Two, Austin, Twin, Fundamentalist Baptist ministers are being charged with the felony beating of a young boy.
Apparently, the child was misbehaving in a bible study class and said the wrong verse.
The minister brothers both only 22 years old, cut a stick off a tree outside the classroom and made the child lay on a bed in a near by room. (The bible study was in a private residence)
Fundamentalism in the world to day is like an out of control virus. It absolutely disgusts me that some fundy ministers actually believe physical violence toward children is doing Gods work. Are you fucking kidding me? This bullshit goes on all over the country and the world…This ranks right up there with the case of two Oklahoma parents bringing there unruly child to a fundy baptist minister to try and have him teach the boy discipline…He ended up dead. I’ll dig up the cite…
Discipline and violence towards children are two very different things. What the fuck goes through these asshole ministers heads, thinking they can beat a child until he bleeds, and thinking that it is Gods will.
Gods will? Are you kidding me? And the sanctimonious little prick has the balls to have a smug little smile on across is atrocious little face during the court proceedings… ERRRR!!!
That poor little boy…You fundy fucks better be ashamed of yourselves for thinking things like this are OK and even worse are Gods will. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO INTERPRET GODS WILL IF YOU THINK THIS KIND OF THING IS OK!
To all those who think this is ok behavior --> FUCK YOU!
Um…I agree with pitting sick assholes who think beating children is OK; but as far as I know no major Christian denomination espouses the practice. So, let’s not pit an entire religious movement for the actions of a few members, all right?
Maybe not, but these child abuse cases tend to happen with fundamentalists much more often than they do with any other segment of the population. There’s something about the Bible that makes it easy to use God as a justification for unleashing one’s inner sadist. I mean, 90 minutes? Criminy!
And can you imagine the same thing happening with atheists? “OK, little Timmy, you drew an improper conclusion from the premises in that syllogism. Assume the position!”
Damn, I miss being disciplined by the Christian Brothers and the Jesuits. They always stopped short of outright kidney damage with their beatings.
Apparently, the Baptists in question haven’t mastered the art of beatings just yet. If they could just learn to stick to blows to the face, avoiding all major organs, and force the accused into a closet or on their knees, they would realize the ability of the human body to survive, while avoiding major internal damage.
Back to your scheduled rant. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” clearly hasn’t died out yet.
The Christian Brothers have a certain “reputation” over here. :eek: It appeared to be doctrine to use violence - and even if it wasn’t, it was certainly institutional.
sigh It happens to kids no matter what the religious background. I’d be willing to bet, if you went on a search you could find kids of all genders and religious persuasions beaten that hard. It just gets more airplay when it happens to the only group it’s fine to mock publicly, Fundamentalist Christians.
It’s wrong, regardless. Those two should end up in jail where they belong.
Yes, it is fine to mock Fundamentalist Christians because they are ignorance incarnate. They should** be mocked, along with astrologers, trickle-down economists, doctinaire Marxists and any other ideologues who market harmful fantasies as reality.
But yeah, the Fundies don’t have the monopoly on their ideology inciting cruelty to children. Just watch how teenage girls were abused in Irish convent laundries in The Magdalene Sisters.
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I take it there’s been a modification of the Baptist hymnal:
“Jesus loves to hurt the little children,
All the children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
All better run from His sight,
Jesus loves to hurt the little children of the world”
Well, I’m not so sure about the “but these child abuse cases tend to happen with fundamentalists much more often than they do with any other segment of the population” line of reason. I just suspect that it gets reported more often. Sadly, children of Baptists, Athiests, Druids, and Slug worshipers are just as likely to be beaten. But They aren’t likely to be reported on CNN.
I think what the difference here is that it was a non-family member doing the beating. I suspect that isn’t as common as your good old-fashioned parental beating. And I suspect it happens more often than is reported, simply due to the fact that parents that mete out beatings aren’t likely to report someone of the same mindset.
And then there’s Lester Roloff, a Texas evangelist whose “Bible-based homes” for troubled youth became dungeons of punitive cruelty. Interestingly, Roloff had ties to then-Governor Bush:
And another (from a fundie source, no less!) In addition, child abuse among fundie Mormon sects is discussed in Jon Krakauer’s newest, Under the Banner of Heaven.
This is not to say that only Christian groups abuse children. The have been reports of beatings at Islamic schools in the US and the Hare Krishna cult’s sexual abuse of kids at their New Vrindaban settlement in West Virginia in the 80’s is widely known.
Well, anyone who wished to beat “the fear of God” into a kid isn’t much of an atheist, IMO. Not to say there aren’t atheist or unchurched people who abuse their kids–obviously there are–it’s just the sources I see say that fundamentalist religious affiliation has a much greater correlation with the tendency toward child abuse.
Had you said “Massachusetts” instead of “Texas”, I would have been right on board with you. The study was even in the same year!
It’s not so much that Fundamentalism encourages corporal punishment, but authoritarian personality types almost by definition favor corporal punishment, and also tend to embrace the tenets that fundyism espouses. Hence the correlation.
Such types also tend to want to punish the rest of the world – notice support for corporal punishment in schools, the death penalty, hard labor, harsh foreign policy, etc.
Not to say that they’re all like this – as anecdotal evidence I offer my fundy aunt and uncle, who never laid a hand on – or even disciplined in any way – my cousins. Also not to say that fundies are the only people that engage in wonky behavior. But there is definitely a high correlation.
The study talks about the likelihood of spanking and slapping. But are fundamentalists more likely to deliver beatings that nearly kill children, as gobear asserted?
The study doesn’t discuss the prevalence of life-threatening beatings on children in various religious groups. It’s not the same thing. I know a lot of parents who spank. None of them would beat a child as described in the OP.