Churchhoney

Nobody gives a crap. He isn't a Reality TeeVee Stah. He's a person leading a cult. Thus, his issues are important, which makes them Not Entertaining. Nobody's interested if it's Not Entertainment, because they might be required to think about it seriously, take some action, feel something other than titillation. Etc. I'd put heavy money on nobody bringing up the Josh molestation again, either. That's water under the bridge -- and, like the Gothard stuff, it's actually of some serious importance. So the "porn star!!!!" story will be considered not only the main but the only event. Because That's Entertainment!

I'd like Ben and Jessa to take a long walk for exercise, fall off a low cliff, hit their heads and lose consciousness of who they are. Spurgeon would fall, too, but his big hat with the massive pompom would protect his head. Then they'd all be rescued by some Buddhist monks and taken to a monastery where Spurgeon would participate in gentle-smiling fests with the monks all day while Jessa and Ben, in their amnesia, would be coached through mindfulness exercises. At the same time as their health and memories gradually returned, they'd engage in daily practice of being calm, living in the present, embracing the world in love and turning suffering into peace and joy. When they finally got fully healthy -- healthier since there's no fast food at the monastery -- they'd realize that their previous beliefs had been really screwed up and probably not at all what Jesus intended. Then we'd see what would happen as they returned home and gently tried to inform the rest of the Duggar clan about this. In the end, they'd probably conclude that they would need to just move to Little Rock with whichever of the others were intrigued by this new notion. Jim Bob's and Michelle's heads would explode.

Jinger, don't be thinking about going to no damn city! Sincerely, God

The thing is, they all blame the devil. If I do something bad, the devil made me do it. If I do something good, it wasn't really me at all, it was Jesus. And whoever decides to think something different will be having a thought that's absolutely new to this whole enmeshed pack of idiots -- and something that goes against everything they've heard from literally everybody they've known for their whole lives. That's going to take somebody with brains and guts. And I don't think Josh has ever shown much of a glimmer of either of those. (Despite his apparently seeming smart to some people, he's always sounded stupid to me; arrogant and trying to be slick, but dim ... And as for guts? -- Well, he cried in the driveway when he moved some hundreds of miles from mommy and daddy.... Not sure that qualifies for a courage award, since I don't really believe the crying was because of his warm heart and love of family .... I think it was because he's an insecure wienie who needs to hide behind skirts.) And it's also probably going to take somebody who's both been exposed to new information and ideas and had some time entirely on his or her own away from this lockstep-thinking cult and forced to think for him- or herself or else. And they've arranged it so that nobody gets either of those things either. I think you've got a dumb, lazy guy who, even now, has lived entirely within a single-minded cult that constantly preaches that the Devil's to blame for bad stuff and all the credit for good stuff goes to Jesus, not to people. And since it'd be so much easier if the devil were to blame, where will Mr. Dumb and Lazy find the motivation to say -- "Oh, we do stuff! Not the Devil or Jesus! I need to figure out what I think is right to do and then learn how to alter my behavior so I'll do that!"? Can a big uneducated dummy even come up with a thought like that? Would that thought have any appeal at all to a lazy slug? I think there's almost no hope that the Josh Duggar I've seen will ever change in that direction. At least not absent some absolutely world-shaking event that somehow forced him to or if he hit absolute rock bottom. But there's a long long way between where he is now and rock bottom.

Well, I haven't scrolled around the comments much but based on some cursory glances they seem to still have a fair number of fervent defenders. It's kinda baffling. But I suppose some people would like to be as sure of righteousness and as commanding as they are, so they just assume that it's justified. If they say they're holy and better than everybody, then they must be holy and better than everybody, and, boy, I'd like to be those things, too. So they're my heroes. Nuts.

Because, like all the rest of them, he was forcibly created to be a person with no soul, mind or will of his own. He was supposed to swallow the "thinking" of his crap parents and follow their lead without deviation because that's the only way they can imagine someone being able to live a "godly" life. Too bad what it really does is create dead souls or monsters or, at the very least, completely confused and frustrated chidults. Michelle and JIm Bob oughta be kicked from the TTH to Big Sandy and back again for their stupid child-raising theories.

Indeed. Really, this is my main reason for wanting them off the air. The whitewashing of the sickening misogyny and woman-as-a-second-class-person culture that's been inflicted on those kids -- whitewashing that's sending the message to all the teen and 20-something leghumpers that that's not just acceptable but good and part of an ideal life. It's criminal for TLC to subliminally send that crap message. And I blame them, not the Duggar girls, since the Duggar girls don't know any better. The damned tv network should.

I kind of think that's probably her word for "bible time," "meditation time," "prayer time." A time set aside to be still and know that God is God, you know. ... I doubt that it means "escape from my onerous duties," really. Don't know why I'm so into defending Jill today.

Well, in Jill's defense here, she did grow up with Jim Bob as the male "role model" in the house. And I doubt he ever spent 15 seconds helping anybody else get breakfast. And we know that, just when the time would come for them to load up the vehicle and go somewhere, he'd repeatedly be in the kitchen demanding that people -- read: female people -- cook him eggs and bacon. And yet her mother talks about him as if he's the greatest husband on the planet. So she's had a very very low bar set for her expectations when it comes to husband behavior, except that she doesn't know it's a low bar. Given her family's history, I'd expect her to be genuinely grateful and pleased when Derick does the stuff he does. She's been well trained not to expect anything in this line, so in her eyes I'm sure he's genuinely doing well and she wants to praise him for it. Equality in the home isn't something the Duggar girls are familiar with. Notice that it isn't Derick praising himself for doing this stuff. He comes out of a different background.

How Christian of her. Jesus died for your damnable sins, Jessa, as you remind us all on a daily basis. And you can't forgive your young sister-in-law for an overexcited tweet about becoming a first-time aunt to your baby? Follow the example you're always preaching about. (I sure hope there's some other reason why we haven't seen the Seewalds with li'l Spurge.)

Well, I don't know your nun personally, but, thinking of nuns in general, it's possible that she may at least have had an education, an IQ over 90 and some common sense and concern for others. Meanwhile, besides his complete lack of specific qualifications for giving parenting advice, Jim Bob has no general qualifications betokening any modicum of sense, either. I'm afraid I'd have to give the superior-advice tiebreak to the nun.

Why the hell are people publishing advice from these people??!!! Anna. JB. Jessa and Ben. Oh, yeah. They know stuff that we all ought to listen to. It's publishing malpractice, even if it is on the freaking internet.

Boy, that video snip is archetypal for me. So awkward, so pitiable, so childlike, so serious to no purpose, so funny. Utterly defines the guy, I would bet. It kind of amazes me that he or Jill didn't notice that and decline to post it for the world to see. But then I remember that they're none of them very perceptive.

"Gluten-free Jesus" is my favorite thing today.

Why do you hate mime?

Unfortunately for the Duggar young women (although, I think, fortunately for the whole enterprise, although in a painful way), I expect that the clear necessity of this will strike would-be suitors who have this characteristic. And send 'em running for the exits. Nobody wants to envision providing an income for the whole, ever-expanding Duggar clan.

So I guess we can't add any more unemployed sons-in-law to the "staff" then.

Well, this quote further clarifies why Bin loves this guy. No festivities, no fun, no traditions, no parties, no myths, no decorated trees, no incense pots. That all takes away from the gloomy-Gus stuff that God actually requires. ....That's Bin, all right. Except when he's wearing his Razorbacks gear or ogling another fudge-on-the-glass ice-cream birthday sundae, that is. Such an idiot.

Yeah, that's a good point. I guess what puzzles me is that, with all the really pleasant things they've had in their lives recently, why don't they just feel so good some of the time and be so busy with good feelings that it doesn't occur to them to post downer Bible quotes every day. I'd expect any newlyweds with many material blessings and an adorable new child to some days just feel so happy and be so engaged in living their new lives that the necessity to convince everybody we're sinners just wouldn't occur to them.... But, of course, feelings come from within, not from the stuff that happens to us, so I'm guessing they must just be kind of depressive-type people -- along with determined sermonizers, of course. (...and, as JenCarroll just noted, fearful. Being fearful and thus a control freak is kind of the essence of everybody in Duggardom, I do believe.)

I guess Ben's interpretation would be that it was actually God on the cover of People, since God's the one who accomplishes everything? (and the Duggar-Seewalds are among those few select people smart enough to know it) (....Maybe it was actually the Trinity. Father, Son, and the Holy Selfie) (I wonder why God actually bothered to create people if he still intended to be fully responsible for every good thing all by himself anyway. Seems like he must have created people just so he could watch them feel inferior and useless, on Ben's interpretation....)

Well, given how these teasers get made, it might have absolutely nothing to do with Josh and the sex workers. She might be referring to the sister molestation, or Jessa's post-birth bleeding, or an earthquake in Chile, or Michelle's arriving too late at Aldi's to snag 28 boxes of frozen lasagna. Who the heck knows what the clip will actually be about when the show finally airs? (if it's even in the show that finally airs)

This is my favorite part: "Even people who feel like they are less gifted often take great pride in how hard they work. Let this be clear, humanity may boast in itself, but there are no valid grounds for it." Bin, translated: The Bible tells me that God does everything and I do nothing, so it's illegit to take any satisfaction from feeling I worked hard to accomplish something. Ergo, I won't bother to work at all. Free house, no work, lots of restaurant gift cards, newlyweds, all-expense-paid European honeymoon, cute new baby, Cindersister sleeping over in baby's first week so they could sleep all night -- and yet they're the biggest downers I think I've ever seen. I don't get it at all.

physically or mentally

Yep, they've messed them up in every conceivable way. And that'll only become more and more apparent as their fame and its attendant comforts slowly (too damned slowly) recede. And then some of the kids will hear a wake-up call and realize that they need to try to make new and different lives for themselves. And others'll fall into chaos and blame and other kinds of interpersonal messes. There's lots that's going to unravel in years to come. But for any ones that have guts and half a brain, I think the unraveling is the only thing that'll save them, and the sooner it happens the better. Yeah, they lack the backgrounds that help some people make a go of things, but plenty of people without the right backgrounds, including people who don't speak the language or represent cultures that scare many Americans half to death, still manage to claw their way to a decent life. It's not impossible, although it takes a lot of work and determination. And hopefully some will realize that, in their case, it was their selfish nutburger parents who made it so hard for them, and they'll vow never to do this crap to any new generations. With luck, that'll happen before Jim Bob dies so he has to watch his rotten philosophy get abandoned and spat upon by at least some of its victims.

Or deciding that he's going to be the exact opposite of Charles Spurgeon. .... C'mon, little Spurgeon, take the "I stand for everything they're against" path! I can dream, can't I? Somebody in some Duggar generation has to do it. Why not the new one? He could be an agnostic who nevertheless converts to Catholicism because he likes the ceremony of the mass, favors some theologians -- maybe Augustine, and likes Pope Francis's attempts to nudge the Church back in a social-justice direction. And he'll be a person who never ever preaches to anybody! He'll listen, and try to understand everybody's points of view and reconcile us all to peace. He'll also be an avid reader and a very hard worker who smokes a little dope on the weekends. (unlike his father, who doesn't smoke any but appears to have smoked it every hour on the hour) I'm counting on you, Spurgeon.