It is only called delusion if you are not religious!

[Lt. Killer M]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...=moreheadlines

Death Opens Doors on Group
Ministry Members Charged in Baltimore After Baby's Body Is Found

By Dan Morse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 29, 2009; Page C01

Members of One Mind Ministries drew little notice in the working-class Baltimore neighborhood where they lived in a nondescript brick rowhouse.

But inside, prosecutors say, horrors were unfolding: Answering to a leader called Queen Antoinette, they denied a 16-month-old boy food and water because he did not say "Amen" at mealtimes. After he died, they prayed over his body for days, expecting a resurrection, then packed it into a suitcase with mothballs. They left it in a shed in Philadelphia, where it remained for a year before detectives found it last spring.

Tomorrow, five of the group's alleged members -- including the boy's mother, Ria Ramkissoon -- are scheduled to be tried in Baltimore on murder charges. Sources and Ramkissoon's mother said Ramkissoon, 22, has agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge on one condition: The charges against her must be dropped if her son, Javon Thompson, is resurrected.

Psychiatrists who evaluated Ramkissoon at the request of a judge concluded that she was not criminally insane. Her attorney, Steven Silverman, said the doctors found that her beliefs were indistinguishable from religious beliefs, in part because they were shared by those around her.

"She wasn't delusional, because she was following a religion," Silverman said, describing the findings of the doctors' psychiatric evaluation.

At the time of Javon's death, thought to be in January 2007, One Mind numbered no more than a dozen adults and children. The group claimed to find authority for its beliefs in the Bible. New members surrendered cellphones and broke off contacts with friends and family, according to law enforcement officials and Silverman.

Silverman said he and prosecutors think Ramkissoon was brainwashed and should have been found not criminally responsible; prosecutors declined to comment. Although an inability to think critically can be a sign of brainwashing, experts said, the line between that and some religious beliefs can be difficult to discern.

"At times there can be an overlap between extreme religious conviction and delusion," said Robert Jay Lifton, a cult expert and psychiatrist who lectures at Harvard Medical School. "It's a difficult area for psychiatry and the legal system."

Ramkissoon's mother, Seeta Khadan-Newton, said she is concerned that Ramkissoon might remain in the thrall of One Mind and back out of the plea agreement at the last minute. "I'm so scared. I don't know what's going to come out of her mouth," Khadan-Newton said.

Under the agreement, Ramkissoon, known within the group as Princess Marie, would plead guilty to child abuse resulting in death and cooperate with prosecutors. The murder charge would be dropped, and prosecutors would recommend probation and treatment.

Ramkissoon was born into a Hindu family in Trinidad but embraced Christianity after she moved to Baltimore at age 7 to live with her mother, a nursing assistant, Khadan-Newton said. She participated in the Junior ROTC program at Northwestern High School and graduated with honors.

In 2005, she became pregnant by her boyfriend. By the time Javon was born, in September of that year, his father was in jail on a charge of attempted murder.

Ramkissoon enrolled in classes to be a pharmacy technician but found it difficult to leave her son with family members, relatives said.

According to Ramkissoon's relatives and law enforcement officials, a friend who was also a new mother told her about a "family" she lived with, about how she didn't have to work and could dedicate herself to raising her son. Ramkissoon paid a visit and soon decided not to return to her family's apartment.

"They promised her safety, a way away from everything," Ricky Ramkissoon said of his older sister. "She probably thought that that's what she needed."

In April 2006, Khadan-Newton tried to persuade her daughter to leave One Mind. Outside the rowhouse, she hugged Ramkissoon and begged her to come home, or at least to let her see Javon. Khadan-Newton said Ramkissoon just stood there, emotionless. "It was like she was a complete stranger," she said.

Ricky Ramkissoon said One Mind allowed him to visit his sister twice before he made clear he didn't want to join. He said he once saw Queen Antoinette blow marijuana smoke in Javon's face. Members of the group believe that marijuana "frees your soul," he said.

Queen Antoinette, 40, does not have an attorney, according to court records. Officially known by that name in the records, she is in jail and could not be reached for comment.

According to charging documents, in December 2006, Javon stopped saying "Amen" at mealtimes. Queen Antoinette told members the boy had developed a demonic spirit and needed to be cleansed through fasting and by being denied water, law enforcement officials said.

Ramkissoon found it "unbearable" to watch but followed the instructions, the officials said. "In her mind, an apostle of God had ordered this," Silverman said.

Javon's skin turned dark and he stopped moving, according to charging documents. Ramkissoon tried to feed him, but his mouth would not open. She felt for a heartbeat but detected none.

The body was placed on a mattress in a back room, and Queen Antoinette told her followers that God would "raise Javon from the dead," according to the charging documents.

Javon's body remained there for at least a week, police said. Eventually, it was wrapped in a blanket and placed in a suitcase. Queen Antoinette burned the mattress and Javon's clothes, police said, and the room was washed down with bleach.

The group came to believe there had been no resurrection because someone among them was not a true believer, according to an attorney for one of the other defendants, Marcus Cobbs. With that person no longer part of the group, they headed north out of Baltimore with the suitcase, believing Javon could be raised at a future date, according to Cobbs's attorney, Maureen Rowland.

For a time, the remaining four adults and two children were homeless, wheeling the suitcase around with them on the streets of Philadelphia. In April 2007, an elderly man whom Queen Antoinette had met a dollar store agreed to keep their luggage in a locked shed while they continued on to New York.

Khadan-Newton found her daughter in Brooklyn in February 2008. She asked her about Javon. "He's gone, he's lost," Ramkissoon told her mother, according to the charging documents.

Khadan-Newton contacted police, and detectives found the suitcase two months later. Investigators approached Ramkissoon. She refused to say where her son was, but she assured them that he was alive. A DNA test, however, soon showed that she was the mother of the dead child, police said.

By late summer, Ramkissoon and the other defendants -- the five adults who prosecutors allege were living at the house when Javon died -- had been charged.

In December, Ricky Ramkissoon visited his sister in the Baltimore jail and found her to be "like a different person every five seconds."

At times, he said, she talked about games they played as children and teased him about his unusual gait. "Do you still walk like Big Bird?" she asked him.

But she lapsed again and again into the beliefs she absorbed as a member of One Mind. At one point, she told him, "Javon isn't dead."

What the fuck?????

First of all, this is murder, nothing else.
Second, there is no difference between religious beliefs that supersede rational perceptions of the real world. We are not talking difficult issues here, like the age of the earth, or speciation, or whether a guy 2000 years ago lived or not, or whether the sun goes round the earth or vice versa. We are talking about a toddler being refused food. ANYONE, whatever his beliefs, must realize that the kids is in danger if he is not fed. Thus, he must be fed. And if your religion contradicts this, then you must dump your religion - period. Anything else is delusion.

Now I can't wait for the religious nuts to come forwards again and whine 'this is not what religion is about', but in reality, this is the core of religion: to hold firm to a belief that is clearly wrong.

I wish there as a hell, so these people could rot in it. Pity it is only a delusion.

[Shabbaman]

tl;dr

You are a bit harsh on religious people by your claim that they hold a belief that's clearly wrong. I fully agree, yet I don't see complete and unmistakable proof on every account. Anyway, doesn't having delusions or religious inspiration count towards not being fully accountable?

BTW, good to see you back on your usual posting spree!

[Lt. Killer M]

Originally Posted by Shabbaman

tl;dr

You are a bit harsh on religious people by your claim that they hold a belief that's clearly wrong.

I said:

religious beliefs that supersede rational perceptions of the real world

and I went out of my way to define that:

We are not talking difficult issues here, like the age of the earth, or speciation, or whether a guy 2000 years ago lived or not, or whether the sun goes round the earth or vice versa.

So I was clearly talking about cases where the belief being wrong is glaringly obvious.

I fully agree, yet I don't see complete and unmistakable proof on every account.

Hu? Sorry, I do not understand what you mean. Proof of insanity? Delusion? murder?

Anyway, doesn't having delusions or religious inspiration count towards not being fully accountable?

That is exactly what makes me so anrgy: on the one hand they give her extra benefit for being religious, as if she was insane, on the other hand they say she is not insane. Either we treat religion as a mental illness, or not. You can't ahve it both ways.

[ProPain]

There definitely are a lot of nutters out there. I can't see a reason why this shouldn't be seen as murder, but I'm no lawyer.

[Shabbaman]

Originally Posted by Lt. Killer M

Hu? Sorry, I do not understand what you mean. Proof of insanity? Delusion? murder?

I meant the proof that what religious people believe in is clearly wrong. But I see now that you're probably aiming at "religious beliefs that supersede rational perceptions of the real world ". I mean: religion is fictional, it's pretty tough to prove fiction is false.

I think under dutch law it doesn't really matter what's causing the delusion. You're not fully accountable, thus escaping the better part of your punishment. On the downside, you'd be spending the rest of your life in the madhouse.

[Lt. Killer M]

Originally Posted by Shabbaman

I meant the proof that what religious people believe in is clearly wrong. But I see now that you're probably aiming at "religious beliefs that supersede rational perceptions of the real world ". I mean: religion is fictional, it's pretty tough to prove fiction is false.

Oh, OK. Sorry, I am not really thinking clearly here...

It is fairly easy to prove the religious belief wrong that earth is flat.

I think under dutch law it doesn't really matter what's causing the delusion. You're not fully accountable, thus escaping the better part of your punishment. On the downside, you'd be spending the rest of your life in the madhouse.

Downside? That's be a blessing for them

[ProPain]

Originally Posted by Lt. Killer M

Downside? That's be a blessing for them

I wouldn't say that. And I think those admissions are not time bound (you stay untill your healed) and they don't count toward you sentence.

[Shabbaman]

Nah. You can get a life sentence here, but that's not very likely. So you'd get 20 years at most, which means you'd be free after 2/3's of that. But if you're delusional you wouldn't be sued for murder but for manslaughter at best, which means you're free in 2/3's of 12 years or so. But TBS (a.k.a. the madhouse) is until the doctors decide you've been cured, which can mean for life. It's a weird system.

[socralynnek]

Originally Posted by Lt. Killer M

Now I can't wait for the religious nuts to come forwards again and whine 'this is not what religion is about', but in reality, this is the core of religion: to hold firm to a belief that is clearly wrong.

I don't agree. Religion is what you make of it. Maybe that is a bit nitpicking but I see a difference between Church (confession) and religion.

Everyone can have it's own definition of what his/her religion is and says. For example, you can treat the Genesis metaphorically or you want to believe it literally (although one could probably call it disproven by facts in many ways).

And I guess there is no bigger confession on Earth who tells someone to let a little kid die because of refusing to say "Amen". It's the crazyness that leads them to be that way.

But I agree with you that they are either fully accountable for what they did (that would mean, they'd get sent to prison for life) or the Religion they believe in should be treated as an illness.

[ProPain]

Originally Posted by Shabbaman

But TBS (a.k.a. the madhouse) is until the doctors decide you've been cured, which can mean for life. It's a weird system.

That's exactly what I meant to say. And those TBS admissions do not count towards your sentence, so if you get 20 years + TBS, you might spend 30 years institutionalised till you're cured and move to the slammer for your 20 year sentence after that.

In general sentences in The Netherlands are low, but TBS can be a serious exception to that.