"Spare the rod and spoil the child" is a biblical saying that most people in America know and that Bible-literalists Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz have apparently taken a little too literally. The Paradise, CA couple have been charged with the beating death last Friday (Feb. 5) of their 7-year old adopted daughter, Lydia and serious injuries to her 11-year old sister, Zariah. The latter child was brought to Sacramento Children's Hospital in critical condition from kidney failure and other injuries. The Schatz's had 6 biological children as well as three adopted from an orphanage in Liberia: Lydia, her sister and another 3-year old girl. They also face a charge of misdeameanor cruelty for lesser injuries to their 10-year old son. The surviving children are now in protective custody.The Oroville Mercury Register reports that neighbors said the Schatzes are a deeply religious and private couple who home-schooled their children and seemed to "regiment" their behavior.
Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said that statements by the parents confirm that they were followers of a fundamentalist religious philosophy that espouses corporal punishment to "train" children to be more obedient to their parents and God. Police found a 15" length of rubber tubing in the Schatz's home which the children say was used to discipline them; sometimes for "hours" at a time. According to the district attorney, Lydia and Zariah sustained deep bruising and multiple "whip-like" marks on their back, buttocks and legs. This, Ramsey said, is believed to have resulted in significant muscle tissue breakdown that impaired their kidneys and possibly other vital organs. An autopsy is being conducted on the body of the 7-year old Lydia.
More than two dozen supporters of the parents showed up at their arraignment on Feb. 9. They were back in court on Feb. 11 for appearance of counsel and possible entry of a plea to the murder and torture charges.
Photo Credit:
1) The Schatz's being arraigned (Terry Vau/Orobille Mercury Register)
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Comments
I was hit and yelled at a LOT as a kid... I raised my daughter without violence. To me, that scripture is taken WAY out of context. I don't take it literally. I believe there are moral truths and literal truths. There are also concepts, like spare the rod spoil the child... it doesn't necessarily have to mean beat your kids. It can mean to be consistent in parenting your kids.. teaching your kids ... hitting kids only makes them hate their parents or fear their parents.
I've never taken that concept literally, though I know many do. Hitting kids is about power.. it doesn't teach them anything except that you can hurt them.
Thanks for the coverage.. I hadn't heard about this. The parents need to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
I don't think the verse is taken out of context. It's simply what the Bible says. It is Bronze Age morality and should have no place in the modern world. The sooner we get beyond the Bible and religion the better. As long as humans use the Bible as a moral compass, don't expect any high degree of moral behavior.
To me this seems like another example of how religion can twist otherwise decent peoples' judgement. Things like this will continue to happen as long as people regard faith as a virtue and critical thinking as an unnecessary luxury.
Any chance you'll ever do an article on Amy Bishop, noted left-wing socialist, pro-Obama supporter and atheist who shot a room full of people to death? Didn't think so.
Thank you for this important article.
This case joins a long list of tragic cases including religious parents whose children died because they prayed for them instead of taking them to a doctor, and a mother who let her children to starve to death thinking G-d would feed them.
I do not understand how people can be so twisted by religion. It troubles me how so many so called religious people use religion as an excuse for bad behavior, bigotry, and hate. Then there are those who endanger helpless children because of their so called faith.
I do not understand this.
This couple went far beyond appropriate correction and, as far as I can tell, simply lashed out in anger and then *rationalized* their behavior as biblical. Nowhere does the Bible give the "power of life or death" to parents over their children.
Not true, Terry. You must not be very familiar with the Bible. The Bible gives parents the right to have their children stoned to death for disobedience ( Deuteronomy 21:18-21).
"More than two dozen supporters of the parents showed up at their arraignment. . . " I can't imagine that anyone would support people who have 'allegedly' beaten a child to death. This must be a group of sadistic monsters. Is religion an excuse for any atrocity ?
Terry, perhaps you ought to read your Bible a wee bit more.
"If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death." (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)
All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)
Of course that's just the Old Testament, right? Jesus would never say anything like that... except he does.
“He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” (Matthew 15:4-7)
That gets repeated in Mark.7:9-13 just in case you missed it the first time.
EXCELLENT POST!!! I think I have a man crush on Hugh! LOL!
Hey, Eugene Hamburger! So what's your point ? Among whatever other things Amy Bishop might be she is most certainly mentally deranged and needs to be removed from society, as do child-murdering religionists, and religious killers like the murderer of Kansas physician George Tiller. I’m sure that these stories will get all of the press they deserve based on their own merits. However, I do find it interesting that many committing atrocities seek religion as an excuse for their actions. If Amy B. really is an atheist I bet she won’t be playing the religion card as an excuse.
Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child is not found in the Bible.
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Proverbs 23:13-14. Do these Bible thumpers ever actually read the Bible???
"Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child is not found in the Bible."
That's technically correct. The adage is a distillation of 6 verses from the Bible's Book of Proverbs. Here's one: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes." (Proverbs 13:24)
Here's another: "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die." (Proverbs 23:13)
This kind of behavior is unfortunately found whether one is Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Atheist.
@MOS
What's my point? I thought it was self-evident: crazy people come in all shapes and colors. Hugh Kramer's favorite tactic is to find a horrible crime committed by an ostensibly religious person and then blame all of religion as the cause. This is generalizing from the specific and is also assuming an event has a sole cause, both classic logical fallacies.
Using Hugh's logic:
John W. Hinckley, Jr. was obsessed with Jodi foster.
John W. Hinckley, Jr attempted to assassinate the president.
Therefore obsession with Jodi Foster causes people to assassinate the president.
Eugene Hamburger, her last name was "Bishop", a name associated with religion and religious titles.
That fact seems about as strong a correlation as what you suggest in your rant. Or are you a Poe I simply didn't recognize?
PS. You forgot to mention she is likely an evilutionist as well. -2 Points.
Hugh, perhaps YOU ought to read our Bible a wee bit more... ;)
Matthew 15:3-8
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 “ ‘These people honor me with their lips,but their hearts are far from me."
BTW, this couple (and those like them who justify abuse by proof-texting and selective quoting of Scripture) is guilty of horrible sin before God and will have to give an account of their deeds...especially given how much emphasis God places on caring for the weakest and most vulnerable throughout the Hebrew Bible and New Testament.
James-Michael Smith - Methodist Examiner says:
"5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition."
What exactly does this text mean? It sure isn't clear to me. I'd guess its talking about depriving resources to needy parents with the excuse they are needed for some religious purpose?
Eugene Hamburger says:
"I thought it was self-evident: crazy people come in all shapes and colors."
Indeed, they do.
"Hugh Kramer's favorite tactic is to find a horrible crime committed by an ostensibly religious person and then blame all of religion as the cause. This is generalizing from the specific and is also assuming an event has a sole cause, both classic logical fallacies."
Except that's not the case here where the impetus to do what they did comes from a teaching, or so they believed, of a particular ideology.
No one suggests that Jodi Foster advocated such things or played a role in motivating action.
Religions, on the other hand, are usually associated with a set of ideas, including those dictating and trying to control behavior. This is, I would think Kramer's point. If the point is that it is ill advised to uncritically follow literally the admonitions of old religious writing, its on with which I would agree.
these people are definitely unfit parents
Psalms, 137:9 Happy those who seize your children and smash them against a rock.
@Al Cibiades
I did not mean Jodi Foster herself supported the action, I was implying that an "obsession with Jodi Foster" led to an attempted assassination. Ie. that "obsession with celebrities" is a source of evil because one person "obsessed with celebrities" committed an evil act. It's essentially the same as blaming the Manson murders on the Beatles. Just because some religious people are evil does not discredit religion as a whole. There are certainly evil atheist people, but we do not use them to discredit athreism.
Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.
* Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate in physics
Eugene, your logic is obviously flawed and every rational adult who reads your comments can see that. If you are of average intelligence, than I suspect you can see it too, but you're too immature to admit it. It's OK to learn and change.
H _ M I L I T Y
Would you like to buy a vowel?
@Eugene Hamburger: IF Jodi Foster had implicitly advocated violence (which she did not) against elected world leaders (even in the inconsistent fashion that the bible advocates violence against children), then YES we all would criticize her for a President being shot by someone following her rantings. But she had no such rantings. Hinckley's actions were not inspired by Jodi's teachings.
But the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions all have lots of rantings in favor of violence, even against children. (In fact, all these 3 monotheisms trace their start to Abraham being asked to murder his own son to please God, so right from the start this mythic God/Yahweh/Allah loves dabbling in violence against children.) So when a believer follows these religions and uses the religious teachings as a basis for violence against children, then of course we should criticize not only those who acted, but also the teachings that say or imply that such violence is good and is pleasing to this god.
actually, the bible - if one is a literalist - does indeed give the power of life and death to parents (over their children) in no less than 14 different passages, all quite clearly.
well then 2 hell wid u man, if u cum up wid all that rubbish
i dont kno how safe ur children wud b for the society now
"Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB)"
In context, this was for how judges should punish people when convicted of a crime. It wasn't on a personal level.
In Deuteronomy, it was scare tactic, thus the last sentence in verse 21. There's no evidence of this punishment ever being carried out.
"Of course that's just the Old Testament, right? Jesus would never say anything like that... except he does.
“He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” (Matthew 15:4-7)
That gets repeated in Mark.7:9-13 just in case you missed it the first time."
In context, Jesus is talking about the hypocrisy of the Pharisees for their legalistic reasoning to not honor their parents. They were neglecting their responsibilities to their family and, instead, were giving money to the temple in order to glorify themselves for their generous gifts.
Also, you have to remember that Jesus isn't condoning this. He's using it as proof that they're
My wife and I have four children, three of which are adults now. We homeschooled our kids. We believe in Jesus Christ. Are kids are all fine. These parents are demented and arrogant. These parents are on some kind of power trip - loving the exercise of domination and control over their kids - and hiding behind "religion" to justify their means. A lot of people use "religion" to cover or obscure their evil behavior. The real problem is people need to think for themselves. Raising a child involves discipline but there must also be compassion, love and tenderness as well.
the parents need to be whipped till they ask apology from their children
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