Student assaults teacher, attempts to purify "witch"

WTF? This is the sort of story that makes me empathize with the New Atheists. Of course the guy is mentally ill, but his mental illness certainly seems shaped by his religious views.

As a teacher (of comparative religion no less) I find this doubly horrifying. If you had told me that in the 21st century we'd have an adult student attacking his teacher with holy water because he suspected the teacher of being a witch (because the teacher had him read The Crucible), I'd have laughed in your face. After all how could you have flying cars and people who still believed in holy water living in the same reality?

clipped from www.clickondetroit.com Ferndale police said an adult education student tossed liquid on a teacher because he believed she was a witch who needed to be purified. Police said 20-year-old Darin Najor of Ferndale threatened the teacher last month at Taft Education Center a day after confronting her about Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," which focuses on the Salem Witch Trials. Detective Ken Denmark told The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak that Najor says he was trying to purify the teacher with holy water. Denmark said Najor also had a lighter and wanted to, in his words, "burn the witch."

clipped from www.dailytribune.com "The suspect later told us he was trying to kill the witch by pouring holy water over her head," said Ferndale Detective Ken Denmark. "We confiscated two lighters from him and he was committed for psychiatric evaluation." Najor asked the teacher if she believed in witchcraft, police said. The teacher told him she did not believe in witchcraft and explained that the events in the play were a metaphor for unjust persecution, police said. "The suspect threw his homework papers on the floor and declared it was all blasphemy," Denmark said. "The next day he came up behind her chanting what sounded like religious verses while she was working at her desk."