Happy Anniversary?

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Happy Anniversary?

Post #1

Post by myth-one.com »

Today, June 20th 2009, is the eighth anniversary of the sacrifice Andrea Yates made for her children. Had she not murdered them, Noah would be 15 years old, John would be 13, Paul 11, Luke 10, and Mary would be 8. Instead, they were murdered by their mother so they would go immediately to live with God eternally in the paradise of heaven, thus avoiding the possibility of eternal torment in hellfire.

Is this a victory for Christianity?

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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #31

Post by JehovahsWitness »

myth-one.com wrote: Today, June 20th 2009, is the eighth anniversary of the sacrifice Andrea Yates made for her children. Had she not murdered them, Noah would be 15 years old, John would be 13, Paul 11, Luke 10, and Mary would be 8. Instead, they were murdered by their mother so they would go immediately to live with God eternally in the paradise of heaven, thus avoiding the possibility of eternal torment in hellfire.

Is this a victory for Christianity?
I'm surprised at what could be considered an inflamatory post is on this forum but to answer the question, no murder is not a victory for Christianity any more than it would be a victory for atheism, budhism.

Perhaps you could present your rationale for why it could be so we can discuss the question rationally.
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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #32

Post by myth-one.com »

JehovahsWitness wrote:
myth-one.com wrote: Today, June 20th 2009, is the eighth anniversary of the sacrifice Andrea Yates made for her children. Had she not murdered them, Noah would be 15 years old, John would be 13, Paul 11, Luke 10, and Mary would be 8. Instead, they were murdered by their mother so they would go immediately to live with God eternally in the paradise of heaven, thus avoiding the possibility of eternal torment in hellfire.

Is this a victory for Christianity?
I'm surprised at what could be considered an inflamatory post is on this forum but to answer the question, no murder is not a victory for Christianity any more than it would be a victory for atheism, budhism.

Perhaps you could present your rationale for why it could be so we can discuss the question rationally.
Five "souls" ended up in Heaven for all eternity and avoided the possible eternity in the fires of hell -- as taught by most Christians.

Isn't the goal of Christianity everlasting life in paradise with God?

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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #33

Post by JehovahsWitness »

myth-one.com wrote:

Five "souls" ended up in Heaven for all eternity and avoided the possible eternity in the fires of hell -- as taught by most Christians.
I think you are going to have to provide a study or proof that this is taught by "most (ie the majority) christians. I do not believe that is the case; it most certainly isn't for the 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses.

I will withold comment until you provide the data* on this.

JW

*We are looking at supposedly 2.2 billion christians so data proving that this belief is held by let's say 1 billion Christians should be satisfactory.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/wat ... rd-are-ch/#!
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." ― Christopher Hitchens
Over to you.
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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #34

Post by JehovahsWitness »

myth-one.com wrote:
Isn't the goal of Christianity everlasting life in paradise with God?
Based on my personal experience speaking to Christians over the years, while many believe in an afterlife, very few that I have spoken believe that it is not a sin to hurry the process along by killing either themselves or others and I have NEVER spoken to anyone that believes that its better to kill children lest they make the wrong decisions later in life and risk eternal torture in hellfire.

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses I am not fan of what I personally consider to be a false teaching, but it would be thoroughly dishonest on my part to imply that the above idea (of murdering children is a beneficial way of limiting those that go to hell) is in any way common amongst those that do.

By far the majority that I have spoken to believe that children should be loved and protected and that murdering them for any reason is a sin.
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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #35

Post by myth-one.com »

JehovahsWitness wrote:
myth-one.com wrote:
Isn't the goal of Christianity everlasting life in paradise with God?
Based on my personal experience speaking to Christians over the years, while many believe in an afterlife, very few that I have spoken believe that it is not a sin to hurry the process along by killing either themselves or others and I have NEVER spoken to anyone that believes that its better to kill children lest they make the wrong decisions later in life and risk eternal torture in hellfire.

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses I am not fan of what I personally consider to be a false teaching, but it would be thoroughly dishonest on my part to imply that the above idea (of murdering children is a beneficial way of limiting those that go to hell) is in any way common amongst those that do.

By far the majority that I have spoken to believe that children should be loved and protected and that murdering them for any reason is a sin.
No one said these murders are not sins.

Andrea Yates (for example) was prepared to be executed by the state of Texas, then spend eternity in the fires of hell!

If she in fact goes to hell, present Christian theology teaches us that one billion trillion years from now, she will still be burning alive, while her children are safe in heaven!

By comparison, the six hour crucifixion of Jesus Christ was trivial.

If anyone fits the definition of a martyr, she does!

We failed them!!

As to being a common teaching: I have asked many Christians where the children are presently. I have received one, and only one, answer.

Heaven!

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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #36

Post by Tired of the Nonsense »

myth-one.com wrote: Today, June 20th 2009, is the eighth anniversary of the sacrifice Andrea Yates made for her children. Had she not murdered them, Noah would be 15 years old, John would be 13, Paul 11, Luke 10, and Mary would be 8. Instead, they were murdered by their mother so they would go immediately to live with God eternally in the paradise of heaven, thus avoiding the possibility of eternal torment in hellfire.

Is this a victory for Christianity?
Of course we also have "Son of Sam," David Berkowitz, "The Night Stalker," Richard Ramirez, and an entire list of other individuals who committed horrible murders in the name of Satan to consider. And then people are shocked to discover that weak minded and mentally unstable individuals who have been indoctrinated into believing in ancient myths and superstitions their entire lives end up acting on these foolish beliefs. But this is in fact an entirely predictable outcome of holding and believing in a worldview constructed of myth and superstition.

During the witch trial period in Europe which occurred during the 15th through the 18th centuries, it is estimated that as many 60,000 mostly women and young girls were hanged, burned at the stake, or otherwise tortured to death. Whole areas of Germany and France were almost entirely denuded of women.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (Exodus 22:18)

So this is an entirely predictable outcome of fully subscribing in and acting on religious beliefs which are held to the utmost level of genuine devotion and validity. The root causes of reaching preposterous conclusions which then lead to insane actions are built right in. This is why make believe is so dangerous.

And yet most believers are firmly convinced that it is necessary for them to fully indoctrinate their children into subscribing to these ancient myths and superstitions, just as they were, if they expect their children to grow up to be good and decent people. Instead they are achieving little more then planting the seeds of insanity which will inevitably manifest itself in some form in the most gullible and mentally vulnerable individuals. Not to the shocking degree that occurs in an Andrea Yates, or a David Berkowitz for most. But Psychosis and OCD are common among the intensely religious.

"Religion would thus be the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity... If this view is right, it is to be supposed that a turning-away from religion is bound to occur with the fatal inevitability of a process of growth. Â…If, on the one hand, religion brings with it obsessional restrictions, exactly as an individual obsessional neurosis does, on the other hand, it comprises a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find in an isolated form nowhere else but amentia, in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusionÂ…" -- Sigmund Freud
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S01 ... xt&tlng=en


http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/31/health/oc ... ?hpt=hp_t3
Last edited by Tired of the Nonsense on Tue Jun 21, 2016 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #37

Post by JehovahsWitness »

myth-one.com wrote: Andrea Yates (for example) was prepared to be executed by the state of Texas, then spend eternity in the fires of hell!

If she in fact goes to hell, present Christian theology teaches us that one billion trillion years from now, she will still be burning alive, while her children are safe in heaven!

By comparison, the six hour crucifixion of Jesus Christ was trivial.

If anyone fits the definition of a martyr, she does!

We failed them!!

As to being a common teaching: I have asked many Christians where the children are presently. I have received one, and only one, answer.

Heaven!
So what exactly are you arguing?

- That the teaching of eternal hellfire is unjust?
- That the teaching of eternal hellfire produces baby killers?
- That a case of a baby killer is a typical result of the teaching?



As I do not believe in eternal torture, I will leave it to those that believe in this concept to justify it.

My understanding however is that the OP was arguing that murdering babies so they would not go to hell was a natural result of believing in eternal torture in hell and therefore Christians would be happy when such horrors happen. I have yet to see documented evidence to support that this is the case for even a fraction of the 1 billion professed Christians and in my experience have never come across any that hold this belief.

Reason would dictate that murdering children would be a syptomatic of some kind of extreme psychosis rather than a belief in the afterlife; but as I said, I'm open to reading evidence to the contrary

I got no poney in this race.
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Romans 14:8

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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #38

Post by Tired of the Nonsense »

JehovahsWitness wrote:
myth-one.com wrote: Andrea Yates (for example) was prepared to be executed by the state of Texas, then spend eternity in the fires of hell!

If she in fact goes to hell, present Christian theology teaches us that one billion trillion years from now, she will still be burning alive, while her children are safe in heaven!

By comparison, the six hour crucifixion of Jesus Christ was trivial.

If anyone fits the definition of a martyr, she does!

We failed them!!

As to being a common teaching: I have asked many Christians where the children are presently. I have received one, and only one, answer.

Heaven!
So what exactly are you arguing?

- That the teaching of eternal hellfire is unjust?
- That the teaching of eternal hellfire produces baby killers?
- That a case of a baby killer is a typical result of the teaching?



As I do not believe in eternal torture, I will leave it to those that believe in this concept to justify it.

My understanding however is that the OP was arguing that murdering babies so they would not go to hell was a natural result of believing in eternal torture in hell and therefore Christians would be happy when such horrors happen. I have yet to see documented evidence to support that this is the case for even a fraction of the 1 billion professed Christians and in my experience have never come across any that hold this belief.

Reason would dictate that murdering children would be a syptomatic of some kind of extreme psychosis rather than a belief in the afterlife; but as I said, I'm open to reading evidence to the contrary

I got no poney in this race.
JehovahsWitness wrote: So what exactly are you arguing?
- That the teaching of eternal hellfire is unjust?

Not merely unjust, but a source of insanity.

- That the teaching of eternal hellfire produces baby killers?

The conclusion that Andrea Yates reached seemed perfectly rational to her based on the view of reality that she had been indoctrinated into her entire life.

- That a case of a baby killer is a typical result of the teaching?

Just as the slaughter of 60,00 women and girls during the witch trial period in Europe was an inevitable result of perpetuating the unquestioning belief in and teaching of religious myth and superstition. Accepting passages such as Exodus 22:18, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," as the undeniable Word of God which was to be followed to the letter produced an inevitable result.
JehovahsWitness wrote: As I do not believe in eternal torture, I will leave it to those that believe in this concept to justify it.
You do believe in Satan and Hell however. It's just that you have allowed yourself to accept those portions of your Christian belief that appeal to you, while simply ignoring those portions which you personally do not favor. Not everyone is blessed with such a discerning mind however. For those who believe that the Bible says exactly what the Bible means, there is no possibility of ignoring any parts. Such a person is faced with few options on how to behave, and on what actions must be taken. Killing her children not only seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to do to Andrea Yates when she did it, but she considered it to be an act of love and self sacrifice on her part. But you see, Andrea Yates was a bear of little brain who existed in a world of myth and fantasy that she had been indoctrinated into as a child. Her actions seemed to her reasonable conclusions based on her world of myth and fantasy.
JehovahsWitness wrote: My understanding however is that the OP was arguing that murdering babies so they would not go to hell was a natural result of believing in eternal torture in hell and therefore Christians would be happy when such horrors happen. I have yet to see documented evidence to support that this is the case for even a fraction of the 1 billion professed Christians and in my experience have never come across any that hold this belief.
It's true that MOST believers do not reach the extreme conclusions that Andrea Yates reached. And if they do, they manage to refrain from acting on them. However for mentally vulnerable individuals it's not all that surprising that they would act on their religious delusions. What chance does a mentally vulnerable person have against acting on their religious fantasies, when we can clearly see from the European witch trials that acting out religious insanity by taking what the Bible says at face value and acting on it, even by those in positions of high authority, was an obvious and inevitable outcome of subscribing to religious superstition and fantasy in the first place.
JehovahsWitness wrote: I got no poney in this race.
If you are bringing up your own children to accept without question the same world of superstition and religious fantasy that you were brought up to accept without question, then you most definitely DO have a pony in this race.
Image "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." -- Albert Einstein -- Written in 1954 to Jewish philosopher Erik Gutkind.

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Post #39

Post by Peds nurse »

It isn't a victory for anything, but rather a sad reminder of a woman who had some major psychiatric problems and who struggled with postpartum depression. Religion wasn't the cause, faulty thinking was.

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Re: Happy Anniversary?

Post #40

Post by JehovahsWitness »

Tired of the Nonsense wrote:It's true that MOST believers do not reach the extreme conclusions that Andrea Yates reached.
And that is the point. I have yet to see any documentation published by mental healthcare professionals that the belief is actualy a causative factor ("a source of insanity") in the kind of psychosis that seems evident in people like her. If you have such evidence feel free to post or link to it. If not, people may possibly conclude you have nothing but unreasonable conjuncture and unsupported hypberbole.

As for your personal comments about me and my family, what "I have allowed myself to accept" (and the process that may or may not have lead to it) of "what appeals" or is attractive to me, or even what I have "ignored" as opposed to interpreted differenly from others and why all that you assume knowledge of my mind, education and feelings, which you can't possibly have. If you would like to present evidence of you mind reading capacity I'm more than willing see it; otherwise I will ignore the personal comments you made as being overly presumptious and somewhat discourteous.



Best Regards,



JW
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