Churchhoney

I think the second paragraph is a continuation of what Hegel (bitch, please) allegedly begins to argue in the first paragraph. Everything in both the first and second paragraphs goes together to make his (whoever's) straw man argument.... He doesn't get to the conservative Christian outrage over the straw man's view until paragraph three. Paragraphs one and two go together to make up the argument of the devil's party. He would do well to make that clear. But he's an idjit. (As is the person he stole this from, pretty much....Although that person is almost undoubtedly much less of an idjit than Jer. Who is a complete idjit.)

Thank Dog. 😁

I hadn't actually heard or seen anybody say this flat out until last year. But then I heard it in real life......So..... You'd think having Moody Spurgeon McPherson in a book would placate them, but I guess that's probably considered a really tricky tool of Satan's to suck them in. 😁 I find it very similar to MacArthur's argument about why it's wrong to point out social injustices or protest to end them. Doing those is simply wrong because it takes your attention off of Jesus and away from the fact that a Christian is required to refer any and all problems of whatever kind to God and nowhere else. .... That's been his argument against therapy, too, of course.

Wasn't for real. (from Reddit, I think). And wasn't a bible quote either. I explained the source above.....

Here's a fundie take on Anne of Green Gables you may enjoy /s. (I'd suggest we pass it on to Jessa for future reference, but I'm sure her church and cult upbringing have armed her against bad influences like this.) I might think this was funny if it weren't so damn horrifying because there are millions of people who believe or at least try to believe this crap -- and if tv hadn't given the Duggars a show for double digits of years to showcase a "ministry" that totally buys damaging crap exactly like this. People who talk like this aren't joking and they're out in force at the conferences and such that Duggars, Seewalds, Vuolos, etc., fervently attend. As we've often said here, one of the most dangerous aspects of the Duggar religion is that there's no distinction made between different levels of immorality. Sneaking a peek at a Playboy pic or sneaking a front hug -- same damn things as watching the DD video or, in fact, murder.....They stress this again and again. I have a hard time thinking of any ideas that could be much more damaging than that, really. And it's fully on display in this preaching about AGG: "There are many dangers in Anne of Green Gables (some of them I will discuss later. Perhaps the one that is most prominent is the one chief theme that the series revolves around. It is not the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not the truth of the Bible. It is imaginations. "...Imagination is the heart of the AGG series. Anne’s entire identity is wrapped up in it. But something that should be especially concerning to believers is how Anne uses her imagination to not only give her feelings of pleasure, but to separate herself from problems or fears. They are her refuge. They are her comfort. They give her an exit from what is happening. She draws near to them in time of need instead of drawing near to the Lord for those things. The result is young girls learn from Anne’s response to trials. But they don’t learn to look to God, they learn to do what Anne does because it seems to work for her in those books! It is portrayed as a good way to handle life’s problems! And while this is only one of the many places girls learn to copy the waywardness of Anne, it is perhaps one of the most dangerous. It leads children down the road of running to things of the flesh that give pleasure for help instead of God. "...On the surface, Anne of Green Gables may look wholesome and appealing. And in comparison with many contemporary book series of today it may certainly seem quite harmless. But Satan employs many methods to attack Christians, and his favorite is to start out very imperceptibly. His tactic is to slowly, gradually lead us astray. He is not blatant with us. He is not direct. That would scare us off, and he wants to entice. He wants to start us out on something that looks good and feels good but ultimately is a trap. He appears as an angel of light, not a terrifying hideous creature of darkness. That is why it is so important to be on your guard when it comes to anything you put in your mind. "...If you accept any bit of that which is wicked you will eventually become completely wicked. If you think a small dose of wickedness won’t effect you, beware. God is not a liar like man. You WILL be affected by it and it WON’T stop there. It will war against you in the weak places first and then piece by piece, little by little, bit by bit you will be broken down and your inhibitions will be so ruined that can no longer stand for anything." https://herhighcalling.com/anne-of-green-gables-harmless-fables/

I was posting this when you were asking this question. So -- things are bad and crazy, but not quite this crazy! : "The post is a parody [from Reddit, I guess]. The quotation is a real quotation but not from the "official" books of the Bible. "It's from one of the Gnostic Gospels, called the Gospel of Judas, one of the many other writings about Jesus created in the first few centuries AD, when many many interpretations of the new religion were floating around, and no power structure had yet come into place to pull together the books acceptable to them and then try to destroy all the others. 😈 "The others got hidden by people in sects that embraced them and they've slowly crept back into the purview of historians and archaeologists. This quote comes from one that was fairly recently discovered and only translated from a Coptic dialect into English about 15 years ago."

The post is a parody. The quotation is a real quotation but not from the "official" books of the Bible. It's from one of the Gnostic Gospels, called the Gospel of Judas, one of the many other writings about Jesus created in the first few centuries AD, when many many interpretations of the new religion were floating around, and no power structure had yet come into place to pull together the books acceptable to them and then try to destroy all the others. 😈 The others got hidden by people in sects that embraced them and they've slowly crept back into the purview of historians and archaeologists. This quote comes from one that was fairly recently discovered and only translated from a Coptic dialect into English about 15 years ago.

Because if they did, they wouldn't get kids ages three to seven to declare themselves hopeless hellbound sinners? And then spend the rest of their youth talking about how anxious they are that they didn't really get saved and they aren't really right with the correct Jesus, despite getting saved after their confession of hellboundness? And then talk darkly for years about how as teens and young adults they persisted in hideous sin, obviously referring to without naming -- horrors! -- masturbation and any other sexual feelings, such as wanting a front hug? Those seem to me to be the only religion-related life events they actually value. And, really, a religious tradition that focuses completely on that only exists to give power to the human patriarchs who operate the tradition. And then you succeed in raising 19 kids in 21st-century America without a single one of them trying to attend college or seek employment offered by someone besides their father or join the army or declare that, yeah, the books I checked out at the library have a lot of strong evidence showing that evolution is most likely true. Because they don't even dare go to the damn library. It might be satanic there! Just like school buses! So to be on the safe side, I'll stay away. Scaring little kids with god doesn't necessarily keep them from doing terrible things as time goes on, but it does seem to keep them eternally performing the tricks that their godly parents most value. Which in this case seem to be sticking around the home front to give your parents bragging rights about the vast numbers of the saved they're contributing to the heavenly army....and refraining from any activity that might advance you beyond your parents in terms of worldly success. JB and M: "We created more foot soldiers for Jesus than anybody! But we'll always be the big cheese in this crowd -- if they want money, they have to beg it from us!" The Duggs, in my opinion, have proven so harmful to the whole bunch of children they've spawned themselves, and they and their ilk are proving to be such an increasingly divisive and destructive force in our culture, that I can't help but see their whole scheme in this way. It's depressing that two total dumbasses can team up and become such a destructive force just because of their egos and their fearfulness, but there we are. Hopefully some Duggarlings are starting to drift away from robotically following the TTH ways when it comes to their own children . But TLC undoubtedly played a role in extending JB and M's noxious power further in time than it would otherwise have gone, so the next-generation breakaways are delayed in this family.

Maybe Ivy and Fern sleep on Jessa's new plant shelf.

Not a convincing spoof but I still kinda like it.

Wonder how long she can keep this up?

I guess she might as well enjoy it while it lasts. Given how things are going, her kids are likely to end up as pathetically outclassed in adolescent and adult life as Jessa and her sibs are (although Jessa and her sibs don't know that, of course)...... As their tv fame and JB's money-earning momentum and their bubble of Gohardite fans dwindle further and further over the next several decades, I doubt it'll be as easy for her kids' generation to remain as ignorant of how ignorant they are as it seems to be for her generation to remain so.

Wow. Glad that what I search for online and on youtube has never led me to anything like that. That's disgusting. Not surprised it's out there, though, I guess. Pretty sure it's just one ugly facet of human nature. How some people are and how some people always have been. And now technology gives them more access to more eyeballs to build likeminded groups. In the past, they probably had to just pass on the talk, lies and vitriol in neighborhood gossip circles. People of this ilk must be having a lot more fun today, unfortunately.

It'd probably be Jer's letter too, if the seminary were grading him on the quality of his work.

Yeah, could be. I haven't seen enough of her to have an opinion on that! i.e., I've watched a few minutes of a few of her pieces because the title made me curious....but I never managed more than about five minutes.....Since I read so much faster than I listen, I don't have much patience with talking stories unless I get what the title promises quickly (which you never do) or I'm fascinated.....Her first five minutes never fascinated me.... Although she did mention talking to sources somehow connected to her subjects at least one time that I listened -- And, honestly, given that a huge amount of today's gossip "journalism" -- both online and in print -- seems to source to internet forums or other media or puff pieces sent over the transom by the "reported-on" "stars" themselves and their PR agents, her mention even of talking to Amy struck me as potentially more "journalistic" than that media. Although not actually journalistic, of course. I get the impression that, while some youtube channels gather watchers because people find them interesting and/or credible, those may be in the minority. Just as in the rest of our culture, a lot probably get their watchers based on whether people resonate with the host's personality......And although I find Crystal B's personality kinda grating, I can see a lot of people liking it. She's got some sort of perky, pushy thing going on....

I think a lot of people who don't feel they're in a position to get an outside-the-home job have recently found they can use youtube to supplement the family income, and I would guess she's one of them. Retired people, writers and other artists who can't make enough money off their art so need a flexible-schedule job they can do from home to supplement their earnings, mothers of younger kids who want or need to stay at home but also need to help with the family finances-- I think Crystal Ball Whatshername may have a young school-age child with some special needs, maybe? There are a lot of people in all those categories on youTube -- Some do quite a good job, too -- although I expect only a few can actually make significant money from it.

Yeah, I know. And, no surprise, though the list has expanded since the notice first appeared -- - in September or even August -- old Ray was one of the first listed, along with Jer. It's not like Ray's getting lots of invites these days, I suppose, so he responded quickly. 😁

Well, he did promote it a bit when he first got on the bill a month or two ago.....Maybe this is just another example of how extremely bad he is at promoting stuff......His publisher, his (former?) CAA agent and others could attest to that, I think.

Yes. I agree. I did mention that this whole thing doesn't apply to some denominational Protestant churches, but I guess it got lost in what I was trying to say. But it applies more to more to Catholic churches, generally.

Yeah, it's virtual sermons only. it's not clear to me that anybody even goes near that church these days. I've never seen them list any events on their website or on social media -- even virtual ones.....except for the Sunday sermons. Maybe they announce everything by mail, I suppose, and I don't look all that often. But I've seen virtually no activity of any kind when I have looked.

Absolutely. But that's Catholic churches. The point I was trying to make is that Protestant churches have a very different history from Catholic churches, mosques, temples....very much so when it comes to cameras -- and that's for a reason -- and also when it comes to the nature of a religious service. And these mega-churches have a very different history in those regards from many of the denominational Protestant churches, too. .... For one big relevant difference, it's the art that people wanted to photograph in Catholic churches and some other houses of worship (from the very beginning of photgoraphy. Btu Protestants consider the art itself to be the big spiritual distraction in a chuch. So most Protestant churches were designed not to have that big distraction of art in their sanctuaries. And thus until the past few decades, they didn't have the distraction of cameras either. There was nothing there to photograph. So they developed no tradition involving no-photography rules. Catholic churches, however, had art all over the place and so a strong tradition of banning photography did develop. What traditions and rules people remember from their pasts and what they perceive the milieu of a church to be differs widely among different kinds of churches. Especially when it comes to cultural norms like this, it's just not the case that a church is a church is a church.

Protestant churches were always intended to be relatively austere, so, in general, they never had the problem of tourists taking photographs, which was at the heart of the "no photos" rules in many other churches. The churches would say "it's disrespectful when there's a service in progress" or "It's disrespectful," period, in some cases. But nobody was interested in taking beautiful photos in most of the non-decorated Protestant churches -- nothing to photograph. So the tradition of having to ban cameras in services just never started. Nobody brought a camera into the church in the first place. Until we all had cameras in our phones and carried our phones everywhere, photography just had never become an issue for most Protestant churches. Nobody was taking photos in them, whether or not there was a service going on. And now that everybody does have a camera with them all the time, how would you stop their use in a sanctuary that holds thousands of people who are used to holding up their phones 18 hours a day? .....when there's been no need to even discuss such a rule in the past because cameras were brought into churches to photograph the beautiful art on the walls or something..... So nobody's ever heard such a rule in most Protestant churches..... Plus, with smartphones, a camera flash is nearly undetectible, so that removes one of the old issues with church photography -- that a camera flash would distract clergy and worshipers. In short, a ban wouldn't accomplish much except to remove a distraction for the phone/camera owners. But if you're trying to get rid of distractions, you'd probably need to confiscate the phones, because photography is only one of their many distraction possibilities. Now you COULD teach your seminarians about the importance of serving as a good example to their congregations just in general by laying off the video-ing and photographing and other cellphone use during services. But it seems pretty clear that The Master's Seminary doesn't do that. Or at least that some of their pet students pay no attention to such instruction, if it's offered.

On the upside, I guess we heathens learn something valuable from this. Those two are a graduate (Isaias, class of '20) and an almost graduate of the seminary that John MacArthur (and a fairly large number of other people) consider the most intellectually and theologically rigorous of all seminaries in the country. So since grads and near-grads of that seminary mug with cameras during church services, it must mean that Jill Rodrigues' typical church behavior is on the money, so to speak, and not at all inappropriate, as we've erroneously dubbed it on many occasions. Okay, you really were there with a microphone, weren't you?

Yeah, I agree. It didn't seem very judicial to ignore her clear subtext (and even text). And how smart is it to have somebody being supposedly detained for judicial purposes in a home where the person who'll be the all-day warden really doesn't want the job? Of course, ignoring a lot of what women imply or even state outright is pretty common. (Just to clarify -- What I was commenting on was whether or not we should feel sympathy for Mrs. Reber's position as a wife-with-a-boss-instead-of-a-partner since she presumably entered a patriarchal marriage knowing that it was one. I think it's highly likely she lived in a patriarchy from birth. And it's far easier said than done to be raised in that kind of world and then suddenly say as an adult, "I'm not going to hook up with a man who always has the final word." So I'm on the side of feeling some sympathy for her.)

Excellent point! What was I thinking? 😁