You know, in life, you have to appreciate the little things; a nice sunset, a good meal, and the subtle joys of disciplining your children with large plastic tubes. About 3 years ago, Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz were punishing their adopted daughter for being silly, and because their religion puts heavy emphasis on using physical domination to make children more obedient to God, they decided it was time to really teach her a lesson. They held her down for hours, and beat her with a plastic tube. She died from internal injuries.

If you’re a parent and want a little glimpse into their fucked up belief system, visit the site of their religious guru, Michael Pearl, who states the foolishness of children (you know, when they act silly and shit, like most kids do) needs to be beaten out of them so they can be more obedient to God. The site loves quoting the Bible as proof of their claim, and as you might guess, it’s some pretty scary stuff:

You must also condition their bodies to obedience by seizing many opportunities throughout the day to walk them through acts of obedience. As the military drills their soldiers, you must drill your children.

As a rule, do not use your hand. Hands are for loving and helping. If an adult swings his or her hand fast enough to cause pain to the surface of the skin, there is a danger of damaging bones and joints. The most painful nerves are just under the surface of the skin. A swift swat with a light, flexible instrument will sting without bruising or causing internal damage. Many people are using a section of ¼ inch plumber’s supply line as a spanking instrument.

That’s exactly what 7 year old Lydia was beaten with, and so was her 11 year old brother for supposedly being a bad influence.

I hate this kind of sadistic shit. It reminds me of the Protestant edict that children “should be seen and not heard”, as though the laughter and exuberance of children is an annoyance rather than a blessing (I’m taking that word back). If you can’t let kids be kids, opting instead to beat the “silliness” out of them, you deserve the fucking beating.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around this story for hours, and I still can’t figure it out. It seems as though a 2 year old boy was the victim of a bizarre religious ritual which involved sticking “blessed” sewing needles into his body, some of which punctured his heart, his lungs, and other vital organs. His stepfather, Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, claims he did this while under a supposed trance from his secret lover, a woman named Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos. Dos Santos paid to have all 42 needles blessed by a priestess of a religion called Candomble, which I won’t go in detail about (it’s like any other form of animism: stupid and pointless). Over the span of a month, all of them were shoved in various places in his body. Fucking horrible, no?

The most annoying part of this article has to be when the director of Afro-Brazilian studies at the University of Brasilia, Nelson Inocencio, expressed concern that this incident might lead people to be prejudiced against other Afro-Brazilian religions, which he argues do not have a history of harmful rituals. I think any belief that allows you to simply make shit up is harmful, regardless of its history. I’m sure once upon a time plenty of religions didn’t have violent or harmful practices; they just evolved naturally over time (you start to sacrifice simple shit to your gods, and next thing you know you’re throwing virgins into a volcano). It’s not like Candomble is based on objective reality anyways, so why are we surprised when some of its practitioners start doing crazy shit? It would be such a shame if people stopped believing in nonsense, right Nelson?

Man, am I glad neither of my parents were religious. We were quite poor when I was young, and it wasn’t always easy to make ends meet; luckily, unlike this woman, my parents worked hard to provide for me rather than wait around for some invisible friend in the sky to fix their problems.

Estelle Walker is facing a total of 40 years in prison for child endangerment. It seems Walker had been staying at a cabin owned by a local church and refused to leave, find work, or do anything other than just pray for God to fix everything. At one point, her kids went 11 days without eating. When they were rescued, they apparently looked gaunt, malnourished and weak. Should she win Mother of the year, or of the century?

She’s even refusing to participate in her own defense. The prosecution offered her a pretty sweet deal: if she agreed to get psychiatric help, she would serve no additional time in jail. She refused, saying “God is my defense”. If this is the same God who failed to provide her with a job or food, I wouldn’t exactly hold my breath for him to swoop down during the court proceedings to whisk her away to magic land.

I detest how obviously mentally deranged people can so easily refuse psychiatric help when they mask their illness behind the protective veil of religion. This woman is quite obviously a loon, but because of her conviction even a judge found her competent enough to stand trail. This woman should be in an institute, not prison. When are people going to realize a belief like that is a sign of mental illness, not religious piety?

(Update: Estelle was eventually convicted and sentenced to an anemic 8 years)

What happens when you abuse a young girl for years, and you eventually get caught? You go to jail, right? Well, not if you’re too fat to fit in the cell! That’s what’s happened with child abuser Church Elder John William McConaghy, 66, who was convicted of all but 1 of the 21 charges against him. After receiving an anemic 12 months in jail, the judge was reluctant to send this fat piece of crap to jail.

His obesity, diabetes, ulcerated legs and MRSA infection were held to be exceptional circumstances.

Luckily, the prison was able to show that they could accommodate the fat fuck, and he was eventually sent to the slammer.

There is still a frighteningly large segment of the population that believes the Bible is a useful guide for every day living. Luckily, most of these misguided fools have never actually read the fucking Bible, so for the most part, we’re spared from the ill fate of anyone trying to live by the “Good Book”.

Once in a while, though, you run across a human being who hasn’t quite understood the concept of modern Germ Theory, and attempts to circumcise his 4 year old son on his kitchen floor with a razor blade. In case you want to know just how fantastically STUPID this particular human being is, consider the fact he had already tried it on himself and was admitted to the hospital when his foreskin turned black.

The father had been doing some research online for performing this kind of “surgery” (yes, sometimes the Internet really is shitty). His fundamentalist buddies encouraged him to use a product called Blood Stop, which sounds great until you realize they use this stuff on dogs. This douchebag (who can’t be identified for fear of embarrassing his children to death) couldn’t afford that medicine, so he bought the shit they give to horses instead.

The doctors eventually had to properly circumcise the child, because after a few days of the wound festering, they had to also remove a black, thick tarry substance from the boy’s penis. The dad has his wish, but in reaction the state took away his kids and put them in protective custody. So what does this guy do? He turns around and claims this is religious discrimination. He followed the logic of the Bible, and he wants this to be his constitutional right as a Canadian citizen.

You know what buddy? Fuck you. Seriously, you can’t almost kill your child with a botched attempt at circumcising him and then complain the government is unfair in protecting your other kids, too. You’re obviously not a smart man, and your religious mania places everyone around you at risk. No one stopped you when you fucked up your disaster of a circumcision. If you hate your own penis so much, so be it. The problem we have as a society isn’t how you practice your religion, it’s how you practice it on other people. When you forget about their welfare and place the desires of some invisible deity above those of your children, you’ve failed as a parent. It’s really that simple.

Child brides are a reality in the Middle East. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when this tradition started gaining wide acceptance, but one thing is for sure: Most Islamic countries (especially poorer ones) regard this practice as normal, even beneficial. Why wouldn’t they? Their own prophet, Mohammad, consummated his marriage with his favorite bride, Aisha, when she was only 9 years old (there’s considerable whitewashing when it comes to the issue of her age. In fact, even Wikipedia avoids mentioning it, an obvious pandering to Islamic apologetics). The story is either generally not discussed in the Islamic community, or if it is, it’s used as justification for this disgusting tradition.

CNN has the touching and painful story of little Nujood Ali, a 10 year old Yemeni girl who recently had to fight to divorce her much older abusive “husband”. She’s become somewhat of a celebrity, and her parents (the same people who basically sold her away to a pervert) are angry that her fame has not resulted in any money for them.

The most disturbing element in this story is under Sharia law, the husband had to be compensated financially for the divorce. So rather than go to jail for beating and raping this child, the courts have ordered Nujood to pay her husband more than 200 dollars. That’s a massive sum in a country where a significant portion of the population live off less than $1 a day.

Remember the tragic story of Kara Neumann? She was the 11 year old girl who died of complications due to diabetes while her Christian Science parents prayed for her. What was a highly treatable condition thanks to today’s modern medicine turned into second degree reckless homicide.

If you were hoping the judge was going to throw the book at them, get ready to be severely disappointed. All they got was 10 years probation, and they have to spend one month in jail every year for 6 years. It’s like going to camp for the summer, except rather than cooking marshmallows by the roaring fire, you’re trying to avoid getting corn-holed in the shower.

I’m glad the case is finally over and the parents are going to be punished, but in the end a little girl still died because of her parents’ ignorant beliefs. It’s frustrating this kind of thing keeps happening all the time, but until we stop believing in primitive superstitions, these types of tragedies will continue to be fairly common.