady" after he was accused by a woman of molesting her when she was 12 years old in the 1980s, according to a local media outlet.
Just saw this was already posted by @PrimeIsGettingComfortable so sorry, not sorry.
Can you stop already?? We get your point and know that you are an atheist or whatever. Sin is rampant, even in churches too, imagine that! The bottom line is that churches do a heckuva a lot more for the greater good while bringing people to Christ. Unfortunately, you and others have targeted the small % of people in churches that are bad actors, and btw, need be called out. However, you are doing it to justify your selfish narrative.Pastor of Texas Megachurch Reportedly Admits 'Inappropriate Sexual Behavior' After Woman Alleges Abuse from Age 12
A senior pastor at a Texas megachurch has admitted to past "inappropriate sexual behavior" with a "young lady" after he was accused by a woman of molesting her when she was 12 years old in the 1980s, according to a local media outlet.people.com
Just saw this was already posted by @PrimeIsGettingComfortable so sorry, not sorry.
Weird that calling out sex offenders and pedophiles bothers you.
The fact remains that churches are incredibly dangerous places for our children.
Not weird at all. Sex offenders and pedophiles aren’t specific to the Church except with your narrative. They should all be exposed and arrested.
But you just told me to stop exposing them?
I believe we should protect children from institutions with proven track records for being havens for sexual predators, like the church.
He can't help himself. It's his schtick, at this point I think someone must have touched him as a little kid.
I think he got tired of seeing people call LGBQT+ etc pedophiles, and people banning books, and complaining about book reading, while all these examples of actual pedophilia and abuse are within the Church (that they most often are a part of). Correct me if I’m wrong @dbjork6317
So let me get this straight…
guns kill children - accidents happen.
church leaders abuse kids - accidents happen.
An immigrant commits a crime - “ClOsE tHE boRdEr!!!!!!”
A woman has health/financial/relationship issues while pregnant and wants to abort a fetus - “nO kiLliNg ChiLdRen!!!!”
Seems logical.
I just think it’s important to protect children and the church is an institution that has been proven to be a gathering place for child predators. There are arguments that we need to regulate when and where drag shows can take place in order to protect children, so IMO it’s important we also regulate churches to protect children since incidents of child sexual abuse are much more common in the church than at drag shows.
There’s also talk that those who are under 18 should not be able to take hormone therapy because of the life altering impacts, and I’d argue that children should not be able to attend church due to the life altering impacts that can happen to them there both mentally and physically.
Could you imagine giving money to these churches that pay the salaries of these monsters?
How do you feel about your tax dollars being used to pay these monsters?
Teacher charged with 36 counts of sexual abuse of minor, assault
An Anne Arundel County teacher faces dozens of charges involving sexual abuse of minors.
www.wbaltv.com
What do you propose we do to regulate churches?
I could be wrong but I’m assuming you hold the position that it is the parents right to make the decision on what their child can be exposed to, i.e drag shows, etc?
Since the church concern you, I’m assuming the schools system does as well. What do you think should be done in regards to the school systems? The one’s you and I pay to abuse our children, specifically.
How a culture of covering up sex abuse at public schools is hurting children — and costing taxpayers millions
How a culture of covering up sex abuse at public schools is hurting children — and costing taxpayers millions School administrators, teachers and staff in California are required by la…
www.redlandsdailyfacts.com
@AugTig how do you feel about @Budgripe86 targeting the small % of of people in public schools that are bad actors? Is this just a selfish narrative as well, or is that only the case when we talk about it happening in churches?What do you propose we do to regulate churches?
I could be wrong but I’m assuming you hold the position that it is the parents right to make the decision on what their child can be exposed to, i.e drag shows, etc?
Since the church concern you, I’m assuming the schools system does as well. What do you think should be done in regards to the school systems? The one’s you and I pay to abuse our children, specifically.
How a culture of covering up sex abuse at public schools is hurting children — and costing taxpayers millions
How a culture of covering up sex abuse at public schools is hurting children — and costing taxpayers millions School administrators, teachers and staff in California are required by la…
Obviously I expect any public school employee who abuses children to be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.What do you propose we do to regulate churches?
I could be wrong but I’m assuming you hold the position that it is the parents right to make the decision on what their child can be exposed to, i.e drag shows, etc?
Since the church concern you, I’m assuming the schools system does as well. What do you think should be done in regards to the school systems? The one’s you and I pay to abuse our children, specifically.
How a culture of covering up sex abuse at public schools is hurting children — and costing taxpayers millions
How a culture of covering up sex abuse at public schools is hurting children — and costing taxpayers millions School administrators, teachers and staff in California are required by la…
I did find this blurb from your link to be interesting: “The extent of the problem in America’s schools is impossible to quantify. No national database tracks instances of sexual abuse of students by employees in K-12 schools. But anecdotal evidence, spilling off the pages of newspapers and online news sites across the country, suggests something close to an epidemic.”
So, while this article does a great job of detailing a specific, local example of abuse coverup, it doesn’t do much by the way of a big picture study into the issue and even openly admits that its supposition that there is an “epidemic” of abuse in public schools is anecdotal.
Here’s an actual large scale study on abuse in churches, which I found with a very quick google search, that focuses only on Protestant churches. There have been myriad studies, as we know, on the phenomenon of extreme sexual abuse happening in Catholic churches.
This study shows that there are hundreds of sex abuse claims every year in just Protestant churches, and this measures only claims that were filed with insurance companies and primarily covers offenses by church employees. That is to say, there are even more incidents that don’t get reported and/or are committed by a non-employee in churches. It also shows, however, dozens of cases where churches have hired clergy that have been previously accused of sexual abuse, which is in line with what we see in the Catholic Church where problematic Priests were simply relocated rather than fired/prosecuted.
The sad truth is that churches are woefully ripe grounds for child predators. Its an institution that, in its very nature, works daily to manipulate the minds of children and convince them of abhorrent falsehoods. Then it teaches them that the people of the church are good, trustworthy, and - in fact - are chosen by God to be leaders in their lives. This makes it all too easy an environment for child predators to thrive.
I think by and large the Protestant church does a horrendous job vetting employees and more particular putting guard rails in place to ensure the physical safety of the children. I’m sorry but I do not want 22 year old virgin youth pastor fresh out of seminary sitting next to my daughter on a bus trip to build an orphanage.
The parents as well should do their due diligence to ensure that the people/institution they’re entrusting with their kids live up to the standards of the faith they espouse.
The way in which modern churches, particularly in the west, are operating is a far cry what you actually read about in the New Testament. It’s become a dick slinging contest to see how many people can be crammed into the biggest facility they can convince their constituents to finance. In my opinion, when this is the focus you’re asking for trouble and are more apt to cover it up.
You stated, “It’s an institution that, in its very nature, works daily to manipulate the minds of children and convince them of abhorrent falsehoods.” In fairness, this is opinion, your belief on the matter of the Christian faith. I don’t see how it’s relevant to the matter at hand. One could make a similar claim about the public school system.
You also stated, “Then it teaches them that the people of the church are good, trustworthy…” If a church is teaching them this they aren’t reading the same bible I am. Hence my statement earlier regarding parents doing their due diligence etc.
At the end of the day, this stops when people quit giving them their $$$.
This is not an opinion, churches are openly teaching easily provable falsehoods to children as if they were fact. The church’s entire foundation is built on untruth and is focused on being aggressively anti-truth. This contributes to the vulnerability of the children in this setting because they are already being groomed to believe ridiculous, nonsensical things which makes grooming them for abuse much easier. This is why predators gravitate towards churches and also tend to be the most vocal and militant about their religious beliefs.
With this being your belief it’s not inherently clear to me on what basis you make your truth claims.
Why are you upset about little boys and girls being sexually abused?
Theoretically aren’t we all just cosmic dust colliding with each other without any real meaning? If a particular society over time evolves to agree collectively that it is acceptable and good to have sex with children then it no longer becomes a moral negative, correct?
I obviously know you believe that it is morally wrong and reprehensible.
The last paragraph of that post was basically the reason for that question, if you’d like to address that follow up question.
Let me ask it a different way. You and I both believe that it is morally wrong to murder, rape etc. On what moral authority do you stand to unequivocally make that claim and know without question that it is the correct one?
*I realize I have hijacked the basis of your thread with these questions. I’m just curious.
I stand on my own moral authority. I believe it is morally wrong to, in general, harm another person. It just so happens that the vast majority of people also believe that is morally wrong. People don’t need some religious ground to stand on to determine common morality. I find it far more likely that humans have, over time, assigned their morals to God rather than the other way around. I believe that our empathy teaches us basic moral right and wrong. We don’t want to be killed, therefore, it must be morally wrong to kill another person. And obviously even personal morality is not absolute, we have all generally decided that killing another person is wrong in most circumstances, but there are some where it is acceptable.
Life is valuable because we are sentient beings of free will who have an incredibly brief time period with which to find our own meaning and happiness. Teaching people that this is not their only life, or that there is some afterlife, or attempting to manipulate their free will by telling them there is some special thing they must express faith in or specific behaviors they must engage in is harmful. Too many people wasting their one and only life being dedicated to something that isn’t real.
Read the Bible all the way
Read the Book of Enoch..all through
Read the Books of the Apocypha all of them
The Book of the Bee
The Book of Jasher
THen pray that you are saved in the name of Jesus Christ..Yashua in ancient times..
Then pray for discernment..discernment only comes with salvation..so until we have discernment the truth will be blinded from us.
Thanks for the response. It looks like your world view blends with a mixture of mainly Harris and a little Dennett?
If someone stands on their own authority to make moral truth claims would that not open Pandora’s box? For instance I could claim that I find it pleasurable to murder drunk drivers who endanger everyone else on the interstate. I am in theory doing the rest of society a service in removing these dangers from the general population. Yes, the drunk driver doesn’t want to be murdered, but I want to murder for what I deem a just cause, whose moral standards should be respected? And I as you would say, who are you to impose on me your moral truth claims?
Currently it is morally wrong to murder the elderly. At some point in the future we as a society could agree collectively that it is in the best of the human race to kill them once they turn 70 and no longer provide a net positive for society. They don’t want to be killed, their free will to live has been taken from them and another’s will imposed upon their’s. Yet society has evolved and agreed collectively to make this morally acceptable. Therefore, if there is no absolute moral standard outside of the personal human experience and general collective, it could be deduced free will is an illusion under this belief system. When the participants and the collective are the moral code, there is no freedom, only chaos.
In my opinion, free will could only exist if the moral standard came from outside of the lived human experience. In this scenario the moral standard is put in place from an outside source and it’s’ participants can operate freely with confidence that the standard will never change and their intrinsic value will always be guarded and agreed upon. In this system you can truly claim with confidence that sex with an underage person is morally wrong, today, tomorrow and in a 1,000 years.
If someone stands on their own authority to make moral truth claims would that not open Pandora’s box? For instance I could claim that I find it pleasurable to murder drunk drivers who endanger everyone else on the interstate. I am in theory doing the rest of society a service in removing these dangers from the general population. Yes, the drunk driver doesn’t want to be murdered, but I want to murder for what I deem a just cause, whose moral standards should be respected? And I as you would say, who are you to impose on me your moral truth claims?
Currently it is morally wrong to murder the elderly. At some point in the future we as a society could agree collectively that it is in the best of the human race to kill them once they turn 70 and no longer provide a net positive for society. They don’t want to be killed, their free will to live has been taken from them and another’s will imposed upon their’s. Yet society has evolved and agreed collectively to make this morally acceptable. Therefore, if there is no absolute moral standard outside of the personal human experience and general collective, it could be deduced free will is an illusion under this belief system. When the participants and the collective are the moral code, there is no freedom, only chaos.
In my opinion, free will could only exist if the moral standard came from outside of the lived human experience. In this scenario the moral standard is put in place from an outside source and it’s’ participants can operate freely with confidence that the standard will never change and their intrinsic value will always be guarded and agreed upon. In this system you can truly claim with confidence that sex with an underage person is morally wrong, today, tomorrow and in a 1,000 years.
It can’t be free will if your morality is determined by an outside source. You’re conflating morality and law. You could very well determine that your form of vigilante justice around drunk drivers is moral, but that doesn’t make it legal to do. Just the same as something can be legal, but an individual may deem it morally wrong. If a society were to determine that executing senior citizens was for the greater good and made it policy, that does not require every single individual to accept it as morally right. Moreover, it would also not be original - as there have been some groups who did this exact thing.
The law shouldn’t be tied to any particular morality, since morality is individually based. Even within the system you bring up, where God establishes a constant moral center for everyone to follow, individuals have moral disagreements. Even Christians can’t fully agree on God’s morality.
The government’s role is to protect individual citizens and the collective society as a whole against other individuals or entities that would do them harm. This can be physical harm or otherwise. In the US we have generally decided that harm to life, liberty, and property are significant enough to build laws around.
Many of these laws or moral principles, again, revolve around ideas that far pre-date the Christian God. This leads me to believe that morality does not come from God, but rather there is a sense of general collective morality amongst humans that we have assigned to God. It would be very easy to understand why someone may want to do this, as standing up and saying that God’s morality declares murder to be wrong - which is by and large a widely agreed upon principle - also makes it easier to say that tithing to the church is also part of God’s morality wink wink. Or owning slaves is a moral right given to us by God, which has been argued in the past.
If you assign all moral authority to a fictional being, then individuals can simply attribute whatever moral rule best suits them to this fictional being.
“The law shouldn’t be tied to any particular morality, since morality is individually based.”
“Many of these laws or moral principles,..”
“This leads me to believe that morality does not come from God, but rather there is a sense of general collective morality amongst humans…”
Correct me if I’m wrong here- In your system, morality/moral principles are arbitrarily defined by the individual as well as generally agreed upon by the collective. If accurate, this leads me back to the vigilante murderer scenario for a question of clarification.
In his case, based upon that belief system, would the following scenario not apply?
The individuals within a collective society would have laws agreed upon and enforced by a higher authority (gov’t), based off their shared sense of moral principles, influenced by their individual sense of morality. In a court of law the murderer would claim his individual morality and thereby his moral principles carry just as much weight and meaning as the individuals making up the general collective. He would claim that no individual or collective compromised of individuals have standing to enforce their principles, influenced by their individual sense of morality, which led to their laws, upon him and his actions.
“Many of these laws or moral principles,..”
“This leads me to believe that morality does not come from God, but rather there is a sense of general collective morality amongst humans…”
Correct me if I’m wrong here- In your system, morality/moral principles are arbitrarily defined by the individual as well as generally agreed upon by the collective. If accurate, this leads me back to the vigilante murderer scenario for a question of clarification.
In his case, based upon that belief system, would the following scenario not apply?
The individuals within a collective society would have laws agreed upon and enforced by a higher authority (gov’t), based off their shared sense of moral principles, influenced by their individual sense of morality. In a court of law the murderer would claim his individual morality and thereby his moral principles carry just as much weight and meaning as the individuals making up the general collective. He would claim that no individual or collective compromised of individuals have standing to enforce their principles, influenced by their individual sense of morality, which led to their laws, upon him and his actions.
Really, you want him to read the apocrypha? Do you know how little historical support there is that they are legitimate?
@dbjork6317 Sure, given what I understand to be true about your claims regarding morality/moral principles etc, I think the scenario I laid out is how that belief system would manifest in a real world scenario. My specific question would be, do you agree/disagree and why?
the scenario, as I read it, has already been addressed. You’re saying someone could claim that they committed an action that, although illegal, they feel is a morally right action. I’ve already addressed that.
Maybe re-write your scenario in a way that makes more sense.
@dbjork6317 Let’s get to it this way, this may be long winded, forgive me:
Do you believe sexually assaulting young children is morally wrong and deserving of punishment?
You would reply, “Absolutely, 100% of the time. It is reprehensible and the assailant should be brought to justice based off of our laws concerning sexual assault.”
To which I would reply, based off of your world view, who gives a damn what you or anyone else believes, the assailant believes there is absolutely nothing morally wrong with what he did, in fact he deems it good and acceptable. He theoretically arrived at his current state of morality and is acting on his principles in just the same manner as you. You and most of society just happen to be repulsed by him and his actions. Get over it.
Moreover, the laws you agree with to punish him for his actions are in this case immoral and unjust as applied to him, as you have defined morality- it is immoral to cause pain or suffering on an innocent person.
You have said, “Laws shouldn’t be applied to any particular morality..”
I would reply, there’s no way to disconnect the two. It’s illegal to murder, why? Because it is morally wrong. If morality is nothing more than a personal and social construct arrived at by way of evolutionary processes then laws arrived at by these same people and societies must be similarly arbitrarily enforced.
Therefore, the person breaking the law would have to agree with his accusers that his actions were in fact immoral to him and then and only then could he be punished under the law prohibiting that type of immoral behavior.
It’s not clear to me in that world view how injustices, like rape, or any interaction for that matter is anything other than cosmic space dust interacting with each other.
Finally, it seems that in order for that world view to make any type of definitive truth claim (i.e- murder is wrong) it would have to borrow from a different world view all together.
The End. What mistakes have I made in expressing what I assume is your world view in this matter?
Do you believe sexually assaulting young children is morally wrong and deserving of punishment?
You would reply, “Absolutely, 100% of the time. It is reprehensible and the assailant should be brought to justice based off of our laws concerning sexual assault.”
To which I would reply, based off of your world view, who gives a damn what you or anyone else believes, the assailant believes there is absolutely nothing morally wrong with what he did, in fact he deems it good and acceptable. He theoretically arrived at his current state of morality and is acting on his principles in just the same manner as you. You and most of society just happen to be repulsed by him and his actions. Get over it.
Moreover, the laws you agree with to punish him for his actions are in this case immoral and unjust as applied to him, as you have defined morality- it is immoral to cause pain or suffering on an innocent person.
You have said, “Laws shouldn’t be applied to any particular morality..”
I would reply, there’s no way to disconnect the two. It’s illegal to murder, why? Because it is morally wrong. If morality is nothing more than a personal and social construct arrived at by way of evolutionary processes then laws arrived at by these same people and societies must be similarly arbitrarily enforced.
Therefore, the person breaking the law would have to agree with his accusers that his actions were in fact immoral to him and then and only then could he be punished under the law prohibiting that type of immoral behavior.
It’s not clear to me in that world view how injustices, like rape, or any interaction for that matter is anything other than cosmic space dust interacting with each other.
Finally, it seems that in order for that world view to make any type of definitive truth claim (i.e- murder is wrong) it would have to borrow from a different world view all together.
The End. What mistakes have I made in expressing what I assume is your world view in this matter?
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You’re again conflating law and morality, which I have stated should be separated. It is not illegal to murder because it is immoral, it is illegal to murder because it is the government’s duty to protect its citizens from harm, in as much as it can without unreasonably restricting one’s free will for their own protection.
A law against murder is not a decree that murder is immoral, it is a decree that the society at large benefits from being protected against being murdered and being protected against murderers and that in order for the society as a whole to function successfully, such an act should be punishable. Murder just so happens to be an act that many, many individuals also believe is immoral.
Let’s take something less grotesque and maybe less universally accepted one way or the other on the morality scale.
Is it immoral for the government to charge its citizens taxes? Some certainly argue that it is immoral for the government to demand a portion of its citizens’ incomes, in fact some in the government have made such an argument, but over time our government/society - as well as many others throughout history - have determined that in order for the society to function successfully taxation is necessary and that avoiding paying taxes is an act that should be punishable. It doesn’t particularly matter if an individual believes it is immoral, the law is not reflective of any moral judgement, it is reflective only of the importance that taxation plays in the success of the society.
That logic applies to all of the crimes you’ve mentioned. Be it murder, rape, petty theft, campaign finance fraud, reckless driving, or any other crime large or small - the law is not and should not be a declaration of any individual morals but rather the harm that such an action has on the individuals in the society and/or the society as a whole.
Now, suppose that you had a society (and I suspect there’s been some in history) that determine that murder should not be punishable, that the government does not have a role to protect individuals from that type of harm, and that it is not important to the success of the society that murder be a crime. I would argue then that that society would very likely be extremely short lived. To use a capitalistic reference the “market” corrects itself and if a society doesn’t impose the laws necessary to create a successful society, then that society will not be successful.
If you were to argue that laws are a “social construct arrived at by way of evolutionary processes” then I might agree with that. Even in the brief history of the US the law has evolved and changed and built on itself in an effort to “form a more perfect union” and maximize the overall success of the American state and society.
Law and morality are disconnected and should be disconnected. I am 100% certain there are things you personally consider immoral but accept are legal and things you would consider moral but accept are not legal.
You keep referencing cosmic dust, which I don’t really understand, since we are sentient beings with free will. I also don’t understand how my world view that harming another person is immoral requires me to borrow from another world view. Just because there are different world views that share similar stances on certain things doesn’t mean they are borrowing from each other, especially with something like murder where there is very little conflict in terms of how almost all world views see it.
It’s not clear to me with how you define morality how there could be any moral absolutes. (Which answers your question to me about borrowing from another world view). For instance, making the statement, “human life is sentient therefore murder is wrong” would be subjective and at best an opinion unsupported by facts.
You stated that societies who may deem murder a legal act would inevitably crumble. Agreed. I’m assuming you believe we don’t see societies behaving this way is because ultimately, as you put it, “we are sentient beings with a free will.” Accordingly, sentient beings interact with other sentient beings and view them as special in some way, outside of a few rotten apples of course. We then have govt’s and laws set up to protect, etc.
My question(s) would be- what is a sentient being? How can I look at a creature and know without a shadow of doubt that it is sentient? Who or what defines and can say with authority, “This creature here.. is a sentient being.” What about its’ sentient nature makes it worthy of me holding it in high regard? What moral law guarantees that because a being is sentient it should be cherished and protected?
There are no moral absolutes. You only know anything in this universe because your biology supplies you with senses and a brain to process and comprehend them. You are guaranteed one thing, a lifetime. However short or long it is.
Now it certainly is better to live a peaceful one in my opinion. But I understand those that seek out what they view as injustice and fight against it. I consider those people to brave. But the facts are that people have fought for 'their justice' have also fought to murder others. It's all about perspective.
I’d argue that in a world with no moral absolutes that there would be no injustice. And the person who fought against the imagined injustice would be a fool.
I am not arguing that my stance that murder is wrong is a moral absolute. I’m arguing that is my individual moral belief and that many others also share that individual moral belief. There is no such thing as moral absolutism and those who claim there is are simply assigning their own personal morals to be absolute.
