Murder by prayer: When is enough, enough?

You know, if you wrote blatant falsehoods less often people would be less liable to think of you as the sort of person who frequently writes blatant falsehoods. And being less thoroughly despicable, you would be less thoroughly despised. I think that you will find that it is not only atheists who have a sense of right and wrong. Many theists have one too. For example, it would seem an incredible coincidence if all the jurors who found the parents guilty of murder all just happened to be atheists, in a nation so God-ridden as the United States of America. No, just those resulting from deliberate neglect --- as of course we do. As has been made clear to you.Indeed, in my opinion doctors would be even more culpable in such a case, insofar as they have a clearer knowledge of the consequences of such neglect. And no-one said that it was, and it would be stupid and dishonest for you to pretend that they did.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And today this is illegal; and only a handful of nutters are still trying to justify slavery from Scripture. And this seems to me to be more civilized. I guess saying that is easier than finding anything wrong with anything I actually wrote. But perhaps ultimately less convincing. If you can't be bothered to recapitulate any of the points made in in, it can't be that relevant. That wasn't quote-mining, just quoting, and it requires no labor on my part to make you look silly. You're already doing such a splendid job without my aid. If you have any arguments in favor of this piece of moral idiocy, now would be the time to explain what they are. What I do not like is that the parents did not seek medical help for their child. So, one more time.Do parents have the right to rape their children?Does the civil power have the right to intervene? I never said it was. Or to put it another way --- if I was a stupid and wicked person who did stupid and wicked things, then I would hold stupid and wicked opinions.But I'm not and I don't, so I see no relevance to this observation. I might as well point out that if you were a Nazi, you would say that there was nothing wrong with Nazism. While this is true, it would not be a criticism on any arguments that the actual-real-world-you might choose to advance against Nazism.

As a matter of fact, they can be and they are.If you felt fervently that God wanted you to stone me to death, it would still be murder if you did so. Though you might plead insanity. So, one more time.Do parents have the right to rape their children?Does the state have the right to intervene? My beliefs don't kill children. It is easy --- since I don't kill children.It's also easy for me to condemn (to take an example at random) arson, since I don't set fire to buildings.And your point would be? So far, it simply seems that you're attacking me for not being a hypocrite.

It certainly does not. It means that we criminalize those people who make decisions which are ... against the law. A radical concept, I know. Hmm, let me just check ... no, I still haven't let a child die of neglect.

So you do, in fact, think that we don't have the right to prevent parents from raping their children.I see.One more question for you. Suppose that parents, devout worshipers of Moloch, decide to burn their child alive as a sacrifice to their god.Can we intervene then?Again, they are not our children, and again, we admit our own imperfection.

But this seems to have odd consequences.For example, according to this notion, a pastor should not, in his capacity as a pastor, tell his congregants not to use medicine: that would be wrong. But according to this and your other posts on the subject, you seemingly feel that he can then blamelessly go home and, in his capacity as a father, withhold insulin from a diabetic child.To put it more concisely, you would permit him to put into practice what you would forbid him merely to preach. This strikes me as peculiar.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Could you try to be a little more truthful on this subject?The objection to these parents is that they didn't get their child any medical care.They have a complete right to also perform whatever pointless little rituals take their fancy, be it faith-healing or the hiring of a witch-doctor.

Once more, you are being untruthful. It is not the faith healing that is murder, but the failure to get medical help.As for "making people suffer because of someone's subjective opinion not fact or reality", isn't that just what the parents in this case did? In fact and in reality, God did not heal their child despite their subjective opinion that he would.

When I say "medical", I mean medical, not miraculous.And they did not in fact get miraculous help, either. Some of the problems with this view have already been pointed out to you, by me amongst others. How is that a "no" to what I said? They acted on a subjective belief which in fact turned out not to be true. Now suppose I turn my back on him and walk away, while murmuring a prayer to God to send an angel to pull him up.Wouldn't I be at least morally, and perhaps criminally, culpable?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Healing, yes, medical, no. Not unless God makes pills rain from heaven. I do understand that God doesn't provide everything we ask for. And in this particular case, he didn't. So the parents did not in fact get help. Such things can of course be plead as a mitigating factor. Like the parents ignoring the fact that they were the "angels" there to help their child. I said "perhaps" criminally. No, under my logic they would be to blame if, a lifebelt being to hand, they prayed instead of throwing it to him.They are not obliged to try to save him by swimming if they cannot in fact swim.

Which is a good argument againt medical neglect. 'Cos it kills people. But "our side" is that people should not suffer from medical neglect.When you point out that people can die of medical neglect you support our case.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Quite so. Some people do indeed need medical attention or they will die. And I have said and will say again that it is wrong if people are denied medicine on such grounds.How about you?

No-one "equated" them, but they do have one thing in common --- if you do it irresponsibly, you could kill someone.

I'll ask you again if you think the jury were all atheists.Reckoning atheists at a generous 10% of the population, the odds against this are (other things being equal) are a trillion to one against. (I am presuming here that, as usual, a unanimous verdict is required for a murder conviction.) Religious people answer to the law. (Note that, like juries, legislative bodies are overwhelmingly made up of theists.) Moreover, the Bible says repeatedly (as I have detailed in another post) that Christians are obliged to obey the civil authority. In this particular case, the people who thought that God would heal their child were wrong. And then when they went on believing that God would raise their child from the dead, they were still wrong.If you'd asked me what was going to happen, I'd have been right.

It's germane to your efforts to blame an outcome you don't like on atheists. The jury, the prosecutors office, the police, the legislature, et cetera, were undoubtedly overwhelmingly theists --- just theists with different opinions from you. It means exactly that their request went unanswered, since the child (a) died and (b) did not rise from the dead. Feel free to quote them.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.