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California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
#1
California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'

The leaders of a California based-church have been accused of imprisoning homeless people, forcing them to beg all day and taking the money.
Dozens of victims had their papers taken, their welfare benefits stolen and were punished if they spoke of "things of the world", officials say.
Imperial Valley Ministries (IVM) operates about 30 affiliate church groups in the US and Mexico.
A dozen of the group's leaders were arrested on Tuesday.
The former pastor of Imperial Valley Ministries, Victor Gonzalez, was detained in San Diego.
Eleven others were held in El Centro, California, and Brownsville, Texas.
The defendants are facing charges of conspiracy, forced labour, document servitude and benefits fraud.

The church, which represents its pastors as "missionaries to drug addicts", lured victims by promising them food and shelter and opportunities to get back on their feet at "no cost", federal officials say.
Victims were allegedly locked in group homes, and forced to beg for nine hours a day, six days a week.
According to prosecutors, victims were told "the only thing to be read is the holy bible" and "if any of the rules are broken there will be discipline".
Punishments included the withholding of food, and if they asked to leave they were told their children would be taken away, it is alleged.
Church leaders refused to allow a diabetic victim with low blood sugar to obtain medicine, said officials. She was able to escape.
They were also banned from using the telephone, and told to avoid their family because "only God" loved them now, said officials.
If they did manage to leave, church leaders continued to withhold their money, along with important documents such as immigration paperwork and food benefit cards.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49667769



They are doing God's work!!
The meek shall inherit the Earth, the rest of us will fly to the stars.

Never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large groups

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud ..... after a while you realise that the pig likes it!

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#2
RE: California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
Lovely, god-fearing people.
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#3
RE: California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
But you need the bible to be a moral person! Where else would true morality come from?
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

10 Christ-like figures that predate Jesus. Link shortened to Chris ate Jesus for some reason...
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chris...ate-jesus/

Good video to watch, if you want to know how common the Jesus story really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88GTUXvp-50

A list of biblical contradictions from the infallible word of Yahweh.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_m...tions.html

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#4
RE: California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
Magic wish granting sky daddies are fueled by the perversion to brutalize society's less than desirables.
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#5
RE: California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
(September 12, 2019 at 8:50 am)Chad32 Wrote: But you need the bible to be a moral person! Where else would true morality come from?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe a book with less misogyny, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, ...
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#6
RE: California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
I wonder if Christianity would be so successful if it was force of good as it is successful now being the force of evil?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
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#7
RE: California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
'Imperial Valley Ministries'.  Kind of a dead giveaway.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#8
RE: California church leaders 'used homeless as forced labour'
(September 12, 2019 at 12:38 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: I wonder if Christianity would be so successful if it was force of good as it is successful now being the force of evil?

Honestly, if it was just a peace cult that kept everything private, it probably would have faded into obscurity eventually. If someone hadn't convinced an emperor to make it a state religion, they would have been swallowed up.
Poe's Law: "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

10 Christ-like figures that predate Jesus. Link shortened to Chris ate Jesus for some reason...
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-chris...ate-jesus/

Good video to watch, if you want to know how common the Jesus story really is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88GTUXvp-50

A list of biblical contradictions from the infallible word of Yahweh.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_m...tions.html

Reply



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