Texas mother kills children for God

Well I am not going to blame christianity, I am not going to ask every christian in this world to stand up and condemn her ( as the hypocrite islamophobes do all the time).

This woman was not insane, she was brainwashed by some sick priests.

 

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Jenyar

When you talk to God you say you are praying - and when God talks to you, you say you are being guided by God.

Tell me - How is this different to the schizophrenic who talks to an imaginary friend and hears voices in his head?


BTW Every human knows what peace is - not every human knows what God is.

 

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That stops just conveniently short of "blaming Christianity", doesn't it? Which Imam should we blame for Islamic terrorism?

 

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Although psychodynamic explanations of religious delusions may appeal to some people, I find other explanations more convincing. Current research on schizophrenia points to biological factors playing an important role in the disorder. Heredity, biochemistry, and neurophysiological & neuroanatomical factors distinguish schizophrenic people from other people. These biological factors may be facilitated by environmental conditions, such as trauma experienced while a child, to "bring out" the schizophrenia.

So, I lean toward the view that the person whose schizophrenic delusions include religious imagery is simply using religion as an expression of the altered reality. This is actually a sensible thing to do, given the nature of religious experiences. However desirable they may be, religious visions and feelings of contact with the divine are very private events. If I have a religious experience, I may try to convey that experience to you but any description I offer is unlikely to give you the same sense of awe and wonder that I myself experienced. The ineffable quality of religious experiences renders them intensely personal and private. Little wonder, then, that an individual whose sense of reality is somewhat different from other people's may turn to religious modes of expressing that reality. (Mental Health and religion)​

As you can see there are definite differences. God doesn't talk through "voices", but through influence. Influence should be grounded in scripture and not just special "revelation". Special revelation was always limited to special, chosen people (chosen for their righteousness and responsibility, mind you). But if special revelation was God's method of choice after Christ had come to fulfil the reason for personal revelation, scripture would only have been redundant and prohibitive. But instead the Bible says:

1 Corinthians 14:29
Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.​

God wouldn't have asked the church to moderate itself if He had decided that personal authority outweighs the common authority He placed on the church.

Titus 3
1Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.​

...and to murder your children? I don't think so.

You don't qualify "knowing". Does a person who grew up in the war-torn regions of the DRC "know" peace, or is he just aware of the possibility because he can imagine the absence of conflict, even though it doesn't fit into his worldview? Not everybody knows God, but everyone has a spiritual awareness that makes him wonder about God. Some choose to seek peace, others choose to continue fighting - some choose to seek God, others choose to dismiss Him.

Not knowing what you're looking for doesn't mean it can't or doesn't exist. But the fact that you are even looking should make you wonder - what about the world prompted you to look?

 

Gee how did he do that?

E mail?, voice mail, first class post, phone call EH?

Explain how God ASKED

 

Jenyar,

Vienna has brought up a great point. There are many many stories where the biblical god directly spoke in an audible voice.

In the link you provided it states, "People who have schizophrenia may believe that they are deity figures, or they may claim some special ability to communicate with deity." Wouldn't this apply to Jesus?

What makes the voices, that being god and the angel, Isaac heard more credible than the one this woman heard? After all it states he heard the angel's voice from the heavens- how do we know he didn't truly suffer schizophrenia or was drunk?

 

And how important is the Pauline evangelization? Paul had a vision.

Much of Christianity is based on unverifiable revelation left to faith.

An already-unstable mind operating within such confines may not have the ability to reconcile that faith with reality or morality.

Few believers, unless truly challenged, examine these issues openly. If they do privately, it doesn't always show. Some of us here at Sciforums understand the difference between what God ordered the Hebrews to do to the Amelekites and Jesus Christ.

However, some don't, and not all of them are obviously crazy.

In that same heartbeat, though, we must remember that defining Christianity is not nearly so simple as it should seem. Labels aside, there are as many "sects" as there are faithful.

 

How about, "The kind of things that happen when you think you know God's will"?

~Raithere

 

Why do you prefer an audible voice? Is the only organ that can hear your ears? The ears are only recepticles for any information that comes in the form of soundwaves. They don't hear, and neither do they discern between truth and delusion. The brain decodes that information and "hears", and even then you have to decide to actively listen to it, and you still have reason at your disposal before you decide to obey it.

The problem with schizophrenia isn't that the voices they hear haven't passed through their cochlea - as if that "verifies" it - it's that they are unable to discriminate between autogenerated information and external information. Have you seen A beautiful mind? Nothing forces them to listen to those voices. Schizophrenia is a dibilitating disease. That makes it hard to function normally even in mundane daily tasks. The voices they hear don't correspond to circumstances either. Why did Abraham set off on a three day journey, climb a mountain, lifted the knife, and only then heard the angel stopping him? A schizophrenic has no control over what they hear and when they hear it. That's why it's so debilitating, and why it's considered an illness. Otherwise it would just have meant having conversation whenever you felt lonely.

Why do you assume that an otherwise audible voice carries more authority? You can't just arbitrarily decide what you consider "authoritive", especially if it concerns God's will. But since the issue seems to be with audible voices, I'll address them specifically.

Exodus 15:26
He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you."​

Notice that "the voice of God" is mentioned in the third person. But it might be just a peculiar Hebrewism. But here God orders Moses to listen in obedience to other decrees and commands. God makes it clear that He never overrides anything He has proclaimed, i.e. never goes back on His word.

Think of what that means. Jesus told his disciples that they will have visions and prophecies. Why don't every Christian have them today? Because everything that was revealed to them is already contained in the NT. No doubt God is still making things new, but nothing that has been said before becomes invalid.

The bottom line is: nothing a Christian hears or comes to understand can ever overrule what has already been said (Deut. 4:2) and been made obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). I've emphasized this over and over: if you deny that Christ made any difference, you're "still in your sins", and unless you're a Jew almost anything goes (religiously speaking). The Romans (especially on Crete) were exhibit A of this kind of civilized freedom.

Moses' greatest challenge was to get his people to listen to God, through whichever "voices" He used - laws, prophets, natural phenomena. In your case, it might be through this forum. Unlike that woman, most people only realize that God has spoken when they are prepared to listen - when something stirs and makes them prop their ears. So, hearing God's voice requires no special abilities - such claims should always make one sceptical. Just a willingness to listen to what has already been said.

Deaf people are not excluded from hearing God, nor blind people from seeing Him. His Word can infuse anything with meaning.

 

Not so, ever heard something say something like "Gee, I thought I just heard something".

And probably people who "think" thay have heard god speak to them don't want to discriminate between autogenerated information and external information. People who are insecure can become so desperate that they create a false sense of security in their own mind.

How do you know Abraham didn't just imagine these voices, or/and made it all up. People make things like this up just to "prove" themselves. just take Mohammed for example - were the voices he heard true?


How do you differenciate between Christian voices in the head, and Muslim voices in the head, each other says the other is wrong - so whats going on?

Are you saying Abraham had control over what he heard in his head?

How about the talking bush? - whats all that about???

The bottom line is: Mental instability can infuse with anything at all

 

Consider how Paul defended his ministry in 2 Corinthians 10:

13 We, however, will not boast about things that cannot be measured, but we will boast according to the standard of measurement that the God of measure has assigned us--a measurement that relates even to you.​

Paul asks that his ministry be measured only by how far the gospel has spread because of him, and nothing else. Not special revelation, or even his great authority, which "amounts to nothing" if the message isn't believed. He asked that the truth and sincerity of his actions be judged only by what could be verified by the churches themselves. in this respect, he appealed to signs and wonders:

12The things that mark an apostle--signs, wonders and miracles--were done among you with great perseverance.​

Paul's revelation only turned him from persecuting Christians to becoming a Christian - it didn't reveal any new information that added to what Jesus had already achieved. His whole ministry rested on the truth of the resurrection, which was the only reason he would have converted from Pharisee to Christian, and nothing else. However, his revelation didn't reveal anything the Christians whom he was persecuting didn't already know - a fact supported by the fact that he was formally accepted by the apostles themselves fourteen years since he had begun preaching the gospel (Gal.2:9).

Paul appeals to external support in his letter to the Galatians, and denies a personal agenda:

8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
10Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.​

And in his defense before Agrippa Paul declared emphatically that his message was "true and reasonable", appealing to the king's own knowledge of what had happened (Acts 26:24). If anybvody had reason to believe he was insane, they would have thrown away his letters and his arguement before Agrippa falls flat.

Besides, if his delusion included the belief that "murderers, adulterers, perverts, slave traders, liars and perjurers" were "contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God" (1 Tim.1:10), lying about his conversion would only get him into greater trouble than he was before (not to mention the damage it would do the credibility to which he appeals in his epistles).

And Vienna, if he wanted so badly to prove himself, why would he justify his conversion by boasting about his suffering and rejection by his own people? What is there to be insecure about if you consider those strengths? The only security he had was his faith.

 

Sorry Jenyar - but its all a pile of crock

 

How can I argue against such immutable logic.

 

Whenever I hear of a story like this I can't help but think about the irony of it and people's reactions to it.

Tell this story to your common Christian, and you will likely get a reaction that basically attributes her actions to either being a manifestation of insanity or a result of being in the devil's grasp (not counting the ones that would vote for vengance out of anger).
However, if they read the same story (God told me to kill my children) in the Bible, they would see it as a test of faith that someone has to go through in order to prove their obedience or faith in God.

It just makes me wonder...

If this woman is insane or in the grips of the devil, why are those in the Bible believed to have actually been doing God's will?

Why is not that either she actually a messenger of God, or the biblical equivalent insane or posessed?
Why are those from the bible not discounted as "crazy people who actually thought God was talking to them"?

What defines when you should apply the double standard?

 

I am sorry if this question was asked and I didn't see it.
It is late and I have insomnia.

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If this is true:

Do/Should those around her have any accountability (legally or otherwise) to this for not interveneing in some way?

 

It would have been a good question if such a correspondence actually existed. Why do we accept behaviour in the Bible that we object to in our lives? Killing children, wars, stoning...

The truth is that they weren't even acceptable in the Bible. They were cultural realities, just like the death penalty might be a reality in some states, and like wars are still a reality (despite - or because of? - America and the UN's best efforts).

The only instance in the Bible we're the sacrifice of a child (i.e ritual and slaughter - not "murder" as we call it today) is acceptible is the one instance where God says: "No! Even when I order it I do not require you to fulfil it - I will provide the sacrifice myself." And it's such a clear reference to the sacrifice Jesus made that it's impossible to read anything else into it (unless you've already lost the plot).

Without God, we are continually at odds with ourself: is it justice to stand by as Saddam or Mugabe kills his own people, or is it justice to oppose them for the sake of world peace? At which point does the injustice of an individual become a threat to the ends of justice for all people? And every time the answer is: when the initiator takes judgments that belong to God into his own hands.

Outside of a living relationship with God, any decision can be a loose cannon. That's why Christian ethics aren't the same a biblical ethics. As we respond to new threats and new demands, love does guide us into new territories - but it's the same love that guided the Israelites, and which guided Jesus.

 

I think definitely - at least as Christians they have such a responsibility. Although legally I don't think they had any obligation unless she was in their care. The husband might be complicit through negligence if he was aware of her condition, since he shared responsibility for the care of their children.

And the church leaders should be charged if they promoted her motives.

 

tiassa,

How about the cheap argument? Within religions, these things happen from time to time, and we must consider society's obligation unto itself inasmuch as how many is too many?

What makes you thik this is a religioius act? What we're actually being told is that she said while on the phone to the police; "i've killed my boys..." then it goes on to say; She said God made her do it, which is not an actual quote, but a statement made by the sherrif. There is no actual quote of her making the latter statement nor is there any reason her act was "religious."

I suppose the question really is whether or not this would have happened were she Muslim, Hindu, atheist, or otherwise not Christian?

Apparently she has been diagnosed as having bipolar disorer, and has had 3 or 4 psycotic outbreaks previious to the murders. Under those circumstances, i think this could happen to anyone.

Jan Ardena

 

Jan

• What makes you thik this is a religioius act?

It is the cornerstone of her legal defense.

• "There is no actual quote of her making the latter statement nor is there any reason her act was 'religious.'"

Power of attorney; opening arguments; statements by her attorney to the court and press. This is what she's pleading.

Additionally, please note the first sentence of that quote you cited: How about the cheap argument?

You know, how after I said I didn't really know where to begin, and then "suggested" inward irony and then the "cheap argument"?

And then I go on to directly disarm the "cheap argument" -

I just think you're splitting hairs on that one. Because--

--that's sort of the point from the get-go. Please also see my remarks regarding the Pauline evangelization: "An already-unstable mind operating within such confines may not have the ability to reconcile that faith with reality or morality."