Phoenix man accused of murdering son with ax

 "Religion doesn't hurt anyone!!"  How many times have we heard that phrase from religionists?  From accomodationists?   You know, like,,, when you try to point out that the things espoused from the pulpit are wrong?  It doesn’t matter what you point out, but you’d better just shut up and pretend what they believe is the greatest thing ever, or else,,,

A Phoenix man killed his 13-year-old son with an ax because he thought the boy was a demon, police said Wednesday.

The suspect, 51-year-old Gary Sherrill, confessed to murdering his son, David, on Tuesday afternoon because he was afraid of him, Phoenix Police Sgt. Steve Martos said in a press release.

“(He) stated he was scared of his son and believed his son was a demon and was going to eat him,” Martos said.

I wonder where he learned this from?  And don't give me the crap that,"Oh, he's not a REAL Christian," this is the garbage that is taught and people blindly believe.  Is this what Sarah Palin screams for when she demands religious freedom and the right to express personal opinions?

"Free speech is an endangered species. Those “intolerants” hatin’ and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing his personal opinion are taking on all of us.

Where is the outcry from the Reich.  Fucking hypocrites!!

This is why statements such as, "I even believe in the Devil" are so dangerous coming from someone of the stature of Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia:

I even believe in the Devil,,, If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it.   You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore,,, What he’s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He’s much more successful that way,,, You’re looking at me as though I’m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.

What Scalia is doing is blindly - If you are faithful to Catholic dogma - promoting an environment where it's morally virtuous to believe irrational things.  It is people like Scalia (and the Pope, since this is Catholic Dogma) who represent real evil.

One must bear in mind that it is not just the Catholic church spouting this crap.  The Independent Fundamental Baptist church is famous for their support of "Biblical Counseling" and their rejection of psychology.  They use ONLY the Bible in counseling, teaching that  psychology is sinful because it has roots in secular humanism and the only way to heal mental health issues is to use the Word of God for counseling.

The core of this counseling method is rooted in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:  "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:  That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. "  Keywords being “instructing” and “correcting”  as they that mental heath issues are the result of sin and that one only needs to purge the sin in one’s life through the use of scripture.

Sound familiar?  We know it as "pray the gay away!!"  Or if you recall this story from October of last year:

Last weekend, one of the nation’s most prominent Pentecostal pastors bared his soul to say something no one wants to admit publicly. Ron Carpenter Jr., founder of Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville, S.C., told thousands of his congregants on Oct. 13 that his wife of 23 years, Hope, had been involved in inappropriate relationships and that she had been admitted to a rehab facility.

Though not IFB, it does illustrate the pervasiveness of this mindset.  I experienced it myself while attending a Christian college in the 80's and it nearly killed me.

Now in this man's defense, he likely suffers from some form of mental illness and his delusions took on "religious" overtones.  Although I will not go as far as some who posit that religious fundamentalism itself is a mental illness, I do believe that people who believe in an angry, punishing God are much more likely to suffer from a variety of mental illnesses.  But the fact is if he never had heard of "demons," it's likely his paranoia/delusions/hallucinations would have taken on another form. Your hallucinations and delusional thinking take on whatever form that fit your belief system.

So, yes religion has played a part in this crime.  The lack of critical thinking and the blind acceptance of the fairytales of the Bible, preached on a weekly basis, have so warped this man's mind that logic and reason ceased to exist.  The fact is, religion does hurt people.  Some people are hurt physically Some people are hurt emotionally.  In Sherrill's case,  he was hurt intellectually; he was stopped from evaluating his beliefs based on logic and evidence.  Religion asserts that man is inherently bad, that mankind can never do anything good and must rely on an imaginary friend in the sky and follow it’s dictates in order to do anything but fry in an eternal skillet.  Religion advocates a certain amount of self-loathing, inherent in the belief system.  How is this not harmful?

Phoenix man accused of murdering son with ax