[Rheaflames's comment]
Has anyone ever heard of Heartland Homes for Children in Missouri? I was sent there when I was 15 by my born-again fundamentalist christian father. I wasn't there for long; my aunt and my mother flew out from Oregon and literally broke me out of the compound. In my time there, I witnessed atrocities that you couldn't even imagine. Well, maybe you could... Imagine a huge pit dug into the earth. Filled with manure, rotting cornstalks and afterbirth from cattle. Now imagine it filling with children who didn't want to accept "god" into their hearts. Imagine a five year old who couldn't sit still during bible lessons being beaten by a grown man with a paddle the size of phone book. Imagine one of your 'housemates' being taken off medications for leukemia because 'god' would save her...and her going to the doctor and not coming back.
37 comments
This would indeed be an atrocity if it happened, but I would caution people not to react with a knee-jerk response unless this stuff can be verified. It's certainly not unbelievable, but it does sound extreme.
@whatever-
I googled it, and while I didn't find nearly as much as on other homes like Hepzibah House, there's certainly enough there to support these allegations. Nothing about the manure pit, but plenty about other abuses.
Anon-e-moose: I bought Jesus Camp a few years ago, along with Hell House . Those two documentaries screwed up my dreams for a few nights.
I have seen nothing in my 20 years in the Pagan community that even comes close to the insanity forced upon children by the christian fundamental ists. Not even a little.
Those fuckers are scary.
"We're skeptics!"
*obvious bullshit*
"OMG, it must be true!"
@kittykaboom
Manure pit? I call BS; the whole point of a home like this is to instill purity and make the children clean.
The beatings are, of course, lifted straight from the Hepzibah House, whose founder is in the top 100 for a very good reason, but he would more likely recommend a scalding hot bath than a manure pit.
Not sure why this is quoting a comment and not just a part of the article itself. There's plenty there, and it's a bit more verifiable. Like the police raiding one of these "schools" and finding handcuffs and solitary confinement rooms. But I mean, I guess it was the 80's. They were probably just jealous of all the ritual abuse they thought the satanists were doing.
I wish this was BS, but it isn't. You can check with the Missouri Dept. of Social Services. Criminal charges relating to the use of manure pits were filed in 2001.
If you go back through the decades to the documented practices at these camps and homes you'll find that being made to dig large pits, being left to stand in pits too deep to climb out of, etc., is a common feature. "Pit of hell" symbolism, I guess.
I'd recommend the Kidnapped for Christ film.
@angrycatholic: And when pagans have their own child-abusing camps and schools, along with tacit state support and a several-century record of atrocities, you might have a point. Until then you're just a particularly snotty troll.
I'd like to call bullshit, sure, but we've seen worse, haven't we? The paddling is par for the course, sure, and we had a quote just, what, last month about a family on trial because they refused to take their sick kid to the doctor because 'god would heal him'. Oh, the pit seems outlandish, but what isn't on this site? The Hepzibah House showed me some of these people will do anything because they know they can't be wrong because they're doing it for god.
@angrycatholic
We're not talking about being a smug asshole about your religion, we're talking about the indoctrination and, there's no better word for it really, torture of children.
@1799492: You may want to practice those rusty reading skillz on the title of this blog. It mocks fanaticism, not religion in general.
This is horrific. Anyone who thinks Chri-stains aren't capable of violence ought to check out the "troubled teens" industry--the collective body of "homes" like this, Hephzibah House, and the Roloff homes that practices child abuse the likes of which could make some Muslim extremists blush.
@1799455, @1799488
It's not so obvious whether or not it's a fake (and it likely is real, contrary to what I might have hoped) when you learn about the "troubled teens" industry and its abusive practices as a whole.
@1799492
We're okay with paganism just as we are okay with Christianity. In other words, insofar as it doesn't descend into lunacy or bigotry (I call the Christians that do this "Chri-stains"), we are not opposed to Christians or pagans in the general case.
The manure thing is true. The founder of the facility brags about it in this aricle:
www.people.com/people/archive/article/0 ,,20060839,00.html
"Over the years, child welfare authorities have intervened at Heartland,
Those places are fucking horrific and need to be closed down as soon as possible. It reminds me of Scientology, but done on a much larger scale, to children and teenagers, and considered semi-acceptable in society.
@Snoogins
As LBC Radio presenter Nick Abbot would say:
image
'I hate being right all the time.'
I refer everyone to the documentary film "Jesus Camp". Indeed, KittyKaboom; at least what one sees in the "Saw" & "Hostel" films are just visual effects. Yet, "Jesus Camp" is infinitely more terrifying. Because you know what is happening - and to kids no less - is real .
Do not underestimate the more than infinite evil of right-wing Fundamental ist Christains. ALL of them. No Exceptions.
@TimeToTurn:
There is definitely a link to Scientology - I've done a lot of research on these groups because I lost a bunch of good friends to an organization related to Scientology (called est, or Landmark, or the Forum, or a whole host of other pseudonyms). Some of these camps came directly out of Scientology, or Landmark, or Lifespring (another Large Group Awareness Training organization). These Christian camps seem to have used the Scientology-related camps as a basis and just added the extreme fundamentalist religion parts because the methods used by Scientology/est work well with anything authoritarian.
@JeanP
Fucking Missouri, right? query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504E5D81F3EF936A15751C0A9609C8B63
The article I originally linked was a piece in People magazine from 2006. If you read the whole article it does present the situation from both sides. The sad thing is that the founder of this madhouse seems proud he sounds like a cartoon villain.
@Snoogins
> http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0 ,,20060839,00.html
...
Well, now that I have the rationale behind it, and an independent source, I retract my call of BS.
I wish I didn't have to do that.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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