Archive for the 'child abuse'

Good old religion. It’s what allows people to abuse a child by teaching him to do this… And then turn right around in the face of public outrage and make this statement on their webpage. Read more

Is This about Me or You? Imagine this conversation: Woman 1: So, anyway, at the end of the argument I just told my husband I thought he was wrong. Woman 2: I can’t believe you said that. Aren’t you afraid he’ll hit you? When I put myself in Woman 1′s place, I have two immediate thoughts: 1. Not in a million years would I be afraid my husband would strike me for any reason short of his own self-defense if I went violently insane. 2. How long was Woman 2 abused? Is she still being abused? I wouldn’t expect Woman 2′s comment from a woman who has no history of abuse whatsoever. I suppose I could imagine a situation where someone was under a mistaken impression I was being abused, and was concerned for my safety? But as a general rule, that question would not be raised in seriousness by a woman who is not or has not been in a situation where she’s been battered. The question, while aimed at Woman 1, actually speaks volumes about Woman 2, and tells us nothing at all about Woman 1. Language, questions and comments aimed at others actually carry within them information about those who are speaking. Even the most innocent language does this. If I see a friend making a Lasagna, and I see her using cottage cheese, and I ask “Oh, you don’t use Ricotta?” I’ve just said, “I don’t use cottage cheese when I make Lasagna, I use Ricotta.” We spend our conversational time telling people all about ourselves, often without even realizing we’re doing it. What Pascal’s Wager Tells Me about You When we think of Pascal’s Wager, we generally think in brief of someone asking “What if you’re wrong?” The stakes generally are “something bad” if you’re wrong (that you’re risking), and either gaining reward or simply avoiding the “bad” if you’re right. The Wager itself has a host of problems. But that’s not...
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If you’re like me, you couldn’t wait to see that six-mile plume of debris kicked up on the pole of the moon recently when the NASA rovers dove into the surface of our most famous natural satellite. And, if you’re like me, you were totally disappointed by what you saw on NASA channel, or, I’m told, through your telescopes at home—even with a clear sky. A brilliant explosion of dust and ice was predicted. It didn’t happen. Again, if you’re like me, you immediately thought something along the lines of “What happened?! What went wrong?!” NASA, however, announced it was a great success. Data began streaming immediately. And they expect to be analyzing it for weeks to come. Maybe it wasn’t a glorious sight, but certainly we’ll learn something from the voyage. In fact, the failure of our prediction has already taught us something: It taught us that some prediction and some part of the model that NASA attempted and anticipated was wrong. Observably wrong. When we make a prediction about reality, and our prediction clearly fails, we would do well to go back and rethink our assumptions. I’m sure NASA will be doing just that. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if one of the most burning questions they’re asking is why they didn’t get that plume they expected (and even computer generated). The truth is, when life goes on as predicted, we learn very little. When life throws us for a loop—if we’re so inclined, we have an opportunity to learn a bit more about ourselves, our assumptions, and, most importantly, about the reality around us. Can you imagine a NASA engineer watching the plume fail to rise, who insists his assumptions cannot be flawed? Don’t get me wrong. I don’t doubt that even in the sciences, there can be such fools. But generally speaking, most average people, and most scientists as well, understand that when assumptions fail, we have an opportunity to learn something. And we ignore such opportunities, generally,...
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And…it’s convictions on all ten counts for pedophile cult leader Tony Alamo! Naturally, his response is the typical self-aggrandizement of the pathologically narcissistic. “I’m just another one of the prophets who went to jail for the Gospel.” Some “prophet”; he couldn’t even prophesy his own fate. No, Tony — or Bernie, I mean — you’re just another one of the perverts who went to jail for porking little kids. So, to complete our celebration of Alamo’s downfall, I guess it’s time now to pick our winners in the “Can you write like allexus8?” contest. So…below are the links to the entries, and in the sidebar is the poll to vote, which will only be open 5 days. (There is such a thing as flogging a joke to death.) Have fun, and maybe, in five days, I’ll have thought of a prize. Unless allexus8 wins. You’ve already got your prize, haven’t you? The entrants are… (feel free to imagine a drum roll here, if you want to play this out to full cheese effect) nullifidian ChaosSong Ithonicfury Ing Frikle stronger now Matthew C. Pickard Something distresses me about this photo of Alamo. I’m sure the resemblance to our very own beloved John Iacoletti is totally coincidental.

In the wake of recent, more interesting news, the child-sex trial of cult leader Tony Alamo — whose followers used to circulate his full-color newsletters under windshield wipers all around Austin and elsewhere — has been playing out largely under the radar. What stuns me about all of this is not just the ghastly spectacle of a senior citizen “marrying” little girls as young as eight or ten. It’s the way in which Alamo — or, shit, any authority figure at all — can exert such a powerful and hypnotic hold over his followers that the very parents of these little girls themselves became active participants in the violation of their children. This is the authoritarianism of religion taken to its sickest inevitable extreme, and it illustrates the profound danger of accepting absolute authority as a concept in the first place. And I see this whole trial as a perfect chance to engage mainstream Christians, who, I suspect, would not hesitate to condemn Alamo’s actions in the strongest possible terms. Yes, what Alamo did to these girls is unspeakably appalling, no less so than that he justified it by claiming it’s what God wanted. But look at scripture, and you’ll see episodes of child abuse either directly prompted by divine command (Abe and Isaac) or carried out with tacit divine approval, such as the scene in Genesis 19 in which Lot offers his two virgin daughters to a lust-crazed mob (who, being gay, say no thanks). Lot’s daughters don’t seem to have been all that offended at being offered as sexmeat by their father, since, later in the same chapter, they get him drunk and fuck him. Those biblical family values, I tell ya! Anyway, the point is: Is what Alamo did to children in the name of God any more reprehensible than what God either orders or tolerates seeing done to kids in the Bible, and the way their parents are so agreeable to it?