zog blog mk II

A MELBOURNE youth church leader said he was possessed and couldn’t control his “sexual demons” when he raped a 14-year-old girl, poured petrol on her and set her alight.
Herald Sun link
The Age link

from XKCD:

and kind of related…. Zany Fatwah’s part one:

A controversy is brewing in Saudi Arabia over a new fatwa issued that advocates, er, adult breastfeeding.

For more than a week, Ria Ramkissoon watched passively as her one-year-old son wasted away, denied food and water because the older woman she lived with said it was God’s will.

no greater joy than showings gods love with a rubber hose

Mom expected God to provide food, daughter testifies in this New Jersey News article.

Over three months in 2006, as her five children grew more emaciated and listless by the day, Estelle Walker made no move to find a job, no effort to scrounge up a meal, her kids told a jury yesterday.

At one point, the daughter said, she and her siblings went 11 days without food. When police were at last summoned to the Sussex County cabin by neighbors, investigators found the children so malnourished they had difficulty talking.

“The mother of an 11-year-old girl who died of undiagnosed diabetes as the family prayed for her to get better has testified that she believes sickness is caused by sin and can be cured by God.”

From The Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/world/dead-girls-mother-sickness-caused-by-sin-20090729-e0et.html

Pretty much a link straight into BoingBoing, but interesting:

Evolution, religion, schizophrenia and the schizotypal personality

from The Age:

A mother accused of praying instead of getting medical help for her dying 11-year-old daughter has been found guilty of reckless homicide.

Leilani Neumann, 41, faces up to 25 years in prison. Her daughter, Madeline Kara, died from untreated diabetes on March 23, 2008, surrounded by people praying for her. When she stopped breathing, her parents’ business and Bible study partners finally called an ambulance.