by cameron | Oct 21, 2008 | Christianity, Gloria Jeans, Hillsong, Mercy Ministries, Podcast, religion
Today’s show is the latest in my series examining the Christian charity Mercy Ministries and it’s relationship with the Gloria Jean’s Coffee chain and the evangelical Christian church Hillsong.
My guest today is an Australian woman who is using the pseudonym “Sarah Mac” to protect her identity. She spent 8 months as a voluntary patient at Mercy’s now-closed center on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and her story is horrifying. She tells me she was subjected to punishments if she forgot to take her medication, denied regular access to friends, family and qualified therapists, and kept in solitary confinement when she finally decided to leave Mercy. She left feeling worse about herself than when she entered and tried to commit suicide a few weeks later. She has since met with Mercy’s founder Nancy Alcorn and received an unconvincing apology. Despite her experiences, Sarah remains a Christian.
Despite her obvious discomfort is talking about her experience, Sarah was brave enough to share it with me in the hope that it will help other girls think twice about the decision to enter Mercy.
This is her story.
The G’Day World theme music:
Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)
More On This Album
by cameron | Sep 3, 2008 | Atheism, religion
Today I came across a relatively new blog called “Brand New Atheist” written by Rob Jones. In his first post, entitled “From believer to non-believer, how I got to here, 36 year-old Rob explains how he went from being a church-going Christian to an atheist over a period of about 10 months of personal introspection. Just another data point for people who say “you’ll never convert a Christian”. Perhaps *I* won’t convert one, but if there is enough information out there for them to consider for themselves why they believe what they believe, and if they are courageous enough to examine their own belief system honestly, then, like Rob Jone, they might convert themselves.
by cameron | Aug 22, 2008 | Atheism, Christianity, religion
In the comments on my post about the Australian pastor who conned thousands of Christians into believing he had cancer, Matt wrote:
I would highly suggest for you, and any one else interested to read the book The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions by self-professed secular Jew and mathematics/philosophies teacher David Berlinski.
This tells the story of a Jew who was forced to dig his own grave prior to being shot by a German soldier. Prior to being shot, the old Jewish man advised the German that “God is watching what you are doing”. The Jewish gentleman pointed what i think is the real problem with atheism. If you have the time please check the book out.
Matt, I just read the review you linked to but obviously not the book yet. For the benefits of others, the end of that story about the Nazi and the Jew is:
“If there is no God to watch what you are doing, then why should you be circumspect in your behavior? Certainly the Germans at Auschwitz, who gassed Samuel Goldfein, did not believe that God was watching them. As Berlinski points out, that is the real problem with atheism.”
I’m going to point out a couple of flaws in that quote.
First of all – the Nazi regime was Christian! Adolf Hitler was a Christian. In Mein Kampf he wrote:
“Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.”
In a speech in 1922, he said:
“My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice… And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.”
Hitler could not have come into power without the support of the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany at the time. So, for a start, the reviewer of the book is ignorant.
Read more about Hitler and his Christianity here.
Now, let’s address the other suggestion from the reviewer which, I assume comes from the book.
Personally, I find the concept that humans who don’t believe in imaginary beings will become murderers to be completely asinine and offensive to the extreme.
Perhaps religious people believe that they personally would become murderers without their imaginary god keeping them in check. Many of us, however, are quite comfortable trying hard to be decent human beings without having to imagine some kind of sky bully keeping an eye on us. We try to do good things because being good is a end in itself. It doesn’t require some kind of supernatural pay-off. Now, I’m certainly not perfect. I’m made lots of mistakes in my life and hurt people, but never intentionally. I’ve been an atheist since I was 8 years old and I have no desire to kill or rape or steal.
I will also point out that in the history of the human race over the last 2000 years, Christians have been responsible for way more violence than atheists. I wrote a post about this some time ago.
So this sky bully concept doesn’t seem to keep Christians from committing regular atrocities. I’ll point out that the USA seems to consider itself a Christian nation (at least that’s what I hear from time to time) and they are the most violent country on the planet at the moment, actively invading other countries and waging economic warfare on many others.
I would go so far as to say that, not only does religion not curb violence, it BREEDS violence. The core tenant of all religious belief is “those that don’t believe what we believe deserve eternity in hell”. That is the most intolerant and violent philosophy I can imagine.
Atheism, on the other hand, doesn’t have a code that preaches violence.
So… what say you to that?
by cameron | Aug 22, 2008 | Christianity, Hillsong, Mercy Ministries
An Australian evangelical pastor, Michael Guglielmucci, has apparently confessed to lying about having terminal cancer for the last couple of years.
The Australian Christian Churches told The Advertiser yesterday that it was auditing Mr Guglielmucci’s bank accounts, which included money donated from people touched by his hit song Healer.
Mr Guglielmucci confessed his two-year fraudulent cancer battle at a national executive meeting of the ACC on Saturday, and was stripped of his credentials.
The problem with this story, though, is it pretends that Guglielmucci is alone in being a fraud, when the entire Christian religion is based on lies, deception and fraud. As I’ve said many times before – there is ZERO evidence that Jesus even existed, let alone said or did the things that are attributed to him. There isn’t a single contemporary eyewitness account, Christian or non-Christian. He’s a myth, pure and simple.
None of this, however, has stopped a bunch of people over on the “Still Praying For Ps Mike Guglielmucci’s Wall” on Facebook to say things like
whether it is healing from cancer or healing from a mental illness, God is still the healer and Mike is still claiming that God is his healer…
He is still a wonderful guy, and an amazing person and we should continue to pray for him for healing now, just as we would have if he had cancer. He still is ill and still can and will be healed by our most loving Heavenly father. we cannot and will not condemn him, we have no right cos God never will condemn him either.
Which just goes to show that it doesn’t matter what evidence they are presented with, many Christians are just determined to believe in their fairy tales no matter what.
By the way, “Australian Christian Churches“, the collection of Pentecostal evangelical churches, is lead by Brian Houston, the founder of Hillsong, that scary bunch who also are behind Gloria Jean’s Coffee and Mercy Ministries.
by cameron | Aug 11, 2008 | religion
I heard Bill Maher say he was going to make this on Larry King a while back and Russell Buckley just sent me the trailer. It looks great! I want to make shit like this!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdkyLrDpaUg&hl=en&fs=1]
I read Maher’s book “New Rules” a few years ago and I loved it! He’s brilliant.
by cameron | Jul 25, 2008 | Christianity, Gloria Jeans, Hillsong, Mercy Ministries, Podcast
Today’s show is a continuation of the examination I’ve been doing around the relationship and practices of Gloria Jean’s Coffee, Hillsong Church and Mercy Ministries. Today’s guest is a former resident of Mercy Ministries in the United States. She spent 7 months inside Mercy about 8 years ago and is still today too frightened of them to use her real name, so she is using the alias “Vickie Lucas”. Vickie tells me about how she entered Mercy trying to find help for her bulimia nervosa condition but instead of psychological and clinical treatment, she was subjected to exorcisms, neglect and emotional abuse. She talks about how she was chastised in public by Mercy founder Nancy Alcorn, who claims to be a lifelong celibate, for getting her haircut – apparently according to Mercy that’s a clear sign she is possessed by demons making her into a lesbian.
The quotes contained in this show by Nancy Alcorn and Peter Irvine are taken from this video by The Cynic Sage.
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The G’Day World theme music:
Conquest
“Secrets of Life” (mp3)
from “End of Days”
(Dark Star Records)
More On This Album
