What hell was that youth director thinking? Even if it was legit, that puts girls at a significant risk to purposely have them date "bad boys".

Yeah...the situation isn't funny at all.

That said.. wtf? They didn't get it was a joke site? That's some damned unsophisticated 16 year olds. Or, of course, they were purposefully being dim.

Gah...I feel sorry for him. Who is the Tamara he keeps mentioning?

"I just hope they're not all dating pagans before they find out this is a joke and bad idea." Holy crap.

Yeah, it's words like "pagans" and "heathens" that make it hard to feel any sympathy for the fuckwit.

And lines like

I talked to the parents of the girl about suing date to save, but the attorney we talked to says there's not enough info to win, and we should let it go.

are just priceless.

As trolls go, it's a bit too over the top.

I don't buy it. The 'youth pastor' feels even less authentic than the tips on the site. (However, stranger things have happened.)

After reading the forum, I feel sorry for the guy. Yeah, he was st00pid for not flagging this earlier to the pastor of the church and putting the whole thing on hold until he could check it out, but you can see in his original post on the forum that he viewed the site as legit. I was a Boy Scout leader for a number of years... this is a little different, but all adult Scout leaders were required to take youth protection training to try to infuse them with the kind of common sense you need when working with youth. The "protection" part is as much about protecting the adults from criminal/civil problems as it is about protecting the youth, but to a large extent, the two go hand-in-hand.

We had a girl accuse our church's youth director of improper conduct. We asked a few more questions in preparing to go the police, and her story was wracked by inconsistencies and she eventually admitted to making the whole thing up cuz she was mad at him. Youth don't understand the impact of a lot of these things (everything from false accusations like at my church to getting into a bad situation like the original post), so it is even more incumbent on the adults who supervise youth in their activities to be vigilant.

And as for not recognizing the site for what it is: This is a result of the Christian subculture- they pretty much train people to regard everything outside Christianity as evil and a satanic influence, and everything Christian as good and wholesome. If some prankster presents a site as Christian on the surface, many Christians raised in the Christian subculture will blindly accept it without question... at least at first. This guy looks suspicious from the get-go, but saw the site as legit with heathens hacking into the forums.

This is one reason why, even though I'm a Christian, I am no fan of the Christian subculture.

My lavender Jesus (the one with the orange tail and the penis sheath) doesn't mind getting pregnant on dates one bit. Render unto Caesar, et al.

He's so demure. And now He's pregnant! I can't wait.

Sorry, orange eyes and fuzzy tail. I was so caught up in the rapture, I didn't even think.

saw the site as legit with heathens hacking into the forums.

um, please doohickie. why do you use language like "hacking into" the forums. there was no hacking in sight. if a tennis player posts on a golf forum, has he "hacked into" it? no. he simply posted, just like the golfers do.

I call fake on this one. It's from last year, with scarcely a peep of the account in the time since.

Were that youth pastor for real, you'd think his "story" would've been covered in the press, along with (inter)national tabloid coverage of the kids' families clamoring for lawsuits and government action.

Politicos and the like would've used the incident to confirm their thoughts of teh internets as a vile place full of treachery, which seeks to usurp our freedom.
But alas, no Larry King. No Imus, Jack Cafferty, Chris Matthews, or even that Judge fellow from Fox News, either. In fact, I can't say I ever saw the story on Smoking Gun, which would've grabbed this one like a magnet.

It's like being interrupted at the bus stop and telling the interrupter, "Dude, like you totally hacked into my conversation".

Which would be a totally sweet thing to say.

Plus - definitely fake.

if a tennis player posts on a golf forum, has he "hacked into" it? no. he simply posted, just like the golfers do.

Actually, golfers are mostly duffers, q - if they played badly enough, they would "hack" into a forum.

Smart Dalek: Look at the dates again - the story starts in Dec 04, fades out in Jan 05 but then kicks off again with the pregnancy post last week. The "pastor's" last post was on Monday. If it's a troll, it's a long-planned one.

I'm not saying it isn't fake - it's almost too good to be true. Who knows.

quonsar: You're correct. I was too lazy to go back and look. What he said was: "Also, I saw your messageboard and I see how it has been infested with many non-believers who are jokers."

I'm with Smart Dalek and seanyboy; I don't believe it for an instant.

He is a very smart dalek.

Definitely a fake
1) the whole story with the preggers girl is a little too cut-and-dried. She starts dating a non-christian and suddenly she becomes all wild? Too too easy
2) Look at the last post - he works at Outback Steakhouse? Hardly. I was a good little church girl once. I know how the politics work. He wouldn't get fired for something like this, and if he did he'd move one town over and get another YP job.

I call bullshit. I think he's a genuine Christian trying to teach "the heathens" a lesson. His posts are righteous, but the situations he describes seem highly improbably to me.

I like the part about how if his car gets rear-ended (*snort*) it will explode. Sounds like Specklet is on the right trail.

Very well done. There's nothing you can point to that shows it has to be a fake (and Grid knows, there are people this bent out there) but he keeps going just a teeny tiny bit over the top. My congratulations to the chef.

How about a best *troll* of the Web category?

I like the part about how if his car gets rear-ended (*snort*) it will explode.

Poor guy. Not only is he a disgraced youth pastor, he's also a Pinto owner.

It just reads a wee bit too ... I dunno (perfect? pat?). I smell fake.

The "word" "supposably" didn't tip anyone else off that this isn't legit?

SUPPOSABLY?

What's next, "She done went got herself knocked up?"

Sheesh.

I was involved in an evangelical Christian youth group back in the day - True Love Waits and all that. From my experience, were this real, the girl would be ostracized faster than you can say "Beelzebub" and no Pastor would ever even be implicated. I got shunned from my youth group simply for dating (and I was even dating a Christian!), had I gone so far as to actually get knocked up, perhaps someone would have tried to save my soul, but I doubt it.

Of course this is a hoax. Doohick and the members of the board got trolled (with consumate skill). That the people there were so ready to bash the Christians and not realizing that they were getting snowed is priceless!

Does anyone remember the AMC Gremlin?

kk: you once asked me in the blue "are you all hopped up on goof balls?" and I have used that IRL. Magnificent. Thought you should know.

Does anyone remember the AMC Gremlin?

Remember them? I love them. Sweet.

LJ they were fun cars! (looked like "fun" at least, I have never been in one).

My best friend back in the day owned a Gremlin--huge swaths of rust, the bumper tied on with rope, and so many holes rusted in the gas tank that it would only hold 3 gallons at a time. People would point at us as we drove down the road...

Even if not genuine, this mindset does exist. I would not have believed it, but I also would not have believed a lot of the stuff that have happened since early 2001.

*checks for pods in the basement*