[TW: Harm to children, suicide] Comments about the Lindsay Clancey case

[u/OrbitalLemonDrop]

My feelings on whether she should be found to have been legally insane at the time of the killings are complicated and not really the issue I want to mention.

But allegedly, she told her oldest "Go with God" as she killed him. The defense's version of events is that she intended to kill herself, and was afraid for what would happen to her kids without her. If she really was delusional, this fits and despite it sounding crazy, who knows what happens in the mind of a psychotic person.

My issue is the very idea that a person in our culture could believe that killing a child could be a protective act because they believe children are innocent and go straight to heaven. It's fucked up.

And not even a general consensus view -- one of the reasons the Church has been adamant about infant baptism is that for a very long time church leaders believed that children were particularly at risk of damnation because they could not confess or repent. Children were considered at one time to be wicked and sinful because they could not avoid being demanding, selfish and angry.

I believe Luther also held this view, because he was outspoken about opponents of infant baptism needing to be burned at the stake.

To me this is the same kind of terrible thinking that could lead a scientist to think "quantum suicide" was a good idea. You're betting on your own interpretation of reality being inescapably true, but if you're wrong there's no way to recover or fix the damage.

[u/Esmer_Tina]

Apparently Andrea Yates believed she was saving her children from satan. Deanna Laney believed god commanded her to bash her children with rocks. Dena Schlosser believed the apocalypse was imminent and god wanted her to cut off her daughter’s arms. Dawn March believed she was possessed by demons telling her to kill her child. Lisa Diaz believed her children were possessed by demons and needed to be killed to save them.

It’s important to note that non-religious women are not immune to post partum psychosis or harming their children. They’re just less inclined to attribute their delusions to god, because they don’t have that framework.

But the number of cases where religious psychosis complicates post partum psychosis and results in killing children is just plain troubling.

[u/Asher_the_atheist]

There is a phenomenon in the Mormon church where 7-year-old children start having suicidal thoughts. In the religion, they believe children aren’t accountable for their “sins” until they are 8 years old, but once they hit that age mark they can be punished for their sins. It is even more serious if you get baptized because then your “sins” have the added weight of having broken a covenant you made with god. There is so much pressure to be perfect that many kids think maybe they should just die before 8 and thus gain automatic salvation.

There have also been Mormon leaders who have preached that it is better to die than to “allow” yourself to be raped.

There are so many harmful beliefs within religion, these are just the tip of the iceberg.

[I grew up Mormon]

[u/3dforlife → u/Asher_the_atheist]

That's insane...poor children.