Should This ‘Pastor’ Be Charged With Assault?

Posted by | January 11, 2015 18:30 | Filed under: News Behaving Badly Top Stories


As Dr. Peter Venkman said in the film classic Ghostbusters, “I’d call that a big ‘yes’.” (At least in this writer’s opinion.)

It seems some knuckledraggers believe that nothing works quite as well as beating the all-powerful love of Jaaaayzus into a kid. Raw Story provides the disgusting details:

A pastor at the Bible Baptist Church in Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey is coming under fire after his church posted a video of him claiming to have converted a “smart aleck” youth by “punching him in the chest as hard as I could.”

Pastor Eric Dammann begins by saying that he met a young man in Calgary named “Ben,” who was “a nice kid, but one of those — he was a real smart aleck. He was a bright kid, which didn’t help things — made him more dangerous.”

“We were outside one day at youth group,” Dammann continues, “and he was just trying to push my buttons. He was just kind of not taking the Lord serious [sic].”

“So I walked over to him and went BAM! Punched him in the chest as hard as I could. I crumpled the kid. I just crumpled him.”

“Then I leaned over and said, ‘Ben, when are you going to stop playing games with God?’ I led that man to the Lord right there,” he concludes.

Is it just me, or is there a sorta kinda pattern emerging that suggests that ultra-fundamentalists in the various “Western” religions see physical violence as one of their core values? Just sayin’…

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Copyright 2015 Liberaland
By: dave-dr-gonzo

David Hirsch, a.k.a. Dave "Doctor" Gonzo*, is a renegade record producer, video producer, writer, reformed corporate shill, and still-registered lobbyist for non-one-percenter performing artists and musicians. He lives in a heavily fortified compound in one of Manhattan's less trendy neighborhoods.

* Hirsch is the third person to use the pseudonym, a not-so-veiled tribute to journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, with the permission of his predecessors Gene Gaudette of American Politics Journal (currently webmaster and chief bottlewasher at Liberaland) and Stephen Meese at Smashmouth Politics.

80 responses to Should This ‘Pastor’ Be Charged With Assault?

  1. burqa January 11th, 2015 at 18:42

    OP: “Is it just me, or is there a sorta kinda pattern emerging that suggests that ultra-fundamentalists in the various “Western” religions see physical violence as one of their core values?”

    It’s just you committing the logical fallacy of trying to argue from the particular to the general in order to satisfy a bias one hopes you outgrow.

    In a country of over 300 million people, most of who are believers of one faith or another, there will always be kooks to be found among them.

    To answer the question in the headline, yes. This clown I never heard of should be charged with assault and child abuse.

    • Glen January 11th, 2015 at 23:16

      If he’d said it was true of all people of those religions, I’d agree that he was trying to argue from the particular to the general. What he said was that there was a pattern suggesting something specifically about the ultra-fundamentalists – a very specific subset within the religious spectrum. He’s comparing people like this “pastor” to recent activities by muslim terrorists, to the inquisition, to the crusades, etc. The belief that violence is an acceptable path to “god” seems to be a common thread amongst the ultra-fundamentalists, despite all of their religions pretty much eschewing violence except in self-defence.

  2. burqa January 11th, 2015 at 19:42

    OP: “Is it just me, or is there a sorta kinda pattern emerging that suggests that ultra-fundamentalists in the various “Western” religions see physical violence as one of their core values?”

    It’s just you committing the logical fallacy of trying to argue from the particular to the general in order to satisfy a bias one hopes you outgrow.

    In a country of over 300 million people, most of who are believers of one faith or another, there will always be kooks to be found among them.

    To answer the question in the headline, yes. This clown I never heard of should be charged with assault and child abuse.

    • Glen January 12th, 2015 at 00:16

      If he’d said it was true of all people of those religions, I’d agree that he was trying to argue from the particular to the general. What he said was that there was a pattern suggesting something specifically about the ultra-fundamentalists – a very specific subset within the religious spectrum. He’s comparing people like this “pastor” to recent activities by muslim terrorists, to the inquisition, to the crusades, etc. The belief that violence is an acceptable path to “god” seems to be a common thread amongst the ultra-fundamentalists, despite all of their religions pretty much eschewing violence except in self-defence.

  3. fancypants January 11th, 2015 at 18:48

    ‘ bible thumping ‘ at its finest

  4. wpadon January 11th, 2015 at 18:48

    Sucker punches for Jesus.

    • FatRat January 12th, 2015 at 11:09

      You are right, it just wasn’t a fight it was an assault. It was flat out a religiously motivated attack. Charge the dude with a hate crime.

      • m2old4bs January 12th, 2015 at 11:10

        Couldn’t agree with you more

  5. fancypants January 11th, 2015 at 19:48

    ‘ bible thumping ‘ at its finest

  6. wpadon January 11th, 2015 at 19:48

    Sucker punches for Jesus.

    • FatRat January 12th, 2015 at 12:09

      You are right, it just wasn’t a fight it was an assault. It was flat out a religiously motivated attack. Charge the dude with a hate crime.

      • m2old4bs January 12th, 2015 at 12:10

        Couldn’t agree with you more

  7. edmeyer_able January 11th, 2015 at 18:52

    He was a bright kid, which didn’t help things — made him more dangerous
    ————————————————————————————————————–
    Why do so many people fear knowledge, the taliban fears Malalla, santorum calls college educated people elitists, and now this db.

    If there’s evidence of an assault I hope he’s charged.

  8. edmeyer_able January 11th, 2015 at 19:52

    He was a bright kid, which didn’t help things — made him more dangerous
    ————————————————————————————————————–
    Why do so many people fear knowledge, the taliban fears Malalla, santorum calls college educated people elitists, and now this db.

    If there’s evidence of an assault I hope he’s charged.

  9. Bunya January 11th, 2015 at 19:00

    LOL! I guess he one of those who believes in “beatin’ the 10 commandments” into those godless kids.

  10. Bunya January 11th, 2015 at 20:00

    LOL! I guess he’s one of those who believes in “beatin’ the 10 commandments” into those godless kids.

  11. Tim January 11th, 2015 at 19:30

    Well. The kid was a smart aleck…

    • red-diaper-baby 1942 January 12th, 2015 at 11:11

      Tim, you’d better add the /s. There’s a lot of religious zealots and other “conservatives” out there who would say this with a straight face.

  12. Tim January 11th, 2015 at 20:30

    Well. The kid was a smart aleck…

    • red-diaper-baby 1942 January 12th, 2015 at 12:11

      Tim, you’d better add the /s. There’s a lot of religious zealots and other “conservatives” out there who would say this with a straight face.

  13. tracey marie January 11th, 2015 at 19:31

    A grown man proud of the fact that he “crumpled” a child. He needs to be charged and the parents need to lose custody of this kid. They did nothing to help their child.

    • Candide Thirtythree January 12th, 2015 at 03:01

      I guess the kid was lucky that that bible baptist did not follow the bible…death was the prescription for disobedient children in the bible.

    • rg9rts January 14th, 2015 at 10:18

      Pi t t y , p u m , d e l a y e d , T A G !!!

  14. fahvel January 11th, 2015 at 19:31

    any one who takes the lord seriously has some serious problems – like this mfkr preaching slime.

  15. tracey marie January 11th, 2015 at 20:31

    A grown man proud of the fact that he “crumpled” a child. He needs to be charged and the parents need to lose custody of this kid. They did nothing to help their child.

    • Candide Thirtythree January 12th, 2015 at 04:01

      I guess the kid was lucky that that bible baptist did not follow the bible…death was the prescription for disobedient children in the bible.

    • rg9rts January 14th, 2015 at 11:18

      Pi t t y , p u m , d e l a y e d , T A G !!!

  16. fahvel January 11th, 2015 at 20:31

    any one who takes the lord seriously has some serious problems – like this mfkr preaching slime.

  17. Suzanne McFly January 11th, 2015 at 19:44

    This guy better watch out Tucker may want him excommunicated.

  18. Suzanne McFly January 11th, 2015 at 20:44

    This guy better watch out Tucker may want him excommunicated.

  19. KABoink_after_wingnut_hacker January 11th, 2015 at 21:03

    All cults are prone to violence.

    • burqa January 11th, 2015 at 21:33

      Violent people find all kinds of things to excuse their violent impulses. Some use religion, some use nationalism, some use imperialism, some use racism, some use atheism. The all-time record for mass murder is held by the communists of the 20th century when they implemented their attempts to bring about a utopian, atheist society.
      In about 72 years they killed more people than in all wars of recorded history added together.
      100 million.

      • Bunya January 11th, 2015 at 22:22

        “The all-time record for mass murder is held by the communist…”
        Sorry, but whether you like it or not, Atheists exists. And, to quote you, “there will always be kooks to be found among them, “

        • burqa January 12th, 2015 at 18:21

          Yes indeed.
          I am pleased we agree that we should differentiate between the kooks and the rest. If we are not going to pin the mass murder of 100 million people by atheist commies on other atheists, we should not pin the Inquisition, Crusades or persecution of American Indians on Christians today.
          I look forward to not seeing you make that argument again.

          • Bunya January 13th, 2015 at 15:37

            They why did you bring it up? If you want to trash Atheists while at the same time whine about the persecution inflicted on the poor Christians by the evil posters at here Liberaland, expect some backlash.
            .
            And if you can’t handle it, you can always grace Bill O’Reilly’s site with your presence. He’s always looking for new recruits to fight against the infidels in his imaginary “war on Christians”.

            • burqa January 14th, 2015 at 16:40

              I was agreeing with you, particularly since you have learned the principle I’ve been trying to express for quite some time now.

              I have been handling it, thank you, by replying in my own way, expressing my own opinion, often supported by historical facts. I’m pretty good on history. I have been here many years and do not intend to leave, sorry.

              Plus, if I were to leave, you wouldn’t be able to learn more from me about the lazy-minded use of stereotypes. One hopes you will take my challenge and google up your local interfaith council and a half dozen or so local churches and get back to us on the things they are up to. When one discovers one is surrounded by thousands of people busting up a phony stereotype, it is easier to abandon it, when there are so many real-life examples close at hand.

      • Glen January 11th, 2015 at 23:39

        Two things.

        1. They weren’t communists. Despite their talk, they were socialists. They never intended on giving up the power once it was held by the state. Communism decentralises the power. And it wasn’t that they wanted an atheist society, it was that they didn’t want the religions to have power, because power that the religions had was power that they (the socialists) didn’t have.

        2. Your claim about number of people “they killed” is wrong, because you attribute every death connected to their actions across the years to a generic “them”, and then compare it to specifics as though that sets a “record”. But beyond that, World War 2, which was started by an occult person, with the support of the Catholics, alone resulted in the deaths of at least 60 million people, and possibly as many as 85 million people. In that fight, you’ll recall, the “communists” of the USSR fought on the same side as the US and Britain. Even if you combine together the two big socialist countries, USSR and China, and merge their activities during their most violent times (most of the USSR’s life, as well as China under Mao), you still only get to 69 million, whereas WWII alone was likely more than that, all of which (if you view it from the perspective of the one starting the war as being responsible for all deaths) can be attributed to Nazi Germany, which was most certainly neither communist nor atheist in any way.

        Also, atheism can’t be “used” in the way that religion can. This is because atheism has no doctrine, no unifying belief or property, no institution. It is, by nature, unorganised, because it is nothing more than a descriptor. There’s nothing to fight for, there’s nothing to kill for, and there’s certainly nothing to die for. One can “die for christ” or “die for christianity” or “die for mohammed” or “die for zeus”. There’s nothing there to die for in atheism. Perhaps you confuse atheism with anti-theism.

        • burqa January 12th, 2015 at 18:18

          1. Oh they were communists alright. It’s pretty well accepted that Lenin and Mao were communists, and so were the rest.

          I got it from the extremely well-received THE BLACK BOOK OF COMMUNISM Crimes, Terror, Repression, Edited by Stéphane
          Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Margolin, (Harvard University Press, 1999)
          https://archive.org/details/TheBlackBookofCommunism10
          What I am repeating is quite well documented.

          2. The stat on the numbers they killed is accurate. If anything it is low, because they do not include massacres that took place they could not get numbers for. Many of those are mentioned in the book

          USSR: 20 million
          China: 65 million
          Vietnam: 1 million
          North Korea: 2 million
          Cambodia: 2 million
          Eastern Europe: 1 million
          Latin America: 150,000
          Africa: 1.7 million
          Afghanistan: 1.5 million
          The international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power: 100,000

          https://archive.org/stream/TheBlackBookofCommunism10/the-black-book-of-communism-jean-louis-margolin-1999-communism#page/n11/mode/2up

          It is suggested to read at least through page 16. The comparison with the Nazis is made, including a nice quote from Rudolf Hess about how the Nazis copied the Soviet commies.

          I would be interested in your source that claims the Nazis killed 85 million people.

    • rg9rts January 14th, 2015 at 10:15

      Only thing missing was taking up a collection

  20. KABoink_after_wingnut_hacker January 11th, 2015 at 22:03

    All cults are prone to violence.

    • burqa January 11th, 2015 at 22:33

      Violent people find all kinds of things to excuse their violent impulses. Some use religion, some use nationalism, some use imperialism, some use racism, some use atheism. The all-time record for mass murder is held by the communists of the 20th century when they implemented their attempts to bring about a utopian, atheist society.
      In about 72 years they killed more people than in all wars of recorded history added together.
      100 million.
      Regarding the final panel of your cartoon, many of the “infidels” were people of faith. They didn’t use rocks to hit their victims in the head. Famine was a favored tool because they could kill millions in a short period and bring the rest to heel.

      • Bunya January 11th, 2015 at 23:22

        “The all-time record for mass murder is held by the communist…”
        Sorry, but whether you like it or not, Atheists exists. And, to quote you, “there will always be kooks to be found among them, “

        • burqa January 12th, 2015 at 19:21

          Yes indeed.
          I am pleased we agree that we should differentiate between the kooks and the rest. If we are not going to pin the mass murder of 100 million people by atheist commies on other atheists, we should not pin the Inquisition, Crusades or persecution of American Indians on Christians today.
          I look forward to not seeing you make that argument again.

          • Bunya January 13th, 2015 at 16:37

            They why did you bring it up? If you want to trash Atheists while at the same time whine about the persecution inflicted on the poor Christians by the evil posters at here Liberaland, expect some backlash.
            .
            And if you can’t handle it, you can always grace Bill O’Reilly’s site with your presence. He’s always looking for new recruits to fight against the infidels in his imaginary “war on Christians”.

            • burqa January 14th, 2015 at 17:40

              I was agreeing with you, particularly since you have learned the principle I’ve been trying to express for quite some time now.

              I have been handling it, thank you, by replying in my own way, expressing my own opinion, often supported by historical facts. I’m pretty good on history. I have been here many years and do not intend to leave, sorry.

              Plus, if I were to leave, you wouldn’t be able to learn more from me about the lazy-minded use of stereotypes. One hopes you will take my challenge and google up your local interfaith council and a half dozen or so local churches and get back to us on the things they are up to. When one discovers one is surrounded by thousands of people busting up a phony stereotype, it is easier to abandon it, when there are so many real-life examples close at hand.

      • Glen January 12th, 2015 at 00:39

        Two things.

        1. They weren’t communists. Despite their talk, they were socialists. They never intended on giving up the power once it was held by the state. Communism decentralises the power. And it wasn’t that they wanted an atheist society, it was that they didn’t want the religions to have power, because power that the religions had was power that they (the socialists) didn’t have.

        2. Your claim about number of people “they killed” is wrong, because you attribute every death connected to their actions across the years to a generic “them”, and then compare it to specifics as though that sets a “record”. But beyond that, World War 2, which was started by an occult person, with the support of the Catholics, alone resulted in the deaths of at least 60 million people, and possibly as many as 85 million people. In that fight, you’ll recall, the “communists” of the USSR fought on the same side as the US and Britain. Even if you combine together the two big socialist countries, USSR and China, and merge their activities during their most violent times (most of the USSR’s life, as well as China under Mao), you still only get to 69 million, whereas WWII alone was likely more than that, all of which (if you view it from the perspective of the one starting the war as being responsible for all deaths) can be attributed to Nazi Germany, which was most certainly neither communist nor atheist in any way.

        Also, atheism can’t be “used” in the way that religion can. This is because atheism has no doctrine, no unifying belief or property, no institution. It is, by nature, unorganised, because it is nothing more than a descriptor. There’s nothing to fight for, there’s nothing to kill for, and there’s certainly nothing to die for. One can “die for christ” or “die for christianity” or “die for mohammed” or “die for zeus”. There’s nothing there to die for in atheism. Perhaps you confuse atheism with anti-theism.

        • burqa January 12th, 2015 at 19:18

          1. Oh they were communists alright. It’s pretty well accepted that Lenin and Mao were communists, and so were the rest.

          I got it from the extremely well-received THE BLACK BOOK OF COMMUNISM Crimes, Terror, Repression, Edited by Stéphane
          Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Margolin, (Harvard University Press, 1999)
          https://archive.org/details/TheBlackBookofCommunism10
          What I am repeating is quite well documented.

          2. The stat on the numbers they killed is accurate. If anything it is low, because they do not include massacres that took place they could not get numbers for. Many of those are mentioned in the book

          USSR: 20 million
          China: 65 million
          Vietnam: 1 million
          North Korea: 2 million
          Cambodia: 2 million
          Eastern Europe: 1 million
          Latin America: 150,000
          Africa: 1.7 million
          Afghanistan: 1.5 million
          The international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power: 100,000

          https://archive.org/stream/TheBlackBookofCommunism10/the-black-book-of-communism-jean-louis-margolin-1999-communism#page/n11/mode/2up

          It is suggested to read at least through page 16. The comparison with the Nazis is made, including a nice quote from Rudolf Hess about how the Nazis copied the Soviet commies.

          I would be interested in your source that claims the Nazis killed 85 million people.

    • rg9rts January 14th, 2015 at 11:15

      Only thing missing was taking up a collection

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