The malnourished and badly bruised son of a parenting advice YouTuber politely asks a neighbor to take him to the nearest police station in newly released video from the day his mother and her business partner were arrested on child abuse charges in southern Utah.
The 12-year-old son of Ruby Franke, a mother of six who dispensed advice to millions via a popular YouTube channel, had escaped through a window and approached several nearby homes until someone answered the door, according to documents released Friday by the Washington County Attorney’s office.
Crime scene photos, body camera video and interrogation tapes were released a month after Franke and business partner Jodi Hildebrandt, a mental health counselor, were each sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. A police investigation determined religious extremism motivated the women to inflict horrific abuse on Franke’s children, Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke announced Friday.
“The women appeared to fully believe that the abuse they inflicted was necessary to teach the children how to properly repent for imagined ‘sins’ and to cast the evil spirits out of their bodies,” Clarke said.
The boy later told investigators that Hildebrandt had used rope to bind his arms and his feet to weights on the ground. She used a mixture of cayenne pepper and honey to dress his wounds, according to the police report.
In handwritten journal entries also released Friday, Franke chronicles months of daily abuse that included starving her son and 9-year-old daughter, forcing them to work for hours in the summer heat and isolating them from the outside world. The women often made the kids sleep on hard floors and sometimes locked them in a concrete bunker in Hildebrandt’s basement.
In a July 2023 entry titled “Big day for evil,” she describes holding the boy’s head under water and closing off his mouth and nose with her hands.
Body camera video shows officers entering Hildebrandt’s house and detaining her on the couch while others scour the winding hallways in search of the young girl. They quickly discover a child with a buzzcut sitting cross-legged in a dark, empty closet. After hours of sitting with the girl and feeding her pizza, police coax her out.
Wtf, i can’t imagine being raised like this 😭
Religion as the basis for the justification of the suffering of children…
Is reason alone to avoid it.
My heart aches for the 12-year old boy and his siblings. I feel so bad for them. I hope they are getting the care they need.
Friendly reminder to everyone that the rest of the world has signed on the United Nation’s Connvention on the Rights of the Child; the US doesn’t like that it could prevent children from being spanked, because God wants us to spank our children (spare the rod, spoil the child).
Religion is often a basis for the suffering of children.
The US doesn’t like the idea of taking responsibility for its actions ever.
the US doesn’t like that it could prevent children from being spanked
There’s that, but mostly some states don’t want minors to be exempt from the death penalty or life imprisonment, which would be a consequence of ratification.
(Also, the Venn diagram of those states and the ones where children can be married but can’t get a divorce due to lacking standing in court, another consequence of non-ratification, is probably a circle.)
Religion is a horrible cultural disease that causes unmeasurable harm, sure, but the USA has a well established tradition of treating children as subhuman and brutally abusing them in a vast variety of ways, many of which aren’t directly linked to religion.
Don’t forget they don’t want child marriages to end either
Christianity doesn’t advocate abusing children at all. And most children that suffer are for non religious reasons, usually mental illness or sex trafficking. Religious people who are mentally ill just use it as a veil.
Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” Genesis 22:2
If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother, his bloodguiltiness is upon him. Leviticus 20:9
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock! Psalms 137:9
“If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whatever comes out from the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace from the Ammonites hshall be the LORD’s, and iI will offer it up for a burnt offering.” Judges 11:30-31
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not satisfy her owner, he must allow her to be bought back again. Exodus 11:7-8
“Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” Genesis 19:8
As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. Deuteronomy 20:14
The fact that you quoted Judges clearly shows that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Judges is never prescription. It’s a documentary of the horrors the Israelites committed when there was no authority. It literally ends with
"In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
Anyway, your Isaac story, you forgot the part where Abraham literally doesn’t sacrifice Isaac. It was merely a test of loyalty. God tells him not to.
Psalm 137 - That’s a poem by King David who was rather upset about the Babylonians ruining his kingdom. The last verse is eye-for-an-eye and imprecatory - where David was like “you murdered our children, blessed is the day when we can exact our revenge”. Of course that wouldn’t make it moral, as we know how Jesus spoke on the eye-for-an-eye doctrine.
Leviticus - These were laws for keeping order in a strained and threatened society in a deeply immoral world. That’s why there’s need for strictness and lack of tolerance, especially with the Israelites constantly rebelling as they did throughout history.
Exodus 21 (not 11) is about fair treatment of slaves in the time of the Exodus. We know Moses made concessions to keep them pleased. That’s why he required that slaves were treated fairly.
Genesis 19 shows Lot compromising with evil whenever people of Sodom. Lot was being threatened to have his house guests raped. Sure, him offering his daughters weren’t any better, but this is straying into victim blaming. Sodom got rightfully destroyed in the end. Again, this is description, not prescription. You cannot act like everything protrayed in the Bible is someone doing the right thing. It’s far from it.
Deuteronomy 20:14, the alternative was letting them starve in the ruined city.
Yes, and all of that is still pure fucking evil, no matter how hard you wanna spin it. You said there was no child abuse. Well there it is. I do not care at all how you want to explain it away. Sounds like nothing but devil worship to me.
The context is that a bunch of primitive desert nomads wanted to kill their neighbors, steal their land, loot their cities, rape and terrify their children, enslave the survivors and still feel like they were good, moral, chosen people. So they made up excuses about how the man in the sky said that what they did, and planned to keep doing, was all ok. So were they listening to God, the Devil, or were they just a bunch of men making stuff up? That’s the only context that matters.
The basis for your belief system is that these assholes had life figured out. You and I both seem to agree that they didn’t. So why do you keep defending them? Why do you believe in the religion built on their terrible foundation?
There’s no child abuse prescribed. Doesn’t mean that there are no descriptions of it happening.
I believe in the religion because a person called Jesus was Prophecied about, was actually born, performed miracles and fulfilled prophecies, claimed to be God, then died and rose again back to life, was physically seen by many, before ascending into heaven.
And yet despite your protests, it absolutely does prescribe child abuse, genocide, slavery, rape, kidnapping, murder, and torture. It calls the men who committed those atrocities righteous. Christians only began to consider them crimes in the last century or so. You claim that followers of Yahweh should have just read between the lines to know that these were lessons for what not to do. But instead, for some 4000 years, followers of those scriptures enthusiastically did all of those things, because they wanted to and scripture said it was okay. The fact that you now believe those things are wrong is proof that you do not get your morality from those scriptures, but rather from the modern, secular culture in which you were born.
I do think that there are a lot of good branches of Christianity out there, where the main focus is on loving thy neighbor and opening the way to God to all people, not being exclusionary.
My experience of religion, like so many others though, hinged (more and more strongly over the years) on a literal interpretation of Genesis. One in which eating a bad piece of fruit causes inseparable rifts between parent and child; one in which the creator of all, the knower of all, created rules that unless I grovel and beg and pledge constant devotion, I deserved eternal conscious torment for existing. That’s an abusive belief. Especially to teach children.
That’s before the curse of Eve, for eating the bad fruit first, causing the pain of childbirth, hereditarily (the biggest cause of death in women throughout history), as well as god-sanctioned subjugation of women. (For example, a woman doing everything right knows not to try to teach a high school group–those are men that she’s not qualified to minister to. She knows it’s better not to vote in church matters, even if she’s allowed, because the head of household, her husband does that). This creates social structures that disempower women as a point of culture, another abusive trait.
Children also deserve subjection. They are to be obedient at all times, it’s literally one of the commandments. Our denomination taught that “Obey thy father and thy mother” also applied to all earthly authority over us. Authority and structure mattered more as a culture than understanding and insight.
And the social culture of church can feel toxic or stifling. Often outright sinning, even as a repetitive behavior is tolerated in church spaces (especially in cases of child or domestic abuse), but someone who has reason to think a little differently (like believing in Jesus without believing in Genesis, being queer, being progressive) is shunned or made to be quiet. They know from a young age that their voices can never be respected in those spaces, the number of sermons I heard about how evil/misguided/ other awful stereotype that non believers were supposed to be… It teaches othering, it teaches people to reduce other people to stereotypes of what the pastor says instead of what the person’s lived experience is.
This isn’t unusual for Christianity, especially in the States. My experience with abuse patterns in Christianity may truly not apply to you. But I think they apply to many.
And I’m not even going to touch on the abuse that happens to homeschooled children, often strongly correlated with religion.
I’m sorry you had a bad experience. However, it’s not that one deserves torment for existing, it’s that one deserves punishment for sin. If you look at the state of the world, it’s filled with sin. Societies cannot function because of greed, people are oppressed, madmen have nuclear bombs capable of destroying the world, and the constant suffering in Gaza and Ukraine, humanity is inherently evil. And we all have participated in that evil in some kind of way. Asking for forgiveness and trying to do the right thing isn’t a bad thing, it’s the correct thing.
With churches being toxic - every environment is. It doesn’t make it right. What people identifying as Christian do and act doesn’t represent Christianity as a whole. People will abuse children regardless, whether it be in schools, etc. I don’t live in the United States, I live in the United Kingdom, so I cannot speak for there.
Homeschooling isn’t a Christian doctrine. I personally think it is cringe retreatism and a good way to create an atheist.
What people identifying as Christian do and act doesn’t represent Christianity as a whole.
I mean, religions are what people define them as, use them as. If two million people use the Christian Bible to prop up child abuse, slavery, and sexual, then that is part of the tradition of that faith. Perhaps you didn’t ascribe to faith that seeks to sever people from God via thoughtcrimes. Perhaps the church you attend works to alleviate those injustices, and that seeks conservation of the planet we were gifted. But I know when I asked about racism at church, when I asked about what we as a congregation were doing about it, I was told that was a heart issue that we just had to pray people would resolve on their own. Women, again, could not hold positions of authority because that was against God’s will, gay people were sent away, but racists, what can you do? Again, my experience isn’t unique. There was never any talk of care taking the planet. Fair bit of talk about the dude who buried his Talent vs the one who invested it, though.
I think you identify a lot of real evils in this world, and people really do create a lot of problems. I fundamentally don’t believe we are overwhelmingly evil, and I think teaching people they are evil is more likely to create people who grow up to be evil. People live up to what those around them believe them to be. When people believe to their core that they are truly evil and cannot trust themselves, that they instead must trust the human layers between themselves and God., that’s gonna come up as trauma and/or abuse somewhere down the line.
And while any environment can become abusive, churches preach truth and morality; tied in with that is a strong sense of community and family. Trying to call out abuse from an elder or a pastor often results in the pastor getting moved and ‘prayed for’ and the victim pressured to forgive before is appropriate. They’re bullied to say they forgive when they are not actually ok. And the abuser gets to move on and find new victims. We’ve all seen the scandals about the Catholic Church over the last couple decades. The Southern Baptist Convention had a list of 700 abusers they covered for. But still don’t be a loud lady, that’s against God. The SBC is one of the biggest evangelical denominations in the United States. I don’t think they’re what Christianity is supposed to be. But they are Christians and this is how they express their faith, so this is how I understand Christianity.
Bad theology hurts people. And to pretend there isn’t bad is to be unable to fix.
And zero self reflection. They never point their hyper-critical eyes towards a mirror.
Oh they do, but their flaws are human foibles, not being posessed by a demon.
They’re self-centered pieces of shit that use double standards.
*hypocritical
For anyone that’s interested in a deep dive into what kind of shit was going on here, John Dehlin has covered this pretty extensively on his Mormon Stories podcast. Episodes 1805, 1807, 1808, 1809 (removed due to threat of a lawsuit for defamation; you’d have to find an archived copy. Adam Steed is a difficult interviewee in many ways, unless you are already deeply, intimately aware of Mormonism; his thoughts are often very jumbled and he has a hard time expressing things in a linear fashion), 1817, 1817, 1825 (tangentially; it’s about “Visions of Glory”), 1826, 1844, 1865, 1869, and 1873. It’s also tangentially related the the Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell murder cases, in that the beliefs of Jodi Hildebrant and Ruby Franke were both heavily influenced by the same apocalyptic book, “Visions of Glory”.
Keep in mind that the episodes I just listed comprise roughly around 30 hours of listening. About half of them are long-form interviews. Unless you have an an interest in cults, religious indoctrination, apocalyptic beliefs, this is probably not going to be your thing. And unless you were raised Mormon–or have listened to the other 5400 hours or so of podcasts that John Dehlin has done–it’s probably going to be a little hard to follow what’s going on.
A very, very short version is that, while Franke was always borderline abusive as a mom (and that’s pretty par for the course in Mormon families, TBH), Hildebrandt is an incredibly charismatic, persuasive psychopath that used a version of Mormon theology to induce her to be far, far worse than she would have otherwise been. If Hildebrandt had been male–because you must be male to have real power in the Mormon church–she almost certainly would have ended up leading a fundamentalist cult.
EDIT When I say that Franke was borderline abusive, I mean that she was borderline before she met Jodi Hildebrandt. Once Hildebrandt attached herself to Franke, Franke’s behavior became overtly, obviously abusive. In my opinion, Franke was always vulnerable to acting in that way, but Hildebrant was who convinced her that abuse was appropriate and moral.
I’m searching for those archived podcast episodes. If anyone knows where I can find them…
All but episode 1809 should be easily available on Spotify or YouTube. 1809 is the tough one; I listened to it when it was released–I generally like Dehlin’s long-format style of interviews, and the subject matters is of personal interest–but I don’t know where to find it now.
I don’t know who sent Dehlin the C&D, so I don’t know when or if the episode will ever be restored. If it was Hildebrant’s attorneys, then he might be able to restore it once she’s in prison. But maybe not, since they would say that–despite her conviction–it’s defamatory. (Although if it’s all true, then by definition it’s not defamation. But you’d have to prove that in court, which is expensive.) If it’s was the Mormon church that issued the C&D because of the accusations that they misused confidential medical records against Adam Steed to throw him out of BYU and threaten his church membership, well, that’s getting tossed into the memory hole.
Franke was always borderline abusive as a mom (and that’s pretty par for the course in Mormon families, TBH)
I don’t know about families in minority sects, but this kind of thing is extremely rare among families in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It certainly happens as much as in any other demographic, but generally rarely. The Church does not tolerate the abuse of children and the actions of Franke will certainly result in excommunication (if it hasn’t already).
Would you care to make a wager on her excommunication? Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell were ex’d, but they were ex’d for apostasy, not for murdering children. Hildebrandt should be excommunicated for apostasy, but she likely has too much insider knowledge to safely kick out.
Moreover, I know that the shit Franke did (prior to Hildebrant’s involvement; Franke really went off the deep end once she connected to Hildebrant) would be seen on the spectrum of normal in Mormon households because that’s the same kind of household I was raised in, and my dad was a bishop. Twice. In two different wards. My mom, now in her 80s, still has the same attitudes about ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘sin’ that Franke does/did. The only difference is the question of degree.
Hildebrandt should be excommunicated for apostasy, but she likely has too much insider knowledge to safely kick out.
Lol, that’s some wild conspiracy theory stuff right there 🤣
Wild conspiracy theories about the shit that goes on at the upper levels of the Mormon church has an unfortunate way of being proven true years and decades after the fact.
Many of the decisions that get made by upper levels tends to be about protecting the name and reputation of the church, which means hiding the piles of dirty laundry. Moreover, if you’ve been sending people to a particular therapist for decades for ‘sex addiction’, and Hildebrandt has clearly been favored for such, then it’s going to be really hard for them to turn around and say, no, we’ve been wrong about her this whole time, she’s been preaching apostasy for decades, oops, we dun fucked up.
Has the Mormon church said anything yet about whether or not Tim Ballard was excommunicated, despite his use of elder Ballard’s name and his own sex abuse of women? Or are they still keeping that one quiet?
Wild conspiracy theories about the shit that goes on at the upper levels of the Mormon church has an unfortunate way of being proven true years and decades after the fact.
Such as? There are many lies that are commonly spread about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members. Which ones are you referring to that have been “proven true”?
Has the Mormon church said anything yet about whether or not Tim Ballard was excommunicated, despite his use of elder Ballard’s name and his own sex abuse of women? Or are they still keeping that one quiet?
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not issue public announcements when a member’s membership is withdrawn. The decision to do such is made at the stake level. People with some level of public prominence, such as Tim Ballard, are known to announce the withdrawal of their membership themselves, usually in order to garner additional support from their followers. The policies of the Church on this topic are not secret and can be found here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/general-handbook/32-repentance-and-membership-councils?lang=eng#title_number71
Such as? There are many lies that are commonly spread about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members. Which ones are you referring to that have been “proven true”?
How about pretty much everything that Gerald and Sandra Tanner tried to publicize? Rock in a hat, treasure digging, JS Jr. criminal conviction, JS Jr. “polygamy” (calling it polygamy would be a stretch, since many of the women were already married), polygamy in general (it was being actively denied by people that were polygamysts, including JS Jr., apostles, and shit, even rank and file members were lied to until BY led the majority of Mormons to Utah), the end of polygamy with the first manifesto (in fact, it’s been demonstrated that there was at least one sanctioned polygamous marriage by the child of an apostle after the second manifesto), Ensign Peak & tithing funds being used for City Creek Mall (“oh, tithing didn’t pay for it, we just invested the tithing and then used the investment fund to pay for it…”), PoGP not being a translation at all (in recent years they’ve entirely de-ephasized it, but when I was in seminary they printed the Egyptian funerary text facsimile at the front of the book of Moses, and claimed that it was a translation; later it became the inspiration, and now…?), the Kinderhook plates, the temple endowment ceremony being ripped off from Free Masonry, direct church involvement in the prop 8 campaign in California, and on, and on, and on.
You can even look at Nelson’s, “saying Mormon is a victory for Satan”, and contrast it with Hinckley who championed the, “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign that ran for years. Nelson is claiming that his words are straight from god, so apparently Hinckley was being deceived by Satan when he green-lit a PR campaign…? Every prophet is a prophet until a new prophet says something that contradicts the old one, and then the old one was “speaking as a man”. But wait, weren’t we promised that god would never let a prophet mislead his people? Hmmm.
This is the pattern of the Mormon church. Everything is denied, until the evidence is so overwhelming, and then members are told that it was always this way, and if you didn’t know it’s not their fault.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not issue public announcements when a member’s membership is withdrawn.
They used to print notices of excommunication in Desert News. Literally. So this idea that “oh no, we can’t tell people about this, they need their privacy” is utter nonsense.
I’m going to assume that you’re a believing Mormon, because there really isn’t anyone else that defends their nonsense.
So, here’s your fundamental problem: the beliefs are un-falsifiable. That is, you study, you pray, you think that god gives you good feelings through the holy ghost that confirms that it’s true. If you don’t feel the good feelings, then you believe that you need to pray more, study more, etc., and you need to do this until you do get the ‘right’ answer. But here’s the problem: most religious converts report the same process, and the same feelings. People that have converted to Islam from atheism, people that have converted to Judaism from Christianity, and even people that become Buddhist report going through a similar process. When I was Mormon, I was taught that Satan could counterfeit the feelings from the holy spirit, and that people that thought they felt the spirit when it was telling them that Mormon doctrine was wrong were being deceived. And yet, how can you know that this is true? How can you know that you aren’t being deceived? The answer is that you don’t. You believe you aren’t being deceived, but you can’t know it. Moreover, I will bet every dollar that I have in my wallet right now that you’ve never put the same kind of effort into finding out the Truth of any other religion; you have almost certainly never attempted, for instance, to deeply study The Holy Books of Thelema under the tutalage of a scholar of the Ordo Templi Orientis to discover if Crowley was truly a prophet or not. Instead, you have assumed that your feeling are Truth.
As long as you remain convinced that the Mormon church is absolutely god’s One True Church™, you won’t be able to truly see and understand the near constant changes in doctrine and dogma for what they are.
I don’t think anything that you listed is a secret. And yes, I am an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I’m not sure your talking points are made in good faith (you sound like you have a massive chip on your shoulder) but I’ll try to address them anyway.
Every prophet is a prophet until a new prophet says something that contradicts the old one, and then the old one was “speaking as a man”.
This is a mischaracterization about Latter-day Saint beliefs regarding contemporary prophets. Unlike most Christian sects, we believe in an open canon and that God actively communicates to humankind via a prophet today just as in biblical times. A prophet can say one thing and then another prophet can say something else, and both can still be speaking the word of God authoritatively.
They used to print notices of excommunication in Desert News. Literally. So this idea that “oh no, we can’t tell people about this, they need their privacy” is utter nonsense.
It is not “utter nonsense”, it is the policy of the Church. Your logic is faulty, because it could be used to define any improvement in any organization or group as “utter nonsense”. One could just as easily say that because slavery was once legal in the United States, the emancipation proclamation is “utter nonsense”.
So, here’s your fundamental problem: the beliefs are un-falsifiable.
From where I stand, that is your fundamental problem. You sound like you feel personally affronted when someone has faith in something that you can’t observe with your natural senses. That’s okay, I get it. It’s not for you. Why spend so much energy arguing with an internet stranger whom you identify yourself as being obviously an adherent to such a faith?
I am comfortable with my faith and have no interest in forcing anyone to believe like I do. However, it sounds like you have a chip on your shoulder and are heavily prejudiced against religious people in general and Latter-day Saints in particular. I can’t envision a productive outcome to continuing this discussion, but should you have questions about my beliefs and are willing to listen with an open mind, my DMs are always open.
I wish you a joyous day.
Bullshit.
Their actions have been condemned by other Mormon parenting bloggers who say they misrepresented their community and the religion
Oh bullshit. These religious zealots get together every fucking week at church and pretend they didn’t know this abuse was happening? Mormons are a cult and should be treated as such.
When it comes to mormons, never forget that they had networks of their pastors and elders to hide and ignore abuse. They were more systematic about it than the cuntish catholics.
https://apnews.com/article/mormon-sex-abuse-de446ad8212b6ca50ecbaaf222c35e7e
https://apnews.com/article/mormon-church-sexual-abuse-investigation-e0e39cf9aa4fbe0d8c1442033b894660
That’s not how it works…
typical religious nut, dont let them fool you in to thinking that this person is an outlier
This person’s actions are an outlier, but the beliefs are not. My own mother held very similar ones during my early years, and the circle of women at the church was not shy in voicing their opinions which, oh so outlier-like, were also similar to this woman’s. That was in an eastern US state, in a protestant church. Don’t forget that the US had the (insanity of) belief in the childcare cults of satan, that D&D was from satan, that rock music was the road to satan, etc. Those were massive, widespread beliefs. They haven’t gone away entirely. Talk to members of a rural church, and you’ll hear the subtle hints of all those things, but they’ve learned not to be overt.
She’s literally a member of the LDS which is a weird cult, you cannot just paint every religious person with the same brush
But they are an outlier… if they weren’t people wouldn’t be so horrified.
We’re horrified because it’s horrible, not because it’s unusual. Not the first time I’ve been horrified today, unfortunately.
Roflmao pointing out an outlier is an outlier gets you downvoted on Lemmy. We don’t take kindly to people who defend religious types ‘round here.
I guess “religious extremism” is accurate, but this is batshit insanity as well. There is something very, very wrong in this woman’s brain, and it requires treatment. While she rots in prison of course.
There are many, many Christians who abuse their kids under the guise of godliness. Ever heard of “To Train Up a Child”? It’s a whole book about how to properly abuse your child to turn them into a mindless, obedient slave. They start hitting them as infants for showing curiosity. There are popular Christian influencers who have openly spoken about the ways they “discipline” their kids - one said her husband “doesn’t know his own strength” with their kids. Aka he’s beaten the shit out of them more than once. Sure, Ruby Franke turned it up to 11, but she and her husband routinely abused their children and were public about it for years, and plenty of people saw no problem with it and continued to consume their content.
I’d argue it’s not mental illness, it’s the natural consequence of practicing a branch of Christianity that doesn’t see children as people, just little trophies who aren’t meant to have any personality, needs, or wants. They’re supposed to parrot everything their parents believe and otherwise not be seen or heard.
Your argument is good, and your views have merit. Which is super fucking depressing.
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This is Mormonism, not Christianity
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Christianity NEVER advocates violence against Children.
Psalm 127:3 ESV [3] Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.
Matthew 19:13-15 ESV [13] Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, [14] but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” [15] And he laid his hands on them and went away.
Luke 17:2 ESV [2] It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
Mormons are Christians. You might disagree, but you don’t get to judge who goes to heaven, do you? All religions based around the worship of Jesus are Christianity, by definition. You know the difference between a religion and a cult, right? Do you think the ancient 1st century gnostics would recognize your preferred brand of modern Christianity as the same religion, or as a dangerous heresy instead?
Christians advocate for child abuse all the time. You just refuse to acknowledge that your fundamental doctrines for raising children are abusive.
Ruby Franke is Mormon, but the rest of the people I was talking about are evangelical Christians. The Pearls, who wrote the instruction manual on child abuse are Baptist. I don’t give a shit what the Bible says about it, because neither do any of these people. And you can’t no true scotsman when there are millions of them.
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What?
This is par for the course.
Pretty much every Abrahmic offshoot was started by someone who was completely insane.
According to their own history, it all kicked off with Abraham killing family members because a voice in his head told him that anyone doubting the voice needs murdered.
He was violent and insane and now literally billions and billions of people worship the voice he invented, and legitimately believe that if a voice in their head shows up telling them to do horrible shit, it’s probably cool because maybe it’s just God again.
There is absolutely nothing surprising when a person who not only believes those fairy tales, but come from a family they may have spent thousands of years believing them, starts thinking theyre the next “special one”.
Sure, most people dont actually believe in their own religions. But they pretend it’s real, and then the really crazy ones do shit like this.
Being shocked this keeps happening is like asking why your car runs out of gas when you never put gas in it until after the tanks dry
This is the rational result of what they’re doing.
You’d often finds that religious extremists prefer to prey on the mentally unwell. They’re more susceptible to abuse and easier to turn into abusers themselves. Then the chain repeats and the abuse self-replicates, propagating the abuse. Very sane and well adjusted individuals can be made to be really cruel and destructive via religious abuse.
Her business partner (and co-defendant) is described as a “mental health counselor.” I’m sure she’s fine.
/s
Which is why I don’t trust any shrink that’s religious. You can’t claim to be mentally sound when you hold that delusion in your mind.
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Handy
I don’t recall what Hildebrandt’s degree is, but she is–or was, before this criminal case got it revoked–a licensed practitioner. She came very, very close to getting her license revoked over some major malpractice and HIPAA violations with a guy named Adam Steed, but was able to retain her license and was put on probation.
The best explanation I’ve heard from interviewees that had worked with her is that she’s a genuine, clinical psychopath.
Yeah, it seems the edgy atheists of Lemmy are trying to use this to further their “murder all religious people” rhetoric which is basically just Atheist Jihad
Sauce for atheist jihad please. Show us where atheists are calling to murder all religious people.
Sounds like something an atheist jihadi would say
Aw dangit! My secret plots exposed!
Someone said we should bring back priest hunters to jail priests and they took that to logically mean we’d kill priests until there were none left and naturally people would just keep becoming priests until we’d killed most of the world, obviously
LoL bringing pedo priests to justice = atheist jihad.
Sounds like some loony cult ravings to me.
The bitterest part?
- “Do not harm little children” - Church of Satan
- “One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.” - The Satanic Temple
Are you getting the picture? People who claim themselves to side with Satan are more eager to show compassion than people who claim to fight against a devil. It immediately reminds me what my grandma used to say, that “Protestants love the devil so much that they talk about him nonstop”. (Not that the Catholic church is any better, I know.)
[I’m not Satanist, regardless of my nickname, by the way.]
The satanic temple name is more than anything just sarcastic, they don’t believe in Satan, they’re just using it because they know it irks the religious.
It’s more like a different interpretation of what “Satan” is, more like an internal force than like a mythical entity. Still - the contrast is clear.
Satan is just an angel that God cast out for questioning him, we’ve all had managers like that. God is just a jerk with an inability to take constructive criticism.
God was the one that didn’t want there to be any dinosaurs. Boring old fart.
It’s just that she’s crazy. Christianity in no way encourages abuse of children or even people who are demon possessed.
Psalm 127:3 ESV [3] Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.
Matthew 19:13-15 ESV [13] Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, [14] but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” [15] And he laid his hands on them and went away.
Luke 17:2 ESV [2] It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.
It’s just a paranoid/crazy person masquerading as religious.
Edit: turns out she isn’t even a Christian, she’s a Mormon. I guessed she was a Protestant Christian from your message.
Give Deuteronomy 21:18-21 a check. Abridged version for you: unruly children should be stoned. What she did is biblically justified. You’ll also find some “fun” stuff that should guide her actions in Exodus 21:15-17 and Psalm 137:8-9.
Of course, someone could play that game that Christian denominations love to play - where you redefine the canon for to include/exclude books based on which actions you want to justify. But that’s from the Pentateuch, so kind of hard to brush off. Why is this disgusting shit there on first place?
In the meantime, the Satanists actually have rules to act with compassion and to not harm children. Yup.
Edit: turns out she isn’t even a Christian, she’s a Mormon. I guessed she was a Protestant Christian from your message.
Christians also love to play the “that group there is not Christian, even if they follow the Bible and call themselves Christians”. I see this fairly often here… except that it’s towards Protestants (that, acc. to the local mindset, includes Mormons, for the annoyance of both).
Oh boy! Bible verses taken out of context! Let’s look into these, shall we?
Deuteronomy was about preparing Israel for the coming of Messiah. It’s not a command for today’s Christian people. Same with Exodus. They exist as historical record.
Psalm 137 is lamenting what Babylon did to Israel. It was an eye for an eye rhetoric, as the Babylonians had murdered their children. Again, Psalms aren’t prescriptions. They’re songs written by a Jewish king.
Mormons aren’t Christian. They reject the Trinity for a start and have additional scripture, just like Islam with their Qur’an or Jehovah’s witnesses with the Watchtower publications.
Ah yes, the continuously exhausting tradition of Christians who believe in one doctrine introduced hundreds of years after the death of Jesus Christ (trinitarianism) denying the beliefs of Christians who believe in other doctrines introduced after the death of Jesus Christ.
Our beliefs have much more in common than you think.
The trinity is literally in the Bible and Jesus Himself literally referenced it.
The concept of the trinity defined by the Nicene Creed is vastly elaborated compared to the verses in the New Testament that refer to it. At the same time, there are several instances where the trinitarian view of God is nonsensical, such as when the Father announces His acceptance of Jesus’ baptism, or the numerous times Jesus stated that He was “returning” to “His Father”. How would a single being return to Himself? Why would He engage in ventriloquism at the scene of His baptism?
Regardless, we both believe in Jesus Christ, even if we believe in different things about Him. We are therefore both Christians.
What you described the trinity as being was Modalism, which the Nicene creed doesn’t teach. The definition of the trinity is in the Athanasian Creed.
To lay what the Bible clearly teaches:
There is one God. Jesus is God. Jesus always existed. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is referenced in both testaments. The Father is God. The Father always existed. Jesus prays to the Father. The Father and the Holy spirit are both present alongside each other at Jesus’ baptism. Jesus flat out equates the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together when talking of Baptism.
God is above creation and our laws. We only understand our unitarian nature - that we can only be in one place at one time. Just like how we being three dimensional creatures can only relate to three dimensions. So it wouldn’t make sense for God to abide by our laws, but to be manifest in three persons spanning time and space and the laws of this universe.
So you’re claiming that there is a context where beating children to death with rocks is a good thing? As a humanist, I’m glad I don’t have to make desperate excuses for those kinds of doctrines. Are you suggesting that the Old Testament is not the word of your god? Because if so, we would agree.
The Old Testament isn’t just a historical record for your religion. It is the moral foundation upon which your entire belief system is based. If the old Testament is a weak, rotten, crumbling, amoral structure, then all of Christendom never had legs to stand upon.
And it is.
Didn’t say it was a good thing. Description, not prescription. King David was angry, generally this falls under “imprecatory psalms”. Basically nobody in the Bible was perfect apart from Jesus which is the whole point. Selfish laws are given and screwed up things happen. Saying the Old Testament is a literal word of God is unfortunately an oversimplification which even some Christians don’t pay too much attention to as they should. It’s a historical record of God’s people. Sure there are good lessons and things to learn in there, and it demonstrates why we needed Jesus. But basically everyone has some form of shortcoming apart from Jesus. It’s there for honesty (criteria of embarrassment) rather than for flat out glorification.
Christianity is hinged primarily on the Life, death and most importantly - resurrection of Jesus Christ. When God became incarnate as a man and lived the perfect life to die a death we all deserved.
Then the word of your god is imperfect. Especially so for corrupting the moral behavior of humanity for some 4000 years. Had your scriptures condemned slavery, genocide, child sacrifice, torture, rape, and war from the beginning, your religion could hold the high ground. But it condoned it instead, just like all the other religions. Just like the bloodthirsty kings and greedy priests who made it up in the first place to justify their lusts. Just like Christians have always used it to oppress others and enrich themselves.
Seriously though, you ought to read your Bible. And while you do, I dare you to ponder these questions:
“How would I know whether this is the word of God, or if Satan wrote it pretending to be God? If Satan wrote it, how could it be any worse? If God wrote it, why isn’t it any better?”
You basically just skipped over what I said, because the Bible is not literally the word of God. The old testament was the compilation of scriptures that the second temple Jews used in the time of Jesus that Jesus mentioned, and the New Testament were all written first generation/apostolic accounts of Jesus and theology. So of course there’s going to be descriptions of evil, compromises made with evil to fulfill the greater picture, concessions, etc. Even Jesus made this clear about Old Testament law:
Matthew 19:8 ESV He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
So when it came to laws regarding Israel, they had to have laws to prevent immorality from leaking in and also have laws about keeping slaves as taking slaves was normal in that society. But it is worth mentioning that the slaves were treated better in comparison. Israel could barely behave with these concessions nevermind without. And in the grand scheme of things, you’re forgetting this is a finite life compared with infinity.
Heck. People nowadays cannot even obey Jesus’ “do not divorce your wife” law. We still need framework to compromise with that.
Oh boy! Bible verses taken out of context! Let’s look into these, shall we?
I take contextual analysis for granted because it’s what you’re expected to do with any sort of text, but including it here would be verbose.
Deuteronomy was about preparing Israel for the coming of Messiah. It’s not a command for today’s Christian people. Same with Exodus. They exist as historical record.
Let’s add more context then: Matthew 24 (in special 24:37-39) and plenty other parts of the Four Evangelia claim that Jesus is coming back (something that Mormons stick to), while Matthew 5:17 justifies enforcement of the Pentateuch laws. And yes, you should look at the context of those too, not that it’ll change much.
What do you get, in the big picture? That that law is still valid, specially with some Always-Imminent® second coming happening. What she’s doing is biblically justified - she’s enforcing an old but still valid law, that is about preparing Israel for the coming of the alleged anointed/saviour, for the event of his second coming.
…or alternatively that the bible is a bunch of bollocks, and even when read correctly (i.e. with context being taken into account) you’ll get it prescribing shitty things, that no decent human being would follow in 2024.
Side note: the Deuteronomy isn’t expected to be treated solely as a historical record. @Olhonestjim@lemmy.world already handled it.
Mormons aren’t Christian. They reject the Trinity
Under the exact same reasoning, most Protestants aren’t Christians either.
The scriptures part is messy. The bible that one Christian group follows may or may not coincide with the one that another follows.
Matthew 5:17 is showing that Jesus fulfills them and brings them to realisation. Not enforcing them.
Protestants don’t reject the Trinity?
Matthew 5:17 is showing that Jesus fulfills them and brings them to realisation. Not enforcing them.
That interpretation of “no enforcement” is clearly an ad hoc not justified by the text. Here’s same excerpt in two other languages, for reference:
- [Koine] μη νομισητε οτι ηλθον καταλυσαι τον νομον η τους προφητας ουκ ηλθον καταλυσαι αλλα πληρωσαι
- [Vulgata] Nolite putare quoniam veni solvere legem aut prophetas: non veni solvere, sed adimplere.
In both you see the usage of verbs that convey “finishing it”, “completing it”, “making it full”, as if the older laws were an incomplete set, and whatever Jesus was preaching was in addition to them. (The English translation as “fulfil” is rather accurate.) It clearly implies that the old laws are still valid, alongside the new ones; and thus should be enforced alongside them.
The Latin usage of adimpleo also conveys “I carry out [something]”; it’s specially relevant here because, if the implication of “carrying out the old laws” was to be avoided, the translator would’ve used compleo (non ueni soluere, sed complere) instead.
Also look at the rest of the excerpt, including the two following versicles. Your interpretation makes no sense in the light of what 5:18 and 5:19 say:
- [KJV] [17] Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. [18] For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. [19] Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
What is the text saying? “My laws are in addition to the old laws. Don’t break the old laws, not even a little one, or you won’t go to Heaven”.
Protestants don’t reject the Trinity?
The reason why I say “under the same reasoning, most Protestants aren’t Christians either” is that they reject some
nihilogicaltheological concept that some other group that considers themselves Christian accepts.That said some Pentecostal churches do reject it. Example here
Jesus was the fulfillment of the old laws as they were in preparation of His coming. And it depends what law Jesus was referring to. In John 8 He literally stopped a stoning which would have been justified under said law.
As Jesus said: Matthew 22:37-40 ESV
[37] And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. [38] This is the great and first commandment. [39] And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. [40] On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
and St Paul also wrote about this:
Galatians 3:15-29 ESV
[15] To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. [16] Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. [17] This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. [18] For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. [19] Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. [20] Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. [21] Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. [22] But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. [23] Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. [24] So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. [25] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, [26] for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. [27] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. [28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. [29] And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Christianity - The Gospel is Good News. As we are free from this law through Christ. And we can be freed from our sin.
Catholics and Orthodox, despite being ecclesiastical, still recognise Protestants as Christians even if lesser Christians. Oneness pentecostals aren’t considered Christians either. Denying the trinity is weirdly enough the first sign of being a cult.
turns out she isn’t even a Christian
Oh, that’s weird, cuz she sure sounds like one…
she’s a Mormon
That’s Christian. You even say so yourself right afterwards:
she was a Protestant Christian
You really just took what I said out of context.
“I guessed she was a Protestant Christian from your message”
Because you started talking about Protestants.
Mormons are as Christian as Muslims are Christians.
Don’t they read the Bible though. I don’t pay much attention to what they say but they definitely go on about the bible so surely they are Christian they’re just a different flavor.
So do Muslims. They both claim the original ways got corrupted and they have a prophet who came back to restore the “true” faith.
Although Mormons seemingly/arguably revere the Bible and Jesus more than Muslims do, the entire religion is basically alien to Christianity, even being polytheist (Islam is still Monotheist like Christianity)
It’s like Joseph Smith wanted to create a religion for personal power, so just started with Christianity as a foundation and then completely distorted it beyond recognition, that it basically doesn’t resemble the original faith any more than Islam does
Mormons are as Christian as Muslims are Christians.
Lol
Christianity in no way encourages abuse of children or even people who are demon possessed.
Neither does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or its members, who read and believe in the same verses you quoted.
These children deserve better. I cried when I watched the little girl inside the closet and the cops giving a pizza to her.
I would adopt that little girl and raise her as my own. She deserves a better life.
The father is currently fighting for custody. The situation is complicated, but Hildebrandt would wedge herself between couples, encourage wives to sever communications with the husbands, and convince them to force the husbands to move out of their joint home. Often because the husbands were ‘sex addicts’ (e.g., might have masturbated once or twice, of looked at pornography). Franke’s husband probably had no idea what was going on with Hildebrant. He did file for divorce within a few weeks of the arrest.
Wasn’t there a phone call with the wife that was recorded and he was saying things to help her. Like this line is recorded.
I haven’t heard of that. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t, just that I haven’t heard of it. If so, I’d be curious about the circumstances, and what his rationale is. Having heard interviews with several men that had marriages ruined by Hildebrandt, my tendency is to place less blame on Franke’s husband. But that could be entirely wrong; I just don’t know.
It was the very first phone call together. She was saying something like it’s a witch hunt and he kept reminding her this line is recorded and a ton of “… I know, I know”.
I went and listened it again and it sorta sounds like a damaged husband .
He forgot the famous aphorism, “feed a demon, starve an evangelist”
Sounds like we really need a “priest hunter” profession again so we can squash religion once and for all.
People wonder why I’m so against religion, well folks, here is an easy example of why the delusional need to wake the fuck up.
“Why don’t you take a seat right over there, pastor?”
“Why? You’re a little too old to be an altar boy”
I’m on board. I’ve been looking to make a career change.
So you just want to murder the majority of the world’s population who are religious because you think that’ll stop atrocities? I think you’re part of the problem, if you vehemently hate someone with different beliefs to that degree.
I never once said murder, I was more thinking catch and release [into prison]. Also, the world’s population is not a majority of priests.
Stop giving the delusional religious people of this world a safe space, this religion shit needs to stop, it only hurts humans in the long run.
I’m sorry you don’t get it, but thinking that religion is ok IS part of the problem……pull your head out of your ass.
But if you eliminate priests then more people will just become priests to replace them. Before you know it you’ll have the majority of the world’s population in jail.
There’s no evidence for Christianity hurting humans. This antitheistic zealotry is no different than ISIS. “I’m right about god(s) and everyone else who disagrees must suffer”
Um, every nation on the face of this planet has endured a genocide by Christian missionaries. Christians spent the better part of 2000 years slaughtering, plundering, torturing, enslaving, and force converting every lower tech civilization they encountered. There is no organization in existence which has ever done greater harm to humanity.
But we don’t want to kill you. We want to convince you all to stop. Stop believing you were ever a force for good. Stop hurting everyone around you out of self-righteous delusion. Stop believing a bunch of bronze age, middle eastern, medieval, mystical bullshit. We live in the modern world, and there is no question, we absolutely know better than they did.
As some one who doesn’t practice any religion, even I think it makes little sense to argue with atheists these days. Atheism has become the new opiate of the masses.
Extremest beliefs, no matter what those beliefs are, is a bad thing. And those who are at the extremes will tend to doing evil things in the name of their belief.
You can believe whatever the fuck you want in the comfort of your head. Pushing it onto others as if it were true is another….which is what theists do, and some of us are fucking sick and tired of it.
What the actual fuck? These women are sick. There’s a deeper reason (like
some mental illnesses orsociopathy) for why these women did these things, and their motivations should be examined. If we know more about such things, we can hopefully protect against other people with such behavior in the future.Sure, we can blame religion, but what if religion didn’t exist? Would people like these women not exist either, or would they use another excuse for their behavior?
Until a mental health issue has been concretely determined, I believe it’s somewhat irresponsible to toss the idea around that it’s the underlying root cause for this obscene behavior.
Religion, like other dogmas, has historically empowered and continues to empower a lot of otherwise mentally healthy people to feel okay doing plenty of fucked up shit, simply because religion said it’s okay to do it.
Ever heard of the Stanford Prisoner Experiment? Many “normal” people will do terrible things if simply given permission.
That experiment was recently shown to be a lie, https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication
But I think you’re right that people go along with a lot simply because of religious doctrine. There are plenty of cases of failed “exorcisms”
I mean, religions are fucked in all kinds of ways and can certainly fuck up their followers in a systemic way but in this instance I’m not sure Mormonism is teaching emaciation of children, more like they were attributing their fucked up impulses to religion.
If religion didn’t exist, a lot of this bullshit wouldn’t happen. Some still would, but a good portion wouldn’t happen.
“I will not feed a demon” says Youtuber – is a fun headline.
Whole lot of irony in that one sentence.
Irony?
She’s the demon.
Let me guess… Mormons?
I keep saying this, but the issue are the people that watch these videos. If they didn’t have followers they wouldn’t be where they are or could do what they do. (But in this case, maybe even without all the money they still would have abused those poor kids)
Franke 100% would have been doing this even without being a YouTuber. What she was doing on 8 Passengers is not all that extreme in Mormon circles, and I don’t mean just the deeply conservative ones. Yes, she went a little farther than most Mormons would be comfortable with, but the core ideas? They entirely understand where she was coming from. The commonly cited example is her refusing to bring lunch to a child (6yo?) that forgot it, saying that it’s ‘personal responsibility’; many Mormons would argue that it’s a little too young to expect a 6yo to be fully responsible like that, but if a 10yo child forgot? Or an 8yo? No problem.
Yup. An eight year old is plenty old enough to accept baptism and a lifetime of church membership and begin taking accountability for their own sins!
8yo children are clearly old enough to evaluate the truth claims and to be able to engage in the serious biblical scholarship that you need to be able to make sense of the Book of Mormon, as well as being old enough to know the historical context of JS Jr. and his actions. So, uh… (Obvious sarcasm is obvious.)
I don’t think society understands the scale of ignorance and evil of other humans that walk among us. I used to always say it’s 50/50. But I think it’s more like 75/25 and decent people with respect for life are the minority. It feels like it’s game over for humanity.
its the opposite. most people are genuinely decent folk. the world is actually getting safer despite what you see and hear because we now see and hear so much more than we used to. its a confirmation bias.
at some point we will realize that religion itself is a cancer. like most cancers, it has a strong benign composition with many deadly streaks.
just like with benign cancers, it must be excised and treated as the mental health problem it is.
Unfortunately too late I think. It’s metastasized.
Left to their own devices, a very strong majority of people default to being “good” people (I generally consider “good” is self sacrifice for the good is the many, and similar thinking and behavior - “evil” is selfish actions and ‘the end justify the means’). However, people are unfortunately not left to their own devices due to algorithms, echo chambers, propaganda, etc.
And evil is far easier to spread than good is…
Gotta love religion
Or it’s just a religious person who’s also mentally ill.
