Police Kill Man Who Beat Child to Death

Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

Mr. Matt, you're making him angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

In spite of whatever rage, demon possession or whatever, that dirt bag may of had while beating his child to death, I personally believe a tire iron to the back of the fuckers head would have issued an immediate order to cease and desist.

Unfortunately in that situation the bystanders think it is horrible but have been conditioned to not interfere. Perhaps they are afraid of getting in trouble, retaliation on themselves by the perpetrator, etc. Sometimes they are just in shock and do not ever think to stop the incident. I do not condone their actions; however, I can see a bit of their thinking on this.

Everybody done putting words in my mouth now?

Would this scumbag be crazy without religion? Maybe, maybe not. Did religion help fuel this persons psychosis and help him legitimize his actions? I would say most definitely, since he himself said he was "beating the demons" out of the child.

Would he have done the same thing without religion? Impossible to tell, fortunately for the rest of the world, this piece of shit is dead.

Do I personally believe that religion causes far more damage than good. Absolutely. I have a pretty extensive background in Christian religion, so It's not like I came to this decision from a position of ignorance, nor did I come to these beliefs overnight.

Do I think that religion is a mental disorder? I wouldn't go that far, because of the large amounts of social momentum behind it, lending it some kind of legitimacy from the general population, as opposed to he lone person "hearing voices" and such. However, without this tradition, the religious are somewhat indistinguishable from many classical disorders. I mean, adults with imaginary friends are kinda scary. The hypocrisy inherent in even the best religion completely nullifies them for me. Even the most fervent Christian holy-roller would never believe someone like Jesus if they met him today. He would be considered a dangerous radical, and in today's political climate, would probably be labeled a "terrorist". I mean, he was trying to destroy and replace the entire Social/Religious/Economical structure of the world, right?

it's easy to be brave on the internet. as i said, i prefer to believe i would have acted. but then, who wouldn't like to believe that? the simple fact is that members of polite society, when confronted in a group with something outside the bounds of normalcy, frequently find themselves frozen by indecision. if i had to guess, i'd say it's because we tend to structure our minds to deal with types of stress that don't involve threats to our lives or safety; shifting modes to deal with life-and-death decisions apparently isn't as easy as it sounds.

which doesn't make it any less sad or any less wrong.

the hypocrisy is not inherent in the religion, it's inherent in people.

You're also less likely to intervene on someone's behalf if you're part of a group of spectators, according to the bystander effect.

indeed. s'what i meant by "...when confronted in a group...".

that advice amuses me. given the nature of the phenomenon, it seems a bit silly to assume that the person who received the advice will actually act.

motorfirebox said:

I think there's plenty of hypocrisy in both, actually. I mean, how much more hypocritical can you get than making people bow down and worship something that doesn't even exist?

it's only hypocrisy if the entity forcing people to worship doesn't believe in what the people are worshiping. the opinion of some random guy on an internet forum regarding the existence of what they're worshiping is immaterial.

SO, if god exists, and he made up religion, then it's not hypocritical. If man made it up then it is. Is that what you're trying to say?

If so, that's why I think it's hypocritical, because it's not real.

the existence of god is actually moot, in this case. for religion to be guilty of hypocrisy, the religion itself--however you choose to define such a nebulous concept--has to not believe what its worshipers believe. if the author(s) of the bible, for instance, didn't actually believe in god, that could be considered to mean that christianity is hypocritical--but then again, it might not, since the people who lead christianity today (religious authorities and scholars) probably do believe in god. bascially, your statement is too vague to really mean anything; what little meaning can be derived from it is factually incorrect.

and regardless of all that, your opinion that there is no god certainly doesn't make christians, or christianity, hypocritical.