South Korea 'pastor' and wife held over child killings

[Asmodean]

A South Korean couple have been arrested on suspicion of beating their three children to death to cure them of a "demonic illness", police say.

The children - five, eight and 10 years old - were found beaten and starved to death at a vicarage in South Cholla province.

Police arrested a 43-year-old "pastor" who had set up a "church" - and his wife.

The couple believed that the children's illness was caused by demons.

"The exact cause of the death has not been established yet, but we suspect the children passed out due to shock during the time they had been locked up and hit by their parents as they had weak immunity due to sickness," a police official was quoted by news agency Reuters as saying.

According to local reports, an autopsy indicated that the children had not eaten since January 23. A relative reportedly found the bodies one week later.

Continued at source

[Tank]

So sad to see such suffering brought about by superstitious beliefs.

[Asmodean]

Why is there never anything about evil atheist eating newborns, I wonder..? It's nearly always some christian or muzzie fundie who, for some reason, behaves as if (s)he lived in the bronze age even if (s)he really dosn't...

[Ali]

Disgusting and heartbreaking.  All I can think about is how scared and hungry those poor kids must have been.   

[Guardian85]

And people say that atheism leads to suffering and evil...
Could anyone see an atheist or a rationalist or a skeptic doing something like this?

[Davin]

And people say that atheism leads to suffering and evil...
Could anyone see an atheist or a rationalist or a skeptic doing something like this?

An atheist, sure, but a rationalist or a skeptic, I cannot.

[Guardian85]

You could see an atheist performing torturous exorsism on a child? Must be a pretty special kind of atheist.

[Davin]

You could see an atheist performing torturous exorsism on a child? Must be a pretty special kind of atheist.

Aye, there was a case 18 years ago with the Church of Scientology where a woman was being "cured" by being locked in a padded room without a toilette or food for a week, and she died. They don't believe in a god or gods, so they're atheists.

[Guardian85]

Maybe they don't believe in any gods per se, but I still think of Scientology as a religion.
But I can see where you are going with this.

[Asmodean]

You can combine "atheist" with "dangerous sociopath". However, a dangerously sociopathic atheist is unlikely to torture someone because his lack of belief in gods commands him to.

[Ali]

One less reason, I guess.  

[Sweetdeath]

It's always the stuff involving children and religion that gets to me the most...

[Amicale]

Disgusting and heartbreaking.  All I can think about is how scared and hungry those poor kids must have been.  

My thoughts exactly.  

It makes my blood boil, to think of what those sorry excuses for parents did. I can't even imagine what was going through the heads of those poor, poor children. When your own parents do that to you, you'd be bewildered, sad, hurt, afraid -- not to mention the children may have also believed they were possessed by demons, and that therefore what happened to them was somehow their doing, or their fault, for 'allowing them in'. Ugh. Stories like this absolutely sicken me.

Are atheists capable of acts of evil, of harming innocent children, etc? Of course they are. Do they do it as frequently as those who espouse religious beliefs? I couldn't say for sure, but I'd bet the answer is 'probably not'. And when atheists hurt children, it's almost NEVER because of some philosophical idea about the supernatural -- it generally comes down to them being power hungry jerks, which all humans are entirely capable of being.

For the most part, I think it really does come down to a matter of education (IQ as well as EQ) and understanding of modern science. The more educated you are in general as well as about science, the less likely you ever are to attribute something to a supernatural cause, such as in this case. I don't even mean formal, school-type education -- I just mean having an understanding of how medicine works, how human nature and emotions work, how the human body works, etc. There are plenty of religious people who would never do this to their children, because those people know better, even if they do hold supernatural beliefs, or at least think they do.

[Asmodean]

It's always the stuff involving children and religion that gets to me the most...

Stuff involving people who can successfully defend themselves, The Asmo usually can not be arsed to research and post 

[Buddy]

I just feel heartbroken when I hear of any abuse. Maybe a bit more with children and animals, but every other kind is still just as bad. Especially someone being beaten for being sick. I mean, WTF?