Church’s Illegal Fighting Match Results in Death

The State of Oklahoma should come down hard on these folks.  Crazy.

As an Okie, I’m not surprised.  It’s a beautiful state full of nice people who also happen to mostly be brain washed nut cases. 

It’s not supposed to make kids into better Christians. It’s supposed to make the church look good by capitalizing on a popular activity. That’s what you get in a free market of religion like the U.S. has: churches evolve to reap greater market share much like organisms evolve to fit a niche better than their competitors.

I wonder if they give an award for academic achievement.  Or would they not want to encourage thought.

And then some fellow atheists are shocked when they find out some of their own are armed to the teeth and train with firearms frequently (guilty as charged).
If (when?) these assclown Christian maniacs start acting on their bloodlust fantasies, what are the rest of you going to do…use harsh language?  You can’t stop a bullet with hand-wringing and whiny debate.  There’s a strong pseudo-macho subculture of violence in many of these sects and we ignore it at our own risk.
YES, I recognize that the long-term solution is to educate future generations in logic and secular humanist values, but until this current generation of hateful, dangerous idiots dies out…lock and load.

Oh and @Miko
Ahh the gold old libertarian social darwinist position again. Sorry bud, but the organizers of events are responsible for the results those events. It’s funny how “personal responsibility” goes to all those but the people who organize and run things to some people. No the law is not “unjust”, it’s there to prevent deaths! And if you think preventing deaths is unjust, then well, your really not made to be in modern society, or frankly society at all. The church had every right to run the event, but they needed to comply with the law that says there should have been medical personnel there. 

Sorry, I’m trying to reply to Miko, but replies don’t seem to be working.

Am I the only one thoroughly annoyed they used an awesome Metallica song for the promo? What a disgrace to music!

A kid died from a boxing match held in a church? I can’t believe it!  It could only have happened if those boxers, coaches, referees and the crowd had forgotten to pray, otherwise everyone would have been safe. Oh, someone did pray? Satan must have crept into the ring and done this dastardly deed (my condolences for the kid and his parents for what they are going through).

There’s a huge difference between watching MMA fights and encouraging high school football players to “make big hits for the lord!”
Have you ever played football? If you have, you should know that making big hits are:
1) Not the best way to tackle an opponent
2) More often going to fail than not
3) Can result in serious injury
So, again, don’t compare teaching kids to glorify violence in sports to adults fighting in a much more supervised manner.

Yeah, it’s probably just you.
I’d write more, but the Baptist church down the street is having a gladiator film festival and I don’t want to miss a second …

Yet another WTF-SMH moment. What point are these Christian Nationalist “churches” trying to make with crap like this? Anyone…anyone…Bueller…Bueller…

And yet that’s almost nothing. Two years ago, a church in Arnold, MO – a bit south of St. Louis city, in Jefferson County – did an MMA-type service: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/article_8f388a89-e01d-5597-8a7a-22a82bff8942.html

Personally, I think pseudo-“sports” like MMA are sad, sad commentary about how fall society has fallen. The only story about MMA I want to see is the one about its’ demise (though I do NOT want to see a ban on it – that would only drive it underground). Again, strictly my opinion.

But what does that say about us, as a society, when these mega-“churches” promote crap like what happened in Tulsa and and in Arnold, MO (and, no doubt, elsewhere)?

I may not want to figure out what the answer is on that one…

As a result of the strict church-state separation churches have to finance themselves completely. The country is also ultra-religious with a ridiculous amount of churches even in small cities. So the competition for the finite amount of believers is very fierce. They’ll literally do anything to attract followers

 “Driscoll comes closest to imagining Jesus as the model of maleness when
he argues that “latte-sipping Cabriolet drivers” do not represent
biblical masculinity, because “real men”—like Jesus, Paul, and John the
Baptist— are “dudes: heterosexual, win-a-fight, punch-you-in-the-nose
dudes.” In other words, because Jesus is not a “limp-wristed,
dress-wearing hippie,” the men created in his image are not sissified
church boys; they are aggressive, assertive, and nonverbal.”

Nonverbal? Does that mean too ignorant to form a sentence?

In case it escaped your notice, this didn’t happen in a country that encodes nothing but your naive libertarian ideals.  In the real world, we’ve accepted that people can not be expected to have full and perfect information about a thing before being exposed to it, so we have laws that attempt to protect against the grossest abuses. 

These ‘fight clubs’ are illegal specifically because people die in them for stupid preventable reasons, not because there is a desire to have government act as a nanny for adults.  I hope they throw the book at the fight organizers.

Wait! What? How the hell is the different cultural definitions of “manhood” quantifiable? 

Please, what measurable criteria do you use to determine whose versions of “manhood” are more valid than others? Is it the amount of women they bed? The amount of respect of their peers? What formula do you use to calculate the differences between the football, and chess club subcultures. What humanistic definition says guys who wear leather jackets and ride motorcycles  and the girls who like them, are not as “correct” as pocket protector wearing Jetta drivers? Can you also quantify which is better to like, BMW’s or Trans Am’s?

Yours has got to be one of the most arrogant positions on subcultures around (because yes, you are arguing about subcultures within greater western culture). Unfortunately it’s far too common within the skeptics community. It’s the main reasons I don’t encourage the people I know to take part in the movement, this geek snobbery that looks down on anyone who is not exactly like them and their “chosen” clique, and declares themselves superior (such a religious idea, no?).

I have a feeling that just like religious people do, your “scientific” conclusions of what are the only valid displays of manhood, are strangely the same as your personal presences. 

Actually the only even close to rational way I can even think of within a naturalistic Darwinian frame to determine what versions of “manhood” are better than others would be the amount of genetic material each version allows you to spread. So unless your banging more chicks than (NY jets) Antonio Cormrtie, you loose.

If they’re handing out awards for the biggest football hit, do they have anything for the girls?  Or the boys who don’t play football?  Or who don’t play football in a position that’s likely to do much hitting?  Does the church also hold a swimsuit contest for the girls?

For each armed to the teeth atheist, there are 10 Christians armed to the teeth. You will lose, so your best bet is to prevent the situation escalating into violence.

They wish to perpetuate “traditional” gender roles; I see it here in AU. Hillsong has men’s conferences and women’s conferences. I assume they teach different things, else there wouldn’t be a need to segregate the attendees.

I can tell you that you’ve completely misunderstood my earlier post (whether that was because I didn’t express myself clearly or some other pre-conceived notion you might have – you certainly seem to have a clear idea that I’m some sort of “geek” stereotype…*)
The thing is, you can’t really say that this or that increases your “manhood,” since it’s so subjective and differs even within the same culture. Thus promoting some things as being “more manly” is basically an asinine endeavour.
Thus we can reject all claims that such and such make you “more of a man.”
And I’ve never declared myself superiour to anyone (although, naturally, I am in some areas, while others are more superiour to me in other areas – but that goes for everyone), so please lay off the stereotyping that you seem to rant against yourself.

* While I’m certainly geeky in some areas, I don’t think most people would judge me as such at first glance. I’m 6’6″, have played semi-pro offensive lineman for many years, yet have a professionally tested IQ in the genius range.

“In other words, because Jesus is not a “limp-wristed, 
dress-wearing hippie…” Wait, I thought that was exactly what he was. So all those people who have depicted him over the centuries have it all wrong?
The enclosed picture is then how Driscoll apparently sees Jesus…

So true, Nick!  That’s a very key point – not with every church, but certainly among those of this ilk.  

(Oooh, fun! I just used ‘ilk’ in a sentence lol)

Yep.  It’s marketing.

How is MMA a psuedo-sport?  That you don’t like it doesn’t make it invalid as a sport.  I don’t like it either, nor do I like football (either version), baseball or much of anything except for rugby – but I accept that they are all sports and that they all require skill.  Please, explain why it isn’t a sport.

In his day, it would have been chariot nuts.

“The medical examiner will determine the cause of Clinkscale’s death. The athletic commission says the Attorney General’s office will handle the state investigation of the boxing match and determine whether the church that promoted it should face prosecution.”

… what the hell?  Even IF by some coincidence the actual death was unrelated to the boxing- illness beforehand, pre-existing medical issue, whatever- of COURSE they should be facing prosecution.  They were flagrantly and apologetically violating non-trivial laws.

The right pastor Driscoll is a big hairy asshole! And most likely a big fucking coward! 

I assume you are against building codes, then?  Isn’t it your responsibility to know if every building you walk into has been constructed safely?  Lets go back to the days of ancient Rome where several-story apartment buildings collapsing was a routine occurence.

“You will lose”.
Not unless all Christians are members of Seal Team 6.
I’m ex military, worked as a private soldier in the Middle East, am a former small arms instructor as well as a course developer and instructor for unarmed combat.
I’ve seen how most “armed to the teeth” Christians shoot as I’m at the range at least 3 times a month, expending thousands of rounds downrange with state of the art weaponry that I have a high degree of proficiency with. 
Most (not all) of the Christians you refer to are used to killing paper targets,  defenseless deer and would shit themselves if confronted with a skilled and equipped opponent that was actively looking to kill their ass. Those that are skilled combat vets would have a fight on their hands, nonetheless.
99.999% of the fight is in the head anyway. If it’s not won upstairs before the conflict even occurs, then you may as well put your own weapon to your head and pull the trigger.
You knew nothing of me, yet made some pretty bold and inaccurate assumptions.

MMA is probably the safest fight sport there is, today. The fights are shorter than boxing, and the fighters take significantly fewer blows to the head. There is also wider ranger of skills the competitors must learn before than be effective, making it (in my opinion) a more interesting pursuit.

The fact that you think it’s barbaric, or stupid, or a sad reflection on our society today is because you are ignorant of what the sport is actually like.

As the for the fighting death that occurred at this UNSANCTIONED event, well, that’s what happens. The reasons fights are supposed to be sanctioned is because when they are not, people who should not get in the ring get in the ring, and people who don’t know what they are doing monitor the fights.

To be honest, if you pursue fight sports in an intelligent and mindful manner, they are often safer than ones that involve chasing a ball around a field, especially in football, where one version of it gets your head smashed by a 250 pounder charging at you head first from across the field, while the other version gets you killed in a parking lot because you’re wearing the wrong team jersey.

Evidently they are a little bit sloppy when trying to erase the history of their illegal fights. There are a number of videos still posted of the fights from 2009.

Videos such as this and this.

Nick isn’t making a claim that the fighting sports are free of debilitating injuries and Muhammad Ali is just one person. Not an incredibly good argument if you use just one example to make your point. And “blah blah blah” isn’t an argument at all.
All contact sports are risky. We all accept that and I didn’t see anywhere in Nick’s response that he denied it. As far as his assertion that they can often be safer than football or soccer, he has a point.

Miko,

The church is negligent because it couldn’t even go and get this form (pdf)  and submit it to the proper authorities as required by the laws of Oklahoma.

You might also want to read this document (pdf)  and try and figure out how many of the regulations concerning these events the church ended up violating.

The churches decision to not follow the law directly led to the death of a person. The pastor and all involved in any of these illegal fights should take responsibility for the death of another person and be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

I didn’t mean to imply that you (or I) fit any of the examples I was giving. I was just attempting to show that the idea of bringing social criticisms of western subcultures within the realms of the skeptic community is fraught with the danger of just becoming an arbitrary exorcise in clique superiority.

It’s all good. Read this blog or mine long enough and you’ll catch me making some comments that are way off base. 🙂

I think you’d lose regardless of your training.

Nobody really gives a fuck what you think.

You really have no clue as to what you are talking about. As far as what scenario and/or when, who the fuck knows when something…ANYTHING…might happen?
What, are you omniscient?
Ay any rate, I’m armed wherever I go and I don’t congregate where other atheist go. Where the fuck do atheists congregate anyway?
Outlaw firearms? This place is too far gone for that.

This makes me sad. I’m into martial arts myself (although not competitive ones such as MMA) and i train in the same gym as an MMA club (who are lovely people, scary and hard as nails, but lovely). Illegal fight clubs like this for the purposes of chest banging and feelin’ manly give a bad name to the fighting sports out there that are properly run with safety in mind. I’ll tell you this too, anyone who goes into MMA with a bullshit macho attitude like this group seems to promote tends to get put up against the hardest woman in the group in sparring, to knock a little sense into them. Most of the martial arts groups i’ve trained with experience periodic new intakes but the macho ones never last long. I’ve always thought that long term training requires a degree of humility, at least in the dojo.

You are absolutely correct. Hopefully you have a permit to carry?

The Church is negligent because we live in a society where we have given up personal responsibility for state oversight.  Part of the state’s oversight is to put rules in place that ensure our safety in situations that would be overly onerous for us to do individually.  One of these rules is to ensure that any boxing event is sufficiently staffed by competent people to minimise the risk of serious injury.  They didn’t, they were negligent.

Now you can argue that we are wrong to have outsourced our personal responsibility in exchange for our freedom, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have.

No reason to reply like that. Take it down a notch, please.

Well, to be pedantic “Nobody gives a fuck what you think” is at least factually incorrect, since at least the speaker probably gives a fuck what he thinks.

Language policing? I was just asking him to be a bit more polite. His reply isn’t constructive in any manner.
And could also be demonstrately false, someone might actually care about what he thinks. So he should have written “I don’t really give a fuck what you think.”
It would still be non-constructive, but at least it would be more correct. 😉

I think this church is confused.  It’s “Judeo-Christian” not “Judo-Christian”. 

Jesus didnt wear “girls” clothes, it wasnt a dress…historicly all men wore “robes”, they were VERY differnt from the clothes worn by women, also he wasnt a hippi, he didnt do drugs, and yes he did fight and get angry…(remember when he tore up the temple). He also said that men should act like men, and women like women, as well as saying that men shouldnt wear womens clothing…truth.

He wasnt getting paid, and neither is the pastor….not everything is about money. And he didnt push church ont he players, most of them were allready Christians, the pastor was showing his support for his school and his state.