At least they got rid of the Evil Spirits

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » August 25, 2003, 6:08 pm

Thank GOD for that!

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/ ... 9963.shtml

In Heaven's name. Ahmen.

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » August 25, 2003, 6:47 pm

I've never hid the fact that I'm a christian.
But I can tell you RIGHT NOW there's a HELL of a big difference between "praying" for a child and holding his ass down and smothering him.

They are guilty of murder as far as I'm concerned.

Niffoni · Post by **Niffoni** » August 25, 2003, 6:50 pm

I think we can all agree that an autistic child would probably make a better parent than that mother.

What a bunch of nutters if this is all true. I'll have to look into this "Smothering Treatment" for autism.

a_guide · Post by **a_guide** » August 25, 2003, 7:39 pm

This is a lot like an episode of CSI that I saw. They wrapped the boy in sheets and made him fight to get out in an effort to "rebirth" and hopefully fix him. He was fighting alright, fighting for air

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » August 25, 2003, 7:55 pm

hahahah stupid fucking religous people! look how stupid they are!

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » August 26, 2003, 2:40 am

kyoukan wrote:hahahah stupid fucking religous people! look how stupid they are!

for once i agree with Kyoukan... I'm proud that in my world where religion is meaningless, I can safely say that atheists will never smother autistic children.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » August 26, 2003, 2:41 am

oh, i giggled

Ebumar · Post by **Ebumar** » August 26, 2003, 2:58 am

Rivera where do you live? I want to move there. Shit like this pisses me off more than any hate crime ever could. The fact that people out there can be this fucking retarded, just amazes me. The fact that it happens in a country as "able" as the United States amazes me as well. Sigh... I can't wait to move.

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » August 26, 2003, 3:12 am

Central Jersey, just about as un-religious as you can get.

Izna Marcos · Post by **Izna Marcos** » August 26, 2003, 3:22 am

OMG, what are they gonna call praying next, i mean really. Times like these i'm glad that their "God" will judge them in the end, and not me, i'd be far more harsh. Karma is a bitch...

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » August 26, 2003, 8:30 am

Doubt that.. christianity has some very strict rules dealing with people that harm children in the a-life. As in: "He would be better off with a millstone tied around his neck and dropped into the farthest reaches of the sea than when I reach my hands to him", quote isn't exactly right but given the time period of tthat curse, that's fairly harsh...

I'd like to point out that ignorant people Will Do ignorant things.. this sin't the same article I read, think the one I saw was on CNN, and the "spokesperson" could barley speak english (proper or otherwise). I don't think it would have mattered if these wackos were religious or if they were just idiots.. that child WAS NOT safe in their custody. Instead of trying to pray it out of him, the likelyhood is that someone just would have beat the kid to death.

/sigh

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » August 26, 2003, 9:34 am

Blaming the religion for people's stupidity will get you nowhere fast. If I could blame every stupid action by an atheist on the fact thet he does not believe in God, then it would get ugly fast.

You might want to look at the list of people on this board who claim to be atheist and see the correlation between moron and atheist sometime.

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » August 26, 2003, 10:12 am

I could draw the same conclusion from a cross-section of the religious if you like, Killmoll. Useless excersize.

Religion doesn't teach this kind of stupidity, religious leaders do.

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » August 26, 2003, 12:26 pm

And stupid religious leaders are just a pox on everyone.

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » August 26, 2003, 1:16 pm

When I first posted this I had Akaran's first post in mind as the response I was looking for. I think it is interesting that people believe in God, Satan, Hell, etc., but find the idea that a person might be ill because of possession to be rediculous. I mean, how can one be utterly stupid and the other not? If God exists, and some embodiment of evil exists, why not excersize the deamons out of an autistic child? So the deamon won this time, and took the child's spirit with him. Evil is powerful and Man is weak. Maybe next time their faith will prove stronger and God will bless them, no? These people are murderers? They had no intent to kill. To the contrary, they were trying to channel to power of The Lord to do good. If a surgeon did all he could to save a dying child but failed, you would not call her a murderer, yet these "people of faith" are. I do not get it.

Another, much easier, point has arrisen, however. Embodied in the responses from Falanthas and Killmol. Killmol thinks these are merely religious people doing stupid things. He suggests that atheists are equally stupid (he is certainly correct about that) and that he could point to all sorts of things that stupid atheists do. But, Kilmoll, can you point to something stupid an atheist did BECAUSE (s)he was an atheist that subsequently resulted in the loss of human life? Its the same thing as Kyuokan's point on another thread. Yes, there are no doubt many athiests who are biggots. There are, however, no people that are biggotted as a consequence of their atheism. Faith, however, is a mirror opposite. Pleanty of otherwise good people are hateful because of what their religion teaches them and pleanty of otherwise normal people do incredibly stupid things (often to the detriment of others) because of their religious beliefs.

I also don't get this shirking of responsibility on the part of the religious. Rev's Fallwell and Shelldon are bad people who happen to be religious leaders. The Baptist Chruch is not blame. Baptists who remain Baptists in the wake of those religious leaders are not to blame. religion is not to blame, its just those two. Catholics are not to be held accountable for remaining Catholic when their Chruch protects politically powerful pederasts.

"Sure there are some bad seeds in the leadership and true, from the very top nothing is done about it, but I am not to be blamed. All I do is worship, I have nothing to do with it all. What's that? My weakly donations to the Empire, I mean Church? Well, someone needs to help pay for all that marble, no? Still, the notion I should take some responsibility for the actions of those I choose to follow - that's absurd."

And from Fallanthas, twice now:

"Religion doesn't teach this kind of stupidity, religious leaders do."

and

"Religions don't teach hate (well most of them). Religious leaders do."

What is the difference? The followers eat it up. What is the purpose of distinction, other than to deflect blame into easily demonizable personifications that no one has any intent on correcting so that the religious sheep of the world can go about their business without having to take personal stock of the problems they might be causing?

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » August 26, 2003, 1:23 pm

Without defining the source, you cannot possibly solve such a problem.

You've come very close with your reference to the tolerance on the part of the 'faithful' towards the idiocy of some religious leaders. By specifically naming the leaders themselves as the problem and not faith in general, you (hopefully) encourage the 'faithful' to ostracize such leaders and thereby neutralize their idiocy.

By blaming faith itself you accomplish nothing other than pissing off the 'faithful'. Not productive.

edit: spelling

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » August 26, 2003, 1:28 pm

One critical difference, however.
You compare being sick to being possessed.

I'm sorry, but I just don't beleive that there is a demon in charge of the headcold I currently have. It's an organism, a bacteria, a virus. In this poor child's case, it's a problem with a chemical imbalance in his brain caused by who knows what.. birth defect? Bad genes?

That goes back to my point.
I don't beleive that smothering a child is a way to "cure" someone under ANY circumstance. If a doctor tried to do this they would be - I hope - charged with murder and treated as such.

Further along, it is very obiovious that these people were not well educated. There are ways to treat autistic children that DONT involve his death; be it through therapy or drugs or whatever. I'm not saying I don't beleive in faith healing. I AM saying that we have the knowledge to treat some things without God's intervention - my headcold, for example, or bronchitis, or what have you - which we are capable of doing. I'm not saying that prayer may or may ot work. I beleive it does, but I beleive that we also have to make the best out of every other oppertunity we have available to us and not rely on God for everything. We can make choices and do things ourself. It's whta we CANT deal with that we pray to Him for guidance over.

To your last part, idiots will beleive idiots.
There will always be someone spousing off somthing totally moronic, and people will fall for it. You have people that do it in polotics and people that do it in religion. Any way you look at it, it's not somthing that religion has a monopoly on.

Ennia · Post by **Ennia** » August 26, 2003, 2:25 pm

sickness will make people do weird stuff

maybe some of you have seen on HBO a few years ago a program called Six months to live. It was about cancer victims who all had a doctor's verdict that they had 6 months left before them. Mind you it was mostly adults making decisions for themselves, but their decisions about what to do with those 6 months ranged from conventional chemo and drugs to weird diets to one lady, non religious, trying some ancient american-indian ritual that involved her spending a night sitting in a dug up hole in the ground and praying to some god those indians believed can help her.

Yeah it's a little different than smothering a kid in sheets while bunch of people pray but it's pretty much triggered by the same superstition that this invisible man will do something positive if you believe and pray enough.

It's scary stuff, coming probably mostly from lack of education, funds and on top of that trusting the wrong people.

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » August 26, 2003, 3:13 pm

Aaeamdar wrote:Another, much easier, point has arrisen, however. Embodied in the responses from Falanthas and Killmol. Killmol thinks these are merely religious people doing stupid things. He suggests that atheists are equally stupid (he is certainly correct about that) and that he could point to all sorts of things that stupid atheists do. But, Kilmoll, can you point to something stupid an atheist did BECAUSE (s)he was an atheist that subsequently resulted in the loss of human life?

You mean like having no regard for human life and murdering someone? Read the papers. Watch the news. It happens every single day.

I also don't get this shirking of responsibility on the part of the religious. Rev's Fallwell and Shelldon are bad people who happen to be religious leaders. The Baptist Chruch is not blame. Baptists who remain Baptists in the wake of those religious leaders are not to blame. religion is not to blame, its just those two. Catholics are not to be held accountable for remaining Catholic when their Chruch protects politically powerful pederasts.

There are bad leaders everywhere. The U.S. was run for 8 years by an adulterer who lied under oath in front of an entire country. You have corruption among the top of nearly every company. No man or woman on this planet is perfect. They all have faults. Putting every ounce of your faith behind any human is where people go wrong. You have to trust what the religion teaches and not necesarily what the current teacher says. If they were true leaders of people who had real faith, you would not even have heard of them. These people choose to force their way into a role to gain something. Just their success in that should tell you something about them.

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » August 26, 2003, 3:29 pm

I'd say I'm an atheist and I have the highest regard for human life. You thinking that just because people don't believe in a higher power, or in an afterlife, means they are recklace with life... is utterly false. Hell, if anything my beliefs make me cherish life even more. As I see it, once I'm dead, I'm dead. Thats it, just like every chipmunk, tree, blade of grass. So basically I would cherish every minute of life, since its all I got.

Frankly I've seen religion that gets taken lightly as a blessing to most. Those who see it as more of a moral guideline get the most out of it, I would say I have very good morals, despite not believing in a judgement, just because I know its right.

However, when religion is taken strictly, things like the islamic jihad, spanish inquisition, crusades, and little things like this dead child happen.

I saw somewhere in another thread that too much of anything is bad for you (physically), i think its the same thing mentally. Too much faith in anything, including religion can cause bad things as well.

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » August 26, 2003, 3:33 pm

Also... you wrote this Kilmoll:

You have to trust what the religion teaches and not necesarily what the current teacher says.

Who do you think wrote the koran, bible, torah. Humans! Regardless of what you believe, its still in a perspective of a human.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » August 26, 2003, 3:37 pm

haha your so full of bullshit, i have proof your not an athiest, i have pictures, you know, the asshair shrine....

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » August 26, 2003, 3:47 pm

the what?

Xzion · Post by **Xzion** » August 26, 2003, 4:39 pm

hell, if i were an athiest i would have a much higher regard for human life then even i do now
because after life they got nothing...and my biggest hell would be to become nothingness

Adex_Xeda · Post by **Adex_Xeda** » August 27, 2003, 12:30 am

People around modern medicine are crippled by it when it comes to faith healing.

Ask someone who's been out in the world in countries where modern medicine is hard to come by. They'll recall many where faith healing is an everyday part of life with results.

God can heal. It's biblical. Now this bunch that tied up this boy and constrained him to the point that he suffocated, I don't understand that. I mean, if you trust God can heal, you wouldn't have to do anything, heck the person you're praying for doesn't even need to be in the room.

Consider the following:

Matthew Chapter 8
5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.
6 "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."
7 Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."
8 The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, `Go,' and he goes; and that one, `Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, `Do this,' and he does it."
10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
...
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour.

I have trouble understanding the mindset of these people. Faith healing as a prayer thing, and a faith thing, not forceful suffication thing.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » August 27, 2003, 12:46 am

Is exorcism under faith healing?

Adex_Xeda · Post by **Adex_Xeda** » August 27, 2003, 12:54 am

I tend to lump them together I suppose, especially when it comes to mental problems.

Does that mean that I belive autism is a result of demon possession? I don't think so. I think this more of situation where God created a very unique person who didn't fit in with society. His family failed to accept that kid as he was made and were incorrectly trying to "make him normal."

It's not a sin to be autistic.

As far as demon possession, I've never seen it. I'm sure it happens, but I've not personally been around it.

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » August 27, 2003, 2:19 am

Adex_Xeda wrote:As far as demon possession, I've never seen it. I'm sure it happens, but I've not personally been around it.

Demon possession?!

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 27, 2003, 2:22 am

Maybe we should start a thread on that...

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » August 27, 2003, 2:41 am

One thing I find absolutely remarkable about religion and people's faiths, is basically people fail to realize how many religions there are. Just think, thousands once believed in the Zeus as the king of the gods during the greeks. Now, they're considered myths. The only proof of their existance were in the stories written and told by humans, and people's faith, both forms of heresay, what a coincidence, its the same for today's religions. We see this again in the Roman and Egyptian civilizations. Whats to change in a thousand years that people will be reading about the christian, jewish, and islamic mythology? Seems like religion is a flavor of the month type thing set on a massive time scale.

Sionistic · Post by **Sionistic** » August 27, 2003, 2:55 am

Well its gonna have to be at least 10,000 years. History is being tracked in more and more reliable ways. Its going to take an extremely long time for history to be lost. But ideals change pretty quickly

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 27, 2003, 2:57 am

You forget Riv that the God the Christians worship, the God I worship, was around when both of those civilizations you mentioned were worshipping someone/thing else. Of course I believe God has been there from the beginning, at one point (before the cov. with Abraham) possibly being called something else as man developed (I don't hold the creation story to our understanding of time thus I see nothing wrong with the Theory of evolution).

Also if you get right down to it, Allah is supossedly the same God, Muslims just believe Mohammad was his primary prophet and Jesus was a lesser prophet rather than the Son of God. While Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God or Son of Man, God incarnate on Earth. Those of the Hebrew/Jewish faith have yet to have their main prophet or Messiah appear.

All in all though the God of the Christians has been around pretty much all of recorded history. (NO that dosen't mean I think the Earth is only a few thousand years old so don't go there Xyun

)

Marb

Rivera Bladestrike · Post by **Rivera Bladestrike** » August 27, 2003, 3:37 am

I think religion began as a reason for why certain unexplained things happend. For instance, when the greek society wondered why the sun came up each and every day. Why, it was because Apollo drove his chariot across the sky. Lightning! Zeus! God of the skies, king of the gods.

Due to the evolution of the brain and our understanding of the world, with physics, etc. Religion has since moved from concepts that have been discovered, like lightning, an attraction between positive and negative particals attracting to form an electric bolt, thunder occuring afterwards, the air refilling the space where the electric bolt passed. And the sun, where, the earth actually rotates around the sun.

Now, religion is here to do a few things, comfort us when death is near, for us or for those we love. Something that is not yet discovered yet by science, other than what is most obvious, what happens to your body. The belief in a spirit, an inanimate object that exists only in our minds, where does this go. My belief is, the obvious, that it doesn't exist, and our spirit is only our personality, which develops from life experience and hereditary traits. Religions have the happy ending, which everyone loves to see, you have the eternity of happiness in the greatest place of all, heaven.

Something that is mostly past the religion's control, being medicine. In places, as Adex refered to, don't have the medicine to properly explain and treat illnesses. So, rather than feel at complete loss, humans invent their own form of healing. Praying, whispering words, or thinking things inside your head, hoping something will happen. And if by some miraculous occation, it occurs, its a miracle and of course its proof that faith healing works. If you think about it, no one ever prays to god about a cold, a headache, or a pulled muscle. Its only when all hope is lost. When modern medicine is unable to help that faith healing comes back into play. Then, its on a ton of documentaries on nightline and the discovery channel, making people interested, and more apt to believe in its legitmacy, due to it being on TV.

Now, in the subject of medicine, if suddenly over the next hundred years, all sickness is reduced to a minimum, would anyone be praying? No, because its been solved. Religion would then change focus again to another unexplained thing. People often say that science is the enemy of religion. In truth, it really is, when science explains something, people move on and have to find something new to place their faith in.

Religion is all about answers.

I think the main purpose religion should stick with, is bringing up generations with morals. The obvious things, no I will not take advantage of this girl, its rape. No I will not steal the old woman's money, its wrong. I was brought up to be christian, however, I never believed any of it, but I do credit myself to have high morals. I don't lie (unless its in a joking manner), I don't cause physical fights, I don't intentionally hurt people, I always think to myself whether or not it is good to do whatever I'm doing. Religion teaches the most basic morals which all should have, the voice in the back of your head that questions anything that may not be for a greater good. That voice has saved me from a ton of trouble. Some people just aren't brought up with correct morals due to bad parenting or just some friends which influence badly. An upbringing that may have religion involved, will help people make better decisions in life.

Personifying morals in the voice, if you remove that voice or it isn't developed properly, then basically, when someone without morals, will do that second thought real quick before killing that man for his money. If the morals aren't there to stop him, then the crime occurs. Morals are what makes us civilized, remove them, and evil things happen.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 27, 2003, 3:58 am

If I remember right someone actually did a scientific study and published it on whether or not prayer works in healing. I think their finding were statistically significant that it indeed does work. Of course they couldn't explain why it did but they did a good job on extranious variables... I'll try to find that.

I know prayer work, there is no doubt in my mind. Why I have no doubt is on another thread I won't repost here.

I will say here again though that I don't think you should just pray. God gave us a brain, we should use it and the things we have learned/discovered to the best of our abilities.

Marb

Kelgar · Post by **Kelgar** » August 27, 2003, 5:52 am

Uh oh. I can see a following of Bennie Hinn is rearing its flaky head.

Kilmoll the Sexy · Post by **Kilmoll the Sexy** » August 27, 2003, 9:24 am

Rivera Bladestrike wrote:If you think about it, no one ever prays to god about a cold, a headache, or a pulled muscle. Its only when all hope is lost.

Very untrue. Christians pray about anything and everything...and quite often. I have seen miracles firsthand. I watched the doctors' face when they came out to tell me that somehow, something happened that they could not explain and had never seen before.

My mother was a devout Christian...and to me she honestly seemed to err on the side of being a little too pushy about it and trying to force others to convert. Three years ago, while undergoing chemo for a lung cancer, she had to be rushed to the hospital because she had severe headaches and was about to pass out. They took x-rays and blood tests and when they came back, it was not good. They found an aneurysm in her brain. She had to be air-cared to one of the best brain clinics in the area and found a doctor who they could get to come there. It was a fight to just to get bed space there and to find someone that was good enough to deal with it. They said something like 90% of people with brain aneurysms don't make it.

To make a long story a little shorter, at around 2:00 am, the brain surgeon came out with more x-rays. They were taking final x-rays to prepare her for surgery that day and cut her skull open, etc. What he found was that the aneurysm was gone. Just gone. There was still blood present, but the aneurysm they had in the first x-rays was completely gone. There was not a doubt what had happened among anyone who knew her. Faith healing? No. She had work left to do here and God left her here to complete it.

Drasta · Post by **Drasta** » August 27, 2003, 1:41 pm

god helped the kid ... remember god works in mysterious ways !