The folks over at Common Sense Atheism have put together a list of the 20 Most Popular Atheism Blogs and I was surprised to see Stupid Evil Bastard listed at number 9. I have to admit that it was quite nice to see my humble little site listed among many others that I read daily and consider to be of much higher quality than what I manage to cobble together here.
I was also amused, however, as at least one commenter there felt that I was worth taking the time to bring down a peg or two for being yet another damned liberal:
I see the author of the “Stupid Evil Bastard” site is, from his comments on Iraq, Bush, etc. a just another Clueless Clod member of the Loony Left.
Just another Atheist who may use logic & critical thought when considering subjects of gods / religion. And who then totally LOSES the same abilities when it comes to the Iraq War and/or some (many?) other issues.
Yep, just another Atheist who, I will bet, wonders just how can the Programmed Robots of the Religious Right just refuse to learn, and/or Deny the MANY facts which PROVE Evolution is a Fact and Homosexuals are born.
Who, at the same time, either Refuses to Learn and/or Denies the MANY, MANY FACTS which more than PROVE the Iraq War is Both FULLY JUSTIFIED & a Very NECESSARY part of World Wide War on Terrorists who have been killing us and our friends for over 30 years,
I PITY him and all others of his irrational. illogical, unknowledgeable & self-deluded
ilk of fools. They seem to live in some world where their infinite Ignorance on some subjects is not surpassed by their Astronomical Arrogance they have the slightest clue.And Children, if any of you are so foolish as to believe you can PROVE, with REAL FACTS I am wrong, I sure welcome you to give it a try!
What’s particularly amusing about Mr. Reinhardt’s little rant is the fact that not two comments later he goes on about the wonderful curative properties of Noni Juice.
For those of you not familiar with the product, Noni Juice is made from the fruit of the Noni tree (Morinda citrifolia). The tree is known by a number of different names depending on where you are with noni being the Hawaiian name for it. Powder made from the fruit is high in carbohydrates and fiber with reasonable amounts of vitamins C and A, niacin, potassium, iron, calcium and sodium. Nutrient-wise it’s similar to a raw orange with about half the vitamin C and a little more sodium, but that hasn’t stopped the woo-woo alt-med crowd from claiming it has all manner of healing properties.
For someone who had just bemoaned my apparent failings of throwing logic and rationality to the wind with regards to politics it was rather amusing to read the following from Mr. Reinhardt:
Something I’ve been drinking for over 12 years which really works well at both speeding the healing and reducing the pain of dental problems is NONI JUICE! As there are over 300 brands you can find it at health food stores, Cosco, other stores and as an mlm product.
As with everything else the quality, quanity and price very. While what I drink costs more & less than others, I think it is the highest quality. IF I could not afford the one I drink now, I would be down at COSCO in a flash.
Even after more than 12 years, my results from noni are so remarkable, it still AMAZES ME! For one of MANY examples, I USED to have the Aches & Pains of old age until I was around 62 & started
drinking it. I NO longer suffer from them and have not for over 12 years. (I am now 75)Being a RABID Atheist Activist, it is a Miracle when I call anything a “Miracle” and yet that is what I consider the immune boosting power of Noni Juice to be. It is NOT the Noni Juice which effectively treats and/or cures over 90 different medical problems, rather IT IS YOUR own BOOSTED Immune system which does it. (In it’s natural state, Noni has been very effectively used for OVER 5,000 years!)
And then in a follow up comment:
IF you want know all the MANY great things noni Has done for me (aside from lowering both my Cholesterol Levels and Blood Pressure, taking the pain away and curing burns quickly, healing athletes foot in half the time and curing a toe nail fungus (which several years of prescribed medications did not) please e-me.
Noni not only is very effective on treating the insides & the outsides of our bodies, it does the same for all other mammals as well as animals, reptiles and birds.
Please see this generic website for a picture of a noni fruit, some of it’s history, and a little of the (much) research done on it.
This website has more information on Noni and you can also read and/or listen to various people’s experience of drinking and using Noni topically.
http://www.noni-is-good-for-you.com/
The following “store” has audio and video tapes, brochures, tri-folds, newspapers, books and CD’s. ALL of which are about Noni Juice.
It seems I’m not the only one capable of throwing logic and rationality out the window on certain topics.
From what I’ve been able to determine in the small amount of time I’ve bothered to look into the uses for noni fruit, it was looked at by medical researchers as a possible treatment for cancer to no avail and it’s been used by Hawaiians for years to draw pus out of boils. According to its Wikipedia entry it’s also used to “treat menstrual cramps, bowel irregularities and urinary tract infections”, but there’s no scientific support for those uses. There may be some use of oil from the seeds as they are “abundant in linoleic acid that may have useful properties when applied topically on skin, e.g., anti-inflammation, acne reduction, moisture retention.”
None of that has stopped the alt-med industry from putting some 300 different products out making all manner of wild claims. It was bad enough that the FDA issued several letters to various companies producing Noni Juice products warning them that the claims being made violated section 201(g)(1) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) [21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(1)].
For example, here is an excerpt from a letter to Peter W. Manville of NJP Products, Inc. (PDF file) in September of 2006 over claims made about his Noni Juice and BarleyGreen products:
The therapeutic claims on your web sites establish that the products are drugs because they are intended for use in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease. The marketing of these products with these claims violates the Act.
Examples of some of the claims observed on your http://www.noni-juice-plus.com web site include:
Noni Juice
Your web site contains disease claims in the form of personal testimonials about the use your Noni Juice product for a wide variety of diseases, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, allergies, asthma, bipolar disorder, depression, migraines, multiple sclerosis, and others. Examples of some of the disease claims observed on your testimonials page include:
“I just want to take the time to let you know that after a month of taking the Noni Juice you supply I noticed a difference in my symptoms, you see I have Lupus Erythematous [sic] and suffer from arthritic like symptoms. The first two weeks after taking I noticed that I did not have joint pain, the swelling in my fingers had disappeared, the fatigue disappeared and I had a lot more energy. Also, I had been suffering from chronic back pain and even that seemed to have disappeared. … It has helped with my depression. … It has vastly improved my irritable bowel condition. The relief from pain that I have had from arthritis [sic], fibromyalgia and lingering nerve pain(from shingles) is absolutely amazing. And I haven’t had a migraine since I started taking it. My allergies have improved. And slowly, but surely, my acid relux [sic] is getting less and less every day. … ”
“I recently broke 3 bones in my leg. … Being depressed, and not having much circulation in my leg i [sic] needed something that would benefit my situation. I was talking a friend and he told me when terrel [sic] owens (nfl football star) broke his ankle in the 2004-05 football season just 7 weeks prior to the superbowl, he took Noni juice to help him, and was back in time for the superbowl where he had 7 receptions! This influenced me to start using Noni juice and after taking it for a week, it helped my depression a whole lot, help get circulation in my leg …”
“… [A]fter my extensive back surgery, where I had two discs removed and nine pieces of titanium placed in me…. my one month post op x-rays looked like what they expected at three months. I thank the NONI juice for major assistance in healing this almost 50 yr. old spine.”
Wow, sounds like all the other woo-woo natural cures that you receive endless amounts of spam in your inbox for. (Açaí Berry juice anyone?) Needless to say, to be trashed by someone for my supposed arrogance and ignorance who then turns around and spouts woo-woo so enthusiastically is quite amusing indeed.
You’ll have to go to the entry over at Common Sense Atheism to see my reply, but I ask you not to turn it into a flame thread while you’re there. I’m sure Mr. Reinhardt will feel compelled to chime in here at some point as all of us Loony Leftists are probably way too tempting a target for him to resist and then you can have your fun. In the meantime, marvel at the lunacy on display.
27-year-old U.S. Army Sergeant Joshua Ryan Tabor has served 15 months in Iraq and apparently he picked up some less than appropriate parenting techniques while he was there:
“We had a report of [Tabor] walking around his neighborhood holding a Kevlar helmet and threatening to bust out windows,” Stancil told ABCNews.com today. “In the process of talking to Tabor’s girlfriend about what was going on, we learned that he had also been abusing his daughter.”
Stancil said that when the cops coaxed the little girl out of the bathroom they saw that she was covered in “multiple bruises pretty much all over her body.”
“She was very open with us,” Stancil said of the young girl, whose name is not being released because she is a minor. “She basically came right out and said, ‘Daddy does this to me. He uses his hands.’”
Both the girl and the father admitted to the torture, even detailing how Tabor would sit the girl on the edge of the bathroom sink and hold her head down until it was nearly submerged in water, dunking her if she refused to recite the alphabet, said Stancil.
Yes, the terrible thing this little girl did that prompted her punishment was refusing to recite the alphabet.
But at least Tabor is being upfront and honest about what he’s done:
Tabor told authorities that “his purpose was to punish her by putting her in the water because he knows she is afraid of it and he wanted her to cooperate.”
“She said her letters after that,” Tabor told the cops, admitting that he had grown frustrated with the girl after practicing the letters for “approximately three hours.”
After three hours of practice I’d refuse to say the fucking alphabet as well.
It seems Tabor felt that his daughter was not mentally up to where she should be for her age. And we all know that the best way to motivate a mentally deficient child is by repeatedly dunking their head into a sink full of hot water. Tabor’s girlfriend may also end up facing charges in the incident. She noted that Tabor has an “anger management problem” to police. Gee, ya think?
Oh, and according to investigators, the 4-year-old girl seemed quite articulate and without any developmental problems. Though after living with this asshole for the past couple of months – he has joint-custody in five months increments – she’ll probably need some therapy in the future.
They say you always hurt the ones you love, but this is taking it too far:
A Turkish teenager found dead in a hole next to her house was probably buried alive, a post-mortem examination has revealed.
Medine Memi, 16, was found in the hole in December. Large amounts of soil were in her lungs and stomach, according to a source who has seen the report.
Her father and grandfather have been arrested, but not charged.
[...] Her hands had been tied behind her back, and they discovered large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach.
The autopsy has concluded that she was almost certainly buried alive.
The police went to her home after a neighbour reported that Medine had not been seen for a month.
They found her body in a hole, newly covered with concrete, next to the hen-house.
I was going to make this another in the Too Much Faith series of posts I’ve been doing, but the article claims religion didn’t really have anything to do with it:
Medine, who had never been to school, lived in Kahta, a town in the mainly Kurdish south-east of Turkey, where most honour killings have taken place.
The town is known for being very conservative and religious; it is a stronghold of the once powerful Naksibendi Islamic sect, which was banned by modern Turkey’s founding father Ataturk in 1925 but has revived in recent years.
But while it is true that most such killings are carried out in conservative Muslim communities, the practice is linked more to the customs of this region of Turkey, than to religious belief.
When girls or women are deemed to have stained the family honour, by behaviour as innocent as simply talking to boys, there is strong peer pressure from the community on the male members of the family to restore their honour, say groups working on the issue in the south-east.
The only way allowed by their code is to kill the girl or woman – usually a young man is given the task after a family council meeting, and the method and location of the killing are discussed in detail.
It still stinks of delusion to me. Seriously, how fucked up do you have to be to bind one of your own kids, put them in a hole, and shovel dirt in on them until they choke to death on it? I can’t imagine the horror of being the victim of such an act let alone it being compounded by the fact that the perpetrators were people who supposedly loved me. And what horrible thing had this poor girl done to deserve such a fate? She had talked to some boys.
According to the news article, there have been 16 honor killings in the province of Adiyaman, where Medine lived, between 2003 and 2007. It’s the sort of thing you’d think the world would have outgrown by now, but it’s not confined to just Turkey.
Here’s something to think about: According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) there are some 5,000 honor killings yearly around the world with some countries having laws that make it perfectly legal.
It can be tough to be the son of a clergyman. You’re held to a higher standard and any transgressions on your part can reflect poorly on your father. This sometimes results in extra pressure from your Dad to put forth the best image you possibly can.
In this case it seems the Pastor may have gone a tad too far in motivating his son:
ALCOA, Tenn. (AP) – The son of a well-known Alcoa pastor has taken out an order of protection against his father, claiming he was threatened with a gun during an argument at a church over his lack of church attendance. The order of protection was filed by 32-year-old Michael Louis Colquitt against 60-year-old Joe Colquitt, pastor of St. John Missionary Baptist Church.
The younger man told police his father pulled out a handgun when they met at the church to discuss church attendance. He told officers his father pointed the gun at him and threatened to kill him, his wife and family.
Good thing you didn’t tell him you’re an atheist and have stopped attending church altogether. He would’ve used a tactical nuke on your house.
It’s a problem all parents have faced, with the possible exception of my in-laws as their daughter (my wife) was preternaturally good at doing her schoolwork, sooner or later your kid comes home with a bad grade.
Now if you’re a good parent you try to find some way to motivate your kid to do better. If there’s something in their life that seems to be getting in the way of their schoolwork then you might limit access to it or deny it until things improve. What you don’t do is somthing like this:
WARM SRPINGS, Ga. — Police have arrested a Georgia woman who they say forced her son to kill his pet hamster with a hammer as punishment for earning a bad grade.
Meriwether County sheriff Steve Whitlock told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday night that the 12-year-old boy told his teacher about the killing. The teacher reported it to the Division of Family and Child Services, who contacted police.
The pet’s death allegedly took place at the family’s Warm Springs home.
Whitlock said 38-year-old Lynn Middlebrooks Geter faces one charge each of animal cruelty, child cruelty and battery.
Yeah, you’re probably never going to get a “World’s Greatest Mom” mug with that approach. Mental trauma really isn’t a great motivator to do well in school.
Got the following email earlier today:
From: “Mrs. Mellisa Lewis” <info@rcweb.net>
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:00:52 -0200
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;Hello,
My name is Mrs. Mellisa Lewis . I am 59 years old and I was diagnosed for cancer for about 2 years ago. I will be going in for an operation later today.I decided to WILL/donate the sum of (Fourteen Millions Two Hundred Fifty Eight Thousand United States Dollars) to you for the good work of the lord.
Contact my lawyer with this email: Name: Mr Jay Mchenry
Email:(jmchenry@rcweb.net) (+44 792 435 0212)Tell him that I have WILLED 14.258M to you by quoting my personal reference number JJ/MMS/953/5015/GwrI/316us/uk. As soon as you contact him with this details quoted above, he should be able to recognize you and help in claiming this amount from my Bank.Be informed also that i have paid for the state tax on this money to be transferred to you.
Meanwhile you are advised to keep this mail and it contents confidential as i really want my wish accomplish at the end of the day.Please do pray to God for my recovery.
God Bless
Regards,
Mrs. Mellisa Lewis
First, one has to wonder why the recipients are undisclosed if this email was supposed to be directed to me. How many other people is she willing her money to? The second thing one notices is that this person clearly doesn’t know anything about me or she wouldn’t be hoping I’d use the money for “the good work of the Lord.” Then there’s the whole oddness of being instructed to claim this windfall before she’s actually undergone the, presumably destined to fail, operation. If she was clever enough to suss out my email then you’d think she’d just have the lawyer contact me after she’s dead. And while I must give these scam artists credit for a much more literate sounding letter than the usual bunch that show up in my inbox, there’s still some telling typos and odd phrasings that give away the game.
Well, other than the obvious cockup of suggesting I’d be doing the good work of the Lord.
Meet the folks from Extreme Prophetic. They’re a group of Christians led by a woman named Patricia King who has apparently been spreading her nonsense for some 25 years. The group appears to be an attempt to turn evangelizing into something cool and edgy – you know “extreme” – and they make some bold claims.
For example, they claim that they’ve managed to not just heal people through the power of faith, but have successfully raised the dead. Really. They have a video up by some fellow named Randy in which he discusses how he raise two dead people in Africa not too long ago. You can watch it here if you wish.
Don’t get too excited, though, they don’t have any actual footage of Randy raising the dead people. It’s just Randy talking about it, but you can take his word for it that they were really dead and he really did raise them because, well, you don’t think he’d lie about it do you?
They also have a YouTube Channel with a ton of videos of people talking about all manner of miracles they’ve personally experienced. Though, again, there’s a stunning lack of any actual footage of said miracles. There’s also a lot of prediction videos, which are always fun to watch after the years have passed.
Take this one on Divine Insights for 2008 by Julie Meyer of IHOP (International House of Prayer). In it she says she has a vision of George W. Bush signing a law declaring life begins at conception and banning all abortions just before he leaves office. She believed that was likely to happen because she dreamed about it and she believed that Bush was put in office by God specifically to make this legislation come to pass. But she also cautions this isn’t guaranteed so everyone needs to pray that it does happen. Also it seems the election wasn’t about change, but mercy and it wasn’t about the Presidential candidates, but the Vice Presidential candidates. She never comes right out and claims that McCain and Palin would win, but it’s clear she’s suggesting that’s what needs to happen and that Palin’s election would prove monumental in history. That was from October of 2008. McCain/Palin didn’t win the election and Bush never banned abortion. I can only conclude they didn’t pray hard enough.
Patricia herself likes to dabble in predictions. She had no less than 11 videos of prophecy for 2009. She manages to pull a little John Edwards routine in the first video where she speaks to a specific, unnamed, person who’s watching and has been having trouble for awhile. She uses a lot of buzzwords and similes such as the Lord has “downloaded” prophecy into her and she’s going to “unfold or unpack” it for you. He also wants to “upgrade” his believers. Also God wants her to help raise up a Media Army to spread the word. Holy crap, but this woman can talk for hours without saying anything meaningful. All the while pausing to ask for donations.
I gave up after three videos. I was only watching to see if I could catch any solid predictions that we could examine to see how far off they were, but I was starting to fall asleep and her droning on and on. Most of it’s your standard True Believer™ nonsense, but there’s plenty of videos with the claims of major healing or raising people from the dead.
But I’m willing to be convinced. If these people truly can raise the dead that would revolutionize not just theology, but medical science. I think they should contact the James Randi Educational Foundation and apply for the $1 million prize. Considering how much time is spent begging for donations it sounds like they could use the money and imagine the look on Randi’s face when a dead person suddenly sits up full of life. Hell, let’s make it easy on them and just see if they can manage to heal an amputee. If they can bring people back from the dead then restoring a lost limb should be easy-peasy. A little video documentation wouldn’t hurt.
Somehow I don’t think they’ll be taking on the Randi challenge anytime soon. You see, when I started this entry I was pretty sure these folks were a classic case of people made a little crazy by too much faith, but now that I’ve looked into them a bit I’m not entirely sure that’s the case for all of them. My skepticism is spurred by the fact that they offer acting classes. What the hell would they need acting classes for? Well, to make money apparently. A two-month class covering everything from acting to writing to voice-over work will set you back $2,800 (non-refundable) in tuition. Or you can take eight week classes covering each of the topics individually for $200 each.
So, yeah, some of them have clearly drunk a little too much of the Kool-Aid, but I think they’re leader is a bit more shrewd than she first appears. That’s just speculation on my part, though. She could be just as nuts as the rest of them.
Found over at Pharyngula.
The annual Darwin Awards, given out to those people who have most improved the gene pool by removing themselves from it, are back with 2009’s winners:
DOUBLE DIP (2009 runner up)
For the first time ever, a woman–yes, a member of the safer sex–made it into the year’s Top Darwin Awards! 2009 Antepenultimate Winner is the North Carolina woman who jumped into a swollen creek to rescue her drowning…moped. Read on.DYING TO GO (2009 runner up)
We’ve all been in his shoes, taking that fateful whiz at the side of the road. After all, “You don’t buy beer, you just rent it.” Team Darwin Awards is proud to announce the 2009 Penultimate Winner. Read on.(winner)
CRUSHING DEBT (2009 darwin award winner)
And the winner is… deceased! The city of Dinant, Belgium is the backdrop for this rare Double Darwin Award involving two bankrobbers attempting to make a sizeable withdrawal from an ATM. In hindsight, a debit card would have been safer. Read on.
Congratulations to this year’s winners! They managed to beat out a lot of other highly motivated contenders over the past year to take the top prize. And it’s already looking like it’ll be another hectic year of competition coming up.
Don’t make any big plans for May 21, 2011. Why? Because according to 88-year-old Christian nutcase Harold Camping, that’s the true date for the end of the world:
Camping, 88, has scrutinized the Bible for almost 70 years and says he has developed a mathematical system to interpret prophecies hidden within the Good Book. One night a few years ago, Camping, a civil engineer by trade, crunched the numbers and was stunned at what he’d found: The world will end May 21, 2011.
Ah yes! It’s the old mathematical-system-for-decoding-the-Bible method of predicting the future! Very popular among your die hard Christian nutcases as we’ve seen many times before here on SEB.
Lest you think Mr. Camping is new to this game, let me assure you he is not! He has predicted the end previously back in 1994. Those of you paying attention to current events may have noticed it didn’t end. A revelation that was a bit of a shock to the dozens of followers and Camping as they sat waiting for Christ’s return. Later he would admit that he “may have” made a mathematical error.
This time it’s different, though! He’s spent 10 years working on this new date and he’s pretty confident he’s nailed it and he’s got the formula to prove it:
By Camping’s understanding, the Bible was dictated by God and every word and number carries a spiritual significance. He noticed that particular numbers appeared in the Bible at the same time particular themes are discussed.
The number 5, Camping concluded, equals “atonement.” Ten is “completeness.” Seventeen means “heaven.” Camping patiently explained how he reached his conclusion for May 21, 2011.
“Christ hung on the cross April 1, 33 A.D.,” he began. “Now go to April 1 of 2011 A.D., and that’s 1,978 years.”
Camping then multiplied 1,978 by 365.2422 days – the number of days in each solar year, not to be confused with a calendar year.
Next, Camping noted that April 1 to May 21 encompasses 51 days. Add 51 to the sum of previous multiplication total, and it equals 722,500.
Camping realized that (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17) = 722,500.
Or put into words: (Atonement x Completeness x Heaven), squared.
“Five times 10 times 17 is telling you a story,” Camping said. “It’s the story from the time Christ made payment for your sins until you’re completely saved.
“I tell ya, I just about fell off my chair when I realized that,” Camping said.
Does it not surprise anyone else to learn that Mr. Camping is a former engineer? For some reason this sort of silly nonsense seems to come from a lot of engineers.
For example back in my youth, when I worked as a Desktop Publishing Coordinator for a local Kinko’s, I once met a man who also claimed to have mathematically proven the existence of God and had figured out the date of his return. He wanted me to print up a bunch of business cards with his proof on it. He had a bunch of numbers that he’d plucked out of his ass, that all meant something to no one outside of himself, and he had multiplied and divided and added and subtracted them for all manner of reasons, again known only to himself, and the final result was the number: 1. Which he interpreted as signifying God’s existence. He spent quite some time explaining it all to me and I smiled and nodded back the entire time. The same way you do with a crazy person brandishing a knife in hopes he won’t suddenly try to slit your throat with it to show you what a good job he did sharpening it.
Anyway, you’d be forgiven if you think Mr. Camping lost his followers after he fucked up the first time, but then you’d be grossly underestimating how credulous people can be:
Employees at the Oakland office run printing presses that publish Camping’s pamphlets and books, and some wear T-shirts that read, “May 21, 2011.” They’re happy to talk about the day they believe their souls will be retrieved by Christ.
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Ted Solomon, 60, who started listening to Camping in 1997. He’s worked at Family Radio since 2004, making sure international translators properly dictate Camping’s sermons.
“This world may have had an attraction to me at one time,” Solomon said. “But now it’s definitely lost its appeal.”
[...] Rick LaCasse, who attended the September 1994 service in Alameda, said that 15 years later, his faith in Camping has only strengthened.
“Evidently, he was wrong,” LaCasse allowed, “but this time it is going to happen. There was some doubt last time, but we didn’t have any proofs. This time we do.”
Would his opinion of Camping change if May 21, 2011, ended without incident?
“I can’t even think like that,” LaCasse said. “Everything is too positive right now. There’s too little time to think like that.”
Another in our ongoing series of people who had perhaps a tad too much faith takes us to South Carolina and 33 year-old Mr. Tillman. It seems Tillman tore his ACL back in March and when he went to the doctor’s office to get patched up they told him he’d have to pay $300 upfront before the repair could be done. Mr. Tillman couldn’t afford the appointment so he drove back home and settled his 550-pound frame, naked save for a blanket, into a recliner where he took up a Bible and stayed… for the past eight months believing all the while that God would heal him.
His wife tended to his needs as best as she could, but in the end God decided he had via better things to do than to heal Mr. Tillman:
“He read his Bible daily, he spent his full focus on God,” said Webb. “And he was literally waiting and praying for a Job miracle. If anybody knows the Bible and knows Job, he really and fully believed that God was going to heal him just like he did Job, because he said he couldn’t think of a better testimony to go out and to tell people.”
For eight months they had no visitors. Webb rarely left his side, and she tried to keep him clean.
“I couldn’t get him rolled over to use a bedpan,” said Webb.
Other than eating and reading the Bible, she says Tillmon posted sermons online and texted messages of faith through his cell phone.
“He wanted so much to get up and you know, he wanted to tell everybody what Jesus done,” said Webb.
I can only imagine the filth that must have gathered in that chair as he sat there, for eight months, relieving himself. I can’t imagine anyone else putting up with it for that long, but put up with it she did until the bitter end:
Webb says Tillmon consistently told her not to call for help. She says Wednesday morning he was in so much pain that she finally called an ambulance.
Greenwood County authorities say they found Tillmon covered with sores, and that he appeared to weigh about 800 pounds. They say he was stuck to his chair, and they had to saw the recliner apart. They cut a large hole around the front door to get him out.
He died at the hospital.
He had managed to pack on another 300 pounds in eight months? That’s an impressive feat in itself.
The wife, as you’d expect, is beside herself with grief for not getting help for her husband sooner.
Actually, that’s not true at all. She’s fine with it:
Webb says she has no regrets about leaving him in that recliner.
“If I feel anything right now, it’s envy for him because I wish he had taken me with him,” said Webb.
Officials, amazingly enough, aren’t charging her with a crime. I guess the figured they couldn’t come up with a punishment worse than what she’d spent the last eight months living with.
I get emails all the time from various True Believers™ with uplifting stories about how they prayed and God cured them of cancer, or gallstones, or whatever and I often write back and ask if they sought any medical treatment for their condition. Each time the answer is yes. I wonder how well they would have fared if they had the amount of faith in God that Mr. Tillman had. I wonder if their God would’ve been as happy to help had they not sought medical treatment. It’s somewhat amazing how often God’s willingness to cure you is tied to whether or not you’re getting medical attention.
The other aspect of this story that isn’t as obvious is how it shows the need for a public health care system in this country. Perhaps if Mr. Tillman didn’t need to worry about whether or not he could afford to go to the doctor he’d still be alive to spread the message of God’s love. At the very least, his wife wouldn’t have gone through eight months of hell on earth.
Found over at Pharyngula.
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