Hey guys. I've read through this whole thread with much interest and have decided to jump in (against my better judgement, probably, but here goes).
H writes:
Flies Only writes:
can you assure me that Madeline's parents were not whimsically praying?
No, this is why I would like to stay away from particulars of that case, which might change with time. If a police investigation found out that they were just making shit up, and didn't believe in prayer, or take measures to figure out what they ought to do in prayer (i.e. take that seriously) then they ought to be hit with neglect charges.
If one wants to take on the role of doctor, even witch-doctor, you better be serious about it or face the charges for malpractice.
Why do the particulars of this case make it any different from any other death through prayer only? The question posed to you (by FO and by Mod as well, I believe) was how does anyone know how they were praying or what they were praying for?
They could have been praying for God to take her to heaven. They could have been praying too little or not hard enough. They could have not been praying at all!
How does one determine that they are "serious about it" since they decided to "take on the role of doctor"/healer? The point is that one cannot do that.
Just as in the case of the woman who was told to breastfeed and her baby died due to malnutrition, the parents should have realized that their daughter was not getting any better through all their (supposed) praying and then taken another course of action. Their intentions may have been all well and good in the beginning (just like the breastfeeding mother), but there should come a point when well intentioned, but ignorant, parents realize that their child is going to die without an alternative.
Parents who beat their children with the "good intention" of saving their soul from the corruption of sin that would be inevitable without the beatings are not protected by the law under religious freedom or the "integrity of the family," nor should they be, so how is letting your child die with "good intentions" any different?
The parents who
kept their foster kids in cages said that they were only doing it to "protect" them and the other kids. Good intentioned, I'm sure, but still cruelty and they were prosecuted and sentenced (too lightly IMO). Of course, they weren't doing it for religious reasons, but their intentions were supposedly good, so what gives?
And then we have cases like the
woman in Texas who beat her sons to death because God told her to kill them. Who are we to say that He didn't? She's obviously mentally ill (to me and the experts), but who are we to say that?
My answer is that we have evidence that she was mentally ill and no evidence for God actually talking to people, just like we have evidence that medicine works (in most cases, and especially in the case of Madeline Neumann) and no evidence that prayer works.
So, in the majority of cases, the religious excuse just doesn't cut it when it comes to affecting another person. Why are cases like the one in the OP different?
I would agree to some degree with the Reynolds decision, but not completely. I understand the limit on practices which involve infliction of harm to others. This would include children in most cases. There is a difference between that sort of activity and choosing not to use certain methods which are deemed harmful or repellent to religious belief.
But,
how are they different? That is what you have failed to answer (I'm not sure if the question has been directly posed to you in this thread, but I am asking it now).
I agree that there is a degree of difference, just as in the difference between murder and negligent homicide, but what exactly is the difference between sacrificing a child in the name of religion or just killing your kid because "God said so" (murder) and letting your child die with or without "good intentions" (negligent homicide) in the name of religion?
In both scenarios, the parents probably thought that they were doing what was best (and who are we to mess with family integrity??). So, tell me why one should be prosecuted and one should not.
You are right that people do not have the right to harm another based on their personal belief system. I think the saying goes that my right to swing my fists around ends at the point of some other person's nose. We are all on the same page with regard to this point and so there is absolutely no way that you can beat your wife for burning anything, except perhaps one of your body parts... and that only if you did not ask her to do so first.
The only exception to the rule above is children. Minors do not have the same rights as those of the age of majority. This is an accepted fact and has been so from the beginning of our nation. Someone must make decisions for them, and can make decisions which they do not like (against their will) as well as those which can present physical risk to their lives. The question is regarding who is given this authority, or at least in which cases and why.
You are right. Someone must make those decisions for minors and it is usually the parents and properly so, most of the time. However, the point that others have been making is that we, as a society, have granted the government the power to step in when the parents either cannot make competent decisions (they are addicts, mentally ill, etc) or when they are causing objective harm to their child.
This happens all the time, H. Children are taken away from incompetent and/or abusive parents and the parents are prosecuted and in those cases which are not caught before a child's death, the parents are prosecuted.
What I have raised, is a serious question to that assertion of role, obligation, and mandate. There really is a serious inconsistency in making that claim, and having as the first order of business taking on people that are well meaning, but of a different belief system (which we would regard as ignorant). And a much greater inconsistency when the argument is that we should go after such people, while giving full pass to people who are not well meaning at all when they make the exact same decision.
I decided to raise this inconsistency based on a bizarre passage within one of molbio's cites where faith in profit was overtly given a free pass by the article writers.
Flies Only writes:
Next, we can address the issue of Universal healthcare coverage and the elimination of HMOs and other stupid systems that are based primarily on the bottom line and run on greed, rather than any real concerns about the health of their "members". How would that be?
I think that would not make any sense. It would be almost by definition backwards, if the express intent is to reduce child mortality. The threat of faith based denials of service, and so deaths, is not significant compared to the other cases. So why start there? Also, there has been no explanation of how such efforts would stop such deaths from occurring in the first place.
It also starts from an inconsistency of a claim that the gov't has interest X which would mean Y should be addressed, yet the proof that the gov't has interest X is not proven (or made with any consistent evidence) until after Y is addressed.
Further, and more important, the other cases can be addressed without granting powers to the gov't which could lead to further intrusions many would not want. I cannot draw a line from provision of service and making sure people get their money's worth of service, to denial of things such as abortions or stem cell research. I can draw a line from allowing gov't to reduce child mortality over the belief systems of the parents, to those later cases.
Why start with the least effective case, that would save the least number of lives, and introduce the most problematic policy shift for gov't?
Well, for starters, that is the topic of this thread.
You are the one who brought up US healthcare and its failures. That however, is OT.
Although it would be interesting to discuss (and I would hazard a guess that those in favor of repealing these laws would also favor either universal healthcare or a revamp of the system to provide better and more affordable care without allowing insurance companies to be the final arbiter in order to profit), it does not need to be shown that the gov't, as it currently stands,
has a demonstrable interest in saving children's (or anyone else's) lives in order to discuss the OP. The argument is that it should (and, again, I would hazard a guess...).
For what it is worth, I am a proponent of universal healthcare in this country and I would argue that the gov't should have an interest in saving as many lives as possible, including those like Madeline Neumann.
Also, there has been no explanation of how such efforts would stop such deaths from occurring in the first place.
Well, there is also no explanation of how laws against murder or child abuse or negligence or anything else actually stop such things from happening "in the first place," except, perhaps, through deterrence, but that doesn't stop us from having laws against such things and prosecuting the people who break these laws.
Why have laws if people are just going to break them anyway?
Fail.
"You are metaphysicians. You can prove anything by metaphysics; and having done so, every metaphysician can prove every other metaphysician wrong--to his own satisfaction. You are anarchists in the realm of thought. And you are mad cosmos-makers. Each of you dwells in a cosmos of his own making, created out of his own fancies and desires. You do not know the real world in which you live, and your thinking has no place in the real world except in so far as it is phenomena of mental aberration." -
The Iron Heel by Jack London
"Hazards exist that are not marked" - some bar in Chelsea
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