You know the tired argument that without religion, human beings are incapable of making proper moral judgements? Here’s another great example of just how stupid and wrong this belief is: A New Zealand man was given a 3 year jail sentence for sexually abusing his daughter from the ages of 5 to 11. The really fucked up thing (beyond him not getting a jail sentence at least as long as the abuse) is he would make her pray for forgiveness every time he sexually abused her.

His daughter said she lost all respect for the church, God and the Bible as a result of her father’s offending.

“He was supposed to be Christian but look at all the evil he was doing.” She said he looked like a monster to her. He would make her pray with him for forgiveness after the sexual abuse, but she knew she had not done anything wrong.

“I wanted Dad to say what he had done but he just lied and never took responsibility.” She told the court how her life had deteriorated.

If he did something fucked-up because of religion, then trust me girl, he IS a Christian. They have a long and colored history of abusing women; it was called the Inquisition, and it’s still a gigantic shit-stain on their history they would rather gloss over (it’s not likely to show up in Sunday School discussions). It’s just unfortunate for them the whole thing lasted over 4 centuries. Kinda makes hiding it a bit “tricky”.

What really scares me about religious rubes is how they tend to justify improper or evil actions through their religious convictions. Because he was convinced a God spoke directly to him, who knows what kind of crazy reasoning this man was allowed to conjure up in his own mind. And what’s up with him making his daughter pray for forgiveness? Did he blame her for his temptation, or did he think this was a test from God? Just more proof belief in a higher power has no bearing on morality. Will our sectarian counterparts ever “get it”?