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March 8, 2010 6:43pm by swood | Silly Religion | 3 comments

In our continuing series of “The Dangers of Religion and Magical Thinking”, here is a sweet tale of a religious woman who acted on the will of a god… the Judeo-Christian god in particular.

From the Orlando Sentinel: “God made me shoot my son, suicide note says”

Newly released notes and audio recordings left behind by a woman who shot her son and then took her own life leave little doubt that she planned the attack.

In rambling messages to family, friends, police and the owners of Shoot Straight, the Casselberry gun range she chose for Sunday’s fatal shooting, Marie Moore said the murder-suicide was the only way to save her son Mitchell Moore, her family and the world from violence and eternal damnation.

God decreed it, she wrote in documents released Tuesday.

“I’m so sorry,” Marie Moore, 44, wrote in one note. “I had to send my son to heaven and myself to Hell.”

The shooting was captured by security video at the gun range. Marie Moore walked behind her son, put a revolver to the back of his head and fired a single shot. Then she put the pistol in her mouth and fired.

Mitchell Moore, 20, died at the scene. His mother died a short time later at Florida Hospital Altamonte.

“The act appeared to be deliberate,” Casselberry police Officer Jeffrey Shumway wrote in his report.

The revolver was rented from the shooting range, Casselberry police Deputy Chief Bill McNeil said.

There are restrictions about gun ownership in some cases of mental incompetence, but they do not bar a person from renting a gun at a shooting range, McNeil said.

Late Monday, family members found three notes and two audio tapes and turned them over to police, McNeil said. Each note was addressed to “King,” a nickname for her boyfriend. Two were signed “Failed Queen.”

In these documents, Marie Moore described long struggles over whether to kill herself, stays at mental hospitals and attempts to make sense of the messages she said she received from God.

During a 2003 suicide attempt, her son stopped her from killing herself, she said in one recording. She thought God punished her for her failure by making her the “antichrist,” and that she must die to save the world from violence.

“You have a gun, you can do it,” she said God told her.

A prior suicide attempt at a gun range ended with her being thrown out.

This time, Marie Moore concealed her plans so she wouldn’t be hospitalized, she said in the recordings.

Why God chose Marie Moore for this fate made little sense to her.

“I don’t know how all this happened. It’s not in the Bible,” she said.

She wrote that she signed over the title to her truck, and left behind $7,900 cash and a check.

“I’m sorry King thats all thats left,” she wrote in one note.

Her jewelry would go to her boyfriend and others, she said in the recordings. She also left 65 journals explaining her ordeal.

“I’m a good person. But the Devil and God turned me into the worst person in the world. I’m so ashamed. And I’m so afraid,” she said. “And I’ll pay forever and ever.”

This type of thing can only happen with a person who chooses to accept revelation as a valid source of knowledge.

Because religion is based upon knowledge without evidence (faith), there is absolutely nothing anyone can say to discount this situation.  As far as anyone knows, this woman was in actual communication with a god, and was absolutely directed to take the actions she did.  Stating that she was “mentally unstable”, or anything similar, cannot be done without applying the same term equally to all religious people.

Religion is just so awesome.

Well?