The Religion Thread

[O Really]

History of Early custom car...
https://www.customcarchronicle.com/cust ... QRwp1xKjMU

[Vrede too]

I think someone at Mission to Amish People is guilty of compiling while drunk.

Amish Buggy Accidents 2018 (Page 1)

... JUNE 17, 2018

ELMA, N.Y. - The Erie County Sheriff's Office received multiple calls reporting a single vehicle crash on Route 400 South near Maple Street at 3:20 p.m. Saturday.

Deputies say a custom 1920 early model open top vehicle lost control and struck the safety rail causing the man operating it to be ejected from the vehicle.

Read More

History of Early custom car...
https://www.customcarchronicle.com/cust ... QRwp1xKjMU

Tragedy, but I wonder if he set a record for oldest - but not Amish buggy old - car involved in a fatal wreck. I searched:
“oldest car involved in a fatal crash”
“oldest vintage car involved in a fatal crash”
“oldest classic car involved in a fatal crash”

I found a couple of articles about someone wrecking their 1940 or so car and a couple about drivers in their 80s, but mostly got results for earliest fatal crashes. For example:

The First Car Accident

Car accidents are a sad fact of life. Every day thousands lose their lives in collisions, crashes and accidents. Though the car itself is a fairly recent invention, the first recorded accident involving them could have happened almost 300 years ago, depending on what your definition of a car is.

Though it looked nothing like the modern cars you see on the road today, the very first accident involving an auto-mobile is said to be one involving the creation of French inventor, Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot in 1771. Cugnot supposedly built the very first “self propelled mechanical vehicle” capable of carrying passenger.

… Cugnot holds the title of creating the first known auto-mobile that you could ride in. However, as noted in this Jalopnik article, Leonardo da Vinci beat everyone to the punch by two clear centuries in coming up with the basic idea of powered transport.

… it wasn’t until 1771 that Cugnot had a working prototype people could ride on. Cugnot then reportedly invited several French officials to join him on the maiden voyage. During the trip, the vehicle careened out of control and smashed into some unlucky person’s garden wall at a nail-biting 2MPH. However, some historians question whether this event actually happened, due to scant direct documented evidence.

To find a better documented accident, you actually need to travel 98 years into the future to 1869. On August 31st in the City of Birr in Ireland, Mary Ward, a scientist and writer had the unfortunate privilege of becoming the first known person to be killed by an auto-mobile. On that day, Mary and three companions were enjoying a trip on a steam powered carriage. While in motion, the carriage hit a bump, throwing Mary from her seat and into the path of one of the carriage’s wheels where she was crushed and instantly killed….

It would take until 1896 for the first fatal accident to occur on English soil whereas the first accident in the US occurred five years earlier than this in 1891. In the case of the former, the victim, Bridget Driscoll, was struck and killed by an auto-mobile going 4MPH. If you’re wondering how Bridget was hit by a raucous vehicle powered by explosions and fire travelling slower than most people walk, according to witnesses of the time, Bridget saw the vehicle “zigzagging” towards her and simply froze out of either fear or utter confusion, which resulted in her being unable to get out of the way.

As for the first accident to happen on American soil, this was decidedly less dangerous and ended with all parties leaving unharmed. The event occurred in Ohio in 1891 and it involved auto-mobile legend John William Lambert. The accident itself was the result of Lambert hitting a tree root and swerving out of control… If only he’d thought to invent power steering first.

So, in the end, there are two possible stories about the world’s first car accident; it’s either, “A lady was horribly crushed in front of her teenage cousin by the invention he created in 1869“, or “A Frenchman smashed into a large stationary object at 2 MPH in 1771 and walked away unharmed.” We really wish there was more direct evidence of the latter, because the first one is decidedly less humorous.

I thought about moving this to “The car thread …”, but since cars have been bringing people closer to their maker or so long, this thread is still apt.

Aside: My grandfather tried to teach my grandmother how to drive on some ridiculously wide, nearly empty Florida beach (Daytona?). She ran into another car. He never tried again and she never learned how to drive. They retired to then semi-rural Horse Shoe, North Carolina - neighbors, but nothing else in walking distance. Everywhere she wanted to go, he went.

[O Really]

"...some ridiculously wide, nearly empty Florida beach (Daytona?)"

Coulda been, but that long ago there would have been some other beaches that you could drive on. Now there's hardly any, but tourists still seem to put down their beach towels on top of tire tracks from time to time. Maybe the same ones that walk their chihuahuas off-leash in the swamp and take their Michigan-white skin out bare in the mid-day sun.

[billy.pilgrim]

Aside: My grandfather tried to teach my grandmother how to drive on some ridiculously wide, nearly empty Florida beach (Daytona?). She ran into another car. He never tried again and she never learned how to drive. They retired to then semi-rural Horse Shoe, North Carolina - neighbors, but nothing else in walking distance. Everywhere she wanted to go, he went.

Aside to your aside: My grandmother drove for about 10 years after learning to drive when she was 13 or 14, but she quit it all when they bought a new car with the accelerator on the floor. She never drove again.

[Vrede too]

Notre Dame Cathedral holds first mass since devastating fire, with attendees in hardhats



"hardhats"? What, no faith?

[Vrede too]

America’s Biggest Christian Charity Funnels Tens of Millions to Hate Groups
The National Christian Foundation passed along $56 million from anonymous individuals to nearly two dozen anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim hate groups over the last three years on record.

[1 CAT FAN]

America’s Biggest Christian Charity Funnels Tens of Millions to Hate Groups
The National Christian Foundation passed along $56 million from anonymous individuals to nearly two dozen anti-LGBT and anti-Muslim hate groups over the last three years on record.

readsludge.com needs to scam you out of a few bucks...

[neoplacebo]

I just the other day finished reading "The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church's Complicity in Racism" by Jemar Tisby. In May 1845 about 300 Baptist leaders representing nearly 400,000 churchgoers split from the national organization and formed the Southern Baptist Convention over the issue of slavery. I did not know that, but then again, I've never been a student of the politics of Baptist religion. The author relates some info about Jerry Falwell and Bob Jones relative to their respective attitude toward race; they don't come out looking too good. Billy Graham is also addressed; he personally took down rope lines separating white and black attendees at a Los Angeles revival in the 40's but he mostly gets a "meh" because he was mainly of the opinion that race was more a social issue than a religious one. His mostly silence on the issue led the writer to assign a degree of complicity to him. It all just goes to show that religion is relative to what you want it to be. Can I get a witness? Can I get a "yeah"? Can I get a "that's right'? Self righteous hypocrisy is what initially turned me away from religion as a child. I never looked back; nothing worse than self righteous hypocrites in the rear view mirror.

[Vrede too]

Ramen.

Supposedly immutable religion has ALWAYS adapted to the whims of modern economics, law, politics and prejudices, or lack thereof. Otherwise, its fossil adherents shrink into irrelevancy. Before long, overt bigotry against LGBTQs in the churches will be as reviled as overt racism now is.

[Whack9]

Amen

[O Really]

Those would have been two bad-ass mama bears. They would have been Syrian Brown bears. But that's still a really big crowd for only two bears to handle. Seems it would have been better to ask for tigers in the curse.

[Vrede too]

Some guys are sensitive about their hair loss.

[O Really]

Some guys are sensitive about their hair loss.

But wouldn't it have been God who took away his hair?

[Vrede too]

Amen

But wouldn't it have been God who took away his hair?

You'd think that a prophet would have seen it coming . . . or rather, going.

Why doesn't he ride the child-massacring bears? Would arrive sooner and no one would dare call him "baldy".

[Whack9]

Some guys are sensitive about their hair loss.

Ditto. But then I stopped caring. We all gotta get older right?

Plus, when a dude loses his hair and shaves his head it automatically adds ten pounds of muscle. And according to the Bible, the ability to summon bears to rid you of bothersom children on a whim

[1 CAT FAN]

Amen

But wouldn't it have been God who took away his hair?

You'd think that a prophet would have seen it coming . . . or rather, going.

Why doesn't he ride the child-massacring bears? Would arrive sooner and no one would dare call him "baldy".

Bears are sensitive about their hair loss too.

[Vrede too]

Teacher at Baptist school charged with sex assault, soliciting child porn from 2 students

BURBANK, Illinois ...

Police said 49-year-old Shannon Griffin was arrested on Monday after a month-long investigation.

Probably decades of victims.

Griffin allegedly engaged in sexual conduct with an underage student at Jordan Baptist School where she taught, and allegedly both sent nude photos and videos to that same student and another underage student at the school. She allegedly requested nude photos from the students as well.

Police said the inappropriate conduct began in 2013 and continued until March of 2019.

Griffin, who taught kindergarten, is charged with five counts of criminal sexual assault, one count of solicitation of child pornography, one count of distribution of harmful materials and one count of grooming.

Griffin was also once responsible for cracking down on the school's dress code.

"She would write me up and other girls and, like, how ironic that you're telling us how to dress, us how to be modest, and be Christian women, and you turn around doing the exact opposite," said Aparicio-Aramas.

It's almost not ironic any more. It’s exactly how so many Christian cons are.

... Griffin's husband is the pastor at Jordan Baptist School and her children are also employed there, police said....

They knew.

[O Really]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/ta ... ishers-say

Bibles made in China? Whodathunkit.

Religious publishers say President Donald Trump’s most recent proposed tariffs on Chinese imports could result in a Bible shortage.

That’s because millions of Bibles — some estimates put it at 150 million or more — are printed in China each year. Critics of a proposed tariff say it would make the Bible more expensive for consumers and hurt the evangelism efforts of Christian organizations that give away Bibles as part of their ministry.

Irony. Karma.

[1 CAT FAN]

There ya go, more jobs for the U.S.
Thanks for the concern.

[O Really]

There's a reason stuff is made in China, and tariffs aren't going to incent anybody to start producing bibles in the US. But I doubt a few dollars in additional cost is really going to "hurt the evangelism efforts..." Maybe instead of giving away whole bibles, they can give away American product Cliff's Notes, or better still give away a link to the dozens of places to view/download a bible for free.