Suffer The Children? Usually, It Is The Children Who Suffer – Sometimes Unspeakably

Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!

QUICK ADDENDUM - as I was unable to implement the (read more) widget at all, I have modified post so it can be read in its entirety (and please do read it all the way down before commenting!).

Just horrendous:

San Antonio baby found stabbed, decapitated

Police say mother, whose bail is set at $1 million, told them devil made her kill newborn

Update: San Antonio police say a woman accused of beheading her 3½-week-old infant son used a knife and two swords in the attack and ate some of the child’s body parts, the Associated Press reports.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus told reporters Monday that Otty Sanchez’s attack on her son, Scott Wesley Buchholtz-Sanchez, was “too heinous” to fully discuss.

But he says Sanchez ate part of the newborn’s brain and bit off three of his toes before stabbing herself twice.

Police say the 33-year-old Sanchez told officers who were called to her house early Sunday that she killed her son at the devil’s request.

Sanchez is charged with capital murder and is being held on $1 million bail. She is recovering from her wounds at a hospital.

In what police described as one of the most gruesome crimes against a child in recent memory, a newborn boy in San Antonio was stabbed, decapitated and mutilated early Sunday.

His 33-year-old mother claimed responsibility, police said.

Otty Sanchez told police that she was "hearing voices" and that the devil made her kill Scott Wesley Buchholtz Sanchez, whom she gave birth to on June 30, San Antonio police spokesman Joe Rios said.

A knife and two swords?

Is there a biblical precedent? Yes, there is:

1. Leviticus 26:16 "I also will do this unto you... You shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it."
2. Leviticus 26:29 "And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat."
3. Deuteronomy 28:53 "And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters."
4. Deuteronomy 28:57 "And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them."
5. 2 Kings 6:28-29 "This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him."
6. Isaiah 9:19-20 "Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm."
7. Isaiah 49:26 "And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine."
8. Jeremiah 19:9 " And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend."
9. Lamentations 4:10 "The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat."
10. Ezekiel 5:10 "Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers."
11. Micah 3:2 "Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Micah 3:3 Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron."
12. Zechariah 11:9 "I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another."

Yes, each of these practices/verses are debatable. No, there’s not enough evidence to suggest any of these passages inspired the crazed woman. There is sufficient evidence the world round that religion (AKA superstition) provides a safety umbrella under which the mentally ill can seek shelter, regardless of ideology (I’d restrict it to monotheism: pantheists are likely too confused to act upon their ‘voices’).

I’ve mentioned this before, that religion is NOT a force for good in this world. I have also maintained (much to the chagrin of some of my cohorts here) that I consider religion an excuse, and that mental illness is a biological not an ideological affliction.

Having all this logic and data well in hand, I posit that it’s the societal taboo against religious criticism that enables people like Mrs. Sanchez to fall beneath the radar. Where obvious issues like glossolalia are glossed over, and the hearing of voices if ignored, usually ends in deep tragedy.

It is a constant  battle – but religion must go. It is an anachronism that costs lives, psyches, and enormous resources better used to improve the life of our species.

Till the next post, then.