Tag: religion

Former Mormon lifts the lid on church’s ‘creepy’ baptisms for the DEAD that sees children being put through ‘traumatizing’ ceremonies to ‘save’ those who have passed away

A former Mormon has lifted the lid on the church’s bizarre ‘baptisms for the dead’ – revealing the temple sent her to a cemetery to take pictures of gravestones as a kid and then forced her to participate in a ceremony for the deceased.

Alyssa Grenfell, 31, who now works as an assistant principle in Austin, Texas, was raised in a ‘devout Mormon family’ in Utah, but decided to leave the ‘controlling religion’ in 2017.

She has since dedicated her life to helping others ‘navigate their own way out of the LDS church’ – releasing her own ‘guide’ called How to Leave the Mormon Church, while also becoming a viral social media star for sharing her experiences online.

Most recently, Alyssa spoke out about a ‘creepy’ process that saw the group baptize people who have passed away – even if they weren’t members of the religion before their death.

In a video shared to her YouTube channel last week, where she has more than 85,000 subscribers, Alyssa announced: ‘The Mormon church is baptizing your dead relatives.’

She explained that members of the religion believe that ‘everyone must be baptized by the proper Mormon authority’ to move on to ‘Spirit Paradise’ when they pass away.

‘Essentially, when someone passes away, if they haven’t had the chance to receive a Mormon baptism, they’re not saved,’ she said.

‘So Mormons take the names of those who have not been baptized and take them to the LDS temple.

‘They also believe that it’s up to the person to accept or reject the baptism on the other side.

‘That’s why Mormons have no qualms about baptizing basically everybody against their will because they think everyone should have the chance to accept or reject it, and that the choice is left to them once the practice is complete.’ 

Alyssa explained that when someone living would get baptized, the priest would also baptize anywhere between five and 15 dead people at the same time.

And for each deceased person, the living person who is getting baptized must be dunked into the water, which meant they were sometimes going under ‘over and over again’ in quick succession.

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10-Year-Old Kids Denied Drinking Water In Class Because Of Three Muslims Observing Ramadan

Twenty Four children were told they could not drink water at a school in Germany because three other students in the class were Muslims observing Ramadan, according to a report.

The 10-year-old kids in Frankfurt were all denied drinking water due to the tiny minority fasting for the Islamic holy month.

German outlet NIUS, notes that the fifth graders informed their parents after two teachers at the school made the decision. 

One parent commented “At dinner, we always talk about how the day was. I asked my daughter what was new at school. She then told us that two teachers had forbidden the students from drinking in class because three of the 27 children were fasting.”

The teachers were reported to have prevented students from accessing the water dispenser in the hall or having water bottles on their desks.

But it gets weirder.

A father of one of the students noted “We found this announcement strange…the children in fifth grade are between 10 and 11 years old. Even for religious Muslims, the fasting requirement only applies from the age of 14.”

“The fact that 24 children have to take three children into consideration when it comes to basic physical needs, that’s a strange intervention,” he added.

The school has refused to comment on the claims, according to the report.

As Remix News notes, the incident occurred in the same German city, the only one, where Ramadan lights were installed last month.

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Hospital Pays Job Applicant Who Refused Mandated Flu Shot

A hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich., has agreed to pay a settlement to a job applicant who had been offered a position, but then was arbitrarily rejected because he declined to take a flu shot hospital officials demanded.

News of the settlement comes from Liberty Counsel.

The fight involved Trinity Health Grand Rapids, which previously was known as Mercy Health St. Mary’s. The resolution includes a consent decree that allows paying of some $50,000 to the worker who was rejected.

The case originally was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and charged the hospital improperly denied a job applicant’s request for a religious exemption to the flu shot.

The requirement for such shots later was dropped by the hospital, which agreed to train leaders on religious rights in addition to paying the settlement.

“According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, even though the hospital’s former flu shot policy allowed for a religious exemption, the hospital determined the applicant’s articulated religious beliefs were ‘insufficient’ to grant the exemption and denied it without an explanation. Trinity Health, which had made a conditional job offer to the applicant, then rescinded that job offer and did not give the applicant an opportunity to address the concerns with his request.”

The EEOC accused the corporation of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The report explained federal law insists that employers make reasonable accommodations for religious employees – unless those accommodations create an “undue hardship” on the company.

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Ex-SC church volunteer pleads guilty to felony child sex crimes. Gets no prison time.

A former South Carolina church youth volunteer will avoid prison but must register as a sex offender and wear a GPS ankle monitor for life after admitting to illegally touching children in crimes that spanned years, according to York County court records and lawyers in the case. William Pinckney Carpenter III, 64, of Chester, pleaded guilty Wednesday to four felony counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a child in a hearing at the Moss Justice Center in York for crimes that went from 2011 to 2021, documents show. Carpenter pleaded guilty to touching children over their clothes, said prosecutor Misti Shelton, 16th Circuit assistant deputy solicitor. The crimes happened when Carpenter was a church volunteer at two Baptist churches in Rock Hill and York, at a private home, and aboard a bus during a church activity, Shelton said. Judge Dan Hall sentenced Carpenter after agreeing to accept the negotiated plea and sentence deal made between Carpenter and prosecutors, said Shelton and Carpenter’s lawyer, Montrio Belton of Rock Hill. A 15-year prison concurrent sentence on each of the four convictions was suspended to probation as part of the deal, according to the lawyers and court documents in the case. A conviction can carry up to 15 years prison for each charge under South Carolina law. A plea agreement means the victims will not have to go through a trial where they would have had to publicly testify, and there is always a chance of a not-guilty verdict.

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The stories of the women accused of being witches must be told

THERE has been an increased interest in the Scottish witchcraft trials of the 16th and 17th centuries in recent months, with campaigns ongoing for an apology, a pardon and a national monument.

Much has been written about the numbers accused – about 3837 – the role of the Kirk and the courts, and the beliefs of both the church and the accusers. But what of the women who were accused? What was the experience of those taken in for questioning?

Those accused of witchcraft were predominantly women – 84%. They were Christian but also said to be practitioners of magic. These magical powers might have been innate, inherited from a mother or grandmother, or they might have been gifted by the fairies.

These powers could be used to help heal a sick child, find lost property or gain a husband. Those with a reputation for being a witch might well be tolerated within a community – and indeed welcomed by some – for a time until external pressures caused the community to turn against them.

The turbulence of the Reformation and the wars of the Three Kingdoms were the two main pressures communities faced at that time. For John Knox, the father of Scottish Calvinism, power was unnatural to women therefore any woman who had power could only have derived it from an evil source – Auld Nick, meaning the Devil.

With that mentality added to the command “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” in the King James version of the Bible, magical practitioners came under threat.

When an accusation was first made, these women were taken from their homes and dragged in front of the Kirk minister and elders to face an aggressive interrogation.

The moral leaders of their community castigated them as evil, wicked and in thrall to the Devil. Physically, there might be several men crowding round them, roaring and bellowing in their faces about their black, sinful soul. They were scared and disoriented – and expected to confess to the very worst of crimes. Torture might be used to force that confession.

Trial records note that accused women were tortured by “hanging them up by the thombes and burning the soles of their feet at the fyre”.

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‘Witch doctor’ sentenced to life for brutal attack on woman during ‘cleansing ritual’

A self-described “witch doctor” was sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting a woman during what he called a “cleansing ritual.”

Hassan Shalgheen, 45, was found guilty Tuesday by a jury in Georgia of rape, false imprisonment, theft by deception, battery and sexual battery for the February 2023 attack, and investigators say four other women later came forward to report similar experiences, reported WAGA-TV.

“Victims should not have to feel like they are alone when dealing with this type of crime,” said Gwinnett County district attorney Patsy Austin-Gatson. “We encourage people who have experienced such heinous crimes to come forward and we will get justice. We thank the team that worked on this case, and we thank the jury for returning a conviction.”

The victim met Shalgheen at his Duluth apartment to receive a “healing ritual to remove evil spirits,” for which she paid him a $200 deposit and agreed to make additional payments over 30 days, after booking an appointment through social media.

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Beheadings, crucifixions and heads on spikes: Inside Saudi Arabia’s ‘relentless killing spree’ of medieval-style executions – including 81 in one day – that has seen record numbers put to death under Crown Prince MBS

Brutal executions are on the rise in Saudi Arabia under the reign of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, with human rights activists calling the score of beheadings and crucifixions a ‘relentless killing spree’.

The Saudi authorities have killed hundreds in capital punishments since the Crown Prince’s tenure started in 2015, hitting a new milestone that Amnesty International said reveals the kingdom’s ‘chilling disregard for the right to life’. 

Despite bin Salman promising he would limit the use of capital punishments, the number nearly doubled since he took the throne, according to NGO Reprieve. From 2010 to 2014 there was an average of 70.8 executions per year but from 2015 to 2022 there was an average of 129.5 executions per year – a rise of 82 per cent. 

Last year, the kingdom carried out at least 172 executions, despite renewed promises from bin Salman to limit the scope of capital punishment. 

Saudi Arabia even beheaded 81 people in a single day in March 2022 as part of the 193 executions Amnesty International said were carried out in the country – despite authorities saying it had been just 147.

The majority of state executions in Saudi Arabia are still carried out by sword decapitation – sometimes followed by the crucifixion of the body as the heads are displayed on a stick – but there have also been reports of prisoners sentenced to death by stoning.

Beheadings are only carried out by Saudi Arabia and the Taliban and can be used for a variety of crimes including murder, apostasy (abandoning Islam), homosexuality, witchcraft or sorcery, and ‘waging war on God’.

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St. Louis Officials Condemn South City Swahili-Speaking Church that Caters to African Migrants After Woman Is Found Beaten, Bloody, and Tied with Ropes

A South St. Louis Church that caters to African refugees and migrants was shut down this week. City officials closed the church after a young woman was found beaten, bloody, and tied up with ropes. The victim said she was kidnapped by church officials.

The church caters to Africans who have resettled in St. Louis. Many of the congregants do not speak English but still speak Swahili.

As reported earlier – Three men were arrested this past weekend in St. Louis City after after a woman was found bound by ropes and bleeding from the head. The incident took place at Mount of Olives Ministry on Minnesota Avenue in the city.

The woman said she was held captive and was beaten by the men at the church. Inside the room police found a bottle of water and a bucket that had been used as a toilet.

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Frozen Embryos Are Now Children Under Alabama Law

Frozen embryos are “children” under Alabama law, the state’s Supreme Court says. Its decision could have major implications for the future of fertility treatments in the state.

Frozen embryos are “unborn children” and “unborn children are ‘children,'” Justice Jay Mitchell wrote in the court’s main opinion. Only two of nine justices dissented from the holding that an 1872 wrongful death statute applies to the destruction of frozen embryos.

The ruling seems to represent a turn toward judicial activism among members of Alabama’s Supreme Court, which for a long time held that the law’s text could not justify reading it to include “unborn children”—let alone frozen embryos.

It also portends a creeping Christian conservatism into court decisions, with Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker citing the Bible in his legal reasoning. In a concurring opinion, Parker justifies prohibitions on murder not by invoking classical liberal principles, like natural rights, but rather on the basis of “Man’s creation in God’s image” and the “you shall not murder” edict of the Sixth Commandment. “Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself,” Parker writes.

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Powerful LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign welcomes man they know is convicted PEDOPHILE to gala, after previously handing him prestigious award

A prominent North Carolina LGBTQ advocacy group welcomed a known-convicted pedophile to their gala – despite knowing about his criminal past. 

Chad Turner, 45, was one of the attendees at the February 10 Human Right Campaign annual event, called ‘Without Exception,’ that was sponsored by Bank of America.

HRC Press Secretary Brandon Wolf and Democrat State Senator Lisa Grafstein both spoke at the dinner that was held at the Le Meridien Charlotte. Turner was previously awarded an honor by the HRC, who refused to say at the time whether they knew of his child abuser past, Reduxx reported. 

Turner, a former youth minister, was accused by three boys of sexual abuse in 1998 when he was 20 or 21 years old. The victim he was convicted of attacking was 14 and woke up to find the predator fondling his genitals. 

He served only two years of a 10-year sentence for committing the lewd acts on a minor under the age of 16. After his parole, he was ordered to enroll in North Carolina’s sex offender registry.

Despite his criminal past, Turner, who is the Chief Executive Officer at the Carolina LGBT + Chamber of Commerce, has managed to become a prominent member of the Charlotte LGBTQ advocacy community.

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