A 3-year-old girl died during an ‘exorcism.’ A judge has now ruled her family can stand trial

Her mom told investigators that her daughter was possessed and said that God “took” Arely during the exorcism because she was not meant to be a mother.
...
The grandfather told police Claudia said her daughter ‘was not a normal girl.’ When Rene arrived at the ritual, Arely was alive, but her mom said she was going to die, he told investigators.
Defense attorneys have argued the suspects did not intend to kill Arely.

Sure sounds an awful lot like the mother planned for that poor kid to die.

And all this occurred within a church. Where are the charges against the church?

I do at least agree with her that she shouldn't be a mother.
- Yeah she should have made this decision much earlier but maybe saving her daughter from a life of misery.
- No, god said that
Mental illness, religion, or murder? Who knows
- Why’d you repeat the same thing twice at the start?
- A healthy cocktail of all three perhaps
Could be attributed to religious psychosis, but sounds like some Casey Anthony shit.
And all this occurred within a church. Where are the charges against the church?
Oh, haha, first time witnessing religion complicit in criminal activity, huh?
Sounds like they intended to kill the child and came up with this exorcism bullshit to try to argue "Religious Freedom" in court
It's a Pentacostal church, wouldn't be surprised if they do the snake handling thing.

Someday, and I hope to live to see it, overt religious beliefs will be classified as a mental illness.

I'd settle for it being widely seen as the ignorant anachronism that it is and their power over secular government being completely wrested.
If an elected leader from my country said that we need to curry favor with Neptune to stop a dry season I'd want them thrown out as would many others probably. But every day we have leaders around the world making decisions based on their Iron Age faith and that's seen as okay...because they're part of the same club? Out of the spirit of acceptance? Personally my acceptance is wearing thin watching these nutjobs break whatever they can. They belong in communes in the woods, not leading nuclear-armed countries.
They already are. The diagnosis is schizotypal personality disorder.
I'm an atheist and think overt religious beliefs are ridiculous, for rational reasons.
However, religious beliefs are so common and dominant that it would never be labelled a mental illness because it clearly isn't. It would be like claiming that after you turn off the lights, every once in a while, you want to hustle up the stairs a bit more quickly because you get a weir feeling, is a mental illness, even if you rationally know you're safe.
It's a natural state that probably has (or comes from) an evolutionary advantage. It's just something we rationally should be able to get ourselves past.
But a mental illness? Not even close.
- “Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and the tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations - and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there weren't any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learn to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favours the paranoid. Even here in the 21st century we can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us.”
  ― Peter Watts, Echopraxia
Will probably omly bolster their believers
I don't see how that would work. I was overt religious and left. Did I suddenly go from insane to sane?
- Why not? Illnesses can be cured.
- Recovery is a process! Good for you!
- It's if you see a differentiation between "mental illness" and "mental disorder". It makes sense that "mental illness" can be something which is detrimental to health or debilitating (like anything that gives a significantly warped and unreasonable perception of reality) and that may be non-lifelong/non-chronic, while "mental disorder/disability" is exclusively neurological differences that are lifelong/chronic and usually apparent during development (Autism, ADHD, mood & anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, etc.), imo.
  It's like how "illness" can refer to a spread disease or sickness and isn't just disabilities. I see no reason to separate physical and mental illness from each other. Same with disorders. They're just illness and disorder/disability.

Anyone who seriously thinks a demon can possess a human should be put in jail.

Mental hospital.
- The republicans did away with mental healthcare long ago. Wonder why? Hahah
I think a demon can possess a human. In fact, some of my best friends are demons who stole human bodies.
- How do you know they stole them? Might have been a fair exchange.

Her mom, Claudia Hernandez, 26, uncle, Rene “Aaron” Hernandez Santos, 20, and grandfather, Rene Trigueros Hernandez, 60, were all charged with assault on a child causing death.

Unless there is no way to charge someone with manslaughter when it comes to killing a child, this should at the very least be manslaughter, although I would suggest third degree murder would apply.

This carries a higher penalty (25 to life, compare with manslaughter's up to 11).
I’m guessing for murder you have to prove intent or something? Which maybe the prosecution didn’t think they could do for a jury. The defense is obviously going to try to get some Christians on the jury.

Put the whole clan and anyone from the church involved or with prior knowledge of this behind bars.

God dammit. That poor baby. I just wish we were better.

Is "we" the majority of people around the globe? Because most people around the globe wouldnt do this id wager.
They'd beat her mercilessly and then ~~sell her off~~ have an arranged marriage by 10 where shed continue to be beaten for most of her life.
But they probably wouldnt kill a 3 year old.
- They’d beat her mercilessly and then sell her off have an arranged marriage by 10 where shed continue to be beaten for most of her life.
  Developing Middle Eastern, Asian or African countries aren’t doing stuff like this in urban areas. The backwards religious attitudes are more prevalent in rural regions
- Most people are religious still, and religion is certainly a slippery slope, so yes.

It makes me sick that i bet someone like Uncle Rucus performed it and no one rational was around to save her.

Reference: https://youtu.be/L8pNyN6WjgQ?si=_FiZ9ArlwAND6whi

I agree with the mental hospital. They are not criminal, just criminally insane.

One does not exclude the other.

Shit like this makes me question my opposition to summary executions.

I'm good with giving shitty people the death penalty. I'd be down for making more things punishable by death, but... I don't trust the system to determine guilt or innocence reliably enough.

Should just drown the baby in the baptismal font, straight to heaven.