Newly released video shows the malnourished son of a parenting advice YouTuber approaching a neighbor for help on the morning that his mother and her business partner were arrested on child abuse charges.

The malnourished and badly bruised son of a parenting advice YouTuber politely asks a neighbor to take him to the nearest police station in newly released video from the day his mother and her business partner were arrested on child abuse charges in southern Utah.

The 12-year-old son of Ruby Franke, a mother of six who dispensed advice to millions via a popular YouTube channel, had escaped through a window and approached several nearby homes until someone answered the door, according to documents released Friday by the Washington County Attorney’s office.

Crime scene photos, body camera video and interrogation tapes were released a month after Franke and business partner Jodi Hildebrandt, a mental health counselor, were each sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. A police investigation determined religious extremism motivated the women to inflict horrific abuse on Franke’s children, Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke announced Friday.

“The women appeared to fully believe that the abuse they inflicted was necessary to teach the children how to properly repent for imagined ‘sins’ and to cast the evil spirits out of their bodies,” Clarke said.

  • @Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
    2•3 months ago

    Yes, and all of that is still pure fucking evil, no matter how hard you wanna spin it. You said there was no child abuse. Well there it is. I do not care at all how you want to explain it away. Sounds like nothing but devil worship to me.

    The context is that a bunch of primitive desert nomads wanted to kill their neighbors, steal their land, loot their cities, rape and terrify their children, enslave the survivors and still feel like they were good, moral, chosen people. So they made up excuses about how the man in the sky said that what they did, and planned to keep doing, was all ok. So were they listening to God, the Devil, or were they just a bunch of men making stuff up? That’s the only context that matters.

    The basis for your belief system is that these assholes had life figured out. You and I both seem to agree that they didn’t. So why do you keep defending them? Why do you believe in the religion built on their terrible foundation?

    • FlaxEnglish
      1•3 months ago

      There’s no child abuse prescribed. Doesn’t mean that there are no descriptions of it happening.

      I believe in the religion because a person called Jesus was Prophecied about, was actually born, performed miracles and fulfilled prophecies, claimed to be God, then died and rose again back to life, was physically seen by many, before ascending into heaven.

      • @Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
        1•3 months ago

        And yet despite your protests, it absolutely does prescribe child abuse, genocide, slavery, rape, kidnapping, murder, and torture. It calls the men who committed those atrocities righteous. Christians only began to consider them crimes in the last century or so. You claim that followers of Yahweh should have just read between the lines to know that these were lessons for what not to do. But instead, for some 4000 years, followers of those scriptures enthusiastically did all of those things, because they wanted to and scripture said it was okay. The fact that you now believe those things are wrong is proof that you do not get your morality from those scriptures, but rather from the modern, secular culture in which you were born.

        • FlaxEnglish
          1•3 months ago

          but rather from the modern, secular culture in which you were born.

          🤣 and where did this culture get their morality from?

          It’s absolutely obvious that you’re not supposed to use the book of Judges as “what to do”. The Bible isn’t entirely a list of instructions or commandments. It’s a record of God’s people.

          Murdering and raping children has been a crime since… Forever. To claim that such a thing was permissible until the last century when “secular culture” stepped in to save it is incredibly unhinged historical revisionism. But of course that’s what you need to conclude something as mad as atheism. Scripture NEVER said what happened in Judges was okay. NOT ONCE. Israel literally got split in half over it. The Bible also makes it clear that NOBODY is righteous.

          Romans 3:9-31 ESV‬

          [9] What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10] as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; [11] no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12] All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” [13] “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” [14] “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” [15] “Their feet are swift to shed blood; [16] in their paths are ruin and misery, [17] and the way of peace they have not known.” [18] “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” [19] Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20] For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. [21] But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— [22] the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26] It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. [27] Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. [28] For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. [29] Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, [30] since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. [31] Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

          • @Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
            1•3 months ago

            Except that Christians have been doing all that stuff the entire time. Because the book said they could.

            Modern secular society looked at all the harm done by religion and decided those things were wrong all by ourselves. That’s the power of democracy for you. It’s so much better than taking life advice from ancient people who beat each other to death with rocks.

            So I’ll ask you again. Why do YOU think genocide, slavery, rape, child abuse, and torture are wrong? Is the Bible the word of God? Is it just another book written by men? Or did Satan write it pretending to be God?

            And how do you know?

            • FlaxEnglish
              0•3 months ago

              Wasn’t it child sacrifice and wife burning- the type of pagan crap Christians eradicated?