WTF?

The mayor of an Arkansas town resigned on Wednesday, claiming he was abducted and brainwashed by Satan worshippers nearly three decades ago.

Centerton Mayor Ken Williams said he has been living under an assumed name for nearly 30 years. He had been mayor since 2001.

Williams told authorities he was born Don LaRose and that in the mid-1970s, he was a preacher in Indiana. He said he was abducted and brainwashed into forgetting all about his life as Don LaRose.

It was a double-life he had never acknowledged, Williams said, because he didn't even realize it existed until he had recently taken a truth-serum injection.

As Williams regained his memory, he said, he realized that he had a wife and two kids but that he had decided to leave and take on a new identity to protect them.

"I had no choice. The choice was to watch my family killed before my eyes or go with these people, and I chose instead to run," Williams said.

He wouldn't explain from who he was running, saying only that he had been brainwashed.
"I had multiple shock treatments," Williams said. "It took five years to get my memory back."

Look I know that I have a habit of labeling certain religious groups as being naive and easily manipulated, and that probably is not entirely fair (I actually have lots of friends who are church goers and I have nothing but respect for them as individuals). But you just know that a large number of people will buy this line of bullshit simply because he used the catchword for all evil in our country, "satanists". Christians love to pretend that the world is split right down the middle between those that are good, the Christians, and those that are bad, Satanists (or in a pinch Atheists).

This guy ran out on his family, for reasons that he would rather not divulge, and he concocts the lamest story imaginable to excuse his unforgivable decision. And he does it because he knows that there are many who will hear his explanation and want to believe it because it reinforces their belief in an organized evil force which is threatening their religion.

And that not only undermines the validity of their belief system, but it makes them seem embarrassingly ignorant.

So though I may like and respect many of the individuals who are members of this religion, as a whole they just seem ridiculous.

No offense.