What are you going to do if you’re trapped in a loveless marriage with a physically or emotionally abusive spouse? For me, the answer would be straightforward, if not easy: get help to protect yourself, and leave.
If you’re a Christian woman, though, you can do something different: you get to be strong and take the abuse, because you can find refuge in the Lord.
You too, can find contentment, despite the fact that you may be living in an emotionally abusive situation. You can find contentment in the Lord and in yourself.
No one wants to be in an abusive marriage, but if you are a Christian woman the decision to leave or stay is not yours alone. The Lord has a plan for you and if you seek His wisdom, He will show you the way. Just know that if He leads you to remain in the marriage, He will be your strength. In “Our Daily Bread” by RBC Ministries, this sentence brings it home. “Assignments from God always include His enablement.”
Isn’t that sweet how religion complements the patriarchy so well? Abused wives will not resist their degradation, because they’ll have an imaginary friend who will tell them to stick with it and give the abuser everything he wants.
Hey, but I’m being gentle here. Vyckie Garrison tears into it, and she’s not nice at all.
I actually had someone once tell me that an abused woman who continued to submit to her husband would be “glorified” by the Lord for her faith and perseverance.
Egads.
Are you deluded, baby? A standard pastoral response to a battered wife is to help her devise an escape plan. Since the early 1800s, refuges have been set up by the Salvation Army to house wives escaping the violence of a controlling man. Christianity has not condoned violence at any time, and it has been a ground for divorce for hundreds of years for Christian battered wives.
When a woman was bullied by Jewish religious leaders two millennia ago, Jesus Himself defended her and let her go. As the leaders were coaxing the crowds to stone her, Jesus uttered these famous words: “let him who is withou sin throw the first rock.” The Bible throughout states that God wants his followers to show mercy to the weak. Any man who assaults a woman has been labelled a coward and of need of anger counselling for centuries; by a concerned Christian Church. You Atheists have a twisted concept about Christians.
What are you talking about, @antigodless? You think PZ made up that article he linked to? You think the person who wrote it isn’t really a Christian? What?
I know you said “for me”, but you still might want to add that leaving isn’t always an option for everyone in such a situation. Financial dependence and social rejection of divorcees are factors that often make the answer anything but easy.
First, if you make any claims about “standard pastoral response,” I want numbers. Stats or it didn’t happen.
Second, I doubt the numbers for “standard pastoral response” in any one sect/denomination would hold true across all sects/denominations.
Third, I’ve known plenty of pastors who talk a good game about encouraging women to leave abusive relationships but who, because of their absurd, superstitious attachment to the “covenant” of marriage, won’t see abuse when it’s right in front of them.
And the person who told me that an abused woman would be “glorified” for her faith? A pastor. One in charge of teaching other pastors, in fact.
@antigodless: where does PZ say that all Christians believe that women should tolerate the abuse? You Christians have a twisted sense of persecution (see what I did there?).
What are you going to do if you’re trapped in a loveless marriage with a physically or emotionally abusive spouse?
What if you’re trapped in an abusive relationship with a physically and emotionally abusive diety? One who creates you weak and predisposed to making mistakes or doubting, who threatens eternal punishment for your mistakes? And, who says leaving is never an option?
Ooh, tell me, antigodless, how do you ignore what is right in front of you? I mean the article is right there, ostensibly right in front of your face! Ignoring the bleeding obvious takes some real skills (well, brain destroyin’ skills…), so congrats for that!
As the leaders were coaxing the crowds to stone her, Jesus uttered these famous words: “let him who is withou sin throw the first rock.”
Except he didn’t. That part doesn’t appear in any earlier codexes of the bible. It was added sometime after the 9th century, at the earliest.
From the Catholic narrative I remember about unhappy marriages (covers everything from not loving your spouse to being beaten bloody on regular basis) : “It’s your cross to bear.” Or in other words, STFU and submit.
Which basically works for any shit that you might be going through but aren’t allowed to seek help because it would makes Jesus sad.
antigodless
You know what’s the problem with religious moderates?
You.
Everything you and people like you say and claim.
This article PZ is replying to has been written by a Christian. It is adressed to christian women. It uses the babble as a justification.
Vyckie Garrison, the woman whose reply PZ linked to comes from a life where she and many others suffered horrible abuse enabled and sanctioned by christian churches and leaders.
And your response when confronted with those horrible positions
“That’s not true, the Salvation Army (nasty homophobic bunch) has shelters”, as if that would undo this bullshit.
It’s happening and you’re denying that it is.
wow…, this is the first story i’ve ever read where religion is used as an excuse for suffering… oh, wait.
All antibrainuse is say is this, some True Christian™ will help an abused wife get away from her husband, therefore the criticism of religion is invalid.
Stop thinking and have some faith, people. The truth will be revealed to you.
Who gave you permission to define that is and isn’t Xian? Show us your recently signed letter from your imaginary deity, or shut the fuck up as you don’t have that authority. We have a simple policy here to prevent your fuckwitted “no true scotsman argument”. If they claim to be Xian, like you, they are Xian. And there are 34,000+ different sects that call themselves Xian. If the Foo Shits, Wear It.
Label them a coward? How about reporting them to police.
Anitgodless, you are a shithead.
“You Atheists have a twisted concept about Christians.”
Derived from watching lots of Christians, seeing the politics that most Christians support, reading about the history of Christians and the godawful barbarism they perpetrate, etc.
When a woman was bullied by Jewish religious leaders two millennia ago, Jesus Himself defended her and let her go.
Well, defends her from being stoned. But he doesn’t just “let her go”, he tells her “go forth and sin no more”. In other words, he wasn’t willing to stone her to death, but he did endorse the crowd’s view that she was sinning.
antigodless
“A standard pastoral response to a battered wife is to help her devise an escape plan.” – citation needed. I’m sure that this would be the response of many involved in giving pastoral care. But obviously not of Darcy Ingraham. And why would it not be the response of Darcy Ingraham? Faith. If it were not for this faith, Ingraham would not be spouting this harmful gibberish.
“Christianity has not condoned violence at any time” I take it you’re joking. Even looking at domestic violence, large chunks of Leviticus, Proverbs 13:24 and Ephesians 5:22-24 have all been used to justify violence against children and women respectively for about 2000 years.
“has been a ground for divorce for hundreds of years for Christian battered wives” erm, no it hasn’t. In Canon law, divorce has, afaiaa, generally only been possible from the man’s point of view. Most law codes of Christian Nations have allowed husbands to beat their wives until the nineteenth century.
“You atheists have a twisted concept about Christians.” Not half so twisted as yours, it seems.
Right there, I knew this post would have me shaking in rage before it was over.
@Antibrainuse
And another standard pastoral response is to STAY IN THE ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP BECAUSE GOD SAYS SO.
Don’t believe me? Try clicking on the link in the article you are responding to, and reading the thing that was said. Your denial of evidence that was already presented to you, in the post you (I am assuming) already read, makes you look like a complete idiot.
The article ALSO says that the ‘genuinely faithful’ will be magically protected from physical abuse – so, hey ladies, if he’s actually beating you up, it’s your fault for not praying hard enough.
There aren’t enough terrible things to say about this incredibly poisonous belief system.
antigodless, why aren’t the “proper” xtians – the nice moderate ones like you (?) who don’t believe it’s OK for a husband to abuse his wife – campaigning actively and vigorously against the beliefs of other xtians who say it is, and that the wife should stfu? Why aren’t you shouting from the rooftops against these people who give xtianity a bad name? Hey, they’re xtians too you know. Or if you reckon they’re not xtians – on what grounds? – why aren’t you shouting that from the rooftops too?
As long as the “nice” strains of xtianity keep quiet and fail to denounce the wife-abusers and child-abusers, why on earth should we or anyone else regard them as worthy of respect or any kind of force for good?
Oh, and you do know that the sally army has a massive record of homophobia don’t you? Or is that OK because they have shelters for battered wives?
It is pretty obvious that Antigodless is not really a christian. God will not give you more than you can handle. He has a plan and by leaving the relationship, you are going against god’s will. You’re abusive spouse was placed there by god (and Jesus) to fulfill some mysterious purpose. Condoning leaving such a relationship is a slap in the face of Jesus. Antigodless’ post above shows an unwillingness to accept god’s will, ergo xe is not really Christian.
I was going to comment but then I read what opposablethumbs wrote and I figured it would be like trying to follow Jimi Hendrix on stage.
@antigodless
Yeah, you know what? Just shove that bullshit right back up your ass. You have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about, and your No True Christian schtick is infuriating and exhausting at the same time.
My grandmother was married to an abuser. She stuck it out for a long time, because that’s what her family and church leaders told her to do. They said that if she tried to be a better wife, God would make it so that her husband wouldn’t beat her so much. And if she’d listened to them for much longer, she would be dead right now. She left the night that her husband tried to kill here. She ran to the car with my uncles and father and got the hell out of the state, and didn’t look back. She raised three boys on her own, as a single mother, long before it was even remotely socially acceptable to do so. She left the church, and she left her husband – and do you know what happened? Her family disowned her. Her husband did not pay a dime in child support. She worked her ass off to make sure that her sons had food on the table. She put up with harassment from a neighbor who said that she could make more money on her back than as a legal secretary. Eventually she married a good man, who doesn’t beat her or abuse her or put her down. And now she’s happy.
Your denialism is absolutely part of this fucking problem. Cut that shit out.
God has a plan for US xianity.
It is dying slowly. Around 2 million people leave the religion every year.
Everything happens for a reason.
Anyone halfway decent god or goddess would be horrified at what the religion has become, a vehicle for a new Dark Age.
PS God’s plan for PZ Myers is obvious. He made PZ an atheist leader to rescue xians from their Oogedy Boogedy malevolent religion.
@opposablethumbs
Ah, but what you all fail to understand is that a “moderate” Christian doesn’t oppose any of barbarisms of their faith that they share with funds, just how they are implimented. While an extrermist Christian would gun down and abortion provider of send a pipe bomb to a gay night club, the sensible, moderate Christian would seek peaceful, democratic means to legally reduce homosexuals to pariah status and subjugate women.
You see? There is a big difference. ;)
Does anyone know how to control the rage that accompanies reading such trash ? I feel it’s going to ruin my heart someday.
First the article, then the denial of it, which is worse.
That’s what faith is, isn’t it ? The denial of reality.
Gah! Let me try that again…
@opposablethumbs
Ah, but what you all fail to understand is that a “moderate” Christian doesn’t oppose any of the barbarisms of the faith that they share with the fundies, just how they are implimented. While an extrermist Christian would gun down an abortion provider or send a pipe bomb to a gay night club, the sensible, moderate Christian would seek peaceful, democratic means to legally reduce homosexuals to pariah status and subjugate women.
You see? There is a big difference. ;)
If a woman (or a man) leaves an unhappy and abusive marriage,…isn’t that god’s plan too.
How about if one spouse shoots and kills the other one and all the kids as well, a common enough occurrence. Everything happens for god’s reasons.
“God’s plan for you” and “everything happens for a reason” have to be two of the more useless and nonsensical of xian’s pervasive gibberish problem.
It explains everything and explains nothing.
Besides it’s wrong. The real god is the Invisible Pink Unicorn and she wants all of you to send me money for our new cable TV channel. It’s the Invisible Pink Unicorn’s plan for our world and your money. I didn’t just make that up right now, really!!!
You are mistaken. Jimi was a trailblazer. Antibrainuse is content to wallow in the same ruts and his fellow self restricted godbotherers. Also, even though I have listened to Jimi’s version of the national anthem well over a hundred times, I still enjoy hearing it. I never want to read antibrainuse’s screed again.
[ASIDE] jonnyscaramanga, I’m – well I – blimey. (Hendrix!? I wish!) Thank you! (hey, you should read some of the eloquent people around here though! I got nuttin’ on them :-D) [/ASIDE]
If you all liked this just Google “Rick Warren and Domestic Violence” and read up on shit along similar lines coming out of Saddleback a couple of years ago. Ricky made sure those sermons were taken down really quick… But not before he got to invoke his cosmic tyrant at Barry’s inaugeration.
Religion, specifically the offspring of Abraham, complements patriarchy because is is a product and a tool of it.
@ Akira, yes, exactly. The methods may be different, but the ultimate aim is the same.
I was going to say something to antigodless about his incessant “no true Scotsman” defense, here and elsewhere, of christianity. But then I figured, what’s the use? What’s the point of trying to talk to someone who’s so obviously (and willfully) ignorant, and just plain stupid, that his response would probably be something like “Who said anything about Scotland? I was talking about christians!” (Yes, I actually had a response like that from a christian in a Yahoo article comment section)
@antigodless “Any man who assaults a woman has been labelled a coward and of need of anger counselling for centuries; by a concerned Christian Church.”
Either you mean “*a* concerned christian Church,” as in a singular church somewhere, or you are lying.
It’s probably impossible to pin down the origin of the right to beat one’s wife with a stick no thicker than one’s thumb, but there are cases going back to the 1500s that show that a husband who beat his wife in any manner was almost always merely admonished for disturbing the peace.
“There was an 1868 case, State v. Rhodes, where a husband was found innocent because, the judge said, “the defendent had a right to whip his wife with a switch no larger than his thumb,” Etc., etc., etc.
Anyway, I suggest you go to KS and straighten these people out:
http://abovethelaw.com/2011/10/topeka-now-the-best-place-to-beat-your-wife/
Alternatively, you could go preach to Creflo Dollar’s congregation, who support their pastor who beat his 15-year old daughter.
Opps, this is what happens when I skim. I saw a long name as antibrainless, not opposablethumbs. My apologies.
This is why I choose not to marry! I’ll never know who’ll I be married to and there’s no telling what he will do to me if I decided to marry any man at all. It is better for me to live alone than to be married to a abusive monster.
That’s a shameless lie, antigodless, lie so many of your statements. Christianity (with a few exceptions such as Quakers) has routinely condoned and indeed often commanded violence – see the Crusades, the wars of religion, persecution of Jews, “heretics”, “witches”, pagans, atheists etc. Nor has violence been a ground for divorce until relatively recently – see here, for example.
It doesn’t really matter what flavor of Christianity a woman belongs to, in an abusive situation, the answer is the same. Yes, you may leave, but always with the goal of going back, keeping the marriage in tact. Don’t you friggin’ think by the time a woman gets up the courage to leave the situation she’s already tried everything she can think of to do just that?
*delurks*
I am literally shaking after reading just that excerpt. I certainly won’t bother reading the actual garbage.
(TRIGGER WARNING)
I spent 10 years in an emotionally and physically abusive marriage, and the ONLY kind of advice I received from my god-soaked friends, my family, and my church was that “God is your refuge; he never gives us more than we can bear. Suffering is noble, suffering leads us closer to Jesus, suffering in this life makes heaven all the more rewarding, suffering is the price women pay for the sin of Eve.” And, of course, the patented “You need to work harder to be a better wife.”
I prayed till I was blue in the face, I cried out to God for help when I was being hurt. I begged my pastor, deacons, and elders for help. I went to church covered in bruises after being “disciplined” for my “evil nature.”
And I *still* believed, I *still* trusted these “spiritual authorities” and attempted to follow their advice: be more acquiescent, “submit humbly,” pray to God to change my husband’s heart.
In the end, it was nothing I did and nothing these “Christians” did — and certainly nothing that God did — that changed my situation. Instead, my husband moved out to live with his girlfriend of 4 years.
To this day, I am indebted to a former friend from high school (someone I had cut ties with because she was not a Christian) who took in myself and my children, helped me through the depression and the crushing sense of failure I had. With her help, I was able to learn to stand on my own two feet, getting my first job and then my own place. With therapy, I came to recognize that *I* was not the one in the wrong, that suffering is not noble or holy, but destructive to the mind and spirit. Eventually I came to the realization that no god worth worshiping would condone the suffering of its creations. Unfortunately, I still deal with some of the long-term physical and emotional effects of those years.
—
@ antigodless: FUCK. YOU.
OT but related.
North Dakota rejected the xian hate enabling amendment by a 2 to 1 margin.
Pretty amazing. Hard to say what it means though. The act would have also legalized Sharia law, xian human child sacrifice, and use of hallucinogenic drugs as religious sacraments.
Here, antibrainuse, is one of my favorite quotes from a christian.
Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius!
Truly the very model of nonviolence.
The person who uttered that must not have been a True Christian™.
@ BCPA_Lady (now appearing in MN!),
*Hugs*
What an insult for him to leave you. I stuck it out for 20 years until I finally got the guts to leave him.
@2 antigodless
Since the early 1800s, refuges have been set up by the Salvation Army to house wives escaping the violence of a controlling man.
The first Salvation Army meeting in America was in 1879 in Philadelphia, and the name “Salvation Army” wasn’t even decided by Booth until the previous year… but really what Christian cares about facts, as long as what spews from their mouths is pious gibberish…..its all “for JEBUS!” isn’t it?
Christianity has not condoned violence at any time, and it has been a ground for divorce for hundreds of years for Christian battered wives.
You are deluded, which, I suppose, is par for the course for a Christian. The Christian church holds to the indissolubility of marriage and has been its teaching for hundreds of years.
Here’s Jerome on the matter:
“So long as a husband lives, be he adulterer, be he sodomite, be he addicted to every kind of vice, if she left him on account of his crimes he is still her husband still and she may not take another”
Your views on divorce are not in keeping with those of the Salvationists who like all deluded Christians believe that the marriage bond cannot be broken, no matter how abusive the husband is. Its good that the SA recognizes that there is a problem with spouse abuse, but their solution is not to empower women to leave their husbands, but only to encourage more deluded and superstitious thinking regarding a woman’s role.
Any man who assaults a woman has been labelled a coward and of need of anger counselling for centuries; by a concerned Christian Church.
Gibberish. Healing for abused women only comes after they have left their abusive spouses behind, exactly what the church and the SA don’t want.
They are all hypocrites.
They don’t care if you suffer.
If it was them, you can bet things would change for the better and in a hurry.
BCPA_Lady, I am imagining your story times millions. All of that suffering and for what?
That funny thing is this, the fact that you ex was such a selfish cad ended being the best thing to happen to you. I wish more people had friends like yours, able to look past the snub you gave her (Sorry, that was a snub you gave her.) and helped a human in need.
But the fact that you found that you had the strength to rebuild speaks very well of you.
Yeah, the majority of them give the rest a bad name.
Janine #36 :-D (hey, I’m still glowing from having been compared, however over-generously, to Hendrix!)
# 42 Yes. Must be confusing for the real True Christians with all these other True Christians around being even Truer and Christianer …
@ D-Ma:
Thank you. I am always awed by those like you who save themselves. I had been so brain-washed from childhood to submit to authority (particularly the headship of the husband) that I think the only way I would have left on my own would have been in a coroner’s van.
Opposablethumbs, do not allowed my mistake to take away from enjoying the afterglow.
No worries, afterglowing away here! :)
Well, defends her from being stoned. But he doesn’t just “let her go”, he tells her “go forth and sin no more”.
And we know this because the reporter standing there took it down verbatim.
Oh, wait, there were supposedly only the two people there, neither of whom had much motivation to publish the information.
@52: I wasn’t even going to get into that part. How anyone knows what was said when the source documents were written long after the deaths of both participants is beyond me. Almost as though they were making the whole thing up to suit their needs. But even within the Christian mythos, I don’t think the story supports antigodless’s claim.
@ raven: Yes.
@ Janine: It was definitely a snub, one of epic proportions too. I made a huge production just before graduation, in front of almost the entire school, about how I could no longer be her friend if she wouldn’t accept Jesus, burning in hell, blah blah blah. But when I needed help and had no one else to turn to, she didn’t even hesitate to offer shelter and assistance for as long as I needed.
Huh, an atheist was more help than my Christian family….who’d’a thunk it? :)
Most of us are…exXians. We know all about xianity from the inside.
Which he has been told many times. AG is incapable of learning even simple concepts. The Theory of Religion Induced Cognitive Impairment acquires another data point.
It really does look like fundie religion causes cognitive damage.
Xians, making atheists since 33 CE. We know what god’s plan for AG is,…making xians look dumb.
AG is the classic drive by troll
What are you talking about? You’re right here, a self-centred asshole in the flesh. Every discussion needs to be all about you and your views on Christianity. (I saw your shamelessness on the Black Skeptics post.)
Your only concern, ever, seems to be that you be allowed to blather away, and you never even bother to respond to others (even though you claim your faith tells you to treat all people as special.)
You, antigodless, are a twisted person, and apparently a Christian. You, and people like you, are the problem.
If all Christians were like you, I would loathe the religion even more.
Brownian, be fair. Stories like what BCPA_Lady and D-Ma and millions more like that is reason enough to hate religion. Antibrainuse is merely the pebble in the shoe.
History fail.
This is just…so appalling. Abusers use isolation to their advantage and to have your religious group, probably often your only remaining social contact, tell you to suck it up…there are no words.
As an atheist I had a very hard time getting out of my abusive relationship. The amount of self-doubt going on just as a result of your abuser gaslighting you and constantly telling you how everything is your fault is already through the roof. Being told by people you’re supposed to look up to that your deity won’t give you more than you can handle is just sick.
I’m going to go cry for the day now.
Look here. An ecumenical coalition of christians are calling for Uganda’s Kill The Gays bill to be called back.
Nothing at all violent about demanding that queers be locked up and executed.
Thank you Rick Warren and Scott Lively!
Antibrainuse, try to deny that these are all not real christian, you sniveling little shit stain.
This is the exact excuse my mother used when she stood by my step-father after I came out about the fact that he had sexually abused me and my sister as children. By that time, I was over pretending to believe in god and severed ties with her. For two years, she refused to divorce him, even after he’d been sentenced to prison for twelve years, because it was the “unchristian” thing to do.
Luckily, she came to her senses, divorced his ass, and is now agnostic.
If you have the means and physical capacity, I suggest Kickboxing. Or any kind of boxing. It’s definitely saved me from heart-explosion from SIWOTI syndrome and bigot infestations.
I disagree. People like antigodless are repulsive and dangerous in their selfish obliviousness.
Arson. Definitely arson.
Fuck them and fuck the liberal Christians like anti-godless who pay lip service to social justice and nothing else. Oh and AG, if this is a mischaracterisation of you, put up the evidence of you doing something real to stop this sort of thing or Shut. The. FUCK. Up.
My mother scrimped and saved from the grocery money for months. It was tricky see, she had to do so without him twigging to what was going on. She used that money to go see a lawyer about getting a divorce. This was in the 70’s and that lawyer said that given the circumstances she could get that divorce but if my father hired a half-decent lawyer he’d end up with us kids. She couldn’t risk that and gave up. Gave up completely. That was pretty much all the fight she had in her and to come that close just to be shot down was too much to bear.
This was a secular example, though I can fucking guarantee that the laws that prevented her from getting away from her abuser came from the fucking Christian soaked culture of those times. Imagine screwing your nerve up to go to those you’ve been programmed to see as authorities and have them tell your decision to leave, you, the abused, the one whose life is being broken, who’s bones are being broken, that that decision is not yours alone. FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! I have a rage now that might not let me sleep. The fundamental lack of compassion, the willingness to dehumanise and infantalise an adult who’s in one of the most desperate situations one can find one’s self makes me, fuck, I can’t even think of anything that will express how angry I am…fuck it. FUCK THEM. And antigodless, do something other than tut tut or die in a fire. You are just as compassionless as the monster fundies who really believe this stuff because it does’t matter if you believe the idiots quoted in the OP are Christian or not. It doesn’t fucking matter what you think of their beliefs you pablumed brained hippie jebus smoking waste of carbon. THEY think they’re christians and all your notruescotsman dismissal of them does is make you feel okay about yourself.
That happened to a girl I knew in college, only she was a teenager when it happened.
She’s been dead for a long time now.
She never managed to get her life together and things just spiraled down and down and one day she OD’ed on a drug.
As a former Christian (I got out of that, too) I can relate to antigodless because I went through a bit of that phase. They’re trying, fruitlessly, to make their god kinder, more gentle, more tolerable because for some reason they need to believe. Unfortunately the Bible says what it says and I believe means what it says.
“When a woman was bullied by Jewish religious leaders two millennia ago, Jesus Himself defended her and let her go. As the leaders were coaxing the crowds to stone her, Jesus uttered these famous words: “let him who is withou sin throw the first rock.””
Do you have footnotes in your Bible,antigodless? This part wasn’t in the earliest manuscripts which were but copies of the supposed original text which no longer exist.
And now I read through the comments here.
Anti-godless. How about your read BCPA_Lady’s comment @40. Your claims are bullshit. If you have an ounce of decency you’ll never post here again.
BCPA: Thank you so much for sharing that.
wow, again, I see Christians lying to support their delusions. Unfortunately, a lot of women who consider themselves Christian *die* in such relationships. I’m not suprised that some Christian, hi there “antigodless”, desperate to excuse their religion’s failing uses the old “true christian” garbage, with of course no evidence that they are any more a “truer” Chrsitian than those who can also cite bible nonsense to support their claims. pathetic. Pity this god can’t make itself clear or intervene for humans who need its help (oh yes, the free will argument, sorry, bible shows that this god cares not at all about free will, unless Christians want to claim that miracles never occured and were simply lied about).
yeah, except not. Because once you’re trapped in one your abusive spouse has probably isolated you from any source of assistance and convinced you (over a long period of time) that you really deserve it. You might not even think about it because you feel so worthless or that you were “made” for them, and if you do the odds against getting out put you in your place pretty fucking fast.
I really loathe the quoted text, I see it so often, its a very common attitude towards spousal abuse. Everybody says they would just leave. Things just don’t work that way, and it isn’t because victims do anything wrong.
The social support for spousal abuse from religious sources is fucked up and makes the problem worse for people stuck in religion and abusive marriages. I just wish that when discussing abuse there was some level of public familiarity with the subject in the first place. For instance, a lot of dudes I know are all up in arms about domestic violence, not because of the way it dehumanizes women, but because they feel it is a perversion of the role of men in marriage. They believe men should be protectors and THAT is their reason for opposition.
Cathartic, yes, but there’s that whole going to prison for comitting a felony thing that I’d rather avoid.
What Skpetifem said. Despite pleading, begging and threatening kidnapping by friends and relatives a dear friend did not leave a horribly abusive relationship because she was so cowed and confused by her abuser. This was not a xtian relationship, but the dynamics were as Skeptifem said. It ended horribly with her dead on the kitchen floor, the abuser in prison for 30 years and her two sons sent to live with grandparents.
I miss you Jenni. I wish we could have done more for you.
@ PZ
Said the white middle-class male with a PhD, tenure, his own home, and a car. I’ve worked more than a few cases involving abused women, and a few abused men, over the years, and leaving is rarely so easy as we imagine it ought to be. In my experience secular abuse victims have a tough time of it too.
The article is indeed a dangerously ignorant piece of crap, but to be fair the author, Darcy Ingraham, does not speak for all Christians. She doesn’t even necessarily speak for her publisher.
There are over 38,000 Christian denominations world wide. Not even the Pope or Rick Warren speaks for all of them…
I’m not any kind of knowledgeable about spousal abuse, but this describes the family dynamic I was raised in pretty much. Leaving just isn’t as easy as people think.
(My father died a year ago last week, or the week before that. Maybe the week before. End of May/beggining of June, anyways.
Even my mother was surprised that I can’t be bothered to remember the exact date. I didn’t expect that.)
@ okstop
If you’re going to reject antigodless’ claim does your use the term “plenty” represent statistics or anecdotes? We can win arguing with Christians and play fair at the same time.
Looked it up online. June 2.
There, that’s a load off.
Fine. Be that way.
@ deen
Right here:
No denomination or sect specified, no particular theology called out (there are hundreds of variations, and no suggestion that there might be a Christian Church or two that operate battered women’s shelters or safe houses.
michaelb @80
That is not a fair reading of what PZ was saying. Yes he didn’t specify the exact sects, but his point remains; xtians are saying that abused women should stay in the relationship and look to the invisible sky fairy for solace. That’s a fact.
I know what you’re trying to say and it’s true that there are some xtian cults that have safe houses and who provide real assistance to women in danger. But don’t you see that your argument is little different than antigodless’s No True Scotsman fallacy?
michaelb:
Except PZ had the decency to say “you CAN” in the passage you quote, which in my reading removes the universal proscriptive sense.
That’s more decency than THE CITED ARTICLE has:
No complaining about the cited author speaking for all women in all variants and sects of Christianity, eh?
You can communicate with the author directly by clicking the appropriate link at http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=32877
I did.
“Dear Ms. Ingraham,
I am concerned that your Bible-based, one-size-fits-all solution to domestic abuse is misguided, uninformed, and will contribute to avoidable injury and death if applied by abused spouses in all cases. Domestic abuse and violence is a complex and pernicious issue that affects thousands, if not millions, of women across the US. Biblical platitudes, almost exclusively penned and invariably edited by representatives of deeply patriarchal societies and institutions, fly in the face of modern concepts of civil rights, personal security, and law. Unless you have the professional training in psychology and/or social work necessary to help women and men safely escape abusive relationships I recommend you limit your Christian writing to topics where a mistake will not result in further injury or death.”
I’ll show him being that way when I burn his ho…
oh wait
@ Skeptifem
Well put. Hear that, antigodless?
For memory, what he cluelessly said upthread:
I had a calvinist fundie colleague, and a good friend, despite our divergences on religious issues; although these issues eventually crippled our friendship. His position on woman abuse was exactly that – it’s unmanly to attack someone weaker than you. Men should be protecting these fragile women.
I never pursued the topic and asked him what an abused spouse should do – we had plenty of topics of disagreement, and we were working at the same place.
I’m afraid I know the sort of answer he could have come with. His standard approach for any issue is to pray and ask the Lord for guidance. And of course, if you are a committed True Christian, the issue of abuse – like many other issues – will never arise. You are on the rightful path, how could sh*t happen?
He was also quite fond of invoking personal responsibilities and, basically, that one shall endure the little miseries of life and receive stoically the wages of sin. In other words, you made your bed, sleep in it. Especially people other than him and his’. If HE searches a way out of an issue, that’s OK.
Recently, I had a discussion with a Catholic colleague on divorce, and he had pretty much the same view: if you are fully committed to your relationship, you will solve any issue (“you should burn your ships down to commit your troops to attack the stronghold”). Having the option to divorce from the start was having “a more palatable solution available, which you will take on the first occasion”.
I was trying to convey that people make mistakes all the time, including when entering into a relationship, and sometimes it’s broken beyond repair (and a relationship becoming abusive is quite beyond repair), but to no avail.
Maybe we were talking at cross-purpose: I am slow to commit myself and he could just have gone for the personal advice. On the other hand, a divorced colleague across the lunch table remarked wryly that when you have gone through a bad relationship once, you do plan for divorce when you re-marry. That doesn’t stop you from being committed, it’s just that you have learned that wishful thinking doesn’t make it so.
So, antibrainuse, any response to those women who have come forward here telling their stories of abuse when they were christian women and the responses they got from their christian families, pastors and communities?
Or is it one of your regular drive-by speeches denying all the bad things done by religious people?
D-Ma, BCPA_Lady & tiffanybrown
Thank you for sharing your stories. I’m glad that you’re here with us now.
Leaving an abusive relationship is easy just like sawing off a limb trapped under a boulder is easy
Also how the fuck is antigodless moderate or liberal. They’re a creatinist bigoted sexist homophobic ass.
Heliantus
*aside*
Funny enough, most people I know who are married and think that divorces are OK take this to mean that they have to put in some work if they want to make their marriage last…
I hate this. Someone (Natalie Reed? Sikivu Hutchinson? Crommunist?) linked recently to a good article on a black feminist blog talking about how black men should call out sexism and misogyny amongst themselves, and the writer made it a point to say something like “And not ‘She’s a queen, treat her like one’ but ‘Seriously, dude, that’s not cool’.” It was an important point – those ideas about “worshipping” (some) women and being in the protector role die very hard, and are often seen as consistent with a feminist approach.
How utterly typical of religion to enable abuse – draping a cloak of religious pseudo-moral authority over the abuser by stating that the priority is not the wellbeing of the victim, but the notional will of the imaginary sky fairy; anything to prevent the victim escaping the grip of her abuser.
—————————————————————-
antigodless @ 2;
You really didn’t bother reading the link at all, did you?
Oh no, we understand misogynist, homophobic bigots like you just fine – that’s the problem…
I always hated the “marriage is an unbreakable sacred covenant with god, blah,blah blah” shit because the onus was always put on the women to make it work.
A beaten wife goes to her priest or pastor to beg for help and is sent home with a flea in her ear about not destroying the marriage.
But do they ever go to the husband and tell him that HIS behavior has broken the sacred covenant of marriage? That it makes HIM wrong with god?
Nope. They feel it is their religious duty to lecture and punish women and children to keep them in line – but doing that to the husband would be “meddling in the private relationship of the family”. Religion is indeed the manservant to patriarchy.
@ michaelb
You know, right after 9/11, we had a number of Muslim authorities clamoring on various media that these terrorists were Not True Muslims, that Islam is a religion of peace, and so on.
The standard response from non-Muslims was on the line: we would like to believe you, but these hijackers were self-professed Muslims. So, if that you say is true, what you moderate muslims are doing about these black sheep in your ranks?
(To be fair, a number of moderate Muslims do fight religious extremism in their countries – But they are usually not those going the No true Scotsman route. Those are enablers.)
You tell us you some Christians care for abused women, so I similarly ask you: what you Good Christians are doing about these black sheep in your ranks?
If the actively good, ethical people in a given culture are just a minority, then it’s not a bug, it’s a feature, something deeply ingrained in the basic tenets of your culture. And it’s these features that you should be yelling at, not at the people pointing out these issues.
I witnessed my country with its deeply-rooted Catholic culture slowly recognizing in the 80’s the reality of rape culture and in the 90’s the reality of spouse abuse, although we are still not sold on how widespread both are – it’s just these brown illiterate people, you know. The concept of rape within marriage is still somewhat foreign to us. Julian Assange from Wikileaks charged with rape in Sweden because he didn’t accept his then-girlfriend’s wish to use condoms? That sadly wouldn’t fly in my country. So please don’t tell me that Christians (or white people, for that matter) are fully cognizant on woman abuse. As a culture, we are not.
I know I am not.
antigodless:
Are you frustrated, baby?
Are you tired of having pretty much everything you say be exposed as either dishonest or kinda stupid?
Don’t you think god could have armed you better for this electronic battle with the Forces of Darkness?
Have you gotten yet that your every post here, your every lie, your every clueless deceleration, your every evasion, makes it easier for those reading to reject your faith as the useless maundering of ancient superstitious goatherds?
You’re bad at this, antigodless. You’re failing at it, day by day.
Either that’s your fault, or it’s god’s plan for you.
Take your pick.
So when after 17 years of a violent marriage, my pastor husband threw me downstairs when I protested his banging our daughter’s head against the wall until her nose bled, I gave up on trying to be a better Christian wife and ran, with the kids, our pastor came along to say, “So he’s been hitting you around some, has he?”
And the advice, which I took, being a good Christian? To go home to my husband and go to counselling to help put my marriage together. The counsellor told me to go home and call him if it happened again. Of course, it did, in short order, but I never called; to go near the phone was as much as my life would be worth at a time like that.
Again, I ran. And thereby lost my home, one child, my job, my bank account, the support and even the friendship of most of my family (and got half-hearted support from a few of the rest), and my church membership.
Because I must not have been as good a wife as I seemed to be, to have provoked my saintly husband to such rage. And I should have continued relying on God; He would see and reward my sacrifice. I lost that, too.
Fair exchange; I kept my life and that of my kids. And gained the right to tell the truth.
Just another typical story, one among millions. That, of course, never happen in antigodless’ world.
@ Gilliel
Re: planning for divorce while marrying
THANK YOU. It’s exactly how I see it. We don’t stay together because we cannot escape, but because we decide to stay.
But I’m single, so what do I know about relationships?
After this discussion with my colleague, I was starting to think I was just a coward unable to face adult responsibilities.
(um, don’t answer that – as I said, there is an ounce of true here…)
Our opinions are likely colored by our respective cultures: I believe you, like me, are from Europe, while my colleague is a Catholic born in Asia.
@ nooneinparticular and Pteryxx
My point is that precisely one Christian woman wrote a bad article chock full of Biblicly- based bad advice regarding domestic abuse. She does not and can not speak for all Christians. By acting as though she does many here are committing the fallacy of hasty generalization.
Presumably the same yo-yos are fighting against gay marriage, as allowing that would ruin the sanctity of the institution.
Of course the same holy book tells slaves to obey their masters; I’m reminded of people in chains singing spirituals–it might help you feel better, then again it might not. No, God is not doing this to you as part of some Divine Plan. Get that out of your head; it’s a dangerously self-destructive thought.
Deepest sympathies to those telling their horror stories here.
Let’s see if I have this right–don’t condemn Christianity because some Christians, hopefully most of them, are good enough people to ignore their holy scripture.
Christianity? It’s perfectly fine as long as you ignore the Bible.
Got it.
/delurking
@ michaelb
Precisely one woman wrote an article full of crappy advice that somehow manages to exactly mirror the advice that a number of people on this board right here in front of you have conveyed that they also received, from completely unrelated Christian leaders. Are you trying to say that the people right here in front of you, sharing their horrific experiences, are lying?
/this message totally not brought to you by a woman who watched her dad beat her mom and her step-mom and totally wasn’t raised in the same denomination as the Bachmanns.
Are belief in Jebus and Yahweh are also optional?
@ Giliell, not to be confused with The Borg
My apologies, I misspelled your name in my previous post.
Also, you said:
Seconded, and extended to Susannah, and all the other people who have posted their stories on this blog.
Myself, I don’t know what to tell you. You have been over much difficult hardships than anything I have experienced. Any words I could come with would be empty.
By telling your stories, you force me to face reality. I don’t believe in shooting down the messenger, so I offer you my sincere thanks for sharing.
I’m sure michaelb will correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think hir argument is of the “don’t judge them all by a few bad apples” variety, but rather, don’t judge them all based on any particular sub-selection.”
It’s not a defence of Christianity, it’s an admonition not to make arguments based on over-generalisations.
Maybe I’m misreading the rebuttals, but I’m seeing a bit of a disconnect between them and what michaelb appears to be saying.
michaelb: Yeah, if you think this is one isolated case happening in a void, you haven’t read this blog very often, much less done the research on other sites such as NoLongerQuivering or Libby Johnson’s blog over on patheos. Local Christian radio stations here in Texas talk about women and children submitting to their male head of household all the time, even citing scripture in support of beating disobedient family members.
By the way, good on you for writing in to the author. I note your letter said nothing about *her* speaking for all Christians, or even that supporting women’s safety from abusive husbands might be compatible with Christian faith. This puzzles me; wouldn’t that have been a potentially valuable argument to a self-identifying Christian?
Brownian:
Possibly, but this is what he’s saying:
(emphasis added)
From the stories we are seeing here, it’s not just one Christian woman, and not just one article. For most of us, there’s nothing surprising about the content of the article (disgusting, yes, but that’s a different issue) – it fits perfectly well with what we have heard before, and with the general tone of the book the faith is based on.
We’re not generalizing based on one article – we’re generalizing based on our general experience.
Opposition to divorce, opposition to abortion rights, opposition to women’s suffrage… these are all part of the religious belief that women are less important than men, and therefore less important than the deals men have made with each other or with god (such as marriage). These ideas are not unique to Christianity, or any other faith, nor are they held by all Christians, but they are woven into the base fabric of the Christian authoritative text.
The way to be a feminist Christian is to ignore large parts of what the bible teaches.
Am I way off base here?
michaelb @ 97;
As pointed out by feralboy12 @ 99, the message contained within the article in question is entirely consistent with the injunctions contained within the bible vis abusive relationships, and as neuroturtle says @ 100, there are several commenters on this thread whose experiences demonstrate that the attitudes contained within the article are widespread enough within christianity at large that all of them encountered similar behaviour from completely separate religious figures.
I do not have any knowledge of your prior commenting history here, so I am going to provisionally assume that you are here in good faith and simply advise that you reconsider your position in regard to your ‘no true christian’ argument. I would also suggest that you should take care that you do not come across as deliberately silencing women who have experienced such abuse, and the enabling attitude of christian religious leaders that helped contribute to the continuation of that abuse.
I should warn you that, if you continue on current form, the next time you are called on this the person who does so, whether it happens to be me or another Pharynguloid, is unlikley to be this polite about it.
No, not at all.
I’ve gone back and re-read, and I think the misunderstanding was all on my part. Carry on.
BTW, I loved your #94, Anri.
hypatiasdaughter @ 92:
No. He is a man and whatever he does in his role as the Christ-head of the home is always righteous. It is not his fault if that evil daughter of Eve provokes him.
—
Susannah @ 95:
One of the hardest things for me to learn was how to express myself honestly. I don’t think I’d ever done that in the first 28 years of my life. (My parents weren’t violent, but even mild disagreement like “I don’t like lima beans” was reason for long lectures about gratitude and accepting whatever the Lord sent your way.) It was tough for a long time to overcome the fear that anything I said (or didn’t say, for that matter) would provoke anger and/or violence.
@ Heliantus
You tell us you some Christians care for abused women, so I similarly ask you: what you Good Christians are doing about these black sheep in your ranks?
I have not been a Christian (or even Roman Catholic) since ~1977, but you couldn’t possibly know anything about my religiosity, or lack of it, since we are not even remotely acquainted.
I am not arguing the No True Scotsman applies in the case of Ms. Ingraham’s egregiously dangerous advice; I’m suggesting that many here, including PZ in this case, are committing the fallacy of hasty generalization.
As for domestic abuse and neglect, the primary risk factor for committing it is being male. Patriarchy and religion certainly contribute to it, but that it probably because men write the rule books for these practices. I’ve seen intimate partner violence perpetrated by Christians, Muslims, and Sikhs – both nominal and pious – as well as non-believers of all stripes. Brutality – physical, psychological, or emotional – against women and children will not disappear should the major monotheisms suddenly evaporate.
My point is that precisely one Christian woman wrote a bad article chock full of Biblicly- based bad advice regarding domestic abuse. She does not and can not speak for all Christians. By acting as though she does many here are committing the fallacy of hasty generalization.
It’s not just one, you lying sack of moronic shit.
It’s one of MANY.
MORE THAN ONE SOURCE is referenced in the take-down article, for instance.
All you have to do is google the genocidal delusion + Divorce or Abuse, or both, and you will find plenty of other woman-hating christard-humping scumbags like you blathering this bullshit.
michaelb @ 97:
As more than one person has pointed out, this is not “one woman” saying these things. This is a widespread pattern among various Christian denominations. My story sounds like a woman who escaped fundie-land, right? Except we (my husband and our families) were Presbyterians.
This woman’s “advice” is exactly the same as that given to women of any faith because ALL of them teach that women are inherently evil tempters of men who must be controlled and kept in their place, even so-called moderate and liberal denominations.
@michaelb #109
Then what exactly is your point? That domestic abuse is a wider societal problem than one that exists only in Christianity, or religion in general? No arguments here – and I haven’t seen one comment that reflects that. What I have seen is a lot of people coming forward about their experiences that are consistent with the terrible Bible-based “advice” written by this one Christian woman. There’s no reason to believe that all of these stories have come from one sect of Christianity, so I’m not sure why you think it’s inappropriate to conclude that there’s a general attitude within Christianity and other religions that compels women to put up with abuse in service of their God.
PZ also said this: “Isn’t that sweet how religion complements the patriarchy so well?”
That’s an indictment of both religion and society as a whole. I’m not sure where your quibble is.
No denomination or sect specified, no particular theology called out (there are hundreds of variations, and no suggestion that there might be a Christian Church or two that operate battered women’s shelters or safe houses.
No one wants to be in an abusive marriage, but if you are a Christian woman the decision to leave or stay is not yours alone.
Do you know how to read at all, rather than just sniveling for your emo slacker scumbag deity?
THE CHRISTARDS ARE SPEAKING FOR ALL FUCKING CHRISTARDS, you moronic sack of dog shit.
michaelb
“I am not arguing the No True Scotsman applies in the case of Ms. Ingraham’s egregiously dangerous advice; I’m suggesting that many here, including PZ in this case, are committing the fallacy of hasty generalization.”
Actually you are, in a way. You are saying that not all xtians would give the same advice as the idiot addressed by this thread. Yet Ms. Ingraham uses explicit passages from the very same source that these other xtians cite. In addition several commentators here, unsurprisingly, have suffered from similar xtian theology.
You DO appear to be saying that Ms Ingraham is not a true xtian because other xtians don’t make the same claims.
Also, it is possible to infer that PZ (and others here) are making the fallacy of hasty generalization but really only if one does not read things in context.
Damn…screwed up the italics. And I was doing so well on my first day of making more than one comment.
@michaelb 109
Nobody’s arguing abuse is more common among Christians, we’re arguing that Christians encourage women to stay in abusive situations.
Also, women can be abusers, too.
BCPA_Lady (now appearing in MN!) @108
It gets passed down from generation to generation. I never knew that my mother had favourite foods, or foods she didn’t like, until she was in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s, and her control slipped.
Once – once that I ever found out about – she wrote a poem hinting at the difficulties of marriage. She hid it away, and we never saw it until after she was in a care home. We were here, according to what she taught us, to obey God and take what He gave, uncomplainingly. Whatever it cost us.
She told me once that if I came home seeking refuge from my husband, she would send me right back to him. It was my place “’till death do us part”.
No shit Sherlock. Why don’t you check on how big a contribution patriarchy and religion are before you keep up your evidenceless assertions. Which *POOF*, can be dismissed without evidence. Try here.
Many of us have read the babble cover to cover and we know what it says. The babble does support wife beating. You can’t argue that away. It is not a generalization to say the babble supports it, and Xians with the more literal interpretation of the babble tend to tacitly endorse the concept. Those are facts.
PZ’s comments didn’t read as a generalization to me. I perceived the pseudo-dialogue as:
Writer of the article: “If you’re a Christian woman, then blah, blah and blah”
PZ (sardonically): “Get this! Apparently, if you’re a Christian woman, then blah, blah and blah!”
The sentence preceding the quote in the OP (“If you’re a Christian woman, though, you can do something different: you get to be strong and take the abuse, because you can find refuge in the Lord.”) merely echoes the nonsense (and the broad generality) of the quote; it doesn’t make an independent factual claim.
@ neuroturtle
Are you trying to say that the people right here in front of you, sharing their horrific experiences, are lying?
No, at all, and I regret that my position on PZ’s post has been misinterpreted.
I agree that domestic abuse perpetrated by the religious is justified using the bible. Is Ms. Ingraham’s article an example of that. Yes. Does she speak for all persons of faith on the issue of domestic violence? No. Was PZ over-generalizing when he said Christians think the same way she does? Yes, I think so. And yes, that means they are ignoring all the nasty bits in their bible. That’s all I meant to say.
PS Still not a Christian since 1977.
@ Brownian
I’m sure michaelb will correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think his argument is of the “don’t judge them all by a few bad apples” variety, but rather, don’t judge them all based on any particular sub-selection.”
It’s not a defence of Christianity, it’s an admonition not to make arguments based on over-generalisations.
Maybe I’m misreading the rebuttals, but I’m seeing a bit of a disconnect between them and what michaelb appears to be saying.
Precisely.
And it was perhaps too fine a point to bother with in discussions of an important topic that has caused serious harm to many of our fellow correspondents.
Thank you.
michaelb –
Ingraham claims she is speaking for all Christians; she does not specify “evangelical women” or “fundamentalist women.” She says “Christian women.” I’m not seeing where PZ overgeneralized. If your point is simply “Christians cherry-pick the Bible,” then say that.
Susannah @ 117:
Oh yes! If you were unhappy, it was your own fault because God never gives or allows anything that isn’t good for you (even if you are hurting now). Any suffering you experience is a result of not accepting his “gifts” with the proper attitude.
“Even eating foods you don’t like is an opportunity to experience suffering for Christ who suffered for us.” — my father
@ anri
We’re not generalizing based on one article – we’re generalizing based on our general experience.
But was PZ? Many people here have experienced violence at the hands of persons who used the bible as their justification. From what I know of his back story PZ was not raised in an abusive or fundamentalist household. Neither was I. I’ve heard of people talking this way and from people who grew up in evangelical surroudnings, but I was never been subjected to this sort of crap. Do PZ generalizations arise from experience or knowledge?
Did you ever do that google scholar search to see the relationship between domestic abuse and religious thinking? There is a correlation. We know that. It is a generalization.
@ Pteryxx
By the way, good on you for writing in to the author. I note your letter said nothing about *her* speaking for all Christians, or even that supporting women’s safety from abusive husbands might be compatible with Christian faith. This puzzles me; wouldn’t that have been a potentially valuable argument to a self-identifying Christian?
That’s because I didn’t think she was speaking for all Christians. I wasn’t speaking to her as a Christian because I am not one. The point I wanted to get across to her is that she is not qualified to give abuse victims the information they need to survive abusive relationships and that she should limit herself to discussions when lives do not hang in the balance.
So I’ll raise my hand in the ‘raised with religion and tortured because of it’ group. I’ll spare most of the details because I want to have a good day, except for to say that because the man is the head of the household, it really doesn’t matter what he does. It also apparently really doesn’t matter what any man in the church does, especially if he is the pastor or part of the pastor’s family.
And that shunning someone who leaves a bad relationship can also take the form of suing them for their children, successfully because we all know affluent Christians make better parents than their poorer, atheist children.
My personal sample is twelve churches in three countries, all Baptist churches, may they rot in their own hells.
michaelb @ 120:
Yes.
No, but as I and others have pointed out she shares the same views of abusive marriages as many of her faith (and other faiths): that women who are abused should pray harder and be better wives in order to get their husbands to stop hurting them. She is simply repeating what they have been telling us in pulpits and pastors’ studies for centuries.
No. Sure, not all of them think the same way, but — again — a large proportion of them do. They use their holy book to justify telling women to stay in abusive, dangerous situations because God wants them to stay married and suffer rather than be safe.
@ aquaria
Thanks for contributing to the conversation.
michaelb @ 124:
Oh holy shit. You are seriously irritating the fuck out of me. Do you think that only people who have experienced Biblically-based abuse are qualified to generalize about whether or not this is a common theme in Christianity? Or could it be that, just maybe, PZ recognizes the overall pattern (amply demonstrated in this thread and correlated in multiple studies) that proves this is sickeningly common regardless of denomination and it is thus NOT AN OVER-GENERALIZATION.
Stop excusing this woman and her faith. She may not be speaking for Christianity, but she is sure as hell carrying their water.
@ nooneinparticular
You DO appear to be saying that Ms Ingraham is not a true xtian because other xtians don’t make the same claims.
I don’t think there is any such thing as a “true Christian.” If there were such a thing there wouldn’t be 38,000 denominations and hundreds (thousands?) of different bibles to choose from.
My sympathies to the people who have been through abusive situations and have been kind enough to share their stories here. I’m glad you’re safe now.
The article is unbelievable, especially the part where she suggests the abused wife gets a hobby:
You may not be able to change the circumstances in which you live, but you can still find happiness and joy. Do you have any hobbies or interests? If you don’t, find something that does interest you and dive in.
It’s totally out of touch with reality! I felt ill reading it. I just hope no-one in genuine need of advice finds this article. I think much of her advice could be dangerous. I mean, if your husband hates your faith and is abusive, would praying at him when he’s angry not result in more abuse?
@michaelb #131
nooneinparticular was making a reference to the “No True Scotsman” logical fallacy with their remark about “No True Christian”. It would be helpful for you to learn about that fallacy, since people here believe you are making it.
I would like to over-generalize and say that at the hands of this One Nation Under God that we all are abused by this “acquiescence to the intolerable.”
Think, there are 2.5 million people in prisons across this country, more per capita than any country on the planet, mostly for drugs yet we “acquiescence to the intolerable.”
Court ordered prison and treatment often includes sentences to attend AA where the prayer “god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can” is repeated as a mantra. So is “let go and let god.”
To me, our courts and government sentence exactly the same self-abnegation advice as the abused women received from Darcy Ingraham. Totally fukking destructive. Wanna talk Stockholm Syndrome?
Furthermore, living “under the gun” of our military-industrial complex serves to enforce this kind of bat-shit-crazy rationalizations on all of us, making each and every one of us in the USA abused victims of bullying by gun-toting godbots. Fukk!
And yet they wonder why there is a drug problem in this country?
Louis, I need more of your suspicious and delicious “lettuce!” Stat!
nonny, that’s a good point. Why would praying in front of your abusive husband stop the abuse, when you’re praying to the deity that gives him the right (and the responsibility, even) to hit you?
I was recalling some blog entries from the Redheaded Skeptic, but it looks like she’s made her blog entirely private for now. She has some stomach-twisting stories on exactly this topic. =/ I’m sure she’s not the only one.
The main problem with Assange (IMHO) was that he (allegedly) wasn’t respecting his then-girlfriend’s wish to use condoms while she was unconscious, and continued to fail to respect this wish after she woke up and told him to stop.
If this is true, it is clearly rape, no matter how much consensual sex they had before.
@ Gregory Greenwood
I do not have any knowledge of your prior commenting history here, so I am going to provisionally assume that you are here in good faith and simply advise that you reconsider your position in regard to your ‘no true christian’ argument.
As I’ve said my point was about “hasty generalizations” rather than a “no true Scotsman” but the subtlety of that point is long since lost and I regret having even made it.
But who are you to appoint yourself judge my motivations and my advisor as to correct position?
I would also suggest that you should take care that you do not come across as deliberately silencing women who have experienced such abuse, and the enabling attitude of christian religious leaders that helped contribute to the continuation of that abuse.
In your estimation precisely which comments might come across in that way?
I should warn you that, if you continue on current form, the next time you are called on this the person who does so, whether it happens to be me or another Pharynguloid, is unlikley to be this polite about it.
Who are you again? If you are by chance the moderator please let me know where I’ve tread upon the charter (and where the eloquent Aquaria has not).
@ mythbri
I’m familiar with the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. Many think I’m making it. I don’t think I am.
And I’m sure most here understand the fallacy “hasty generalization.” I think many here are making it. They think I’m wrong.
@ BCPA_Lady (now appearing in MN!)
Re: #28 I think we’re in complete agreement.
Re: #30 Fair enough.
Yuck. I remember my mum getting these Daily Bread study things when she was going through her fundy phase, and phrases like “god has a plan for you” and “god won’t give you anything you can’t handle” popped up a lot in our house. Happily for mum dad is a great person who is not abusive in any way, but there’ll be plenty of women who are in abusive marriages getting this advice and taking it seriously. That makes me feel ill.
antigodless: are you deluded, or spectacularly ignorant, or merely lying?
michaelb:
Are you under the impression that the thread needed your tutoring in recognizing generalizations?
Are you under the impression that a thread about religion and spousal abuse needs your correction?
Is there some reason you can’t get on google scholar and do your own research?
Are you aware that coming to this thread, in particular, to assert your own brand of correctness is douchey?
You are. That’s why your credibility is shrinking with every post. And you aren’t supervising the conversation either. I found that very impertinent on your part.
The whole notion of not actively trying to make changes in your life because it might be interfering with “God’s plan” is baked hard into Christianity, and I’ve never met a godbot who didn’t believe it to some extent.
A Christian who makes a direct attempt to get an abused person away from their abuser is acting from principles other than what their faith has taught them.
Having worked for a while in government on domestic violence policy (organising funding for intervention services), I can also tell you that the Salvos’ idea of a domestic violence “refuge” is much closer to what we might colloquially call a “prison”. Only voluntary (-ish). Close monitoring, rules on all sorts of trivial conduct issues and possessions, lockdowns, no leaving the building at any time without prior permission, compulsory prayers etc etc. The Catholics are much the same.
@michaelb
While it’s good to watch out for things like hasty generalizations, I think your best bet here is to admit that you were wrong about this one (many stories just in this thread which show that the problem is widespread) and stop arguing the pedantry of your point on a topic which is not only triggering and emotionally-loaded, but also with actual lives at stake.
“You may not be able to change the circumstances in which you live, but you can still find happiness and joy. Do you have any hobbies or interests? If you don’t, find something that does interest you and dive in.”
Only dive in provided it’s been approved by said abusive spouse. Which it probably won’t be. Because that abusive spouse is controlling and because he/she requires all of your attention.
Oh my gawd! The person giving this advice has no clue and clearly has no experience with abuse victims. Honestly. She’s telling the abused to stop being co-dependent. They can’t because if they start trying to have a brain of their own and think for themselves and do something without permission that will likely result in more abuse. The abuser needs that co-dependence and if he/she begins to lose it will likely rage all the more.
^ This. Having all your friends and hobbies peeled away is symptomatic of abuse by a controlling partner. That was one of my diagnostic signs.
The thing about a hasty generalization is that it must be, well, hasty. Most of us here have had far more experience – unfortunately some of us firsthand – with religion perpetuating and excusing abusive relationships. In some cases, this experience goes back years.
Also, many of us in the New Atheist movement have done some checking into this sort of topic, to see if there is any sociological connection between patriarchal religion and the abuse of women. There is, and it’s well documented.
This article doesn’t prove that Christianity promotes the abuse of women. The years of experience showing that Christianity promotes the abuse of women proves that. The article is just a useful jumping-off point.
Not all Christians are abusers. But all Christians, by endorsing a book that marginalizes and degrades women as the imperishable word of the almighty god, give aid and comfort to those few who apply what the bible actually says about women.
michaelb #137
Here in Pharyngula we are generally unconcerned about how you say something* but we are concerned about what you say. You can hold any position you like as long as you can give reasonable, credible evidence to support it. Expect to be rebutted and expect to read some inflammatory words used in the rebuttal. This is the deep end of the pool.
Also tone trolling is not looked upon favorably. Complaints about naughty words will inevitably result in more abusive language being dumped upon you.
*An important caveat: Sexist, racist, ableist and suchlike derogatory language will not be tolerated. It’s acceptable to call someone an asshole or even a douche, but cunt, bitch, nigger, etc. will bring the wrath of the Horde down on you. You have been warned.
[meta]
You have misread it.
PZ is snarking about the quotation he provided (which purports to speak for Christianity), not about what all Christians believe.
(Duh)
michaelb @ 137;
As has been noted by other commenters, your form of words @ 97;
(Emphasis added)
Seems to state that, despite your own admission that the message here is “biblicly based”, somehow her interpretation separates her from the position of most christians. Other commenters have pointed out that, far from this being the case, the attitude seems widespread enough among christians that several different commenters here have encountered it completely independently of one another. This does seem to be a ‘no true christian argument’ in so far as you are identifying, as a failure in this individual alone, a set of attitudes that are far more widespread among christians.
What did I actually write again?
(Emphasis added)
At no point did I “judge your motivations” – I expressly avoided prejudging why you commented here in the way you did, despite the fact that we get theists breezing through here every day who accuse us of mischaractersing religious belief in much the same way as you did.
That was just a little friendly advice. The crowd around here can get rather… direct when they encounter someone who appears to be engaging in religious apologia, especially in regard to something as repugnant as its role in enabling domestic violence. I was giving you fair warning of how other commenters might respond in as neutral a fashion as possible, before the invitations to use decomposing porcupines as suppositories began.
I was thinking specifically of post no. 97, where you focus on the idea that the attitudes expressed in the article are not widespread among christians despite the accounts of multiple other commenters who have related their experiences of encountering just such attitudes from a range of christian authority figures, from a spectrum of different denominations, when going through their own experiences of domestic violence and other forms of spousal abuse.
At best this can be interpreted as a simple failure to read those posts before commenting. At worst, it comes off as dismissive of their experiences.
The only moderator here is PZ. The advice I gave you was simply intended as a ‘heads up’ – some of your posts appear to be dismissing the experiences of women who have encountered a less than sympathetic response from christians in regard to the domestic violence and spousal abuse they have suffered, and I have been around here long enough to know how such a comment will likely be received. In line with the three post rule, I assumed good faith on your part and sought to warn you of the reception that comments of the type you made @ 97 might garner ahead of time, so that any misunderstandinmg might be cleared up.
It was not my intention to give offence, or set myself up as some kind of unofficial moderator (not that the Horde, or PZ for that matter, would tolerate such a thing).
Pteryxx @ #147: Most definitely. Something not involving your abuser that gives you pride and happiness? Oh that just won’t do. (Slowly learning to draw again.)
michaelb: and if you don’t believe the commenters, go read the rules for yourself here:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/08/01/pharyngula-standards-practices/
happiestsadist: same… we may need TET art jams. /derail
I never understood how Christians differentiate on what changes they are allowed to make and figure out what is and what isn’t part of “god’s plan.” Why is it okay to go to the doctor to treat an illness (that supposedly god “gave” you), but *not* okay to leave an abusive relationship? Both cause harm, and doing something in both cases could be considered “interfering” in god’s plan.
Though reading through many people’s stories, the common theme is that harmful things that support the patriarchy are part of “god’s plan.”
@Jamie
#155
“I never understood how Christians differentiate on what changes they are allowed to make and figure out what is and what isn’t part of “god’s plan.”
Exactly. And if we were to be really true to the Bible on this whole patriarchy thing women are never allowed to divorce their husbands. More precisely: they can but, according the the Word, once a woman is hitched she can’t ever really get unhitched. No such thing as divorce. So even if she separates, even if she divorces, she’s still in a “covenant” with the man. She can never remarry as long as he’s alive. Meanwhile, he can marry as many women as he wants to. He gets to be an SOB and she’s just stuck with him. Or she’s alone. Alone is better, but it’s absurd.
God’s plan, ain’t it grand. If he has plans to prosper me and not to harm me, I don’t friggin want to see what he’d do to harm me.
Jamie
It reminds me of how Christians assume that god affects what they can’t see or control, while leaving what they can see or control up to natural law. Never mind that what’s outside their sphere of influence is probably within someone else’s.
The more powerful a Christian is, the less interference god has in what they want to do, strangely enough.
Well, for me, I see both getting treatment for disease and somehow distancing yourself (leaving/finding shelter/whatever can be managed) from an abuser as within our control. Plus, there are so many excuses to choose from, it boggles my mind when they go for the worst one. Why not reason that when someone abuses his/her spouse, that the abuser is being influenced by the devil, rather than the suffering is to teach the abused a lesson?
It’s heart-wrenching figuring out how such evil could be justified. The only reason I see is that it’s the easy way out. So much easier to let those weaker than you suffer dire consequences instead of exerting any effort to make things better.
Because that would be too much trouble. And too many societies are built around keeping the powerful in power, and keeping the weak and the victimized weak and victimized.
When my dad gave me a beating right in front of a lady from church (she was having tea with my mom in our home and witnessed the whole thing) she took me aside later and told me I should try not to make my father so angry.
Great advice, church lady. Why wasn’t I clever enough to figure that one out for myself?
[meta]
wondering, that’s so dismal. :|
(Mordant, you are!)
Read enough of this and you will cry and cry and cry and never stop. It never ends. And it never will end until men are taught to respect us as equals, other humans, not chattel or idols. Just, people, just like them.
Antigodless, you are so far up your own privileged ass you can’t even see wrong from where you’re standing in spectacular Klein-bottle fashion. You cannot be debated with. You cannot be reasoned with. You are dead weight upon these topics, not even a competent troll. Why are you here?
@Michaelb in #80 and all over the rest of this thread: No, PZ wasn’t even making a hasty generalization in his post. That is only one of the interpretations of the line you quoted, and a very uncharitable at that:
Other readings have been suggested to you. For example, as Pteryxx pointed out in #82, you could easily read it as that PZ said that Christian women are offered an option, which doesn’t imply that any Christian has to accept the option. Or PZ could simply be describing the opinion of the author of the linked article (which he clearly doesn’t share).
These are all straightforward and reasonable interpretations of what PZ wrote. The fact that this has been pointed out to you several times now, but you keep insisting on your uncharitable interpretation of a “hasty generalization” seems to indicate a lack of goodwill from your side.
I am Lord/Lady Ing of The Dutchery of Fuckyermom and I have the full authority by virtue of being another human being seeing you act like an immoral jackass. It’s the same authority everyone has to criticize your stupid, callous, privileged ass. So why don’t you stop thrusting your balls of “Concern” and “Tone” in our face and put them back in your trousers of ignorance?
Follow-up: Daniel Fincke interviews Vyckie Garrison, who wrote the takedown linked in the OP.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/camelswithhammers/2012/06/14/on-how-to-help-spiritually-abused-women-an-interview-with-vyckie-garrison-of-no-longer-quivering/
…
WHAT THE FLAMING FUCK.
True story: one of my great-aunts was abused by her husband. She was an accomplished pianist and supplemented the household’s meager income by giving lessons and performing in town concerts. He broke her fingers, then interfered with the healing. She had to struggle to hold a pen afterwards, much less do anything else with her hands.
But she wouldn’t divorce him, because she “didn’t believe in divorce.”
Because gawd said so.
She finally left him after he beat her into unconsciousness in front of their kids. Her parents, to their credit, took her and the kids in and helped them establish themselves independently.
But she wouldn’t divorce him, because she “didn’t believe in divorce.”
Because gawd said so.
So she lived twelve years, still wearing his name, allowing the whispers (this was during the 1940s, single women with kids whose husbands were alive not at the front were shamed mercilessly), enduring having her kids bullied, living paycheck to paycheck on a secretary’s salary.
It didn’t matter that she could have gotten a divorce on the grounds of cruelty – people would have come to testify in her defense – but she didn’t.
Because gawd hates divorce. The Babble says so!
After he died, she went to the funeral. For the sake of her kids, who had lost their father. At the funeral, someone or another leaned over and whispered in her ear, “At the end, he forgave you.”
Abuse of women is not just allowed by mainstream – yes MAINSTREAM – Christianity, it is outright CONDONED.
While the law has gotten better than it was for her, not much else has. And all of the improvements in the law can be more-or-less directly ascribed to increasing secularism and decreased willingness to blindly kowtow to Bronze Age rantings.
Yay! My daily dose of anger inducing xtian bullshit! I personally know someone who was nearly killed after her abusive spouse shot her three times in the chest. When she filed for divorce, she was thrown out of her Church and shunned by her entire (small Southern) town because Jebus thinks it was all her fault apparently.
Because it is more likely that the abused rather than the abuser is viewed as possessed by the devil/demons for daring to speak up and the abuser is just doing their (religious) duty to beat the devil out of that uppity woman or disobedient child.
That would make sense if religious faith had been designed (true or not) as a means of promoting/encouraging social justice, fairness, and moral behaviour.
Of course, that is not what religious faith was designed for. It was created to enforce and justify the power of the elites over the masses, and for the preservation of privileges in the hands of the ruling minority.
Holy crap, Esteleth, that is the most horrifying story I’ve heard in a long time. My great-aunt also had an abusive husband, in the 1950s, and she divorced his beating, drunk ass, and as far as I know, nobody dared to say anything about it, and my family supported her about 150%.
Then again, very few of us ever had much use for church, even though some of us are theists, and while my family (particularly back then) has its ideas about “respectability,” our welfare also comes first.
Aquaria using mental retardation as an insult again:
Like using permutations of dyke or gay or queer as insults, this is hurtful to innocent bystanders.
[OT + meta]
ॐ:
What, to christards?
(Oh well)
lilapwl is trying to start a fight again. Exhibit 1241 in the argument that he’s a prissy, arrogant bully who delights in being a disrespectful asshole.
John, a lot of people with developmental disabilities, including and in addition to mental retardation, have been mocked as “tards.” It is hurtful to many of these people as well as their families.
+++++
No, rather, I’m trying to get people to stop using permutations of “retard” as insults, again.
http://dictionary.com/browse/prissy
Origin: 1890–95, Americanism; blend of prim and sissy
What is arrogant, bullying, disrespectful and assholish about pointing out that using permutations of “retard” as insults is hurtful to innocent bystanders?
ॐ, Christards don’t have developmental disabilities.
They’re made stupid by Christianity, is the long and the short of it.
—
Well, you’re trying, alright.
(How’s the zealotry working out for ya?)
Whatever your issues with SG or his approaches may be…
you’re defending using tard? Or ignoring what tard comes from?
When it is so obviously a shortening of retard?
It really gives the impression that you’re willing to excuse behavior that other wise would be frowned upon if SG disproves of it publicly.
this place keeps getting more and more surreal.
[meta]
Rev. BigDumbChimp:
There is no such defending, and your impression is shallow.
You in your cups, or something?
whatever Morales, sure looks like it when you say
and this
John, Christians do not constitute the whole set of innocent bystanders who are hurt by permutations of “retard” as insults (and many Christians are not in the set).
There are also atheists with developmental disabilities, and atheists with family members who have developmental disabilities, many of whom can be unintentionally hurt by this kind of insult.
Fraid I’m going to have to overrule you on this one and not accept this into evidence. I don’t deny, persay, that there’s not other evidence but he’s actually right and trying to be respectful here.
Granted I can see the confusion as you’re not supposed to call the mentally disabled retarded, so there’s a question of chicken or egg on whether it’s insulting by calling comparing people to the disabled or insulting because it’s a mean term for the disabled or whatever. Doesn’t matter, it’s splash damage try to avoid it.
‘Tis Himself, #149:
‘Tis Himself, #173:
Really? Are you disagreeing that “retard” is an ableist insult, or are you comfortable with the double standard you’re applying here? Or what?
“Sexist, racist, ableist and suchlike derogatory language will not be tolerated… unless the person using such language is well-liked and respected around here and the first person to object to it happens to be lilapwl, then it’s all fine.” This is how you’re coming across, and no matter how much you dislike lilapwl, it’s seriously not OK.
Um, didn’t someone say “christard” was based on “bastard” and not on “retard”?
@182
Didn’t someone say Pussy is from Pussycat not vulva?
[OT]
Well, Ing, I for one have had pussy wounds.
opposablethumbs,
Doesn’t seem to be the case here.
And FWIW, Urban Dictionary. Even if you’re basing it on “bastard”, it’s obvious that not everyone will understand it that way, so I think it is best avoided.
Yes, I guess it is.
There is a folk etymology of /b/tard that says it is a grawlix-censored form of bastard. This is a minority view, and who knows when any 4channer is srs, but some people imagine it plausible.
However, even those who believe this rely on the presence of the /b/ to say it suggests bastard. The standard referent of tard is mental retardation, and that includes its use as a generic suffix.
[meta]
ॐ is quite correct @187.
—
That’s not the problem, the problem is pedantic zealous righteousness, and in this case how the substance of Aquaria’s comment was ignored yet she was accused of terminological sinfulness; that offends my sense of fairness.
(Slop)
*snickering* Kukukukukku
Ableism was part of the substance of those comments.
But, John, for your sake, in the future I may acknowledge more of the substance of a comment while objecting to ableism. This will surely depend on my mood, and probably the ratio of ableism/not-ableism in the comment, but okay, I’ll take your sense of fairness into some consideration.
It does, and it’s come as a very unpleasant surprise.
[meta]
SC, self-parody surprises you?
(How surreal!)
Tell me more about your sense of fairness, John.
Or, if nothing comes to mind, let me know if you’re game for a couple questions.
[OT]
ॐ, take it to TZT.
—
The topic:
Okie doke.
Michaelb, a bit late to the party, but look up what the RC’s attitude is to divorce, even in cases of domestic violence. I.e. much the same as this, I assume, protestant woman. I have witnessed this quite a number of times in the UK over the last 50+ years, let alone anywhere else, and I have plenty of friends who have suffered gravely due to the RC attitude to divorce and abusive relationships. Quite a few I got to know after they escaped from Ireland to Wales, that being the only half sure way to get away from the church and even their own family trying to force them to stay in a violent relationship and with the same kind of xian arguments made by this ignorant fool.
Though sadly, I say half sure, as, I have also known plenty of instances were the local RC priest, on learning of their circumstance, has actually shopped them to their home parish. It doesn’t usually take long for them to then turn up and try, with the help and backing of the priest, and sometimes sadly succesfully, to force the victim to return, ‘for the good of the family’. While many protestants might qubble, last I heard, RCs were also xians. So please, stick your ‘hasty generalisations’ where the sun don’t shine and in future, try doing some research before you come on here acting like an idiot and, effectively, tone trolling ‘cos we’re being so mean to all the poor downtrodden xians’.
Remember the joke about the guy who drowns because he’s waiting for the Lord to rescue him and when he gets to heaven (no IQ test!) the Lord says, “What did you want? I sent you two boats and a helicopter!”
Now imagine the Lord saying, “I gave you a pair of feet and a women’s shelter in your city!”
Christian apologists should not presume to dictate how the Lord works.