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Jul 5
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Robert Wills's avatar

We do have a robust law enforcement, prosecution and imprisonment system if laws are broken.

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

Help me understand what that has to do with what I wrote.

Rebecca's avatar

Our son attended VBS and announced (at age 6!) that he wasn’t going back, which led us to look for a more appropriate spiritual experience elsewhere. Scaring children with threats of the devil seems to be a thing for certain mainstream religion.

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

I REALLY wanted to write about that, so thank you for bringing it up. “If you sin, you’ll burn forever in a lake of fire” is not an age-appropriate message for anyone really, but definitely not an elementary schooler.

Rebecca's avatar

Btw, “lake of fire” is directly taken from Egyptian mythology.

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

Love the Christian/pagan/other mythologies crossover in literally everything.

Dana DuBois's avatar

A Pulitzer for that title!!

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

😆 a brief moment of brilliance that I hope shows up again.

TheTimeline's avatar

"The skit desensitizes." 100%.

As I watched, that was what was even more unnerving is how unphased the audience was (not shrieking/screaming)...

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

It seemed to me like it already seemed normal.

Russell Rowland's avatar

that video is seriously disturbing. No explanation is sufficient for exposing kids that age to this kind of message.

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

None whatsoever.

Yet it really doesn’t seem like the first time those kids were exposed to that.

The Angry Yogi's avatar

Exposing children that young to that "skit" is child abuse, my mind will not be changed about this. I watched that disturbing video with my mouth agape in shock.

And yes, award winning headline!!

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

Exposing children to violence before they are developmentally ready and as a way to scare and manipulate them. Yeah. I would call that child abuse.

krissyleigh's avatar

i am so happy i deconstructed, left the church and took my young kids out of indoctrination. the “church” must be held accountable and hopefully…fall.

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

I think Christians do a lot of good in the name of God, and I don’t want to discount that. My hometown church has a food and clothing pantry, they support young mothers, there is a Spanish speaking service where they connect with people who are different than them. I have a lot of criticisms, but I don’t want them to fall. I want them to stop weaponizing their beliefs against others.

krissyleigh's avatar

and we know which one is more likely to happen..unfortunately. the good is empty if there is no accountability for the bad. this is the purpose of VBS in these communities. it’s less outreach and more “here’s free childcare but we will indoctrinate them as payment”. this particular “church” may also have food banks, clothing drives, operation christmas….it doesn’t matter if this is what their vbs looks like

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

I don’t disagree with you at all. I believe churches should be accountable for everything they do, and some of it is incredibly toxic and damaging.

My Walk's avatar

WTH, no thanks and never ever would I subject my children or another’s to this

Jessica Bee 🍁's avatar

This. sounds a lot like how @Andra Watkins describes some of the highly militaristic and Lord’s Army vibes early indoctrination…

Not The First Time's avatar

Have you seen "Saving America's Story"? It's 160 pages (including about thirty pages of notes, 522 of them) about how badly the Smithsonian Institution is doing its job. How many people did it take to produce this? It comes from the Domestic Policy Council and is based on EO 14253, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." The members of this Council are not identified and neither are the authors of the report, as far as I can see. This follow-up to The Heritage Foundation's "Project 2025" summarizes itself rather well on page 128, the paragraph that starts, "In both theory and practice, NMAH is a clear and institutionalized example of intersectional critical theory ..." Saves the effort of reading the Federalist Papers, or Common Sense, and maybe the Declaration of Independence. Kind of reminds me of Franz Kafka, or maybe Ray Bradbury or George Orwell.

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

I haven’t seen that, no. But about halfway through your comment, I thought, “reminds me of Project 2025.” And then I saw that you made the same observation. Do you have a place I can go to read more about this?

Not The First Time's avatar

My substack http://katebyn.substack.com has a discussion of Project 2025 although it is in many small chunks. You might find the “Foreward” section of particular interest since it is concerned with the foundational POV of the Heritage outfit. I would be up for more discussion with you.

Tiffany Torres Williams's avatar

I’ve read Project 2025 so many times I would be fit to survive a torture chamber. I started this Substack as Project 2025 Takedown in March 2024 because not enough people were talking about it. I had to rebrand after Trump won because it was clear Project 2025 would be taking us down instead. 🫠 I’ll check out your substack for info on the EOs. I admit I’m pretty discouraged these days.

Not The First Time's avatar

Don't be discouraged. There's you, and there's me, and there are a lot of other people like us. MAGA wants us to feel alone, powerless, but we are many and we will not turn away from this.

M. F. Hopkins's avatar

Ugh... I'm so sick of right-wing religious nutjobs.