153 thoughts on “Reader Submitted Photo: Social Media”

    1. Quote: “Social networking is obviously evil”

      1. The concept of “social networking” was examined in the 2010 movie “The Social Network”
      2. “The Social Network” is about the start-up of Facebook
      3. Facebook was started by Mark Zuckerberg
      4. Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed by the actor Jesse Eisenberg
      5. Jesse Eisenberg stared in the movie Zombieland
      6. Zombieland is a zombie comedy, produced in 2009, that also stared Woody Harrelson
      7. Woody Harrelson lives on a self-sustaining community and his neighbors is Willie Nelson
      8. Woody Harrelson and Willie Nelson both advocate legalizing marijuana

      Social networking makes you smoke pot.

      1. Would it be wrong to say that I wish most IFB pastors smoked pot regularly. Might have a really hard time staying so angry if they got baked.

        1. The only downside I could think of would be their lack of moderation(how often have we heard “It’s all or none!). Too much for too long makes one paranoid, especially when there are other mental issues present.

        2. Might make for more interesting church potluck suppers.

          See what I did there?

  1. My former mog railed against social network sites, but after I left many on his “insiders” kept tabs on me through FB.

    1. I still get some comments from time to time from ‘insiders’ so to speak. I now just ignore them. I think at first it might have been an issue, but at this point I’m pretty firm in my beliefs so the comments don’t bother me. Plus there is absolutely nothing they could do to me anymore.

      1. “there is absolutely nothing they could do to me anymore.”

        Isn’t that the best feeling in the world?

        1. Indeed! That was the thing that was hardest to let go of, but now that I have, the joy has been indescribable.

        2. I feel like there still is something they could do to me. There are a lot of connections with relatives and “friends of friends” and the backbiting, whispering, and false accusations could continue to cause people to leave our church or refuse to join. People continue to say on FB that my husband isn’t preaching the Bible.

          I’m don’t want to be scared, but I worry about paying the bills. (And, yes, my husband and I are both willing to take on another job, but our area is very economically depressed so jobs are scarce.)

        3. We also are not safe from the “fundies”. They continue to try and damage our church. Start rumors that are not true and try to take members from our church. All of this while they pretend to be so innocent.

          Even though my family has no contact with them they have continued their attack on us for months.

        4. PW and fmx, Such things only have sway amoung the fundies. The lost aren’t touched by that crap, they just need Jesus. There also other Bible believing churches out there… unless fundy seperatism is still plagueing you… :mrgreen:

    2. Social network sites weren’t around when I was under the curse of your former MOG. Blogs were, and I know for a fact that he had a “spy” checking the content of my blog every day. He then called my Father in Law into his office and pulled out a “file” of information on me to warn my FIL. The end result is that no family member of mine attends that church any more. 😆 At one time, there were probably thirty family members of mine that attended regularly.

      1. Keeping “files” on church members?? Is that like the dreaded PERMANENT RECORD in school? Creepy!

        1. Oh, you’ve never had that? They’ll print out everything you ever said they object to, plan out an ambush, sometimes one on one, sometimes with multiple people voicing lots of complaints and just hammer away. Fundies are absolutely the best at telling you you are the problem.

        2. Yes, it was a literal file. Basically his minion would print out anything on my blog that was critical of him (or directly contrary to his teaching, whether it mentioned him or not) and he put it in a manila folder. God casts our sins as far as the east is from the west, but J___ M____ puts them in a file drawer.

        3. “God casts our sins as far as the east is from the west, but J___ M____ puts them in a file drawer.”

          That is hilarious!!

          If they tried to do that to me, I’d print off their quotes (and my comments mwahaha) from my blog and have them give an explanation for them. That’d be interesting.

      2. All I’ve got to say about that is, praises to your father-in-law and the rest of your family for not giving in to that bully.

        1. I once blogged about something degrading our assistant pastor’s wife said about her family in front of my daughter. I never called the woman’s name. That week, her husband confronted me with a printed copy of my blog and asked me how in the world I could say what I did about his wife. I responded, “Shouldn’t you be asking why in the world your wife said what she did about you and your family?”
          I don’t know what bothered me more – that someone had “ratted me out” or that he was more upset that someone was actually calling his wife on her BS.
          This same woman told the kids in the youth group that she created a false FB page just to keep tabs on them. Yes, she’s slightly paranoid – and more than slightly crazy. 🙄

    3. About three years ago when we first went to my fundy church, the preacher was on a no-facebook streak. BLASTED it, it was sooooo horrible and bad and wicked. My dad tried to get all of us off of it (didn’t work).

      Now? The college students are allowed to have it (with moderation of course). It suddenly isn’t so bad. I just can’t wait for the day the church gets a facebook page *eye roll*

      I wouldn’t care, except he blasted it to oblivion just a bit ago. Typical fundy behavior….

  2. Ok, and if you’re going to go to the trouble of having something printed off, could you at least proof-read it? “For others, it is a considered a profound and deadly threat…” and “And the danger it is not limited to … “

  3. This is ridiculous! Social networking is a way to keep in contact with friends and family that you can’t see in person.

  4. I’m going to assume whatever law enforcement has to say about social media is to be careful of stalkers and predators. Pretty common sense stuff, but there’s tons of people that have to be told that for some reason. LOL

    It sure looks like they teach 2 punctuation marks @ HH: the period, and the ellipsis. If it doesn’t need a period, but needs something, put the ellipsis in there! They seem to think it has the punctuation versatility that others ascribe to the F bomb in vocabulary.

    So according to HH, Twitter & FB are evil, but beating girls so that their entire back from shoulders to knees are bruised is good. Always good to gauge what their scale of good & evil is.

  5. What are… ellipses… And what impact… do they have… on proper sentence structure… We interview home-school teachers… students… and administrators.

    1. NICE! You accidentally hyphenated a word, and I think you meant to ellipsinate it! 🙂

  6. Ha. Ridiculous stuff. Not surprising coming from Hepzibah House. I remember the first time I saw one of their pamphlets…it was one on the evils of pants and miniskirts. Even as a teenager their idiocy was obvious. The “scriptural” proof against pants was the verse “God is not slack concerning his promises.” Therefore slacks on women are evil. I kid you not.
    Good photo submit. Helps us know we are not crazy about the hyper-fundies being crazy.

    1. “God is not slack” = no pants on women?? Well, I’ve heard everything now. 🙄

    2. Wat.

      Seriously? Because I’m sure in the original Greek, those two words (pants and “slack”) are also homophones.

    3. God is not slack

      Slack = not tight
      Not tight = loose
      Loose = harlot

      If you wear pants you are a harlot.

      goodness it’s as plain as the nose on your face

  7. “A profound and deadly threat.” Bah.

    What FB is is a tool. You can use a hammer to build a house or to hit someone in the head. The problem isn’t the hammer; it’s the sinfulness in the person’s soul causing them to do evil with it.

    But then, it is a profound and deadly threat if you’re trying to hide in the shadows, trying to pretend to be Godly when you’ve been abusing people instead. Funny thing is … my Bible says that Godly people don’t fear the light but go to it so their deeds may be seen. (I had to throw in the ellipses.)

    1. I’ve heard people rail against Facebook (and the Internet in general) before, but like you say, they’re tools. They aren’t evil any more than any tool is. A knife isn’t evil on its own. Even if you use it to commit an evil act like stabbing someone, the knife still isn’t evil. YOU are. I don’t get why this is so difficult for people to understand.

      Obviously there’s potential dangers in the Internet, but there’s dangers in using a stove or driving a car. You just need to be aware of them so you can avoid them. You wouldn’t stick your hand on a hot stove; similarly, you shouldn’t post things like your name and address for public view!

    2. Social media is basically a big party-line telephone where everybody yaks away. Like any other phone, you can use it to promote good, to do evil, or just to waste time chattering.

      My aunt, who is a school administrator, sometimes tells worried parents, “When we gave children crayons, they drew dirty pictures; and when we gave them dictionaries, they looked up dirty words. Computers and the Internet are no different, and just as with anything else, children need adult supervision when they use them.”

      1. That actually sounds more like what the posted link says than the flyer. If the contents of the DVD are anything like the PDF, social media is not nearly as dangerous as the flyer hints. I think the flyer is hype to grab attention and promote sales. Personally, I think its sketchy but pretty much like a lot of advertising in general these days.

        As people on here and the writer of the article said, there are pros and cons. People need to weigh them and decide if its worth it. For me, the benefits of being able to keep in touch with people I can’t see on a regular basis still outweigh facebook’s wanton disregard for personal privacy. Though I personally would like to clock someone for not being able to block that new ‘question/poll’ feature.

    3. How dare you imply that evil comes from the human heart!!! Everyone knows that evil is something external that makes us unclean!!!!

    4. I love how definitions change over time. When I read that you said FB is a tool, my first thought was that whoever wrote that flyer is a tool! 😆 And that’s not a nice thing to be when you’re a person!

    5. YES, pw, YES YES!! You’ve hit the nail on the head again.

      Just like movie theaters aren’t bad, unless you’re using it to be bad (watch obscene movies, etc etc you get the idea).

      They’re making the symptoms the cause.

  8. Oh the conviction…the mighty ache in my heart as I read this…guilty as charged…I confess…I am a improper user of elipses…I use them often without remorse….forgive me my brothers and sisters…

    1. They seem to have outdone you by miles (except in this post). I count at least 3 punctuations they switched to ellipses. Commas, parentheses, and dashes. I’m sure if they had more space & copy to put out, they would’ve used for a colon, and other punctuations as well. LOL

  9. From the link-this is the best quote: ” I can research “the teleological suspension of the ethical,” sublapsarianism or the varroa destructor mite online without a time-consuming trip to a library”

    What does that even mean!!!???

    1. Oh, sublapsarianism … my favorite!

      Basically … when the Calvinists ran away to Switzerland … and discovered nobody around disagreed on the subject of election … they decided they needed something to argue about … and kill their time with … since nobody was trying to kill them over TULIP … so they started formulating theories on WHEN God specifically chose the elect. … Was it before Creation … or maybe after Creation, but before the Fall … or maybe it was a backup plan after the Fall?

      So yeah. I actually don’t remember which sublapsarianism is. A quick Google search (or a decent command of Latin prefixes) can probably sort it out for you. The other two are supralapsarianism and infralapsarianism.

    2. Varroa destructor mites are parasitic mites that infest honeybees and leave too few healthy for their hives to survive. It’s a huge problem for crops that need honeybees to pollinate them, and for beekeepers who produce honey. Sublapsarianism? No clue.

      1. Aww, c’mon, I just explained it for you in completely readable and understandable elipse-ical terms!

        Kind of.

        1. Sorry, my eyes glazed over in the midst all those ellipses. Oh…Before, During, or After. I get it, sort of. A search through on-line dictionaries was completely unhelpful.

  10. “Privacy is no longer a relevant social norm.”
    – Mark Zuckerberg

    I registered under a false name on Facebook, because I didn’t quite get the concept of being totally open on the Internet.

    I don’t think Facebook or Twitter are particularly evil. However, Twitter does look like something straight out of Brave New World, and the above quote from Zuckerberg is something sinister. It seems that at the moment, many foolish people use Facebook, not realizing that what they post on it doesn’t exist in a bubble.

    1. I still have two Juno email addresses from when I was a young lad. Only check them like once every couple of months these days. I dig gmail!

  11. So, who is going to order it so they can tell us what kind of garbage is on it?

    1. I did a youtube search, in hopes of someone having already done it, and was disappointed.

    1. I cracked up at this.

      I don’t know how anyone with a working brain can fall for this stuff.

  12. Of COURSE Hepzibah House is against “social media”; Someone might get a Facebook or Twitter account and post pictures of some of the abuse that takes place there.

    F-word them.

    1. My parents used to listen to their radio show every week (Saturday night). HH’s social phobia has been around for years. I still remember the guy saying “You teenagers don’t need friends. All you need is your parents.” So, since FB lets you “friend” people, it had to be evil and unnecessary, as it takes the womenfolk away from sewing culottes and ankle skirts.

      1. my parents so believed that we didnt need friends, just family. I would get a hard lecture any time I asked to spend time with friends about how I loved my friends more than my family. After I graduated from HS, my parents completely shut the door to the outside world and built a compound. Now they can’t figure out how to find anyone to marry the remaining kids at home since they know absolutely no one.

        1. My mom was like that too. If I asked to go out with friends, it had to be because I was plotting something evil. Granted, that was usually a pretty accurate guess, but still.

        2. I am so fortunate my parents weren’t remotely like that. Since we were homeschooled, they chose to go out of their way to make sure we had friends and things to do. I can’t imagine what life is like in those super-isolated families.

  13. If you act now, you will receive their pamphlet on the evils of fax machines…along with one explaining how email will usher in the Antichrist. (for a limited time only)

  14. Social Networking…with names such as Facebook and Twitter…is considered by some the greatest communication tool in the world. For others…it is a considered a profound and deadly threat to the family and the Church

    Translation: It allows our victims to get together outside the realm of our control and compare notes and expose our abuses.

    If you can’t control it… attack it!
    (gratuitous ellipsis)

    1. You’re right. I believe they do have a survivor page on there.

      Ron is doing some sweeping.

    2. You’d better believe it. All these IFB teen gulags have been steadily outed as social networking has grown. It was blogs first from the HH girls, calling out to find survivors of HH. And then Facebook. These young ladies, a lot of them, knew only the first names of the girls with whom they were incarcerated.

      When I interviewed HH survivors for the audio documentary, one of them asked me if I would put on the documentary a request for such and such a girl (first name), and her description, and when she was there, asking her to make contact. It was very difficult to listen to, as clearly they had helped each other in that dreadful place and couldn’t find each other. I added that sound clip to the documentary, but right before I was ready to publish it, the sought-for young woman found the HH Facebook site, and she and her friend were reunited. I took otu that particular sound clip, as Facebook had made it obsolete. YAY!

      But you bet Ron Williams is afraid of Facebook and social networking. There goes his secrecy and bully pulpit.

  15. Don beat me to it, but yes, the infamous Hepzibah House. I’ve been reading a lot lately about them and the survivor’s stories.

    Seems social networking should be the least of their worries.

        1. It’s a good listen, but fair warning: You will lose sleep for at least a couple of days with those stories haunting you!

      1. Yep, listened to it the other day. I encourage everyone to listen to it.

        Those poor girls, and the hell they went through is just awful.

        1. I don’t understand – why haven’t Child Protection Services closed this down? Why haven’t past inmates sued them into extinction? I know it would be hard but surely at least one set of parents must have been outraged?

  16. Yet another example of how EVERYTHING must be spiritualized in fundie land, no common sense allowed. Woe to the person who pipes up with “Umm, even non-Christians know that social media can be misused and they didn’t need the Bible to come to that conclusion.” Same with the rules at BJU, instead of saying, “hey its a sizable campus with a lot of people, so here are some rules to keep things moving smoothly” everything had to be tied to scripture, even when there was no scripture to tie a rule too, the mental gymnastics annoyed me to no end. If only this mindset w

        1. Oooooh, I like that and second it! Shoes is the Kerri Strug of mental gymnastics! 😀

  17. George, quit pushing the submit button before I finish my thought!
    If only this mindset was limited to the schools, but no, proof texting and other gymnastics thrive in the fundie churches. Makes learning real hermeneutics challenging.

  18. I would respect them more if they weren’t using that tool of the devil – the DVD, which is associated in my mind with the godless productions of Hollywood – to distribute their message. If flannel board stories were good enough for the apostles, they’re good enough for me.

  19. Terry L Coomer – publisher of the nation’s fastest growing daily newspaper? And which one was that exactly? Talk about padding your qualifications.

    1. Yes, it’s the fastest-growing (or, in keeping with today’s theme … fastest … growing). It tripled its circulation to three subscribers last year.

  20. I’m confused about the first example given by Mr. Williams on the evils of the Internet. All he said the young man did was leave home at 18 (crosses fingers) and likes to wear black. He didn’t say he practices the occult.

    1. I noticed that, too. Apparently, the most egregious example of the dangers of social media is that looking at Facebook (or some other network) influenced the lad to wear black clothing. Shocking, indeed ❗

  21. Ya know, if Facebook and Twitter are the best examples of ‘profound and deadly threats’, then fundies are going to come apart like wet t.p. when faced with real persecution.

  22. The rest of my family is still in the Fundy camp. One of my sisters asks me to let her use my facebook whenever I’m visiting so she can look at pictures of our cousins and stuff. Last time I was down there I asked why they just don’t get their own page. My mom was talking about how its full of dirty ads and indecent pictures on people’s pages. My brother (who is starting to question things) wryly commented that their pastor thought that facebook was bad. Apparently, he thinks that people can misrepresent themselves there. As opposed to anywhere else?

    Of further interest, their pastor was upset that someone had created a facebook page for his church. My mom asked me if I had anything to do with it. I didn’t but I found it funny and wish I had thought of it first. I looked up the group later and found that it is closed/invitation only so they are at least smart enough to protect themselves.

    I’m thinking that I shouldn’t let my sister use my profile any more. If its bad for them to have one, what’s different about using mine? Then again, maybe continuing would let me be that fundy-corrupting influence. 🙂

    1. “Apparently, he thinks that people can misrepresent themselves there. As opposed to anywhere else?”

      If you haven’t seen it, last year’s “documentary” (the jury’s still out on whether or not it was real) Catfish has some freakin’ scary things to say about personal misrepresentation on the interwebs…

        1. Ah, when I first read this, I thought you were refering to something from SFL. I took a quick look on Wikipedia and it sounds interesting.

          As a sidenote, before I knew what Wikipedia was I avoided it because I thought it had something to do with Wiccans. Curse my fundy upbringing!

        2. Yeah, I’ve heard of conservapedia recently. The idea makes me cringe though I admit I have never actually looked at the site.

  23. Anybody from Hepzibah House talking about the dangers of social networking is kind of like having Charlie Sheen complain about people who expose their personal lives.

  24. Social Networking
    Harmless Fun…
    Or Evil Communication?

    I love how there is no middle ground for the fundy. The whole world and everything in it is either black or white.

    You’re either for us or against us. Amen? :mrgreen:

      1. IAHB – Actually I am being FC (fundy correct). When one is pontificating or preaching and makes what in their mind is a valid point, that person asks for an “amen”. Those who are listening and properly indoctrinated will then reply with a hearty “HAY-Men”.
        So I guess we were both right since you responded with a “HAY-men”. :mrgreen:

    1. You know that gray is just a confusion of black and white — a “gray area” is just one in which your vision is clouded so that you cannot discern the black from the white…

      I heard my pastor 10 years ago say it…so it must be true…

      (ellipsenated for SFL)

  25. Re: Hepzibah House– our former pastor was big on this Ron Williams guy, and he came to speak more than once at our church. He would leave those tracts and pamphlets for us to distribute and read.

    One time I had been reading one of them, and finally couldn’t take it anymore. I took it to our pastor’s wife and asked if she and pastor thought that women wearing pants was a sin.

    She said “no”, and so I asked why we had tracts that said that, and why did we condone and endorse something we didn’t even believe? She just looked confused and stuff. Just shrugged. I have no idea if they ever pulled the articles.

    After Ron spoke to our congregation, I also remember walking to the back of the auditorium where I saw one of my good friends. He and I pretty much said the same thing at the same time: “That guy is SKETCH.” Both of us thought he shouldn’t be running any kind of home for children, let alone female children.

    Ron Williams: putting the mental in fundamentalism.

  26. Being the math teacher nerd that I am, when I saw the question, “What’s up with all the ellipses?” I thought he was referring to the ellipse shape. So I went back and only saw one ellipse. I was confused. It wasn’t till RobM’s post about the 2 punctutation marks that I finally understood. Then I got a good laugh.

      1. It is the math teacher connection! ‘Shoes’ where’s the link???

        I did the whole double-take and only counted one ellipse. I guess I’m pretty slow at this. Maybe I need to start a church…. 🙄

  27. The real problem here is that once again, the IFB has managed to make something that is inherantly neutral out to be evil while sidestepping the actual problem. The real problem is that people are communicating in ways that aren’t very Christlike, but if they talked about those kind of things, they might actually be forced to make changes in their own lives (not namecalling, not telling half-truths about those who leave, not slandering etc).

    Unfortuanately, they are so good at making up red-herrings to keep them from actually having to focus on real issues that matter to Christ that they won’t even see what is wrong with this type of documentary.

    Not to mention that this type of article is coming from a place that is known to physically abuse people, I believe that this is a perfect example of what Jesus meant when he said “you strain at a fly but swallow a camel.”

  28. Could one of the Bob Jones University apologists please explain why Ron Williams’ program still airs on WMUU?

    1. And while you’re at it, can you explain why anyone still listens to WMUU of their own volition?

      1. I’ll second that request. And do they actually have any advertisers? I would like to get a list of them, if they exist. FTR–fact I never understood even though I grew up at BJU is that WMUU is NOT a Christian radio station. They are in fact an “Easy Listening” or “Beautiful Music” station I learned that fact as I was grousing to a WMUU salesperson about why I never heard the name of Jesus mentioned or anything Christian in the mornings; whereas there was plenty of Christian edification on WYFG. All WMUU had was elevator music and dead space. The whole thing is a colossal waste of FM and AM bandwidth and my time as a human being. Except that it might be well worth my time and effort to get Hephzibah House off the air just as a matter of principle. And it might be worthwhile to ask BJU one more time if they actually stand on the side of the credibly accused child abusers. Just would like to know.

    1. I guess you send it to Hepzibah House to help it buy some new whips, chains, thumbscrews, etc.

      1. I’m surprised $15 (including shipping, handling & torture) is enough to pay the replenishing costs of those things! 🙂

  29. This:

    “What was only available in unsavory places before
    and after WWII, is now available to a twelve-year old in his bedroom by the click of a mouse.”

    Made me:
    1. Spit coffee onto my keyboard
    2. Wish I’d been around for the glorious days of Prohibition.

    This document is about as relevant and up-to-date as its reference to WWII.

  30. I’ll give them some credit for not listing Friendster, MySpace and Geocities as the major offenders.

  31. From the PDF
    “(The child) his priorities,
    interests and moral values will certainly not be those of his Pastor and Sunday School teacher.”

    Thank God! I was worried there for a second.

  32. We have a deacon who thinks FB is bad and scoffed at me when I said it was a tool, just like the internet itself, but the head deacon and his wife have their own pages. Too bad I unfriended all the church people for privacy, or I could keep tabs on them. 🙄

  33. Here’s my personal interaction with Fundies & social networking:

    5 years ago: If you have a MySpace, you are expelled from high school
    4 years ago: same as above & if Facebook, expulsion or a heavy dose of demerits
    3 years ago: If you have a Facebook with stupid/bad stuff, you will receive 50-75 demerits….or expulsion for bad stuff
    2 years ago: If you have a Facebook or Twitter, you must friend/follow the college account so we can monitor you
    1 year ago: Everyone has a Facebook & Twitter!
    Today: Like [insert college/church here] on Facebook & follow us on Twitter also! If you do, you have a chance to win a free T-shirt!

    1. It just goes to show how Fundies automatically hate everything that’s new and mainstream but then progressively realize that it’s not bad.

    2. excellent observations. the same formula could be used for the other issues like music, race, bible versions, dress standards, ad nauseum.

  34. WOW! Fear Mongering at its best! CLASSIC. This is exactly how IFB ruined music, style, and any type of social life for its people! SAD!!!

  35. Hephzibah House only cares about social media because sites like facebook are exposing HH. They are against anything that might take away their income and destroy their “ministry.” How dare those fb peeps defile the MOG!

  36. My “social networking” experience…

    People in my previous church would leave, and some would supposedly blog their negative things about the church. The pastor (MOG) would run them down from the pulpit, but I could never find any blog that mentioned the church. Anyway, having been a long-time drinker of the kool-aid, I believed everything that the MOG said…

    But then I began to wonder… I posted on a blog about some things I had questions with (not naming the church). But someone ratted me out, and I was blasted from the pulpit for so doing. Well, that was the beginning of the end.. we eventually left, taking my extended family and a few friends…

    Naturally, I was blasted again…

    I still have people I consider friends who go there, but they probably do not consider me their friend any longer…

    (ellipsisated especially for SFL)

  37. I live a matter of a few hundred feet from this place, and it saddens and disgusts me.

  38. When all your other silly, man contrived, illogical, minimally proof texted ideas fail- blame Facebook!

    but, then why listen to me? im the devil. 👿

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