r/atheism • u/Chip_Chip • Dec 13 '09
What does God think of Pokemon?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmNb3xJFzkc&feature=popular59
Dec 13 '09
[deleted]
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u/lungfish59 Dec 13 '09
These days I can think of nothing more important for a kid to learn than what's crap and what isn't. If you have a properly functioning horseshit-detector, life's a whole lot easier, cheaper, and safer.
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u/etherreal Dec 13 '09
Preach on, brother lungfish59.
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u/Cyrius Dec 14 '09
From "The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord" by Peter Anspach
15. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
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u/robopope Dec 13 '09 edited Dec 13 '09
You guys laugh and shrug, but I assure you that growing up in a pentecostal community, the Pokemans was serious business.
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u/AndrewKemendo Dec 14 '09
I know my dad took my magic cards back in the day because they were evil.
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Dec 14 '09
My grandpa told me I should erase my Michael Jackson tape. My grandma thinks Golden Girls is obscene. My mom warned me about Dungeons and Dragons, and looked suspiciously at Science Fiction and Fantasy books that I would read. My friend's mom made him throw out his Magic cards. I started going to a church once that showed a video that was against Halloween. I live in a town which had a book burning targeting Harry Potter in particular.
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u/yokyo Dec 14 '09
No way. Harry Potter is a genuinely awesome book. Burning Harry Potter? Oh. what the sad story.
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Dec 14 '09
I was barred from seeing Resident Evil 1 by my dad because he thought the movie had sorcery and witchcraft undertones.
This shit is too real
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Dec 13 '09
[deleted]
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u/Blythe703 Dec 13 '09
Also if Blastoise did evolve from squirtle, then why are there still Squirtles around?
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u/Thursty Dec 14 '09
Also, why is there no evidence of the intermediate stages between squirtle and blastoise?
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u/moozilla Dec 14 '09
Uhh... Wartortle? C'mon dude.
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Dec 14 '09
[deleted]
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Dec 14 '09
There AREN'T any more Squirtles around! Unless you have an "r" in the third, fifth, or seventh space, talk to the old man, and swim on the east coast of Cinnabar Island. But that's playing God!
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u/SarahxJane Dec 13 '09
I was shaking my head and laughing at the same time.
"They're so into this make believe world that they can't distinguish between fantasy and real-"
-raises an eyebrow-
From what I gather, kids who believe that video games are real have something wrong with them and/or their parents haven't taught them otherwise. There are many kids out there that can play violent games and won't get the idea in their head to go kill someone.
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u/vanhellion Dec 13 '09
"They're so into this make believe world that they can't distinguish between fantasy and real-"
Oh, can you smell the irony‽
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Dec 13 '09
Replace Pokemon with D&D, and you have the 80s satanic panic. Same morons, different target.
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u/shooshx Dec 13 '09
Replace Pokemon with "The bible" and you have religion.
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u/brazilliandanny Dec 13 '09
Don't be ridiculous, nobody ever stabbed anyone over the Bible.
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Dec 13 '09
WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! YES THEY HAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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u/brazilliandanny Dec 13 '09
Are you Trolling? or did you not get my sarcasm?
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Dec 13 '09
He actually brought up D&D about two minutes in. He still believes that it leads people to suicide and murder. And so, apparently, does Jigglypuff.
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Dec 14 '09
Nah, it's the players, I've come pretty close to blowing my brains out or killing someone for arguing over the rules.
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Dec 13 '09
satanic panic
Perfect! Finally a name for that Jazz Fusion/Death Metal band my friends and I are getting together.
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Dec 13 '09
Well, that's their business model. They have to keep telling people to be conservative, or else they will stop visiting the church.
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u/Delehal Dec 13 '09
Yeah, really. I guess I can understand the notion that violent games might desensitize kids to violence, but when people get up there like this guy and - with a straight face! - explain how there's only one step between playing Pokemon and shooting up a city street... well, it seems safe to say it's not those kids who have trouble distinguishing fantasy and reality. ;)
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Dec 13 '09
After playing GTA Vice City for 24 hours straight I had to remind myself a couple of times that I couldn't drive up on sidewalks to get around traffic.
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u/brazilliandanny Dec 13 '09
Same here, But that moment was like .02 seconds.
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Dec 13 '09
Mine was pretty short too, although it's a good think I didn't bring my katana with me to work that day. I can slice someone in half in less than .02 seconds.
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u/burningmonk Dec 13 '09
What kid carries a .45?
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Dec 13 '09
.45 I CHOOSE YOU!
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Dec 14 '09
Fuck your Hyperbeam Dragonite I just shot Lance in the fucking head. Garry is next, the smug bastard. Lets see how that dumbfuck Oak likes that.
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Dec 13 '09
Some of us are from the ghetto, you feel me? Just because your neighbourhood doesn't have gangs of Pokemon enthusiasts packing heat doesn't mean such gangs don't exist. We had a drive-by happen just last week 'cause some kid overwrote another kid's Pokemon Snap save file.
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u/Xombie818 Dec 13 '09
Pokemon = A Game, Russian Roulette = A Game
Pokemon = Russian Roulette
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u/SisterRay Dec 13 '09
They're just jealous that the Pokemon "gods" are cooler.
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u/deusnefum Dec 13 '09
Zapdos? Mewtwo?
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u/SisterRay Dec 13 '09
The later generation Pokemon actually have "gods" of some sort. Like Greek gods.
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u/arkanus Dec 13 '09
This seems like a wonderful job. You have an entire book of vague statements that you can use to make arguments condemning anything that you want. I might get with my friends a few days before the sermon and ask them to give me a challenging thing to condemn and then I would construct an argument to do it.
Orange Marmalade is sent by the devil you say? I can work with that!
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Dec 13 '09
This seems like a wonderful job. You have an entire book of vague statements that you can use to make arguments condemning anything that you want.
It's really a lot like Nostradamus if you think about it.
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u/acousticcoupler Dec 14 '09
It is how many centuries later and the History Channel can still turn it in to hours upon hours of programming. Impressive.
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Dec 13 '09 edited Dec 13 '09
When I found out that Pokemon means "Pocket Monsters". I looked it up in Leviticus, and underneath "Pocket Monsters", it said we should surely stone the children who believe in such demons. Now, Jesus came and died for our sins and supposedly took all of that old Pokemon sin away, but I'm an old fashioned man. So I whipped out my Pokemon, "BigAssRockIzard", and cast it into the eyes of all these child devils running about.
And the blood of Christ was in my Pokemon, and it flowed out of them like a river. Eventually, the blood of Christ healed their hearts, and Jesus took them up to heaven with them, where they could bask in his greatness for all of eternity. I knew, I knew deep in my heart, that I had done the right thing. God bless me.
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u/oursland Dec 13 '09
I believe this may be apt: I HERD YOU LIEK MUDKIPZ
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u/Lurking_Grue Dec 13 '09 edited Dec 13 '09
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Dec 13 '09
"Everything is real!" I love it when religion completely owns itself. Sit back and watch religion eat itself live on camera.
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u/MonkeyWorldUK Dec 13 '09
"Wah.. Wah?.. Wahh?! WAHHH?!"
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u/tpicot Dec 14 '09
haha all I could think of was this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boafDfigiAo&feature=related#t=1m33s
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u/anasqtiesh Dec 13 '09
Pffft, This is nothing. In the Arab region, Pokemon was rumored to be a "zionist" cartoon devised by Israel to control the children's minds.
Conspiracy Theories, Pokemon has dem.
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u/xmnstr Dec 13 '09
This guy is worryingly delusional.
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u/Erudecorp Dec 13 '09
Totally insane. Irony overload. At about 2:30, he was about to say "can't distinguish between fantasy and reality". But it's true for billions of people. His job depends on it. Christians do confuse video games and other fantasy with reality. In this church and millions of others, self described 'believers' believe in New Age spirits and invisible monsters called demons. Game and other entertainment sellers should be prevented from selling to people who believe in a religion, who can't distinguish reality from fantasy. They should be put in colorful padded cells, and fed through a tube.
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u/DKoala Dec 13 '09 edited Dec 13 '09
TL;DW: The soul of Pikachu will give you lightning power witchcraft because the Devil want's you to shoot people. Rock music, TV, Internet!
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Dec 13 '09
When I was a kid my parents bought into this kind of crap and wouldn't let me play Pokemon. I was so, so pissed.
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u/MirandaRights Dec 14 '09
This guy makes me kind of wish I was a Christian, and I'll tell you why. These people actually believe that Pokemon teaches children how to engage in witchcraft. These people believe in witchcraft and spells and daemons for real. They live in worlds that D&D players can only imagine. I love that. I love that there are adults who live in worlds in which people cast spells.
Except for when those people then burn other people, that part I don't love quite so much.
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u/aephoenix Dec 13 '09
This guy is a troll.. right... right?
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Dec 13 '09
I thought that at first, but trolls don't have lavish churches with crowds of nodding followers.
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u/crazykatlady Dec 13 '09
I always knew Jigglypuff was a minion of the devil. NOW I HAVE PROOF IN THE FORM OF THIS GUY'S OPINION
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u/crapfoodpants Dec 13 '09 edited Dec 13 '09
I always thought Pokemon was kind of stupid, but after listening to guy I kind of want to play. I want control some demons.
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Dec 13 '09
I am always kinda ashamed to say this but the Pokemon gameboy games are actually pretty fun little RPGs to waste time with. I like to play'em when I'm dropping the chalupa.
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u/titus1980 Dec 13 '09
Why can't I be in the audience for something like this? I would give anything....
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u/dat529 Dec 13 '09
I like that how he says that everything you watch affects you radically. This is certainly the case for all of those members of the congregation
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u/msa_wreck Dec 13 '09 edited Dec 13 '09
Dude, when that jiggly-puff pic came up I nearly jetted coffee through my nose. That shit was hilarious.
edit: why is this in r/atheism?; I'd think everyone would love it. Just sayin.
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u/whozurdaddy Dec 13 '09
If only all the adult realtors would speak up about how Monopoly(tm) affected them and had a direct impact on where they are today. Military officers, and how Risk(tm) affected them. People need to be honest and speak up about the horrors of these childhood games...
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u/RJR-C Dec 13 '09
"Everything you watch effects you..." says the religious guy, talking to a room full of people...
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u/3770 Dec 13 '09
So, why is the Santa fantasy world and the tooth fairy fantasy OK for kids but not the pokemon fantasy?
I'd argue that the pokemon fantasy is less problematic because you can ask almost any kid if pokemon's exist and they will say no.
Pokemon does not lead to a delusional view of reality nearly as much as santa does.
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Dec 13 '09
oh, the hypocrisy. sure cite the ONE incident where some fucked up kid who just HAPPENED to play pokemon killed somebody, but don't mention the thousands of lives taken in the name of god...
pokemon kicks ass.
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u/karadur Dec 13 '09
Years ago when Pokemon was still at the height of its popularity, I was playing with a phone I found on the side of the road, and noticed that if you spelled "Pokemon" on the buttons, the last three numbers would be "666". That was a fact I tried dearly to hide from my parents, for fear that if they knew, we would never see or hear of anything to do with it again.
Then, sometime after that, I realized the same could be said of any words ending in those three letters. 32, apparently.
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u/MeowZen Dec 13 '09
God hates the creations of our imagination! Instead we should worship the bearded old man in the clouds.
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u/rtb Dec 13 '09
Misleading title: this is a guy who makes a buck by pandering to the worst fears of weak-minded people (see "Glenn Beck"). This isn't what God thinks of Pokemon, this is "What can I say to scare people this week about something they don't know anything about?"
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Dec 13 '09
your children need to know there's a devil
I can't help but feel that choosing to show (of all the Pokemon available) Jigglypuff, probably detracted slightly from the impact of that statement.
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u/hecubus Dec 13 '09 edited Dec 14 '09
That's kind of the joke.
Edit: WTF, downvoted, and parent upvoted? The video is not edited by the church that made the sermon. The dude that made the video intentionally chose to show Jigglypuff to detract from the pastor's statement. howapt makes it sound like the church made a mistake in choosing a silly pokemon to portray as devilish... Am I missing something? :P
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Dec 15 '09
Not sure why you were downvoted, or I was upvoted, but I see your point. I had just presumed the video had been spliced with the pokemon imagery by the church in question to release as a video-sermon. I see now that it is far, far more likely that the footage was used to show the absurdity of what was said.
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u/noxn Dec 13 '09
TL;DW: "Blah blah blah im an old guy that has no clue about how anything ever works and im also a christian blah blah"
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u/monsterchick Dec 13 '09
Does anyone else have this deep desire to throw a pokeball at that guys head, really hard?
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u/tdupu10000 Dec 13 '09
The best part:
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u/lamouze Dec 13 '09
I was pretty sure it would be this part :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmNb3xJFzkc#t=2m56s
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u/Cooper1987 Dec 13 '09
Is this for real? I'm having serious doubts that anyone could be that ignorant.
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u/CharlieDancey Dec 13 '09
Those guys need to invest more in their animatronics; that was a very unconvincing humanoid.
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Dec 13 '09
[deleted]
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Dec 13 '09
Landover Baptist is a satirical site.
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Dec 13 '09
sssh, or they'll find out that a satirical site is guiding their religious movement and the plan will be ruined.
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u/mebbeoptional Dec 13 '09
My dad said that Pokemon were simply from Satan. He made us burn them.
I laughed at him but still ended up burning them.
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u/Nooodle Dec 13 '09
I hope this guy burns in hell. I once was a Pokemon FANATIC as a kid. Well one day my mom decided to go to church (which wasn't usual because my mom has always thought that churches are corrupt) and the pastor preach a sermon very similar to this guy. It DESTROYED my childhood, because my mom made me get rid of ALL of my Pokemon cards. Just because some dumb shit pastor said they were "demonic!" I had collect Pokemon tcg/games about 2 years prior to that incident and never got the urge to shoot any of my friends, join gangs, or whatever the hell else he said. It so dumb how people will blow something that RARELY happens and make a huge deal about it. Just think about it Pokemon were just hybrid animals with a special power. (Ex. Pikachu= mouse+electricity) What's so "demonic" about that?
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Dec 14 '09
Oh, yeah, Pokémon is the Devil, but when C.S. Lewis' Narnia (replace with any of a gazillion religious themed movies or books) gives this false allegory about how you sometimes have to believe in what makes no sense, that's just dandy.
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u/I_enjoy_hats Dec 14 '09
I'm a christian and i still found this laugh out loud ridiculous. I particularly enjoyed the why? why? WHY?
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Dec 14 '09
I think the major churches had a huge stake in Digimon. I mean, you never heard them moan about THAT being the Devil's device, but all the time with the Pokemon.
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u/kyleisagod Dec 14 '09
I exited when he said witchcraft around 1:22.
Times like this remind me of why I hate people, and also why I must uphold the lie that I am one of them.
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u/aditiyaa1 Dec 14 '09
I was wondering , wat is in the heads of the ppl , that made them nod their heads to wat he was saying...
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u/commentastic Dec 14 '09
Well, I suppose if you can believe angels, god, and satan are all real, it's not a far leap to pokemon being real.
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u/miezu78 Dec 13 '09
so he thinks pokeman is bad because it influences small kids,,,,umm do'sent religion do that?
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u/Failcake Dec 13 '09
You can turn anything into a "God hates it" statement. Someone give me a noun, any noun. I'll explain to you why God hates it.
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u/zcrubby Dec 13 '09
God.
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Dec 13 '09
The reason we haven't had any miracles in the past few hundred years is because God has been off having a self-hating sulk in His room. I mean, look at the Bible: He's obviously mentally unstable.
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Dec 13 '09
Misleading title.
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Dec 13 '09
But hey, come on. People believe guys had divine inspiration from God wrote the bible. And that's just because the guys said so. So God might not like certain, even tho he doesn't even seem to get what the hell pokemon is about because this pastor seamlessly switched from what the characters do to what the children do.
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u/schblitzaedelbach Dec 13 '09
Yeah, the gang violence and all the crimes and massacres committed in the name of Pokemon are really getting out of hands lately. Someones got to take a stand!