Trigger Warning for Child Death
According to media reports, two women were taken into custody in Maryland on Friday, charged with the stabbing deaths of two children, ages 1 and 2. Two siblings, ages 5 and 8, were also injured and taken to the hospital. The reason? The two women (one of whom was their mother) were trying to release demons from their body. They were attempting an exorcism.
Click here and here to read news articles about the incident.
This, people… THIS is why religion is wrong. Religion is bad. It’s not always sitting around a campfire, holding hands and singing to some random deity. It’s believing that demons live inside your own children — and killing them for it. If you take the good that religion has done and the bad that religion has done, and you try to make them balance, I’m afraid that you may find that it does more bad than good. Many of you reading this are parents. Imagine your child as a 1 or 2 year old. Tiny. Helpless. Trusting. Then, imagine trusting some God that you’ve never met more than you trust your child. Imagine attacking your child. Can you? I bet you can’t. Because religion hurts people. Religion is a tool of the people in charge to kill off the less intelligent.
This isn’t an isolated incident. It happens more than you think. Yet a casual internet search found that a number of popular news sites didn’t even have this killing on their top page. Why was that? Was it because they were black? Because they were poor? Or because people are scared to talk about religion? Why? Would it upset the balance? Can’t their God explain this one? Did the 2-year old take his name in vain?
So many people try so hard to have a baby. So many people are waiting to adopt. And yet this woman has 4 children and just randomly kills them. For NOTHING. To exorcise demons. That’s ridiculous.
This is why we’re here, people. This is why we read or write for a skeptical blog. This is why we’re part of a skeptical network. If we can stop people from believing these lies, we can perhaps save some lives.
I hope we can.
Photo by the AP
When I was young (and religion was still being forced on me), I remember hearing the story of god asking Abraham to kill his own son to show his loyalty, and Abraham decides to do it. In the end god stopped him (“oh, just kidding”), but this bothered me to no end. You hear some voice in the sky and that is enough to kill your own child? And this was presented as positive for Abraham because of his “loyalty”. Disgusting.
And the nerve of those who criticize our lives because we don’t believe.