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Afterlife Fantasy Dishonors Dead Girls

By BlackSun / October 3rd, 2006 / Religion / 248CommentsAfterlife+Fantasy+Dishonors+Dead+Girls2006-10-04+07%3A25%3A09BlackSun

"We think it was God’s plan and we’re going to have to pick up the pieces and keep going,"

"A funeral to us is a much more important thing than the day of birth because we believe in the hereafter. The children are better off than their survivors."

These are the unfortunate and misguided sentiments of Sam Stoltzfus, 63, an Amish woodworker, upon learning of the brutal murders of five little girls in a nearby schoolhouse.

God’s plan.

Think about that.

The [dead] children are better off than their survivors.

I have nothing to add.

Last Modified : October 3rd, 2006
Filed under : Religion
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Comments (248CommentsAfterlife+Fantasy+Dishonors+Dead+Girls2006-10-04+07%3A25%3A09BlackSun)

Carlene / October 4th, 2006, 6:06 am / #1

It was a tragedy - you can’t make logic of a madman….but these simple people believe in God and an afterlife - this world is hell and the afterlife is heaven….I used to be a CUT staffmember…unlike some - I still believe in God and I still believe in the afterlife (just not Hercules and Amazonia, lol)….I still believe this world is a school room for learning through experience on behalf of God….I “hope” the childrens souls departed before they felt any pain….and I have faith these children are in heaven….I still have my beliefs…I still have faith….my faith hasn’t died since I left CUT it has just changed…..I know we can’t make any sense about what happened….but perhaps through pain we all learn something, for God. I cannot believe that this world of intense cruelty and suffering is “realty.” To me realty is in heaven. I am an intelligent soul, and I don’t try to “intellectualize” everything, but I still have faith in things unseen. Just like xrays - there are things that exist without being seen. Some ex-CUT members I feel went too far the other direction, when they left the church, they stopped believing in everything that couldn’t be sensed with their five senses, and to me this is sad.

BlackSun / October 4th, 2006, 9:28 am / #2

Carlene–A couple of things:

1) The “logic of a madman” is a simple twist away from our normal human existence. Our murderous and rapacious impulses are kept under control by other structures in our brain that can break down for anyone at any time for any reason. We all contain the darkness that would allow us to go on such a rampage. Most of us keep ourselves insulated from it, and that darkness never comes out. That’s a good thing. But we cannot look at killers and remove them from the rest of humanity. Read “The Murderer Next Door” by David Buss.

2) Belief in the afterlife devalues this life. If we knew for certain that this was the only life we had, and afterward there was nothing, we would be a lot more careful with our time, we would respect other people a lot more, and we would treat each other a lot better.

3) You don’t “believe in Hercules and Amazonia any more, (lol)” but you still believe in God. What’s the difference? Why do you not believe in Zeus? I feel the same way about Zeus and ‘god’, as you feel about Hercules and Amazonia.

4) It’s not that I don’t believe in what can’t be seen with the five senses. It’s what can’t be observed empirically. X-rays can be observed empirically. My avoidance of the logical fallacy of “other ways of knowing” (other than empiricism) is not sad. It is prudent and wise.

I sympathize with the emotional attractiveness your types of beliefs. They have been a compelling meme for centuries. But humanity will eventually grow out of this magical thinking. People basically have constructed a cosmology that can be whatever they want it to be. Muslims believe differently, as do Hindus. Can’t you see the nature of the problem?

Aaron Kinney / October 4th, 2006, 4:38 pm / #3

Yes, now that our child is dead, she is better off. We can all thank this madman serial killer for popping a lead slug into our little girls skulls.

In light of this realization, our humble Amish community will now begin a policy of commissioning mercenaries and convicted felons in the assassination of all of our newborn children.

It is the right thing to do. We thank God for delivering to us the madmen and psychotics necessary to save the souls of our innocent babies.

say no to christ / October 5th, 2006, 2:10 pm / #4

What a sick world we live in when people think their children are better off dead.

This is a little off topic but I have to say something before I explode.
I know the Amish community is a non-violent one, but it is still religious and patriarchal and the media seems to ignore that fact that domestic violence and sexual abuse of little girls and women accure regularly. Not only does their belief in the after life make them lovers of death, but as someone else pointed out, it truely causes them to devalue life and the life of other around them. Very sad.

BlackSun / October 6th, 2006, 2:46 pm / #5

sntc, you are right on the money. The more people repress their nature, the more likely it is to erupt in violent and unpredictable ways.

People who are unfamiliar with what they are capable of never know how to deal with it when it erupts. They can even dissociate and develop Jekyll and Hyde personas.

Ignoring the shadow is a highly dangerous enterprise that is all-to-common in this painfully religious nation.

doris tracey / October 7th, 2006, 6:03 am / #6

sean,

The one mans statement that the child is better off dead is a very un-enlightened statement because obviously they don’t believe that heaven will be made manifest on the earth. This is where the interpretation of devine principal has been lost in religion, which has created the schism.Religion simply means to tie back to the source of oneness. The path back to God is unique to everyone and souls should be left alone to seek and find their own way and if they ask for help it should be given to them. Souls living out side the law of devine principal become out laws. We see this happening everyday because souls are not tied to the sourece of oneness. Souls live,move and have their being in solar power,without it they burn out and die and become a black sun or fallin angel. Doris

say no to christ / October 12th, 2006, 6:32 pm / #7

Doris

So, what exactly is the law of devine principal?

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