We’ve discussed what we would do if a god appeared and asked us to kill one of our children. We’d tell him to get lost and then get our heads examined. But if we believed in God and miracles, the request might not seem out of place — after all, in the Bible God did ask Abraham to kill his son as a test of faith.

Something like this happened recently to a Maryland mother.

She was involved with a Christian group called One Mind Ministries. Her son refused to say “amen,” during the meal prayers, so their leader, “Queen Antoinette,” insisted the boy was possessed by a demon. The boy continued to refuse to say the magic word, so she said that God wanted to raise him from the dead. Which, of course, meant he had to die first.

So they put the child away in a back room and prayed — and left him there without food or water for over a week.

The boy died.

No resurrection took place. Any sane person could have told them this, because resurrections only happens in myths and fairy tales. But they were deluded and thought it could happen in real life — an unfortunate consequence of believing in miracles.

The mother has been charged with first-degree murder, but she has insisted on a clause in her plea agreement that requires the charges will be dropped once her son is resurrected. The clause has been accepted.

Amazingly, she still believes:

“She certainly recognizes that her omissions caused the death of her son,” Silverman said. “To this day, she believes it was God’s will and he will be resurrected and this will all take care of itself. She realizes if she’s wrong, then everyone has to take responsibility … and if she’s wrong, then she’s a failure as a mother and the worst thing imaginable has happened. I don’t think that, mentally, she’s ready to accept that.”

What a tragic lesson that deities can’t be relied upon.

If she had only trusted her God less and her reason more, perhaps her child would still be alive.