Damned Christians

[Fake Messiah]

My wife died because we were told the Bible banned blood transfusions

Last month, a friend who, like me, was an ex-Jehovah’s Witness (JW) messaged me with the words “More changes to their ridiculous blood doctrine” and sent me a link to read from The Watch Tower (the corporation that publishes JW media).

I clicked on it immediately. The governing body had updated its longstanding policy, which prevented members from receiving blood transfusions, and was now allowing transfusion of red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma and platelets as a matter of “personal conscience”.

It effectively means that JW members can now receive blood.

I was dumbfounded. Over the next couple of days I experienced a gamut of emotions – anger, confusion, but mostly sadness as I thought of what this inhumane doctrine (embedded in the faith since the 1960s) had cost my 23-year-old son Joel and my stepdaughter, who is now in her thirties.

In 2003, my dear wife Angela – their mother – died at the age of only 36 after giving birth to Joel. Despite losing a lot of blood during the caesarean section, she had refused a transfusion due to her faith and had a heart attack 12 days later.

It devastated the whole family and left me alone to bring up our baby. Her death certificate said she had made “an informed decision to refuse blood”, something that rings hollow now that the JW have changed their rules.

It may sound odd to anyone who isn’t a Jehovah’s Witness, but there is an unspoken expectation after anything like this to simply “keep going”. After all, you genuinely believe that you’re going to see the person again soon on a Paradise Earth. There were times when I felt so low that if I hadn’t had Joel to look after, I could have stayed in bed for weeks, but I knew I needed to get up and get on with life.

So, although in intense private pain, I attended a JW meeting the day after Angela’s death. By the weekend, I was back going “door to door”. People ask whether my faith was shaken by Angela’s death but, if anything, it strengthened it.

Today, I’m considering legal action against them. Although it was 23 years ago, I feel so sad that her children were robbed of their mother due to a policy that the JW has now changed. I used to believe they changed the doctrines because it was at the will of God, but I realise they change it because they know they’ve got it wrong.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10...witnesses/

[Fake Messiah]

George Carlin Once Predicted Televised Executions to ‘Distract People’ From ‘How Bad They’re Being Fucked’

In his special, Carlin drilled down on the idea with increasing absurdity, urging his audience: “Let’s choose capital punishment the same way we use sports and television in this country to distract people and take their minds off how bad they’re being fucked by the upper one percent.”

“I honestly believe if you make the death penalty a little more entertaining and learn to market it correctly, you just might be able to raise enough money to balance the stupid fucking budget!” he added.

The backdrop to Hegseth’s announcement, as some internet users pointed out, is an affordability squeeze. The war with Iran has helped drive gas above $4 a gallon, diesel prices sharply higher and broader inflation back up, while mortgage rates climbed to 7.4% this week.

In the same routine shared widely online, Carlin likewise offered a theory on how this kind of spectacle might finally emerge, one that has gained an added resonance under Hegseth himself.

The defense secretary belongs to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a small and hard-line denomination whose most influential figure, pastor Doug Wilson, openly identifies as a Christian nationalist. Hegseth has brought that religious world unusually close to the Pentagon with his own pastor leading monthly Christian worship services there, while Wilson himself was invited to preach at the building earlier this year. Hegseth, meanwhile, has repeatedly infused his tenure with explicitly Christian language.

In 1996, Carlin pointed to right-wing evangelicals who supported the death penalty as a gateway to mainstream the idea. He predicted the religious right would embrace public executions when it was convenient.

Carlin continued his bit by sarcastically musing that televised punishment could be packaged up in a televangelist-style format, complete with the opportunity to pull donations.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

George Carlin Once Predicted Televised Executions to ‘Distract People’ From ‘How Bad They’re Being Fucked’

In his special, Carlin drilled down on the idea with increasing absurdity, urging his audience: “Let’s choose capital punishment the same way we use sports and television in this country to distract people and take their minds off how bad they’re being fucked by the upper one percent.”

“I honestly believe if you make the death penalty a little more entertaining and learn to market it correctly, you just might be able to raise enough money to balance the stupid fucking budget!” he added.

The backdrop to Hegseth’s announcement, as some internet users pointed out, is an affordability squeeze. The war with Iran has helped drive gas above $4 a gallon, diesel prices sharply higher and broader inflation back up, while mortgage rates climbed to 7.4% this week.

In the same routine shared widely online, Carlin likewise offered a theory on how this kind of spectacle might finally emerge, one that has gained an added resonance under Hegseth himself.

The defense secretary belongs to the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, a small and hard-line denomination whose most influential figure, pastor Doug Wilson, openly identifies as a Christian nationalist. Hegseth has brought that religious world unusually close to the Pentagon with his own pastor leading monthly Christian worship services there, while Wilson himself was invited to preach at the building earlier this year. Hegseth, meanwhile, has repeatedly infused his tenure with explicitly Christian language.

In 1996, Carlin pointed to right-wing evangelicals who supported the death penalty as a gateway to mainstream the idea. He predicted the religious right would embrace public executions when it was convenient.

Carlin continued his bit by sarcastically musing that televised punishment could be packaged up in a televangelist-style format, complete with the opportunity to pull donations.

I really, REALLY miss that man.

Boru

[Fake Messiah]

Christians again demonstrate disdain toward other religions.

'It Is Done. Hail Satan:' City Immediately Regrets New Religious Liberty Law That Allows Prayer at City Council Meeting

An Iowa man has kicked off controversy over religious freedom in the small town of Ottumwa, Iowa by opening a city council meeting with a prayer to Satan, which then kicked off a debate about the proper time in the meeting agenda to undo the “curse.”

On Tuesday night, Ottumwa resident, satanist, and former city council member Matt Dalbey took the podium to read an invocation to start a routine meeting of the council. “Thank you mayor, council. Let us pray,” Dalbey started. “Dear dark father, let us stand now unbowed and unfettered by arcane doctrines born of fearful minds and darkened times. Let us embrace the Luciferan impulse to eat off the tree of knowledge and dissipate our blissful and comforting delusions of old.”

The prayer is a common one used by the Satanic Temple of Iowa. “Let us demand that individuals be judged for their concrete actions, not for their fealty to arbitrary social norms and illusory categorizations,” he continued. “Let us reason our solutions with agnosticism in all things, holding fast only to that which is demonstrably true. Let us stand firm against any and all arbitrary authority that threatens the personal sovereignty of one or all. That which will not bend must break. And that which can be destroyed by truth should never be spared its demise.”“It is done. Hail Satan,” he finished.

Another citizen, a pastor named Rick Bick, rushed to the podium. “Let’s just reverse that curse that was just put on our city,” he said. “That ending with hail Satan and hail dark god. That’s not welcome here.”

Dalbey told 404 Media he was a sincere member of the Temple of Satan but stressed it’s “an organization of nontheists, people who don’t believe in any deities or supernatural beings.”

He served on the city council for eight years and has largely stayed out of local politics since leaving the council in 2021. But when the city council passed a new rule earlier this year that allowed city council meetings to start with religious invocations, he decided to do something. “I’m a constitutionalist,” he said. “And when I see this, the implication I got was that we were again starting to mix religion into the government.”

Ottumwa has only been reading invocations at its meeting for a short time. The city council passed a resolution allowing the practice on January 20. Galloway was the only person on the council who voted against it. At the time, she said Satanists might show up and read a prayer and that everyone would have to be OK with that.

The invocation to Satan in a small town in Iowa is just the latest salvo in a 10-year-long battle over religious freedom of expression in the state. In 2016, a religious liberty group installed a Christian nativity scene at the state capitol in Des Moines. Later that year a group of atheists installed its own nativity scene honoring the Bill of Rights. In 2023, The Satanic Temple put up a pentagram built from red ribbon and topped with a mirror-mask ram’s head that invoked Baphomet in the capitol rotunda. The group also began holding winter celebrations in the Rotunda. A man vandalized the display, police arrested him and charged him with a hate crime.

In 2024 — the same year Governor Kim Reynolds signed a state law meant to protect religious freedom — officials blocked Satanists from holding their winter celebration. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act request looking for records about the incident and, earlier this year, sued Iowa on behalf of the Satanic Temple for violating federal free speech laws.

“I think we're seeing you know a big shift in our politics. I think we've seen a rise of Christian nationalism in this country [...] and I think it's trying to grasp and get a hold of controlling our politics, our laws and our government, and I find that highly troubling,” Dalbey said. “And I think anytime we let any religion dominate our politics, we revert right back to where we were 250 years plus ago: a monarchy where the church ruled the country, and that was bad for everybody. That's one of the reasons our founding fathers decided to form a new nation. And I think if we are not careful, you know, we're going to slide right back into that scenario.”

https://www.404media.co/it-is-done-hail-...l-meeting/