Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Starving Toddlers For Jesus
Back in 2007 I wrote about a thought experiment conducted by Vox Day. My post was entitled "Slaughtering Toddlers For Jesus". In it, Day concluded that if he were convinced by a "flawless communication" from the "real God", then he would have no moral qualms about carrying out this God's demand that every child under two be killed.
In an eerie case of "real life is wackier than even our most outrageous thought experiments", the unspeakable has happened in New York state.
2-year-old Javon Thompson was systematically starved to death, then placed in a suitcase by his mother, Ria Ramkissoon, 21, and four other adults who belonged to the religious cult called "1 Mind Ministries".
The "reason", you ask? They claimed that the boy was a demon because he would not say "amen" after being fed. So they stopped giving him food. And water.
And he died.
[link] In court documents charging Ramkissoon, Parker, the homicide detective, recounts eyewitness accounts from a source within the religious group. The source said the group's leader, Queen Antoinette, "had a problem with baby Javon, who would not comply with mealtime ritual by saying 'Amen' after meals," Parker wrote. "The more the Queen pressed Javon, the more resistant he became."
The child stopped getting food and water, and he became thin with dark circles under his eyes, according to the document. Javon stopped breathing and was placed in a back room of a house in the 3200 block of Auchentoroly Terrace. At one point everyone was instructed to pray around the boy's body, the document said.
"The Queen told everyone that 'God was going to raise Javon from the dead,'" according to Parker's statement of charges. "That resurrection never took place."
I am sickened by this. Does anyone wonder why us "militant atheists" are so vocal, so fucking rude sometimes? This sort of horror is why. Because we recognize that religious lunacy can kill children when taken to it's oh-so-logical conclusion.
There are no "demons", no "angels", no "gods". Magical men who live in the sky do not exist, and they certainly will not "resurrect" the baby that you kill, you fucking lunatics.
Is anyone else sickened by this? Is it just me? I hope they put these crazies away for life. I'd hope for the death penalty if it had a chance of happening, but in the state of New York, that's not very likely.
Even for murdering a child.
So, their God told them to starve this boy because he was a demon. Were their actions moral, or not? After all, they were following their God's commandments, allegedly.
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I Couldn't Agree More
I felt compelled to comment on this story, but I haven't, because I didn't really know what to say - it kind of left me speechless to tell the truth. All I can say is that I wholeheartedly agree with Brent: this is a prime example of why many of we athesists can no longer take a "live and let live" attitude toward religion. This is as crazy as it gets; such insanity must be wiped out.
Stuff like this
and Jonestown, and Heaven's Gate, and suicide bombers are what make it scary as hell that a fucked up country like Pakistan, the current home of Bin Laden and the Taliban, has a nuclear arsenal. Because you know if they get the chance they wouldn't hesitate for a second to blow up the planet in the name of Allah. They have no concept of how precious life is when they think they're getting an eternity in Paradise.
I'm puking. It always amazes
I'm puking. It always amazes me how successfully mainstream superstition, I mean, religion, can disown these loonies.
It's too bad
It's too bad there isn't a Hell for these wackos to go to.
Thank you Brent
Brent, this makes me terribly sad. I wanted to say thanks for bringing this to our attention, not that it will do any good now and thanks for giving voice (eloquently) to my anger.
Best wishes to you and yours from me and mine.
This is sick. These people
This is sick. These people are batshit-crazy, but worse, they are evil. Crazy for believing their imaginary friend wants them to starve a child. Evil for agreeing to do it.
It really is that simple.
I hope the judge and jury are sane enough to throw the book at them.
Religious Nut Cases
I take my implied social contracts very seriously. The social contract with kids is that in return for their trust, at the very lowest level, we don't actively or passively harm them. Failure to meet this obligation must be dealt with so strongly that no sane person ever ever does the things noted in your story.
Most of us could come up with apt punishments for all the participants ranging from log chippers to not feeding them until they'd mastered Laplace Transforms. The courts will probably figure counseling or writing "I must not starve children to death" one hundred times will be sufficient
Maybe you should ask Vox . . .
. . . whether he supports the action taken by these folks, since they clearly believed that they were following the instructions of their sky-daddy.
Yeah, I know - cheap shot. And his weasel words would be just as cheap.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Refusing to Say Amen
Reading the story, I wondered if his "refusal" was simple fear. If the leader of this Christian group was the harpy she sounds like, she may have simply frightened the little guy speechless. The more shrieky she got, the more frozen-afraid he got. He probably never said "Amen" because he couldn't talk at all when she thundered in on him.
It would be VERY interesting to see how much their devout religion figures in the trial. I'd hope the prosecutor would flay the hide off the defense attorney when he brings this up.
Out of the Minds of Babes
And sometimes toddlers frequently seem to be refusing to do something when it is really not willful refusal, as in "disobedience." The little tyke may simply not understand, having yet to master some detail of language or body language or tone of voice. Like trying to get a kitten to play with something that doesn't move.
Or a lil' feller might have some view of the world that normally responds to food by saying, "MMmmm. More?" And in that world view to make some other sounds, not matter what, would be delightfully, laughably, silly.
Kids are funny (aren't we all, kid?) in unpredictable ways. Back when I could just crawl, Ma could keep me in a room by putting a rutabaga in the doorway. I wasn't going anywhere near something so ugly that it must be dangerous! Uh uhh!
And it is human nature to recognize such qualities in babies and little people and to regard the qualities in a special fashion; sweet, cute, endearing, compelling, precocious. Human nature has a formidable enemy in the suggestion that the development of newly self aware minds are bedebbiled by debbils and not autonomous' and most usually, happily so.
I've just developed a keen desire to begin first grade again . . .
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