(Repost) “He Couldn’t Breathe” – Escape Chapter 24: Patrick’s Abuse

This chapter has a lot of child abuse. So I’m going to put this right up front:

Content Note for severe physical abuse of a child.

In the Jessop household, showing any degree of spine to Barbara results in punishment. She thrives on it. So when all her sister wives do their best to keep things calm and peaceful after Merril’s heart attack, it’s only a few weeks before she escalates to get a rise out of them. She incites the children of the household to act up in hopes of provoking the wives to attack them, just so she’ll have a reason to discipline them. Carolyn’s turn comes when she calls some of the girls out for gossiping about a girl at their school who is being bullied. She snaps at them, calling them hypocrites for pretending to be shocked, considering the way they treat the wives.

She expects Barbara to come at her for it. But instead, Barbara attacks her son, Patrick. Continue reading “(Repost) “He Couldn’t Breathe” – Escape Chapter 24: Patrick’s Abuse”

(Repost) “He Couldn’t Breathe” – Escape Chapter 24: Patrick’s Abuse
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(Repost) “Blood Atonement” – Escape Chapter 23: Ruth’s Nose

In our last installment, we learned that Warren Jeffs was busy making everyone believe their every ailment could be cured by faith alone, leading many people to almost kill themselves and at least one to maim herself in the effort to follow Warren’s God’s supposed will. Now we find out Warren in into survivalist shit as well. This allows some of the more concerning members of the community to indulge their sadistic sides.

Content Note for graphic animal abuse, brutal animal killing, spiritual abuse, ritual murder discussion, elder abuse, medical neglect.

Carolyn learns from Merril’s daughter Merrilyn that Warren has been running a series of survival classes at the FLDS’s private school in Salt Lake City. They mostly consist of Dee Jessop killing various animals in a variety of horrifying ways in front of the children. This includes ripping the heart out of a living pig as it screams in agony.

And no one says anything against it.

The more Warren gets away with without opposition, the stronger his hold on the community becomes. I wonder if these brutal “survivalist” classes were to see just how far people would go to comply with his orders. Was he using them to desensitize people? If you can get people to start doing more and more outrageous things, you can walk them into ideas that would’ve had them running away screaming if you’d thrown them straight in.

His father, the prophet Rulon Jeffs, begins having strokes in 1996, and Warren uses them to usurp his power. The community is told that Rulon’s mind is intact, but no one’s allowed to see him. This allows Warren to pretend his father is still mentally competent enough to perform his duties. He acts as Rulon’s mouthpiece. He gives the orders. And, with the community firmly in his grasp, he begins to squeeze. He tells the community that immoral men must be banished. And then he goes further: Continue reading “(Repost) “Blood Atonement” – Escape Chapter 23: Ruth’s Nose”

(Repost) “Blood Atonement” – Escape Chapter 23: Ruth’s Nose

(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education VIII: Two Salty Tales of Ocean Origins

My conservative Christian former best friend used to say that too much prayer rots the brain. Earth Science 4th Edition provides clear evidence of this right from the blurb at the start of the “Oceans and Seas” chapter. They begin talking about desalination by saying wow, there’s more people on Earth than ever! Yay! “God didn’t place a limit on how many people should inhabit the earth.”

I really wish the Bible had a verse placing strict limits on the total population, and ordering dominionists like the BJU believers to adhere to a strict “One child, no conversion, no evangelizing, and for My sake put a condom on that thing!” policy. Because it seems they believe that God wants as many people stuffed onto the planet as possible, limited resources be damned. They acknowledge the fact that a huge population makes things like having enough drinking water for everyone a serious issue. But they pretend that’s all fine, since we invented desalinization plants. Breed away! God placed no limits on population, so let’s have humans stacked a dozen deep over every square inch of the planet! Fuck logic and sense, yo!

Image is a photo of the Duggar family showing 18 kids surrounding Mom, who is holding a baby. Caption says, "Be fruitful and multiply. You're doing it right!"

Fools like this are why I’m one of those atheists who thinks we really need, as a species, to do away with the idea of holy books* all together. We can’t be trusted with it.

Dominion is a strong theme at the beginning of this chapter. “Oceans for Man’s Use” is the very first section. After giving us lots of facts about the oceans, like their size and how they help regulate the earth’s temperature, and how most of our oxygen “comes from photosynthetic organisms living in” them, they tell us it’s important to exercise dominion over them.

Oy. These people are massive control freaks. Instead of caring for or partnering with things, they want to exercise jackbooted thuggery over it all. In a “good and wise” manner, they hasten to assure us. Considering they think it’s a bonza idea to fill Earth with people until there’s no room for anything else, I’m not believing they’re qualified to judge what’s good or wise.

And they’re encouraging students to pursue careers in oceanography in order to exercise said dominion. Continue reading “(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education VIII: Two Salty Tales of Ocean Origins”

(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education VIII: Two Salty Tales of Ocean Origins

Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLIV: Wherein We’re Layered in Nonsense

All righty, then. Where were we? Ah, yes: when last we delved Earth Science 4th Edition’s pages, the authors were trying to tell us about their One Magic Ice Age Wot Explains Away the Physical Evidence and that Job Really Probably Lived Through Cuz He Mentions Snow a Few Times. Next on their agenda: they’re gonna tell us about The Diluvial Geologic Column.

Image is a meme showing three panels of My Little Ponies. There is a group of them looking towards the right. In the first panel, they are laughing and the caption says "Ha ha ha." In the second panel, they have stopped laughing, and the caption says, "Oh, wait, you're serious." The third panel shows them laughing again, and the caption says, "Let us laugh even harder!"
I’m dead before we begin. They’re just… I mean… well, look at this shit:

We know that there was at least one continent where everything lived when God created the earth. Creationary geologists think that the continent foundation or basement was probably the rock we call granite, which makes up the deepest rocks under the continents today.

Hoo nelly. So much evidence here they don’t at all understand how rocks or continents work. Folks: continents are heavy. The roots under the thickest crust run deep. What happens when rocks are under tremendous heat and pressure? Well, they don’t stay cheerfully unaltered. Granite is not the deepest rock, kids. I don’t think these folks even grok what basement rocks are.

They yammer about how they can totes see the “key geologic phases of the earth” if they just look at the strata “from a biblical viewpoint.” They think they see the vast majority of rocks either forming in or being redeposited by the Flood. They have no real idea how minerals precipitate from a solution to form masses of rock. They don’t know how consolidation happens. The things they think happened in a single Flood year don’t happen that fast and/or in those kinds of conditions (here’s one example). We’ve studied this. We’ve done experiments. We know.

Of course, they admit the Flood didn’t create the entire geologic column. There was that mythical post-Flood ice age, carving valleys and dumping glacial detritus all over the place. Never mind that we have evidence for multiple ice ages – just put on your Biblical Blinders, kids, and you’ll see there’s only one!

Gah.

Anyway, then they give us Tasman Walker’s idea of a geologic column. It’s microscopic compared to the geologic column those icky secular scientists have put together after centuries of research. It goes, from oldest rocks to youngest: Continue reading “Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLIV: Wherein We’re Layered in Nonsense”

Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLIV: Wherein We’re Layered in Nonsense

(Repost) “A Person of Little Faith” – Escape Chapter 23: Ruth’s Nose

Like many cult leaders, Warren Jeffs is busy gradually cementing his hold over everyone in the community by fucking with their health care. His father has already convinced everyone that vaccines are a government plot to make children sterile. Considering previously-vaccinated FLDS women are pumping out children at a brisk pace, it’s amazing anyone believes him. But he’s their leader, the man in charge of their eternal salvation, so they trust him. Warren then comes along to see the ground his father has plowed, telling everyone that the only reason they’d ever need medical treatment is a lack of faith. If they’re truly in harmony with God, he says, they’ll be healed by prayer and fasting.

Content note: medical neglect, spiritual abuse, maiming, physical abuse of a mentally ill person.

Carolyn watches many people in the FLDS end up nearly dead from Warren’s claims. Thankfully, most people are still resorting to the hospital when faith doesn’t heal them. But some have faith in Warren. Ruth, her mentally unstable sister wife, develops skin cancer on her nose, and Carolyn gets to experience the consequences of Warren’s nonsense quite closely.

Merril apparently hasn’t yet fallen for Warren’s crap, because he sends Ruth to the clinic when a sore on her nose won’t heal. It’s cancerous, but very treatable, her doctor says. But Ruth wants to do it Warren’s way. She won’t entertain Carolyn’s idea that maybe GOd was healing her by placing her in the hands of a competent dermatologist. She wants to go the faith route. In addition to fasting and praying, faith also apparently includes questionable caustic chemicals from the health food store. God has revealed a new way of healing her cancer to her! It’s herbal, so it must be safe, despite the fact the caustic part of her concoction is illegal to sell! And while she’s been told to only use a pinhead-sized amount, she slathers it on, turning the entire end of her nose green in the process. God said to go for it. Continue reading “(Repost) “A Person of Little Faith” – Escape Chapter 23: Ruth’s Nose”

(Repost) “A Person of Little Faith” – Escape Chapter 23: Ruth’s Nose

(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education VII: Awash in Creationist Nonsense

Take your seasickness prevention pills and weigh anchor, my darlings. We are embarking on a long voyage, and I’m afraid it isn’t the lovely salt sea, but an ocean of creationist bilge we be sailin’. BJU has got a lot to say about oceanography. A good portion of it is utter bunkum. And there’s three bloody chapters of this shite.

Here. This meme may help us survive.

Image shows a cat in a cardboard pirate ship. Caption says, "I comes to plunder yer living room."

The wrong starts out strong with Dr. Emil Silvestru, a creationist speleologist from Romania. He started his career as a secular scientist, then jumped into Christianity with both feet and became a young earth creationist. The quality of his “reasoning” can be assessed by the following explanation: Continue reading “(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education VII: Awash in Creationist Nonsense”

(Repost) Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education VII: Awash in Creationist Nonsense

Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLIII: Wherein A Beka Outsmarts Insane Clown Posse

Fucking magnets, how do they work? Well, Science of the Physical Creation is about to ‘splain, or at least sum up. We should invite Mssrs. Bruce and Utsler to attend the lesson. Pretty sad when creationists know more about a well-understood scientific phenomena than a couple of pathetic white boy clowns, innit?

Meme shows a screenshot of a shouting man in a white clown costume with black and white clown makeup. Caption says, "Fuckin' magnets, how do they work?"
We should be on the lookout for Eurocentrism here. The section on Magnets and Magnetism starts off talking about how the Vikings used lodestones to find north. This ignores the fact that the Chinese had been using lodestones since around the second century BC and had figured out how to make a compass from them for navigation by the 11th century (and perhaps earlier).

Tell you what, I’m real sick of white people pretending they invented all the things, when people of color had actually been doing them a lot longer. And yes, I will demand better of even white evangelical creationists. The Vikings were no more Christian than the Chinese at that point, so I know the SPC folks are capable of giving credit to non-Christians.

There’s a delightful introduction to magnets, which explains that electrons, planets, and even galaxies can act as magnets. They tell us how we can detect magnetic fields with a compass, and visualize them with iron filings. Several illustrations show us what the fields of disk, bar, and horseshoe magnets look like. And they not only tell us, but show us by using more filings, that opposite poles attract and same poles repel. The law of magnetic force is shown. We learn that even magnets can “overcome the gravitational force of the entire earth” at close range. They finish up this first bit by talking about magnetic permeability, which would probably make ICP heads explode, because it’s a little weird. Continue reading “Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLIII: Wherein A Beka Outsmarts Insane Clown Posse”

Adventures in Christianist Earth Science Education XLIII: Wherein A Beka Outsmarts Insane Clown Posse