ATLANTA, Georgia: Pro wrestler Chris Benoit allegedly suffocated his 7-year-old son and placed a Bible next to the body before using an exercise machine to hang himself, authorities said on Tuesday. Law enforcement officials believe Daniel Benoit was killed on Saturday, one day after Benoit also allegedly strangled his 43-year-old wife, Nancy, in the upstairs family room of their luxury rural home. Another Bible was placed next to her lifeless body which was wrapped in a towel, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Tuesday. The three bodies were found in separate rooms of the house on Green Meadow Lane in Peachtree City in what police are calling a double-murder suicide that stretched through the weekend. “Bizarre. That’s the only way I can describe this,” Fayette County District Attorney Scott Ballard told the Fayette Daily News. “What’s most bizarre to me is the timing and the circumstances. Not just that a man could kill his own 7-year-old son but that he could have stayed in the same house with the bodies. “And then there’s the placement of the Bibles. I can’t understand this.”
Folks, this is not brain surgery. Religion makes one think there is life after death, and so killing is not as bad! Benoit put the Bibles there in some insane attempt to help his family in the afterlife! This is a very clear place where religion’s false promises hurt people. So many times I’ve been asked “So what if people believe what is false? It doesn’t hurt anyone!”But the fact is it DOES hurt, because it makes life LESS valuable if one thinks there is more life after death. Benoit obviously didn’t think he extinguished his family’s existance, merely pushed them into the afterlife.Remember — Religion hurts! If Benoit had been an Atheist, there’s a good possibility his family may still be alive.
I’ll concede that perhaps he went nut bar from “roid rage” considering the stero!d aggression links.
But you are absolutely right. One of the bad things about religion is the trivializing of our mortal lives. If someone believes he has all eternity in an after life, this life isn’t all that important.
Of course this has been a manipulative tool to keep the masses docile. Suffer now, you peons, and you’ll get rich rewards in heaven for playing along. It’s the oldest con in the world.
I see so many religious people spending their one shot at existence trying to get brownie points for heaven. It’s such a waste. It makes me think of dung beetles. They spend all that time worshiping, performing rituals, and doing things they think will favor their idea of God. Meanwhile the clock ticks and their life passes.
Did Benoit think he was going to influence God with the Bibles? Is God supposed to be impressed or something? Will God be thinking, “Oh, that person had a Bible next to his body. What a great tribute to ME. I’ll let him skip jail, go directly to Go and collect $200.00.”
The whole thing is warped. The Bible was so darned important, but it was OK to murder. Go figure.
The bottom line is when people think there is an afterlife where problems will be gone and everyone will be happy, they see that as a solution. It is definitely a factor as to why things like this happen.
An atheist has to come to terms with the finality of death. He’s not going to be sending his family or himself to a better place by dying. That alone might influence the decision.
Stero!ds, mental illness, and Jesus can be a dangerous mix.
What a tragedy. I feel sad for all involved. Sending sympathy to the surviving family.
it is a tragedy and the family has my sympathy.
Dave:
I seriously doubt it. Humans are great at rationalizing bad behavior. In the absence of religion, I’m sure he would have found something else to latch onto. There’s no reason to believe that religion had anything to do with this.
Oh, I totally disagree, Apple. He didn’t lay Stephen King novels next to them. He went WAY out of his way to include the Bible and make it a part of the incident. Christianity was definitely on his mind.
Am I speculating about whether he’d have done the crime? Of course. Also, you’re right, he may have done it anyway.
But we do KNOW one thing: religion WAS a part of his twisted equation.
As I have mentioned in the past on this blog I have seen atheists and agnostics become raving buybull thumpers when abusing meth and cocaine. Remove the drugs and they revert back to rational humans. Both meth and cocaine as well as ster*ids can cause pyschotic breaks. These pyschotic breaks can occur in addition to roid-rage. Together they are a lethal combination.
I do not know what this wrestler was like before his ster*id abuse (maybe other drugs as well) but he could have been rational once upon a time. The link be religion and such behavior is that the religious suffer from varying degrees of psychosis.
Comment from: Apple_Christmas
AC…I totally agree with you.
Dave…this one’s very low. You’re doing exactly what others did over Tilmans death…
IMO…Dave…sorry to say this…but you’re acting like a Jessie Jackson pimp…scare tactics to the troops…
Taking a tragedy and politicizing it for your own agenda…very poor taste…
Can’t you rely upon logic and education to get your point across…?
“Dave…this one’s very low. You’re doing exactly what others did over Tilmans death…”
Huh*&^%!? As usual Phreedy spews some more indecipherable crap. Can someone other than this rationally-challenged fool (I know he can’t) please tell me what he is trying to say?
Phreedm,
Murder and suicide are always significant, and the murderer deliberately placing bibles next to the victims is strikingly conspicuous as it relates to the frame of mind of the murderer, — this is indisputable and highly germane in any serious discussion of the crime.
why,what higher purpose can the murder of an innocent child and woman have.it is these kind of thoughts that made me open my eyes and face the truth that the supernatural doesn’t exist.
What,
No one knows, and I’m sure no one cares, what he is trying to say. His consistent irrationality boggles the mind.
Phideaux,
Great comments. I agree, it is truly sad when someone lives their life thinking you get another shot at it. Yeah, go ahead – cheat, lie, murder, whatever. All will be forgiven, and you and your victims will live happily and eternally ever after. That’s seriously messed up and seriously sociopathic.
The reason I didn’t do what Others did over Tillman was because I didn’t agree with their arguement. I didn’t see any anti-atheism, just selfish fear.
Here, I see religion, and Phreedm I’m calling you on it. I can’t see how you can’t see religion’s role in this? How would you think if they were Korans?
Usually there’s a financial motive to these drama’s.
We have them here in Belgium almost every year too, both atheists and religious people, both wealthy and poor.
I don’t know more about this case than what is posted here but these things are more about peer pressure and keeping up with the Joneses than anything else. The reasons are often banal and look easy to solve when observed from the outside but to that family (the wife may have been aware of what was going to happen and may have agreed with it) they are huge and unsurmountable.
Religion may have eased Chris Benoit’s mind while committing the murders but he may have done exactly the same thing as an atheist (without the bible).
It’s totally unfair to say that religion played a role in this. Since none of us know Benoit’s state of mind at the time, perhaps it did, but we can’t infer that just because he left bibles near the bodies of his wife and kid.
Here’s a plausible scenario: Benoit snaps kills his family over the course of a couple of days, perhaps in a fit of roid rage, perhaps because of some other mental defect. After it’s done, he knows he’s done something awful and in his mental turmoil he turns to something that gives him a little bit of comfort, his religion. He places the bibles next to his dead wife and son as a bizarre act of love for them (far too little too late, obviously).
Of course I don’t know if it happened that way either, but my point is that we should assume we know his motivations when we don’t.
Incidentally, this is the same sort of treatment that atheists complain about when an atheist does something similarly evil, and people claim that it was his atheism that led him to it.
I agree with the fact that without more facts, we will never know the motive. If he laid roses by each victim, would that mean he did it because of his love for flowers? Unless we know more, it is all speculation.
For whatever reason, steriod use, other drugs, mental illness either as a result of drug use or naturally, the guy had a long standing problem with anger. His wife filed for a protective order about 3 years ago, but then withdrew the order. So obviously the guy has had a problem for quite a while, if not always.
There were reports that the male child was quite small for his age and had needle marks on his arms leading to speculation that he was being injected with either steriods and/or growth hormones which were also reported to have been found in the house–this without a physician’s oversight.
Who knows whether religion had anything to do with the guy’s actions. Could be god told him to do it, or could be remorse set in after the fact and he hunted up bibles and prayed over the bodies or something.
What bothers me is the abusive situation the wife and boy lived in. Like many women she backed down after seeking a protective order. Did she have it removed because she feared he would kill her and/or the boy if she didn’t?
It is more than sad that some women are attracted to men who are so obviously dangerous. Maybe in this case the signs weren’t there early on if the steroid use hadn’t already begun, and possibly she was attracted to the fact that he was a macho guy or maybe she was attracted to the show-biz part of his life. Could be he changed as a result of steroid use, but there are way too many women who are drawn to men who are abusive.
I’m probably the only one who feels this way, but while I am terribly sad about the death of the pregnant woman and her unborn child recently murdered by her cop-boyfriend in Ohio, the signs that the guy was a bad actor should have been more than obvious to her. And I feel equally as bad for her family. Worse in fact, as their lives have been changed forever and their unbearable grief will live on for as long as they all live.
I’m with Apple on this one, that was one wild ass speculation Dave.
GodFree made good points too, he obviously has a history of abuse/anger problems, and track marks on the kid show both parents had mental problems.
I’m going to have to side with Dave. If you can find me 1% of the xian population that thinks there is no heaven then great but this delusion that we are going to live forever is why Heaven’s gate people were willing to die. The desire for heaven to be true is extremely strong in almost all xians. I’ve yet to meet one that doesn’t want to go there.
I have known a couple of people on roids in my life and they were very prone to roid rage. The chemical imbalance from roids is not a joke.
Phreedm,
Do you find it ironic that you ask someone else to use logic and education to justify their position? Take a step back and look in the mirror.
Well, I think Dave is closer than several other posters here–whether or not religion was actually involved in the killings isn’t the issue to me, it was certainly a part of his life–he had enough bibles laying around to place two next to the bodies. I don’t own one nor would I let one on my property, never mind have two laying around.
I bet it if was one of ‘Elron’ Hubbard’s Scientology tracts that was left beside the bodies there would be a different take from some here.
This is off topic and a joke I think, but couldn’t resist:
The story is told of a man who got a permit to open the first tavern in a
small town. The members of a local church were strongly opposed to the
bar, so they began to pray that God would intervene. A few days before
the tavern was scheduled to open lightning hit the structure and it
burned to the ground.
The people of the church were surprised but pleased – until they received notice that the would-be tavern owner was suing them.
He contended that their prayers were responsible for the burning of the building. They denied the charge.
At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing, the judge wryly remarked, “At this point I don’t
know what my decision will be, but it seems that the tavern owner believes in the power of prayer and these church people don’t.”
GodFree&Glad,
As someone who has been in relationships with abusive men in the past and who has worked with women at the local battered women and children shelter and who has had friends that were in relationships with abusive men, I take great offense to what you said. Do you really think that all of us intentionally go out and search for some asshole that we know is going to abuse us? NO. I’m not even attracted to the asshole type. Those abusive boyfriends I had were what I thought and what many other people thought to be really nice, gentle guys, guys that are sweet to their mothers. To say that any abused woman is looking for a guy like that is really insensitive, to say the least.
As for why women stay in these abusive relationships, there are several reasons. Some stay for the kids, others stay for financial reasons, others because they feel they would be in danger if they left. Some even go to the police but get no help and aren’t aware that their is a shelter for abused women in the area. Some stay because after the abuse, the honeymoon period starts. Some stay because society says a man is supposed to be in control so they think the abuse is normal. There are plenty of other reasons too.
Evil,
GodFree&Glad never said all women abused women intentionally seek out the abuser. If you go back and look at the sentence you will notice he/she was smart enough to use the phrase “some women” when making the statement.
I think GF&G was also probably the closest in nailing when saying that the Bibles were an after thought because of guilt or remorse.
Dave,
It seems a pretty big jump to entertain the idea that had he been an atheist that this probably wouldn’t have happened. The guy snapped – that ain’t exclusive to religionists.
evilatheistconquerer,
Please note that nowhere did I say that women go out and “intentionally” search for abusive men. And I fully understand the reasons women often believe they must stay in those kinds of relationships, which is perhaps the very reason Benoit’s wife stayed.
Human nature is such that there are risk-takers and others who are naturally more careful. I assume these are inborn traits, thus there are people who jump out of planes and people who don’t, and women who feel the need to be with someone who is controlling and women who don’t. And yes, I believe it is very possible that an abuser will not show his abusive side in many cases until it is too late.
My point is that in the Ohio case the writing was on the wall before the woman took the guy back into her bed and ended up pregnant by him for a second time. By that time he had already sired children with three different women, including her. He had a record of breaking down another girlfriend’s door and left that woman feeling she had barely escaped bodily harm, and he’d had some gun-infraction and a suspension from the police department that employed him. So like I said, the writing was on the wall.
A young member in our family has done some foolish things and later told me that “shit happens.” I stand by what I told him: If you don’t break the law you aren’t likely to go to jail; if you don’t have an affair you aren’t likely to be caught with another woman, blah, blah, blah. And if the young pregnant woman in question had looked at his past history and left well enough alone earlier she and the baby would probably still be alive.
And thank you, Luciferduck.
I find these cases interesting, wasn’t it Andrea Yates who also killed her family due to some religious madness? I also had a cousin who, very sadly, hung himself while under the influence of hallucinogenics because he thought he saw Jesus telling him to come over.
That being said, I don’t think you can link religion to these acts any more than you can link video games to Columbine. Its not really causal, and coming up with a way to “control for religion” in these studies is one I will leave to professional psychologists.
The “had they been atheists” argument, while having some air of truth, I don’t think is substantiated enough by what we see. Drugs and postpartum depression would likely have caused a total rational breakdown anyway. Very interesting hypothesis for discussion, though.
Gawd and savior delusions are very common amongst individuals suffering from psychoses whether it be due to schizphrenia, bipolar disease, or drug abuse (amphetamines, ster*ids and even alcohol withdrawal). Remove the offending chemical for long enough and the delusions disappear. It is at least plausible that the murders were religiously motivated in that they were connected to a gawd/savior delusion.
Question: Are gawd/savior delusions as common in nonreligious countries, like say the UK, as they are in the US?
By gawd/savior delusion I mean a delusion where the afflicted thinks they are the gawd/savior and not that they simply have the more common delusion where one believes that a gawd/savior exists.
The story gets even stranger:
http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7406&eeid=5269737&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=-2&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+ne+topnews&ck=&cntp=beta
Ok if my first link didn’t work here is the news story from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19468182/
What
you make a strong case for prohibition but it would need stiff penalty to make it work.that is something i don’t think americans have the will to do that. so it would have to be imposed on them.
Now all delusional americans – aka xians – can avoid the death penalty but the rational are still on the hook.
Reason
“you make a strong case for prohibition”
of drugs/alcohol or religion?
Alex, I saw this earlier. So question is, did he modify it, or was he and his family murdered? My gut feeling was he modified the entry which shows how messed up he was.
Regarding the wikipedia entry, that is kind of weird, but what’s the chance Deputy Dog wasn’t aware of a time zone difference? A lot of forums I post in use GMT.
MX,
The problem with that theory is that whoever posted the Wikipedia update was in Stamford, CT (home to WWF) which is on EST and posted the information nearly 14 hours before the police discovered the bodies!
I agree it’s a stretch that had the pop been an atheist the family would still be alive, but the placing of Bibles can’t be ignored. No one seriously questions whether a killing was sex related if the body is posed sexually, or sexually mutilated, etc. Something was in the killers mind, and he wanted to leave a message. In this case, he chose Bibles. That’s Christian.
If this was his parting excuse, that still says something about using religion as justification for murder, whether the guy was messed up or not. His mind chose to leave Bibles as a message. Still pretty messed up, religion wise.
Christians can’t claim killing isn’t done in the name of their god. Even though Abraham didn’t kill his own son – God stopped him in time – he had every intention of doing it. When a religion elevates such stories and honours the would-be murderer as holy, you’re going to get whackos who use the god told me to do it excuse to commit horror. Some, in my opinion, probably believe they are doing god’s will.
Why is it the person with the gun sends everyone to heaven first then kills themselves to meet them there? Instead of saying lets all go to heaven I’ll go first, thereby letting everyone at least have a choice. Because perhaps they know in their hearts the others are not stupid enough to kill themselves and might back out.
I am very sorry for the wife and child as well as the families.
Not,
Couldn’t you ask the same of every suicide bomber, every abortion clinic bomber, and any other person who’s ever killed for religion?
Remember, it’s not about religion. It’s about power. Religion is just the catalyst for greed for power. That’s why theistic nutsies kill others first before themselves — to make sure it happens THEIR way.
Dave
I bet Jim Jones sung My Way before he off’d himself.
If Benoit had been an Atheist, there’s a good possibility his family may still be alive.
Banal comments like this do our cause more harm than good. It’s an example of the sort of childish justification that I regularly criticize the religious right for.