Damned Christians

[Fake Messiah]

It seems that Falwells are having a pool boy shortage:

Jerry Falwell Jr. wants Liberty University graduates to party at his house. “If you’re not a senior but you’re dating one, you can come, too.”

https://religionnews.com/2021/04/30/falw...e-lawsuit/

[Fake Messiah]

Arkansas bans sex ed despite highest teen birth rate in the country

And students in Arkansas are in desperate need of sex education grounded in reality rather than the long-discredited abstinence fantasies the state requires. A recent study found that the millions of dollars the federal government spent on abstinence education had no effect on teen birth rates in the country overall, but in conservative states that embraced abstinence education, teen birth rates actually increased. 

Arkansas has the highest teen birth rate in the country, and being a teen mother can profoundly affect future achievement. Only 40% of those teen mothers will finish high school and only 2% will finish college by age 30. 

Teen mothers and their babies also face increased health risks, including pre-term births and low birth weights. Teen mothers are less likely to seek out or be able to obtain prenatal care early in pregnancy, with only 56% of teens age 15-19 receiving care in the first trimester, and that number dramatically decreases in the second and third trimesters. 

Arkansas also has a high maternal mortality rate, the fifth-highest in the country. This may be, in part, because so many pregnancies in the state — around 55% in 2011 and — are unplanned, no matter what the age of the mother.

Arkansas' anti-abortion activists have succeeded in pushing Planned Parenthood out of providing sex education, but largely at the expense of their own residents, particularly the teens they say they're so eager to protect. 

https://americanindependent.com/arkansas...ality/amp/

[Fake Messiah]

Jesus was all about opposing the capital gains tax: "Take money from the poor and give it to the rich," because, as pseudo-historian David Barton explains it, "If you're not productive you're just wasting our time".

[HappySkeptic]

The two passages mentioned in the video had nothing to do with money. They were specifically talking about how faith saves.

If you don't have enough, too bad for you - you're in hell. If someone makes a death-bed confession, that is just as good as someone who has been a good faithful person all their lives.

These teachings are both problematic, but they had nothing to do with money.

[Fake Messiah]

These teachings are both problematic, but they had nothing to do with money.

I wouldn't get involved in the discussion of what is the "right" interpretation of the verses from the Bible.

---

Pastors and preachers are dropping out of the profession because remaining Christians are getting dumber and more brainwashed by conspiracies from the internet, so they find it hard to lead a bunch of conspiracy nuts.

Jeff Weddle, a 46-year-old, wise-cracking, self-deprecating, Bible-loving, self-described “failing pastor” from Wisconsin, was already thinking of leaving the ministry before COVID and the 2020 election.

He was, as he put it, fed up with church life after two decades as a pastor.

Then, what he called “the stupid” — feuds about politics and the pandemic — put him over the edge. People at church seemed more concerned about the latest social media dustup and online conspiracy theories — one church member called him the antichrist for his views on COVID— than in learning about the Bible.  

Sunday mornings had become filled with dread over what could go wrong next.

He eventually decided, “I don’t need this anymore.” Weddle stepped down as pastor, walked out the door and hasn’t looked back.

The last eighteen months or so have been difficult for pastors like Weddle. Already stretched with the day-to-day concerns of running a congregation at a time when organized religion is on the decline, they’ve increasingly found that the divides facing the nation have made their way inside the walls of the church.

https://religionnews.com/2021/05/07/for-...e-to-quit/

[Fake Messiah]

What do you know, it's hard being gay in Christian colleges

A Gay Man Says He Was Tormented at Liberty University. Now He's Suing

I still vividly remember my meetings with Dane Emerick, Liberty’s former in-house conversion “therapist” and the pastor I met with over the span of my undergraduate studies. At Emerick’s behest, I was consistently expected to offer a detailed stock of my teenage sexual history and activity. He told me that despite being attracted to men, I was not actually gay but, rather, a heterosexual “struggling with same-sex attraction.”

He claimed that living the “gay lifestyle” (whatever that is) would lead to years of unhappiness and ultimately to hell. And as a college freshman at the age of 18, I thoroughly believed him.

Now, over a decade later, I am one of 33 plaintiffs suing the U.S. Department of Education. Brought by the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, the lawsuit centers on the question of whether or not religious colleges and universities (mostly of the evangelical or Mormon varieties) should receive federal funds while actively discriminating against their LGBTQ+ students.

I chose to attend Liberty because, as a kid who was a part of a faith tradition that hated queer people, I earnestly thought I could become straight, and I knew that Liberty had a program for it. For years, Liberty has offered one-on-one conversion “therapy,” a bogus pseudo-scientific attempt to change individuals’ sexual orientations and/or gender identities/expressions. The school has also offered a group version of this “treatment.”

These programs tried to convince me that I desperately wanted to be straight. They were of course wrong, and they should never have been offered in the first place.

This is yet another reason why I’m part of this lawsuit: To stand with the countless LGBTQ+ students whose lived experiences expose the wrongdoings of Liberty and of similar institutions. To stand with my friend Eli Germanotta (they/them) who also went to Liberty. One night while walking back to their dorm, the word FAGGOT was spray-painted on their back by a group of male Liberty students.

https://www.advocate.com/commentary/2021...-hes-suing

[The Valkyrie]

Why would a gay person go to Liberty Cult Centre in the first place?

[Fireball]

Hey, god put 1/3 of himself on a cross for us. Can't some of us be 1/3 masochistic, too? 

[Pat Mustard]

Why would a gay person go to Liberty Cult Centre in the first place?

Parents made them.

[Fake Messiah]

Why would a gay person go to Liberty Cult Centre in the first place?

It's because he grew up among Christians who convinced him that he is sick, and he genuinely believed that Christian Universities have the knowledge to heal him, but it turned out it was just torturing.