# Hey, God, You forgot to send an angel this time! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 29, 2004, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134 "2004-03-29T19:16:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![5que](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/3bc359/32.png) [@5que](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5que)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/21 "2004-03-29T20:42:02Z")
> [@Truth Seeker](#): > > Katey Couric telling you to do something you know is wrong is one thing. Katey Couric keeps telling me to get a camera shoved up my butt. So far I am resisting. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/22 "2004-03-29T20:45:17Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > The woman is obviously schizophrenic, so her belief that God ordered her to kill the childen should not be taken as a serious defense. I think the lawyer is going to argue it should be. Like the article said, > [@](#): > > her belief “that the word of God was infallible.” > > “It destroyed her ability to discern the wrongness of her act,” I think the logic goes, if she thought that Katie Couric told her to kill her kids, she could still realize that killing her kids was wrong, because she doesn’t consider Couric a moral authority. However, if she believes that God told her to do her kids, because she believes that God is the ultimate moral authority, she believed it was right to do it. Remember that, the lawyer, to prove her insane, not only has to show that she heard voices or had delusions, but that those voices and delusions prevented her from knowing that her actions were wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/23 "2004-03-29T20:45:37Z")
Religious twaddle? Not a serious response? I don’t know why you’re being so mean. I don’t even know if you realize just how mean you’re being. I thought you respected people’s beliefs even when you don’t hold them yourself. But in this discussion, I feel like a gay man who is having a discussion with a dismissive and rather rude Stormfronter. My faith is no more twaddle than your sexual orientation is perverted. I don’t deserve this from you. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@The\_Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tim)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/24 "2004-03-29T20:46:45Z")
> [@GMRyujin](#): > > Man, that lawyer’s inspired. Going for the touchdown, there. That’s just brilliant. > > Why doesn’t god ever tell anyone to lead a quiet, but meaningful life? No one ever says, “God came to me and told me to pay my bills, not take on too much debt, do some good works, be a nice person, and not hassle anyone.” Actually my philosophy of religion professor in college evidently had a friend who believed God spoek to him and said essentially that, plus some moral advice on tough issues. Just saying that some people think they hear God but don’t have him telling them to do crazy things. As for the case I think it is an interesting tactic to use, and honestly a lawyer has to pick what tactic they think is the best one for their client’s needs that is within the boundaries of the law. I do think however that having it shown that she suffers from a mental illness in which she hears compelling voices is more effective. There are such disorders were not only is the individual hearing voices but feel like they have to do what the voices are saying. It is probably hard to convince juries that this is the case, thus the “Well if she believes God is talking to her could she really refuse?” line of argument. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/25 "2004-03-29T20:54:30Z")
> [@GMRyujin](#): > > No one ever says, “God came to me and told me to pay my bills, not take on too much debt, do some good works, be a nice person, and not hassle anyone.” I suspect that a lot of people do, but they just don’t get as much attention as those who do nutty or violent acts. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/26 "2004-03-29T21:03:04Z")
From what I recall, John E. Douglas, FBI profiler, says that in order to prove an insanity case, defense must disprove three things: 1. that the defendant was capable of telling right from wrong 2. that the defendant planned on wrongdoing 3. that the defendant was capable of carrying out the crime The fact that she called 911 meant that she realized the wrongness of her actions, thus 1). She had reasons for doing the killings, so it was a deliberate act, thus 2). 3) would depend on her past criminal and psychological record, if any. These criteria makes it rare that an insanity plea is actually granted, despite the hoopla you read and hear about. The few times it is granted is mainly for spur of the moment situations: the defendant went into a rage that lasted a few seconds and has little or no recollection of the killing. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/27 "2004-03-29T21:03:54Z")
> [@Libertarian](#): > > Religious twaddle? Not a serious response? I don’t know why you’re being so mean. I don’t even know if you realize just how mean you’re being. I thought you respected people’s beliefs even when you don’t hold them yourself. But in this discussion, I feel like a gay man who is having a discussion with a dismissive and rather rude Stormfronter. My faith is no more twaddle than your sexual orientation is perverted. I don’t deserve this from you. Sheesh, always with the gay thing. I have no quarrel with you holding your beliefs, but you have to admit that your testimony to God’s existence had nada to do with the thread. This is not about whther God exists, but about using religion to excuse the killing of children. The defense should be that the woman is insane, not that her belief in God made her unable to discern right from wrong or that the fact that it was God’s voice she thought she heard extenuated her guilt. She is insane–the form of her insanity doesn’t matter. And if you want to think me perverted, you go right on ahead. I have long since ceased to live my life according to other people’s opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/28 "2004-03-29T21:07:10Z")
This is just too surreal. You know very well that I don’t consider you perverted. You know very well that “always with the gay thing” does not apply to me. I am a strong advocate for the rights of gays (and everyone else) and their freedom to marry. You’ve lost your mind. Or else, I was crazy all along for thinking we were friends. ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/29 "2004-03-29T21:08:39Z")
This lady named all of her kids after people in the Bible. So did Andrea Yates. I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest a connection, but it Is a rather eerie co-incidence in my humble opinion. –Tentacle Monster (who formerly had THREE biblical names, now down to two) ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/30 "2004-03-29T21:09:34Z")
Put it this way, **Lib** –I’m not out to hurt your feelings, and my denial of God’s existence is not a slam at you. ---
**Author:** ![Truth\_Seeker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5fc32e/32.png) [@Truth\_Seeker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Truth_Seeker)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/31 "2004-03-29T21:16:26Z")
> [@](#): > > My beef ios that the defense attorney is taking the God thing seriously when it should just be counted as a delusion. Now this is just atheistic twaddle. Everyone bitches about how manipulative and rotten lawyers are. Until, that is, they get in serious trouble – then they want the most aggressive, sneaky, all-guns-blazing, take-no-prisoners bastard they can find. The defense attorney’s job isn’t to validate his or her personal world view. It’s not even to validate the client’s world view. It’s to get the client out of trouble. Blaming God may turn out to be a first-rate tactic. You get to paint the defendant as a sympathetic, god-fearing woman. You get to lead a bible-study on the old testament to demonstrate that if God _did_ speak to you, the whole smiting and child-slaying thing is not completely out of character. Pull the right jury, and they’ll be shouting “Preach it, Brother!” during your summation. [hijack] I’m curious, **Izzy** , why aren’t you going to sign up? Without people to provide the sand, how will we all come up with our perfect pearls of wisdom? 😉 Seriously, you ought to reconsider. [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/32 "2004-03-29T21:21:06Z")
> [@](#): > > The defense attorney’s job isn’t to validate his or her personal world view. It’s not even to validate the client’s world view. It’s to get the client out of trouble. Blaming God may turn out to be a first-rate tactic. You get to paint the defendant as a sympathetic, god-fearing woman. You get to lead a bible-study on the old testament to demonstrate that if God did speak to you, the whole smiting and child-slaying thing is not completely out of character. Pull the right jury, and they’ll be shouting “Preach it, Brother!” during your summation You’re absoultely right, but _still_, it’s just so–grrr–annoying that playing into popular superstition like that will prove so successful. ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/33 "2004-03-29T21:24:09Z")
> [@Tentacle Monster](#): > > This lady named all of her kids after people in the Bible. So did Andrea Yates. I wouldn’t go as far as to suggest a connection, but it Is a rather eerie co-incidence in my humble opinion. > > –Tentacle Monster (who formerly had THREE biblical names, now down to two) Oh good god. :rolleyes: The Bible is filled with THOUSANDS of names, including Matthew, David, Michael, Sarah and Rebecca, fairly common to people of all religions and creeds. It’s not eerie at all. Even our beloved OP has a BIBLICAL name and he seems to be relatively normal (;)) There are so many things to grasp at when bashing religion, why the hell would you grasp at this straw? - Jessica (Hebrew for “riches from God”) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/34 "2004-03-29T21:27:32Z")
> [@GMRyujin](#): > > Why doesn’t god ever tell anyone to lead a quiet, but meaningful life? No one ever says, “God came to me and told me to pay my bills, not take on too much debt, do some good works, be a nice person, and not hassle anyone.” Heh, I’m one of those freakish people who claim to have been spoken to by God and, strangely enough, what he told me was not terribly different from that; a whole lot of bullshit and faulty inference got layered on it by other folks and by my credulous self, but at the core, all he ever said was ‘be nice’ (with some specifics occasionally). ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/35 "2004-03-29T21:40:19Z")
That’s the message you hear when you play an Osmonds record backwards. > [@GMRyujin](#): > > (snip) > > Why doesn’t god ever tell anyone to lead a quiet, but meaningful life? No one ever says, “God came to me and told me to pay my bills, not take on too much debt, do some good works, be a nice person, and not hassle anyone.” ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/36 "2004-03-29T21:40:29Z")
I’m an atheist, so that will explain my confusion. But I am confused. Okay, do (some/most) religious persons believe that God can talk to them or to someone else? If not, then I’m not confused. But if so, well, how do you know God didn’t tell this woman to kill her children? Is her lawyer’s insanity claim actually a claim that certain religious beliefs, eg talking to God, are “insane”? Or that religious people are more likely to be insane, since they are more likely to believe that God is talking to them? Frankly, it sounds like the sort of backhanded defense a fellow atheist would devise! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/37 "2004-03-29T22:02:47Z")
I can understand the lawyer going for the insane-religious-fanatic defense. This is something the jurors will relate to (we’ve had enough of these highly publicized cases in recent years). It is a shame that some people will directly connect her insanity with her religion, but it sounds like the lawyer is making his best effort to get her off (although it didn’t work out so good for Andrea Yates). ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/38 "2004-03-29T22:05:40Z")
I’m not sure I fully understand the point of this rant. Other than to express outrage over what this woman did to her kids, of course. **gobear** my original thought was that you object to either a) Using God as an excuse to kill children, or b) A defense lawyer trying to mount the best case he can. Since you have said that it’s not b) then I assume you meant a) (or I’m completely missing your point altogether). In which case I don’t think anyone is trying to use God as an excuse. It doesn’t matter whether God exists or not. What is important here is whether _the defendant did at that time_. If her attorney is to mount a successful insanity case, then he needs to establish her state of mind at the time. And he’s making the case that in our culture, God (even if non-existant) does speak with a huge amount of authority. That gambit may result in some mitigating circumstances in her sentence. If it does, then the attorney has done his job. Maybe I misunderstand your outrage, but if you’re trying to say that these people are saying “It’s OK to kill children, as long as God says it’s OK”, then I think you’re missing the point by a mile. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/39 "2004-03-29T23:41:46Z")
> [@GMRyujin](#): > > Why doesn’t god ever tell anyone to lead a quiet, but meaningful life? No one ever says, “God came to me and told me to pay my bills, not take on too much debt, do some good works, be a nice person, and not hassle anyone.” I’m with **mangetout**. That’s pretty much what He told me, except that recently we’ve been disagreeing whether the money required to buy my apartment qualifies as “too much debt.” **jsgoddess** , I’m a devout Anglican and I do believe God speaks to me. Unlike this woman, I reserve the right to disagree with Him, which is what I did initially when I found out my apartment’s being sold. (It looks like I’m going to buy it.) There is a subset of Christians who believe in absolute, unquestioning, even mindless obedience to God. As far as I can make out, it’s so tied into that that any threat to it threatens to bring their worlds tumbling down around their ears. You obey God; it’s that simple. Don’t question; that might indicate a lack of faith and invite the Devil in. Don’t disobey; that risks an eternity of a fate far worse than anything that can be done to them on earth. Don’t think, lest your thoughts lead you astray. To me, that goes directly agains the teachings of Christ, but it would be impossible for me not to think and question without a full lobotomy, and even then, I wouldn’t bet too much on me being able to sustain it for long. I assume this mindset brings those who have it a sense of peace and security in an uncertain world. Slavery, I’m told, can also bring peace and security in that one is not responsible for one’s own life. I don’t want that type of peace. As this woman shows, the price is far too high. CJ ---
**Author:** ![porcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2004, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134/40 "2004-03-30T00:02:07Z")
The defense lawyer must be a Law & Order fan. I specifically remember an episode like this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-god-you-forgot-to-send-an-angel-this-time/237134.md?page=3)