(CNN) — An evangelical preacher killed his wife several years ago and stuffed her body in a freezer after she caught him abusing their daughter, according to police and court documents.Anthony Hopkins appeared in court Thursday to face murder, rape and incest charges.Anthony Hopkins, 37, was arrested Monday night at the Inspirational Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Jackson, Alabama, just after he had delivered a sermon to a congregation that included his seven other children, officials said.He faces charges including murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse and incest.Hopkins was denied bail Thursday when he appeared before Mobile County District Judge George Hardesty. The case is set for arraignment next week, Hardesty’s clerk said.The case began Monday, when the daughter, now 19, went to the Mobile Police Department’s Child Advocacy Center and reported that she had been sexually abused by Hopkins since she was 11 years old, according to an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant of the preacher’s home in Mobile.The affidavit related the daughter’s story as follows:Her mother, Arletha Hopkins, 36, caught her father abusing her in a bathroom in November 2004. Afterward, her parents argued, and her mother locked her father out of the house. The father came to the daughter’s window and asked her to let him in, and she did so.The next morning, her father asked her to help him hide her mother’s body in the freezer in the laundry room of the home.
This points out one fatal flaw in Christianity — that Christians think they can get away with crime if they ask god for forgiveness. They feel they are above the law, because they obey god’s law. Funny how that somehow means they do bad things.Good thing he wasn’t an Atheist — then he’d REALLY be immoral!
Chris,
Evil is a problem indeed. Yet does it come from without or from within? Evolutionists would likely say that comes from without and that it’s just a part of natural selection and survival of the fittest. So, the helpless child would be a part of our natural process. They would probably say other beasts kill their young, so what’s the difference? But I believe evil comes from within. No one has to tell you or the by-stander a hideous act is taking place. You just know it. Thus morality comes from intrinsically knowing what is good and what is evil and choosing correctly between the two. So if God were to intervene on every evil act, does it not become an infringement on our freedom of choice? When would the divine interventions cease. It would only be fair to help everyone else when any evil deed happened to them. Let’s not put all the blame on God either. Countless babies are “slashed to death with a knife” every year through abortion. Yet many sit idley by, condoning and supporting a woman’s right to choose! And will fight tooth and nail to keep that right. So who’s the by-stander?
Why not hold god to the minimal moral standards we hold ourselves to? Don’t we expect god to be at least as good as we humans? If the man in the story explained himself by saying that he didn’t want to infringe upon the child molester’s free will, I wouldn’t accept that excuse.
The problem of evil is about god’s freedom of choice, not ours. Why have special allowances for god to commit sins of omission?
‘Evidence’:
There?s major problems w/your logic. First, I would guess that evolutionists would say evil comes from w/in ? but what is your definition of evil, exactly? 2nd, ?survival of the fittest? is a non-sequitor, & reveals your outdated & outmoded lack of knowledge about the topic.
The ?difference? being, reciprocal altruism. Creatures that kill their young don?t last long.
This is hardly a strong point for your superstition.
Despite there being no such critter, hypothetically speaking, it would be remiss on the part of your deity to w/hold any sort of ?divine intervention? when large masses of its ?children? were being slaughtered.
Where WAS your deity when the Jews were being massacred by the millions in the Holocaust, anyways? Where was the aid from on high? The deeds were blown in every eye, that tears might drown the wind.
Not even a heavenly hanky was proffered.
Since they?ve never happened, this is a bootless question. Witless, too.
1st intelligent point in your blathering stream-of-consciousness.
Can?t blame what ain?t there.
Oh my stars & garters. You DO realize that abortion?s not a 20th CE phenonemon, don?t you? Dates back to Aristotle? That Levitic law stipulates the child?s not a person until the head crowns? That your precious fable book had nil to say on the topic in the NT?
On a scale of 1 to 10, I?d give your diatribe about a 2. That?s only because you actually managed to spell everything correctly, & the grammar?s correct.
Your logic fails miserably. You lost points on the misinterpretation of evolutionary theory, a sloppy connect between that & abortion, the rhetoric is tired & faded (& used one too many times), & you relied too heavily on presuppositionalism.
Try harder next time.
Of course it would be scrutinized. That?s what science does.
Nevertheless, if your god is a perfect god, He could certainly devise a miracle that would be beyond dispute. Now, since He has to maintain the highly vaunted freedom of choice, he could not harden our hearts as he did with that poor Pharaoh fella. But this is 2008 and documentation is easy. Think of it, He appears:
?I am The Lord Your God and all y? all have to obey the Scriptures just as all the True Christians have been telling you. Your choice dudes; you wanna choose not to, then to Hell with you.?
The Multitudes: ?Well God, that?s like a no-brainer man. Do what you say or burn in Hell for infinity? Praise you Oh All Mighty God.?
This is true; very few: Revelation tells us that only 144000 virgin men will get to Heaven.(Rev.7:4)
You forgot these:
“Sees green where there is red.
Eats so as to be hungry.
Lies down to be vertical.
Says yes when he means no.
Rejects to accept.
Laughs when he sobs.
Joins when he quits.
Is tall yet short.
Hates in order to love.
Drinks to be thirsty.
Compliments to criticize.
Stops breathing in order to breath.
Eats meat to be a vegetarian.
Crawls in order to walk.
And finally,
Rejects evidence to prove he is correct.”
Evidence,
I sometimes forget you’re an authority on God and are certainly fit to determine whether I have a false perception of it. Thanks for reminding me.
But given your post, are you saying that God has unfairly given man choice? By allowing genocide, murder, etc., God has given the perpetrators of violence ALL the choice and taken it from the victims. So you’re agreeing with my point?
This of course is easily proven false. Look to any society that engaged in human sacrifice, or slavery, etc. Society determines what is right and wrong and as society evolves, so does morality and society’s beliefs regarding good and evil.
Maybe you should explain to the survivors of violent crimes why your God chose to give the perpetrators of these crimes freedom of choice but not allow the victims a choice.
Surly a God capable of creating and controlling everything could at least make the concept of choice equal to all?
By your definition of your God, he created everything, therefore he’s responsible for it. Or better yet, maybe your God doesn’t actually exist.
All this does is point out your own inconsistency on the issue.
Evidence
To your
DVanWechel responded
I agree with DVanW. The Bible tells us that if we ask, it will be given unto us, does it not? That we can move mountains with the faith the size of a mustard seed? So if a person is being victimized by someone exercising his free will, the victim should be able to say, “I choose not to be a victim, but I need your help, Lord to get me out of this situation. By my faith, I believe this man will be moved far away from me.” Does this ever happen? If you say yes, then that means God isintervening, (at least according to your standards) but not for everyone. And if some, why not all?
Of course, if you’re being, slashed with a knife or raped, or set on fire, and you’re tied up and gagged, about all you can do is think, “Oh, God, help me!”
There seems to be a demand for phrasing the prayer correctly and asking for the proper, but never explained Ways and Means of Godly Assistance. For the victim, the “aid” of the lord is pain and sometimes death. If they live through it, then God has “blessed” them with no more suffering than they could bear. First of all, that’s BS, but what does that say about the ones who die?
When no one asks for them. Simple enough for an omni deity. If he didn’t want to do it for everyone, he shouldn’t have set the precedent.
Dvan,
The point you seem to be making is that everyone should be free to choose whatever they want until it hurts others. Therefore God should put an end to all of the evil, offensive choices people make. If so, is that true freedom? And does man bear any responsibility to govern his society?The point I’m trying to make is that there are consequences to freedom. And in order to freely choose God we must be free to choose evil. I’m honestly not trying to sound insensitive to societies victims. But free will comes with costs.
This is a vague statement. I think what is good and evil has always been known. Anyone knows when they are being abused, violated and stripped of freedom. It’s whether there are enough “by-standers” to change things. Slavery in America didn’t “evolve” into being evil because of society. It was always evil. It changed when people chose to stand up for what they knew was good.
Choice IS equal to all…to choose evil or good. An unequal choice would be to dictate what choice you can make. It sounds like you want free will without adverse consequences.
Karen,
In all honesty, I don’t know why some prayers go seemingly unanswered. I know someone who had a gun pointed in his face and trigger pulled several times and didn’t work. Once pointed elsewhere it fired. And another killed by a stray bullet. I personally know people who had cancer and AIDS that were healed without any medications. Conversely, I know other people who painfully died from these same illnesses. The only thing I can say is that I didn’t choose to believe because of miracles. There are other things to ponder though – demons, psycics, paranormal, NDE’s, spirits, witches, out-of-body experiences, etc. There’s a lot of things that would be nice to have clarity on.
spelling error: (psychics)
Evidence,
I think you might be missing the main point with the problem of evil. It’s not human free will that is being questioned or justified. It’s God’s. If God exists, then God is watching children being raped at this very moment – and every day, all day. And yet, like the witness in the story, God lets it happen.
Now, if a human did nothing under those circumstances just once, we would probably judge him a rotten bastard and throw him in jail. It would be universally agreed that not even bothering to dial 911 was a horrible, despicable act. The victim’s family would spit in the man’s face and ask “How could you?!” Yet we never ask that question of God. Why? Fear? Or is it OK for God to be immoral?
We humans limit each other’s free will all the time. There are laws against hurting others and they are enforced by the police. Is this wrong? Does God’s silence serve as an example for anarchy?
People stood up for slavery too. Hundreds of thousands died defending this torture and degradation. Preachers in the North preached that it was horrible. Preachers in the South preached that it was a God-given right because the Israelites did it (they also raped and enslaved every surviving woman and girl in the cities they conquered). Neither Southerners nor Israelites seemed to be tapped into that universal morality you speak of, which sounds a lot like humanism. But each justified their horrors using religion.
That’s why religion is moral relativism. What religion determines to be moral depends on the time and place in which you live.
The only moral progress that has been made has come from humans establishing and enforcing laws that expand the safety, rights, and freedoms of their fellow humans. In other words, the philosophy of humanism.
Evidence:
So prayer deflects bullets? Very doubtful.
Which proves that it’s all hit ‘n miss. No supernatural intervention AT ALL.
Unless you’re aware of the ‘glurge’ phenomoenon – in which someone gets saved, but someone else doesn’t. Meaning that your invisible friend plays favorites. So unconditional love’s down the shitter.
Been living in a bubble lately? ‘Demonic possession’ is mental illness, psychics are frauds, NDE’s & OBE’s have pretty much been explained, there are no spirits, & witches are just another extension of that anachronistic old meme, religion.
There are plenty of mysteries in this vast universe – but there’s a rational explanation underlying them.
It’s fine to be a hopeless romantic – but you don’t need to mix in superstition. Enough evidence is in to shoot that nonsense down.
Chris,
I guess you’re saying you would like God to govern us, instead of ourselves. And that any evil act should be instantly halted and judgement brought immediately upon the offender. I would most certainly welcome that! Yet, would you say is free will? And what about things like sexual perversion? Should God stop people from the act to stop the spread of AIDS and STDs. Should God intervene when one looks at porn to reduce sexual aggression which fuels rapist and pedophiles? Should God stop people from speaking foul language because it sparks violence? How much governing should there be? This is why I believe God governs and brings judgement in the spiritual. And when someone freely chooses God (i.e. salvation) he allows God to assist him to avoid the evil choices within. (Sorry, had to get a little theological.)
If you haven’t noticed, laws don’t stop crimes from happening. We don’t limit free will, we punish evil offences. And have a judicial system to bring due justice. This is what God does, but spiritually.
I think you’re missing a clue here, Evidence.
Like most theists, you presume that you’re being asked a question because the asker is somehow, somewhere deep inside, a believer.
This is actually a method of induction, which is directed @ getting you, the responder, to actually think & understand that your epistemology is hollow to the root.
Problem is, just like a canine, you only hear the code words. I’m guessing you skim the content & wait for key receptors. Read the word “God”, you assume the questioner believes. Read the word “Bible”, see a quote or 2, this confirms your ludicrous suspicions.
So let me dispel one MORE illusion for you: you’re not the teacher here. It’s more a verbal game of cat ‘n mouse.
And you ain’t a feline, mein freund.
Whatsa matter, evidence? Cat got your tongue?
K.A,
Your estimation of me is wrong here. I was simply responding to the thought/argument that was posted. I thought the apology for being theological would be taken as sincere.
“Intrinsically knowing”? Then why is it that one of the footholds of religion is that morality stems from the bibble?
If it could, it certainly should. But it doesn’t, so either ir can’t, or it simply doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
Morality anyone?
ir = it
Hi Evidence,
That’s actually a good point, Evidence. Preventing evil/suffering and maximizing free will are often competing priorities, and many political debates are about this underlying tension and where to draw the line. However, civilized people never go to such extremes as to say that we should not limit people’s free will to murder, steal, rape, vandalize, or assault their fellow human beings.
In the context of this discussion, you are saying that god has chosen to maximize free will and not limit evil at all in the physical world – to just let horrific crimes happen, to let babies be born with birth defects, to allow genocide and torture – to allow abortion, as you pointed out. If a human was allowing such evil to occur, we would conclude that that person was morally depraved – worse than Saddam Hussein.
However you let god off the hook because (a) god will punish the evildoers later, and (b) god encourages believers to make the right decisions (very debatable, but we’ll ignore that for now). So this is god’s morality? Let’s apply that to a human example and see how it looks:
Suppose I throw a dozen kittens into a pit bull ring. I encourage the pit bulls to be nice and if they kill the kittens, I fully intend to torture them to death. Inevitably, the kittens die horrific deaths getting torn to shreds and I do nothing to limit the free will of the pit bulls. Then I torture the pit bulls to death.
Suppose I am babysitting a child and I drop her off in the middle of a prison yard where I am the warden. I encourage the convicted sex offenders to be nice or there will be severe consequences. Then I step out of view so as not to limit anyone’s free will. Sure enough, awful things happen to the little girl as I sit back watching, but I torture the perpetrators to death later.
Hmmm. If a human intentionally set up conditions where awful things would obviously happen, we would certainly not accept the explanation that encouraging good or torturing the perpetrators to death somehow made up for the immoral act of allowing the evil to occur in the first place. That would in no way undo the damage suffered by the innocent victims. Why then, should we let god off the hook for doing nothing while watching children get raped?
I’ll get to the point: If a god exists, that god is doing something awful by allowing the massive evil/suffering going on in our world. If your concept of god requires this being to be good, than your concept conflicts with reality and commonsense morality. You could escape this argument by saying that god is evil, but I suspect you won’t (notice how what you want to be the true eliminated that possibility).
It’s far more likely that we’re on our own.
Besides, what do you propose is god’s motive for this nasty little exercise we call life? Is this a test where god is selecting souls that are worthy of “salvation?” If so, why didn’t god just make us all worthy to begin with? Because we had to exercise our free will first, you say? Good luck explaining that to the couple who just had their 3 year old abducted by a pedophile ring or to the young couple whose baby was born with severe brain damage and will never even have free will. Making excuses for god takes you to some pretty strange places, which is why religion is largely silent about god’s motives. It makes no sense. Better to demonize homos and talk about heaven.
Chris,
Yet “civilized people” fight for porn, profanity, violence (video games, movies, etc) and abortion to protect their freedoms. So what should be limited? The deplorible acts or the things that are the root of them? What I’m getting at is it’s the heart of man that is the very thing from which murder, stealing, rape, etc come from. So to effectively abolish evil, the heart must be controlled. Even if we play the script all the way out: God stops every evil act. Do you think that would end peoples efforts to do evil things. Law and penalties don’t stop them now. What makes you so sure they would stop if God intervened?
Do you know Christian theology? God didn’t originally “set up conditions where awful things would obviously happen”. He set man in the best conditions and let him choose. He chose the knowlege of good AND evil. The theology goes further in teaching that God subjected his own son to man’s evil ways to show that it can be controlled if desired. A pretty fair intervention in my opinion.
I think the motive is more than just an exercise in free will. But to prove one’s adoration as true and authentic. It’s like any classic story of a rich man becoming poor to find a woman who loves him without any monetary motivation. I know this sounds a little mushy, but you asked me what I propose. I also think God did make us all worthy. All we have to do is choose.
Making excuses for man by blaming God is an easy out, huh? Many of those pedophile rings are family men, judges, officers etc. And some of those brain damaged children are vitims of their moms smoking habits, alcohol, drugs, pollution, etc. We still have responsibility to govern ourselves. We blame God for the woes of society but forget about things like the introduction of opium in america as a cough suppressant, methamphedomines (a purely man-made substance), the atom bomb, and the spread of AIDs that started in the homosexual community. The list goes on and on. We are a victim of our own evil.
Hi Evidence,
If your point is that humans are the origin of evil human acts, I should point out that the problem of evil is not a question of where evil comes from, it’s a question of how a just and loving god could allow others to do it. Again, the focus is on god’s position and whether sitting around watching rape, murder, torture, and genocide all day and doing nothing could possibly be moral. It doesn’t matter if the perps had a choice, good people have to intervene when they can, not just to walk away from the crime victims shrugging their shoulders talking about the choice the rapist/murderer had. God doesn’t seem to live up to the very minimum standards of human morality that are the expectation everywhere. Why give the concept of god a pass at this? Besides, the victims don’t have a choice. How is that just?
This is a common way of explaining the problem of evil and the problem of god’s invisibility in one easy narrative, but if fails both the moral sniff test and the “does this make sense” test.
First, it simply moves the question to: “why does god feel the need to make us prove our worth?” Again, we find ourselves spinning strange narratives out of thin air and ending up with a weird story. Why wouldn’t a just god just snap its fingers and relieve itself of this need, rather than comitting the morally questionable act of leaving us humans in a world full of evil, suffering, and despair.
Second, is god’s insecurity really a good excuse for god to allow all the evil that goes on in our world? Serial killers have insecurities that motivate their behavior too, but we rarely let them off the hook because of their psychological state. I mean, is “prove[ing] one’s adoration” really a higher value than preventing a child from being raped? I’d call that sociopathic vanity.
Third, do all people really get the chance to prove themselves? What about children brought up in violent cultures – Mayan children taught to sacrifice humans for example? Orphans growing up on the streets of African slums for another? What about all the children who die before ever making a moral decision – have they proved anything about their worth? What about the mentally disabled? Problematic examples go on and on.
Fourth, if sin and suffering exist in our world as part of god’s plan to screen out the humans who choose to be unworthy, then isn’t it wrong to interfere in that process? Are burglar bars, padlocks, and jails just preventing people from making a free choice and showing their devotion to god.
Deformed, brain-damaged babies are often born to good parents. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and disease strike the good as frequently as the bad. Sure, humans commit crimes and wars against one another. But it is nature that maims or kills most of us. It’s not just human behavior that causes horrendous suffering. Just ask someone with MS or the parents who just lost their child to malaria. If a god could sit around and let all this happen, then that god probably isn’t the just example of morality that it is claimed to be.
You see, when you quit trying to spin some kind of god into a narrative to explain all this, the explanations get much simpler, much more logical, and much better supported by observations. Bad things happen because of both physical situations and because of human actions. We can waste our time praying to a god we invented in our heads and blaming sinners for things like hurricanes or we can tackle the actual problems facing us with eyes wide open.
Chris,
From what you are saying, the Biblical writing of Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed b/c of their wreched acts is not too far fetched. And God’s judgement upon Cain for killing his brother Abel is a welcome intervention. I don’t think we’re very much different from wanting God’s swift judgement upon man’s violations. But to say we are not accountable for our evil ways because God gave us a choice is feckless.
Let me ask you this: Should a loving god bring judgement upon the “perps” before they commit the actual crime (because he/it knew their intentions) or after? If before, would that be considered an infringement on free will? If after, isn’t that the same thing we do with our justice system? Or try to do anyway. What I’m saying is we cannot abdicate our responsibility simply because free will has negative consequences.
You should know the answer to this question. Man demands their freedom at any cost. How many countless people have fought for freedom. That’s like asking why can’t we have freedom of speech but withhold profanity? Why can’t we have freedom of expression but withhold nudity? Why can’t we have the freedom to roam but withhold strip clubs? If a god were to “snap its fingers” and say “all man will worship me” we would ask “why should we?”. This is pretty much how the Lucifer account goes. So, I believe, God answered the question.
Let’s not forget about the good as well. Here’s my problem with evolution and naturalism. If everything revolves around natural selection and survival of the fittest, then why so many things that make life beautiful? Things like our ability to creat art, music and writing (and appreciate it). The thrill to achieve things that have no evolutionary benefits like climbing a mountain (not to mention high risk of death), competative games, erecting artistic structures, etc. We have so many emotions and feelings that contribute to enjoying several physical and non-physical relationships and wonderful experiences. With this, the ability to communicate on a variety of different levels for pure enjoyment.
There are many other things, but my point is that evolution doesn’t address these things very well for me. I’m tired of evolutionists trying to say we’re just another animal, yet our evil moral conduct is off the charts.
This is why I believe God judges spiritually and justly. And takes into account these circumstances. This is my take:
” So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother?s way.”
–Rom. 14:12
Evidence,
For the love of God, read something that gives you more than an overview of evolution by natural selection!!!!!
Natural selection has no grand plan. Not all mutations are positive; in fact some are a detriment.
Let go of ’survival of the fittest’. It’s misused and misunderstood by many people.
Chris,
I wanted to address this earlier, but ran out of time. This comment deviates from our “problem of evil”. At least within man. Would you consider all natural disasters and sicknesses as “evil” or just bad for man? By the way, I would argue that AIDS, Cancer, Diabetes, and malaria kills us more than natural disasters. But I would agree with you that “Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and disease strike the good as frequently as the bad.” And I have never expained them as an execution of god’s wrath. They are natural happenings but god will still judge man according to his heart wether he lives through them or not. I do see many adversities as opportunities to become strong. It seems like a prevailing principle that with the greatest of challenges the best of our abilities are discovered. Look at someone like John Walsh who took his terrible child abduction situation and turned it into an organization that helped capture thousands fugitives. And if you asked one of those parents with a birth-defected child how much they loved them, it would be very deeply.
Your wanting a perfect earth is not much different from mine. At least I have hope in a “new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation).
Evidence:
The point being (which you are missing by a mile), is that Walsh’s loss should NOT HAVE HAPPENED. The showers of pain in this vale of pain are not the actions of a LOVING GOD. Rather, they are indicative that nobody’s there. Really, all this ‘debate’ over whether the universe gives a shit about us is ridiculous, as it is obvious that it DOESN’T.
You obviously worship an imaginary demon – this much pain, suffering? Visited on innocents? How can you reconcile the concept of a ‘loving gawd’ w/your environment? It’s a comic book mixed w/a fairy tale.
Yeah, old Patmos Johnny was toking on some pretty wild drugs THAT day. The entire book was a drug-induced fever dream. That’s all. Obviously you’re an historicist – you don’t realize the entire ‘book’ was topical in nature.
Hi Evidence,
Sorry for the wait, been busy!
I’m not saying perps aren’t accountable. I’m just saying that in examples such as the child molester and apathetic witness, two immoral acts are committed (although the molester’s crime is much worse). If god is an apathetic witness, why not hold it accountable just like we would a human who was an apathetic witness?
The general moral consensus among humans is that we cannot abdicate our responsibility to prevent our fellow humans from suffering or being victimized, when that is possible. If god exists, than it is ALWAYS possible for god. Thus, god’s morality has to be different in an important way from (most) human morality (if god exists, that is). In civil societies, people’s “free will” to commit crimes is considered far less significant than the rights of people not to be victimized. If god exists, it must disagree.
I’m not sure how a theory of biology that says better adapted organisms reproduce at higher rates than worse adapted organisms can be applied to aesthetics. Suffice to say that our subjective emotions and responses to various stimuli and experiences probably have little to do with it.
Evolution is a theory in biology that describes the dispersion of genetic traits as an interaction with habitat – it’s not an aesthetic or moral code. That’s why it doesn’t explain what you’re looking for it to explain.
In the case of hurricanes devastating innocent people and causing mass casualties and suffering, god could stop it without even interfering with anyone’s free will.
Probably makes the most sense to say there isn’t a god out there.