This is an illustration of the dangers of superstitious religion. Defenders of theism will say "I wouldn't do that, my religion would never do such barbaric things..."
If you were raised as this mother, totally indoctrinated and insulated from the real world, can you be so sure?
No, we cannot be sure and this sobering fact is hard for many people to accept. The truth is, for any person, the right combination of events and circumstances can make us become someone we hate and do things that we would never even think we are capable of.
Truth is, while sometimes I wonder how my life would've been like had my parents been into church more when I was growing up. I find myself looking back now and being so thankful for the wisdom they had in choosing not to go to church regularly. They believe in God, this I know, but they do not like some of the ways of the churches and frankly, neither do I. I personally find a lot of religious people to be far from the kind of Christians I think they should be.
Their decision not to go to church regularly gave us kids freedom to use our minds and come to our own conclusions on our appropriate world views. I am the only child who turned to Christianity for comfort and yet I do not get too heavily religious. My two sisters aren't into religion at all, and my brother is an atheist.