Answering to a leader called Queen Antoinette, they denied a 16-month-old boy food and water because he did not say “Amen” at mealtimes. After he died, they prayed over his body for days, expecting a resurrection, then packed it into a suitcase with mothballs. They left it in a shed in Philadelphia, where it remained for a year before detectives found it last spring.

Tomorrow, five of the group’s alleged members—including the boy’s mother, Ria Ramkissoon—are scheduled to be tried in Baltimore on murder charges. Sources and Ramkissoon’s mother said Ramkissoon, 22, has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge on one condition: The charges against her must be dropped if her son, Javon Thompson, is resurrected.

Thompson’s lawyer insists that his client wasn’t nuts, just devout: “She wasn’t delusional, because she was following a religion.” See how that works?

110 replies on “There Is No Morality Without Religion, Every Child Deserves a Mother and a Father, Novel Plea Deals”

  1. If the argument is AGAINST the statement “there is no morality without religion” then this is not how to make that argument.

    Rather, SHOW morality without religion.

    This is just showing religion without morality. Anybody can do that.

  3. “I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them.”
    George Washington

  4. “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
    George Washington

  5. “It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure, than they have it now, they may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.”
    – John Adams

  6. “And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
    – Abraham Lincoln

  7. “…The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.’ ”
    – Benjamin Franklin

  8. “We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic. Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity.”
    – Franklin Roosevelt

  9. George Washington was a fine example of morality for owning slaves. But I guess since the Bible was used to justify slavery it was an understandable position.

  10. “Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern which have come under my observation, none appears to me so pure as that of Jesus….I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.”
    Thomas Jefferson

  13. well, i suppose some religions are good for people, and some are bad. or they may have certain beliefs that are helpful and others that are harmful.

    people do like to find one example and pretend it represents all. find one murderer who uses drugs and say all who use drugs are bad, for instance.

  14. “God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel”
    Benjamin Franklin

  15. “Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.”
    John Adams

  17. “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this – that it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”
    – John Quincy Adams

  18. “The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. A student’s perusal of the sacred volume will make him a better citizen, a better father, a better husband.”
    – Thomas Jefferson

  20. “In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed.”
    – Noah Webster

  21. “We have staked the future of American civilization upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”
    – James Madison

  22. “It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
    – Patrick Henry

  23. “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?”
    – Thomas Jefferson

  24. Multiple posts will not change the fact that millions of us live our lives as if this were a secular nation because it is a secular nation founded on secular ideas. The bible is just one book. Some people follow it and others do not and the country belongs equally to both. Those who believe in Jesus have exactly the same rights as atheists or those of us who believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (may you all be touched by his noodly appendege)

  26. “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almight God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor.”
    – George Washington

  27. “Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited…. What a utopia, what a paradise would this region be.”
    – John Adams

  28. “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

  29. @3 When my son was 16 months he had maybe 3 words and ten ASL signs. Of the spoken words, all were just one syllable of which he was able to pronounce the initial consonant and vowel; so “buuh-buuh” was his way of saying “book.” He was unintelligible to anyone besides immediate family and even then… “Amen” would have been WAY beyond his linguistic skills, and he was average to ahead of the fact developmentally for boys.

    This story is just soooo fucked up.

  31. @51 Lenny, solid point and I agree with what you’re saying now. That would be a more direct approach and coherent argument.

    @50 I understand what a straw man argument is and these posts are an exact copy of similar arguments made by religious folks comparing homosexuality to pedophilia or convicted gay pedophiles and child murderers as arguments against gay adoption. They attempt to make the argument buy addressing a different and more sensational issue. My initial point was that the Slog is a solid venue for addressing the straw men that religious folks use to make their arguments by chucking out a few versions of them that could be used in the exact opposite way and watching the religious folks react. But I think Lenny’s making a compelling argument against doing just that and as a result I’m bowing out from this debate. I hate these articles anyway, it’s way more fun to make fun of that religious senator in the videos that were just posted.

  32. 74
    As Americans we are free to follow any religion or no religion.
    We can not, however, alter the consequences of the choices we make.
    @78 nicely describes the condition our country increasingly finds itself in.

  33. “Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!”

    — John Adams

  35. “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”

    “During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

    — James Madison

  36. “As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion…has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho’ it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now”

    — Benjamin Franklin

  40. The distinction between devout religiosity and delusion is an entirely artificial one. Both are simply defined as belief in things that aren’t. The semantic distinction that one is a shared belief in things which aren’t objectively true is really completely immaterial, and the legal distinction that one involves divinity and the other doesn’t necessarily is a farce. Why should the content of fiction make any difference as to whether or not it’s called fiction?

    When you allow a child to starve to death because you believe things that your senses ought to tell you don’t make any sense, you’re fucked in the noggin. No two ways about it.

  41. Man, the religious-quote-trolling guy has really made one thing clear to me: politicians have been paying lip service to the prevailing ideas of the era for a long, long time now in more or less the same way.

    Then: the God of the state. Now: the Market.

  42. I’m not a Christian, so I don’t give a damn what George Washington or any other dead guy said about the value of Christianity.
    I expect those same guys had much to say in support of slavery, too. Do you Christianists secretly harbour an intention to bring that back, because the founding fathers thought it was just fine?
    Please, keep posting your quotes from the wonderful past you so revere. It keeps you busy while the rest of us try to deal with the problems of the present and the future.
    There is no deity of any kind.
    Get used to it.

  45. Speaking of religion and cretins, the Union Gospel Mission thrift shop in Kent (dba “The Meeker Street Emporium”) is running a special on “Mayday for Marriage” rally T-Shirts. Only $1 each. Looks like whoever ordered the T-Shirts was a bit too optimistic as to how many people would want to be seen in them.

    UGM does a lot of good. But they do it for all the wrong reasons.

  47. Well, judging from the 300 or so they had on the racks, not many other found them all that great either. Maybe they should stick to misinterpreting a five thousand year old collection of fiction and leave the matters of style to those not burdened with their particular delusion.

    Great use of the tithing money, eh? They’re not even using them to “clothe the naked”. Do you suppose the homeless refused to wear them?

  49. Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
    Thomas Jefferson

  50. @17 “more like a cult than a religion to me. And yes, there is a difference.”

    Chant “yes, there is a difference” 17 times every day to automatically go to heaven when you die

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