A young girl was found caged and attempting to eat herself in a mobile home in Virginia, and cops say her parents are responsible.
The malnourished girl, believed to be either 5 or 6, was discovered in a crib that was converted into a makeshift cage after police arrived at the home in Gloucester County to investigate a burglary last week.
The girl's parents, Brian and Shannon Gore, were arrested and charged with felony child abuse. The mother was also charged with attempted capital murder.
However, the gruesome twosome now faces first-degree murder charges after the remains of what authorities believe to be another child were found buried outside their mobile home
Towards the end of the story we hear from the husband's ex-girlfriend.
"He was really a nice guy," Brian Gore's ex-girlfriend, Sandy, told WTKR 3 News in Norfolk. "He went to church and everything."
To which PZ says:
I don't consider every Christian to be a child-torturing murderer, but one thing I wish we could get across is that church attendance has nothing to do with morality or ethical behavior or goodness of any kind. So why do so many people consider a weekly session with a deranged, delusional ranter in a pulpit to be a seal of approval?
Well, I'd go one better and ask why people assume that religion equals morality. Better yet, why do people assume that a religious person is almost by default more moral than a non-religious person?
I'm sure some people will say that these parents can't really be Christians and do what they allegedly did to their children, but parents have done all kinds terrible things to their children, some of them in the name of religion. Since none of us can look into their hearts or minds and determine the sincerity of their beliefs, maybe it's better not to make assumptions about people's morality based on their church attendance, religious beliefs, or non-religious status.