infinity

i think that generally speaking, 'insane' is used WAY too liberally in the US and has completely lost its proper meaning.
insanity, by common layman definition, is when you have some sort of biological defect that makes you unable to process information and function on a 'normal' level.
i do not think a woman who spends her life being perfectly normal, has a family, then one day turns around and kills her kids saying god told her to do it is insane.
i would say she's something more akin to 'batshit.' and yes, that's a technical term

you'd have to think that she would at LEAST have a minute there where she'd go 'blink blink.... um, come again god? i didn't quite catch that last bit' before she went piously stoning her kids.
i would say this falls far more under the category of 'rampant stupidity' then insanity. any person who just up and starts crushing skulls, voices from god or not, has some rather serious issues

Nexus

I don't see how any christian can apply Abraham's test today. It's well established to them that God's behaviour changed after Jesus Christ arrived. The Yawah of the OT just doesn't exist anymore. I supposed he grew out of childhood.

I can understand Christians thinking they hear from God yet reject other people who claim he told them to commit violent acts because God (of the grace times) wouldn't ask such things.

BadBadBad

Whose to say God would sound like anything? God doesn't sound like anything in these personal relationships Christians tell us about. Laney apparently didn't hear God speak to her. She just saw signs from God. The important question is where does the normal personal relationship and walk with Jesus end and where does insanity begin, and how do you tell the difference?

BadBadBad

That's always interesting too. "God wouldn't ask me to do anything against my moral conscience." Yet God is the standard for morality. If he asked, they should assume, just like they do with respect to the OT, that God had a morally perfect reason to ask.

BadBadBad

Either that or God is the murderous butcher just as described in the Bible. The Bible authors got the perfect and omnibenevolent part wrong. In which case, insanity might be the perfect mechanism God uses to coerce people into doing his butchering.

Gawdawful

But, you see, the question is, would God ever tell someone to kill their child? In a priori case of Abraham, God already has a record of telling someone to kill their child, therefore it is distinctly possible that God once again told someone to kill their child. Bingo! In this case, the woman could not possibly have known that God wouldn't send an angel to stop her at the last second just like Abraham, and as Christians know, you don't invite the wrath of your angry God by refusing to follow his commands, the penalty is a bit more than life in prison.

One cannot eliminate the possibility that she indeed heard God tell her to kill her kids based on any evidence; no one knows except the woman herself, and even she would be a poor judge of where the command was coming from, as show by previous posters. How do you know that God doesn't have a higher purpose for her going to the mental hospital, maybe there is a staff member or patient that will be influenced to turn to God by this woman?

My personal opinion on the matter is of no consequence and I do not wish to share it because some may find it offensive. However, I agree with at least one other poster in this thread on the matter.


Warren the Okie

Starboy

“Modern� Christians have a fundamental problem. They must believe that the magic works yet they have no way to verify the magical claims of anybody. How many times have we heard some Christian claim that some xian was never Christian, yet while that xian was a Christian no one doubted it? How come their magic powers only work after concrete evidence presents itself. I’ll bet that Laney’s fellow Christians saw her devotion and zeal in communicating with god as a sign and witness of Christ, not a mental disorder. If you allow yourself to believe in weird strange crap that doesn’t make any sense, conflicts with itself, and has little or nothing to do with the real world, why would anyone expect Christians to be able to make heads or tails of any supernatural claim by anybody.

Starboy

BadBadBad

Sure she was whacko. God doesn't exist, but let's follow this line a little. Let's play the perhaps game:

1. God didn't talk to her or in any way indicate to her to kill her children. However, she believed, through her personal relationship with God, that he absolutely did. The firm belief that he actually was talking to her and asking her kill her children could have potentially caused her insanity. This incident makes a statement on personal relationships with God. This says don't count on your personal relationship with God. It's not real. I think you're trying to get off the hook with the quick insanity plea. You haven't established that is all that's involved here.

2. God did talk to her and ask her to murder her children, only her faith wasn't so strong, and the message didn't come through with a clear booming voice. Perhaps she resisted God's will, and the test weakened her faith. Perhaps Laney is an example of what would have happened to Abraham had his faith not been strong enough. The message drove her insane. The message weakened her faith, and because of her weakened faith, she didn't get the message not to do it. Perhaps through her weakened faith Satan did play the final role. Be careful that if God sends you signs to murder that you not resist, even for a second.

3. You suggest she may have been demon possessed, but not God possessed. So demons could possess her and she could murder. In which case she wasn't insane, she was possessed. So which was it? Was she insane, god possessed, or demon possessed and how do you tell?

4. "A Christian could quite easily determine that the command was not from God on the basis of scriptural teaching." That's just the point. Laney was a Christian. She couldn't tell. How could any other Christian tell? Is this how Joshua was easily able to tell that God didn't want him to utterly destroy all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword? It was easy to tell this because not just that the Bible said this, but because Moses was a first hand witness to God himself telling them that thou shalt not kill.

5. "Also, where in the bible is anyone commanded by God to kill their young offspring, and then not told to refrain from the action that was commanded? "

Well maybe not commanded, but a promise is a promise. God lived up to his end of the deal, and he certainly never told Jephthah to refrain from living up to his:

Judges 11:30-31
And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the LORD, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.

11:34-35
And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter.And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back.

11:39
And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed:

LP675

Again then you have absolutely no idea what expert testimony was produced to the effect that she was legally insane. So you initial dichotomy of “well either they decided she was insane because they don’t believe God speaks, or they don’t believe God would say this� is wrong, because their beliefs as to what God can /can’t , would or wouldn’t do are not the only factors that could have lead them to believe she was insane. She may have in interviews with experts exhibited classic manifestations of some mental illness or another, or have behaved in certain ways before, during or after the murders. You just have no idea what lead them to believe she was insane.

Slow down and think about it. The jury looks at the situation in hindsight; bloody rocks, dead children. They ask; Where has anyone in the bible ever killed their young child as a response to Gods command? There is no example. It has never happened. From the perspective of those evaluating the command after the murder it’s a no brainer. Because God stopped Abraham from killing his son, we know that God didn’t actually want Abraham to kill his son. In fact we might even say this is a way God could try to tell all the loonies who are hearing all sorts of things he NEVER will require that anyone actually kill their young child, because the only time he ever asked someone to do it, he stopped them from actually carrying it out.



Lol. No it isn’t. ‘Put to a jury’ is perhaps a more technical phrase than you are appreciate. The questions the jury usually have ‘put to them’ for determination are 1) did x murder y? and 2) was x legally insane? They would never have ‘put to them’ for determination the question “did X actually hear from God?�. That the accused alleges they heard from God is no doubt often regarded as a manifestation (or evidence) of their insanity.

No, the reason she gave for killing them was no doubt evidence of her insanity. There is a massive difference.

The question put to them would have been “was she insane?�. There would have been all sorts of evidence (of which both you and I are ignorant) to show she was insane.

My basis for this determination would be it contradicts scriptural teachings (for example on the end times), and there is not scriptural precedent for it. (and obviously because I believe such a command is out of character for God).

I have given good reasons for determining in hindsight that God did not tell her to kill her children.

LP

LP675

Well if anybody is interested, there are ways Christians can determine if something is a command from God. Paul says in 1 Th 5: 20-22 “do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.�. It is obvious that Christians are to test “magical claims� (if you meant hearing from God), and he believed it was possible. Anything that doesn’t conform with Christian doctrine, or in other words the scriptures, is not from God. Anything that doesn’t happen is not from God (Deut 18:22). And finally one of the gifts of the Spirit is “distinguishing between spirits� (1 Cor 12:10). Those who have this gift given them by God can tell if things are from God or not. So sometimes if someone gets up in church and says “thus sayeth the Lord….� the pastor or someone else might say “sit down and be quiet, that is not from God�. If you want to say determining if something is from God or not could in some cases be difficult, then I won’t argue with that. It isn’t however impossible, as you seem to belive.