Hey @corey-devos
You’re going to CRUSH it at the next seance, kombucha circle, or podcast with this juicy soyburger. Enjoy 
Should be no surprise to anyone with any kind of post-secondary education.
Nice Two-fer here conflating the Rosary with “Extremist Gun Culture” is a real doozy. Excellent approach to label as Extremists both the 48M Catholics and +300M firearms in private hands here in the US. LOL.
And then, there is the Russian Media, and the way “The Daily Beast” spins Russian propaganda to its own Information Warfare ends.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russian-state-media-declares-our-agent-donald-trump-is-irreversibly-screwed
To be best enjoyed paired with a nice and heady cheese.
PERFECT! Jail Trump on Espionage then trade him for Griner. It’s brilliant.
Extremist plots against the long established ideals of Identity Marxism must be STOPPED!
No longer can the Global States of Utopia suffer from heresy so blasphemous as “In the run-up to the upcoming electoral battles, one of the contenders for a political role—the most important political role in the United States—Donald Trump steps up and says, ‘We’ve gone too far. There are only two genders: male and female.’”
All Hail the New World Order!
It sounds like you are saying that blatant corruption and criminality in your party is excused, as long as you score a win against your perceived political enemies in the process.
Is this one of those “ends justify the means” / “I hate Democrats more than I love the Constitution” moments?
I am glad you seem to be coming around to the fact that the “stolen election” was nothing but a lie from the very beginning, and that Trump had absolutely no justification whatsoever to try to overthrow our Constitutional process by conspiring to send fake electors to Congress.
It sounds more like anything is excused if they are against allowing Transgendered people to exist. If anyone does not identify as 100% male or 100% female within a narrow definition of those terms, any crime is allowed and ignored in the fight to prevent them from existing.
@raybennett Dude, it was from your satire article…
People just don’t want to pay for “elective” surgeries nor have gender dysphoria promoted by “educators” with our children. You’ve got some really weird logic if you think this is “preventing them from existing”.
News flash - no one cares what you identify as on Tuesday’s or party night, how you dress or who you have sex with. You go be you and leave your neighbors’ and school children alone.
In fact your last sentence contradicts your first.
In fact Christian men are the biggest danger to children. That’s just what the data shows to be true.
Some Christians are working to educate the real problem, while others (yes - you) seem to have your head in the sand and are looking for a distraction.
Cracks in the case, chinks in the armor, stanky cheese whiffing about, doodoo on the shoes…
Do you have any Demographics data from a reputable source on these claims?
All I’ve been able to find shows predominately family members and some race based statistics.
The Official Newspaper of the Lutheran Church-Missouri isn’t reputable enough for you?
I gave you a link with lots of data. The only conclusion I can make is either you did not read the article or you think the Lutheran Church-Missouri is not reputable. I would be interested to hear why you think the source I provided is not reputable?
Do you have any demographic data from a reputable source that openly Gay or Trans are anything other than a very miniscule %?
Here is something about risk of abuse.
Apparently while an intrinsic religious outlook (what I would call spiritual but not religious) does not increase risk, a Literal interpretation of the Bible correlates to increased risk of being sexually abused.
Another one that if you read it you’d probably never send a child to church:
I’d be interested in hearing how you will say The University of Alberta is not reputable:
https://www.ualberta.ca/folio/2020/08/researchers-reveal-patterns-of-sexual-abuse-in-religious-settings.html
The Research:
I would assume the Lutheran Church is likely more reputable than most.
Our church requires NCIS background checks and 4 hours of how to spot grooming/abuse for ANY volunteering. If you were to “sit in on” and “report on” our training, you could also find many statements you could spin into melodramatic articles such as “even Pastors or Youth Ministers or parents or even other children can all be child molesters”.
I was looking for specific data on religiosity, religions, and child abuse as opposed to the anecdotal statements.
Yet you offer zero data on why you think openly gay and Trans are the problem while ignoring the data in the article in the articles I did provide. In rebuttal to the articles I provide, you just offer your own anecdotal experience with your one church that you attend as if your one Church can give a free pass to every other church on the planet. Well, you are Christian and they are Christian, so you believe that your church is representative of every church so therefore there cannot be a widespread problem any where in any Christian church and all data that you are presented with is just “anecdotal statements”.
Your replies just reinforce and legitimize why I separated from formal religion 30 years ago and never had a good reason to revisit it. There is far to much willingness among Religious people (Christians in the USA) to turn a blind eye to their own members and demonize nonmembers without good cause. You are doing it here and that is why there is a problem. There are far to many people like you in Religion.
Your response to this is “Oh, that’s just an anecdotal statement”:
One of the best-known cases of such grooming in the Catholic Church was uncovered by the Boston Globe in 2002 and dramatized in the 2015 film Spotligh t. The Globe revealed that John J. Geoghan, a former priest, had fondled or raped at least 130 children over three decades in some half-dozen Greater Boston parishes.
Strange, isn’t it? That such a fact-based study does not exist in the USA? You would think there would at least be numbers to vindicate Churches? If the numbers were low, that is.
I can find such numbers about Autsralia:
https://bravehearts.org.au/research-lobbying/stats-facts/child-sexual-abuse-religous-organisations/
The St John of God Brothers had the highest proportion of religious brothers who were classed as alleged perpetrators (40.4%) followed by Christian Brothers (22%), Salesians of Don Bosco (21.9%) and Marist Brothers (20.4%). The highest proportion of alleged perpetrators who were Catholic priests came from the Benedictine Community of New Norcia (21.5%) along with the Salesians of Don Bosco (17.2%) and Marist Fathers (13.9%) (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, 2017b).
and Germany
A study examining the personnel files of more than 38,000 Catholic Priests and clergy within the German Catholic Church across the period 1946 – 2014 found that 4.4% of all clerics were alleged to have committed sexual abuse, and 3,677 children or adolescents were identified as victims (Dressing, Dolling, Herman, et al., 2021). More than 80% of victims in the German sample suffered contact abuse. The seriousness of the offences as compared to the US John Jay study appeared even more severe, with 25.7% of offences involving penile penetration or attempt (Dressing, et al., 2021).
I found the actual research study the article above was refrencing with a bit of digging so you don’t have to pay to read the whole thing.
Confirming our hypothesis, considering religion as more instrumental, serving a means to an
end, is associated with an increased risk to engage in physically abusive behavior. Such results
are consistent with research that more Extrinsically oriented college students obtained higher
child abuse potential scores (Dyslin & Thomsen, 2005), and with findings that individuals with
greater Intrinsic religiosity display better adjustment relative to those with greater Extrinsically
oriented religiosity (e.g., Batson and Ventis, 1982 and Watson et al., 1984). Therefore, those who
are more inclined to focus on the personal and social benefits of religion (Extrinsically religious),
rather than those who internalize religion, appear to share characteristics with those who are
more likely physically abusive toward children. Furthermore, those with greater Extrinsic
religious orientation who are also more socially conformist appear to be especially likely to share
characteristics identified in those who are physically abusive.
The current study also investigated two additional markers of religiosity, literal interpretation of
the Bible and church attendance. Previous researchers had suggested that those who consider the
Bible to be literally true are more supportive of corporal punishment (Ellison and Sherkat, 1993a,
Ellison and Sherkat, 1993b and Wiehe, 1990). Findings from the present study of abuse potential
parallel those regarding corporal punishment. Those respondents who held a more literal
interpretation of the Bible obtained higher child abuse potential scores. Literal interpreters also
evidenced greater social conformity, higher scores on nearly all Intrinsic religiosity scales, but
lower scores on Extrinsic religiosity. Greater social conformity was also associated with greater
Intrinsic religiosity but not Extrinsic religiosity, in contrast to earlier research suggesting both
orientations were associated with rigidity (Maltby, 1998). Consequently, in the multiple
regression analyses predicting child abuse potential, whereas Extrinsic religiosity contributed
significant unique variance, literal interpretation of the Bible did not account for variance not
already explained by social conformity. In other words, although more Intrinsically religious
individuals may be more socially conformist and interpret the Bible as literally true, socially
conformist beliefs appear to be the component that elevates abuse risk
Here is the hefty 295 page study that has all the data about the USA Catholic Priest fiasco
Conveniently no such data exists for nonCatholic Churches
There is apparently a stark correlation with decrease in Church attendance and decrease in child sexual abuse in the USA nationwide from 1992-2000.
Although there is this…https://www.npr.org/2022/08/14/1117418889/the-doj-is-investigating-southern-baptists-for-mishandling-sex-abuse-allegations
I’m sometimes hesitant to say much about the corruption within religions, as they have also contributed a lot to society: the Civil Rights movement began in churches, for instance. But when religions are aligned with the far-right and accusing the left/Democrats of things like satanic pedophilia and grooming, and are also banning books and fighting against LGBT+ rights, and are fighting abortion rights, even in cases of severe physical or psychological injury or trauma to young girl-mothers–then I think they deserve to be called out for their moral failures.
Thanks Ray for the link. Great stuff. The study (if i’m readying correctly) was performed in a Mountain West city with 200 participants. The study also has a focus on corporal punishment as an indicator for possible child abuse tendencies - i.e. a tendency on the spectrum, not directly on child abuse. Ideally I think we would want a much larger sample size across multiple regions and demographics, urban and rural, etc… And also a focus on actual child abuse, not corporal punishment.
So here we are with a VERY small sample size within a single community in a single region and much literature survey on corporal punishment used as a proxy for tendency to child abuse. It’s several levels of assumptions and indirections.
From the PDF, this might explain both the Anti-Christian/Religion and Pro-Christian/Religion viewpoints (page 5).
Two concepts help unfold some of the discussion that you and Corey demand as “fact” that I just don’t see as “one of them”. I think the Extrinsically Religious would fit with your Literal-Mythic stuck in Amber “fact”. Where as my, my family’s, and my community’s experience is seemingly well described as Intrinsically Religious in the paper.
Perhaps Corey could Zone map this Extrinsic vs Intrinsic religiosity beyond the gross Altitudes of Amber, Orange, Etc…
**inconsistency arises because religiosity is not unidimensional. A closer examination of the literature on religiosity reveals that more Intrinsically oriented individuals evidence better mental health (Batson & Ventis, 1982), lower hostility (Masters, Lensegrav-Benson, Kircher, & Hill, 2005), and greater empathy (Watson, Hood, Morris, & Hall, 1984). This line of research implies individuals with more Intrinsic religiosity possess characteristics that would contraindicate a tendency toward parent-child aggression. In contrast, more Extrinsically oriented individuals have higher levels of interpersonal reactivity (Masters et al., 2005), more acceptance of rape (St. Lawrence & Joyner, 1991), and less altruism (Batson & Gray, 1981). Moreover, in a rare study investigating beyond corporal punishment, Dyslin and Thomsen (2005) found that those with higher Extrinsic religious orientation scores obtained significantly higher child abuse potential scores, whereas greater Intrinsic religiosity and orthodoxy were unrelated to child abuse potential. However, the study involved young college undergraduates, some aspects of religiosity appear to have been omitted, and the obtained association with Extrinsic religiosity was notably weak (Dyslin & Thomsen, 2005). Nonetheless, the available evidence suggests greater Extrinsic orientation is more likely related to abuse risk.
Based on my experience and what I think I remember of your Church experiences, I’m fairly certain that I had and have a very Intrinsic experience. It could be that you experienced a more Extrinsic community.