Kiddos.
There are many religious people. There are many women who kill their children. There's an overlap. It's NOT causative.
Here's MY observations:
Religion is an aggravating circumstance ONLY. In Christian communities, there is a high value/emphasis placed on motherhood- so women who are struggling feel a lot of shame that they are not "good" women. They're too reluctant to expose themselves. When they do, it doesn't always lead to them getting the kind of help they need in a timely fashion. Their support network, in extended family and church, is strong, and strength does breed hubris. Spiritual awareness is considered THE transcendent force in life; and there's a bit too much of a tendancy to trust in its ability to guide a struggling person through a crisis.
Unfortunately, while this support network is wonderfully effective for many crisis, there's one it over-reaches with...and that's severe mental illness.
This woman was psychotic. In the words of one doctor, her actions, cutting off the arms, "...suggested a specialized thought process...," "...specialized psychotic thinking..." In other words, her thoughts and actions were specialized to fit her warped view of reality.
Her support network dropped the ball, screwed the pooch, just like that of Andrea Yates (who is intermittently in the news for suicide attempts, now that she is being treated for her mental illness in the prison system, and can appreciate what she did to her children, her husband, her extended family, her community, and herself while she was crazy).
O, and Yates knocked the eldest children unconscious first (I believe she employed a hammer) while they were sleeping, and drowned them first. She was in touch with reality sufficiently to know that they would suffer more otherwise. She was trying to help/save her children from Satan (who she heard bragging to her about how he would get their souls via the corrupting influence of modern life), not hurt them.
OK, kiddos?
Sleep well tonight.
Apologies for the mis-use of the phraise, "aggravating circumstance." I did not intend to imply that religious conviction should be taken into consideration during sentencing, as a factor that calls for harsher penalization! D@mn, I'm only just now on my second cup of coffee, you know. I should have said, "...has an aggravating effect only.."
Originally posted by Mane
That's stereotyping saying that all Christian people are killers. Muslims have killed thousands more of their own and others than other "religious" people, yet I hear nothing of them; Just Christian-bashing.
What? Are you deaf, or do you just choose to not hear the blatant racism against arabs and the slurs against Muslims everyday?
As for the topic, I don't find it unbelievable. I find it pretty sick and twisted, but not unbeliveable. More and more shit like this happens everyday, and I'm not surprised anymore.