this morning during my daily perusal of the RSS feeds, i learned that yet another young “christian” couple has been arrested in relation to the death of their two-year-old daughter. if my two-year-old child had died, i would be upset, to say the least, and if i had been arrested in connection with that child’s death it would definitely add several more layers of stress to the whole ordeal, but this couple were arrested because they – wait for it – allegedly

beat their child to death with a hammer, to “excorcise demons” from her.

now i’m not saying that child abuse is solely a “christian” thing (i was subjected to abuse myself, as a child, and my parents are agnostic as far as i know, and i’m not talking about this sort of thing, which could be seen as child abuse or a tasteless joke – pun intended) but things like this, especially when it comes to young couples who feel the need to “excorcise” whatever demonic spirits inhabit their child, is not only ridiculously common, but it appears to get “swept under the rug” by most of “normal” society – although how anyone could consider beating a child to death with a hammer for any reason “normal” is beyond me. and i’m sure that people who aren’t “christian” beat their children with hammers, and other things, far too frequently, which makes me wonder: why is it that, when something like this appears in the news media, the perpetrators aren’t specifically identified as “christians”? if they were even suspected of being wiccans, for example, there would be no hesitation to directly identify them as such, to further villify their religious beliefs. but i read two or three articles a week concerning “christians” who torture and/or kill their children, or “christian” leaders caught having sex with children, or that sort of thing, and while it is made obvious by the context of the article that the perpetrators are “christian”, there’s no direct mention of it.

furthermore, i wonder if any studies have been done on the percentages of different religions who abuse their children. i’d be willing to bet that “christianity” is right up there near the top of the heap…