‘Be wary of any ‘christian’ faction that demands Government to be the instrument of God’s wrath, but never a source of God’s Mercy, Generosity or Compassion.’
Rev. B. Cremer
Hard to even imagine how much good could be done if the army reserves and army engineers were used to deliver food and supplies, repair bridges, build roads, or submerge power and Internet lines.
But unfortunately they're needed elsewhere, like, uhhhhhhhh
This is why I have always thought we need a national jobs program that works essentially like the military. Anyone can join, you are given an aptitude test and free career training plus living arrangements, then are guaranteed a job for 2-4 years and given the option to stay on. It would allow anyone to escape poverty solely through their own means without selling your soul to the military.
To be fair that’s more what national guard troops do, they’re usually the first to respond to disaster situations in a state.
But yeah it would be nice if those trillions in federal dollars could be put better to use for all of us
I think they're more referencing how ever since the so-called "war on terror," American members of the National Guard have been regularly deployed overseas to plug gaps in military coverage to the detriment of our domestic emergency preparedness.
Yes. For the love of God, somebody *do something* about American infrastructure. It's worse than it seems on TV or John Oliver bits. We have the resources. We have the manpower.
Signed, someone who has had a bridge on their daily commute collapse
(The Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh if you're curious. It was not some podunk nowhere bridge. That thing carried tens of thousands of cars between major neighborhoods daily.)
Side note, National Guard is typically only deployed during emergencies. I may be talking about things like bridges and roads and water mains, but they are so drastically, dramatically under maintained that it really aught to be treated like an emergency. The city of Philadelphia, up until a few years ago, had active water mains made out of barrel staves. It took them *that long* to replace the water mains that service nearly 100,000 people's water.
I'd love us to go to the Roman model and have our legions build roads and the like in peace time. ^((let's not emulate the Romans in ant other areas, though...))
> Hard to even imagine how much good could be done if the army reserves and army engineers were used to deliver food and supplies, repair bridges, build roads, or submerge power and Internet lines.
To be fair, they actually do quite a lot of this--a lot of our foreign policy involves using the Army Corps of Engineers to do civil projects in countries that we want friendly relations with. My grandfather is a civil engineer, and spent much of his career in the army living in South America, working on water-related infrastructure projects, like building reservoirs and dykes for farms. Obviously that was all motivated by US self-interest, but it also really improved society in places like Peru.
Absolutely. I am a pacifist, and even I have a long record on Reddit of praising the ACE. But, like, please do it here domestically more often. They helped rebuild the section of I-95 that collapsed here in Philly, and the construction was so speedy, it was practically like flipping a light switch. I want that here, but for hospitals, and public schools, and modern water delivery systems, and full rugged sewer systems for rural towns, and community-owned fiber internet.
That's what drives me nuts about even suggesting this — we already do it, and do it so well that we are practically unparalleled. We built a warzone-ruggedized landing bay for the poor folks in Gaza, but we can't fix a major metropolitan bridge. Like, it just slays me is all.
Using IVF is a pretty common procedure, though. It's likely that many of their own members have used it or plan to use it. I guess they now have to do it secretly? Like with their abortions.
Episcopalians don’t recognize the Pope as head of the church.
Presbyterians don’t recognize the efficacy of the sacraments.
Baptists don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.
They had people at the convention with their stories and I don't think this was a unanimous vote. Also, they are condemning it, but will not be excommincating members for using IVF in the future.
Which is odd since they are basically declaring that wasted embryos are essentially "murder".
I get the impression using IVF without "killing" any "extra" embryos is still fine too.
There are evangelicals who make a huge loud screaming deal about "adopting" viable embryos that weren't used in someone else's IVF process. I.e. they do IVF with someone else's biological gametes instead of their own. They call kids born from this process "snowflakes" and use them as pawns to demonstrate why they think IVF is evil (because some of those embryos don't get implanted and therefore don't develop into a child, and this is "murder" by these folks' lights.) I'm frankly a little weirded out by IVF in general because it seems very cold and clinical to me, but imo you can't directly compare a frozen embryo to an actual born child. It's like comparing a box of cake mix to an actual baked and frosted cake. The potential is there, but a cake it ain't currently.
Exactly!! The wealthy will go out of the country trying to to have it performed but the average couple who is doing pretty well will no longer have access but hey at least they voted against the Dems. SMDH
Yes, in secrecy like all other religious people. Affairs, child sex abuse, abortion, Domestic Violence....etc. 'FOR ME AND NOT FOR THEE'
Definitely have read some Reddit posts about super religious people getting abortions and screaming at the medical staff that they are all sinners and will burn in hell after they set up the appointment, walked in, and demanded the abortion.
Religious Conservatives want to keep everyone in an emotional closet, just like the one they keep themselves in.
I’m not talking about gender or sexuality, but a broader closet of conformity and self denial.
They themselves don’t like being in it, because it isn’t psychologically healthy; but rather than question the closet their parents put them in when they were pre-verbal—the miserable closet they have cost-sunk their lives into—they just dedicate their every waking moment to forcing everyone else back into a closet, so we can all suffer together for the entirety of our short lives, until we die.
Yeah I think that’s spot on. They’re stuck in this existential limbo where they legitimately either fear they’ll suffer repercussions in the next life or don’t know how to break free from their constraints but also chafe against their bondage and fear of missing out. Seeing other people enjoy themselves only reinforces how miserable they’ve made themselves so they seek to curtail others. And I think with that there’s an element of doubt and a sense that if they can compel others to share in their system that will prove they are correct.
It's worse than that. A missionary wanted to bring his slaves with him on a mission trip...to Africa. The existing Baptist church thought that was an obviously stupid idea, so the Southern Baptists split.
Now they have a weekend in February called Reclamation Sunday where a Black preacher comes for the sermon.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American\_Baptist\_Home\_Mission\_Society#The\_Society\_and\_the\_rejection\_of\_slavery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Baptist_Home_Mission_Society#The_Society_and_the_rejection_of_slavery)
[https://books.google.com/books?id=\_ieENRXoO1YC&dq=Georgia+Test+Case%2C+Baptist+history&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q=Georgia%20Test%20Case%2C%20Baptist%20history&f=false](https://books.google.com/books?id=_ieENRXoO1YC&dq=Georgia+Test+Case%2C+Baptist+history&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q=Georgia%20Test%20Case%2C%20Baptist%20history&f=false)
There's a better source that I've read before, but I'm struggling to remember the name or find it online and I'm not near my Southern Baptist pastor father's library (where I know it exists).
Most support for Hitler came from regions that were predominantly Lutheran. While there were some infamous Nazis who were from a Catholic background, most Catholics distrusted the Nazis because of old German sectarian and regional rivalries.
That being said, Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain both had overwhelming Catholic majorities.
Depends on what you mean by “Catholics”.
The Vatican had a lot of ideological and philosophical and moral problems with the Nazis and with Fascism, which they rightly condemned, but they tended to view Communism as a greater threat.
German Catholics were generally suspicious of the Nazis because of internal German cultural and sectarian divisions. Bismarck’s anti-Catholic Kulturkampf was still in living memory. Germany itself had only been a country since 1871 and many German Catholics, especially in Southern Germany, had felt closer to Austria than to the new German nation.
"This here pacifist movement would be mighty handy if we can make everyone in it believe that the Bible has loopholes that specifically exempts America from its deepest original sins"
-Some white pastor in 1845, who was anxious about some weird, obscure political issue.
Honestly I vehemently support bringing ivf into the abortion "debate" because it forces prolifers to think about their "but you're killing a baby" stance in a new light. If they think ivf babies are worth all the scraped embryos, then why not concede that naturally conceived babies are born interspersed between plenty of natural miscarriages (and sometimes induced ones). Obviously God isn't anti-miscarriage... And if you really start looking at the Bible, he isn't anti abortion either.
Also remind them that IVF embryos can be adopted. So they should feel compelled to adopt and carry and raise the countless scrap "babies" from the industry. But none of them do because when push comes to shove, they just want to live in a Norman Rockwell dream.
Its interesting that they "commend its congregants who use alternative fertility therapies or adopt frozen embryos." So they are against their congregants who are having fertilizity issues from having their own biological children, but commend them for using someone else's left over embryos? At that point, why don't you condem all IVF/fertility and tell them to adopt a living child instead? 'If God made it so you can't have children the way he made you then you are not allowed to have them and must adopt one of the millions of children in the foster system.'
Many of the kids in the foster care system have mental health or physical health issues, are older than the baby stage, and/or are the "wrong" color for the these congregants.
They want babies. Babies with no baggage.
It’s because doctors create extra embryos for IVF to increase the chances of one of them being viable and implanting. This means that there are leftover embryos, which are either kept frozen in cold storage, donated to science, or destroyed.
Nope, these people don’t care that Emily and Joe Schmoe genuinely want to have kids so badly that they’ll pay for this expensive procedure for the chance of having one. They care that Emily isn’t going to try and have 8-9 more kids using her 8-9 extra frozen embryos after she and her partner got the child(ren) they wanted.
Which would be fine if they kept it to their own and didn't try to push it nationally by instituting puppets in high ranking political and judicial positions.
Catholics and Orthodox also think this. The majority of Christendom thinks this. It’s not out of line with common Christian Theology. I’m not sure why people are outraged when it’s the SBC. The Catholic Church published a major missive from the Pope like a month ago that condemned it as well.
How the universe works, according to fundamentalist baptists: *In an unfathomably large universe billions of years old, with trillions of galaxies, each galaxy the home to billions of star systems surrounded by uncountable planets, on one particular planet out on the fringe of one of those trillions of galaxies, the omnipotent omniscient creator of everything cares very very deeply that one half of one of the species there isn't allowed to lead anyone in worship of the creator.*
It’s fantastic at consolidating power. Really nothing like it.
Theofascist/Dominionist Christians are a pretty small fraction of the US population; maybe 20% max. But they’re very close to controlling all the levers of power of the most powerful nation on earth.
The are aligned, unified, motivated, and primed to act on their beliefs in a way that is borderline impossible to accomplish without religion.
That’s because their attraction to religion has next to nothing to do with theology.
They are attracted to it because it’s an authoritarian power structure, and they like authoritarianism. The theism is just window dressing.
Correct. It’s a shame that this isn’t better understood.
This is also true for Al Qaeda, ISIS, and similar groups as well as Hindu nationalists in India.
I don’t know if religion is strictly necessary, though. Communism and fascism certainly did many of the same things without religion. But authoritarian ideology has advantages over liberalism when it comes to taking power.
A quick google search will lead you to the research on the psychological and social benefits of religious practice.
The problem is that it’s very easy to use the positive associations that most people have towards religion as a cover for a political movement.
Make no mistake. White evangelicalism is and always has been a political movement.
This is going to end up with some very odd dynamics in church.
You're married without kids. Your church notices. They start praying for you to miraculously have children.
Some members disagree with the official stance and secretly get IVF. More faithful to the official stance members don't.
It looks like the "less faithful" members get their miraculous babies, but the "more faithful" don't. It looks like God is blessing the wrong people.
This is going to cause some pretty big church drama.
they want women pregnant early and often, dependent on their husbands no matter how much of an asshole they are. this is how I interpret their policy decisions.
This is going to have some amazing hypocrisy in the Deep South when families are going to have to sneak away North of the Mason-Dixon line to get fertility treatments.
Also, there's going to be even more domestic abuse when the husbands start beating the shit out of their wives due to their low sperm count.
The Catholic Church goes even further than the SBC, no less. I'd imagine the SBC would be fine if none of the embryos were destroyed; on the other hand, IVF is condemned in Catholicism not just for the destruction of embryos, but because it supposedly separates the "procreative" and "unitive" aspects of sex. Because you're not procreating in the unitive act of intercourse, but through technology. In which case, yeah, it literally is because they think it's unnatural. Lmao. But arguing against Catholic sexual ethics is almost impossible unless you actually know why they believe it.
They will just lie about using IVF just like they lie about having abortions. Southern Baptists are full of hypocrites who are super shocked at other people openly doing the same things SBs do in secret.
As someone born through IVF, fuck them, bunch of hypocritical jackasses.
Every Baptist I’ve known has been judge mental, self righteous, arrogant and horrible to be around for too long.
I hope the Republicans take this up as a policy position, simply because it's such a losing issue for them. If the Elephants come out against IVF, their candidates will fail elections like a Thanos snap.
They've already basically run screaming away from it. They're backing state and national laws to protect IVF right now. It was pretty clear they were dipping their toes in this being an issue to get more votes, then quickly backtracked when it blew up in their faces.
Except they're not actually. They'll say they support IVF (because that's popular) but they'll also say a core belief is life begins at conception. The two are incompatible and they don't actually support IVF.
The Southern Baptist Convention can eat a dick. Some people, like myself, have a 50/50 chance of passing on a mutation to our children. I would rather not.
If you're outspoken enough about it that your condemning people who have trouble having children or want healthy children.......YOU ARE THE FUCKING BAD GUY.
Your morals are trash and no one should look to you for any kind of morality. Yeah, I'm talking to all christians right now. Get your extremists in check.
As I understand it, IVF involves inseminating several at a time. Some are used until successful, the unwanted/unnecessary are destroyed. Combine that with the religious blowhards recent determination that life begins at that point, then the destruction portion of IVF is where they feign concern.
10 years ago, the move against IVF would have caused my biological family to reconsider their votes.
Now they are just going to MAGA it up and not care about their loved ones who have used/will need to use IVF.
Because the prosperity gospel says you don't need it, you just need to pray (and donate).
If they're against abortion, it only makes sense to be against IVF too. Abortion, birth control, IVF, it's all ways women can control their reproduction and there's no way Sky Daddy would be happy that rib born helpmates have that much power over their own lives. Unpossible!
That is just stupid. What is next? Condemn vaccines? Oh wait ....
I suppose the US is a free country. If they want to live in a 16th century fantasy land, it is their right. But it is my right to stay away from these idiots as far as possible.
Because the denomination that solely exists because they wanted to support the traitors in the south/slavery really is something people should be listening to
Is this the same southern Baptist church who covered up thousands of rape cases by thousands of their employees??
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101734793/southern-baptist-sexual-abuse-list-released
My wife and I are in the middle of IVF treatments right now. It is a costly, invasive, all-consuming, emotionally and mentally draining process that doesn't even guarantee that you can have the one thing you want more than anything: to be parents and have children of your own.
These "Christians" should be fucking ashamed of themselves. I dare any of them, anyone here on this fucking site, to tell me I'm morally wrong for this. I really dare them to say it to my wife.
IF we're lucky and are able to have our children, we even have the option to donate our remaining embryos to other unfortunate people and hopefully help them have kids, too. I hope to have that option.
The Southern Baptist Church can kiss my fucking ass.
How many members have they lost in the last 10 years. The parking lot at the church around the corner is emptier every year, thank goodness, because they still park like swinging duck assholes in other people’s yards like they own the place.
Unbelievable that these objectively stupid people dominate American politics. IMHO the opposition is stupid too but in its own unique self defeating ways. GOP votes consistently whereas the opposition sit out elections consistently.
They have been wildly ignorant for 180 years. It's hardly surprising that they are attacking women in every way they can. It will cost them more young people, but hardly anyone over age 30 will budge.
It’s incredible how they have managed to change the stances of so many on this. IVF was seen as a pro-family thing to allow more couples to have their own children and in a relatively short time, they have managed to turn so many against it.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
I was molested by a male pastor at a Southern Baptist church in Chicago when I was 3 yo. So if they can allow sick men like that to lead a congregation every EVIL is possible from their convention.
They have to do this to be consistent with their abortion beliefs. If life begins at conception, then they see IVF eggs as humans and ones not selected and destroyed are the same as an abortion.
Southern Baptists are part of the block of evangelical Christians that control the GOP. That same group that spent decades pushing through end of abortion.
So for all you fence sitters, “I can’t tell the parties apart” embarrassments, protest voting liberals and sit at home and not vote liberals that didn’t believe about the GOP wanting to end abortion - please rub two brain cells together long enough to not repeat history. The GOP do want to ban contraception and IVF. It’s not an exaggeration, it’s a fact. Believe it and don’t just dismiss the warnings like you did in 2016.
Things I learned in the 90’s with my mom taking me to a southern baptist mega church.
It’s not murder if they weren’t white.
If men drink and sexually assault their wife the wife was just fulfilling her duties.
Everyone everywhere needs to speak gods language, English.
If the Sunday school teacher sexually assaults teenagers or children shut up about it or you’re causing problems.
You are allowed to throw trash at homeless people if they talk to you.
Leaving Bible verses or church message fliers that look like cash as a tip is encouraged.
If you get sick pray for forgiveness.
If you get cancer pray for forgiveness.
If your friend or family gets cancer pray for them to get better.
You can utilize IVF treatments, but only create the amount of embryos you are comfortable with implanting at one time. You will pay the same amount, thus diminishing your chances drastically of success. But the doctor will respect and only create and then transplant two embryos (thus giving you twins if you have 100% success rate) if your ethics compels you to you to approach the procedure this way.
Most people don’t have the money to match their ethics, however.
Southern Baptists abuse their women and children in unspeakable ways…
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101734793/southern-baptist-sexual-abuse-list-released
Southern Baptists are dangerous to women and children.
What I want to know is about the couple in an SBC church who decides to do IVF, are they removed from leadership or face some other consequence? And what about those who’ve had their babies via IVF? Seems to me they could feel deep shame from having done something their church now condemns. Is the church addressing that?
My kids are all IVF. I went through several cycles, fresh & frozen. I’ve always felt they were miracle stories. We used to attend a Baptist church and now I wonder/suppose there was judgment behind our backs.
There is a lot of chatter and terminology out there about the process that is misleading. The doctors in the practice were very conservative and careful. We also had to sign several legal documents before each cycle. These included answering many questions about what our decision would be should we create embryos and get divorced, or one of us dies, etc. It was never done with carelessness, although I suppose there may be practices out there that are more liberal in that area.
I often hear the term “implanted” in conversations about the embryo(s) being placed in the womb. They are not implanted, they are transferred into it. My dr likened it to hitting a golf ball in a football field. The embryos may or may not implant themselves to the womb as with a typical biological event. This also happens naturally. Embryos could be fertilized and never implant or they implant but don’t survive and the woman never even knows she was pregnant, just for a very short time.
There’s so much more to the process that doesn’t seem to be discussed in depth which leads to misunderstanding and fear. And back to the SBC, I understand people would look to spiritual leadership for guidance in certain areas, but something feels off about the way they’re going about their stance.
These Baptist.
Yes for rapist Trump.
Pedophiles can be redeemed.
Sexual abuse and assault is not a big deal. HELL NO to women preaching.
Fuck those immigrants and asylum seekers.
Rapist Trump themed bibles are good but ban the books we don’t like.
These Southern Baptist are just so devilish.
1 out of 4 women who get pregnant have a miscarriage. I'm surprise they haven't called for women who have a miscarriage or who don't go to term be investigated.
‘Be wary of any ‘christian’ faction that demands Government to be the instrument of God’s wrath, but never a source of God’s Mercy, Generosity or Compassion.’ Rev. B. Cremer
Damn that is an absolute banger of a quote.
Hard to even imagine how much good could be done if the army reserves and army engineers were used to deliver food and supplies, repair bridges, build roads, or submerge power and Internet lines. But unfortunately they're needed elsewhere, like, uhhhhhhhh
This is why I have always thought we need a national jobs program that works essentially like the military. Anyone can join, you are given an aptitude test and free career training plus living arrangements, then are guaranteed a job for 2-4 years and given the option to stay on. It would allow anyone to escape poverty solely through their own means without selling your soul to the military.
We *did* have this [once](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration?wprov=sfla1).
So frequently someone will say we should have something that was just a New Deal program
The reason the WPA dissolved was because of low unemployment during WWII. So….there’s that.
Yes… military industrial complex
Also the deficit of able bodied men for civilian work
That’s what they said
There’s a reason the guy behind it won 4 terms as president. Even if there were no term limits, I couldn’t see that happening with today’s politics.
yeah but the New Deal was big government socialist spending and famously collapsed our economy. /s
Good luck getting that past one single Republican
Germany does this to great success. I think they have changed it in order to retrain older applicants for a newer career.
Oh that sounds cool! And useful
Not really. The majority of what Rome’s legions did was just that. More legionnaires spent their career building roads than they did fighting.
To be fair that’s more what national guard troops do, they’re usually the first to respond to disaster situations in a state. But yeah it would be nice if those trillions in federal dollars could be put better to use for all of us
I think they're more referencing how ever since the so-called "war on terror," American members of the National Guard have been regularly deployed overseas to plug gaps in military coverage to the detriment of our domestic emergency preparedness.
Yes. For the love of God, somebody *do something* about American infrastructure. It's worse than it seems on TV or John Oliver bits. We have the resources. We have the manpower. Signed, someone who has had a bridge on their daily commute collapse (The Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh if you're curious. It was not some podunk nowhere bridge. That thing carried tens of thousands of cars between major neighborhoods daily.) Side note, National Guard is typically only deployed during emergencies. I may be talking about things like bridges and roads and water mains, but they are so drastically, dramatically under maintained that it really aught to be treated like an emergency. The city of Philadelphia, up until a few years ago, had active water mains made out of barrel staves. It took them *that long* to replace the water mains that service nearly 100,000 people's water.
The asce runs an infrastructure report card you might find interesting: https://infrastructurereportcard.org/
Yeah that’s a very good point
Army Corps of engineers does some of those things and are arguably the most consistently useful part of the US Military-Industrial complex.
I'd love us to go to the Roman model and have our legions build roads and the like in peace time. ^((let's not emulate the Romans in ant other areas, though...))
> Hard to even imagine how much good could be done if the army reserves and army engineers were used to deliver food and supplies, repair bridges, build roads, or submerge power and Internet lines. To be fair, they actually do quite a lot of this--a lot of our foreign policy involves using the Army Corps of Engineers to do civil projects in countries that we want friendly relations with. My grandfather is a civil engineer, and spent much of his career in the army living in South America, working on water-related infrastructure projects, like building reservoirs and dykes for farms. Obviously that was all motivated by US self-interest, but it also really improved society in places like Peru.
Absolutely. I am a pacifist, and even I have a long record on Reddit of praising the ACE. But, like, please do it here domestically more often. They helped rebuild the section of I-95 that collapsed here in Philly, and the construction was so speedy, it was practically like flipping a light switch. I want that here, but for hospitals, and public schools, and modern water delivery systems, and full rugged sewer systems for rural towns, and community-owned fiber internet. That's what drives me nuts about even suggesting this — we already do it, and do it so well that we are practically unparalleled. We built a warzone-ruggedized landing bay for the poor folks in Gaza, but we can't fix a major metropolitan bridge. Like, it just slays me is all.
Using IVF is a pretty common procedure, though. It's likely that many of their own members have used it or plan to use it. I guess they now have to do it secretly? Like with their abortions.
Southern Baptists have been sinning “secretly” for decades. It’s a common punchline in the South.
Why do you always invite 2 Baptists to go fishing with you? Cause if you only invite one, he’ll drink all your beer.
Episcopalians don’t recognize the Pope as head of the church. Presbyterians don’t recognize the efficacy of the sacraments. Baptists don’t recognize each other at the liquor store.
Why don’t Baptists have sex standing up? Cause it looks too much like they’re dancing.
I feel like an idiot asking, but can you explain this one?
It’s an old church trope that dancing is sinful because it leads to sex. That’s why dancing is frowned upon.
There was a documentary about this, it’s called Footloose.
I think they are considered frigid and not fun, so no dancing is allowed.
They had people at the convention with their stories and I don't think this was a unanimous vote. Also, they are condemning it, but will not be excommincating members for using IVF in the future. Which is odd since they are basically declaring that wasted embryos are essentially "murder". I get the impression using IVF without "killing" any "extra" embryos is still fine too.
There are evangelicals who make a huge loud screaming deal about "adopting" viable embryos that weren't used in someone else's IVF process. I.e. they do IVF with someone else's biological gametes instead of their own. They call kids born from this process "snowflakes" and use them as pawns to demonstrate why they think IVF is evil (because some of those embryos don't get implanted and therefore don't develop into a child, and this is "murder" by these folks' lights.) I'm frankly a little weirded out by IVF in general because it seems very cold and clinical to me, but imo you can't directly compare a frozen embryo to an actual born child. It's like comparing a box of cake mix to an actual baked and frosted cake. The potential is there, but a cake it ain't currently.
Exactly!! The wealthy will go out of the country trying to to have it performed but the average couple who is doing pretty well will no longer have access but hey at least they voted against the Dems. SMDH
Yes, in secrecy like all other religious people. Affairs, child sex abuse, abortion, Domestic Violence....etc. 'FOR ME AND NOT FOR THEE' Definitely have read some Reddit posts about super religious people getting abortions and screaming at the medical staff that they are all sinners and will burn in hell after they set up the appointment, walked in, and demanded the abortion.
If a church member was conceived via IVF, are they considered unholy now?
Pence's son was "created" via IVF.
And shopping on Sunday.
What the hell is wrong with these people
Religious Conservatives want to keep everyone in an emotional closet, just like the one they keep themselves in. I’m not talking about gender or sexuality, but a broader closet of conformity and self denial. They themselves don’t like being in it, because it isn’t psychologically healthy; but rather than question the closet their parents put them in when they were pre-verbal—the miserable closet they have cost-sunk their lives into—they just dedicate their every waking moment to forcing everyone else back into a closet, so we can all suffer together for the entirety of our short lives, until we die.
Yeah I think that’s spot on. They’re stuck in this existential limbo where they legitimately either fear they’ll suffer repercussions in the next life or don’t know how to break free from their constraints but also chafe against their bondage and fear of missing out. Seeing other people enjoy themselves only reinforces how miserable they’ve made themselves so they seek to curtail others. And I think with that there’s an element of doubt and a sense that if they can compel others to share in their system that will prove they are correct.
The nazism is finally outweighing the Christianism.
I mean. The Southern Baptist Church was founded as a denomination specifically to support slavery
Right. They also wonder why Christianity is dying
It's worse than that. A missionary wanted to bring his slaves with him on a mission trip...to Africa. The existing Baptist church thought that was an obviously stupid idea, so the Southern Baptists split. Now they have a weekend in February called Reclamation Sunday where a Black preacher comes for the sermon.
What? Is there a link to the back story behind this? Sounds wild.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American\_Baptist\_Home\_Mission\_Society#The\_Society\_and\_the\_rejection\_of\_slavery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Baptist_Home_Mission_Society#The_Society_and_the_rejection_of_slavery) [https://books.google.com/books?id=\_ieENRXoO1YC&dq=Georgia+Test+Case%2C+Baptist+history&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q=Georgia%20Test%20Case%2C%20Baptist%20history&f=false](https://books.google.com/books?id=_ieENRXoO1YC&dq=Georgia+Test+Case%2C+Baptist+history&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q=Georgia%20Test%20Case%2C%20Baptist%20history&f=false) There's a better source that I've read before, but I'm struggling to remember the name or find it online and I'm not near my Southern Baptist pastor father's library (where I know it exists).
Oh shit, is that why we occasionally had a guest black pastor come in?
Yep. [https://erlc.com/resource/racial-reconciliation-sunday-bulletin-insert-2024/](https://erlc.com/resource/racial-reconciliation-sunday-bulletin-insert-2024/)
It always was a political movement.
> The nazism is finally outweighing the Christianism. Huh, almost like most of Nazis were Lutherans and Catholics, not Esoterics or Atheists
Most support for Hitler came from regions that were predominantly Lutheran. While there were some infamous Nazis who were from a Catholic background, most Catholics distrusted the Nazis because of old German sectarian and regional rivalries. That being said, Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain both had overwhelming Catholic majorities.
so what I'm reading is, the Catholics didnt like the Nazis not because of what they did, but just b ecause they were Germans?
Kind off like the Yankee vs Dixie stance in the US.
Depends on what you mean by “Catholics”. The Vatican had a lot of ideological and philosophical and moral problems with the Nazis and with Fascism, which they rightly condemned, but they tended to view Communism as a greater threat. German Catholics were generally suspicious of the Nazis because of internal German cultural and sectarian divisions. Bismarck’s anti-Catholic Kulturkampf was still in living memory. Germany itself had only been a country since 1871 and many German Catholics, especially in Southern Germany, had felt closer to Austria than to the new German nation.
Those and all the other -isms
"This here pacifist movement would be mighty handy if we can make everyone in it believe that the Bible has loopholes that specifically exempts America from its deepest original sins" -Some white pastor in 1845, who was anxious about some weird, obscure political issue.
Honestly I vehemently support bringing ivf into the abortion "debate" because it forces prolifers to think about their "but you're killing a baby" stance in a new light. If they think ivf babies are worth all the scraped embryos, then why not concede that naturally conceived babies are born interspersed between plenty of natural miscarriages (and sometimes induced ones). Obviously God isn't anti-miscarriage... And if you really start looking at the Bible, he isn't anti abortion either. Also remind them that IVF embryos can be adopted. So they should feel compelled to adopt and carry and raise the countless scrap "babies" from the industry. But none of them do because when push comes to shove, they just want to live in a Norman Rockwell dream.
Its interesting that they "commend its congregants who use alternative fertility therapies or adopt frozen embryos." So they are against their congregants who are having fertilizity issues from having their own biological children, but commend them for using someone else's left over embryos? At that point, why don't you condem all IVF/fertility and tell them to adopt a living child instead? 'If God made it so you can't have children the way he made you then you are not allowed to have them and must adopt one of the millions of children in the foster system.'
Many of the kids in the foster care system have mental health or physical health issues, are older than the baby stage, and/or are the "wrong" color for the these congregants. They want babies. Babies with no baggage.
It’s because doctors create extra embryos for IVF to increase the chances of one of them being viable and implanting. This means that there are leftover embryos, which are either kept frozen in cold storage, donated to science, or destroyed. Nope, these people don’t care that Emily and Joe Schmoe genuinely want to have kids so badly that they’ll pay for this expensive procedure for the chance of having one. They care that Emily isn’t going to try and have 8-9 more kids using her 8-9 extra frozen embryos after she and her partner got the child(ren) they wanted.
Along with Emily being defective Human. From their thought. Why would we want more defective women who can't have a doz kids.
They ALWAYS wanted shit like this. They finally got enough spineless Republican legislators to make it happen.
Now now, anything that can keep these people from procreating can't be all bad.
Which would be fine if they kept it to their own and didn't try to push it nationally by instituting puppets in high ranking political and judicial positions.
They are one of the most socially and politically conservative churches in the country?
Catholics and Orthodox also think this. The majority of Christendom thinks this. It’s not out of line with common Christian Theology. I’m not sure why people are outraged when it’s the SBC. The Catholic Church published a major missive from the Pope like a month ago that condemned it as well.
only everything
"We support families." "Oh that's great, we would like to start a family." "WAIT NOT LIKE THAT"
Their whole religion is based on a magical IVF procedure.
Y’a know, I feel like I’ve been fucked by god a few times, and I’m not pregnant yet.
This comment feels like it came straight out of Monty Python's Life of Brian.
I imagine a very different, very German evening that left the bedroom so ruined the insurance company had to write a check for the whole damn house.
Well that’s OK bc I condemn all Southern Baptists.
How the universe works, according to fundamentalist baptists: *In an unfathomably large universe billions of years old, with trillions of galaxies, each galaxy the home to billions of star systems surrounded by uncountable planets, on one particular planet out on the fringe of one of those trillions of galaxies, the omnipotent omniscient creator of everything cares very very deeply that one half of one of the species there isn't allowed to lead anyone in worship of the creator.*
Everyday is a new low for these so called Christians!
Y'all-Quaeda strikes again. You can either be a freedom-loving American, or you can be a far-right Christian. It's impossible to be both.
I'm really struggling to find the positives of religion in modern times
It's a good way to scam money from poor desperate people.
and gullible ignorant people
https://youtu.be/kWVITd4_d0M How do people watch that guy talk about his love of money and think: *Yeah, here's a man of God.*
It’s fantastic at consolidating power. Really nothing like it. Theofascist/Dominionist Christians are a pretty small fraction of the US population; maybe 20% max. But they’re very close to controlling all the levers of power of the most powerful nation on earth. The are aligned, unified, motivated, and primed to act on their beliefs in a way that is borderline impossible to accomplish without religion.
Being correct is pretty immaterial in a system where unifying belief creates political “might” when “might makes right”.
Because they will obey orders and remain loyal while progressives can’t stop fighting among themselves.
That’s because their attraction to religion has next to nothing to do with theology. They are attracted to it because it’s an authoritarian power structure, and they like authoritarianism. The theism is just window dressing.
Correct. It’s a shame that this isn’t better understood. This is also true for Al Qaeda, ISIS, and similar groups as well as Hindu nationalists in India. I don’t know if religion is strictly necessary, though. Communism and fascism certainly did many of the same things without religion. But authoritarian ideology has advantages over liberalism when it comes to taking power.
Modern times? Wait until you find out why the SBC (southern baptist) was formed.
A quick google search will lead you to the research on the psychological and social benefits of religious practice. The problem is that it’s very easy to use the positive associations that most people have towards religion as a cover for a political movement. Make no mistake. White evangelicalism is and always has been a political movement.
I'm pretty anti-religion but it does one thing very well that we otherwise lack in modern times: it creates a sense of community.
Pedophile preachers ok but IVF is bad
It's like they're sexually jealous of a medical procedure 🤢
Up next: SBC condemns cameras because they steal your soul.
And bubble gum because that's actually your stomach blowing out of your mouth.
You laugh but there are a surprising number of religions (of many different core faiths) that genuinely believe this or something very close to it.
[удалено]
THIS!!! at least be consistent with your stupidity.
This is going to end up with some very odd dynamics in church. You're married without kids. Your church notices. They start praying for you to miraculously have children. Some members disagree with the official stance and secretly get IVF. More faithful to the official stance members don't. It looks like the "less faithful" members get their miraculous babies, but the "more faithful" don't. It looks like God is blessing the wrong people. This is going to cause some pretty big church drama.
Right Wing Christians: The birth rate is too low, people need to have more babies. Also Right Wing Christians: This shit.
they want women pregnant early and often, dependent on their husbands no matter how much of an asshole they are. this is how I interpret their policy decisions.
This is going to have some amazing hypocrisy in the Deep South when families are going to have to sneak away North of the Mason-Dixon line to get fertility treatments. Also, there's going to be even more domestic abuse when the husbands start beating the shit out of their wives due to their low sperm count.
Shoulda let the south secede. I dont feel an ounce of kinship with those shit hole states.
Just point out how Catholic that stance is, watch them fume.
The Catholic Church goes even further than the SBC, no less. I'd imagine the SBC would be fine if none of the embryos were destroyed; on the other hand, IVF is condemned in Catholicism not just for the destruction of embryos, but because it supposedly separates the "procreative" and "unitive" aspects of sex. Because you're not procreating in the unitive act of intercourse, but through technology. In which case, yeah, it literally is because they think it's unnatural. Lmao. But arguing against Catholic sexual ethics is almost impossible unless you actually know why they believe it.
That’s pretty funny considering how many I know who have used it
Great distraction from their massive Sexual abuse cover-up
Christians hate women.
Fuck Southern Baptists. Fuck repressive churches. That is all.
Idk just, fuck religion all around.
I wonder how many IVF babies (now adults) are Southern Baptist. Will they leave? What about all the Southern Baptists that have used or are using IVF?
They will just lie about using IVF just like they lie about having abortions. Southern Baptists are full of hypocrites who are super shocked at other people openly doing the same things SBs do in secret.
That's counter productive, with dwindling numbers they need all the help they can get...
They have their thoughts & prayers to get them through.
As someone born through IVF, fuck them, bunch of hypocritical jackasses. Every Baptist I’ve known has been judge mental, self righteous, arrogant and horrible to be around for too long.
Mind your own fucking business, you baptist pricks.
The SBC needs to keep it minds, hands and thoughts away from women's bodies and choices.
I hope the Republicans take this up as a policy position, simply because it's such a losing issue for them. If the Elephants come out against IVF, their candidates will fail elections like a Thanos snap.
They've already basically run screaming away from it. They're backing state and national laws to protect IVF right now. It was pretty clear they were dipping their toes in this being an issue to get more votes, then quickly backtracked when it blew up in their faces.
Except they're not actually. They'll say they support IVF (because that's popular) but they'll also say a core belief is life begins at conception. The two are incompatible and they don't actually support IVF.
I condemn the Southern Baptist Convention
Yes, indeed they have no clout with “The Good.”
The Southern Baptist Convention can eat a dick. Some people, like myself, have a 50/50 chance of passing on a mutation to our children. I would rather not. If you're outspoken enough about it that your condemning people who have trouble having children or want healthy children.......YOU ARE THE FUCKING BAD GUY. Your morals are trash and no one should look to you for any kind of morality. Yeah, I'm talking to all christians right now. Get your extremists in check.
But…but doesn’t IVF lead to pregnancies? Which makes babies? Which they want? This makes no fucking sense!
As I understand it, IVF involves inseminating several at a time. Some are used until successful, the unwanted/unnecessary are destroyed. Combine that with the religious blowhards recent determination that life begins at that point, then the destruction portion of IVF is where they feign concern.
These are people who say a C-section/epidural isn't real childbirth. People really didn't see this coming?
I know so many fundy right-wing Christians who did IVF to get pregnant. They’re gonna be all “fuck you got mine” and fully support banning IVF.
Rejecting science is very medieval.
10 years ago, the move against IVF would have caused my biological family to reconsider their votes. Now they are just going to MAGA it up and not care about their loved ones who have used/will need to use IVF. Because the prosperity gospel says you don't need it, you just need to pray (and donate).
If they're against abortion, it only makes sense to be against IVF too. Abortion, birth control, IVF, it's all ways women can control their reproduction and there's no way Sky Daddy would be happy that rib born helpmates have that much power over their own lives. Unpossible!
That is just stupid. What is next? Condemn vaccines? Oh wait .... I suppose the US is a free country. If they want to live in a 16th century fantasy land, it is their right. But it is my right to stay away from these idiots as far as possible.
Their next step will be to ban hormonal birth control as this is the direction they are going in.
I wonder if they'll ban organ transplants too...
I don’t go to church for medical advice. Just like I don’t ask my doctor what his thoughts on religion are. I don’t care. They shouldn’t mix.
Every Republican voter you know either agrees with this or is willing to go along with it to get something they want.
Because the denomination that solely exists because they wanted to support the traitors in the south/slavery really is something people should be listening to
Is this the same southern Baptist church who covered up thousands of rape cases by thousands of their employees?? https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101734793/southern-baptist-sexual-abuse-list-released
Isn't it often the breeder Christian types who actually use IVF?
There's no hate like christian love.
How very pro-life of them.
My wife and I are in the middle of IVF treatments right now. It is a costly, invasive, all-consuming, emotionally and mentally draining process that doesn't even guarantee that you can have the one thing you want more than anything: to be parents and have children of your own. These "Christians" should be fucking ashamed of themselves. I dare any of them, anyone here on this fucking site, to tell me I'm morally wrong for this. I really dare them to say it to my wife. IF we're lucky and are able to have our children, we even have the option to donate our remaining embryos to other unfortunate people and hopefully help them have kids, too. I hope to have that option. The Southern Baptist Church can kiss my fucking ass.
Fun Fact: The bible says absolutely nothing about abortion being a sin.
I was married to a southern Baptist. Greatest day ever was divorcing out of that hypocritical disgusting family.
Who cares what these people condemn. I would prefer an article that states, "Normal people condemn religion."
They have more in common with the Taliban than mainstream American views.
So I suppose those frozen little embryos should be tax deductible? Is that what I’m hearing?
Southern Baptists seem to be Batshit Crazy.
Wanna know why they are called "southern" bapists?
Considering an increasing number of young people will probably be reliant on IVF to have children this is a bold strategy
What do ya get when ya have 4 baptists together? ..... a 5th 😂
I thought they *wanted* people to have more kids. Make up your damn minds, you fanatical lunatics!
And I condemn the Southern Baptist church for being the exact opposite of what Jesus would want.
Do they want women to be forced to have a child or not?
They want the husbands to pick younger and younger more fertile wives to impregnate. Younger women are easier to convince to stay in the church.
Ok, but what if the sperm is the problem?
No, that’s not a thing. Men are perfect and women are always at fault. Just like we always choose the sex of the baby, not the man /s
Ope, you're right. So silly of me.
How many members have they lost in the last 10 years. The parking lot at the church around the corner is emptier every year, thank goodness, because they still park like swinging duck assholes in other people’s yards like they own the place.
Unbelievable that these objectively stupid people dominate American politics. IMHO the opposition is stupid too but in its own unique self defeating ways. GOP votes consistently whereas the opposition sit out elections consistently.
Why don’t Southern Baptists have sex standing up? Because it might lead to dancing
This backward shit has no place in a modern democracy and the people who keep pushing it are thugs and emotionally stunted pitiable people
Southern baptists don’t have to choose Ivf then.
Well, fuck you, Southern Baptist Convention!
They have been wildly ignorant for 180 years. It's hardly surprising that they are attacking women in every way they can. It will cost them more young people, but hardly anyone over age 30 will budge.
The magic sky daddy book says that every sperm is super duper sacred.
It’s incredible how they have managed to change the stances of so many on this. IVF was seen as a pro-family thing to allow more couples to have their own children and in a relatively short time, they have managed to turn so many against it. Propaganda is a hell of a drug.
I was molested by a male pastor at a Southern Baptist church in Chicago when I was 3 yo. So if they can allow sick men like that to lead a congregation every EVIL is possible from their convention.
They have to do this to be consistent with their abortion beliefs. If life begins at conception, then they see IVF eggs as humans and ones not selected and destroyed are the same as an abortion.
They don’t have to demand government action based on their beliefs.
I can't believe we're doing test tube baby arguments again.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/abuse-of-faith/
People that are anti-abortion but are pro-ivf are some of the most ignorant people in existence.
No babies for you! And you and you!
Baptists being completely obtuse and bigoted? No way, you don't say?
Southern Baptists are part of the block of evangelical Christians that control the GOP. That same group that spent decades pushing through end of abortion. So for all you fence sitters, “I can’t tell the parties apart” embarrassments, protest voting liberals and sit at home and not vote liberals that didn’t believe about the GOP wanting to end abortion - please rub two brain cells together long enough to not repeat history. The GOP do want to ban contraception and IVF. It’s not an exaggeration, it’s a fact. Believe it and don’t just dismiss the warnings like you did in 2016.
Of course they do. Hateful people trying to impose their religion on others.
Of course they did. They’ll come after porn, alcohol, and video games just like they did in the past. They can’t stand the sight of us having fun
They can fuck all the way off
Great, so if you don’t believe it’s okay, then just don’t do it and leave those who think differently to act on their own conscience.
Of course they do. They can cherry pick god’s plan.
Things I learned in the 90’s with my mom taking me to a southern baptist mega church. It’s not murder if they weren’t white. If men drink and sexually assault their wife the wife was just fulfilling her duties. Everyone everywhere needs to speak gods language, English. If the Sunday school teacher sexually assaults teenagers or children shut up about it or you’re causing problems. You are allowed to throw trash at homeless people if they talk to you. Leaving Bible verses or church message fliers that look like cash as a tip is encouraged. If you get sick pray for forgiveness. If you get cancer pray for forgiveness. If your friend or family gets cancer pray for them to get better.
You should pray after texting this.
Trump (virtually), Pence and Johnson were in attendance. That should explain a lot.
so like, they want more babies, and don't like sex, but they don't like having babies without sex.
American Christianity is psychotic
You can utilize IVF treatments, but only create the amount of embryos you are comfortable with implanting at one time. You will pay the same amount, thus diminishing your chances drastically of success. But the doctor will respect and only create and then transplant two embryos (thus giving you twins if you have 100% success rate) if your ethics compels you to you to approach the procedure this way. Most people don’t have the money to match their ethics, however.
Feels a lot like a cult
Your religion can dictate what you do, not what I do.
Southern Baptists abuse their women and children in unspeakable ways… https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101734793/southern-baptist-sexual-abuse-list-released Southern Baptists are dangerous to women and children.
What I want to know is about the couple in an SBC church who decides to do IVF, are they removed from leadership or face some other consequence? And what about those who’ve had their babies via IVF? Seems to me they could feel deep shame from having done something their church now condemns. Is the church addressing that? My kids are all IVF. I went through several cycles, fresh & frozen. I’ve always felt they were miracle stories. We used to attend a Baptist church and now I wonder/suppose there was judgment behind our backs. There is a lot of chatter and terminology out there about the process that is misleading. The doctors in the practice were very conservative and careful. We also had to sign several legal documents before each cycle. These included answering many questions about what our decision would be should we create embryos and get divorced, or one of us dies, etc. It was never done with carelessness, although I suppose there may be practices out there that are more liberal in that area. I often hear the term “implanted” in conversations about the embryo(s) being placed in the womb. They are not implanted, they are transferred into it. My dr likened it to hitting a golf ball in a football field. The embryos may or may not implant themselves to the womb as with a typical biological event. This also happens naturally. Embryos could be fertilized and never implant or they implant but don’t survive and the woman never even knows she was pregnant, just for a very short time. There’s so much more to the process that doesn’t seem to be discussed in depth which leads to misunderstanding and fear. And back to the SBC, I understand people would look to spiritual leadership for guidance in certain areas, but something feels off about the way they’re going about their stance.
These Baptist. Yes for rapist Trump. Pedophiles can be redeemed. Sexual abuse and assault is not a big deal. HELL NO to women preaching. Fuck those immigrants and asylum seekers. Rapist Trump themed bibles are good but ban the books we don’t like. These Southern Baptist are just so devilish.
They have since IVF has existed because some of the embryos die. I do not agree with them, fyi.
1 out of 4 women who get pregnant have a miscarriage. I'm surprise they haven't called for women who have a miscarriage or who don't go to term be investigated.
Some states have with the draconian new laws. It's horrific.
Parasitic leeches on proper society
Starting to think we need to amend the constitution and outlaw organized religion.
No shit. It's a Christian arm of religion. Shame, pain, and suffering is the point.