Religion Strikes Again

JOHANNESBURG -- Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match instead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family in the northeastern part of the country.

David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province, fought with his wife and two children for the remote control on Sunday because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show.

"He said, 'No, I want to watch soccer,'" police spokesman Mothemane Malefo said Thursday. "That is when the argument came about.

"In that argument, they started assaulting him."

Malefo said Makoeya got up to change the channel by hand after being refused the remote control and was attacked by his 68-year-old wife Francina and two children, 36-year-old son Collin and 23-year-old daughter Lebogang.

Malefo said he was not sure what the family used to kill Makoeya.

"It appears they banged his head against the wall," Malefo said. "They phoned the police only after he was badly injured, but by the time the police arrived the man was already dead."

All three were arrested Sunday night, but Lebogang was released on $200 bail Tuesday, Malefo said. The other two are still being held in custody.

Malefo said the mother and son will reappear in the local Seshego Magistrates Court on July 27.

"He was always a happy man, never violent," Makoeya's nieces, Miriam and Anna, told the Daily Sun newspaper. "On Saturday, we saw him the last time at a funeral."

The World Cup, being played in Africa for the first time, started Friday and runs through July 11.

Wouldnt say it was religion. Just a disagreement and some freaky people.

Breaking news, riot has showed up in front of hase's house!

Wouldnt say it was religion. Just a disagreement and some freaky people.

It was Religion.

Let me explain.

If it would have been any other show, the family would not have killed him, and if they did It would have been wrong!

There is a Logical Pathway between Religion and Atrocious acts.

This horrible man changed the channel on their religious television program. How Dare he do that? God shall not tollerate this kind of behavior.

They killed this man in the name of god. Logically, if you think about it, killing him was a righteus act. They really think they did the right thing, and they believe in their hearts that they are good people for doing it.

Magnumatic I love the avatar, how its not been b& is beyond me but it's awesome 1

Troll or not, he has a good point. Most religious people take it extremely personal, therefore any manner of insult or attack against their faith or should something blasphemous arise they more often than not go apeshit and tend to resort to violent reaction.

Well, you see this ***often enough in the news do we not?
But you are correct. Generally these people were passively violent to begin with, however, religious backlash tends to magnify the effect. Sadly resulting in an innocent man's death.

Most people tend to take violent extremists who practice a religion and then make giant blanket statements which is supposed to apply to anyone who follows a religion.

I do have sympathy for the argument that writing off an entire religion, or the practitioners of that religion, because of bad behavior by a few of its members, is wholly unfair.

That having been said, if the followers of said religion do not act better or worse than the general population in any statistically relevant way, what's the point?

For example, the Catholic Church triumphantly announced the other day that the incidence rate of pedophilia by clergy "is no higher than that of the general population."

Okay, great, but isn't that damning with faint praise? What's the point of looking to the church as a moral compass if it evidently doesn't matter either way?

With a dash of 'whatthefuck', but pretty much this. This is people being irrational and *** ridiculous. It's not like they were "Smiting him in the name of Christ!". lol

irrational and *** ridiculous.

Note that I said most take religion personally. In the end it's up to the individual on whether it becomes a violent reaction or not, but you have to admit; violence is a common side effect to religious conflicts as a whole.

Ya most people you hear of take religion personally. The other several billion who don't make the news everyday obviously don't. Violence is the result of a lot of conflicts in general lol. Anywhere you have the clash of ideas, be it religion, money, favorite channels, violence is always a very possible outcome. Religion is no better or worse imo. And if people weren't fighting over religion, they'd just be fighting over something else.