Religion has problems

Now lots of “militant atheists” are happy to talk about how religion is the cause of all the worlds troubles, but personally I think it is going a bit too far. People do good and bad things independently of their religious beliefs, no matter how much the religious apologists try to claim religion is not the source of morality and “goodness.”

For me, where the problem with religion comes in, is the almost automatic assumption amongst the “faithful” that others with the same beliefs will be good people. This is reflected in the oft quoted statistics about how many people in the US would vote for an atheist. Here in SecularUK, while we may like to think it, things are not massively different. While the average person on the street may be pretty much agnostic there is a preference for the Faithful in positions of power. More importantly, there is the false assumption that a persons “belief” means they will be good and should be above suspicion. This has been shaken in recent years with the scandals of Catholic priests but you only have to watch Sunday morning television or listen to a radio 2 phone in to see it is far from gone.

This brings me to my current point. There is a woman called Eunice Spry, she is a 62 year old devout Jehovah’s Witness. She is a bit funny looking as you will see in a bit, but she looks normal enough (for a crazy pensioner). During her life she has acted as a foster parent for numerous children. She sounds like a pillar of the community and a good example why the Church is opposed to the government having any say in who can become foster parents.

However, as the article in the Evening Standard points out, Eunice Spry is an evil, sadistic torturer who systematically abused the children in her care for Thor knows how many years. A couple of paragraphs from the online edition show a new face of Ms Spry:

A foster mother was found guilty today of subjecting three young children to a “horrifying catalogue of cruel and sadistic treatment”.

Eunice Spry, 62, routinely beat, abused and starved the youngsters in her care over a 19 year period. The devout Jehovah’s Witness forced sticks down their throats and made them eat their own vomit and rat excrement.

As punishment for misbehaving, she would beat them on the soles of their feet and force them to drink washing up liquid and bleach.

Spry, a pillar of her local community in Gloucestershire, staunchly denied all the claims made against her and insisted the only physical punishment she ever used was “a smack on the bottom”.

It really is a shocking catalogue of abuse. It is made the more disturbing by the phrase “a pillar of her local community” – I am aware that newspapers say that all the time, but some background reading into the local papers suggests that prior to the abuse becoming news, she was actually considered sane and capable. I mean, she is a devout Jehovah’s Witness…

Victim A told how when she was a young girl her foster mother had fixed a sign to the back of one her dress to cause embarrassment in public. The message read: “This child is evil. Do not look at her or talk to her. She wets the bed and is an attention seeker.”

Obviously Spry is evil and probably insane. I suspect that goes without saying. She is not an evil, or insane, person because of her religion but because of the deference the devout get, her evil insanity was allowed to carry on for 19 years. Her religious fervour meant there was less questions about the home schooling, less questions about the lack of medical treatment, less questions about odd things which happen. People, even in the UK, have an unfortunate tendency to give the devout the benefit of the doubt.

Hat tip: Black Sun Journal where this excellent commen resides:

If a church community could have this kind of mayhem going on under their noses, what does this say about their usefulness to society? Religions make all sorts of noises about creating “standards” and norms to “protect the children.” Such a spectacular failure of a “pillar” of a church community should make us question these false mandates.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

12 thoughts on “Religion has problems

  1. Sorry, commenting on my own posts is becoming a habit. On the Evening Standard article there is a comment which reads:

    The children’s services agency and the social worker that was responsible for this case should be held legally responsible as. They should be charged with out a doubt and certainly loose their ability to work in child and family welfare along with the fact that they should pay reparations and serve time in jail. The head of the agency as well should immediately to be forced to resign. Where is the accountability?

    Correct me if I am wrong, but Spry is accountable and should be punished. Witch hunting every agency is not the solution. Yes the social workers should have spotted it sooner and acted upon it but at the end of the day it was Spry who abused the children.

    Who in their right mind would want to be a social worker – talk about a lose/lose job…

  2. I agree, so I’m going to indulge my habit of commneting on your posts as well.
    Everyone wants to scapegoat social workers. A social worker would hardly expect such levels of evil and would be much more justifiably vilified if they started treating every foster parent as a potential psycho. All the same, these kids were put there by someone who apparently seemed satisfied with how they got on.
    Obviously the social workers were pretty **** (fearing a libel suit..) but what about the neighbours, teachers, people who saw them in the street. Did nobody ever question what was happening to these kids?
    The complete absence of any social concern is obviously how she could become a “pillar of the community” What community? If the closed worlds of Jehovah’s Witnesses or social services fostering services aren’t “communities” then what “community” is there?
    The fact that the media made so much of her being a Witness is indeed unfair. Most violent criminals probably tick the “C of E” or “RC” or “Islam” – or even “None” – boxes.
    If the papers started using headlines like “Catholic stabs man in brawl” or “Atheist drives without seat belt” 🙂 it would be surprising but not greatly illuminating. This would be back to the “Pol Pot was an atheist” mad line of reasoning, referred to in your previous post.how to defend religion

  3. Yes. Must be some ley lines running through the place or something…

    On the previous comment, the fact she was a witness wasn’t the lead part of the headline, but I think it is relevant to this. It is part of (I suspect) the reason why there was less social concern about her behaviour. Remember religious people have a strange status in society…

  4. 🙂
    This reminds me- todays guardian has beautifully comic bit about bush’s aide doing hip-hop dance. will find it if its in the online version.

  5. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2046188,00.html It even has pictures, but sadly no video footage.

    It is always a bit cringe-inducing to watch grey-haired men the wrong side of 50 getting it on down on the dance floor. When the person is dressed in black tie and standing in front of hundreds of journalists, it gets embarrassing. And when the man in question is Karl Rove, George Bush’s beleaguered key adviser, and he is being made to dance to a hip-hop beat, that classifies as ritual humiliation.

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