A former Cedarville University finance professor whose writings promote a Christian ethic of marriage and sexuality was arrested Tuesday on eight sex-related felony charges involving one or more minors.
The indictment, filed March 27 in Ohio’s Greene County Common Pleas Court, charges John Kent Tarwater with two counts of rape, three counts of sexual battery and three counts of gross sexual imposition.
He was booked into Greene County jail in southwest Ohio, where he remained in custody as of Wednesday morning. No defense counsel was listed in public court records, and no hearing or trial dates were disclosed.
My humble opinion:
Many Christians (and people of other kinds of faith) truly want to be good humans. I know many christians. And although for many reasons I personally don’t take their faith for me, I do recognize their honest intentions and beautiful hearts.
Then… then we have these scumbags… these abominations that not only abuse (in the general sense), but also target and scar for life the most vulnerable members of our society. These excuses of human beings are a complete waste of air and must be castrated and let to rot in prison.
Castration is not an acceptable punishment. Imprisonment is. Some might argue execution is, I disagree, in theory.
If for no other reason, you cannot trust the right people will be convicted to do such a punishment. Get a hold of yourself man.
Their holy book is filled with rape, murder, genocide, incest, and ritualized cannibalism in the name of their god. It ends with them going to heaven while everyone else gets burned for eternity. There probably are decent people who get involved, but their decency does not stem from their religion. It’s a psychological coping mechanism that has become a good old boys club that holds itself as morally unaccountable to anyone but god for their actions. In the real world, people expect others to either not be an asshole, or if they are, actually atone by paying the consequences and change their ways, not just whisper some words to the sky and announce “all good, I’m forgiven”. You can insert a lot of other religions in here- do wrong, be sheltered from consequences by your cult, or if even they can’t protect you, double down on refusing to take accountability because you don’t think you answer to other humans.
wow, that’s new for me, would you mind to elaborate?
The rest, good points. You touched several reasons why I don’t endorse their faith myself.
Thanks for the comment
The ritualized cannibalism bit is transubstantiation, the belief that the blood(wine) and body(bread) of Jesus turn into his real blood and body during consecration in catholic mass.
But you could make a dig into it overall just beacuase the bread and wine are symbolic ritual cannibalism, very culty sounding when you look at it from another angle.
As you said though, that’s a Catholic tradition, not Christianity as a whole, and it isn’t directly supported by the Bible. Its their unique interpretation of the act of communion. The actual text seems pretty metaphorical IMO.
Sacrifice is a common theme in a lot of religions. The victim is offered to the diety, killed, and then consumed; the followers get whatever they were after, which could be atonement, a blessing, grace, etc. In Christianity theology, the man-god Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice, ending the need to attain atonement with animal sacrifice. His instructions were to ritualistically eat bread (his body) and drink wine (his blood) as the atonement ritual. Different sects have differing opinions on where this is purely symbolic (most Protestants) or if through transubstantiation it literally becomes the flesh and blood of Jesus (Catholics). At the end of the day, you’re either symbolically or literally eating Jesus. By the doctrine though, it’s not pure cannibalism since Jesus is a god incarnate, but that’s what theologically makes it a step up over other forms of sacrifice; eat god, become like god.
Meh… “eat god, becobe like god” makes no sense.
The whole point of Christianity (at least in this dimension) is that Jesus’ sacrifice is the ultimate mercyful gift fro God to undeserving humans. Participating in the communion is never a power trip to become like god, but a reminder that “you are still standing solely by his grace”.
2 Peter 1:4 - “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature,having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
John 17:21-23 - “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation, circa 318–325 CE - “He became man so that we might become god.”
The concept is called theosis and is developed largely from those two verses and was further contemplated by early Catholics. Whether you become one with the godhead, like unto the godhead, or, such as in Mormonism, can literally become a god-being (though not the God) yourself varies by sect. Most agree that the communion does infer some sort of divine combining of one’s self with the god power. You can also see this concept in the idea of “invite Jesus into your heart”, or the gift of the Holy Spirit. Somehow some part of god is dwelling in you and you are a part of god.
The problem is how many people in religious groups will refuse to condemn actions of the religion’s organizations and leaders but keep their “membership”. If you are provided evidence that a group you are a part of is committing heinous shit like systemic child rape but you will neither leave nor vocally condemn it then you are fully compliant in those crimes. If you go further, as most religious people do, and white wash the absolute fuck out of the reality of the crimes of your group and try to spread that bullshit then you are just as guilty as the actual rapists, just as guilty as the “cleaner squads” from the Vatican that help relocate rapist priests.
Yup