Accused murderer asserts killing of prostitutes was “God’s Will”. This fellow killed 13 women and claims he’s not guilty because God told him to do it.
I’ll refrain from much direct comment on this story, other than to say that I’ve covered similar territory before, and that I think that mental innoculation is largely responsible for the lack of a sense of responsibility for one’s actions.
Obligatory quote:
Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things—that takes religion. –Stephen Weinberg
So here’s the question: If you are — or were — religious, where do you draw the line? If ongoing communication with God is part of your daily routine, when do you decide that still, small voice is off his rocker and should be disregarded? Or is that even an option?
When I was firmly entrenched in my religion five years ago, had I received an answer to a prayer, I did my earnest best to follow it. I doubt my conscience would ever have allowed me to go on a killing spree in the name of God, though! However, I certainly made my fair share of bad decisions based on bad information from the quiet whisperings in my head.
Of course, some faithful would tell me that those whisperings were from Satan. Some would say I wasn’t actually inspired and it was just me making deals in my head. Some would say I’m lying now to get attention. Some would say my sole charade is a lonely masquerade.
Regardless of what some would say, if you are living your life according to God’s will, how the heck do you tell the difference between the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit and the still, small voice of psychosis?
These days, I usually just tell that little voice to get stuffed. Contrary to the dire warnings I received as a child, I have not yet met an untimely end or horribly bad luck due to disregarding those “promptings”.
Unfortunately, 13 women came to a tragic end because someone listened uncritically.
Comment
I think it’s interesting to point out that insanity is simply insanity, and has nothing whatsoever to do with religion.
Because of the pervasiveness of religion, an insane serial murderer is more likely to say that God (or the devil) told him to do it, than to say that they were ordered by Don Knotts or the leprechaun from the Lucky Charms cereal box.
That said, we tree-huggers have a religious poem called The Charge of the Goddess, which dates back to the 1950s (although it’s based in part on some ancient texts). There’s a portion of that poem that I consider to be the defining central message of my spiritual beliefs:
“And you who seek to know Me, know that your seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: For if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.”
So, for me, that still, small voice is actually me. I’m the one who’s ultimately responsible for my own actions.
Of course, some would say the use of force is letting nature run its course.
— Ben
So that would mean…
So if someone kills someone else because the voice in his head told him to do it, he is, by definition, crazy? They can’t see they’re living a lie?
It would be nice if we had a tool to peek inside someone’s head and say “Yep, they’re certifiable” just based on the weirdness of their thought patterns.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Still small voice..
So if I hear a voice, Is he a prophet, is he a God?
I don’t think he is quite what you thought.
Me, Ben, and Matt.. the three One man singers.. we all concur.. weird.
Visit the Official Justin Timpane Website Music, Acting, and More! http://www.timpane.com
bring on the crazy
Yes. I’d say that’s a pretty good indicator.
— Ben
God’s on your side
God’s Will…tough one to pin down, that. Fortunately, new research confirms that He agrees with you.
The University of Chicago Magazine just published a fascinating article on how people tend to see themselves in agreement with God on moral issues. While this seems a truism at first–people naturally align their morals with what God “teaches” them–the interesting thing was that when those moral beliefs were manipulated in a laboratory setting, God’s beliefs changed right along with them.
My take-away from this is that “God’s teachings” are synonymous with “your personal beliefs” in the majority of situations. Which means if someone says that “God wants us to do such-and-such,” it’s identical to saying “I want us to do such-and-such, and God always agrees with me.”
Seems like a hard pill to swallow if you’re a believer in God. But then, you’re different, right? You actually do understand what God teaches; the idea that you project your beliefs onto God is ludicrous…right?
God Is Irrelevant
So I hypothesize that God is irrelevant anymore. What’s important is that you BELIEVE in God. Or YWHA or Allah or the scientific theory or the sacred feminine.
Religion is just the congregation of people who have similarly aligned beliefs.
Where religion goes wrong is when a congregation of humans makes decisions based on human concerns, instead of the core of religion, which is the belief of each individual person. Oops, let me revise that: Where religion TENDS to go wrong is when…., because good things are done in the name of religion as well as bad. Simply because anytime humans gather in a societal group, that group is capable of great good and great bad. That’s why we form societies in the first place: because working together is more effective than working alone.
However, as humans gather into groups, prejudices and cliques form. There are those who seek power, and use the common belief of the group to gain power. Power is usually gained through the use of fear: Those types of people are evil! We need to protect ourselves from them! There are those who follow such fear mongers without deep thought. Those who think through issues and are fair and just are few and far between. Those who are fair and just and also in a position to enforce these ideals through the group are rare indeed. It seems now to get to the position of authority in such a group is a process which corrodes the soul; you are so twisted in the journey you cannot hold us just ideals anymore. You had to play the process instead of staying to the true purpose. There are two main evils in humanity today: those who use others to gain what they want, and those who are lazy and don’t care.
So we shouldn’t debate whether or not God exists, because that is irrelevant and unprovable. To those who believe in him/her/it, he/she/it is the most real thing you could ever want. To those who don’t believe, you’ll never be able to prove God’s existence, because faith is by definition the antithesis of proof. What we should be worried about is what we believe God tells us to do. Because what God tells us to do is simply a vision of who we are.
My $.02 Weed
Nietzsche…
I think that was Nietzsche’s intent when he said “God is dead.”
That reminds me starkly of the saying of an Armenian woman I knew a decade and a half ago. “Culture is just an excuse for being who you are,” she said. I’m not certain I agree. Within a given religion, you can find wildly divergent beliefs, even about core doctrines.
The corollary to the quote in my blog entry is “…for bad people to do good also takes religion.” But that would weaken the quote as a rhetorical device…
—
Matthew P. Barnson
I knew it!
I knew He’d come around to my way of thinking. 😉
I think that indoctrination plays into this, as well. You may want one thing, but you may have been taught that God wants another, so you suffer cognitive dissonance trying to bring these two images together of who you actually are and who you think you are. I suspect this is part of the reason that people who go on killing sprees, if apprehended rather than killed on the spot, describe their actions later as if they were watching themselves do it and it wasn’t them doing it. They think of themselves as the agent, not the actor.
It seems as if very few evil people are willing to admit they are evil. They think they are good, and someone else is responsible for the evil done by them. I figure, if you are evil, you should just own it. But, then again, I don’t think I’m evil, so it seems logical from here, but probably not from there.
That article is blog-worthy by itself! What innocuous placement. “Katie Couric sometimes comes close to God in terms of egocentrism…If you feel out of step with the average American, Katie Couric, or George Bush, that’s OK. You don’t feel so uncomfortable. If you’re out of step with God, even if you’re not a religious person, that may be more of a problem.”
Very cool article, though I wish they had accounted for religious preference in the study so that we could see trends in that area. My guess is that Christians would be most concerned with their opinions aligning with God’s, Jews next, those of other religions mixed, and non-religious dead last. However, that’s egocentric projection too, I suspect!
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Core question
The core question here is: what is the gold standard for distinguishing Divine communication from craziness/Satan/the world/etc.? That’s a tough question to answer as a non-believer… and one I never found a good answer to as a believer, either.
The instruction in the LDS church was that any revelation you received which was in harmony with existing doctrine, and received while you remain righteous, might be true, but only for you or those over whom you preside. You are not supposed to share it as official doctrine.
Among other Christians, it seems to be very much up in the air depending on denomination. The Catholics seem to have realized that ongoing revelation among laypeople is usually troublesome from a doctrinal perspective, and generally don’t acknowledge it. Among a Charismatic congregation I frequented a number of years ago, conflicting revelation and various “miracles” — notably speaking in tongues — were accepted as part and parcel of the whole experience and are not understood because “the Lord works in mysterious ways”.
Ahh, well. I guess there probably isn’t a spiritual litmus test to tell if you’re crazy or actually hearing the voice of God. Maybe you just need to measure it by how much Prozac you are taking.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Not quite ironic
Somewhat awkward then, that the Book of Mormon starts out with the protagonist killing a drunk, sleeping man because a voice in his head tells him to do so. If anything, the first lesson of the book is, “Follow the voices in your head, no matter what.”