Be sure that sin will find you out

[Sojourner]

Moral decay and sexual perversion finds it home anywhere large groups of adult sinners are present and parents shirk their responsiblity for guarding, guiding, and educating their children.

Sports teams
Boy Scouts
Girl Scouts
public schools
private schools
orphanages

Churches filled with non-believers

Why are we surprised when sinners sin and then try to hide their sin?

The sin and coverup are not surprising. But many issues could be prevented if those in authority acted responsibly. One example is the failure of church leadership in the case of a daycare volunteer who molested a 3 year-old boy. To add insult to injury, they denied responsibility. Despite claims of proper background checks, the culprit had been previously dismissed over allegations of improper behavior at two other churches. There should be some kind of blacklist database available to churches to prevent a child predator from finding new hunting grounds. Closer scrutiny and a more thorough security check could then employed. The safety and well-being of children is worth a little extra effort. In this particular case, the illicit acts, as well as others were caught on unmonitored security cameras over the course of several months. Clearly preventable. And this is one case of many.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — NewSpring Church is taking no responsibility over a sex abuse scandal involving one of its former church daycare volunteers and a three-year-old boy.

Responding to a lawsuit by a Berkeley County mother and 3-year-old "John Doe" over unwanted touching by former volunteer Jacop Hazlett on three occasions, NewSpring states that the incidents were beyond the church’s control.

“Such criminal act was not intended or directed by (NewSpring) and could not be foreseen by (NewSpring),” the megachurch states in its response to the lawsuit. “NewSpring performed a screening process that included a criminal background check that showed no prior records."

Hazlett, 28, was arrested Nov. 27, 2018, after authorities and church leaders received complaints of Hazlett sexually abusing a 3-year-old boy at the North Charleston mega-church campus.

Hazlett is now charged with 14 counts of first and third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor. Hazlett admitted to the assaults, according to North Charleston investigators.

He had been volunteering at NewSpring Church for nearly eight months when the abuse was discovered.

The lawsuit against the church states that the church failed to supervise and monitor Hazlett, leading to the abuse.

"Hazlett was able to isolate the three-year-old and sexually abuse him inside the church," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit states the church failed to monitor some 40 video cameras that showed the abuse, adding that the church relies on volunteers to monitor the security cameras.

"The surveillance cameras from NewSpring Church recorded Hazlett's sexual abuse of John Doe on at least three occasions and recorded many other children being sexually abused over the course of many months, which gave the church and its employees and volunteers numerous opportunities to witness the abuse and to prevent it," the lawsuit states.

The church's response is that when a concern was made about Hazlett, videos from multiple rooms were immediately reviewed.

“NewSpring immediately notified law enforcement, took steps to prevent Hazlett from volunteering in any capacity, and continues to fully cooperate with law enforcement’s ongoing investigation,” the church states.

Additionally, the church states that:

    Since it operates as a non-profit, its liability in this case is limited by the “South Carolina Solicitation of Charitable Funds Act.”
    Since Hazlett was a volunteer, the church’s liability in this case is limited by the “Volunteer Protection Act of 1997.”
    The church is not liable for punitive damages.

The lawsuit against the church sought expenses for medical treatment related to emotional distress, anxiety, as well as existing and future medical treatment for the boy until he turns 18 years old.

NewSpring was served with an additional lawsuit from seven families earlier in February.

According to the lawsuit, between 2011-2014, Hazlett volunteered at two churches in North Carolina and was asked to leave from both positions due to "concerns about his behavior around children."

"Upon information and belief, when Hazlett arrived at NewSpring, the church did not contact (either church) for a reference," that lawsuit states.

The church has not yet responded to that suit.

https://abcnews4.com/news/local/lawsuit-newspring-church-denies-all-responsibility-in-volunteer-sex-abuse-scandal

[RabbiKnife]

Churches should not be engaged in commercial activity.

And, churches should not be engaged in activity that separates a child from its parents.

If a mother is truly a single mother through no choice of her own, the church should help her find a job wherein she can work for pay at home and keep her child with her, with the church subsidizing that if necessary.

And, she should find a male believer and get married and they should raise the child together.

[Oscar_Kipling]

quick question, i keep seeing people talking about moral decay, do you folks think child sex abuse and such is new at this scale? Additionally, if not what is new, i mean corrected for like population/oppoutunity?

[RabbiKnife]

Nothing new under the sun.

Pervs have been perving since time immemorial... Just didn't hear of it in ancient societies because it was either completely accepted (the Greeks) or the fathers just killed the pervs and no one ever found the pieces.

Simply that with technology the dissemination of claims/reports of sin are more prevalent and more widely distributed.

[Athanasius]

quick question, i keep seeing people talking about moral decay, do you folks think child sex abuse and such is new at this scale? Additionally, if not what is new, i mean corrected for like population/oppoutunity?

I've always taken a lot of the moral decay talk to mean decay with reference to some believed Christian standard from ~70 years ago (thinking back to 1950). The problem, of course, is that these problems existed then, but as others have said, knowledge was suppressed, church congregations, leaders, etc., abused their authority, and injustice prevailed, etc.

The difficulty with such proclamations is that you have "the West is in the throes of moral decay because of gay marriage!" paired against Catholic church sex abuse scandals, or SBC sex abuse scandals, or evangelical leaders that are involved in sex abuse scandals. There may very well be a moral decay - and I don't doubt there is, or at least, I'm not a believer in progress necessarily - but it's everywhere, and where the non-religious fixate on religious scandals, the religious gloss over it because... I don't know, they're evil and stupid (and yes, people who abuse children, or take sexually take advantage of women, are evil).

[Sojourner]

quick question, i keep seeing people talking about moral decay, do you folks think child sex abuse and such is new at this scale? Additionally, if not what is new, i mean corrected for like population/oppoutunity?

Immorality and crime have been around as long as mankind, and moral decay in and of itself is not new. The internet however is a game changer that has only been in widespread usage for around 40 years. In that time, bad actors have used the internet to create the online porn industry, facilitating global porn addiction (including child porn), online sex trafficking industry, targeted cyber crime, including industrial hacking, RAT's, ransomware, spoofing and phishing, the feeding of gambling addiction with online gambling websites, banking fraud, and for the communication and coordination of nefarious groups and organizations. (These are only the ones that come to mind at the moment). These industries generally pander to and exploit prurient interests and addictions to the detriment of society, and did not exist 50 years ago. So, I think it's safe to say there has been an uptick in moral decay in recent times.

[IMINXTC]

So. I have for a long time worried more about wolves in church than I have about a transgendered sexual deviate out there in the world, which is cause for concern, but, I already know the world is evil.

[Oscar_Kipling]

Nothing new under the sun.

Pervs have been perving since time immemorial... Just didn't hear of it in ancient societies because it was either completely accepted (the Greeks) or the fathers just killed the pervs and no one ever found the pieces.

Simply that with technology the dissemination of claims/reports of sin are more prevalent and more widely distributed.

Interesting, So if i understand you correctly it's more that we are much more aware of the scope and scale of decay that has always existed?

[Oscar_Kipling]

quick question, i keep seeing people talking about moral decay, do you folks think child sex abuse and such is new at this scale? Additionally, if not what is new, i mean corrected for like population/oppoutunity?

I've always taken a lot of the moral decay talk to mean decay with reference to some believed Christian standard from ~70 years ago (thinking back to 1950). The problem, of course, is that these problems existed then, but as others have said, knowledge was suppressed, church congregations, leaders, etc., abused their authority, and injustice prevailed, etc.

The difficulty with such proclamations is that you have "the West is in the throes of moral decay because of gay marriage!" paired against Catholic church sex abuse scandals, or SBC sex abuse scandals, or evangelical leaders that are involved in sex abuse scandals. There may very well be a moral decay - and I don't doubt there is, or at least, I'm not a believer in progress necessarily - but it's everywhere, and where the non-religious fixate on religious scandals, the religious gloss over it because... I don't know, they're evil and stupid (and yes, people who abuse children, or take sexually take advantage of women, are evil).

I assume you mean you aren't a believer in moral progress necessarily? Do i understand you correctly in that you believe that non-believers are disproportionately fixated on religious scandals in comparison to say income inequality or climate change etc or just that non-religious people are less likely to ignore scandals within religious communities?

[Oscar_Kipling]

quick question, i keep seeing people talking about moral decay, do you folks think child sex abuse and such is new at this scale? Additionally, if not what is new, i mean corrected for like population/oppoutunity?

Immorality and crime have been around as long as mankind, and moral decay in and of itself is not new. The internet however is a game changer that has only been in widespread usage for around 40 years. In that time, bad actors have used the internet to create the online porn industry, facilitating global porn addiction (including child porn), online sex trafficking industry, targeted cyber crime, including industrial hacking, RAT's, ransomware, spoofing and phishing, the feeding of gambling addiction with online gambling websites, banking fraud, and for the communication and coordination of nefarious groups and organizations. (These are only the ones that come to mind at the moment). These industries generally pander to and exploit prurient interests and addictions to the detriment of society, and did not exist 50 years ago. So, I think it's safe to say there has been an uptick in moral decay in recent times.

Interesting, Do you believe that opportunity to engage in immoral activity with  diminished risk of social stigmatization or legal punishment corrupts people? For example perhaps 50 years ago if one wanted to view pornographic films they would have had to go to a public theater and risk being seen by other members of the public. Does it matter if one behaves in a moral way due to fear legal and social repercussions as opposed to behaving morally because they wish to live and behave morally for its own sake?

[Athanasius]

quick question, i keep seeing people talking about moral decay, do you folks think child sex abuse and such is new at this scale? Additionally, if not what is new, i mean corrected for like population/oppoutunity?

I've always taken a lot of the moral decay talk to mean decay with reference to some believed Christian standard from ~70 years ago (thinking back to 1950). The problem, of course, is that these problems existed then, but as others have said, knowledge was suppressed, church congregations, leaders, etc., abused their authority, and injustice prevailed, etc.

The difficulty with such proclamations is that you have "the West is in the throes of moral decay because of gay marriage!" paired against Catholic church sex abuse scandals, or SBC sex abuse scandals, or evangelical leaders that are involved in sex abuse scandals. There may very well be a moral decay - and I don't doubt there is, or at least, I'm not a believer in progress necessarily - but it's everywhere, and where the non-religious fixate on religious scandals, the religious gloss over it because... I don't know, they're evil and stupid (and yes, people who abuse children, or take sexually take advantage of women, are evil).

I assume you mean you aren't a believer in moral progress necessarily? Do i understand you correctly in that you believe that non-believers are disproportionately fixated on religious scandals in comparison to say income inequality or climate change etc or just that non-religious people are less likely to ignore scandals within religious communities?

I mean that they're more likely to keep thinking about a given religious scandal and draw conclusions from that scandal that don't follow. For example, that all priests are child molesters, that all of the Christians within a given congregation knew about the abuse and are horrible people for not saying anything, that this is definitive proof that religion is definitely evil and evil, etc.

[Oscar_Kipling]

quick question, i keep seeing people talking about moral decay, do you folks think child sex abuse and such is new at this scale? Additionally, if not what is new, i mean corrected for like population/oppoutunity?

I've always taken a lot of the moral decay talk to mean decay with reference to some believed Christian standard from ~70 years ago (thinking back to 1950). The problem, of course, is that these problems existed then, but as others have said, knowledge was suppressed, church congregations, leaders, etc., abused their authority, and injustice prevailed, etc.

The difficulty with such proclamations is that you have "the West is in the throes of moral decay because of gay marriage!" paired against Catholic church sex abuse scandals, or SBC sex abuse scandals, or evangelical leaders that are involved in sex abuse scandals. There may very well be a moral decay - and I don't doubt there is, or at least, I'm not a believer in progress necessarily - but it's everywhere, and where the non-religious fixate on religious scandals, the religious gloss over it because... I don't know, they're evil and stupid (and yes, people who abuse children, or take sexually take advantage of women, are evil).

I assume you mean you aren't a believer in moral progress necessarily? Do i understand you correctly in that you believe that non-believers are disproportionately fixated on religious scandals in comparison to say income inequality or climate change etc or just that non-religious people are less likely to ignore scandals within religious communities?

I mean that they're more likely to keep thinking about a given religious scandal and draw conclusions from that scandal that don't follow. For example, that all priests are child molesters, that all of the Christians within a given congregation knew about the abuse and are horrible people for not saying anything, that this is definitive proof that religion is definitely evil and evil, etc.

oh idk about that, I bet there aren't many people that believe that all priests are child molesters when pressed, maybe closer to "Many priests are child molestors, therefore any priest could be a child molester, therefore I am distrustful of priests" also doesn't quite follow or at least does especially apply to priests, but it is something I actually have seen quite a bit when I press people...rarely have I run across people that actually lump everyone into a group when pressed, and weirdly when I have its usually in the political realm.

Do you think that this effect that you have described here is due to religious people not taking these things seriously enough or non-religious people being especially critical of religion or some mix of each...iow are non religious people just as likely to draw unwarranted conclusions about science or political issues as they are about religious issues, but religious people are less likely to express warranted conclusions regarding religion so it creates a greater contrast in this area.


Huge tangent here but I've been thinking about moral decay alot, and pornography especially AI generated pornography. While I understand that lusting in one's heart is frequently the sinful aspect of pornography consumption (or at least some people seem to think so), does lusting after people/entities that do not/cannot, have never and never will exist as in the case of ai generated pornographic actors or imaginary beings made entirely of orifices change anything in your mind? That is to say is there some fight of fancy that is far enough divorced from the reality of sex that one could derive sexual pleasure from it without crossing a moral line or is it the seeking of sexual pleasure for its own sake the sin? idk you are totally free to ignore without comment this absurd thing that was floating around in my head and i'll completely understand.

[RabbiKnife]

I'll refrain from comment on the last part because I can't get my head around it either!!!

Reminds me of the scene between Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock in Demolition Man!  All you need is a magic helmet, I suppose!

As to the attitudes of people, and of course this is all anecdotal, but I do see an increased rise in animosity toward any religious express from non-religious folks.

And, having defended (successfully) a Catholic priest in a sexual assault civil lawsuit almost 20 years ago now, I can tell you even then that there was a vociferous, angry element of the public that believed then (and I hate to think about now) that all Catholic priests were homosexual and pedophiles.

[Oscar_Kipling]

I'll refrain from comment on the last part because I can't get my head around it either!!!

Reminds me of the scene between Sylvester Stallone and Sandra Bullock in Demolition Man!  All you need is a magic helmet, I suppose!

As to the attitudes of people, and of course this is all anecdotal, but I do see an increased rise in animosity toward any religious express from non-religious folks.

And, having defended (successfully) a Catholic priest in a sexual assault civil lawsuit almost 20 years ago now, I can tell you even then that there was a vociferous, angry element of the public that believed then (and I hate to think about now) that all Catholic priests were homosexual and pedophiles.

Haha, but how do the 3 shells work is the real question. Not to belabor a point that you specifically avoided, I can see the argument for sin with the helmet as it is still about interacting with another person, but we are running full speed at a future where computers will be able to simply hallucinate media where there is no other person and there never was and this is the area i'm interested in really.

I definitely saw a huge uptick in criticism of religion during the late 00's through the mid 10's sort of spearheaded by the "new atheist movement" as some people called it. Though it didn't rise up out of a vacuum and the sex abuse scandals played a huge part in that as well as the rise of evangelical influence in right wing politics, not for nothing it was in many ways a reaction to how religion was being cynically wielded by both religious and political institutions. I believe there was a high water mark, It was never a monolith (what ever is right?) but there was a splintering where folks that tended toward hyperbole seemed to have gone in one direction (usually more political) and those more susceptible to nuance another (youtube essayists lol). Even at its height though, again when really pressed I rarely found anyone that was willing to claim without exception that all christians/catholics/priests were -Insert bad thing here-. To me this makes sense because even on blatantly white supremacist forums its pretty rare to find anyone that will lump all minorities together as a monolith without exception...not that these things don't happen but its pretty rare and I suspect that many of the times that I have run across it it had more to do with people not admitting that they were holding an unsustainable view due to ego or emotion or spite. 

Again though, i'm not sure this really gets at the heart of what I meant to be asking, that is do you believe that non-religious people tend towards these sorts of overgeneralizations/hyperbole of religious people more than they would some other group like police or the rich? I tend to think that you are as likely to get ACAB as you are to get "all priests are rapists" in the relevant contexts. For instance if all you ever knew about me was what i've posted to religious forums you would probably think that I'm especially focused on the failures of religion even though I've probably written hundreds of times more content on the failures of technology than anything else, but context you know? Additionally even if the non-religious are more likely to be more critical of failures of the religious is this out of proportion to religious people's tendency to minimize the failures of religion...iow once you correct for the massive influence and history of religion and how it is distributed in populations that also have freedom of speech is this just the same ratio you would expect from any other groups that have disparate beliefs/values.

As a sort of aside, do you believe that Christians or Christianity spends a disproportionate amount of time and energy on the failings of the non-religious, personally I feel like its pretty intrinsic to the kind of thing that Christianity is that it must be especially oppositional to irreligion and many other religions, but that tends to be pretty transparent to many Christians because they often think of it as "loving" or merely the "truth". Is it conceivable to you that some of the perceived special negative focus on Christianity is people merely attempting to carve out space for themselves in a culture that is predominated by Christianity...i.e many of your issues and concerns will be water related if you live in a lake?

[RabbiKnife]

I don't disagree with your last premise.

In general, I think the church has wasted centuries and trillions telling people they are sinners instead of just loving Jesus, living such remarkable lives that the non-religious ask "why are you so happy," and then sharing the reason why.

When the church beats the non-religious in the head with a stick, it is no wonder that people strike back and try to carve out a zone for themselves.