A 58 year old guy stabbed his son in Baltimore. Why? Because his son, 19, wouldn't take off his hat.  The kicker? They were in church.  What makes it outrageous? The guy had to get up, go to his car to retrieve his knife, and then walk all the way back inside the church before attacking his OWN SON!!!!  Yes, he ran.

People wonder why I don't go to church, and I think this is another reason.  Here you have a guy who is supposed to be ready to receive instruction from a pastor or priest about living a pious life, loving his neighbor, yada yada yada, but at the age of 58 still can't distinguish appropriate actions from inappropriate, never mind legal.

In my world, simple disrepectful actions or inactions, like wearing your hat inside, deserve a touch of scorn, maybe some chastising if you're closely related and it's done intentionally.   But stabbing?  Churches seem to me to have an effect of convincing people that if they don't act right or feel right about their god, that they are somehow inferior to the guy up front who has several gold jewelries and probably a Lexus or Caddilac paid for with church donations, and is, after all, still just a guy who lives next door to another guy.  

I'm not down with the guilt applied to congregations either intentionally or implicitly, by cause or by accident.  I'm sure that this guy has several other issues, so don't get me wrong, but it seems that at least up until now, the kid didn't get stabbed for wearing his hat at the dinner table, or he'd have already known better.