Pennsylvania Driver Proves Religion Poisoned Her

When the late Christopher Hitchens penned one of his best selling and most controversial books “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” he said the title was meant to sound as brutal as it did. Because religious poison is at the bottom of some of the most idiotic things humans do when they let Bronze Age stories written by semi-literate goat herders dictate how they should live their lives. And when they believe they are under 24-hour surveillance by a supernatural agent who they think they can manipulate, it gets even worse.

Here is just the latest example of why religion is dangerous.

On January 7, 2020, near Weatherly, PA, Nadejda Reilly decided just reading the bible, praying, and going to church was not enough. She needed to put God to a test. The end result was nearly catastrophic when she deliberately drove into oncoming traffic and rammed another car with three people in it. She injured two of them as “a test” of her faith in that God. And it convinced her God passed her test with flying colors. 
Law enforcement authorities revealed that she showed no empathy for the injured people and no regret for her actions. When interrogated, the 31-year-old woman told investigator Trooper Bruce Balliet that she drove around the area ‘for several hours’ so this was premeditated. She claimed she was waiting for a sign or a calling from God but when she received nothing she decided to take matters into her own hands.

"Reilly related that God took care of her by not having her injured," wrote the investigator in an arrest affidavit. "Reilly expressed no concerns or remorse for the victims and stated she did not care if the other people were injured because "God would have taken care of them."

The injured were taken to the hospital for treatment. Reilly was charged with aggravated assault and other offenses and her $50,000 bail was also revoked as it was deemed she would do it again if given an opportunity.

While a verdict on Reilly is yet to be announced, her actions have been strongly criticized and Church leaders opined that her actions were not faith-based, but were delusional.

That begs the question: how can anyone say her actions were not faith-based? Do they know her mind? Do they know the depth of her faith and how she believes God works in her life? They immediately go to a “she’s delusional” excuse. They are correct about that - but she is delusional because of her faith, not in spite of it. She honestly "believes" -  because she has been indoctrinated since the time she was a young child to accept some adult's insistence that there is a sky daddy somewhere up there who performs magic. That is delusional. She believed some supernatural power would take control of her vehicle and guide it safely through traffic if she just had enough faith. That thinking almost got four people killed (Reilly and the three people in the car she rammed). Notice the woman never has to provide any evidence that those who survived were protected by a God. She just asserts it. That should not fly in any court in this country.

This is how religion, particularly Christianity in the United States, infects people to the point of trying to kill others and not caring about the end result because some God will take care of the collateral damage. It’s another version of the old blood-thirsty “Kill ‘em all...let God sort ‘em out” slogan.

This woman injured two people and didn’t give a damn because she believed that God would protect those she almost killed - if God loved them enough - so it wasn’t her problem. God saw to it she wasn’t injured, thus proving to her that God exists - in her mind. Obviously, God kept the others from being killed so what's the problem? There's no harm done.

Why is it religion seems to inflict stupidity on its believers? People do dumb things all the time but this woman's belief in her religion convinced her that ramming another car and walking away means God loves her. So the material and physical costs don't factor into how much love she just experienced. Nor, apparently, can she figure out a less destructive or less harmful way to test her faith. We can expect her to do this every time she drives, to see if God still loves her. (I wonder...what if God doesn’t care about the people she rams into next time? Should it be her call that they die that day all because she wants to test her faith in God?) Is this how God expects his flock to perform, by testing whether he’s paying any attention to them each moment? A God that ignores people is indistinguishable from a god that is imaginary.

Philippines President Duterte’s “God” Challenge

It’s hard to imagine someone less appealing on so many levels than the current president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. He is a singularly unpleasant gargoyle-ish man who brags about murdering people himself, ridicules other world leaders, insults anyone for just about any reason, and shows no regard for the rule of law. But last week, he made a comment that finally got me cheering for him if only a little bit.

          He stated that God was stupid.

 

Referencing the nonsensical Book of Genesis, Duterte said “This son of a bitch is…really stupid.” What Rodrigo claimed is that god was stupid based on what is recorded in the Bible. If that god knows all and sees all, how did it not know what was going to happen, especially in the Garden of Eden? It’s proof that that being is stupid. For example, why would god punish Adam and Eve for not knowing right from wrong when he created them that way? And if that supposedly supreme being did know - and yet let it happen with over 99.9999999…% of all humans who would live on this planet being condemned to Hell after death…it is stupid to a degree unimaginable. Who wants to worship a god that stupid? 

 

 Then, Duterte followed that comment a few days later with a challenge - if anyone could prove to him that god existed, he’d step down from the presidency immediately.

Talk about a win-win.

If no one can prove that god exists, just as no one can prove the Easter Bunny exists, it is solid evidence that belief in a supreme being is without merit and should be abandoned for the good of the world. But if god’s existence is proven, we get rid of Duterte. (Although even if some being did introduce itself, Rodrigo would probably claim that wasn’t good enough or he’d say he didn’t really mean he’d leave office.) But I can agree with his basic premise - prove to all of us that god...any god...exists! 

So many people around the world swear that god exists; they just can’t seem to agree on which one. They can’t all be right. But as many non-believers have repeatedly pointed out, they CAN all be wrong. All we are asking is provide the evidence that a god exists. Real evidence, not words in a book that cannot be verified as anything more than the ramblings of half-educated men trying to make sense out of a world they didn’t understand. Don’t point at the trees, the mountains, or the sunset and claim “see, that’s god’s handiwork.” Setting aside the immediate problem of identifying which god created it, you can’t find god’s fingerprints, signature, or DNA samples on any of it so stop the ridiculous nodding at nature and giving it supernatural qualities it doesn’t have.

 

                Two clowns holding hands

The baffling part of Duterte’s recent statements is that he claims to believe in a god…he just doesn’t believe in religion. So if he believes, why does he want someone else to provide proof of the existence of god? You don't need evidence if you already accept there must be a god. It seems as though Duterte is simply chasing and chewing off his own tail in a search for an imaginary being, or he wants confirmation that his delusion is valid. Duterte uses "God" just like many U.S. politicians and other Americans do: convince the gullible he’s just like them and then exploit those people. Duterte and politicians like Trump use it as a tool to attain power, not as a standard of morality, honesty, or humility.

Bizarre as it seems, such a thing as a god could quickly put an end to the debate about his existence once and for all…by providing unmistakable proof he exists. The fact that he doesn’t can only lead to one of two conclusions - that he doesn’t want to be found…or doesn’t exist. Which makes more sense?