Pastor Defends Viral 'Russia for Christ' Video Praising Ballistic Missiles Updated: 16 hours ago https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023...rist-video-praising-ballistic-missiles-a83166 Service of the evangelical church "Mission Light of Christ". Video grab A video of an evangelical church service in St. Petersburg featuring songs about ballistic missiles and the chorus “Russia for Christ” went viral over the weekend, prompting Pastor Olga Golikova of the Light of Christ Mission Church to respond this Sunday. The video, published in March, featured Golikova speaking over background singers and music while people walked in circles carrying Russian and Israeli flags, flags with the slogan “Russia for Christ” and others that appeared to show military hardware and mushroom clouds. “We take, Lord, this runway, we rise into the sky with your ballistic missiles. We rise there, Lord, with supersonic planes to carry the good news that Russia is for Christ!” says Golikova in the video. Many evangelical Christians believe that as evil grows in the world, the end times grow nearer, and with that, with variations on the details, believers will ascend to Heaven and Christ will return to rule the Earth. Influential American Evangelical Pat Robertson said in March 2022 that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “compelled by God” to invade Ukraine to fulfill this prophecy of armageddon. The Light of Christ Church was founded by an American evangelist in 1993. Golikova has an English-language YouTube channel in addition to a Russian one with 113,000 subscribers. In her sermon this Sunday, Golikova thanked people outside of her church for the attention the video received. She explained that many years ago God had put the phrase “Russia for Christ” in her heart. She added that God has a “special purpose” for Russia, adding: “All countries that might think of our country as some kind of monster. For these countries, Russia will become a huge blessing.”
Trust in the hypocritical christian church to do the right thing is a delusion..... Pope seeks immunity in Australian court over notorious paedophile priest By Chip Le Grand April 6, 2024 https://www.smh.com.au/national/pop...orious-paedophile-priest-20240404-p5fhib.html Pope Francis is claiming legal immunity as a head of state to fight a damages claim brought by two Aboriginal men over the Vatican’s failure to protect them from the priest who sexually abused them as children. Documents filed in the Victorian Supreme Court last month by lawyers representing the Pope flag the church’s intention to rely on the Vatican’s unique status in international law to stop the pontiff from being drawn into a civil lawsuit involving one of Australia’s most notorious paedophile priests. Hold on to your hat: A claim by Pope Francis for immunity from an Australian court is likely to gain international attention.Credit: Andrew Medichini Renowned human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson KC said the case raised questions about the Vatican’s century-old claim to statehood and technical legal defences it has previously employed to escape accountability for crimes against children committed by its priests. Speaking to this masthead from London, he said the case was likely to gain international attention. “If it does reach the stage of answering the vexed question of whether the Vatican is in practice a state, it could have considerable consequences,” Robertson said. The case centres on the abuse of two Aboriginal boys by Michael Glennon, a serial child rapist who despite being convicted and jailed for the indecent assault of a girl in 1978, remained an ordained priest for the next 20 years. At the time of Glennon’s death, he was in jail for crimes against 15 children. Paedophile priest Michael Glennon in 1991.Credit: Mario Borg The plaintiffs are seeking to hold Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli and Pope Francis vicariously responsible for the alleged failings of their predecessors which enabled Glennon to keep accessing and abusing children for years after senior figures in the church, both here and in Rome, knew he was a paedophile. In response, lawyers for Pope Francis have challenged the jurisdiction of the court. They argue that, as ruler of the Vatican City and Holy See, the Pope is a head of state and under Australia’s Foreign States Immunities Act, immune from any proceeding before an Australian court. This argument, which mirrors legal defences the church has successfully employed in Europe and the US, has never been tested in Australia, where decades of clerical abuse of children and the church’s “catastrophic failure of leadership” were exposed and documented by a royal commission and state-based parliamentary inquiries. “To my knowledge it has never been tested,” said Deakin and La Trobe University international law expert Dr John Morss, who has provided expert advice to the court on behalf of the plaintiffs about the legal status of the Pope and the Vatican. “My view is that the Pope is not the head of a foreign state in relation to Australia. “Up till now, decisions that have been made around the world have given the immunity that has been asked for by the Holy See on the basis it has sufficient statehood status. Australia would be striking a new path if they look at this from first principles and come to a different decision.″ Robertson, a Sydney-born, London-based barrister who established Europe’s largest human rights legal practice, is the author of The Case Against the Pope, a book which examines legal tactics used by the Vatican to protect paedophile priests and the Pope’s moral and legal responsibility for clerical abuse. He said that the Vatican’s assumed statehood, although formally recognised by the Australian government through its appointment of an ambassador to the Holy See, was “a matter of continuing controversy” among international lawyers. “All that can be agreed is it is a complete anomaly,” he said. “In reality, it is not a state. It is the headquarters of a church. It lacks many requirements of a state, including that it should have a permanent population. It is a palace in Rome with extensive gardens, a few hundred Catholic officials and lots of tourists.″ London-based barrister Geoffrey Robertson KC says the Vatican’s assumed statehood is “a matter of “continuing controversy.”Credit: George Fetting Comensoli and the Pope’s representative in Australia, Apostolic Nuncio Charles Balvo, did not respond to questions from this masthead. Pope Francis has previously urged the church to submit to a “humble and ongoing purification” to atone for historic clerical abuse. The current legal status of the Vatican as an entity with “the resemblance to statehood” was established by the 1929 Lateran Treaty signed by Italy’s fascist leader Benito Mussolini and Pope Pius XI. Under the agreement, the papacy recognised the state of Italy with Rome as its capital while Italy recognised papal sovereignty over the 44 hectares of land contained within the Vatican walls. The Australian government since 1973 has acknowledged papal sovereignty by sending two ambassadors to Rome; one for Italy and another for the Holy See. The Vatican’s claim to foreign state immunity was recently upheld by a 2021 decision by the European Court of Human Rights involving survivors of child sexual abuse by Belgian priests. In the Victorian case, the two Aboriginal men were allegedly repeatedly abused and raped as children by Glennon between 1983 and 1990. Some of the assaults took place at Karaglen, a bush retreat established by Glennon near Lancefield, north of Melbourne, where he invited families to stay, plied parents with alcohol and sexually abused their children. A third plaintiff allegedly abused by Glennon withdrew from the lawsuit. Former Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that after Glennon was jailed for indecent assault in 1978, he ceased to be a practising priest and was not given another appointment by the church. It took the Melbourne Archdiocese a further 12 years to petition the Holy See to laicise Glennon; the formal process for defrocking priests which requires a papal decree. According to Hart, his predecessor Archbishop Frank Little twice petitioned Rome without success in 1990 and a 1994. Finally, in 1999, then Archbishop George Pell convinced Pope John Paul II to issue a decree stripping Glennon of his status as an ordained priest. The lawyer for the two Aboriginal men, Angela Sdrinis, said Pope Francis had a vicarious case to answer for John Paul II’s inaction during that time. “Australian taxpayers have spent millions of dollars trying to bring the Catholic Church and other institutions to account,” she said. “We say this is a case of direct accountability of the Pope and his office and that he should therefore be a defendant and answer the allegations against him. “What we are seeing is a reliance on a technical legal defence to avoid direct accountability for paedophile priests. We are not saying that the Pope does not have the right to defend the allegations but it is repugnant that the Pope should essentially repeat history that we saw with Pell and the Church’s reliance on the Ellis defence.” The Ellis defence, named after clerical abuse survivor John Ellis, was previously used by the church in Australia to shield its assets from damages claims to deter victims of child sex abuse from seeking remedies through the courts. The case is scheduled to return to court in August for a directions hearing.
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India’s ‘godmen’: How a rigid caste system has created a new kind of deity By Rhea Mogul, CNN Fri July 12, 2024 CNN — The devotees rushed to collect soil from the ground the man had just walked on, thousands thronging to the front of a venue densely crammed with a quarter of a million people, under stifling heat. But one by one, many began falling onto the muddy field and into a sewer nearby, crushing each other as panicked screams pierced the air. They had arrived to receive spiritual enlightenment, but 121 people – mostly women – were killed by the crowd crush in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state last week. Those who survived were left scarred and traumatized. The man they had come to see was known to his disciples as Bhole Baba, a self-styled Hindu spiritual leader worshipped by many as a living god. And he is among dozens of spiritual gurus in the country who inspire devotion in millions of followers, have the ear of the Indian elite, and rake in colossal sums of money. While the world’s most populous nation has long produced self-styled “godmen”, the tradition has, over the last few decades, evolved into a multimillion-dollar industry, whose biggest stars control vast philanthropic and business empires. A large chunk of their money comes from their followers’ donations. They are widely revered in a country where religion and faith dictate much of society – with some even winning endorsement from the highest echelons of society. But that industry occasionally finds itself mired in controversy, with several holy men either convicted or accused of a range of crimes – from financial fraud to murder and rape – alarming those who cast doubt on their divine personas. “It’s a question we’ve long asked,” said Meera Nanda, author of “The God Market: How Globalization is Making India More Hindu.” “What brings literally millions of poor, desperate people to these godmen?” The location of the crowd crush in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, India on July 4, 2024. Sakib Ali /Hindustan Times/Getty Images A sense of belonging Subhash Lal was working as a security guard nearly 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Mughal Garhi village, where Bhole Baba was delivering his sermon, when the news flashed across his TV screen. Lal’s mother, a devout follower of the guru, was among the crowd, and he was desperate for answers. Lal and his family rushed to the hospital that was treating the survivors, when his son learned of the devastating news. “He told me, Dad, your mother is no more,” the 48-year-old said. “My mother believed in (Bhole Baba). I couldn’t tell her anything. She would attend these functions… she believed in him. What could I do?” People like Lal’s mother – poor and on the lower rungs of India’s hierarchical caste system – make up the bulk of Bhole Baba’s following. They are predominantly Dalit women from India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where religion holds particular sway. And for them, a sense of devotion to these godmen is a way to be seen and heard within the Hindu religion. Despite being outlawed in 1950, the caste system, which categorizes Hindus at birth and once forced the so-called “untouchables” or Dalits to the margins of society, is still omnipresent in the daily lives of millions across the nation. Policeman turned preacher Reportedly born Narayan Sakar to a low-caste family, Bhole Baba used to be a constable with the Uttar Pradesh Police before becoming a preacher and establishing an ashram – or place of worship – in the state. Sitting on an ornately decorated chair, he often delivers impassioned sermons exhorting his followers to maintain their devotion. “If, through the medium of truth, you remove old trash from within you, and today if you let truth into your heart, devotion for the god into your heart, humanity into your heart… then know that even if the world abuses you, you will not get affected by it at all,” he can be heard saying in one of his speeches. The “rigidity of caste structure” is an important reason for the proliferation of godmen, said K. Kalyani, an assistant professor of Sociology at Azim Premji University, Bangalore. “The low-caste community are particularly debarred within Hindu religion to have respectable position within religious institutions,” she said. “Their presence in the sanctum sanctorum as priest or their proximity to deity is seen as an act of defilement due to practices of ‘untouchability’.” In the absence of religious and spiritual gratification for low-caste Hindus, Kalyani said, an “alternative form of religiosity becomes inevitable.” Sheetal Jatav, a survivor of last week’s Bhole Baba event, said her community – the lower-caste Jatavs – “believe in him immensely,” hanging his pictures on their walls or even placing it inside small temples at home. Jatav said she was previously unable to get pregnant but conceived within two months of visiting Bole Baba’s ashram. “There are many similar stories like this here,” she told CNN. “He speaks of good things and wants all of us to do good deeds. We go there and feel peace.” Miracle workers The gurus India has produced range from men who claim they can perform miracles, like the revered Sathya Sai Baba, to the yoga guru and founder of the widely popular Art of Living foundation, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Claiming to possess mystical knowledge and the ability to cure illness and solve problems, godmen inspire remarkable fervor in their millions of followers. But with their rise has come a slew of criticism over the true intentions behind this perceived divinity, fueled in recent decades by their grandiose lifestyles and immense wealth. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, head of the spiritual organization Dera Sacha Sauda, is another self-styled spiritual guru revered by millions. His group has ashrams across 10 states and union territories in India and claims to have 60 million followers worldwide. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh addressing at the premiere of his movie MSG-2 in Gurugram, India, on September 16, 2015 Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times/Getty Images He is also a convicted killer and rapist. In 2017 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping two of his followers. Two years later, he received a life term for the murder of a journalist who exposed the sexual abuse of women within his group. Despite the severity of his crimes, Singh maintains a cult-like following. The rape conviction even sparked riots by his supporters that left 36 people dead and hundreds injured across northern India. Since then, Singh has been granted parole multiple times, once even walking out of prison to attend his own birthday party, raising allegations of impunity for these holy men. “They have deep connections with the political machine… and it’s deeply problematic,” Nanda, the author, said. The furor over Singh’s case was reminiscent of violent skirmishes that broke out in 2013 after the arrest of guru Asaram Bapu for raping a 16-year-old girl. He was convicted five years later and given a life sentence for the crime. Asaram Bapu accused arrives on a wheel chair for a court hearing on May 2, 2016. Sunil Verma/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images Famous followers Many godmen are also known for their philanthropy, praised for building schools for the impoverished and developing infrastructure in small villages – and they also attract millions of people to small towns across the country. Sathya Sai Baba’s followers, for example, included the US actor Goldie Hawn and Hard Rock Cafe founder Isaac Tigrett. When the guru died in 2011, Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar openly wept at his funeral, which was also attended by India’s prime minister at the time, Manmohan Singh. More often than not, the most devout of their followers come from the lower middle classes, but millions in donations also stream in from foreigners, Indians living abroad, and the richest of society. While Sathya Sai Baba’s appeal was – in large part – due to a certain level of mystique, other godmen, including Singh, are more outspoken, carefully using the media to fuel their rise. “There is an entire media structure that supports and promotes them,” said Kalyani, the sociologist. “There are dedicated channels like Astha or Sanskar TV which have dedicated time to show their preachings.” As authorities investigate the organizers of last week’s event for alleged negligence, Bhole Baba, who left the event in an armored vehicle, is not being pursued by authorities. Many of those affected by the tragedy are angry. “This is not a real (godman),” said Surendra Singh, whose wife was a devout follower of the guru, and died in the tragic crowd crush. Speaking to India’s largest news agency, ANI, Bhole Baba, appearing forlorn, said: “This incident has left me distraught.” “Mischief makers and anti-social elements responsible for the stampede will not be spared.” Referring to himself by his birth name, he added: “May the praise of Narayan Sakar Hari resound forever throughout the universe.” Aishwarya S. Iyer contributed reporting
Was it Jesus or the devil looking out for Trump today.... I mean.... we're talking centimeters here. Or was it just dumb luck? If it was.... he's one lucky mofo. But we already knew that back in 2016.
It was a combo of both, I think. Sprinkle in a bit of conspiracy theory about staging right before the Republican National Convention, and I think we're close to the truth.
hey OT... since you're here Ya know I can appreciate your sentiments about people that put other people on ignore... but I truly have never had an opinion on that.... but when people do that and then attack the person they put on ignore behind their back under the safety of ignore... and yes we can all see those posts when we're not logged in of course.... but in the bigger picture of things... imo at at least, this is the quintessential manifestation of cowardice. Tell your buddy Darc to grow some balls or stfu. Once you put someone on ignore, a real man would limit the extent of mentioning the ignoree's name only in the context of "I have him/her on block/ignore." Your boy Darc is not only a troll, but a pussified one at that. I'll have a word with @Baron. I already had him banned fro my other thread.
He's not "my boy" in that sense. He has always had a weird fascination about me. I think of him as a sticky bit under my shoe. He did have another message for you I believe. Let me check my notifications... Here it is, from the "QQQ to 500" thread. "...I study Stock trading too, as my Posts show. But will make my fortune in Market Direction trading. One of the top Stock picking rules is don't look for low P/E Stocks as a Retail Trader, particularly Day and Swing trading. Give me 6 months to focus on Stock trading solely and I'd wipe the floor with Van. Tell him that please."
Yeah I know lol. His weird fascination... is rooted in just being plain weird. A kid at his parents' house. But whatever. Who cares.