Should This ‘Pastor’ Be Charged With Assault?
[su_right_ad]As Dr. Peter Venkman said in the film classic Ghostbusters, “I’d call that a big ‘yes’.” (At least in this writer’s opinion.)
It seems some knuckledraggers believe that nothing works quite as well as beating the all-powerful love of Jaaaayzus into a kid. Raw Story provides the disgusting details:
A pastor at the Bible Baptist Church in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey is coming under fire after his church posted a video of him claiming to have converted a “smart aleck” youth by “punching him in the chest as hard as I could.”
Pastor Eric Dammann begins by saying that he met a young man in Calgary named “Ben,” who was “a nice kid, but one of those — he was a real smart aleck. He was a bright kid, which didn’t help things — made him more dangerous.”
“We were outside one day at youth group,” Dammann continues, “and he was just trying to push my buttons. He was just kind of not taking the Lord serious [sic].”
“So I walked over to him and went BAM! Punched him in the chest as hard as I could. I crumpled the kid. I just crumpled him.”
“Then I leaned over and said, ‘Ben, when are you going to stop playing games with God?’ I led that man to the Lord right there,” he concludes.
Is it just me, or is there a sorta kinda pattern emerging that suggests that ultra-fundamentalists in the various “Western” religions see physical violence as one of their core values? Just sayin’…[su_center_ad]
burqa January 11th, 2015 at 6:42 pm
OP: “Is it just me, or is there a sorta kinda pattern emerging that suggests that ultra-fundamentalists in the various “Western” religions see physical violence as one of their core values?”
It’s just you committing the logical fallacy of trying to argue from the particular to the general in order to satisfy a bias one hopes you outgrow.
In a country of over 300 million people, most of who are believers of one faith or another, there will always be kooks to be found among them.
To answer the question in the headline, yes. This clown I never heard of should be charged with assault and child abuse.
Glen January 11th, 2015 at 11:16 pm
If he’d said it was true of all people of those religions, I’d agree that he was trying to argue from the particular to the general. What he said was that there was a pattern suggesting something specifically about the ultra-fundamentalists – a very specific subset within the religious spectrum. He’s comparing people like this “pastor” to recent activities by muslim terrorists, to the inquisition, to the crusades, etc. The belief that violence is an acceptable path to “god” seems to be a common thread amongst the ultra-fundamentalists, despite all of their religions pretty much eschewing violence except in self-defence.
fancypants January 11th, 2015 at 6:48 pm
‘ bible thumping ‘ at its finest
wpadon January 11th, 2015 at 6:48 pm
Sucker punches for Jesus.
FatRat January 12th, 2015 at 11:09 am
You are right, it just wasn’t a fight it was an assault. It was flat out a religiously motivated attack. Charge the dude with a hate crime.
m2old4bs January 12th, 2015 at 11:10 am
Couldn’t agree with you more
edmeyer_able January 11th, 2015 at 6:52 pm
He was a bright kid, which didn’t help things — made him more dangerous
————————————————————————————————————–
Why do so many people fear knowledge, the taliban fears Malalla, santorum calls college educated people elitists, and now this db.
If there’s evidence of an assault I hope he’s charged.
Bunya January 11th, 2015 at 7:00 pm
LOL! I guess he one of those who believes in “beatin’ the 10 commandments” into those godless kids.
Tim January 11th, 2015 at 7:30 pm
Well. The kid was a smart aleck…
red-diaper-baby 1942 January 12th, 2015 at 11:11 am
Tim, you’d better add the /s. There’s a lot of religious zealots and other “conservatives” out there who would say this with a straight face.
tracey marie January 11th, 2015 at 7:31 pm
A grown man proud of the fact that he “crumpled” a child. He needs to be charged and the parents need to lose custody of this kid. They did nothing to help their child.
Candide Thirtythree January 12th, 2015 at 3:01 am
I guess the kid was lucky that that bible baptist did not follow the bible…death was the prescription for disobedient children in the bible.
rg9rts January 14th, 2015 at 10:18 am
Pi t t y , p u m , d e l a y e d , T A G !!!
fahvel January 11th, 2015 at 7:31 pm
any one who takes the lord seriously has some serious problems – like this mfkr preaching slime.
Suzanne McFly January 11th, 2015 at 7:44 pm
This guy better watch out Tucker may want him excommunicated.
KABoink_after_wingnut_hacker January 11th, 2015 at 9:03 pm
All cults are prone to violence.
burqa January 11th, 2015 at 9:33 pm
Violent people find all kinds of things to excuse their violent impulses. Some use religion, some use nationalism, some use imperialism, some use racism, some use atheism. The all-time record for mass murder is held by the communists of the 20th century when they implemented their attempts to bring about a utopian, atheist society.
In about 72 years they killed more people than in all wars of recorded history added together.
100 million.
Bunya January 11th, 2015 at 10:22 pm
“The all-time record for mass murder is held by the communist…”
Sorry, but whether you like it or not, Atheists exists. And, to quote you, “there will always be kooks to be found among them, “
burqa January 12th, 2015 at 6:21 pm
Yes indeed.
I am pleased we agree that we should differentiate between the kooks and the rest. If we are not going to pin the mass murder of 100 million people by atheist commies on other atheists, we should not pin the Inquisition, Crusades or persecution of American Indians on Christians today.
I look forward to not seeing you make that argument again.
Bunya January 13th, 2015 at 3:37 pm
They why did you bring it up? If you want to trash Atheists while at the same time whine about the persecution inflicted on the poor Christians by the evil posters at here Liberaland, expect some backlash.
.
And if you can’t handle it, you can always grace Bill O’Reilly’s site with your presence. He’s always looking for new recruits to fight against the infidels in his imaginary “war on Christians”.
burqa January 14th, 2015 at 4:40 pm
I was agreeing with you, particularly since you have learned the principle I’ve been trying to express for quite some time now.
I have been handling it, thank you, by replying in my own way, expressing my own opinion, often supported by historical facts. I’m pretty good on history. I have been here many years and do not intend to leave, sorry.
Plus, if I were to leave, you wouldn’t be able to learn more from me about the lazy-minded use of stereotypes. One hopes you will take my challenge and google up your local interfaith council and a half dozen or so local churches and get back to us on the things they are up to. When one discovers one is surrounded by thousands of people busting up a phony stereotype, it is easier to abandon it, when there are so many real-life examples close at hand.
Glen January 11th, 2015 at 11:39 pm
Two things.
1. They weren’t communists. Despite their talk, they were socialists. They never intended on giving up the power once it was held by the state. Communism decentralises the power. And it wasn’t that they wanted an atheist society, it was that they didn’t want the religions to have power, because power that the religions had was power that they (the socialists) didn’t have.
2. Your claim about number of people “they killed” is wrong, because you attribute every death connected to their actions across the years to a generic “them”, and then compare it to specifics as though that sets a “record”. But beyond that, World War 2, which was started by an occult person, with the support of the Catholics, alone resulted in the deaths of at least 60 million people, and possibly as many as 85 million people. In that fight, you’ll recall, the “communists” of the USSR fought on the same side as the US and Britain. Even if you combine together the two big socialist countries, USSR and China, and merge their activities during their most violent times (most of the USSR’s life, as well as China under Mao), you still only get to 69 million, whereas WWII alone was likely more than that, all of which (if you view it from the perspective of the one starting the war as being responsible for all deaths) can be attributed to Nazi Germany, which was most certainly neither communist nor atheist in any way.
Also, atheism can’t be “used” in the way that religion can. This is because atheism has no doctrine, no unifying belief or property, no institution. It is, by nature, unorganised, because it is nothing more than a descriptor. There’s nothing to fight for, there’s nothing to kill for, and there’s certainly nothing to die for. One can “die for christ” or “die for christianity” or “die for mohammed” or “die for zeus”. There’s nothing there to die for in atheism. Perhaps you confuse atheism with anti-theism.
burqa January 12th, 2015 at 6:18 pm
1. Oh they were communists alright. It’s pretty well accepted that Lenin and Mao were communists, and so were the rest.
I got it from the extremely well-received THE BLACK BOOK OF COMMUNISM Crimes, Terror, Repression, Edited by Stéphane
Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Margolin, (Harvard University Press, 1999)
https://archive.org/details/TheBlackBookofCommunism10
What I am repeating is quite well documented.
2. The stat on the numbers they killed is accurate. If anything it is low, because they do not include massacres that took place they could not get numbers for. Many of those are mentioned in the book
USSR: 20 million
China: 65 million
Vietnam: 1 million
North Korea: 2 million
Cambodia: 2 million
Eastern Europe: 1 million
Latin America: 150,000
Africa: 1.7 million
Afghanistan: 1.5 million
The international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power: 100,000
https://archive.org/stream/TheBlackBookofCommunism10/the-black-book-of-communism-jean-louis-margolin-1999-communism#page/n11/mode/2up
It is suggested to read at least through page 16. The comparison with the Nazis is made, including a nice quote from Rudolf Hess about how the Nazis copied the Soviet commies.
I would be interested in your source that claims the Nazis killed 85 million people.
rg9rts January 14th, 2015 at 10:15 am
Only thing missing was taking up a collection
William January 11th, 2015 at 9:28 pm
Sometimes extreme fundamentalism is it’s own punishment.
John_St_John January 11th, 2015 at 10:47 pm
This is the past the Republiklan American Evangelical Christofascists would like to return civilization to. As would the hyper religious ultra fanatical Islamist of the Fertile Crescent and South East Asia.
bpollen January 11th, 2015 at 11:21 pm
I’ve heard of Yahoo Serious (damn Aussies), the World Serious (damn Giants) but have never heard the Lord Serious… is that a Baptist thing?
Dwendt44 January 12th, 2015 at 12:36 am
If he did indeed punch the kid ‘as hard as he could’, a blow to the chest, if hard enough and in the right area could easily kill someone, particularly a smaller person/child.
Candide Thirtythree January 12th, 2015 at 2:57 am
Hardly ever happens, the fundies literally get away with murder as long as they claim it was for their god.
fancypants January 12th, 2015 at 9:22 am
this is right up mike’s ally
red-diaper-baby 1942 January 12th, 2015 at 11:08 am
It’s hard to beileve that this guy was once a semi-serious candidate for President. Can’t you just imagine him in the White House, making decisions that affect the whole country and indeed the whole world! The only one even harder to imagine in that role is “She who shall not be named”, the famous word-salad chef.
fancypants January 12th, 2015 at 11:24 am
Don’t look now but old huckleberry is hooking up with the Koch bros. and other bible thumpers for a presidential run in 2016
The debates ( should mike show up ) could prove to be interesting
Dwendt44 January 12th, 2015 at 11:42 am
That’s all we need, a cleric as president. One more step toward a theocracy.
fancypants January 15th, 2015 at 7:55 am
I wouldn’t sweat it something tells me mike was given a choice at fox news….
Quit or be fired So mike had to make his exit look like he’s going to be president ?
rg9rts January 14th, 2015 at 10:14 am
Comic relief for the Gopee clown car….
whatthe46 January 12th, 2015 at 6:53 pm
that’s just fk’n stupid.
tracey marie January 14th, 2015 at 4:58 pm
that is just fkin perfect!
fancypants January 15th, 2015 at 7:48 am
I agree mike should have given 2 weeks notice to the public before he left fox news. Now what are we going to watch on Saturday night ?
m2old4bs January 12th, 2015 at 11:12 am
YES! And not only for assault, but also for child abuse. This guy is no spiritual leader in any sense. Nothing but a bully.
rg9rts January 14th, 2015 at 10:12 am
So he made a convert….just like ISIS …at the point of a sword so to speak.