How can people be so cruel to their own children?
The 9-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.
His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him — Mount Zion Lighthouse.
A month later, he died.
This is an instance where Christianity is destructive. If they could be convinced witches and demons didn’t exist — which are beliefs that stem from a supernatural/religious worldview — I think this sort of behavior would drop substantially, if not completely.
“A month later he died”
We are better to animals than our children.
Speak for yourself. The insane and the religious commit abhorrent atrocities like this. Normal people don’t abuse, maim and murder children. Odd how the behavior or religious people and crazy people are so often parallel.
How strange. You’d think combining two beautiful systems (Christianity and tribal religions) would lead to peace, love and harmony.
Guess not.
Beautiful systems? That’s a laugh, unless by “beautiful” you really mean arbitrary and delusional.
I think you need to set your sarcasm filter to a lower level, Lowrack.
I can’t think of punishment painful enough. Family betraying their children is one of the worst crimes possible.
incoming tangent…
And yet such a punishment would still fall short of eternal pain. What possible crime would be justly punished by eternal suffering? Adolf Hitler doesn’t deserve eternal punishment. But Jesus (as depicted in the Bible) believed in hell (practically invented it!), and thought it was just retribution for not being convinced of his godhood. That seems like a serious flaw in his alleged benevolence. “Love thy enemies”, indeed! What a jerk.
No there is no crime to justify eternal suffering, but sometimes I hear something so horrible that I wish for it to be true.
Young Earth Atheist, you are mistaken. When two religions are combined it’s never the case that people pick the good from both, they actually do opposite.
“yeah, I posted this in the forums last week. “god loves little children” or something like that.” This is the kind of situation that’s so bad, you just let your mind walk away.
Well…is the religion CAUSING this crime…or justifying behavior that the parents kinda want to do anyway/ Is deep, grinding poverty and ignorance perhaps the real reason? Crazy religion provides the excuse?
Whether or not religion causes atrocious acts, which is debateable (I think it does!), the fact that religion can be used to justify (just about) any atrocity is, in my opinion, a major strike against it.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch saying Christians should be convinced demons don’t exist. I think there’s substantial evidence pointing to the existence of the supernatural.
That said, what those parents did to that child is horrid. Inexcusable. Pouring acid down his throat? What. The. Fook. If a demon was anywhere in this story, it was with the parents, not the child.
“I think there’s substantial evidence pointing to the existence of the supernatural.”
I’d like to see that evidence.
Seconded. What evidence? Where?
Don’t you ever watch that ghost hunters show??? ;-)
And what about Ghost Whisperer?
Don’t forget Ghostbusters!
Who you gonna call?
Brandon let me just say that you’re following the typical pattern we see from believers. You claim there is “substantial evidence” but then don’t give any. Then when asked to back up that claim, you talk vaguely about personal experience that someone might have had (nothing specific).
It’s really best to not say there’s “substantial evidence” unless you are willing to provide it. Because if there was substantial evidence, we’d believe in demons. We’re a pretty open-minded bunch. And many of us did believe in demons once based on stories and personal experience, and now don’t believe in them because of the lack of legitimate evidence.
You did see how the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series, right?
No, but seriously, to what do you attribute supposed demonic activity? Other exorcisms, real ones, that have happened before? I can’t think of its title, and I even failed at Googling it, but there’s a book out telling the stories of a few priests who dealt with exorcisms.
I know that personal experience is considered laughable on this site. But I’ve been around demonic activity before. It’s terrifying.
Is the “demon” a pseudonym for someone’s alternate personality? How can you prove that the activity was demonic, and not just denomic in nature while performed by a human?
Personal experience isn’t laughed at necessarily — it’s just not evidence of the supernatural. I’ve experienced quite a few people with mental conditions, and if I didn’t know they were medical conditions, then I’d think they were demonic.
In Jesus’ day, crazy people were said to be demonic. Now we know they are disorders and often have medication that can help them.
In your case, it seems that “demonic activity” = “something I don’t understand”. But you can replace “demonic activity” with “alien possession” or “mind control” or “voodoo” or whatever, and it’s all the same problem: ignorance ≠ supernatural.
There’s no evidence that those experiences were from demons any more than they were from good angels, bad aliens, an invisible unicorn, or John C. You just say they’re demons because that’s what you’ve been told to believe.
JOHN C. IS A WITCH!!! GET HIM!!!
…wait, I thought Samantha was the witch. Which witch are we after again? ;-)
I was part of the volunteer crowd control at a New England college campus when that happened. Demons? No. But humans really do suck sometimes.
What “demonic activity” have you experienced that would even qualify as such? Are you certain it wasn’t mental illness? Someone having you on?
Supposed demonic activity? Methinks “supposed” is the key word.
People like Dick Cheney and Ted Bundy are evil, but they are not supernatural demons.
Brandon: “I’ve been around demonic activity before. It’s terrifying.”
Think about what you’re saying. You are implying that “demons” exist. Mean, black little evil devils. Seriously? That’s the same as me saying “I’ve been around fairy activity before. It’s awesome!”
btw I read a story recently where one of these warring tribes make the children kill their parents by slitting their necks before assimilating them into their army. talk about sick.
I don’t think he’s implying it all, it’s what he really thinks.
I don’t think one can ever discount another’s personal & subjective experience simply because the first person hasn’t also experienced same. At the same time, mysterious & inexplicable phenomena don’t get to be automatically laid in the lap of an omnipotent overlord. The world is complicated beyond our knowledge. There are all kinds of potential explanations of there, most of which we haven’t even thought of. But demons? hmmm….yea I think you kind of dug a hole there with the “substantial evidence” thing.
As I clicked on the Link, I was hoping it wouldn’t be Nigeria and it is. The next time I visit, I think I’ll just keep my atheist comments to myself. This isn’t the first time they have accused a child of being a witch, when I went to Nigeria with my family and visited my grandmother, There was this 4 year old girl, when she was about a year old, she accused of being a witch, so to get rid of the demon, they took a sharp object, and gave her 24 marks, I saw the little girl and she showed me those marks, it has become a permanent scar.
There are many fundie parents in America who won’t let their kids read “Harry Potter” affraid their kids will learn how to cast spells.
There was a piece on a current affairs program on TripleJ radio here in Australia where they were talking about the witch hunts from the perspective of an aid worker on the ground in Nigeria. Her take on all this is that its not purely the Christian Pastors instigating this persecution, but rather its a melding of evangelical Christian beliefs with supernatural aspects of the traditional religions.
It’s hard for churches to carve out a congregation with so much competition. So some pastors establish their credentials by accusing children of witchcraft.
It says a lot about the purpose of religion when the churches are “competing” for followers. I know its nothing new and that it goes on all around the world, but rarely does it result in the torture and murder of children for the sake of obtaining followers.
“There’s no evidence that those experiences were from demons any more than they were from good angels, bad aliens, an invisible unicorn, or John C. You just say they’re demons because that’s what you’ve been told to believe.”
lol
So, er, Brandon, when you going to give us what “substantial evidence”? If you’re not, maybe you could admit you were wrong? :)
Just because something can’t be explained, doesn’t mean it’s “supernatural”. It means we haven’t evolved enough to discover the explanation……………….and maybe never will
I agree. One of the big problems with the belief in Hell, the belief that God himself made humankind knowing full well, if not fully intending already, that he would end up torturing billions of people with fire, for eternity, is how it leads directly to people imitating the cruelty of such a God, such as the disgusting report you provided.
What is so ironic, though, is how anyone who claims to believe in Jesus could accept the doctrine of Hell, or at the very least, not have some very serious problems with it!
I’ve actually written an entire book on this topic–”Hell? No! Why You Can Be Certain There’s No Such Place As Hell,” (for anyone interested, you can get a free Ecopy of my book at my website: http://www.ricklannoye.com), but if I may, let me share one of the many points I make in it to demonstrate why Jesus could not have believed in Hell.
For example, in Luke 9:51-56, is a story about his great disappointment with his disciples when they actually suggested imploring God to rain FIRE on a village just because they had rejected him. His response: “You don’t know what spirit is inspiring this kind of talk!” Presumably, it was NOT the Holy Spirit. He went on, trying to explain how he had come to save, heal and relieve suffering, not be the CAUSE of it.
So it only stands to reason that this same Jesus, who was appalled at the very idea of burning a few people, for a few horrific minutes until they were dead, could never, ever burn BILLIONS of people for an ETERNITY!
True, there are a few statements that made their way into the gospels which place Hell on Jesus lips, but these adulterations came along many decades after his death, most likely due to the Church filling up with Greeks who imported their belief in Hades with them when they converted.
Rick – then what did Jesus cast into the pigs that made them jump off the cliff? Who was Jesus talking to in Mark:
Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.”