North Carolina Preacher encourages violence against "gay acting" children

[Tank]

Can i please come? :3

Of course! I'd be delighted to share some real-life time!!!

[Sweetdeath]

Can i please come? :3

Of course! I'd be delighted to share some real-life time!!!

Hooray!!!

[Harmonie]

Nothing to add to the above.
This man is a total arsehole and deserves to be answered with a deafening silence.

Yet he got cheered. 

[AnimatedDirt]

This pastor has no sense of Christ-like compassion and/or love.

[Asmodean]

Hmm... Not clicking on the link. Don't currently have any one to whine about humanity in general and religious assholes in particular.

[DeterminedJuliet]

This pastor has no sense of Christ-like compassion and/or love.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jesus would not endorse smacking little children around 

[En_Route]

I wonder at times about the implicit message behind posting these kind of stories. This gentleman clearly occupies the lunatic fringe of Christianity. It's actually an incitement to child cruelty and is a perversion of any
tenable  version of Christian belief. It is redolent to me of theists pointing out the horrors inflicted by Stalin as examples of the evils of atheism.

[Tank]

I wonder at times about the implicit message behind posting these kind of stories. This gentleman clearly occupies the lunatic fringe of Christianity. It's actually an incitement to child cruelty and is a perversion of any
tenable  version of Christian belief. It is redolent to me of theists pointing out the horrors inflicted by Stalin as examples of the evils of atheism.

I see what you're saying. However were the ideals of the pastor informed (at least in part) by Biblical/Religious doctrine/attitude and how were Stalin's ideals informed by atheist doctrine?

[Sweetdeath]

This pastor has no sense of Christ-like compassion and/or love.

I agree completely.

[En_Route]

Stalin believed religion was a barrier to the institution of a Communist society and bumped off  large numbers of people on this basis. The pastor is basing his views on a warped interpretation of the bible that the overwhelming majority of Christians would find repugnant.

[Sweetdeath]

Stalin believed religion was a barrier to the institution of a Communist society and bumped off  large numbers of people on this basis. The pastor is basing his views on a warped interpretation of the bible that the overwhelming majority of Christians would find repugnant.

Thankfully most people find child abuse horrendous.

[ThinkAnarchy]

I have to disagree with what the guy was saying. Children should be beat simply for being children, not because they display effeminate tendencies.

[Recusant]

Stalin believed religion was a barrier to the institution of a Communist society and bumped off  large numbers of people on this basis.

The institution of a Communist society is not an atheist doctrine, nor is it an ideal toward which atheists aspire.

I do agree with AnimatedDirt that this bigoted pastor is not exhibiting any Christ-like attributes. On the other hand, both homophobia and violent "correction" of children are condoned in the Bible. Thus the pastor, in exhorting his church members to thrash their children for showing possible signs of homosexuality, can righteously affirm that he's a good Christian who follows the teachings in the Bible. From the approving noises made by some of the more vocal members of his congregation, he obviously has some support in his thinking.

We can take it as a given that Stalin was an atheist, but as far as I can tell from my reading of the history of Soviet Russia during his time in power, atheism was the basis for none of the atrocities which he ordered. He was motivated by paranoia and a ruthless drive to power; his atheism was irrelevant to that. As a parallel, I could look to another dictator from history. Napoleon was a Catholic, but I would not consider any of the negative things that he did (which resulted in millions of deaths) to be attributable to his religion.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I have to disagree with what the guy was saying. Children should be beat simply for being children, not because they display effeminate tendencies.

Well, at least you're being fair about it.

[En_Route]

Stalin believed religion was a barrier to the institution of a Communist society and bumped off  large numbers of people on this basis.

The institution of a Communist society is not an atheist doctrine, nor is it an ideal toward which atheists aspire.

I do agree with AnimatedDirt that this bigoted pastor is not exhibiting any Christ-like attributes. On the other hand, both homophobia and violent "correction" of children are condoned in the Bible. Thus the pastor, in exhorting his church members to thrash their children for showing possible signs of homosexuality, can righteously affirm that he's a good Christian who follows the teachings in the Bible. From the approving noises made by some of the more vocal members of his congregation, he obviously has some support in his thinking.

We can take it as a given that Stalin was an atheist, but as far as I can tell from my reading of the history of Soviet Russia during his time in power, atheism was the basis for none of the atrocities which he ordered. He was motivated by paranoia and a ruthless drive to power; his atheism was irrelevant to that. As a parallel, I could look to another dictator from history. Napoleon was a Catholic, but I would not consider any of the negative things that he did (which resulted in millions of deaths) to be attributable to his religion.

Atheism was a necessary element of Stalin's ideology. Religion being the opium of the people etc as per Marx. Clearly some atheists did and some still do aspire to a Communist society. In fact, given that atheism is not a philosophy or doctrine per se, we all we can say about atheists is that they do not follow any known religion. The bible is of course a mess of conflicting theologies and there is a basic irreconcilability between OT and NT, so it's possible to justify almost any set of beliefs however twisted by reference to selected passages. However, I don't think mainstream Christianity would approve of violent correction of children, but I agree that it does view the practice of homosexuality as a sin, which has had a malevolent influence on social attitudes to gay people. I am just wary of this simplistic ."Atheist  good, Christian Bad" mindset which exhibits the same blinkered intolerance that we are so quick to denounce on the part of the religious Right.