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.
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.
This is Mormonism, not Christianity
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.
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.