March 8, 2010 6:43pm by swood | 
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?
Quote:
“This type of thing can only happen with a person who chooses to accept revelation as a valid source of knowledge.”
How about: This can only happen to someone with a mental instability.
A while a go, a man flew a plane into an IRS building in Austin, TX, killing himself and one other. He was a software engineer.
So, how about: This can only happen to someone who chooses a profession of the application of a systematic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, and maintenance of software.
After all, if you look back on office murder/suicide rampages in recent history, you’ll see Software developers fill the ranks quite well.
Or, maybe, they were just mentally unstable?
On the other hand, I must congratulate you on using extreme, single case incidents to represent normal, frequent social behavior, in order to push your agenda.
It reminds me of the tactics used by the “religious right” (an oxymoron if you actually read the teachings Jesus, for one) – the “War on Christmas”, or ranting on about how Christians are “oppressed” in America, spring to mind.
Well done Sir! Bravo! Encore!
You seem to have mistaken the phrase “this type of thing” as referring to murder or some other violent act. This was not my intent.
By “this type of thing” I was referring to ‘taking actions in the real world based upon personal revelations from a magical being’. I can see how you misunderstood this. I’ll try to be more clear in the future.
I don’t think it matters, you’re taking the case of an obviously mentally disturbed individual who performs a despicable act, and using it to further your agenda/opinion.
My ultimate point is that the methodology you use to further your agenda is the exact same methodology the “religious right” uses further their agenda.