Teenager Forced to Apologize to Her Church for Being Raped

@Eva,

Eva wrote:

dyslexia wrote:

I'm thinking we should all blame jesus for all that's happened here.

Oh, please. Jesus has his hands full.

oh please, jesus is to blame for everything done in his name.

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1 Reply

@Butrflynet,

Butrflynet wrote:

Someone please justify this pastor's actions for me.

Well, his own justification seems perfectly adequate, given the moral framework provided by the Bible. From the Concord Monitor article that you linked to:

Quote:

She asked why. "Pastor Phelps then said that (Willis) may have been 99 percent responsible, but I needed to confess my 1 percent guilt in the situation," the victim told the police.

"He told me that I should be happy that I didn't live in Old Testament times because I would have been stoned."

This is the morality you sign up for when you join a religious organization based on the Judeo-Christian Bible. This is the morality to which you confine your babies when you instill in them a faith in Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, or any other religion based on this text. Pastor Phelps is right: If his conduct conflicts in any way with the laws decreed in the Holy Book, it's that he's letting the girl off too easily. Believers who have a problem with Phelps should reconsider their faith in the Bible rather than shooting the messenger.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Believers who have a problem with Phelps should reconsider their faith in the Bible rather than shooting the messenger.

I checked my Bible. Now hand me my gun. Wink

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@Eva,

How very Tulsa of you ! Wink

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@Butrflynet,

PS, Butrflynet: I have to join Eva in venting my frustration about the trashy blog entry that you started your thread with. It insults my intelligence. The real articles from the real newspapers should have been your primary sources, not auxiliary documents to the garbage you copied and pasted so generously.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

How very Tulsa of you !

How would you know? When was the last time you came to visit me in Tulsa? (hint, hint)

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@Eva,

Are you trying to lure me in front of your gun?

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Nope. I wouldn't even make you go to church with me. You could just sit outside in the car and yell profanities at the building if you like.

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@Eva,

It was a blog entry on that women's rights website, not a news article.

It was how I was introduced to the original story and I followed the embedded links in the blog post to the newspaper articles and posted them before reading them.

Once I read them, I added the second post recommending people read the articles too.

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@Thomas,

See my response to Eva's post and save your lectures for someone else who might be interested in a scolding from you.

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@Sglass,

Sglass wrote:

Organized religion sucks.

Well, I have seen organized religion do some good stuff, too.

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@dlowan,

Me too. A friend's older sister was a nun who worked closely with Cesar Chavez.

And so what.. I've known many religious people who do good works. Possibly arguable, but let's take them as meant good works, most of the time. Sometimes I get flamingly irritated as - as much as I like good works, I hate hate hate the doing of them to gain grace, etc. I think this brings piosity, a state of dramatic piousness.

I'm a tad hostile, but I leave room for actual good will, free of some effort re saintliness.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

This is the morality you sign up for when you join a religious organization based on the Judeo-Christian Bible. This is the morality to which you confine your babies when you instill in them a faith in Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, or any other religion based on this text. Pastor Phelps is right: If his conduct conflicts in any way with the laws decreed in the Holy Book, it's that he's letting the girl off too easily. Believers who have a problem with Phelps should reconsider their faith in the Bible rather than shooting the messenger.

Oh yeah? Really? Well you better tell that to all the Christians I know personally, because they've been teaching me and all the other people they've come in contact with a WHOLE different morality...based on Jesus' teachings in the new testament - I think I remember it's called something about the 'new covenant' or something...and in THAT morality, which is the one I was taught in the church I went to and the one I've taught my children, Jesus said, 'Those among you who are without sin, feel free to cast the first stone'- in other words - nobody should be throwing any stones.
There's the little detail of Jesus - in Christianity at least- bringing in the new 'law' or morality and abolishing the 'old' law.
That's one of the main ideas of the whole thing. Or at least that's what I learned.

These people are organized lunatics. Jesus and Christianity have nothing to do with it, in fact, only in name. These sort of people go to churches like these because they recognize and appreciate places where lunatics just like themselves can gather together to judge the world and each other with the cover a cross on the building provides.

To say that all Christians share this same morality is like saying all German people are neo-nazi's- no offense- but then again, you've pretty much just insulted my whole family and a whole lot of good people who would never act like this and/or have anything to do to do with these sort of people if you paid them.

I can tell you right now - my children have been taught to be less judgmental and stereotypical of people and their differences than you've just shown yourself to be. And that is in what I call a Christian home.

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@aidan,

aidan wrote:

These people are organized lunatics. Jesus and Christianity have nothing to do with it, in fact, only in name.

Read any history?
This article reminds me of why I liked Jesus in the first place, but gives a lot of background.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/05/24/100524crat_atlarge_gopnik

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@Eva,

Eva wrote:

Glad you got it.

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@Butrflynet,

Butrflynet wrote:

See my response to Eva's post

In your response to Eva, you say you copied and pasted the blog post first because that's how you learned about the incident first. But when you're asking us to comment on a specific set of facts, it's irrelevant to our answers how you've come to learn about those facts. What's relevant to us is that we have confidence that what we're commenting on are really the facts of the case. The newspaper articles inform us about the facts of the case you were asking us to comment on, and instill confidence that they're really the facts. That rant in that blog doesn't.

Butrflynet wrote:

and save your lectures for someone else who might be interested in a scolding from you.

I don't scold people because they're interested in a scolding from me. I scold people when I think they care about the quality of their own posts, when they have given me reason to expect quality from them, and when they disappoint me in this expectation on infrequent occasions. There are plenty of people on A2K who posted much crappier stuff than you. I rarely scold them because there's no point in bothering. So if my criticism hurt your feelings, keep in mind that it's really an implicit compliment on your other posts.

1 Reply

@aidan,

aidan wrote:

There's the little detail of Jesus - in Christianity at least- bringing in the new 'law' or morality and abolishing the 'old' law.

Well, that's a matter of massive waffling among Christians, going back to Jesus himself. In the Sermon of the Mount, for example, he says the exact opposite of what you just claimed: "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (New American Standard Bible, Matthew 5: 17--19)

Aidan wrote:

To say that all Christians share this same morality is like saying all German people are neo-nazi's- no offense-

None taken. Actually I am saying that all Germans are neo-Nazis---except the ones who have renounced Hitler's Mein Kampf as their political operations manual. Conversely, I don't have a problem with the moral views of all Christians---only the ones who still regard the Bible as their Holy Book. I apologize if this distinction wasn't clear.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Actually I am saying that all Germans are neo-Nazis---except the ones who have renounced Hitler's Mein Kampf as their political operations manual. ...

All Christians are radical and insane --- except the ones who aren't.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." (New American Standard Bible, Matthew 5: 17--19)

My understanding of what he is saying here is that he, Jesus, literally or figuratively, however one prefers to look at it- as in concept or physical embodiment of love one toward another- is the accomplishment or fulfillment of the prophesies of the Old Testament.

When one accepts the teachings of Jesus- especially the one where he instructs us to 'Love thy neighbor as thyself', integrating that and manifesting it daily, in other words, living one's life as a human embodiment of that love, the antiquitated code of law of the Old Testament and the punishments attached to the breaking of those 'laws' are no longer necessary- kind of like the line in the U2 song - 'Love is a higher law'.

But if one doesn't adopt love as their law, and also negates to even follow the ten commandments, there's the trouble.

If you love your neighbor as yourself, following each of the ten commandments sort of logically follows. If you don't - you might need to be reminded by an outside source.

That's what I think it means.

And I do believe there are other moral codes that preach the same sort of 'Love your neighbor as yourself' tenets. The reason I'm talking about Jesus is because this thread is about Jesus and his connection to these sort of Christians, which I am saying is in nomenclature only.

1 Reply

Teenager Forced to Apologize to Her Church for Being Raped

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