They’re just reeling at recent news — fortunately, though, they have great skills at evading conflict and making up excuses. So let’s see what Ray Comfort is talking about these days.
Standing by my friend Josh Duggar, as a brother in Christ. This was in his BC days. Such were some of us.
— Ray Comfort (@raycomfort) May 24, 2015
Standing by my friend Josh Duggar, as a brother in Christ. This was in his BC days. Such were some of us.
So Duggar molests his sisters, and Ray’s rationalization is that it occurred before his “BC” (before Christ) days. Um, that whole family was raised in a fanatically Christian bubble — Josh Duggar was thoroughly indoctrinated from an early age.
I have no idea what he means by Such were some of us.
So what awful things did Ray Comfort do in his BC days?
Eric Hovind announces that he loves Josh Duggar. He confessed and repented, therefore it was all OK. And of course, we can blame evolution, somehow.
The truth is, it is you who is applying a double standard. If evolution is true, then there is no absolute right and wrong. If evolution is true Josh should not have admitted his faults over a decade ago because what one evolved bag of molecules does to another bag of molecules just doesn’t really matter. If evolution is true there is no ultimate Judge on the bench who will hold every man, woman, and child responsible for their actions. And if evolution is true you will not give an account for every idle word you speak.
The truth is, we all use Christian Morality to judge people. The very idea of judgment comes from Christianity.
A Christian commits evil, and it’s all the fault of other people who don’t believe in god.
Maybe Eric should open his Bible, too. There’s a book in there called Judges. It’s in the Old Testament, which predates Christianity, you know.
What about Ken Ham? Ham is much more media savvy, and while he’d been bragging about the Duggars visiting the Creation “Museum” last September, for now he’s staying mum. Instead, he’s moaning about the Irish marriage equality vote. Guess what’s at fault? Evolution!
it is a failure of the church and Christian homes in not teaching generations of young people to defend the Christian faith. Most church leaders and most parents have compromised God’s Word with evolutionary ideas and thus undermined the authority of the Word of God. And most children from church homes have been given to the state to educate in naturalistic evolutionary humanism! No wonder we have a major problem in the culture.
These guys have a major blindspot. In all their Christian whining, none of them expressed any compassion for the girls who were harmed, or recognized the importance of mutual consent, so they’re outraged that consenting adults might want to make a lifelong commitment to one another, and are just fine with children being violated, as long as the perpetrator apologizes.
For what it’s worth:
“11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+6%3A11&version=KJV
Pretty sure it matters to that particular bag of chemicals. It might not matter to Eric Hovind, but I don’t see how his lack of empathy is our fault.
Funny, you never hear the child molesters quoting this one:
“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Thank you misogynist assholes for showing women are irrelevant to your concept of a compassionate Xian god. Which means your god is a bigot…..who is unworthy of worship….*snicker*
Cat Mara # 3: Oh, but there’s an out in that verse, “… these little ones which believe in me …” So other “little ones” don’t matter. And maybe, since the girls in this case were younger, they hadn’t gotten around to praying the sinner’s prayer yet, and so weren’t actually believers.
So it’s all good. No millstones needed.
*/snark*
Hammurabi is credited with creating one of the earliest surviving codes of law, which is quite possibly responsible for the phrase ‘an eye for an eye’. He predates Jesus by 1,750 years. Fuck off, Hovind.
This is why I became a “none.” I refuse to have a part in any religion that condone such atrocities in every way.
Michael Voris bleats about “The Murdering of Catholicism” (if only this headline was accurate):
http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/the-murdering-of-catholicism
Susannah @5:
Now you tell me! D’you know how much these things weigh?!
(Rolls millstone back into mill, grumbling)
Ham whines:
The problem with this argument is that the Catholic Church accepts evolution. It was another tenet of the RCC that Irish voters reject, that GLBT people are inherently evil.
My partner is drifting towards some Alpha Course indoctrination, she is very excited with it.
She’s a sexual abuse survivor and has been neglected by her parents, so I can understand that she’s very happy in a supporting and accepting community, but what worries me is some pure bullshit apologia that she’s been learning as if it was legitimate logic (the “Parting of the Red Sea scientific article” would be *evidence* for biblical events…)
She’s a good person, means well and is very willing to listen to me, but I worry that I will pit her intellectual integrity against her (very legitimate) emotional needs.
I wish I could find a secular organization that provided the same support.
Apparently Duggar isn’t the only one: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/05/22/josh_duggar_is_the_latest_in_a_string_of_sex_abuse_scandals_rocking_the.html
If Josh can wheedle a high paying job with someone like Comfort or Ham, then he will suffer the slings and arrows and pretend he’s still the most important Christian on the planet. On the other hand, if he can’t get a job and has to rely on an allowance from daddy, then I think he will give up and top himself. Probably drive his car off a cliff or something like that.
Just to add to the pile of disgusting human beings: Mike Huckabee also came out in support of ignoring Josh Duggar’s sexual abuse. Although I’m sure that doesn’t surprise anyone. What is a bit surprising is that a number of self-identified conservatives have a problem with it.
Hrm…
… become a Christian. Develop all the judgement of these fine folks.
That’s one hell of a sales pitch under the circumstances, Ray.
(/Also, even though it may sound oddly like I was saying ‘Ur-Nammu’, I was just clearing my throat.)
It’s also a bit disturbing the fact that despite the fact it was a number of girls that were victimized here, all we’re talking about is men.
For some reason, I imagine the sexual/emotional abuse did not stop when Josh stopped . In fact, it probably got worse. Forcing the victims to apologize to their attackers for leading them on or somehow seducing them is common (see awful diagram by the sexual abuse treatment centre Josh attended at the bottom of this article), and I’m sure they were more or less forced to accept any apologies made to them, regardless of how hollow they were. Even now, I imagine there are some who are actively re-victimizing them for besmirching the honor of a man.
Also, this would probably be a good place to plug Vyckie Garrison’s blog No Longer Quivering
But if he had been a True Christian™ At the time, Duggar would not if molested those girls. Now that he’s repented and groveled before Jesus for forgiveness, we can be sure that he’ll never do it again. If that fails he wasn’t a True Christian then either.
Repeat until you don’t get caught.
Wow the double standards in Michael Voris. He rages that the church never punished homosexual priest. I’d also point out that they didn’t punish pedophile priest either. He then makes some point about sexually abused boys leaving the church, and what do you know, completely ignores the girls, and women who were abused.
And he wonders why people are leaving the church.
Mike Huckabee says some stupid shit too. Some of the comments there are pretty good reading. The outrage is palpable as Huckabee wants to shame anyone who is rightly condemning the fact that this young man was dealt with quietly by people who did not hold him accountable to his actions. Who knows what the victims went through to get their complacency… just the idea of being in that home reeks of all kinds of capability for coercion. Not a good place to be as a victim.
PZ:
You’re a bit harsh on Duggar, who committed sexual assault when he was fifteen.
You’re a lot easier on Bill Clinton, who is a sexual predator who committed serial sexual assault while he was at the highest levels of government.
http://www.albertpeia.com/oxfordassault.htm
PZ Myers in 2012: “Obama has to show why I shouldn’t just write Bill Clinton’s name on my ballot.”
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2012/09/06/the-clinton-nightmare/
Maybe you shouldn’t vote for Bill Clinton because… he’s a sexual predator. But he’s not a Christian teenager, so he’s got your vote, eh Myers!
PZ Myers, feminist. Hypocrisy is strong here.
Were his victims of adult age and willing participants? NOPE. You are a misogynist liar and bullshitter.
Misogyny is strong in your bullshit, lies, and delusions.
Post @21 (“theDukedog7 .”) illustrates the problem with dogs that aren’t house-trained: they tend to poop on the carpets.
If those sociopaths are so willing to display their “support” for Duggar, then we should save it and catalogue it. Do something similar to what Armchair Subversive did and create a long list of who supports rape and molestation. And keep publishing it every time they talk about “the danger of teh gay”.
@theDukedog7 #21
Come on, you are being ridiculous.
You are able to juggle very long and difficult words, and dwell in the minutia of
wankeryphilosophy and yet you think that saying “Obama has to show why I shouldn’t just write Bill Clinton’s name on my ballot.” is an endorsement of *Clinton*!?Is that all you got against PZ? Really? How long did it take you to mine that up?
Dukedog7, either you are part of the solution, and will condemn Duggar for his rape/molestation, or you are part of the problem of religious fuckwits and their toxic misogyny. You chose the latter, stupidly. Which is also why you are a believer, due to stupidity. The evidence clearly indicates there is no deity. You are totally unable to conceive of such and idea. That is where your stupidity manifests itself. Until you show reason and logic, not presuppositions, you won’t make any case except for your delusions.
Myers denounces several public figures for defending a man who committed sexual offenses over a decade ago as a young teenager.
Myers extols a powerful man who committed sexual offenses (including an allegation of rape) over a period of thirty years while he was a state attorney general, governor, and president of the United States, and who lost his law license because he lied under oath in a trial about sexual harassment which he settled for $850,000.
The hypocrisy could not be more obvious.
Classy, theDukedog7. Using women victims to score a rhetorical point against PZ. It really couldn’t be any more clear that you don’t give a shit what happened to any of these women except in the extent that they can be used as weapons against someone else.
Which has not be atoned for by a court of law loser.
Nor your delusional misogyny based on a book of mythology/fiction allegedly written by an imaginary deity you can’t prove exists. What a delusional fuckwitted, stupid, and ignorant loser you are. Total abject idiocy to be ignored by intelligent people. Like those of us here….
@28:
I care a great deal about women victims. I also believe in forgiveness for people who repent and amend their behavior.
And I detest hypocrisy about sexual assault.
While showing your own hypocrisy. Until Duggan is convicted he can’t be forgiven. What a mother fucking loser you are to think otherwise. You deity doesn’t exist. There is no forgiveness from there.
then there is no absolute right and wrong
Really? You’re the people who say that Adam and Eve sinned before they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We can’t know diddlling our own sisters as they sleep is wrong? And they dare to say they are the moral light to the world?
Dukedog:
I see, it is okay that a child is sexually molested (Lewinski wasn’t a child) as long as someone you don’t like did something bad? How about outing a secret agent, risking her life, because you don’t like her husband? Morality is pretty changeable … depending on your politics.
Dukedog, until you show compassion for the women involved, and stop ignoring them to forgive the man, you are nothing but a misogynist bigot to be ignored by those who know better. Since you obviously don’t. Typical of delusional fools who believe in phantasms.
Wow dog, it really says a lot about your character when you drag up a 15+ scandal (when PZ’s blog wasn’t around) in an attempt to deflect attention from the fact of how one of your own is a rapist and how his moral-preaching parents covered it up.
theDukedog7 . wrote:
Really? Then you can point out exactly where PZ said that we should forgive Clinton, or ignore his past transgressions, because I read the post you linked, and all it really does is praise Clinton’s speech and his ability to give them.
And as disgusted and angry as I am with Josh Duggar for sexually abusing his sisters, I’m even more pissed off at those who covered it up and conspired to make sure that no legal consequences ever befell the young man. And I’m pissed off at people like you that want to say that we shouldn’t be pissed off about it because “they repented and were forgiven”.
How is it hypocrisy if PZ wasn’t engaging in making excuses for the sexual assaults pinned to Bill Clinton’s past? All I see was a support for the man who made the speech, not the man who sexually assaulted women.
Note the difference, DukeDog7 ., if you are able.
And I’m also pissed off that since this is a quiverfull fundamentalist family, the victims of Josh were likely made to apologize for “tempting” him into abusing them.
DukeDog7 ., where is there anything remotely like trying to mitigate the harm done by Duggar the way that Comfort is doing, by PZ? Comfort is stating quite plainly that Jesus makes everything OK and we should all just allow them to sweep this under the rug. There is no equivalent in what you linked to from PZ about Bill Clinton. You need to try harder.
The sorta good news is that is that TLC has “pulled all episodes of 19 Kids and Counting currently from the air.”
http://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/19-kids-and-counting/19-kids-and-counting-announcement/
That doesn’t, of course, mean that they will completely cancel the show or try not to air it again, but it is a start.
But they had to give out the same bullshit statement that’s always given to cover asses: “We are deeply saddened and troubled by this heartbreaking situation, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family and victims at this difficult time.”
Really? The family? The ones who let this go on for years? If you really care about the “victims,” how about sharing some of the boatload of money you’ve earned over the years with those kids so they can escape the cult you’ve celebrated?
I might be inclined to be magnanimous toward Josh Duggar if there were any indication that he’s done anything for his victims. Has he provided them the financial means to get the necessary counseling? Has he apologized to them? Has he listened to them describe the pain he caused them? Has he paid damages to them? Maybe he’s done all those things and it’s just not being reported — I’d bet against it, but it’s possible — but until he shows a true change by making things right with his victims, everything else is just empty words.
I believe in second chances, especially given that he was only 15 at the time and may have matured since then. But you only get a second chance if you do what you can to fix the previous mess you made. Hey Josh, everything isn’t about you.
John Pieret wrote:
Hopefully it stays cancelled longer that Duck Dynasty, but I’m not holding my breath.
Nerd @33
Given his recent victim-blaming of homosexual AIDS sufferers, I would hold my breath while waiting for Egnor (or whoever the fuck he is) to develop anything approaching empathy.
In the meantime, anyone want to,place any bets what 20-year-old right-wing conspiracy theory he’ll dredge out back issues of The American Spectator? HIllary murdered Vince Foster? Clinton was smuggling cocaine from Arkansas airports? Janet Reno framed David Koresh… that’s always good for a laugh!
eeyore wrote:
It’s possible he apologized to them, and his victims were probably coerced into accepting it and saying they forgave him. However, since he grew up in a household with a version of Christianity that basically treat women like the personal playthings of men and nothing more, and hasn’t disassociated himself with that household, I don’t think he’s changed. At best, he’s maybe more careful not to get caught. I feel sorry for all the women and girls in his life…
@theDukedog7 30
So much so that you must twist the conversation in here away from them and to criticism of someone you do not like. You literally took the the conversation which could be about preventing such from happening again, and made it about what you wanted it to be about. I see no reason to believe that you care about victims of any sort unless they have a group label applied to them that you share.
Which does nothing to ensure that this will not happen again.
As a member of the society around this person so readily forgiven, I get to be suspicious of their behavior as I have no reason to think they are in any way meaningfully changed. The epidemic of abusers in positions of power is plenty of reason to for such suspicion. We do not yet have a society that is able to deal with such abuse without hiding it or merely slapping the abuser on the hand, while pressuring the victim to get along for the sake of the group.
Because apparently this is all about you and and your feelings for PZ. You are pathetic and mockworthy.
Not only that, but legally at 15 he couldn’t be held responsible the same way an adult would, right? We as a society say that 15 year olds cannot legally consent to sex, because they do not have the ability to fully comprehend the effects and consequences of their actions. The same would then have to hold for someone committing sexual abuse at that age -they wouldn’t be able to understand the consequences of those actions fully, so we can’t hold them fully responsible. I’m not going to call him an evil child molester for what he did when he himself was a child.
However, I sure as hell hold him responsible for how he’s acted since, and that’s been deplorable. He hasn’t (as far as we know) done any of those things eeyore listed. He’s put himself at the center of every statement he’s made about it so far. He’s exhibited no actual remorse for what he did to those girls. Right now, as a full-grown adult, he has shown no evidence of morality, only self-serving cover-ups.
And his parents and other adults involved – zero excuse. The parents should have weekly CPS visits for the rest of the time they have kids in the house, at the very least. The cop involved should have extra jail time added to what he’s already serving. Every commenter like Ray Comfort should be shunned for their attitude.
How do you sensitively interact with a person that you know was abused in such a situation, and it seems pretty clear that their readiness to forgive was because they are from a culture that enforces this message of forgiving and making nice with your abuser for the sake of the group? On one hand I do need to respect this is how they feel. But on the other hand when I have absolutely no reason to think that the abuser is anything but a danger to others I can’t just stay silent about the situation forever. But I don’t want to cause any problems for my friend. It’s a tough one for me at the moment.
Libby Anne at Love Joy Feminism: on the “counseling” typical of Bill Gothard and ATI here:
Guest post on the silencing power of forgiveness in this doctrine here:
And on the conservatives accusing progressives of hypocrisy for saying anything was wrong with what Josh did, here:
@theDukedog7 #27:
“extols”: “praise enthusiastically.”
So, while complaining about Obama, PZ likens him to Clinton.
How in the fucking world is this “enthusiastic praise” of Clinton?
Or is it because PZ said Clinton is a great speaker?
Wait, PZ just wrote that Ken Ham is media savvy!
THEREFORE PZ IS EXTOLLING THE VIRTUE AND GREATNESS OF KEN HAM!
Reality is not your forte.
Maybe it will work better for you trying to find a metaphysical argument for which in some plane of existence PZ is enthusiastic about Clinton.
I have to confess that I don’t know how to feel about the whole affair. On the one hand, he was a kid, clearly sexually confused, and probably so repressed that he just didn’t know what else to do to learn about sex and female bodies. I really hate the societal trend that holds teenagers to the same standard as adults, because from that flows shit like seeking life without parole against a 14 year old. On the other hand, no little girl (or little boy or person generally) should have to go through that ever under any circumstances, and he needs to be held to account for that.
But I just don’t think enough blame is being laid at the feet of mom and dad in any case. They have an obligation to protect their kids from each other and from themselves, but no one seems to want to talk about how their teachings about the value of female bodies and their warped sexual mores absolutely had a role in this.
It’s more than a little amazing how they’ll attempt to seize the moral high ground over something they don’t even consider an issue. After all, the only victim of Duggar’s molestation of his sisters was God, and since that’s all forgiven everything is A-OK! Quite surreal how they’ll preach about responsibility, yet consistently erase all human victims from the picture; everything is ultimately just a relationship test with the big guy right down to each bag of molecules as they have no value beyond being his personal property. Apparently morality is only between a man and his deity, so issues of consent and harm are meaningless.
Ooooh, a slymie graces us with their exalted reasoning.
whataboutogvorbis@51, 53,
You really are a disgusting creep, attacking a victim of child sex abuse who then acted out – at the age of 12 – what he had been taught against younger children, and has since suffered for and repeatedly blamed himself for this. Nor has Ogvorbis spent the subsequent years attacking a whole group of long-persecuted people as potential perpetrators of his own abusive acts – which is the main reason why the revelation of Josh Duggar’s actions is worth a blog post. And you are doing this merely in order to – as you think – score a point against this blog. How can you live with yourself?
I should say that I agree with theDukedog7 that Bill Clinton is a very different case: while we have no evidence that he has abused children, the string of accusations of rape, sexual assault and coercion from named women at theDukedog7’s link should be enough to lead anyone aware of them (I was not, PZ must speak for himself) to condemn him unreservedly – unless the accusations can be shown to have been invented by others than the women named.
There is such a well-documented campaign of lies against the Clintons, that I am unlikely to trust one (to me) unknown source on any allegation.
Clinton is a terrific speaker, and he’s got the kind of detailed wonkiness I like. But that was a post comparing him to Obama, and as I’ve said many times before, Obama is too conservative for me. And Clinton is even more conservative. I do not praise either of them without significant reservations, and yeah, Clinton was also rather sleazy.
Egnor is, as always, stupid.
Wanna bet how many of these people watch Fox news, think the murder by cops of non-whites is no big deal, are for harsher prison sentences, and even for the death penalty?
@57:
“… Clinton was also rather sleazy.”
People who counsel forgiveness for Duggar agree that he was, at the age of 15, ‘rather sleazy.’ You excoriate Duggar’s forgivers: “none of them expressed any compassion for the girls who were harmed.”
You have not expressed any compassion for the women Clinton harmed. In fact, you extolled his political skill and mused about electing him president again.
SJWs voted for Bubba by the millions, and still lick his boots. It seems that women who are victims of sexual assault deserve all manner of compassion, unless the predator has the correct politics.
Duggar, a Christian, admits his sin. Clinton, a Machiavellian narcissist, drags his victims through the mud.
PZ, I can’t help but think that your reason for condemning Duggar isn’t that he committed sexual assault, but that he’s remorseful.
theDukedog7 .
You don’t really think that, do you?
Because that’s really stupid.
I agree with the headline of this post. It is a tough time to be a conservative evangelical. But, if history is any guide (and it is), I’m sure they will quickly move past this difficulty and resume their normal behavior. Still, it’s nice to see them sweat a bit.
Roman Catholics, on the other hand…
Jaybee (#8): Michael Voris bleats about “The Murdering of Catholicism” (if only this headline was accurate)…
Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth! No doubt Michael Voris will soon be wearing sackcloth and ashes. Oddly, though, I can’t see what reason he has to be so upset.
1) Ireland is still a majority Catholic country (by 83.6% according to Wikipedia.)
2) The referendum was partly about correcting the wrongs done by local priests and the hierarchy in the past. Voris ought to welcome this. And the referendum has in no way diminished anyone’s ability to disapprove of SSM if they are so inclined.
3) Per a 2013 Pew Forum poll, the world’s population of Catholics has recently tripled.
Of course we know what this is really about: the sort of people who, in an earlier time, needed to hear Bob Dylan sing “The Times They Are a-Changin'”.
He’s crockadile tears remorseful. He was caught. That is what he is remorseful about, not the abuse.
Why do you think anybody here gives a shit about stupid people like yourself dukedog? You have nothing of intelligence to say, nothing but slogans, and no rationality. Just another arrogant and ignorant delusional fool believing in phantasms.
Pterxx (#47) quoted: Result of defrauding by… Being with evil friends
I assume this is intended to exclude the abuser from said “evil friends.” The alternative would be… contrary to doctrine.
theDukedog7,
Except that Duggar didn’t commit a “sin” (which does not exist anyway), he committed a heinous act against human beings, and a crime.
And please spare us your holier than thou attitude, the only reason you are on this blog is trying to score some cheap points against ‘the atheist evolutionists’.
@64:
[the only reason you are on this blog is trying to score some cheap points]
It’s scandalously easy to do.
Only if you’re scandalously egnorant.
theDukedog7 .
You may be here to try to score cheap points but you haven’t succeeded yet.
You are failing.
Baby Jesus is crying.
Not surprising but Comfort is wrong about the sexaul abuse being “BC”
http://ja20.com/ourstory/
Josh & Anna’s Story
“Josh was raised in Arkansas, the first child born to Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar. He accepted Christ at the age of seven [..]”
Yet you fail every time. Says something about your lack of ability to think.
Thou shalt have a$$holes amongst thee always. And among them shall I send one, Ray, to Comfort anyone who doubts my words -JC
theDukedog7 @ 65:
Score cheap points?
It’s pretty much always easy to do wherever, especially when that’s your essential goal.
It’s quite a bit harder to make substantive arguments. Let us know when you’re going for that goal ‘k?
I mean, one certainly wouldn’t want to turn attention away from the victims in this case by, for example, bringing up other, tangentially-related cases and attempting to make the thread all about oneself.
Not if one were genuinely concerned, that is.
@71:
A SJW who pays homage at the Clinton altar condemns others for forgiving a sexual predator.
Maybe I just have an overdeveloped sense of irony.
Irony.
You keep using that word…
No, you, in your stupidity, have a category error between teenage abuse/rape and adult interactions. But then, since you believe in imaginary things, it isn’t surprising you can’t understand the difference. Loser.
Dog, I don’t recall Clinton doing anything as evil as this.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/heres-how-the-duggars-patriarchal-homeschool-world-teaches-kids-to-shame-sex-abuse-victims/
But Clinton did ask for forgiveness so why do you continue to say bad things about him? After all Dungar did and you’re doing this “leave Britney alone” whine.
theDukedog7 .
Note the qualifier ‘trying’. Dunning-Kruger to the the courtesy phone, please!
theDukedog7 . cannot produce one sentence from PZ which attempts to directly mitigate the abuse and harm Clinton did. All they have is PZ praising a speech for it’s potency. It’s like me saying “Hitler sure had a way with captivating an audience and playing upon their fears. I’m not sure, if it were myself in that audience, whether I’d be sucked up into the furor over making for scapegoats. I’d like to think not.” and then theDukedog7 . stating that I must be an anti-semite due to that admission.
But that’s reasoning and rationality. None of which tdd7 . has shown to be capable of in any form on this blog network.
theDukedog7 @ 72:
Well, since it’s still all about you and your ‘point’, let’s address it.
I’m assuming you can show where PZ “pays homage at the Clinton altar”, yes?
Because otherwise, you’re being deeply dishonest.
Take your time, think it through, post your results.
Show your superior morality.
Or, y’know, don’t.
I know that I should probable leave this well enough alone but I am stupid, I guess.
All y’all out there who are now equating me with Josh Duggar? In some ways you are right.
We were both taught a very harmful, hateful philosophy. I was taught by my scout leader that there are two kinds of humans — girls (which included children and women) and men. And he showed me why I wanted to be a man. And it is a lesson I learned and acted on. Josh was taught that he is, from birth, a hopeless sinner and, as long as he seeks forgiveness from Jesus and gods, no matter what he does, he will be forgiven. He was also taught that his body is evil, that all bodies are evil, and he sexually assaulted multiple girls.
We were both taught that there is a certain class of people who are not really human and it is thus okay to treat them as things, as objects, rather than as humans. We both acted on the way we were taught.
Both of us were children. I was 12, Josh was 15. Both of us were legally and developmentally immature. This does not excuse us, but it does affect culpability.
Both of us were, most importantly, failed by the adults who should have been doing their jobs. They should have taught us to be human and treat others as humans, not as things. They should have taught us what is actually acceptable and what is not. Both Josh and I were failed by the adults with legal, moral and ethical responsibility over us.
There are some ways that we are different, though. Very different. I have not sought, nor have I recieved, forgiveness. I cannot forgive myself so how can others forgive me? I know that I treated other human beings as things — to me, the only sin that actually exists. Josh was protected, the girls were revictimized, and he knows that, no matter what he did as a child, he will reap the eternal reward, and he will continue to treat human beings as objects. I do not, will not, can not.
I am sorry, but I do not ask forgiveness from anyone, nor will I ask forgiveness. That is a copout.
If Dukedog is determined to compare Josh Duggar to Bill Clinton, there’s a fairly significant point he’s overlooking: Bill Clinton didn’t make millions of dollars by marketing himself as a paradigm of wholesome family values. Bill Clinton, to my recollection, never pretended to be anything other than a womanizing hound dog. So Bill Clinton is merely a sexual abuser; Josh Duggar is both a sexual abuser and a hypocrite.
Sorry, in my earlier post I meant to say paragon rather than paradigm. That’s what happens when I type too fast.
PZ- I agree with you about Clinton and Obama!
Back in the 60’s, some African-Americans were called “Oreos,” black on the outside. white on the inside. I suggest that Obama and both Clintons are also “Oreos.” They may be black or white on the outside but they’re green(as in money) on the inside.
Mint Oreos?
Ogvorbis, please read what I wrote at 45 – I was explicitly making that contrast to you in my mind, and your description leaves out a few crucial things that I want to make sure you see.
1. You have expressed nothing but sorrow and regret for what you have done, and every time you have done so, it’s been outward-facing, centering on the effects it caused others rather than what it did to you. That, even apart from anything else, puts you in an entirely different category than Josh. You do understand, you are fully remorseful, you understand that kind of pain well enough to know not to try to force anyone to accept any apology. You have been and are atoning the best you can, you will carry that burden with you forever, you have not made excuses nor tried to throw it away from you.
2. You were specifically groomed through horrendous abuse yourself. Josh has no such excuse. He was, if anything, told he should never think about girls in a sexual way, never touch them, never go near them. He knew even with the mind of a minor how wrong what he was doing was. You had gone through terrible warping of what you knew as right and wrong, at the hands of a heinous adult.
3 There is a huge developmental difference between 12 and 15. Trust me. I have a 15 year old; this isn’t something hypothetical to me, I have it right in front of me now. The amount he understands about the world and how people treat each other and how actions affect emotions is worlds away from even a few years ago.
When it comes to things people have done as minors, I don’t put a lot of weight on what they did, because of what I outlined at 45; I truly agree that children don’t fully understand how to interact with each other and what those consequences are. Hell, lots of adults don’t. But kids, they haven’t had the chance, their brains aren’t done forming. What I put weight on is how people act as adults, and how they absorb actions they did as minors into their sense of self and worldview. What I see from you is owning up to it, understanding it’s your burden, and refusing to try to be absolved of it. What I have seen so far from Josh is dissembling, minimizing, and trying to get away from it as quickly as possible. I have 100% trust that you would never do anything remotely like that again, and will always be the best activist you can to support and protect victims. I don’t think Josh even properly understands why what he did was wrong, and have no confidence that he isn’t still doing it or won’t do it in the future.
You and he do not have much in common. Not at all.
Ogvorbis, you are a good person. Bad things happened to you. Thanks for talking to us.
This discussion is about keeping bad things from happening to other people. The Duggars and their friends are concerned only with keeping bad things from happening to themselves – even, and here is my complaint about Christianity, if they have to dump the bad stuff onto the rest of the world.
As for Bill Clinton, he was never shy about being a horndog. He is such a typical Arkansas good old boy in so many ways that it freaks out the conservatives that he isn’t conservative. It also freaks out the conservatives that liberals don’t worship him – they never seem to be able to break out of their own worship-or-hate narrow-mindedness.
Carlie@84 (emphasis added):
Actually, I don’t think we know that (I’m sure I don’t, but I have read far from everything about this case). I’m not quibbling about words—whether (say) ‘reason’ would be a better choice than “excuse”, or a worse one; I mean that we don’t actually know that Josh Duggar wasn’t “groomed” (“specifically” and through “horrendous abuse” or otherwise). Considering that the Duggar’s ‘family friend’ in the police was convicted of, and is serving time for, possessing child pornography, it’s at least possible that Josh was “groomed”, by someone, to some degree.
[P.S.: I use double quotation marks only to quote, never as ‘scare quotes’ or for other kinds of mark-up (the single quotation marks around “scare quotes” are in fact scare quotes). I quote either because (as here) I want to avoid possibly misleading paraphrases, or because (as not here) I am analyzing the actual words someone—sometimes myself—has chosen to use, in addition to or instead of analyzing their meaning. I have added this lengthy note because the topic is one where I want, even more than usual, to avoid as much as I can being misunderstood; and because my convention on the uses of double and single quotation marks isn’t universally used or recognized (though I of course think that it should be! <–semi-joke).]
leerudolph – you’re completely right. I was thinking from the viewpoint of Quiverful theology, not from what he may have experienced from predatory adults around him.
If theDukedog7’s link @21 is accurate, Clinton is not just “rather sleazy” or “a horndog”, but a serial sexual predator and on at least one occasion, a rapist.
By “accurate”, I mean that the allegations listed – many by named women – have actually been made: we should, as has often been said on this blog, start from the position of believing those who allege sexual assault or harassment, and there are quite enough allegations to provide strong evidence of a pattern of behaviour. Here is a Daily Kos article which indicates that these allegations are not just an invention of Clinton’s detractors from the right. I don’t think anyone here is an admirer of anything about Clinton other than his political skills and his opposition to the far right (in policy terms he was better than the Bushes sandwiching his Presidency, but not by much), but let’s not use minimising language about his wrongdoing (which again, if the allegations are correct, has in a number of cases been criminal), any more than about Josh Duggar’s.
“The truth is, we all use Christian Morality to judge people. The very idea of judgment comes from Christianity.” That doesn’t sound very Christian. In Matthew 7 you can read, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” There are other similar passages. I guess “moral” Christians don’t read the Bible.
Whoa. I’d read about Josh Dugger’s molestation of underage girls, but hadn’t heard that the victims were his sisters. Logically, there’s no reason it should, but somehow that makes it even worse.
Thumper @90:
I think there’s a very good reason that it’s worse – for the victim, certainly, and (less importantly) for those not directly affected. As a general rule of thumb, the additional psychological harm a person can do to another person following the commission of a crime is directly proportional to the closeness of their relationship. A stranger assaulting you is one thing; adding the betrayal of a family member or guardian – someone charged with your safety or at least with your emotional well-being – to that violation can only compound the damage done. As far as people like us, distanced from the crime, are concerned, I’m sure it also compounds the rage and loathing – and sympathy – we feel.
The sad thing is, violations of children are almost always perpetrated by trusted adults or older children as in this case, so this revelation doesn’t shock as much as it absolutely should (note that while people are outraged, few are truly surprised). Crimes of sexual violation occur so frequently within conservative fundamentalist cults and sects (usually those which teach extremely repressive sexual mores) that a common reaction, aside from aforementioned outrage, tends toward an exasperated sigh, perhaps accompanied by “Oh god, not another one.”
The saddest thing is that the Duggars will likely just close ranks, pray it out and learn not a single thing from this tragedy, leading to a mental health outcome for the victim(s) that can only be speculated on. I expect no examination of the sexual repressions that almost certainly are at play daily and no questioning whether anything at all that they teach their children – or not teach them – could have in any way contributed to the offender’s actions. I struggle to imagine how any young person raised in an environment where the role of the mother is to produce soldiers until she’s physically unable to is supposed to grow into an adult with a realistic and mature mental model of women – or even of human beings in general.
You know, I’ve been wondering about the timeline that’s been laid out.
According to everything I’ve seen so far:
3/02: Josh (14) is first discovered by his parents molesting the girls
7/02: Josh admits it to his father
3/03: A whole slew of new allegations are made known to the father
3/03: Jim Bob meets with the church elders,
3/03 – 7/03: Josh sent to that weird-ass ‘work counseling’ thing
7/03: Jim Bob and Josh meet with Officer Cpl. Hutchins; no official report filed; Hutchins would later be busted for kiddie porn
12/06: State police, following the report from Oprah’s staff, determine that the three-year statute of limitations has (just barely) passed.
Here’s the thing. While Josh’s conduct was subject to a 3-year statute of limitations, Arkansas’ mandatory reporting law, which applies to police, church officials and teachers ( https://rainn.org/pdf-files-and-other-documents/Public-Policy/Legal-resources/2009-Mandatory-Report/Arkansas09C.pdf ) is a Class A felony in that state–which, in turn, means it’s ( http://research.lawyers.com/arkansas/arkansas-statutes-of-limitations.html ) a 6-year statute of limitations. The cops deliberately turned a blind eye at the time to the failure to report by: Hutchens, the unnamed “church officials” and the elder Duggars (remember, they home school; they are their children’s teachers, and probably count as such under the law).
At that point in time, there was still another three years on the clock.
So, add the Arkansas state cops to the long list of people who failed to do their duty.
I haven’t said anything about the Clinton aspect of this convo because I’ve no interest in siding with fucking DukeDog, but Nick Gotts is right. Clinton is worse than a “horn dog”. Assuming those allegations are correct, the dude’s a serial sexual harasser, assaulter, and maybe even rapist.
Of course that has no bearing on what PZ is talking about, and DukeDog is being disingenuous as fuck by even bringing that up in the first place (I have never seen PZ “praise” Bill Clinton, with the exception of one single speech Bill gave which was actually good; noting that the specific speech was good does not mean Bill is off the hook for being the terrible fucking person that he is). But I’ll second the call to not use minimizing language about what Bill Clinton is accused of.
Back on the actual topic, I’m not surprised, and I’m never surprised. But that’s all I can really say. I have no hope that anything will change; no hope that Duggar will face any consequences whatsoever. So…
I wanted to add two things I just found on Raw Story, because… I just…
What?
Jessa Duggar’s father-in-law rails against unwed mothers and sex ed in rant defending Josh
Arizona pastor’s wife condemns ‘liberal’ Duggars: Sexual deviants should be executed
Notice nobody is arguing with this assessment.
With me, the category error that JD abused his underaged sisters, and that is incest on top of everything else. Nobody has accused Clinton of that. JD should be compared to other incestuous abusers, not somebody who deals with adults. That analogy I would agree with.
Fair point, Nerd. I agree with you.
He molested 5 girls, 4 of whom were his sisters. He did so by playing with their breasts and genitals — while they slept in 4 cases and by groping one while she sat on his lap while he read her a story.
At the time of the abuse, his sisters ranged in age from 12 to 5. He molested all of them save one. The other victim (or at least, the only admitted one) was a non-family member.
Source: the police report, which is still online at Free Jinger.
More new information via Shakesville:
It seems that Ray Comfort has some backtracking to do on HIS defense:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/05/26/hey-ray-comfort-josh-duggar-accepted-christ-when-he-was-seven-years-old/
Putting these in the correct thread this time…
No Longer Quivering – TLC Did Know About Josh Duggar Sex Crimes In 2007 & Duggar News
Libby Anne, adding other ex-QF voices to her own: It Took This for People to Listen?
Quoting herself from last fall, when the Duggars got backlash for pulling pictures of same-sex couples from their Facebook page:
and as I posted in the wrong thread, Dana Hunter bringing the hammer: #CancelTheDuggars – Replace it with this, #TLC
Much more at the link.
She’s currently doing a read-along of Carolyn Jessop’s story “Escape”. That would be a great start.