Religious Predators

[Revoltingest]

I didn't get any of that kind of extreme stuff when I grew up.

The USSC banned Bible stories in 1963, so lucky youngsters escaped it (most places).

I found it disturbing and appalling as an adult, I couldn't imagine listening to such graphic death stuff when I was a kid. My kids remember it still. My daughter refers to it as the egg hunt where they talked about killing that man with all the blood and the whip. I mean ****, is that what they really want kids to remember?

Fear is a powerful recruiting tool, eh.
Well, it is when it works.

 

[Akivah]

My friend relayed to me how that there was a Christian church that offered to bus the Tibetan children whose families had immigrated here to free sports they could play. The children were all excited about it and went with them with their parent's consent. Everyone was excited about it. There was a catch however that had not been disclosed ahead of time. While they did take them to play, they made them first sit through classes teaching them about Jesus.

This is very typical of how missionaries work. They will offer benefits or aid. However, their "help" always comes with evangelizing and conversion attempts. It is intrinsic to their behavior. Centuries of this behavior have instilled a natural wariness in Jews to anything Christian.

 

[Draka]

The USSC banned Bible stories in 1963, so lucky youngsters escaped it (most places).

Fear is a powerful recruiting tool, eh.
Well, it is when it works.

Luckily didn't work with mine. I did have some questions to answer after it but handled it pretty well. Just tried to reassure them that it was just a story, like many other stories, only some people seem to think it is true. Different people believe different things, different stories, that often have no proof. That you just have to figure out if it sounds true to you. They didn't. They just took it as a strange sick story.

 

[Draka]

This is very typical of how missionaries work. They will offer benefits or aid. However, their "help" always comes with evangelizing and conversion attempts. It is intrinsic to their behavior. Centuries of this behavior have instilled a natural wariness in Jews to anything Christian.

This group I've been talking about blatantly do it on purpose. Checked them out online. They pride themselves on "sidewalk Sunday school" where they take this fire truck into neighborhoods and offer games and prizes to kids and then evangelize them. . They are the equivalent of the creepy perv in the windowless van offering candy to get in.

 

[Akivah]

This group I've been talking about blatantly do it on purpose. Checked them out online. They pride themselves on "sidewalk Sunday school" where they take this fire truck into neighborhoods and offer games and prizes to kids and then evangelize them. . They are the equivalent of the creepy perv in the windowless van offering candy to get in.

All missionaries do it on purpose. Deception is part and parcel of their standard operating procedure. I've seen passover seders co-opted to present their idol, I've been invited to "parties" by pretty girls that turned out to be prayer meetings, any free meal includes a sermon, they offer free "Jewish" bibles that are actually Christian bibles, some will call themselves Rabbis but instead be ministers, they prey on the weak and ill in hospitals trying to get them to convert. I even had someone invite me to a camping trip in the woods, but recognized it as Christian before I went. I've been subjected to a lot of Christian evangelical deception in my lifetime.

 

[Kapalika]

Last year these little flyers went around at the schools promoting this egg hunt right before Easter (not in the school mind you, but passed out outside the schools when they got out). Now, this flyer had a fire engine depicted on it and said it was put on by a group called "Firehouse Kidz". Now maybe I was just naive, but I connected this with something perhaps connected with the fire dept. I had no idea what this group actually was. My kids wanted to go so I took them. Upon arrival you can see an actual fire engine and decorations and a stage where they have "entertainment". The kids are to gather in front of the stage before the actual hunt and then it begins...innocently enough. This "pastor" starts with a couple games and tricks and then it goes into songs they are supposed to dance and sing along with that get quite religious. I still didn't really think that badly of it though as this was billed as an Easter egg hunt. But then...the pastor and now his wife start rolling with preaching to kids, toddlers and grade schoolers, about the thorns upon Jesus's head and the blood running down his face. They display a crown of thorns and then a whip and start in on how he was whipped until his back was split and his blood poured from him. How he was nailed to the cross and so on and so forth. To toddlers! To 2,3,4,5 year olds and up! Little kids lured in by the prospect of a fun day at an egg hunt were assaulted by a gruesome telling of death. I mean really? This church, this pastor and wife who lead a "kids'" church group, this "firehouse kidz" ...just evil. Made my skin crawl.

Sounds pretty typical.

This is very typical of how missionaries work. They will offer benefits or aid. However, their "help" always comes with evangelizing and conversion attempts. It is intrinsic to their behavior. Centuries of this behavior have instilled a natural wariness in Jews to anything Christian.

@Akivah's experiences sound more in line with my own. I'd venture to say that these are the most accurate representations of Christianity as I have seen them act both in history and the world. I have a very negative view of Christian theology and have no problem calling out what I see in some of this topic as trying to pull a No True Scotsman. No one needs to make excuses for Christianity by petending that they are not Christians same as the more loving and accepting/liberal Christians.

From what I've seen abuse, bullying, psychological coercion and threats are used to keep adherents in line with conservative denominations. It is not a fun religion. The age group you mentioned @Draka is targeted all the time. I know many people who say they were "saved" at ages as young as 6, 5 and even 4. In some extreme cases I've known people claiming to convert at 3 years old. Though I also know some who say that 3 years old isn't old enough to understand and that it's really hard to understand before age 5 or 6 so they target kids of that age mostly. Many believe that the age of accountability is around 12 years old right when they hit puberty so that they can threaten them with hell for having sexual thoughts right as they are first experiencing them.

They think that everything under the sun is evil and that you should always honor god with everything you do and so that means they are constantly brainwashing themselves and others by being hyper vigilant for anything "bad". It destroys your self confidence, makes you hate yourself, and is worsened by mental illness. I personally knew a woman who once said "Nothing is wrong with a little brainwashing. Maybe if people's minds were not so dirty they wouldn't need any brainwashing."

God I am so glad my exposure to that world was as limited as it was.

They don't give their own kids any choice and disown them if they go to a heretical sect or worse yet a different religion. I know these behaviors are really common as I've seen it in acquaintances and former friends. It's easier to count what churches don't act in ways like this in at least some aspect or capacity even if small, it's seen as socially acceptable in a lot of ways.

I think a lot of this is a logical result of their theology... eternal hell, exclusive salvation ect. I don't really have a lot sympathy for anyone who unquestioningly follows those beliefs.

 

[jeager106]

I had a very close buddy when I was in high school. We did a lot of shooting, hunting,
fishing together and I got close to his parents.
Sadly his father was killed in an auto accident when Terry and I were just out
of high school.
The family made arrangements to transport his body back to his Pa. home town
for burial in the family plot.
The preacher of his home town church said the church would NOT perform a ceremony
until family paid 3 months BACK CHURCH DUES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Damn! The family did pay up but my buddy became a devout atheist and HATED
anyone devoutly religious!

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Yeah? We learned when my grandfather passed away that, after he had bought all of our plots for burial, apparently a family had donated that plot of land and there shouldn't have BEEN a charge in the first place...

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I really don't see why a hospital would have to keep religious ministers on staff.

Because most hospitals are owned and operated by religious organizations or denominations, as are a great many nursing homes, etc.

 

[jeager106]

Because most hospitals are owned and operated by religious organizations or denominations, as are a great many nursing homes, etc.

Private hospitals are the ones usually owned by religious organizations.
Correct me if I err.

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Private hospitals are the ones usually owned by religious organizations.
Correct me if I err.

About 10 percent of hospitals (if I'm remembering correctly) are private for-profit
About 20 percent are owned by governments (often as government-owned nonprofits, but this also includes the VA system, etc.)
The rest are nonprofit privately owned, and most of those are religious

 

[jeager106]

Public and Private Hospitals by the Numbers
According to the 2014 American Hospital Association Annual Survey, there are 5,686 hospitals in the United States. Of that total, 2,904 are public hospitals, and 1,060 are private.

about 2/3 rds are public.
That orta settle that.

http://www.npinstitute.com/public-vs-private-hospitals-s/1852.htm

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Public and Private Hospitals by the Numbers
According to the 2014 American Hospital Association Annual Survey, there are 5,686 hospitals in the United States. Of that total, 2,904 are public hospitals, and 1,060 are private.

about 2/3 rds are public.
That orta settle that.

http://www.npinstitute.com/public-vs-private-hospitals-s/1852.htm

That's not ownership; nonprofit hospitals are considered "public" because to meet their nonprofit "public" status they must treat anyone who comes to them, and every year a number of nonprofits lose their status because they don't serve enough needy cases, and sometimes, have even refused service. The following 2014 data is from http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/hospitals-by-ownership/ the Kaiser Family Foundation, which does a lot of tracking of health issues. This does not include federally owned hospitals (VA, military, etc.)

Location State/Local Government Non-Profit For-Profit Total
United States 20.4% 58.3% 21.4% 100.0%
United States 1,003 2,870 1,053 4,926

Edit to add notes:
Notes
Data are for community hospitals, which represent 85% of all hospitals. Federal hospitals, long term care hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, institutions for the mentally retarded, and alcoholism and other chemical dependency hospitals are not included.

Sources
1999 - 2014 AHA Annual Survey, Copyright 2015 by Health Forum, LLC, an affiliate of the American Hospital Association. Special data request, 2015. Available at http://www.ahaonlinestore.com.

Definitions
Community Hospitals: All nonfederal, short-term general, and specialty hospitals whose facilities and services are available to the public.