Churchhoney

Huckabuck gets pissy with woman who's irked with him for defending the Duggs' indefensible response to Josh's molestation issues. She doesn't know the wonderful Duggars -- who have one "evil" child, but mostly a thousand wonderful ones, he says -- while he does! Huck says. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/clinton-iowa-huckabee-duggars

If this rumor turned out to be true -- although at this point I'm both hoping and (kind of) believing that it's probably not -- I wonder whether it wouldn't kind of turn off even some of the leghumper show fans. I mean, really, no matter how much someone is snowed by the Duggars' "godliness" how many people really want Anna to be pregnant right now by her repeatedly-disaster-causing, not-even-employed-or-perhaps-very-employable, now-long-time-absentee husband. .... And while she's living in essentially a dorm situation with her four other kids, who are still tiny. I have a hard time seeing a whole lot of people saying, Oh, that sounds like the wonderful family-friendly show that I love! I'm really looking forward to watching that! I suppose I'm deluding myself.

Well, it's hard to disagree with him!

Another thing it would show -- for the umpteenth time, of course -- is that despite all their talk about "precious blessings," not one of them gives a flying crap about children at all. Hoping this is a misreport, though. For the sake of that possible baby.

Exactly. I did pretty much the same thing. But I also know a lot of people who don't believe the stuff any more than you and I do, and yet they consciously keep going, often because they want to impart to their children the sense of a culture somewhat unified around important things, but sometimes just because they themselves enjoy the culture and consider that enough reason to stay, especially since most people don't seem to find any alternative cultures to be part of today -- and humans like being part of a culture.

She's been to Journey to the Heart a ton. Both as a participant and a group leader. A ton. To what degree that implies similar "burn the heretic!" issues to those presumed to have oft sent Josiah to ALERT, nobody seems to have any idea. Perhaps, instead, she's always been a super-true-believer. I kind of doubt that that would be the whole story, though, given Michelle's apparent kind of miasma of annoyance regarding Jana.... But who knows?

lol At least Jill doesn't list herself as "author" or "writer" on her websites. Now, Miss Jessa, on the other hand .... There it is on her Facebook page -- Jessa Seewald Author https://www.facebook.com/JessaSeewald/ And, if anything, I'd judge Jessa to perhaps be even less likely than Jill to write a book. Less interested in and maybe even less capable of it. Jill, after all, did do the studying to become a pseudo midwife (which, for a Duggar, was actually a lot of studying, I'd say) and she imagines that she's been studying Spanish for years! Hell, Jill even married a college graduate. Jessa? Not so much.

Somebody should tell this story to Bin. It might entirely overcome his objections to Catholicism.

Well, according to those who think theologically it does. But most of humanity doesn't think theologically, I don't believe. We think culturally -- in terms of all the flavors and traditions and practices and feelings we pick up when we're in a group that has some common core, be it a place where we live, a socioeconomic milieu, or a religion. You can easily stop believing in Catholic theology, for example, while still retaining all the marks -- and even the love -- of whatever Catholic culture it was that you were (or are) part of. Honestly, I think that most modern people are far more "culturally Catholic" -- or Presbyterian, or Jewish or Muslim or Lutheran -- than they are "theologically" those things That certainly goes for the people who acknowledge they've dropped the tenets of their former faith. But I'd include in it even a lot -- maybe even most -- of the people who have not dropped the "believing in the theology" part. If you go through any church or other religion group and quiz each person on their actual specific metaphysical and ethical beliefs, I'm betting you'd find many many many who presume themselves believers who actually don't believe just what the faith's actually theologians believe. For many people, religions function as cultures as much as or maybe even more than nationalities do, I think. (Protestantism is a little different from Catholicism in this, though. Because Protestantism was based on each person encountering God as an individual, rather than as part of the church, Protestant culture (in some places and times at least) has dealt with not believing certain things your church believed by just starting another church. That's kind of the Independent Baptist thing, really. And, of course, there's the old joke that the mere phrase "United Methodist Church" shows that the Methodists aren't united. .... And, best, there's Lake Wobegon, where Keillor notes that there were so many theological disagreements in town that all the churches are just seven people in Uncle Lars's living room (soon to be five as Aunt Katrina and Uncle Knut start their own group because of a dispute over First Ephesians.))

I say again, though -- Jill did not write this book. None of the girls wrote this book. I'd be surprised if they even read the book, frankly. All they did was tell some of their personal stories to a couple of ghostwriters -- one of them a Gothard righthand man -- and they wrote a book, making the points that their parents and their parents' cult wanted to see made -- i.e., the Gothard points -- including by editing and utterly reshaping even the stupid anecdotes that the girls related. This is a straight-up (stupid, outdated, exaggerated) Gothard talking point, accompanied by the exact same kind of "stat" that he's always used. Jill didn't come up with it, any more than she came up with the ridiculous "stat" about abuse that she used in the tv interview. I agree that it's crap. But it just seems ridiculous to me to keep hammering on the fiction that somehow this ignorant, brainwashed, utterly incompetent 20-something child was somehow the source and author of a stat or a talking point. It also doesn't make sense to keep pinning the book on Jill, just because some edition of it lists her as the first or the main or the only author. On the copyright page, they're clearly listed in descending order of age -- Jana, Jill, Jessa, Jinger. So does that mean Jana was the main author? No. They were going to list them in some order, so that obvious one was the one they chose. Quite clearly, all the girls were asked to tell some of "their" stories -- i.e., tales loosely based in their lives that Jim Bob and Michelle had already deemed acceptable in the forms into which Jim Bob and Michelle had already edited those stories, over years of mental bludgeoning -- and then the ghostwriters, who were clearly paid to write a Gothard tract, took it from there. It's a stupid, lying book. But Jill didn't write it. People paid or otherwise motivated by the Gothard empire to do so, did. Jill probably believes a lot of what's in the book. They all probably do. But honestly, as "authors" (not) of that book, all four of them were just puppets with Jim Bob's, Michelle's and Bill Gothard's hands in their mouths.

Or they're reading the Internets again. I suspect that. That and the thought that they're going to have to advertise these harder or they'll get even more crap from having 40-year-old virgins hanging around the house. As usual, everything they do is for media consumption, not personal consumption. .... "We're not a tv family" indeed.

Ah, one more thing about Jana that probably drove Michelle nuts -- She was an early walker. Harder to stick in one place and control. She went from kicking Michelle while in the womb to running around the house. Big pain in the neck, that one.

Wonder whether they've gotten so many page views from Duggar stories over time that they're just super-eager for them to continue with a show, to continue the ad-viewing run, so they're trying to subtly (lol) push them. I'm sure it's very convenient for them and their advertisers to have some of these long-running people, whose particular readers are well understood for ad targeting and so on. I can imagine them to be distressed every time one of their staples looks to be fading from fame. I doubt that you're going to be able to goose Jessa into much long-term prominence, though, People.

I like their spelling, too. "A little COURSER than she prefers"? No wonder People likes the Duggars, they're equally dumb and careless.

(Answering my own question). .... I suppose it may just show that, like the Duggars, he believes that nothing is motivating except fear? I do believe that he honestly feels called upon to bring us all to his truth, so maybe he's never really been exposed to or thought about conversion that comes through any other medium than fear of hell?.........He really isn't too bright, so I suppose other ways are beyond his ken, kind of. So he's just fulfilling his "ministry" by the only means he believes works (or maybe the only means he's even familiar with.) I can't imagine that it's good for his state of mind to be endlessly rooting out these passages about himself and everybody else being crap. But I suppose it's this kind of stuff that got David Waller and Jinger to see themselves as miserable sinners flinging themselves onto Jesus at the ages of, what, three and six or something? Geez.

Well, I'm sure Michelle makes that face a lot. It's probably like the way couples come to resemble each other. The kids have seen that eyes-alarmingly-wide look so often that some of them just unconsciously copy it themselves. (Poor kids.)

"My best services are filthy rags." Apparently God did make junk. "Give me perpetual broken-heartedness." Just wait, Bin. Just wait. You know, I get this, I get what it means, what the significance is. I do. But, seriously, WTF is wrong with a young person who never cites anything about his religion except this aspect? Does no other biblical quotation or concept appeal to him, on any day of the week? I really really don't get that. At all. Is he depressed? Overwhelmed with self hatred? So struck with the evils of all the rest of humanity that he feels called upon to post this as a warning and exhortation over and over and over again? .... Is his needle just stuck? Seriously....

So .... TLC execs -- lying liars who lie? Lumberyard, eh? What's that about? They're going to go visit the Bateses again? Their new series is This Old Tinkertoy House?

Will they actually take those two out to lunch at the same time? What if some work needs done in Duggarland?

It is strange, isn't it? I kind of wonder whether, in marketing speak, he might have had a unique selling proposition for a very specific target market. He has repeatedly and in great detail promised insecure, fearful, non-empathetic, arrogant men that he could put each of them in total charge of an extremely well-drilled army. Furthermore, each army would not only carry on its progenitor's name and obey his every whim and sing him praises for his umbrella of protection that sets them above all other children but also bring him glory in paradise as they participate in that final big battle for Christ to win the earth. .... I mean, who needs charisma -- especially from another guy -- when you're going to get your complete heart's desire? And he's got the volumes upon volumes of manuals and books and video presentations and conference programs and special curricula that will provide you with every detailed instruction you need to get this done. Of course, what he's really got is an expensive con game, grift and ponzi scheme that'll cost you thousands and thousands of dollars and leave you with dozens of unemployable children and unammariable [EMLTA: unmarriageable (unammariable?? What??)] would-be SAHMs who are all dependent on you for life ( likely including many who'll hate your guts after a while, in many of the armies). But as long as he kept that marketing flowing into these guys' heads, a lot of them haven't noticed that result creeping up on them. And while the marks are feeding the ponzi scheme, BG is raking in the cash, the barefoot young curly-haired girls to feed his fetish, and the drunkenness of power. Truly an entrepreneur to envy. It'd be funny if it weren't so damned horrifying.

J'Levi and Jeanjacket. The twins.

Sometimes I'm surprised they didn't name one of the kids J'Levi.

Actually, Judaism isn't big on it. See here for a good explanation of that -- https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/afterlife.html

I actually wasn't brought up with these beliefs! I was brought up in a household that was run very much like the Duggar household but that didn't have religion as the source of those principles. It had adults' personality disorders (and villainy) as the source of the principles and behavior. Religion was one of many mind-bludgeoning sticks around, but only one of many -- and it was conservative, but not fundie, religion. That's why what I believe about the Duggar parents is that their style of family raising doesn't have its roots in religious belief but in their twisted personalities. I think religion is just a handy cover. Because I know for a fact that you can create a household that looks extremely similar to the Duggars' without having religion be a driving force at all -- and without being fundies.

We're herd animals. Not that different from sheep. I mean, you look at history, old and newer, and you see this kind of stuff over and over and over again. It's really much much more the nature of many of us to let bad things go on when we're part of a group than to do the opposite. I''m sure there are situations in which I'd do it. That's a scary thought, but I can't imagine that I'm all that different from the way so many others are and have been. We really are herd animals. I was watching something last night -- Booze Traveler -- and a bunch of reindeer were standing around, looking very nonchalant, one took off, and the others followed with an acceleration you wouldn't believe. We're hard-wired to be a herd just like they are -- and with not all that many resources in our "override" packages, really, I'm guessing. And then the Gothard group had their override packages all turned down as low as BG could convince them to turn them, in the name of being obedient servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, of course, the adults in that group see themselves as getting a lot of benefits from buying into the Got-Herd program -- they are rulers in their homes the way a lot of other parents might only dream of -- and they got no benefits from those Jezebel girls, who were the kind of ungrateful children who spat back the favors they received because they were Big Bill's favorites. Etc. ...