Religious couple persecuted! Loses child custody!

[Underseer]

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada...mitting-the-word-of-god-acted-as-their-lawyer

A B.C. couple whose religious views are too extreme even for churches and pastors and put them at odds with family, doctors, social workers and anyone else trying to help them with their daughter, have lost their battle for custody of her.

The unusual child custody trial featured the couple speaking in tongues to a stuffed animal they said transmitted the word of God directly to them and refusing legal assistance because Jesus Christ — through the stuffed lion — was their lawyer, witness and judge.

So just because they chose God as their lawyer and God chose to speak to them through a stuffed lion, the evil atheist government took away custody of their daughter! Canada is clearly attacking their religious freedoms!!!!!!!!111!!!1!1!!1oneone

The Bible said Christians would be persecuted for their faith, but I had no idea it would be this bad!!!!!

Here's the thing. Once you tell people that faith is a virtue, that it is virtuous to accept conclusions without evidence or with insufficient evidence, then they lose an important tool for telling true from false. From there, the truth claims they accept could be true, false, harmlessly eccentric, or batshit crazy, and they would not know the difference.

Does this mean everyone to accepts faith as a path to the truth is going to start taking legal advice from stuffed lions? Of course not.

But the problem is, you can't really say where the truth train's journey ends once you decide to start accepting truth claims without evidence.

And if you need to convince people that faith is a virtue in order to get them to accept your truth claims, maybe something is wrong with your truth claims.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, I see their error. Christ hangs out with people who are in Heaven - when would he have ever talked to a lawyer? If they'd brought in the stuffed zebra which Satan was using to speak to them, the man could have passed on some decent legal advice and perhaps thing would have turned out better.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Couple loses child custody after stuffed lion transmitting the word of God acted as their lawyer

No, you didn't read that wrong. If it weren't for people being hurt, I would find putting a court in charge of what, precisely qualifies as a ridiculous religious belief as hilarious. Especially when they're talking in tongues to a stuffed lion and interpreting Jesus's replies.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Basic premise for us freethinkers: Faith is a terrible way to assess reality. (Talk about skewed results.)

 

[Keith&Co.]

This is bullshit, man.

An airman in the Air Force got in trouble for reenlisting with a dinosaur puppet on her hand, but a stuffed lion WHO HASN'T PASSED THE BAR is allowed to act as a solicitor in a child custody case!?!?

clearly NOT a case of religious persecution, if their nuttery is tolerated while simple fun is kicked to the curb.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yipes! It sounds like this was doomed to be a murder suicide family. At least the child was able to get away, almost immediately.

The husband admitted, after drinking, having put one hand on his wife's throat and the other over her mouth. In some circles, this is considered a "red flag".

 

[steve_bank]

There are religious extremes and then there is just plain crazy.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I beat ya to this one, feel free to merge or toss mine as is appropriate.

 

[Jobar]

Threads merged. (And underseer got in the earliest post, so his title gets top billing.)

 

[Jobar]

Whoa. That story gets crazier with every paragraph.

The mother applied to change her daughter’s name to Jesus JoyoftheLord and her own first name to Risen Lord Jesus, her middle name to Refinersfire and her last name to Christ (with a hyphenation including her real name.)

Some people just oughtn't have kids...

 

[steve_bank]

Basic premise for us freethinkers: Faith is a terrible way to assess reality. (Talk about skewed results.)

As someone who asctibes to freethinking, not looking at issues from any predetermined ideology, relgion for the majority of belivers you never hear of get a benfit from faith.

Freethinking in a broad sense does not reject religion per se, it rejects the supernatural claims.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And religion, minus supernatural claims, means...?

 

[steve_bank]

And religion, minus supernatural claims, means...?

Religion is a non scientific approach to establishing am way to see one's palce in the world, why we are here and other questions.

Atheists often do not seem to understand that religion is not just a set of beliefs and rituals, it is a way of living and a community/ The issue is emotional not an academic debate using logic.

There is a long history of philosophies that served as a guide for living. Philosophy was never just about logic and reason. All the -osophies and -isms. What Christianity did in what we call the west was replace all of it with one single belief system. Catholic in the RCC means universal.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Overt enthusiasm seems to go hand in hand with overt religiosity eh? The guy that owns this vehicle is often somewhere I frequent. He strikes up religious conversations with everyone there. He hasn't gotten to me yet, but I have a feeling he's not going to like my response, regardless of how polite I am.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And religion, minus supernatural claims, means...?

Religion is a non scientific approach to establishing am way to see one's palce in the world, why we are here and other questions.

But usually the answers they provide to those questions involve revelation from one or more supernatural beings. So, if you reject the supernatural, you reject the alleged revelations, no?
So what, specifically, would you have left after that?
Any actual examples?

Atheists often do not seem to understand that religion is not just a set of beliefs and rituals, it is a way of living and a community/ The issue is emotional not an academic debate using logic.

Riiiiiiiight. Atheists have almost never noted or commented on the community afforded by religions, or sought something to replace it. Very observant of you.
Nor have atheists pointed out that the appeal of religion is often or greatly emotional.

Yep. You're the only one with that keen insight.

There is a long history of philosophies that served as a guide for living. Philosophy was never just about logic and reason. All the -osophies and -isms. What Christianity did in what we call the west was replace all of it with one single belief system. Catholic in the RCC means universal.

Yep. An attempt to round up all the various and contradictory dogmas being adopted by peoples who claimed to be Christains. Knew that. It's even been discussed on this site a time or two. Well, here or one of the before places. It was kind of a big game of Monopoly, every faith vying for control of the Articles of Faith. Mostly the biggest congregations made the most powerful churches who forced their way into the final product.
Except for Article 5, which Constantine felt really strongly about...

It's a long story of political maneuvering, something humans do all the time, to publish what appears, to atheists, to be a line of man-made bullshit. The rules or ethics that have come out of these conclaves may have objective value, but they're flogged on the populace not for being the rational result of a given philosophy, but emotionally promoted as something inspired by and commanded by the great pumpkin God. So if you reject the supernatural, you would, wouldn't you, reject all this claim that it's God-breathed.
Then you're left with a rational evaluation of everything as a man-made product. So you'd have to use a philosophy to filter the worth out of a religion, if you're rejecting the supernatural.

Or is there some other method you use?

 

[bilby]

Overt enthusiasm seems to go hand in hand with overt religiosity eh? The guy that owns this vehicle is often somewhere I frequent. He strikes up religious conversations with everyone there. He hasn't gotten to me yet, but I have a feeling he's not going to like my response, regardless of how polite I am.

He seems like a very innerprizing person.

At least he isn't a hypocrite. IF one had a true religious belief, then one would be crazy NOT to be hugely enthusiastic about it and to place it front and centre in every interaction you had with anything. That most people who profess religious belief are NOT that enthusiastic is deeply hypocritical on their part - albeit a great relief to those of us who do not share their belief.

 

[Keith&Co.]

IF one had a true religious belief, then one would be crazy NOT to be hugely enthusiastic about it and to place it front and centre in every interaction you had with anything.

That would depend on the specific beliefs, though.

If my god does not direct me to share the truth with you fuckers, and every time i mentioned The Holy Word of Zantu, i was just mocked, i might keep The Truth to myself while you idiots live and die in ignorance. Because i don't want any of you judgmental bastards in my heaven with me. I'd only share it with close personal friends and maybe the more attractive strippers down at Zeemer's Lounge. Just people i want to share Heaven with. Bosom buddies and friendly bosoms, as it were.

SO maybe all those silent people you call hypocrites are just selfish. What have you done lately to deserve their testimony?

 

[bilby]

IF one had a true religious belief, then one would be crazy NOT to be hugely enthusiastic about it and to place it front and centre in every interaction you had with anything.

That would depend on the specific beliefs, though.

If my god does not direct me to share the truth with you fuckers, and every time i mentioned The Holy Word of Zantu, i was just mocked, i might keep The Truth to myself while you idiots live and die in ignorance. Because i don't want any of you judgmental bastards in my heaven with me. I'd only share it with close personal friends and maybe the more attractive strippers down at Zeemer's Lounge. Just people i want to share Heaven with. Bosom buddies and friendly bosoms, as it were.

SO maybe all those silent people you call hypocrites are just selfish. What have you done lately to deserve their testimony?

I stand corrected

 

[braces_for_impact]

It's funny because I have similar views about that. If I really thought most people were going to hell, I might paint my van too. In a way I respect this more than the holier than thou type that's quiet about it.

 

[steve_bank]

I am not saying I like all of relgion in its practces. I am saying it is a way of coping with reality. I knew an educated engineer who said he would be continually wracked with questions without his faith. Religion has practical value.

BTW, a majority of people who belive they can be eternally punished for things like murder and theft is a good thing. That was an historical social value of religion in times when illiteracy and assorted superstitions were paramount. Religion helped stabilize civilization.