African Children Denounced As "Witches" By Christian Pastors

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/african-children-denounce_n_324943.html

"EKET, Nigeria — The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.

His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him – Mount Zion Lighthouse.

A month later, he died."


WOW! Killing witches? I wonder where a Christian might get that idea. Hmmm...

Exodus 22:18. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

Oh yeah, that's right, the sky god mandates that we kill witches. Almost sounds like Christianity is immoral if you ask me.

where all Christians are wacko's.

Well, we do know that Christ is love. After all, he invented the concept of hell. The Jewish God might have condoned racism, genocide, and slavery, but at least you could die to escape his wrath. The Christian God promises eternal torture worse than waterboarding for an eternity, not 183 times. Are you pro-torture?

when one wants to preach love and peace, just quote a few passages from the New Testament. When you want to preach war and violence, there's the scripture in the Old Testament. In Christianity, you get to have your cake and eat it, too.

Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde would have been comfortable with this nonsensical religion.

OTOH Islam is much worser form of psychosis.

For example, it was the peace-loving Jesus who invented the concept of eternal torture by fire after you die if you don't agree with and dedicate your life to his philosophy. :hi:

The problem with Islam is that they never truly underwent a reformation and the mullahs still have as much control over their people as The Pope and Catholic Church did during the Inquisition. Whenever people actually believe that their sacred texts are ordained by God, any evil is possible.

:hi:

It hasn't stopped Christians from moving forward anyway.

totally different from all the other crap. In fact they sound like what my Yoga teacher sounded like.
I believe they were words that speak across time still today.
For example..when he talks about the righteous shinning forth like the sun..he is obviously talking about how bright their energy field begins to glow.
I think he was a Yoga Master myself and was just used to form an organization to gain power (Christianity).
Todays "Christians" do not follow his teachings for the most part anyways. However, there is a tiny percentage that do..and to them I have no ill feelings.

You have to remember that the "Church" wrote most of the stuff that's in the New Testament and left out a whole lot of other information that didn't comport with their ideas.

"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into EVERLASTING FIRE, prepared for the devil and his angels"

But perhaps he was talking about metaphorical fire? :eyes:

Anyway, the Bible itself, supposedly written by God for which I am sure he would have his very own son proofread the final version before sending it to print, mentions in elaborate detail the torture of the dead in hell in Revelations.

:hi:

And no need to ask God for forgiveness, seeing as how he doesn't exist. :rofl:

as one can ascertain by the blatant sexism perpetuated throughout the Christianity and other religions. A female God wouldn't want us to view women shamefully. Did you ever wonder why all of the Gods on earth are never born like normal people through the unclean birth canal (e.g. born from a virgin, born through a slit on the mother's side, etc.).

on that bit of misogynist education.

Have you ever read "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone? An excellent read and very enlightening.

He brings it up often in debates. He actually says he doesn't know of any flesh and blood religious God that didn't avoid the birth canal when coming into existence.

Never read the book, but will take a look. :hi:

sense that our creatrix is female. All else is just fool imitations.

(and this is the imprtant part): man and woman. (See Genesis 1)

Or are you one of those young earth creationists? If you do believe in evolution, doesn't that mean that your God is a very lazy God, too lazy to do the work himself opting instead for nature to do it for him over the course of millions of years? :rofl:

My Bad. Apparently it is to be believed. Almost like a religion. ;)

I also never realised that speculation about God was so funny as your emoticon suggests. Usually, when speaking of God, I use words like "almighty" and "mercifull". "Lazy" is a new one.

And do you really want God to just bend everything to His will, without giving it a chance to find God's ways for itself (With a little help from God, obviously)? Do you really want any and all to have no "free will option"? If not, then that may be the answer to your question.

and I'm fine with that description since I don't believe in him. Unlike some people, I reject the notion of a celestial dictator.

By the way, you never answered: do you ACCEPT or REJECT evolution? If you accept evolution, doesn't that sound like a lazy God?

Christopher Hitchens has a funny reply whenever he is asked if he believes that humans have free will. "Of course. We have no choice." :rofl:

Surely we can agree that no scientific theory is ever 'finished'? After all, there always remains some axioms or assumptions needing to be proven. Even so, evolution provides us with a model for the understanding of the developement of life.

It is interesting that just now, the finding of some early fossils of (?) pterosaurs (?) is prompting a revision of how gradual evolutionary changes can be - i.e. evolutionary change can come quicker than an Obama retreat on Gay rights. It will be intersting to watch the future developement of this evolution theory.

As for Mr Hitchens: I suppose that his idea of having no choice is based on the same assumption as your 'dismissal' of the notion of celestial dictatorship: that no God can exist who actually cares about his creation. In 'De Servio Arbitrio' Martin Luther proposed a radically different view.

and all the shades in between too...now that sounds about right to me.
If God is not all inclusive then there is something outside of God and that cannot be if there is indeed a God.

Zeus started it, Hellenistic priests took the power of the women priestess', and even the supposed power of men to give birth, as if. You read the "code words" you can tell what they are talking about - "Athena sprang forth from Zeus's 'head' fully formed", which is taking Her power and making the male god more powerful that Her, supposedly giving birth through the head of the penis, when actually Athena is from Libya, centuries older than Zeus.

Talk about Christianity having blind faith, imagine the shock that people are now suppose to turn from the Almighty Heavenly Queen to a mere thunder and rain god who thinks he can give birth. Boggles the imagination, eh?

Function: noun
Etymology: Latin, it does not follow
Date: 1540
1 : an inference that does not follow from the premises; specifically : a fallacy resulting from a simple conversion of a universal affirmative proposition or from the transposition of a condition and its consequent
2 : a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to anything previously said

:rofl:

Verse 2 "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD."

So it's okay to punish a child because his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents didn't marry and stay together? :crazy:

Please contextualize for me. Be sure to stretch beforehand, don't want you pulling anything. :rofl:

know exactly who you are following - the OT "god of thunder" or the NT "Elohim/Elijah" aka Helios. That's right, Helios. That's the god that Jesus follows. Nice little secret isn't it?

Witch Hunt?How about the way Christians are still thrown to the lions?Stick up or discern facts about the bible and hold on to your ass.

There's no mention about the eternal torture of the dead until gentle Jesus meek and mild came along. Is it moral to torture someone with fire for eternity? Is it moral to torture someone with water 183 times? Sorry to break the truth to you about the evil of Christianity. I don't believe in a celestial North Korea called "heaven" like you do. :hi:

know I'm Free ,I don't need to convince you of Sh*t.

and to spread the "good news" like Bush tried to spread democracy to Iraq.

Pleaser ,hmm hmm

It's the commandment from the risen Christ to "go and make disciples of all the nations". The "pray in private" verse is something else altogether.

anybody to make disciples ,he said "Be fruitful and Multiply" .

18And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

19"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,

20teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Matthew 28:18-20

And the "be fruitful" thing is found in the old testament.

Tell you what, maybe you need to spend a little time reading and we can talk more later.

When you defend the irrationality of Christianity, you have to expect to be called on it.

Sure, it was about 3000 years ago, but who's counting? :rofl:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

:eyes:

And stop trying to blame it on the Jews. Always trying to scapegoat them. Though I understand the need for Christianity to do this. After all, Judaism proclaims that Christ wasn't the son of God.

Exodus is part of the Christian Bible as well.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I mean, why would the men who wrote the bible want to save the virgins for themselves when they committed genocide against the Midianites? Also, is genocide moral? Thanks. :hi:

:rofl:

If you want to defend this hideous, go right ahead. :hi:

Old.see ya.

Deuteronomy 22:28-29. "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives."

Seems to me it should at least be 100 pieces of silver, wouldn't you agree? Also, why must he pay the girl's father instead of the girl he raped? Almost sounds like women were treated as property of their male relatives. Maybe that's why one of the ten commandments tells us not to covet our neighbor's wife when listing property of our neighbor that we shouldn't covet. Alas, I shall defer the price and this "women as property" issue to the all-knowing sky God.

Enjoy church service today. :hi:

Jewish not Christian.

Thanks. :hi:

Also, is Jay Bybee the son of God? :rofl:

and a female "belonged" to the father until the father "gave" her to her husband.
Just think of the horror of being forced to be married to your rapist. sheesh...what a bunch of sick bastards ran the world then. Oh wait...dang it...in some places..they still do this today.

Jesus said, "I did not come to destroy the Law (The OT), but to fulfill it." The NT does not supercede the OT - otherwise they'd have just gotten rid of it completely during the Council of Nicea.

THEY DIDN'T DO IN PART 2

Also, is Jay Bybee an angel of God? :rofl:

you are attempting to pretend that your faith mates do not quote the OT books daily in this country as an excuse for their bigotry toward gay people and others. It is their scripture and yours. They use it as a weapon against others. It is your job to stand against that misuse, not to stomp your feet that you are not them and demand understanding. Did Christ not teach you directly that you would be mocked and persecuted for your faith in him and did he not teach you to rejoice in that? He did. But you do not rejoice, you demand respect for yourself, not your faith, yourself.
And the other, well he's playing games to piss you off, and it is working. Because you are far from the teachings it works.
Once all of those who are your brothers and sisters in your faith stop shouting OT verses at others when they come for our rights and our families, you can take a moment to defend yourself. Right now, they are yours by your own definition, and their mess is for you to clean up. And you are not doing what you need to do. Clean your own house, rejoice when mocked, and treat others as you would have others treat you. Shall I say to you such snarks as 'there's a good chap'? Is that the unto others deal in action? Is that the example that brings in the sheaves? Is it really.
You were told to rejoice when persecuted. And you have a tizzy when merely confronted with the OT Scriptures you call 'Holy'.

Personnally I don't think much of a God that favors one race over another.
To me that is not a loving creator but a sick and cruel thing to do to the rest of the planet.

:rofl:

in a book filled with shit like walking on water, parting the red sea, raising the dead and other inane fairy stories written by bronze age misogynists and slave holders, stupid? That is hilarious.

:toast:

:rofl:

of hell ?

With your logic, anyone who voted for Franken's anti-rape amendment is using maimed women to vilify Halliburton and any corporation that condones rape. :crazy:

No help from anyone else was really necessary.

You say you're not a fundie, but every mainstream Christian denomination recognizes Exodus as part of its canon. Every. Last. One.

:patriot:

and especially Religious Fanaticism.

Perhaps they were trying to avoid eternal torture with fire by obeying God's commandment to kill all witches?

THE OLD TESTAMENT, which is Jewish.

Thanks for playing. :hi:

:rofl:

inferior? What?

And Jesus did say, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Matthew 10:34.

And he was certainly right about that.

33"But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.

34"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35"For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW;

36and A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.

37"He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.


PS: "I'm speaking spiritually. Though I cannot imagine how that would help anything." -Jesus.

and as we also know the bible has been changed and "re-translated" and "updated" and added too and parts throw out...yes...it is fanaticism to believe that bunch of garbly-goop.

Or was the translation lost in that story as well? Also, is that a moral action? :hi:

so had to "test" Moses...sheesh.... :)
It is amazing what people believe isnt it? :)

Why havent you yet?

The books of Moses cannot be canonical and obsolete at the same time. Modern Christianity depends on Moses to develop the "perfect sacrifice" imagery which led up to the Cross. Without Moses, there is no redemption.

You spoke about the OT being obsolete, and I came back with why it could not be considered so, and hasn't been in any Christian church I know of.

And you came back with . . . whatever you came back with. Tell you what - have a beautiful Sunday.

:eyes:

is latin,taken from the greek exodos.

I wonder how many children have been tortured and abused in her church?

Not from Christianity.

More from the article:

"For their part, the families are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed. Poverty, conflict and poor education lay the foundation for accusations, which are then triggered by the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor on the make, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund.

"When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats," he said. "It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change ... and children are defenseless."

:hi:

these people's ignorance is preyed upon by the Church entities that seek their 'souls'. Perhaps they should do less preying and more praying.

I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiaochow, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.

Mark Twain - "A Salutation from the 19th to the 20th Century," December 31, 1900

Thanks! :patriot:

Why is it that so many iconoclastic intelligent thinkers have called out Christianity for what it really is? A steaming pile of subversive, oppressive hooey.

King James Versions as the only true word of god.

The original hebrew is more accurately translated as not allowing a poisoner to live.

It's sort of a Monty Pythonesque stretch; witches make potions, potions can be poison, thus, kill the witches. King James was all about killing witches, blaming them for his illnesses. It was one of his major bugaboos, when he was not buggering the male staff.

Here's a fun article about his nuttiness.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~monarchs/madmonarchs/james1n6/james1n6_bio.htm

These 'christian' churches in africa have some intresting ties to our own Talibornagain leaders, which doesn't make this witch feel particulary safe, let me tell you, 'cause they encourage the same thing here. Google Mary Glazier (one of Sarah Palin's mentors) for a heart-warming tale of her persecution of an alaskan woman Glazier accused of witchcraft.

Edit to add: Here's a good place to get started with the Joel's Army types here and abroad. Scary.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/7/165650/170

Maybe we can start there?

and neither of those places are in the gospels.

The book of revelations was written by someone in jail.
most likely he was insane, at the very least his hatred for rome was rather obvious.
the majority of "christianity" was written out of whole cloth by saul (known as paul).
he was a very sad, and disturbed little man.

misogynistic, homophobic, and probably gay himself, the rules written in the new testament, after the gospels, are less than jesus-like.

While I understand your sentiment, and reflected it for a great many years of my own life, it is the height of arrogance to get your religious facts wrong.

take your tooth pick, and leave this gunfight.

your sentiment is not wrong, but your facts are.
so your entire argument looks petty and hateful, as opposed to well thought out and considered.

most of the new testament is crap. rules set u by a petty little man. the only bits, to me anyway, worth reading and considering are the gospels, and the (heretical LOL) gnostic gospels, which were actually written by jesus' companions, not some acolyte 100 years later (luke) or 2nd hand (mark?).

I wish you a peaceful and happy life.

She took the form of a beautiful and sexy woman to lure men off the path in the woods..but when they got to her..her backside was an old rotten stump and they were never seen again.
The term "Go to Hell" was around long before the Christians invented their verson.

"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into EVERLASTING FIRE, prepared for the devil and his angels"

I guess Matthew isn't one of the Gospels. :eyes: It is the height of embarrassment to be proven so wrong in such a public forum. I hope that your ego can recover. :rofl:

Does the bible condemn witches to death? Please answer in a form other than a non sequitor this time. :hi:

"Thou shalt not suffer a POISONER to live."...it was changed to read "Witch" by one of the popes..I believe his name was Innocents the third but might be wrong on the name.
After that text was altered..over the many centuries Christianity has reigned and in many nations and tribes......hundreds of thousands of women and children and the loved ones that tried to protect them were murdered and tortured..their property confiscated and split with the accuser and the judge and the churches.....all by the so called "Christians".
This war against women is still going on today in many ways.
In one village alone in Germany during the worst of the Burning Times...ALL the females including all female children were tortured and murdered except one old lady that lived far away from town.
Sometimes over the centuries they made the children dance on the coals of their parents bodies and then boiled the children alive..in oil. For the "crime" of being a daughter of a Witch.
They are still murdering and dehumanizing people in the "name of God" today and what is worse...they still get away with it.
The original witches were mostly midwives, healers, herbalist and any known members of the Old Religions and were mostly women. There were many that just owned property that their neighbors or church coveted or were perhaps a wife or daughter some male didn't want any longer. They had nothing to do with the Christian boogyman..and Anti-God Satan.
Of course they were tortured until they "confessed" to believing and worshiping the Christian God Satan anyways.
The Christian Churches were at "war" with the Old Religion/Goddess religions and used "God" as an excuse to murder their rivals for the power of being the representative of "God"...and all the wealth that entailed.
The witches of today often call themselves Wiccan because the name Witch has been so blasphemed and demonized by the churches..you know...same as what the republicans have done to the word "liberal".
Three of my relatives on my mother's side were hung at Salem and their farm split between their neighbor (accuser) and the judge and the church.
It also hurt the name of witches when the Satanists started calling themselves "Witches"..and many other shamanic practitioners, medicine people, voodoo and all other religious practitioners that were not Christian...etc.. were also lumped in together and called "Witches".
Witches were turned into the "boggieman" invented by the Christians to gain power..same as todays "terrorists"..same as yesterdays "Communists"..etc..etc etc.
And until human beings all start to think for themselves..we will always have a boggieman.

This evil has no bounds. Sam Harris' book End of Faith has an excellent discussion on this.

by "Christians", not Christians. It was a reaction to pre-modern science, as it is now in Nigeria (which at long last is sightly modernising). Even so, we could tentatively suggest that "witches" are the only (child) sacrifices that "Christians" have brought to their warped idea of God. This, in spite of strong commandments to the contrary, yea even in Exodus.

and people who actually believe that a sky God wrote a holy book and created the billions of galaxies each with billions of planets all for our sake on our tiny planet in this corner of our small galaxy. :hi:

:spank:

:rofl:

Did your mother never teach you it was rude to hit emoticons?

Nope, never learned that. :rofl:

And risking to create a sub-thread too! Shame on us. I respectfully suggest we end this part of the discussion.

:rofl:

I want everybody to see Christian "love" at the top of the editorial page. :hi:

You naughty.

:hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi: :hi:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Lest anybody shout out, "There are no true Scotsmen," you can stuff it

Most people have fairly good prototypical definitions of words like 'chair' and 'table', but I've seen examples that seriously blur the line. Yet my prototype definitions remain.

So it is with a word like 'Christian.' We have a certain set of practices and beliefs that we expect to be covered, and when that set is too badly violated we just say that the definition doesn't apply. It's not saying there's a true essence of Xianity; it's merely a definitional nicety.

Now, I personally believe that if the council in Jerusalem (q.v. Acts) or Paul were to examine any of the Church fathers' writings, they'd be flummoxed by the claim that they were Xian in any meaningful sense. Their definition simply wouldn't apply to the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Too much syncretism passed under the bridge, so to speak, so much adaptation of local rites and beliefs and cultural norms to early Xianity, so much assuming that what was part of early Xianity was just some other culture's norms superimposed on a kind of abstract belief system.

So it is with some Xians today, but for a different reason: They look at Mormons and quibble because, in some ways, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are peripheral to the prototype.

Africa is very much parallel to the Mediterranean basin in 150-200 AD. Lots of different cultures, with lots of influences spreading around--but without a central authority to impose a single variant of any of them. So much adaptation of local rites and beliefs and cultural norms to early Xianity, so much assuming that what was part of Western Xianity was just some other culture's norms superimposed on a kind of abstract belief system. So much syncretism. Is it still Xianity?

We can widen our definition and say yes, or keep our old definition and say no. Schisms and heresies tend to force that choice. For now, at least, I usually put Xian in quotes when talking about some of the African (or S. Asian or E. Asian) syncretisms. Partly because the final decision is a collective one, and partly because the syncretisms are very numerous and very unstable.

orphans) are accused of being witches. Somebody has been reading the Mallious Malefecarium (sp?), you konw, Torquemada's textbook. :grr: