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News & ArtsMonday, November 19, 2012
Religion O They Will Know We Are Christians...
Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 9:24 AM
...by the bizarre sects we found, the followers we dominate and manipulate, the wives we drug and encourage our followers to rape, and the way we attempt to get away with murder by convincing our followers to kill our wives and stage murder scenes to look like suicides.
Three days later, investigators say, 23-year-old Micah Moore would go to police and uncork the terrible secrets that allegedly occurred over several months at a Grandview home where Tyler Deaton and other members of his religious group lived. Witnesses told of a clan of young adults making sex part of their religious experience, of men in the group sexually assaulting Bethany over months, and of Deaton’s role as their “spiritual leader.”
But Moore’s darkest admission, according to court records, was that Deaton feared Bethany was about to reveal the group’s secrets. Moore confessed that he had murdered Bethany and tried to make it look like suicide, and, according to court documents, he said Deaton told him to do it. Moore alone has been charged, with first-degree murder. Deaton and others in the group are under investigation, prosecutors said.
2
It's unfair to blame Christianity for this. It was the veneer, the excuse, not the cause. You don't say marriage is bad because some people are in abusive marriages.
3
It is not Christianity to blame but more religiosity; the willingness to follow along in blind faith. Jim Jones, Charles Manson, the Branch Davidians in Waco. It is an old story and oft repeated. Faith is a trap that people fall into far too easily. Whether it is the mainstream faith that allows one to despise and disregard the “other” (currently read gay), or whether it is this kind of crazy, it is all bad. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, it is all the same in this respect.
4
Controlling religions (please excuse the redundancy) coupled with an educational system that does not above all else teach people to question, is a recipe for tragedy.
6
Christians: You were surprised by the outcome of the presidential elections too. Do you think there is more at play here than your simple model - albeit one with an all-powerful, all-knowing deity?
Maybe, you should study human nature, rather than making up supernatural reasons for commonplace, predictable, natural human circumstance. And yes, murder, in this case is predictable, and natural, given the person, situation and circumstance. Your monster. Deal with it.
Maybe, you should study human nature, rather than making up supernatural reasons for commonplace, predictable, natural human circumstance. And yes, murder, in this case is predictable, and natural, given the person, situation and circumstance. Your monster. Deal with it.
7
The problem (and there are many) with religion is that people wave a faith card, which is like a get-out-of-being-an-asshole-free card. Rarely are people further interrogated after you play it. This has to change. This is how the Catholic church has been able to systematically abuse children, how parents can medically neglect their children, how hate groups can use tax free money, how you can discriminate and bully, how you can ignore science and with that ignorance, make policy. I could go on.
Religion needs to end. All of it. I am sorry if that hurts your feelings because your particular spinter group, from a splinter group is "not like that". You have been brainwashed to believe you have to have "faith" (that word again). No you don't. Reason, science and critical thinking are the way of the future. Look what science has achieved. Religion is holding us back as it has always done.
Religion needs to end. All of it. I am sorry if that hurts your feelings because your particular spinter group, from a splinter group is "not like that". You have been brainwashed to believe you have to have "faith" (that word again). No you don't. Reason, science and critical thinking are the way of the future. Look what science has achieved. Religion is holding us back as it has always done.
8
the linked article at joe my god focuses far to much on the groups relationship to IHOP which was minimal, not that I am defending IHOP, but truth is important. The other link in the post to the KC Star has a much better history of the the group and its founder Tyler Deaton, who surprise surprise surprise struggled with and conquered homosexuality.
This Tyler Deaton character sounds like he could have been the next David Koresh. Unfortunate for the woman who was murdered and her family, but this was nipped in the bud before it became much worse.
This Tyler Deaton character sounds like he could have been the next David Koresh. Unfortunate for the woman who was murdered and her family, but this was nipped in the bud before it became much worse.
9
Let us stop with the religion bashing.
The problem with religion is people. And the same problems that arise when religious people succumb to a sense of superiority and fear is the same that happens to secular people. People love to say that Stalinism and Leninism weren't real examples of societies committed to rational thought. But they were. The problem is that people motivated by selfishness and fear sought to use the overwhelming logic they thought they had based on their analysis in a way that didn't not feature compassion and empathy.
Same is true of the religious portrayed in this article. Warped by lust and need, and fear they abused faith.
The problem with religion is people. And the same problems that arise when religious people succumb to a sense of superiority and fear is the same that happens to secular people. People love to say that Stalinism and Leninism weren't real examples of societies committed to rational thought. But they were. The problem is that people motivated by selfishness and fear sought to use the overwhelming logic they thought they had based on their analysis in a way that didn't not feature compassion and empathy.
Same is true of the religious portrayed in this article. Warped by lust and need, and fear they abused faith.
10
And those of you who are quick to condemn the religious, you don't have a problem with Gandhi or King or Hammarskjold or Schweitzer or Tutu, or Mother Teresa or any of the numerous religious people who have enhanced and protected the quality of life of you, your ancestors and your children. People who were almost literally consumed with the passion of that despicable "faith" you so despise.
13
@9
"People who were almost literally consumed with the passion of that despicable 'faith' you so despise."
Don't be too sure about who has problems with whom. Okay?
Besides that, people who were equally "consumed with the passion" of whatever religion they had also OPPOSED the people you've mentioned.
So religion does not make a bad person good.
And religion does not make a good person bad.
But religion does give a bad person another option for justifying their abuse.
"People who were almost literally consumed with the passion of that despicable 'faith' you so despise."
Don't be too sure about who has problems with whom. Okay?
Besides that, people who were equally "consumed with the passion" of whatever religion they had also OPPOSED the people you've mentioned.
So religion does not make a bad person good.
And religion does not make a good person bad.
But religion does give a bad person another option for justifying their abuse.
14
The article mentioned another interesting angle, which I'm surprised Dan didn't mention--the group's leader was a self-loathing closet case.
16
Relevant quote:
(Insert cuckoo clock sound effect here.)
At least once, some students said, Deaton with others attempted to raise a paraplegic student out of a wheelchair. Another time they tried to make a blind woman see.
“He believed God could fix things,” a student said.
That included, Deaton told people, fixing himself.
One of his group’s stark positions on Scripture was that homosexuality was wrong. Deaton’s stance against it weighed heavily because members said he had “struggled with being gay.”
“He struggled with it, but he overcame it,” a member of his group at Southwestern said. “It was a victory.”
(Insert cuckoo clock sound effect here.)
17
@10 Think of what those people could have accomplished if their mind wasn't clouded with superstition.
19
@13-I'm sure you can understand who and what I'm writing about by reading the previous articles. I agree with any analysis that decry's the evils religious people have done. I refuse, however, to accept silently this idea that the good religion or religious people have done is so meager as to be irrelevant. Because it isn't.
20
@18- Let's be fair, all religion has done in the entire history of earth that is positive is equivalent to Mussolini's train schedule? Or Hitler's short term unemployment record?
I know you're being a bit facetious, but really think about what you're saying.
I know you're being a bit facetious, but really think about what you're saying.
21
@19
"I refuse, however, to accept silently this idea that the good religion or religious people have done is so meager as to be irrelevant. Because it isn't."
The problem is that the "good" is more than offset by the "bad".
"I refuse, however, to accept silently this idea that the good religion or religious people have done is so meager as to be irrelevant. Because it isn't."
The problem is that the "good" is more than offset by the "bad".
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