How abso-fucking-lutely horrible.

[ramik]

This is the story of a 7 year old girl murdered - beaten to death with a pipe - by her parents, who were following the fundamentalist Christian child-discipline regime of 'No Greater Joy Ministries.'

Say it with me:

It's not okay to hit kids.
Because it's not okay to hit people.
And kids are people.

Comments

[mina5643]

In the past 24 hours I've heard of two stories now of people doing awful things to kids and religion being either a reason behind or it religion causing a huge problem because of it. I am not ashamed to be a follower of Christ, but I am ashamed, deeply, of these people who call me their fellow Christian when such egregious things take place.

[ramik]

I think I'm more frightened of fundamentalism than Christianity. There's something about the idea of having absolute answers that just never works out well for anyone.

[mina5643]

Yeah, agreed. Fundamentalism in any faith causes problems.

Blech.

[russia_moore]

Yeah, pretty much. I'm sure you've read my rants about a member of the liberal Christians group I'm a part of. He edges dangerously into the world of absolutes. I always think, "but what if you're wrong?!" Maybe that makes me less faithful, but I believe in contingency plans and an open mind.

I can't wait to see if this comes up in the (often very conservative and angering) homeschool forums...

[rachel_swirsky]

i am somewhat wary of this sylogism

but the story--my god.

[ramik]

Well, sure, I mean, there actually are times when it's okay to hit other people, for that matter. I just think that parents need to start thinking of children as 'tiny helpless other people' rather than 'tiny helpless possessions.'

[koliebo]

"Christian homeschooling circles"

Great, now half the people who hear about this are going to think ALL homeschooled children are at risk of being beaten to death by their parents. >_

[ramik]

Yeah. It's weird to realize that so many homeschoolers are scary "I'm not having my child learn about evolution" types.

I mean, both because the homeschooled folks I've known have so solidly not been that and because it's such a weird position to take. It's like declaring calculus satanic or proper punctuation a communist plot or something.

Accurate information about the operation of the world is scary! It must be part of a larger conspiracy! Quick! Avoid knowledge!

[koliebo]

Something about that made me wonder if there were huge protestations over the introduction of standardized spelling.

-Ryvenna