My father was an abused child. His Dad hit him when he didn’t do his chores fast enough or was late getting home from a one room school house to work on their small farm in the 30’s and 40’s. But at least my grandfather never claimed that God was the reason he beat my father. Nor did my grandfather beat any of his children to death because the “Lord” demanded children be subjected to strict discipline, like this Christian Fundamentalist couple claimed:
Just so you know, I go to a Universalist-Unitarian Church. In our community we have an interfaith network that includes churches of all denominations who cooperate to help homeless people by offering them shelter and food while they look for a place to live. The name of the group is RAIHN. Last Saturday my daughter and I along with volunteers from our church and a local Catholic church fed three families and eleven people (I made pizza and others brought salads and desserts). This is what our faith teaches us. That these brutal sadists claim any God instructed them to torture the children under their care is not only obscene it is false and has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with the enjoyment they took from beating their children. Child abusers always will find a reason why they have to brutalize innocents. It is a shame that so many so-called Fundamentalist Christian Churches promote authoritarian doctrines that permit child abusers to justify their crimes.
There is a difference between those who practice the teachings of their faith and spirituality and those who make excuses for their violent and deadly acts against helpless children. These people can claim to be whatever they wish. They can claim to be believers in Jesus. They can claim God instructed them to commit such atrocities. But what they are is simply murderers of children, and no amount of God-talking bullcrap can change that fact.
As for the people who wrote that damned book mentioned in the video, I hope the guardians of the children sue them for everything they are worth.
Sorry, Steven, I have to take issue with this. I think it’s very dangerous any time we start speculating on the real personal motivations of anyone in the news, whether it’s President Obama or these lowlifes or anyone in between.
Didn’t you ever hear the phrase “This will hurt me more than it hurts you”? I certainly did, particularly when my father “disciplined” me. Now, it so happens that statement was bullshit in his case – he was a bully and a sadist who terrorized his wife and kid to feed his own ego – but the statement’s a cliche precisely because at least among the pre-war generation some folks truly believed it. I have no doubt some people still do: the idea is that it pains them to physically discipline their child, but they do so, with a heavy heart, because they genuinely believe it’s in the child’s best interests. How much of that is self-rationalization, how much is genuine, we’re in no position to judge from a newspaper report or the like.
Somebody being wrong about that belief is not the same thing as being a sadist. It’s still indefensible behavior – and it’s the behavior (and its impact on the child) that’s important, not the rationale – but I’d be wary of psychologizing with such a broad brush. Or, really, with any brush at all. In this case it’s enough to say they killed their kid and are totally unrepentant.
They beat her until she died. Until her organs were crushed. That qualifies as sadism on my part.
If you watch the video, you will see that the day she died they beat her for 7 hours, taking short prayer breaks. Beating a child for 7 hours is sadism, plain and simple.
In this case the length of time is less relevant than the prayer breaks. “Sadism” suggests they enjoyed it. Maybe they did. I dunno. But the public statements of all involved are that they were obediently following the (perceived) orders of their God. That’s not necessarily the same thing. To me people that are obeying imaginary voices in their heads sounds more like mental illness than sadism. Or, in this case, brainwashing, only some of it self-induced.
Maybe the difference is that I grew up in a conservative religious climate. I’ve seen people who genuinely do things they don’t like because they believe they’re obeying His higher authority, and I’ve seen people use the exact same words to rationalize bad things they wanted to do anyway (c.f. most of the segregationist South). From the outside I really don’t think we can tell. If it were any other motivator short of serious mental illness, you’d be right, no question. But wacked out religious nuts are capable of inflicting a lot of pain, on themselves or others, for selfless reasons that to a rational observer make no sense at all.
it may well be that we cannot know the true motivation, rationalization, or the degree of the delusion and the intensity of its application in this circumstance. however, l think it’s reasonable to posit that regardless their particular flavour of religion, zealots are, by definition, dangerous and unstable people.
that anyone would/could attempt to defend abhorrent and brutal actions such as these by invoking the name of any god, is in my not so humble opinion, an abomination in it’s own right.
there has been more death and misery brought down upon innocents in the name of god[s] than can ever be excused by proclamations of selflessness and piety.
Why is it so important what the name used for this person is?
But they are not “making excuses”, Steven, they are truly “practicing the teachings of their faith”. The problem is when one claims, like many major religions of the world do, that you possess an inerrant, divinely inspired and absolute document given to you directly from the hand of an omnipotent and omniscient being. And the supreme being dictates that this document is to be used as the ultimate moral authority concerning all things. And this god has chosen particular people as prophets and leaders through which he will channel the details of his message. You then instantly have carte blanche permission to interpret and apply it in any way you see fit. It provides the rationalization you need to commit atrocities. It doesn’t matter that people who are using a different moral authority than you condemn or decry it as abominable and illegal. You, as a vessel of god, have greater authority than those flawed humans who are judging you.
That is the inherent danger of religion. Things like this are a feature of fundamentalist religion, not a bug. It only differs by the degree of the delusion and the intensity of its application.
And yet they are comforted that their actions were pure because they hid behind a god purely of their own making.
To beat and beat and beat not just a helpless child but one who sought shelter and protection from a life already harsh is the very essence of of bully x 100.
A lot of progressives are.
Tru dat
That was a horrible thing they did..that just shows how orthodox people are..
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