A tale of Baptist hypocrisy

Robert King of the Indystar.com wrote the story, Hope Baptist pastor Rev. Jerry Hillenburg accused of sexual harassment. It is a compelling account of Jim Huneycutt publically accusing his pastor of sexual harassment, and his families subsequent exile for speaking out. The story highlights the problem of accountability within independent churches. I think it captures the heart of the problem; Baptists create an environment where predators and the power hungry can thrive.  By most accounts, Pastor Hillenburg is a disgusting stain with a long history of problems. Yet his church united to stand behind him. He disserves public scrutiny, a lot of it too.

Hillenburg admits to sending this message,“"Text me something dirty." He claims…

…the woman had been changing the dirty diapers of babies that day. "He was trying to cheer her up," he said. "She was having a horrible day."

Seriously? Does pastor Hillenburg take us for idiots?

Technorati tags: Baptists, Clergy Sexual Abuse, Sexual Harassment

Baptist Pastor pleaded not guilty to murder

Former Waco area Baptist Pastor Matt Baker entered a plea of not guilty to the charge that he murdered his wife in 2006.

Matt Baker was indicted on murder charges last month by a McLennan County grand jury and held under $500,000 bond. In court today bond was reduced to $250,000, and not to the $200,000 Baker had requested.

I’ve been watching this case for two years. It’s good to see Baker face justice.

Technorati tags: Baptists, Murder, Waco, Texas

Another Baptist Busted

Robert Michael Black, a.k.a Jon Still, a.k.a Pastor Rob Black of historic New Home Baptist church in Kansas, was busted for soliciting sex from an undercover cop posing as a 13-year-old girl.

It seems that his Facebook account, where he is alleged to have solicited sex from the cop, was linked to over 100 young teen girls.

Still spent time messaging and chatting with the detective and, thinking he was arranging an encounter with a minor, eventually started talking explicitly and suggested they meet for sex, the detective said.

The two arranged to meet on April 2 at a car wash across from a bowling alley on Liberty Drive. Investigators met him there and brought him in for questioning, they said.

It is hard from me to remain objective when people like Black arrange to meet somebody they think is 13 for for the express purpose of having sex. When you add in the fact that he is a pastor, it just makes my skin crawl.

But the real creepy thing is know what his family is about to go through. Pastor Black has a wife and three young children. I found a family photo at their church.

I have no interest to drag his wife and children through the mud, but it is important to note that each time one of these pastors go after a child, there are more victims. Black can smile all he wants, the next year will be a living hell for those who care about him.

Technorati tags: Baptists, Clergy Sexual Misconduct, Pedophiles, Facebook, Clergy Abuse

A little help please

Larro, a longtime friend and supporter of the Atheist blogroll, is asking for other bloggers to help keep the blogroll up-to-date. He posted this last night on a comment thread, I think it deserves attention on the front page.

I am interested in collaborating with other bloggers in maintaining a monitoring system of Mojoey's Atheist Blogroll.

The sheer number of blogs is overwhelming as every few months I have to remaster the list of blogs one by one in my feed reader and the search engine (just to keep things accurate). It was fine and dandy (lol) when there were only a couple hundred to contend with but as the list is growing and set to break one thousand I'm thinking that a group effort would be splendid in monitoring these blogs.

I am completely open to suggestions...completely. As it stands I've created a "toolkit" a while back whereby I keep my notes regarding the Atheist Blogroll blogs. Don't mind the mess; It's become quite cluttered.

Larro helps keep the blogroll up to date. He reports problems and I fix them. His toolkit is a valuable resource which I use in my Google reader to keep track of other blogs. Plus his Google search engine is pretty useful too.

Can you help? Do you have ideas? Post them in the comments please.

Technorati tags: The Atheist Blogroll, Atheism

Religious statistics

I stumbled upon an interesting statistical graphic. It shows Believers as a percentage of the global population. The United States is all red (Christians from Various churches) and Yellow (Catholics) with some orange (protestants). While China and Russia are black (nonreligious).

Much of the world is Yellow (catholic) or blue (Islam).

Technorati tags: Religion, Statistics

Waco area Baptist pastor arrested

I've got a good friend who lives in Waco, Tx. I sure hope he keeps his children away from the Baptist fundies who seem hell-bent on abusing every child in site, or killing their wives.

Pastor Frank Brown of Bellmead First Baptist Church is in custody for the alleged crime of continuous sexual abuse of a child.

…the incidents began about four years ago in another state. There, Brown is accused of molesting girls aged 9 or 10. When he moved to Texas, Police say Brown assaulted a victim as well.

Police say the alleged sexual assaults took place hundreds of time, some of which were in Robinson, Harris Creek and in Waco.

The alleged sexual assaults took place hundreds of times…. geez. I’m never letting my kids near a Baptist church, not ever!

Technorati tags: Clergy Sexual Abuse, Baptists, Rape

Baptist youth pastor accused of rape

An Oklahoma youth pastor was charged with second-degree rape, rape by instrumentation, and making lewd proposals to a minor under the age of 16. Pastor Doug Davis has much to explain. Like why he was texting a 15-year-old and why drove him to have sex with her. He is a youth pastor after all. He should explain himself.

Davis is accused of exchanging sexually explicit text messages with the girl and, in two instances, having sexual contact with her.

Authorities learned of the accusations over the weekend when the girl’s parents took her to police to file a report.

Since Davis was a youth pastor, the children in his care at the Village Baptist Church will each need to be question to determine if they have been violated. It’s a disturbing thought that you girls who may not have been abused will still face awkward questions which will influence who they feel about men for a long time to come.  I hope there are not more victims.

Technorati tags: Baptist Pedophiles, Clergy Sexual Misconduct, rape

A deep-sea fish with a transparent head and tubular eyes

I never cease to be amazed at the variety of life on our planet. Each time I see something like the barreleye fish (Macrophinna microstoma) I think of Darwin as he first encountered the animals of the Galapagos Islands. God never comes to mind.

Technorati tags: Science, Evolution

Bligbi catches Rick Warren in a lie

Oh that silly Rick Warren. Doesn't he know that electronic media has a memory, and so do a bunch of bloggers. You can’t  support Prop 8 and then turn around and say you didn’t, that’s lying.

Well, bligbi has this post…  Warren lies about Prop 8 support. It sure seems like Rick Warren is lying to me.

Technorati tags: Rick Warren, Religion, Gay Rights

One Million for Jesus Christ T-shirts

I find these Christian identy websites and immediately think scam. I mean, how can it be anything else when the tagline is 30% of profits go to Christian Missions. "Profits" in a new company may not exist at all. If you send $19.95 + $5.95 for S&H for one shirt, that $26 bucks may end up as only a few cents making it to the profit column on the P&L.

1M4JC = 1 Million 4 Jesus Christ. So wearing a cross, putting a bumper sticker on your car, or carrying a bible around are not enough ways to proclaim your faith. Now you must wear a number t-shirt. I’ll never understand why people do this. You make two guys wealthy, they might kick down some cash to a needy Christian charity, and you get a t-shirt that you should have paid $3 for at the swap meet.

I was disappointed in the testimonials. Instead of describing how the t-shirt changed their lives, its just the same old crap about being drug addicts right up until they read the magic words from the bible that completely turned their lives around.

I had been a drug addict for 37 years and, at 50, was pretty sure I would die that way. On that day, God reached into Hell, pulled me out and told the devil, "This one belongs to me." I will be forever grateful. I had been using pot for 37 years, cocaine for 20 and meth for 10. I had tried to quit meth several times and couldn't. On that day, God kicked over the rock I was hiding under and hit me with the Light of Christ. It was so bright, there were no more shadows or darkness to run to.

I’ve read this in so many ways on so many sites and in so many emails that I consider it the true test of conversion. Where you a drug addict and now a tee-shirt wearing Christian? You betcha!

Technorati tags: Christians, Religions, Scams

Focus on the Family employee arrested

He translated the bible into Spanish by day, and cruised the net for teen sex by night.

A Colorado Springs man who narrates the Bible in Spanish on CDs and works in the Spanish broadcasting department of Focus on the Family appeared in court Monday in Golden on two felony counts of using the Internet to lure a 15-year-old girl for sex, The Denver Post reports.

Juan Alberto Ovalle, 42, was arrested Friday when he drove to Lakewood to meet the girl — who turned out to be an undercover officer — after discussing various sexual acts he wanted to perform with her, the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office said.

It will be interesting to see what James Dobson has to say about this. My guess is nothing.

Technorati tags: Hypocrisy, Clergy Sexual Misconduct, Focus on the Family

A Youth pastor does it again

I took a small break from blogging on this topic. It is so damn depressing. Sometimes I think that Youth Pastors should undergo chemical castration while they serve. Otherwise, there seems to be no hope of protecting our children from this type of religious predator.

According to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, Scott Dewayne Wright, 35, met the alleged victim while he was serving as a youth pastor at Calvary Chapel in New Port Richey.

Authorities say the sexual activity took place between September 2007 and November 2007 at a home in Palm Harbor. The girl was 16 years old at the time.

Source: Youth pastor accused of sexual activity with teen

I have about 15 of these stories to report. I hope to get through them in the next few days.

Technorati tags: Clergy Sexual Abuse, Clergy Misconduct

Obama - We Do Not Consider Ourselves A Christian Nation

“We do not consider ourselves to be a Christian nation…”

...chest swells with pride.

...could it be that I am proud to be an American again?

...I never thought or imagined that I would ever hear that from the mouth of an American President.

Technorati tags: Obama, Politics

Blogroll Update: Using the ping form

Since the launch of blogrolling 2.0, several key features have been slow to come online. One of the features that is still missing is the monitoring of the update status on your blogs. The way it used to work was that when you updated your blog, your feed provider would send an update to blogrolling.com who would then mark your blog as recently updated. This puts the ***New tag next to your blog and in the case of the 25 blog rolling blogroll, moves it to the top of the list.

An alternative is for bloggers to use the ping form provided by blogrolling.com. The ping form will set your blog’s status to recently updated and move it to the top of on the 25 blog rolling blogroll. For now, I recommend using the ping form as I do not know when blogroll.com will resume using feeds.

Technorati tags: The Atheist Blogroll, Atheism, Blogging

The 114th Carnival of the Godless

Welcome to the April 5, 2009 “Palm Sunday” edition of the Carnival of the Godless. This is the 114th edition of the Carnival of the Godless and my second time hosting. I had forgotten how much work it is. I mean, you actually have to read the articles and then think about them. That’s way harder than writing a post. I totally understand why Brent farmed this out.
We have a bunch of good posts. I enjoyed reading posts from the bloggers I follow, and meeting new bloggers. Its always nice to encounter new ideas and different thinkers. My favorites start the list…

***FAVS***

Andrew Bernardin presents RP) Sunday Sermon: The Muddled Message of "God". I don’t often find something and say, how did he do that? But seriously, how did he do that?

exapologist presents ex-apologist: Icelanders and their Belief in Elves.  I had trouble understanding if this article was serious or not. Elves? There are people who believe in elves? I’m staying away from Iceland.

Ron Britton presents They’re Pro-Life, Except When They’re Not. This is one of my favorite arguments. Christians who protect fetuses as if they were full grown humans while at the same time think  nothing of a few hundred thousand Iraqis dying in to fuel our cars.
Rose Schwartz presents Beauty & Purpose. What can I say… I have a blog crush on Rose and her love of Evolution.

That is until Bush. I can’t recall the specific moment, but sometime around the address stating creationism should be taught alongside evolution, I began a lengthy cringe. Being somewhat aware of creationism, I had not actually known anyone who claimed to believe in it. I grew up in a reform Jewish community and attended secular public schools

Morality

My favorite section of each Carnival of the Godless are the morality posts. This edition has several good morality themed posts.
exapologist presents Theism, Non-Theism, and Moral Motivation.

A crude apologetic argues that an adequate moral theory is impossible apart from theism. But as many theists have pointed out – and as anyone who has taken an introductory course in ethics knows

(((Billy))) The Atheist presents Yet Another Post About Atheism and Morality.

How can atheists be moral without the word of god(s) telling them what to do?  In 1724, Christian theologian Richard Bentley, wrote: “no atheists as such can be a true friend, an affectionate relation, or a loyal subject”.  Or, as a chap pseudonymously named Gideon recently commented over at You Made Me Say It:  “After all, in your Godless universe, anything goes, right?”

If only it were so. Anything goes…. Can you imagine?

Matt Oxley presents Psalm 14: Godless Bunch of Fools.

The Psalmist David asserts here that the godless individual is immoral…that without God the only possible product of our selves is corruption and greed.

I’ve heard this so often that I cringe each time it comes up. I like how Matt handles the article.

Cults

Before somebody jumps in to tell me all religious delusions are equally absurd, let me just state clearly that I do not agree. There are mainstream religions, and then there are those on the fringe. It’s a social thing.  The religions on the fringe, the Cults, they fascinate me because of their level of self delusion. A few bloggers posted on the subject. Enjoy.
Rick presents a hilarious conversation with members of the Cult called… OFUCK. Rick Foreman presents Conversation with a member of the Organization of Fundamentalist Universal Christian Knights -

MO: Good Day Sir! I’m Jeremiah with the Organization of Fundamentalist Universal Christian Knights, Have you accepted Jesus as your savior?
And it just gets better and better… Of course, if he’s pulling me leg…

I love stories of people who left the Mormon Church. And this is a good one. Rod presents Leaving Mormonism: No Marriage nor Children Left Behind -

Let’s begin by saying that leaving the LDS Church can mean a number of things to many different people.
Whether you are a convert or born and brainwashed in the Church from childhood will dictate how you view your loss of commitment to the fold and how you will handle the issues that WILL arise from the many relationships in your life.

The way some religions treat those who leave the flock are prime examples of cult like behavior. Check out  Time Does Not Equal Sanity.

People get to say they have the ‘truth’ while other people are lying.

People get to deflect criticism of religion in general, or specific criticism of their religion, onto other religions.
People who twist the Bible to fit their own personal definitions accuse other people of twisting the Bible in the same way.

It’s a damn good article. Thanks Crystal.

Those inscrutable Christians

There are several good posts on the proclivities of our sometimes Christian adversaries and antagonists.
PhillyChief  writes "I find that hard to believe", while yunshui posts on But our religion is special!
Adrian Hayter knocks it out of the part with Religious Child Abuse.

If you still don’t think that religious parents who inflict their religion on their children isn’t tantamount to child abuse, watch this BBC documentary and have a rethink. Deborah Drapper is a 13 year old fundamentalist Christian, who lives in a reclusive environment with her family….

Watch the video. It’s chilling.
Chris Hallquist comes in with a late entry, but a good one.  Wait, no, Ross Douthat is deluded slime.  Kawlinz follows up with a post I totally agree with.  Saving Time and Frustration - Assessing the Worthiness of Debating. And what would a blog carnival be with a review of the evil old God of the old Testament. Luke Muehlhauser give us God’s Atrocities in the Old Testament.
My favorite old curmudgeon can write his own posts. Who knew…DromedaryHump presents NH Theist Speaks for God... and makes about as much sense.

Recently there was a news report of an American Muslim businessman in upstate New York who cut off his wife’s head. What prompted this gruesome act is still unclear, although his wife had recently filed for divorce.

Hump had nothing to do with it. I swear…
Atheism

I am an atheist blogger, yet I write about atheism infrequently. Thankfully, we many many other atheist voices to listen to.

• Carolyn Ann Grant gives us Atheism and the motorcyclist.
• While vjack asks the question, What is Atheism?
• Richard Shelmerdine presents My Spiritual Journey And What It Taught Me About Beliefs.
• Victor Tanner talks about heaven in Whats the Point of an Afterlife Without an After-Afterlife?
• Magdalune presents Finding Comfort in the Random.
• GrrlScientist tells the  interesting story of Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America -- and Found Unexpected Peace.
• Procrustes writes about sex in Longing for Something? Maybe it’s Sex.

Book Reviews

Tom Stelene presents Old, Obscure, Great Books: Review No. 2.

Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism, by Avrahm Yarmolinsky

Angus Stocking presents Scripture Is What We Make Of It.

Wilkie Collins’ 1868 novel, The Moonstone.

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OK, I’m done. The next host is geekgrrl at Anonymously Blogging My Heart Out. Submit your blog article to the 115th edition of Carnival of the Godless using  this handy submission form.
A special thanks to the contributors:

Ex-Apologist, Waiting for the Singularity, You Made Me Say It..., Pothead Philosopher, Common Sense Atheism, Right To Think, CaroLINES, Atheist Camel, Living With Mormons, Richard Shelmerdine, The Sunny Skeptic, The Evolving Mind, Universal Heretic, (((Billy))) The Atheist, Living the Scientific Life, Sowing Seeds in Winter, Belief Systems & Other BS, State of Protest, The Imaginary Philosophy, Ex-Apologist, Bay of Fundie, the Jewmanist, Atheist Revolution, The Atheist Blogger, RagingRev, The Uncredible Hallq

Technorati tags: carnival of the godless, blog carnival.