Our beliefs are what our actions are based upon. Our actions have real consequences.
If our actions are the product of reason-based beliefs, our actions will be reasonable and productive. If our actions are the product of unreasonable beliefs, our actions will be irrational and harmful.
Unreasonable beliefs, in this case, belief in Christianity, caused irrational actions which brutally took the life of a helpless four-year-old girl.
Church going Christians Mary and James Mast (pictured above) of Lincoln, Missouri, and their neighbors and fellow Christians, Ethan Mast (no relation to Mary or James) and Kourtney Aumen believed that Mary and James' four-year-old daughter was possessed by a demon. To exorcise the demon, Ethan and Courtney beat the little girl with a belt and then dunked her in cold water in a pond behind their house. This was done on December 19, 2020. On December 20th the Benton County Sheriffs Department found the four-year-old little girl's dead body.
How could this, and similar cases, happen? This innocent and helpless little girl, and other children like her, suffer and die because literally billions of people in the 21st century still believe in the ancient and fear-based myths and superstitions of the "revealed" religions. On occasion I will hear from Christians who tell me I am wrong to say that Satan, devils and demons do not exist. They claim to know they exist because the Bible says that Jesus confronted them and exorcised them. Why do they still believe this dangerous and foolish nonsense from the Bible? Because Christianity, the Bible and all of the other "revealed" religions and their "holy" scriptures receive undeserved respect from too many people. In The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition, the American Founder and Deist Thomas Paine showed us the way we need to deal with the ungodly Bible and Christianity and the other "revealed" religions when he wrote:
"Nonsense ought to be treated as nonsense, wherever it be found; and had this been done in the rational manner it ought to be done, instead of intimating and mincing the matter, as has been too much the case, the nonsense and false doctrine of the Bible, with all the aid that priestcraft can give, could never have stood their ground against the divine reason that God has given to man."
Deism's important quality of addressing superstitions and deadly myths promoted by the "revealed" religions such as belief in fear-based, clergy-created creatures like Satan and demons, as well as deadly superstitions like faith healing, which also takes the lives of innocent children, makes Deism an indispensable worldview with practical benefits to children and to all of society and the world. The more we do to get the word out about Deism, the more we help and protect the children of the world.
