'I had to send my son to heaven and myself to Hell': mother executes her boy at firing range

This is the chilling moment a deranged mother held a revolver to her unsuspecting son's head at a shooting range and pulled the trigger, killing him before turning the gun on herself.

Marie Moore, who thought she was the Anti-Christ, took her 20-year-old son Mitchell to the Shoot Straight range in Casselberry, Florida, for what he thought was an afternoon's firing practice.

But as he concentrated on the target in front of him, his 44-year-old mother picked up a gun, pointed it at the back of his head and murdered him at point-blank range.

--snip--

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1168424/I-send-son-heaven-Hell-Chilling-moment-mother-executes-boy-firing-range.html


Some quotes from her recording:

She said she heard God telling her: 'You have a gun. You can do it.'

'I have to die and go to hell so there can be a thousand years peace on earth,' she explained in the two tapes.

'God's turned me into the Anti-Christ... I'm a good person, but the Devil and God turned me into the worst person in the world. I'm so ashamed. And I'm so afraid. And I'll pay forever and ever.'

-----------------------------------------------------

I would have thought the boy may have had an idea that Mom wasa nuts and be a little afraid of going to the gun range with her.
But I suppose she could have just shot him in his sleep too.

"'God's turned me into the Anti-Christ... I'm a good person, but the Devil and God turned me into the worst person in the world."

I'm not a fan of organized religion, but you can't attribute this woman's obvious mental health issues to it, any more than you could take someone who killed because they thought government mind control made them do it, and say "See, government is evil because it caused this person to be insane."

Furthermore, this sort of nonsense only undermines the real and legitimate points made about the abuse of religion, because this isn't about reason--it's about bashing religion, and it turns off people who are otherwise more willing to listen to the facts.

The killer in your analogy who believes that government mind control made them do it wasn't affected by government, and no one would claim so. However, there are many consiracy theorist groups and cults out there who specifically believe that the government is trying to control our minds, and that this mind control is capable of forcing someone to commit a crime a la The Manchurian Candidate. If someone talking about this hypothetical murder were to mention that this madman demonstrates the danger of such conspiracy groups and cults, it would be valid.

Furthermore, the classification of religion bashing is only so much special pleading.

i just don't know that. i just read a story about an otherwise perfectly normal family in CT, i think it was. the adolescent children did not believe that the world was ending on may 21; the parents did. no mental illness there, yet the 15-year-old daughter had been informed by her mother that they would not be together in heaven because of the daughter's lack of faith. now tell me i'm just bashing religion for no reason.

some fairly widely held beliefs might be considered sick psychologically but are accepted because they are religious. the bible for instance. what a bundle of contradictions and absurdity is that. yet millions, millions of people say it is a sacred text that came from gawd and millions more do not say they are sick because of it.

i can state my case and my beliefs. religious people get offended because they cannot logically defend their own. when it comes to spiritual beliefs i keep mine to myself for the most part and don't try to make other people believe the same as i do. but i can tell you that my beliefs are no less likely than those of organized religion, and just as subject to logical dismantling. i believe anyway and that is my choice.

god is the excuse, not the cause. These people are sick. SICK. Whatever their trigger was, who knows. But to attribute it to religion just because she's confused is sad.

but i will say that otherwise perfectly normal and healthy and street-worthy people have sworn to me that gawd has sent them messages and that they talk to gawd all the time. and i'm not supposed to think that's sick. where to draw the line. we have an end-timer looking to be president and she's got a solid minority of the people perceiving her as just short of the second coming of christ. oh, yeah, the coming of christ. when everything changes. however, i do not attribute this particular tragedy to religion and i do agree that she was a very sick woman. religion plays a role however, as evidenced by her own words.

...to children in Haiti."

(2) "Government mind control made kill my son"

(3) "God told me to kill my son."

(4) "God told me to send food and blankets to children in Haiti."

A lot of people wouldn't consider statement 4 crazy at all. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people who would take 4 as a "heartwarming" example of Faith.

But why is 4 any less crazy than 1, 2 or 3?

If you think 4 isn't crazy, or if you live in a society that's less likely to judge 4 crazy, doesn't 3 then start to seem a little less crazy, and thus more acceptable, than 1 and 2? Aren't 3 and the Biblical story of Abraham the same thing?

Religion may not be THE cause for tragic stories like the OP. But I think it greases the skids for crazy people, makes them less likely to question their own sanity before they proceed with doing a crazy thing.

a lot of people in this country believed that extraterrestrials were on their way to earth in a giant spaceship, and that when they arrived, all of their devotees would be taken up into the spaceship and carried off to a better world, leaving everyone else to stay here and suffer.  And suppose that they gathered by the hundreds and thousands every week to sing songs to the aliens (convinced they can hear across the vastness of space) and celebrate that glorious day to come.  And suppose this went on for hundreds of years.  Delusional, weirdos, nuts and crackpots would probably be some of the kinder terms (whether spoken out loud or not) that would be applied to them, by just about everyone.   But call those people Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and the space aliens “God” and “Jesus”, and all of a sudden, the same behavior is supposed to be regarded not merely as sane and sensible, but wonderful, as something to be praised and immune from criticism. Mainly because of the deferential attitude and special status that organized religion has convinced most people it is entitled to.
 
 

 
 

I mean, if god told them do it, are they also SICK people?

If DU had been around during the Waco fiasco, I have a feeling that many threads about that group of paranoid schizophrenics would have landed here, too.

paranoid schizophrenics?


That might be going a little bit too far, imo - but I think when people realize it's just a matter of degree - they'll figure out that ALL of it (religion) is pretty much - erm - crazy!

A lot of people talk to god, the people who claim that god literally talks back to them are the one's with mental problems.

I guess that's why.

And said the devil was in her, and that she was.....oh, nevermind. You know why.

she did comes directly from the teachings of fundamentalist Christianity. Her antichrist reference and the attribution of her motivation to religion makes it a religious issue.

A number of fundamentalist Christian denominations believe and teach that mental illness is not a disease, but a "possession." They discourage going to medical professionals. Did you not know that?

...makes you wonder why the close connection. Cleatly not all religious people are nuts, but if about 13% of the population are not religious why don't 13% of the loonies like this claim the absence of gods told them to kill?

Space Aliens Story Doesn't Sway Jury In Murder Case
October 27, 1995
... Moody said during his trial that cocaine-pushing space aliens took control of his body and forced him to murder Michelle Malone, a friend, and Patricia Magda, a neighbor, in November 1993 to prove that aliens existed. The aliens told him that their mission required that he be convicted and sentenced to die but that he would survive a lethal injection, he testified Wednesday ...
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1995-10-27/news/9510270722_1_aliens-moody-cocaine

Lawyer: Shootings suspect sought to stop space aliens
May 30, 2007
... A man accused in a deadly shooting rampage in Maryland and Delaware was trying to prevent space aliens from abducting his daughter, his attorney said Tuesday ...
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-05-30/news/USNEWS30_6_1_norman-aliens-delaware

Law & Psychiatry: Insanity, Guilty Minds, and Psychiatric Testimony
Paul S. Appelbaum, M.D.
... Rarely does the U.S. Supreme Court enter the legal thicket surrounding criminal defenses involving insanity, diminished capacity, and related states of mental impairment ... The case accepted by the Court involved Eric Clark, who was 17 years old at the time of his arrest and who had been acting oddly for years. Convinced that Flagstaff, Arizona, where he lived, had been populated by hostile space aliens, he slept surrounded by an alarm system made from fishing line and wind chimes. To avoid being poisoned by his parents, who he ultimately concluded were aliens as well, the only food he ate at home came from sealed packages. Perhaps most fatefully, Eric Clark decided that the police were aliens too. So ... early on a June morning he shot and killed a Flagstaff police officer who had pulled him over as he was driving erratically through a residential neighborhood ...
http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/57/10/1370

A person, who suffers from a psychiatric disorder and has some delusions that can be described using some quasi-religious language (such as "I am the antichrist!" or "I need to kill my son because god told me to") differs, in important ways, from a person, who suffers from a psychiatric disorder and has some delusions that can be described using sci-fi language (such as "I am saving earth from the ufo pod people!"), or from a person, who suffers from a psychiatric disorder and has some delusions that can be described using quasi-political language (such as "CIA radio beams are telling me to kill my son")?

Or is it rather your view that utterances of a person, who suffers from a serious psychiatric disorder, give us important clues about how the rest of us should view the world -- for example, when we hear quasi-religious utterances (such as "I am the antichrist!"), this tells us that we should abolish religion -- or when we hear sci-fi language (such as "I am saving earth from the ufo pod people!"), this tells us that we should abolish science fiction -- or when we hear quasi-political language (such as "CIA radio beams are telling me to kill my son"), this tells us that we should abolish radio broadcasting and the CIA -- and so on?

I note, in passing, that you did not provide the requested statistics

do you really think her statements were anything but religious? You may wish to separate yourself and your particular religion from this, but you cannot deny that these statements are religious. Not quasi-religious or half-assed-religious but religious, flat-out.

#79, #82, #84) where you assert that the woman's views were "Pentecostal" but refuse to provide an argument and evidence for that

I see no legitimate reason for the use of the modifier "quasi".

They differ in the pre-existing lever that their delusions pulled in order to cause irrational behavior. None of these people are described as lacking any belief in gods or aliens before their psychosis. It is stretching all probability that such a delusion worked ab nihilo creating both the delusion of existence and the delusion of influence/communication. I cannot recall a single "X told me to do it" example where X was invented from the whole cloth. Nobody says "blargs told me to do it" or "xduleps are talking to me through telepathy". When examples include aliens, they invariably are represented as amalgams at least of common pop-culture aliens if not unaltered examples. Nothing originally invented is posited as "telling me to do it". That's important.

I have not the slightest interest in abolishing either religion or sci-fi aliens. Both are quite enjoyable to myself and many others. I have however not the slightest willingness to absolve these influences on people who take them as genuinely immanent phenomena and then are caused by the combination of this influence and some mental defect to perpetrate crimes. There is a reason, blindingly obvious to all but the most hypersensitive apologist, why the absence of a belief in X carries no similar risk. It's not impossible that some mental defect will cause me to kill someone (as unlikely as it is for most people I hope), but it is impossible that it will use my absence of belief in any gods to trigger that act. We do not know whether such a mental defect would have found another trigger for this woman, but we know the one it found. Why would anyone pretend otherwise?

In passing, why did you imagine I made a claim that requires statistical evidence?

are less likely to develop delusions

This is the most charitable reading I can give to your #46: it could also be read as making the laughably tautological point that people, who currently have no religious beliefs, will not currently exhibit delusions that they describe in quasi-religious language. I'll just assume you didn't waste our time with that sort of "Have you noticed it gets dark at night?" kind of blather

Of course, you might also have meant that people without religious beliefs are less likely to develop delusions that they describe in quasi-religious language. But I will now explain why that seems to me very unlikely and why it requires proof. First, a disclaimer: I do not intellectually believe in life from other solar systems visits earth: although I consider it quite plausible that there is other life in the universe, and quite plausible that there is other life with limited space exploration ability, the distances are such that I cannot imagine that we will ever contact anyone else out there; nor do I emotionally believe in the possibility that life from other solar systems will visit earth; the whole topic is a dead letter to me, intellectually and emotionally, much as I suspect that religious issues are a dead letter, intellectually and emotionally, to some of our R/T folk here. Nevertheless, I have a very distinct full-color memory, very accurate in details, of looking out my window as a child and seeing a huge flying saucer above the narrow street outside my window. I remember "discovering" this memory: I was about twelve and was engaged in doing something that did not require my full attention, so my mind was drifting over this and that, and suddenly I found that I had a clear recollection of looking out the room window late at night and seeing this huge flying saucer. It startled me, and something was wrong: I did not actually remember seeing it, but I had the recollection; also, the saucer, between my house and the house across the street, was MUCH too big to be in that space. A moment later, the idea convincing flashed into my mind that I must be remembering an image formed in a dream (though I did not remember dreaming this), and it has never bothered me, intellectually or emotionally, since then. I can, however, still recover this false memory-image whenever I want: the window sill, the window panes, the quiet city streets late at night, the huge flying saucer with its lights and portholes, the house opposite mine, and my memory of standing at the window amazed. If I ever suffer a serious psychiatric breakdown, idiosyncratic material (like this false image) could be manifested in the symptoms -- despite the fact that I today have no intellectual or emotional interest in flying saucers

I was making the point that all too often people who have this kind of psychotic behavior identify religious delusions as a cause. Now obviously as an atheist I am even less likely than you to accept that a god really IS telling them to kill their kids, but it's what their own mental processes have latched onto ro pin the "blame" on. You cannot deny that. My musing is to wonder whether this defective mentality would/could have found another trigger absent pre-existing religious belief. My comment about non-believers being told by the absence of gods to kill their kids is obviously farcical puckishness - the very idea of being driven to act by the absence of a motivation is absurd. Notice there is a difference between "would this defect have found another trigger in this case" and "has any other trigger been used". You answered the latter - while I asked the former. It's not that atheists cannot become psychotic, it's that their psychosis will not include the absence of gods as a "voice in the head".

Your own hallucination is hardly the same. I for example share your thoughts on aliens pretty much exactly, and yet I have had many a dream about such things. It's highly possible I could get the same hallucination. We both have doubtless been exposed to thousands of images and stories about aliens. But hallucinations and "the aliens told me to do it" are light years (pun intended) apart. Again - why does no story of such actions posit an entirely original source for "the voices"? Because to think the voices in your head come from something, you must accept that the something in question can speak. I frankly doubt any psychosis you developed would use aliens as such a source for the "voices in your head" for the exact reasons you state. No way to know of course, but the complete lack of original voice-sources leads me to accept that probability.

If the woman in question was not already predisposed to believe God could speak in her head, why would she listen to him when he did? Ask yourself this. If you heard and felt, clearly and movingly, the voice and sensation of Jesus telling you to enter the minstry tomorrow, and in an exactly equal way the voice of Splundigg the Emperor of Thaarg telling you to prepare the earth to be assimilated into the 12th Galactic Empire, which would you consider to be more likely to be a genuine communication with a real entity to whom you should listen? Surely we can assume you do not share her psychosis, but even psychoses must begin somewhere with existing ideas.

Is the answer to your question, and mine.

"Why are all these posts about Religion/Theology not in a paranoid-delusional schizophrenia forum?"

Because it's acceptable to be otherwise I guess.

There is a strong, factual, and compelling argument to be made that belief in the supernatural IS delusional.

Even as a hard core atheist, I accept that segments of humanity are both 1) Insane, and 2) Religious ....

I think, in this case, the insanity clearly 'wins' ....

Religion, as a theology, and as a philosophy, as failed and ridiculous as it may be to many of us; Did NOT teach this woman to kill her own son with a gun at a firing range in Florida ...

The voices in her head are the result of a HUMAN medical condition ... not by an acceptance of a theological precept, but by the common loss of mental faculty that occurs due to factors that exist across many religious and cultural experiences ...

If the voices in her head were clearly a human condition (which I agree with), what are the experiences religious folks have when they "talk to god", or "know jesus", etc?


Why is THIS instance an obvious case of mental illness, but when one has a "born again" moment, that just a religious experience?

Because we are atheists, we do not believe in a 'divine' source of knowledge, or in a holy, miraculous cause for the medical condition of human beings - we believe ONLY in a physical cause ...

Even indoctrination to a theology constitutes a physical cause, I.E. Rote memorization due to a repetitive instructional milieu, over perhaps years of training by committed believers ...

EVEN then ... EVEN when we accept this indoctrination constitutes a physical cause, we would have to search through HER indoctrination materials to find some part of her 'training' that made her do this ...

I have been indoctrinated through the Catholic catechism, so that is all I have to base my own opinions on; At NO time was I ever taught to take my own child to a firing range and blow their head off ....

I would request any knowledge you might have of such a specific teaching or tenet from any religion of your choosing that we could rely on as a direct cause for such a horrific act ...

Even if we accept that crazy people exist, and that many crazy people are religious; WE dont accept religious nonsense as a reasoning for a serious mental condition ...

We need to practice what we 'preach', and live by our own beliefs, which in this case indicates: She was a sick person with a serious medical condition that, in the end, caused her to commit this criminal act ....

Your defense here seems to be entirely based on the idea that no religious teachings tell people to take their child to a gun range and kill them.

Well, fine, you're right on that account, but of course that doesn't matter one bit.

It's not the direct instructions of hard-line religion that are the problem, it's what the teachings create in the mind of the follower: A fertile ground for delusion, and flat acceptance of same. This is why people in "holy roller" churches speak in tongues and believe in magical healing: Their minds have been conditioned not only to accept what they are told by their religious leaders, but also to fabricate that which is necessary to continue their delusions.

Paranoid schizophrenics are dangerous enough, but add that kind of conditioning and you've done nothing but light the fuse.

And yet never commit such acts of brutality ...

While I would agree the religion CAN and DOES pump false ideas ito the minds of believers .... I would directly posit that; WITHOUT the foundation of insanity, based upon a purely physical, pathological status - This would have never happened ....

This is the act of an insane human being .... Yes; affected and molded by religious beliefs, but still acting on an impulse caused by a mental defect of a physical, pathological nature ....

without that molding of religions beliefs and delusional reinforcement, would she still have killed her son?

But we can do something about the religion part, wouldn't you agree?

Less religion in society = less mentally ill people latching onto it and aggravating their delusions.

I'd far rather schizophrenics believe that something secular like the government or aliens are controlling their minds, rather than God or the Devil "possessing" them.

Sure, we'd still have a few that freak out and go out in a blaze of glory getting into a shoot-out with the government (cops) -- but maybe we'd have fewer mothers drowning their kids in the bathtub or driving their cars into lakes to "send them to heaven."

All religion gave this woman was an identity to ascribe to the voices in her head.

To the best of my knowledge, I have met three schizophrenics during my life. Two are artists; one is atheist, the other, religious. Neither has ever harmed anyone. The third was a perpetrator in a triple murder, and had no discernable religious or anti-religious opinions of any kind, just the voices in his head telling him to kill and do other bizarre things. (The first two are friends. The third was co-defendant in a case I worked on for AI.) Go figure.

There's a difference between committing a criminal act because one is religious and committing a criminal act while incidntally being religious. The distinction seems lost on some.

when the voices are of a benevolent religious nature, or when someone has that "born again" experience? Are those people also schizophrenics?

I have known any number of "born again" persons, and as far as I know, none of them did so.

If the voices are benevolent, then the person is likely not paranoid or inclined to do harm. If the person is also able to live a normal life--eg., not affected by a brain tumor or some such--how is that anyone else's business?

How about discussing the point I am making, which is why are benevolent religious "experiences" are a-ok, but any malevolent action that takes place because of religious beliefs is considered mental illness?

Your claim that "any malevolent action that takes place because of religious belief is considered mental illness" is both overly general and demonstrably false. As far as I know, no one considers opponents of LGBT rights to be universally mentally ill, whether they're religous or atheist. But they're certainly malevolent.

to give everything you own to charity, its not. Got it.

:eyes:

Republicans seem to consider charity mental illness. So, apparently, do you.

And you know,I'm not really clear why one person's charity is anyone else's business. I don't care much for the thought police, whether they're coming from the right or allegedly from the left.

Welcome to irrelevancy.

Since you obviously have no answer to the points.

You dodged the question entirely and accused him of thinking that charity was a mental illness and of being a member of the "thought police". Those aren't remotely "points".

...would require a great deal of stupidity. Perhaps in this case an accusation of dishonesty is itself a charitable act.

Here's a free clue: It's the part about someone claiming that GOD TOLD THEM to give everything to charity where the issue of mental illness arises.

A person who is both honest and smart wouldn't need to have this distinction carefully explained and spelled out.

If not for religious beliefs, what would have this woman latched onto to feed her delusion that her son was destined for eternal rewards while she was already eternally damned?

Do you deny that religion often aggravates an already bad situation and can make it much, much worse?

Yet, religion in and of itself could not be defined as a direct cause ....

It fed upon her illness, surely .... exacerbating a serious mental defect by creating false images of reality ...

Yet ANY sort of belief system may have affected her frail mental state in such a manner .... ANY religious precept may have been twisted by her sick mind ...

I think the foundation of this crime is not religious, per se ... but due to mental defect ...

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

It's quite possible I will suffer from some delusion. Heck it's quite possible I already do - how would I know? But a delusion that persuades me something is influencing me externally must obviously include either a delusion that the agency exists or an already established acceptance that it does. How much less likely is a delusion to trigger both aspects - existence and influence - than simply use an existing trigger? I am sure some friendly google expert can find us examples of atheists who have gotten delusions a god was talking to them - should be about 10%+ of all such delusions if prior religious belief is irrelevant.

I remember reading...oh, years ago...a study that claimed that bi-polar people were likely to be linked to Catholicism,and depressives to Judaism. I can't find it again, it was a long time ago, but I found it interesting, and possibly true.

You think we should ban firing ranges too?

Her judgment was clouded simply by holding the gun.

Impulse control out the window.

Why did she take him to the range? Why not do it at home? Was the gun rented?

But even if a gun wasn't available, you don't think she wouldn't have tried other means to achieve her deluded ends? Perhaps poisoning him or cutting his throat in his sleep?

The particular tool used isn't as pertinent as the reasons WHY she felt she had to resort to murder to "save" her son.

Allowing her to end him and then herself immediately thereafter?

In this case at least: No gun, no murder suicide. That's my assessment.

Of course, she could have just invited him over for a sleep-over and while he slept doused her house with gasoline and lit it on fire, allowing herself and him to be consumed by the smoke and flames just the same.

You can try to intervene and stop the crazy before it goes off if you can detect it in time, but once someone sets their mind to murder/suicide, its only a matter of time before they find a way, regardless of how much you try to restrict the particular tool/weapon...

In the 19th century you would have blamed mental illness on the French Revolution because it resulted in people claiming they were Napoleon.

This thread contains more stretching to cover an agenda than a WWF wrestler's shorts.

But this moved me to vent. Religion is POISON. I do not understand how this is not transparent to reasonable people and I cannot be convinced otherwise. That rant aside, I will always respect your right to believe something else.

Could have been Space aliens,
'radio signals' or Sara Palin sending her a secret message
or a movie star in a movie telling her to kill just as easily .......
after all they are crazy !!!!! :crazy:

By the way, France needs saving again.







edit: sp

Fixed it for ya.


Even if you send stories like these to Kansas, no matter how much you want these things to go away, regardless of the level of obfuscation or deflection, the facts will always remain.

Always.


The bed has been made, its time to lay in it.

her delusions. Hid murder-suicide plans to avoid rehospitalization. Signed form at gun-range, promising she was not mentally ill

Exactly which "religion" do you think this murder-suicide represents?

... “I don’t know how all this happened. It’s not in the Bible. No forgiveness for me. That’s not in the Bible. The Antichrist being a woman" ...
Fla. Mom Who Killed Son, Self Thought She Was the Antichrist
By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff
Posted Apr 8, 2009 12:09 PM CDT

... Marie Moore described long struggles over whether to kill herself, stays at mental hospitals and attempts to make sense of the messages she said she received from God. During a 2003 suicide attempt, her son stopped her from killing herself, she said in one recording ... This time, Marie Moore concealed her plans so she wouldn't be hospitalized, she said in the recordings ...
God made me shoot my son, suicide note says
April 08, 2009|By Gary Taylor and Willoughby Mariano, Sentinel Staff Writers
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-04-08/news/shootfolo08_1_marie-moore-mitchell-moore-gun-range

... Casselberry Police say Moore left behind a 3 hour tape that she says would "explain everything," but they say it's mostly incoherent rambling ... In police reports Moore's ex-husband says she was not supposed to be allowed in Shoot Straight because of a previous suicide attempt ...
Mother kills son with a bullet to back of head at Florida shooting range
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5123965/Mother-kills-son-with-a-bullet-to-back-of-head-at-Florida-shooting-range.html

... Bill McNeil, the deputy police chief, said the case was closed after investigations showed that Mrs Moore had signed a self-certification form at the gun range in Casselberry on Sunday stating that she was not mentally ill — the only requirement for them to rent her a firearm legally. “It’s all done on the customer’s own declaration,” he said, adding: “It’s a political topic that someone will have to take up” ... In a second tape marked for police attention Mrs Moore left instructions leading them to a storage facility where she left 63 journals documenting her mental torment. Police confirmed that Mrs Moore had been committed to protective custody under the Baker Act — the equivalent of being sectioned in Florida — in 2002 over an unspecified incident ...
April 9, 2009
Mother kills son and herself on Florida firing range
Jacqui Goddard in Miami
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6062648.ece

Seriously, I am not seeing your point.


The woman was having delusions of a religious nature. She said god was talking to her.


Because the words she heard coming from god were unpleasant, unethical, absurd or "insane" makes not one bit of difference.


We agree that she was mentally ill. And religion played a part in it.

"God told me to do it," that person is lauded as a great person of faith and how DARE you suggest they might have done the same thing even if they had been a non-believer?

Someone else kills their son and says "God told me to do it." That person is instantly disavowed from any religious connection whatsoever, their behavior was totally independent from their religious beliefs.

See how it works? You get to claim all the good examples and reject the bad, so you can make your religion look perfect.

The fact that people simply refuse to acknowledge the point you just beautifully illustrated is beyond my comprehension.


It baffles the mind, the level of disconnect one has to have to rationalize this nonsense.

brothers, that you also did to me' ...
Matthew 25:40

I can see the allure, ostriches have the same reputation.

that approach has the advantage that it might enable you to understand what the religion actually teaches, without requiring you to try to determine whether or not you think the religion is "factually true"

This passage from Matthew suggests that one's religious duties do not involve obeying voices one hears but rather consist of treating other people rightly

It comes from a long vanished time and culture, so perhaps you do not find it very inspiring, but it does shed some light on early understandings of Christianity

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

Violent, bloodthirsty Yahweh could have just as easily made Abraham go through with it. He certainly ordered the slaughter of enough innocents.

Cherry-pick the good, ignore the bad. You've precisely proven my point.

You read them correctly, everyone else is wrong. From you to Jim Wallis to Fred Phelps to George Bush, you all think the same thing about your bible.

:rofl:

April 28, 2009|By Gary Taylor and Willoughby Mariano, Sentinel Staff Writers

CASSELBERRY -- A gun store and shooting range where a mother killed herself and her son three weeks ago suspended all firearms rentals after another customer died at the business Monday ...

Police arrived at Shoot Straight shortly after 5:40 p.m. and found Jason Kevin McCarthy, 26, of Winter Springs with a massive wound to the head, caused by a single gunshot from a rented gun.

McCarthy's death was "an apparent suicide," Casselberry police Lt. Dennis Stewart said ...

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-04-28/news/shoot_1_shoot-straight-gun-store-casselberry

Tampa, FL -- Deputies are investigating a suicide at the Shoot Straight gun range at 3909 North Highway 301.

Just before 4:00 Sunday afternoon, deputies responded to the business after getting reports that someone was shot in one of the stalls.

After reviewing the surveillance video in the shooting stalls, authorities were able to determine that 37-year-old Robert Chan of St. Petersburg shot himself ...

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=163459

July 02, 2009|By Sarah Lundy, Sentinel Staff Writer

A man died Wednesday night after renting a gun and shooting himself at Rieg's Gun Shop on South Orange Blossom Trail, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Office ...

The man -- whose name was not released -- was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

This is the fourth self-inflicted shooting at a Central Florida gun range since April.

Last month, a woman was injured when she tried to shoot herself at East Orange Shooting Sports on Gardner Street, east of Winter Park ...

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2009-07-02/news/gun_1_gun-range-shoot-straight-gun-and-shooting

August 14, 2010|By Jeff Weiner Orlando Sentinel

A man found dead Saturday at an Orange County gun range apparently shot himself and may also be connected to another killing, deputies said.

Orange County deputies responded to a "shots fired" call at the Shooting Gallery gun range, near 39th Street and John Young Parkway, just after 3 p.m. Saturday, said Orange County Capt. Angelo Nieves.

Investigators think the 24-year-old white male victim they found at the range died from a self-inflicted gunshot ...

Other calls led deputies to a second crime scene. According to Nieves, deputies forced their way into a third-story apartment on Woodbury Road in east Orange to find a second body they think might be connected to the first shooting ...

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-08-14/news/os-shooting-range-suicide-20100814_1_gun-range-east-orange-shooting-sports-rieg-s-gun-shop

The most dangerous kind: non-denominational, Pentecostal-flavored Christianity, aka "Bible-believin' Christianity".

Just because my opinion is formed by my own reasoning skills and not by Google doesn't mean that it is somehow based on ESP and/or stereotypes. Take your false dichotomy and shove it.

if, for example, you think she was following the teachings of a particular church, you ought to be able to show that

That she mentioned "the antichrist" does not establish much, since "the antichrist" is by now a vague phrase, with many possible interpretations:

Antichrist (disambiguation)
... a book by Friedrich Nietzsche
... a 2009 film by Lars von Trier
... an album by the black metal band Gorgoroth
... an album by the extreme metal band Akercocke
... an album by Marilyn Manson
... an album by the thrash metal band Destruction
... a song by the band Slayer ...
... the name for a difficult vehicle ... in The Gods Must Be Crazy
... Spanish computer virus hoax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist_%28disambiguation%29

Similarly, that she mentioned "god" does not establish much:

... Conceptions of God can vary widely, but the word God in English and its counterparts in other languages ... are normally used for any and all conceptions ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God

You suggest we should regard her as obviously "Pentecostal" -- well, then, show us how you have applied your own "reasoning skills" to available evidence to reach your conclusion, and do not omit the actual evidence

You cannot tell me with honesty that you question which meaning of God this woman had in mind when she invoked his name. You cannot possibly tell me with any honesty that you question which meaning of the word antichrist she had in mind, either.

All you're doing with your vacillations on the meaning of words, with your parsing arguments, is playing the Scotsman Shuffle. I'm not interested. The faith she follows is as clear as it could ever be from a story in print, and your desperate attempts to spin it as something "other" are nothing but fallacious. She prayed to the same God you do, she just thought the angry and deranged voice in her head was him talking back.

Upthread, you described the woman's views as Pentecostal

I simply asked for your argument and evidence: either you have argument and evidence, or you don't

Speculating about what I can or cannot say honestly, or blathering about what you think my religious beliefs are, is not the same as providing argument and evidence for your claim about the woman's religious beliefs

when the meaning is quite clear in context.

I also have no interest in the Scotsman Shuffle, or your false dichotomies.

BTW: There's an enormous difference between ESP and writing analysis. One is fictional, the other a desirable skill.