A couple in Las Vegas has beaten their seven year-old child to death for not reading the bible.

Police say Palmer later admitted that he beat Roderick with numerous household items, including a belt, a spatula and a wooden paddle, as well as with his hands. Dina Palmer, who initially denied involvement in the beatings, subsequently confessed to participating in the abuse. Markiece Palmer later told police that he beat Roderick because the boy lied about reading a chapter in the Bible. The next day, the boy was beaten again when he lied about completing his homework. When police asked Dina Palmer about the bruises on the boy’s body, she allegedly confessed that they were from “whoopins” administered by her and her husband. A warranted search of their residence turned up a broken, bloody broomstick, belts, cords, spatulas and bloody clothes.

If only there had been a passage that said “Don’t beat your children.” Perhaps it could’ve been put in place of Proverbs 13:24.

Sadly, there are some people in the world whose reserves of either compassion or intellect are so deficient that they cannot deduce that beating their child is immoral. These are the type of people who can look at the rusty moral tatters of societies thousands of years dead and think that they are superior to a fully developed human conscience.

For those who can’t figure out that beating your children is morally reprehensible on their own, the bible seems to be little help, if any. The faithful will soon be ironically bellowing that the solution to this type of thing is more faith. But one thing is unequivocally certain here: these parents believed. They believed in Jesus more deeply than most. They felt that reading the bible was of tremendous importance, compared to most Christians who haven’t read the thing. And their devout faith did not make them better. That’s how useful the bible is at promoting morality.

When do we get to beat god to death for making his book so boring that nobody wants to read it? When do we get to beat him to death for forgiving parents who murder their child, so long as they believe Christ died for them, while punishing the virtuous who can’t believe the absurd?