You get the idea from the headline: Baby Dies After Couple Chooses Prayer Over Medicine They let her die of bacterial meningitis in July 2001 after suffering high fever, convulsions and pain in the five days before her death. Their “Upland’s Church of God” is one that “shuns doctor intervention”. But they plead no contest to charges of involuntary manslaughter and child abuse, and “are to be sentenced to a year in jail and five years of probation, but allowed to serve their jail time on weekends instead of continuously” under an agreement with Judge Gerard Brown.

Why so light? According to the DA: “It’s not a case where they beat the kid or physically harmed the kid,” Maxwell said. “They wanted the kid to get better. They prayed the child would get better. You don’t have the typical intent that you would in a child abuse case where they are beaten or assaulted.” And as the public defender says: “These are good folks… It’s very unfortunate that they ended up here.”

No, it’s unfortunate that the kid got sick. It’s murderous that they let her suffer terribly and then die when all they needed to do was go to a fucking hospital.

A nice little story on the ten commandments: Just Which Commandments are the 10 Commandments?

Then there are the commandments in the next chapter of Exodus, which allow fathers to sell their daughters into slavery (21:7) and say that “whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death” (21:17).

That part really killed me…
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Judge pledges to protect Commandments monument

“Other Moore supporters filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court in Mobile in a last-ditch bid to prevent the carved stone monument from being moved.
They argue that removing the monument would amount to a government endorsement of a “religion of non-theistic beliefs,” according to the complaint. “

‘Cause, ya know, you can’t REALLY stay silent on the issue.

Wait, isn’t this an admission that the monument would be an endorsement of Xtianity? But I thought it was just an “acknowledgement of our history?” I know reason is beyond them, but simple consistency?

This piece of shit from Slate is representative of a wave of bullshit propaganda we’ve been getting recently. It’s dressed up as inclusive centrism, but the constant theme is that the enforcement of the establishment clause of the first amendment is really establishing the state religion of atheism — a theme the the Pat Robertsons of the nation have been playing for years. As she says, “what do we do about the fact that the current First Amendment jurisprudence is not neutral toward religion but instead seems to persecute the true believer?” How did this shit make it to the “thoughtful centrist” position? Are the folks (a) confused or (b) maliciously sophistic about the distinction between opposing something and simply refraining from endorsing it?

Pretty interesting how much more kind and gentle the reporting on the “faith healing” death is when done by CNN. The Guardian (see Glenn’s post below) is pretty matter of fact; CNN tries to minimize the whole, you know, homicide part — from the headline on: Autistic boy dies at faith healing service

While we’re on exorcism: Vatican lays down exorcism law. Apparently, the J.P. Popester is concerned that the magical casting out of demons isn’t being done correctly. “Anything resembling hysteria, artificiality, theatricality or sensationalism should be absent.” This is a somber affair — kind of like psychic surgery. Do you think they have data that support the view that doing it the somber way is better? Longitudinal studies? Double-blinds? Isn’t the point of an exorcism the hysteria, artificiality, theatricality and sensationalism? Without them, how would it work?

US boy dies during ‘exorcism’

Not directly religion, but since W the Shrub is the most idiotic and powerful friend of Jesus in the world today, it’s relevant, and excellent news. From Newsweek, When is Enough Enough?

President George W. Bush’s approval ratings continue to decline. His current approval rating of 53 percent is down 18 percent from April. And for the first time since the question was initially asked last fall, more registered voters say they would not like to see him re-elected to another term as president (49 percent) than re-elected. Forty-four percent would favor giving Bush a second term; in April, 52 percent backed Bush for a second term and 38 percent did not.

The big worry is that his boys will let another 9/11 happen to pump up his support. After all, if you’re the president God called to serve, what are 3000 deaths as a price to maintain God’s grand plan? Hell, God killed 70,000 just for that little flap over the census.