Murder by prayer: When is enough, enough?

I'm an atheist. I've got plenty of morals, enough to know that insulting people on zero basis and denigrating something you have zero knowledge of is very much against them. Since when is allowing a person to die for lack of any medical consideration a compassionate act? And how the hell can it not be called endangerment?Children die in hospitals because of idiots like you: they defy any reasonable treatment in favour of their silly prayer. And when that fails completely, they try the hospital, only for the child to die soon after because it's far too late. And after all of that, you have the balls to criticise doctors for not saving somebody's life?Of course, it goes without saying that none of those medicines and treatments actually work, huh. It's just voodoo and magic and Satanist worshipping that lets people walk out better than they went in. Yes, because those evil atheist doctors are all secular and despise the notion of any form of religion, especially Christianity. And all they could ever want is to cause harm to all those patients.Silly us! If these people want to hurt us so badly, why do we keep going back to them? You don't think it might be because they actually saved our lives in the first place? Yeah, religion has always been a great supporter of human rights. Things like the Crusades, the Inquisition, shariah law: all excellent examples of religion getting right in behind and pushing those rights forward.
Doesn't your precious little book say something about twigs and logs in eyes? And you're an example of perfection yourself, I guess? Well, sorry for not reaching your standards, I'm afraid the rest of us will just need tp put up with reality them. Do you even hear yourself talk sometimes? Or does it just dribble out under no control?

Don't fucking quotemine me, thank you very much.
No. They were initially taught to me by an atheist mother, and developed further by my own atheistic experience. Your silly book had nothing to do with it, except to drive me towards rationality and away from blind dogma.

Those people are kept alive at the parents' wishes, not the doctor's. You will often find that the doctor is the one advocating acknowledgement of the reality of the situation.

I defend secularism because only by keeping idiot religions like yours out of control can we hope to maintain basic freedoms like privacy and life, let alone advanced ones like speech and opinion.

This defense is certainly not blind. Rather, it is supported by the hundreds of cases wherein religious leadership resulted in utter suppression of anything remotely resembling nonconformity to a rigid and intolerant set of outmoded beliefs and rituals.

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wrong. they die in hospitals because of bad treatments, quacks, equipment failures etc., and because it is time. God doesn't promise long life to everyone

See, that's the thing. Quacks aren't allowed in hospitals, because quacks kill people. Not just accidentally or because they messed up, but by definition.

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Stupid bullshit like the "Vitamin C miracle" recently promoted in my country; dumb stuff like your "effective prayer treatment. If you were to try that on a hundred other patients like him from the start, you would end up with a huge number of deaths and a huge number of malpractise lawsuits. Whereas if you try these things called mainstream professional medicine, you manage to save upwards of 90% and you avoid any possibility of fingerpointing.

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Then again, what is this "God says it is your time" crap? Do we have free choice, or do we not? Because God telling us when our time happens is in direct contradiction of free will. So, which is it? You cannot say both, yet I have a feeling you will, because that is the nature of your particular flavour of contradictory belief system.

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yes, please practice it before condemning christians who practice their faith. the crusades, the inquisition, sharia law has nothing to do with me or christianity. compare their words and actions to God's and Christ's instruction and you will see that those men were not following God...

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The Crusades and the Inquisition. Having nothing to do with Christianity. Enough said.
Shariah law, no, nothing to do with Christianity. But you seem to forget that that kind of idiots also prays to their deity, and they're exactly the same god. It's a demonstration that ignorance and superstition are not confined to only your type of fundamentalism, but are universal traits amongst the moronic.

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the restof your post isn't worth comment because your emotionalism influences your thinking the wrong way

And none of your posts are worth replying to because your sheer stupidity and faith influences your thinking at all.

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But I do it anyway, because there aren't any intelligent fundies around to have a debate with at the moment. You've got a nerve to call me emotional, when the first response you throw at anyone is an accusation of dishonesty or Christ-hating.

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Now: evidence, or GTFO.

Just like that child was permitted their rights to life, to health; their right to freedom from religion?
We've got an argument, and you continue to ignore it in favour of quotemining and personal attack (ironical, since you say everybody else does it).Omnivorous asked you a simple question: "does this include newborn infants?". He made no mention of anything else whatsoever, except for commenting on the fact that society does indeed have the power to intrude upon your life for many reasons. It is only your persecution complex that make you think he is saying anything remotely about you in particular. He offered a reasonable question, and you launched directly into a rabid tirade accusing him of personal attack.So, for those of us who are interested in reasonable debate, can you answer his question? It would help a large amount with actually understanding your position clearly on the matter. I don't think you'll answer; rather, your pattern suggests you will ignore the question, accuse me of making a personal attack, and follow that up with your idea that I am naught but an evil atheist God-hater.Science at work right there; let's see if it works.

Your position is either that parents should be allowed to do whatever they like, and therefore that children have no rights at all. Or that children do indeed have rights and that parents cannot infringe upon them, and therefore that parents cannot be allowed to do whatever they like. One or the other, this time without the preaching attached, please.I note that you similarly dodged Omnivorous' question too, despite clearly quoting it. All that is required of you there is a simple yes or no, once again without any decoration. Are these rights so limited that a child cannot be allowed to live if their parents refuse to allow reasonable treatment? Who is violating whose rights here; the parents denying the right to live, or the child their right to believe? You can ask pretty much any judge - any judge of any religion - and they'll say the same thing: your rights do not override theirs.I think you'll also find that the US Constitution has these attachments called the Bill Of Rights (which are by definition part of the Constitution) which states 'Freedom of' also includes 'freedom from', by all common applications of this (or similar) law in that and other judicial systems. That means you can believe whatever you like and nobody is allowed to make you do otherwise; it also means I can sit out and not believe anything, and you can't force me to make me do otherwise either. Unless you wish to deny the fact that I cannot force you to be a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist?

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Finally, on the side: Check. Damn, not quite. You accused me of planning to make a personal attack if you say too much (which you did, anyway; and many would say so did I). Check.
Well, two-and-a-half out of three ain't bad.Edited by Nij, : Fix quoteboxes; add horizontal line.

Yes, it is a simple yes or no question. Either you believe that parents can do whatever they like to and with their children, or you believe that there are limits on what parents can do to and with their children.Either you allow everything, or you place limits. Either you allow prayer healing and rape and abuse, or you place limits preventing all three.If you cannot pick one, then yours is the double standard: you only wish to protect the silly belief that your invisible friend might do something, not that parents can do whatever they like.And you also failed utterly regarding the Constitution. Completely and wholly failed. "Free exercise" refers to the child just as much as the parent. One cannot override the other: parents cannot force their beliefs onto their children, nor can they deny the child their rights. And if you want to contest that point, I'll quote your very own words back at you. Something about "I do not have a problem with doctors and hospitals, because they succeed far more often than they fail. Prayer healing literally requires a miracle to cure even the basic common cold and is entirely unreliable.I have no problem with idiots like you dying from lack of medical care. But you have no rights whatsoever to kill anybody, let alone a child, for the sake of some naive ignorant belief. Says the one breaking every forum rule, making argument ad hom, and who never provides any evidence at all.

These are exactly the same issue: do parents have the right, to do whatever they like, to their children?That is the question we are discussing and all three are subissues. Either you allow all in which case you are inhumane, or you allow none in which case you are just like everyone else (i.e. rational), or you have a double-standard, in which case you are inconsistent and we should ignore your ideas about the functioning of society. In fact, we may as well do that anyway. No, you are!! wow, I see why you love doing that emotional thing. It's far easier than actually thinking of a response.

You won't find your God here and you've said yourself often enough that we would kick him out if it was, so maybe it's better for you to fuck off and let the rest of talk sensibly. Nobody here would say you have engaged in reasonable debate: you consistently ignore points asked of you despite repeated aksing, you never provide evidence, you reply to every criticism with personal attack and preaching, you refuse to follow the rules, you can't stay on topic, and you continue to posit your initial assertion without ever backing it up. You argue against your own position, FFS.The rest of your post is gibberish.

No, you clearly were off topic. That is why I kept asking the question that was on topic. I am not equating them except in the area of denial of rights. If you kill your child through your silly healing ideas, you have denied their rights. If you rape them because of whatever mental issues you have, you have denied their rights.That is the sense in which they are equated. None other. So please, stop dodging the question, and answer: are all denials of a child's rights okay, or are there limits? I will include any death of a child at the hands of a doctor to be neglect, if they indeed die of neglect. And guess what? That happens too: we prosecute anybody who is guilty of neglect. Ahh, yes, because of course The One True Truth™ is on your side! Well, seeing as your position is obviously unassailable you won't mind me asking you to get lost and letting us "secularists" have a debate about what we in the real secular world will do.

Nothing wrong with being both. If you don't believe in a god, you're atheist; if you don't believe it's possible to know for sure either way, then you're agnostic.So, welcome to the A&A Club! We have half-price drinks on Thursday and partners are welcome lol.

The question has always been, in some form or other, whether there are limits or not.
Since he has not answered that simple question, we cannot move on to the next one, which is "who determines that limit"?" nor the third, which is "how should they determine where those limits are?" nor even the basic opinion question "where do you think the line shoud be drawn?".As to equating them, I did not want an observer to think I was equating the entirety of prayer/faith healing with rape. Thus I specified that it was only concerning the area of rights denial, where that was applicable.
Would you have been happier if I had said "prayer healing that denies a child's rights" and then directly equated it to rape?

Don't misrepresent every other person here then. Nobody ever said faith healing was the same as rape. Faith healing that leads to somebody dying when it could have been easily stopped is being equated to familial rape, viz. both lead to irreparable breach of the innate and legal rights of the child.That rape and that neglect/ignorance/breahc of rights/call-it-what-you-will are the same thing: each is covered by "BOTH spiritual and secular law". And we don't like your apparent thinking that nobody has the right to step in, tell a parent that raping and murdering their children is a bad thing, and prevent that rape or murder from happening again.
I think you don't actually think that. But that's because you won't clarify your position on the matter.For the umpteenth time: are there limits on what the parents may do, or are there not?It is a simple one-or-the-other question, and would greatly move the debate forward if you could state which one you believe. Just because you don't believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't mean His Noodliness does not exist and does not interact with terrestrial life.See, that's the thing. Whatever you say about your god, we can say precisely the same thing about ours (whether they are invented or we actually believe them to exist) and still be exactly as correct as you are.

So, he presented general symptoms, and only a couple of them, inconsistent with a specific ailment, and they couldn't narrow down the options to one that is rare enough to not be considered above most others without fairly extensive testing and specialist knowledge?Glad to see you expect perfection from your faith healing, then. As for us, the real world isn't so nice and humans aren't the epitome of 100% accuracy.

You criticised the doctors for not finding a "walnut-sized tumour in the base of his tongue". Tumours are hard enough to find in the first place; the patient had only two symptoms that normally indicate many other problems.Why criticise something for not being perfect, when you do not expect perfection of your own supposedly better system?

And those hospitals would have suredly been sued and prosecuted for that neglect. We aren't advocating a double standard: neglect gets punished no matter who does it.Further, you ignore the millions of cases each year where lives are saved -- definitvely saved, as in "that person would have certainly died if the surgery hadn't happened" -- by ERs and hospitals. You have yet to provide a single case where faith healing was demonstrated to work.So, as it stands, medicine is better than faith healing. This is a fact. And those on the better side certainly have the right to point fingers at the one that clearly isn't working.

No. They obviously didn't. Because otherwise, they would not be getting prosecuted for neglecting their child through not providing medical aid when necessary.They had a simple choice: get something that is demonstrated to work exceedingly often and which is so easily provided they could have done it in ten minutes, or try something, which you have said yourself you cannot support with evidence, that is known to be horribly inconsistent and nowhere near reliable enough.They neglected their responsibilities. Hence they are prosecuted for neglect.
They denied the rights of their child. Hence neither they nor you has any ability to claim they were just exercising their rights. Hence the judicial system has every right to punish them for their nonactions.Attempting to deny that modern medicine works is a folly. Attempting to claim faith healing as a viable alternative is almost something deserving of a conviction for its sheer ignorance and moral blindness.And if you cannot see why letting any person -- let alone a child that cannot do anything to defend themselves against the practise -- die for the mere absence of a single injection is wrong, then perhaps you should check in to some sort of therapy; there's clearly something wrong with you in that case where you don't know why letting someone die is bad.