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…
if they were so desperate to understand the natural stages of development of their own child that they beat her to death with a hammer, then it obviously would have been better in their case not to have a child in the first place. if it didn’t mean deciding who would make such decisions (and the lack of properly qualified authorities), i would advocate for having to have a license to have a child, in the same way that you need a license to drive a car.
and if there are a small number of “christians” who secretly agree with such behaviour than i don’t understand why more is done by “normal” (i.e. non-“christian”) society (whoever that may be) to disclose such behaviour in an attempt to shame the perpetrators (if nothing else) into compliance.
it is my impression that people like this are allowed to have their anti-social ways and their destructive beliefs because of the fact that most people “secretly” agree with such behaviour, thus instead of stories like this becoming headline news that is trumpeted everywhere and causes a dramatic change in society, it is a local phenomenon that takes local headlines – at best – and is forgotten about by tomorrow.
“society”, in that sense, is fucked up. it’s time we changed it.
Ugh. Desperate parents who don’t understand and can’t accept the natural development of the child, I suspect. There is a fair amount of “christian” behavior that isn’t expressly condemned by Christians, but some part of it may be that there are so many Christians that “christian” behavior on a constant basis tires out their condemnation quickly.
Or that some of them are really “christians” themselves and secretly agree or have no problem with such behavior.