Murder by prayer: When is enough, enough?

Thanks, Nij.When it comes to where the half price cups are, I never will say no

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Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
-Gogol Bordello

Nij writes:

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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.

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Then you are equating them. Don't pretend that you're not. Step up to your argument and own it. If you didn't mean to equate the two, why did you bring it up? That doesn't mean they are identical, but it does mean that you think the logic we use to conclude it is bad for one is the same logic we use to conclude it is bad for the other.

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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?

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If that is your question, then try to stick to that. By deliberately inserting an example that you know to be highly incendiary and will necessarily suck up all the oxygen in the room, you guaranteed that nobody was going to be thinking about the question of issues of consent and would only be thinking of rape.Indeed, parents are responsible for the upbringing of their children. If we can agree that it is inappropriate for the state to enforce a strict standard across all aspects of upbringing, then hopefully we can also agree that it is inappropriate to allow absolutely anything. If you feel the need to introduce an outrageous example in order to prove that point, then you should make sure that you, too, consider it to be an outrageous example. It isn't enough to simply say that you're not equating it because you are. Instead, you need to point out that one is a case of hyperbole brought forward simply to point out the fact that there is a line between everything and nothing and we're simply arguing over where that line is to be drawn.One thing to help show that is to then identify the general area where you think the line is to be drawn and discuss the difficulties in determining what belongs on what side. Clearly parents get to decide certain physical aspects of their child's life. But at what point does a parent's perogative go too far? We may not agree with the specific way in which a parent feeds a child such as by always kowtowing to the child's whims such that the kid is only eating things like hot dogs, mac-and-cheese, and peanut butter and jelly, but how can there be a complaint if the kid isn't malnourished? Yes, the kid's palate is going to be very limited and there's a good chance that he or she is going to have a hard time maintaining a good diet as an adult, but that isn't up to us to determine.It would seem that we need to determine what "harm" is and then define if that "harm" is something that is problematic. What is, "Well, I wouldn't do it that way," and what is, "That's really hurting"? It's a hard choice, and we see this coming up in other places such as vaccination.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

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?

archaeologist,I asked earlier (then had some computer issues) if you go to the doctor.I asked for two reasons.1) You seem pretty adamant that the medical establishment is useless. That prayer is a better form of healing. A few have already addressed this so I'll leave it alone.2) Why do you go to the doctor? If you have such faith in the power of healing through prayer, why seek medical attention?

Let me take a moment to make sure we share the context of this thread.We began with a summary of children, including toddlers and infants, who died because their parents chose prayer-only and rejected medical care in the face of illnesses and conditions that any reasonable person could see were both life-threatening and treatable.Archaeologist responded by declaring the absolute rights of parents to do with their children as they will; society has neither the right nor the duty to investigate or intervene.That's when the oxygen left the room.You tasked nij with attempting to equivocate about having pointed out that absolute parental sovereignty has the necessary consequence of undetected, unimpeded and unpunished sexual abuse of children by their parents. He did not, as he remarked, equate attempts at faith-healing with parental rape.Why do you consider the example outrageous? The practice is a deadly one: pointing out that parents could also make their kids wear poorly cut cheap polyester suits just won't do. I won't further belabor the point that nij was not equating attempts to heal through prayer with rape except to note that allowing children to die for spiritual satisfaction seems aptly analogized by abusing them for sexual satisfaction.Do you believe it outrageous to suggest that parents who embrace faith healing-only in the face of fatal illness are also parents at high risk for sexually abusing their children?Consider the correlation between the religion-based/absolute-patriarch flavor of parenting and the incidence of incestuous rape. John Hules summarizes some of that correlation on his page, Clinical and Scientific Findings Regarding Sexual Abuse Perpetrators, Victims, and Traditional Moral and Social Values.I'll quote a few of his citations and summaries: We have good cause for concern about the power given to parental sexual predators by extreme parental rights champions like archaeologist, especially among the fervently religious patriarchs. Edited by Omnivorous, : -your

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Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
-Gogol Bordello

I have returned to this thread because I was able to come across something that shores up my argument that atheists, secularists, evolutionists are not honest in their discussions with christians.some one stated that faith healing was against the law well that is not so and here are some quotes and a link that demonstrate this fact: the unbolded sentence is simply their opinion and they should not be allowed to force their secular ideas on people of religious faith. {note--i said 'religious' not 'christian'} notice the bolded words this time. faith healing is NOT as bad as most of you made it out to be. your opposition to it is mainly because it is religious and not because of some legitimate argument.federal laws states: they are not doing anything wrong and local prosecutors who take parents to trial do so illegitmately and probably for political reasons.now a few states have repealed or revised their laws BUT now, one side note, this CANNOT be guaranteed. it is only a possibility as i have noted that a friend of mine died from a medical problem that 'could have been prevented by medical care..' in the hospital under the care of doctors.so the doctor in that quote cannot state for a fact that those children who died via faith healing, would have survived under medical care. itis only probable, possible but never certain.http://www.rickross.com/reference/foc/foc29.htmlif you want to read more articles on this topic, and i haven't read most of these, here is a link to a main page:http://www.rickross.com/groups/foc.html

you have NO cause for concern for 1. they are not your children and you do not have perfection in your life to make such judgments and decisions.
2. these studies are worthless as they take a few case studies, whether it be 100 or 1,000, doesn't matter and ignore the MILLIONS of families where things activities DO NOT take place.
3. we all know that studies are falsified, manipulated, altered, for political reasons.
4. these studies are used simply to attack christians or religious people because they are different have have a purpose in life.
5. you all hate Christ so you take that hate out on His followers.
6. these studies ar not objective but conducted by unbelievers who do not know anything about what they are studying.the abuse heaped upon christian families by atheists and other secularists is what needs to be stopped for it is criminal and unjust.

Are you saying we must first be perfect ourselves before we can say that raping children is wrong? But we don't care about the instances where nothing goes wrong, because nothing goes wrong there. This in no way means we don't have to be concerned about the instnaces where it does go wrong. And if they are, they are found out. Also, there are plenty of news reports about instnaces like this, are they all falsified as well? Is the police making these situations up? I don't hate Christ, in fact, I think some of his ideas were pretty nifty. Plenty of scientists are Christians. The only thing we're "forcing" them to do is to not let their children die or be abused. Yes, we are horrible, horrible people for doing that, but we feel it must be done.

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.

now i am not reading anyone's recent replies as I want to explain something here that i came across in my research on this church in oregon city.here is the problem: now the bolded words are the key. Faith healing is not wrong, the parents are NOT wrong and should not be put on trial. They were legitmately practicing their faith as outlined by their church leaders.what is wrong is THE CHURCH POLICY and yes it is very wrong. So i would say that the church itself, NOT the parents should be put on trial because it si the church leaders tthat are being negligent not the parents.No church can make such a policy for then they would be 1. tempting God; 2. acting like God; 3. limiting God among other spiritual things.God doesn't always use the miraculous to answer prayers, though it is a miracle because of the odds etc. (details can be talked about another time) he does use doctors, he does use normal things like medicine, and no where in the Bible does it say that His followers must avoid doctors or hospitals BUT it does say we are to go to Him first, to rely on him, to look to Him and then give Him the glory when the child or adult is healedfaith healing is not the only way God works and it is not wrong to seek it. it is wrong to leave God out of the loop or picture when pursuing traditional medical treatment.do you understand the difference and what i am saying? link to my information:Inside.com: News and Community For Professionalsfor further research at your leisure:http://search.yahoo.com/..._ylt=AjKd6CGMQ4twhcfronORvjGbvZx4keep in mind i am not counteracting any of my previous statements, as i will defend the parents right to use faith healing BUT i will not defend such an unspiritual policy.

Hi Archy, That's not really the coolest thing to say to people. If you're not reading others, why should we read you?That aside; I agree. I don't think that it is effective, but it is not wrong, just pointless. Naturally you disagree - you believe it has healing potential - but I do not think that simply practising faith healing is ethically objectionable in and of itself. I disagree with this. Medical science has a proven track record of saving lives. I myself would not be alive without it. Parents have a responsibility to pursue all reasonable possibilities when it comes to treating a sick child. Ignoring an avenue of treatment with such obvious benefit as medical science is simply negligent. If it is wrong for the church, why is it not wrong for the parents? I agree that the policy is a bad one, but the parents are not absolved of responsibility just because they were acting in accordance with some religious command. That would set too dangerous a precedent. But the parents are responsible for the welfare of their child; the church, not so much.There seems to be plenty of responsibility to go around here, but no matter to what extent one finds the church responsible, the parents are still the primary care-givers and they failed in that responsibility I completely agree with you. But the parents are also guilty of this, only more so; it is their child after all. Given that faith healing is "not the only way God works" and that you seem to be saying that mainstream medicine can be an instrument of God's will, doesn't it seem presumptuous to veto God's will and refuse medical care? What if God was intending to cure the child through the instrument of scientific medicine? Couldn't a refusal of medical care be in defiance of God's will? Surely a benevolent God would not want parents to rule out any reasonable form of treatment? Actually, I think this may be the most coherent thing you've posted to date. Your post actually gets your point across. That's much more of an appealing read than just... y'know... ranting. So kudos.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

They are human beings. I would intervene if I saw some stranger breaking his kid's fingers for stealing candy--wouldn't you? "They're MY kids" is not a license to do what you want with them; it's an injunction to take care of them. I see a big difference between 100 and 1000 dead kids. We all know that some parents let their kids die needlessly; we all know some parents sexually abuse their children. Religiosity and hypersexuality manifest frequently in the mentally ill, Christian or no: I'm not saying Christianity causes neglect and abuse--I'm saying neglecters and abusers are drawn to religion because of the license our society gives them.I'd say the studies were done because someone observed the same connection I observed and decided to take a closer look. There's another instance below. Jesus is just alright with me. We could definitely hang out. The kids are dead, objectively dead.A competent doctor (sometimes just a few pills or an injection) would probably have saved most of them: that's a fact.C'mon, archy, it's not rocket science. That's what we're trying to do.In the meantime, across the pond they found a similar connection between sexually abusive parents and religiosity:

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November 25, 2006

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Prison figures show a link between sex crime and religion

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Churches are being advised to protect congregations against paedophiles and rapists in their midst as The Times uncovers figures showing a clear link between religion and sex crime.
The Home Office has disclosed statistics for the first time, showing the prison population according to their faith and type of offence committed.

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Two trends emerge: a strong tendency for prisoners who declare a religious faith to be serving time for sexual offences; and a large proportion of fraudsters from oriental faiths.

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Richard Foot, of the charity Sanctuary UK, said that some Christians used a warped theology to justify sex crimes and tried to get out of therapy programmes.

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We do know of men that go from church to church seeking children, he said. It’s an issue the Home Office is becoming particularly aware of.

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The likelihood of sex offenders to adhere to a religion can be seen from the figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

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The proportion of all prisoners declaring any faith compared with those with none is about 2:1 but among those convicted of sex crime it rises to 3:1. The trend is marked across many faiths, including Buddhism, Anglicanism, Free Church Christianity and Judaism.

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You see, I'm not picking on Christianity, archy: all religions are responsible for the conduct they license and encourage among their adherents.Edited by Omnivorous, : Hit submit intead of preview.

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Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
-Gogol Bordello

Thanks for the post, archy. As Granny said, it's a definite improvement. Hearing you explain why you believe as you do is interesting; hearing what you believe over and over is...not.As I just said in a reply to you above, I definitely agree that churches should be held accountable for their policies when those policies encourage criminal behavior.But parents cannot shift responsibility for their actions onto their church.Like my mother used to say, "Jimmie told you to?! If somebody told you to jump off a cliff..."Edited by Omnivorous, : +why at "why you believe"

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Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
-Gogol Bordello

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.

Archy, I don't mean to pile on posts while you're suspended. I used to look at suspensions as a chance to read and think more carefully before responding.So here's another opportunity for you. No, there are no guarantees in medicine--or life in general.But observe the outcome modern medicine achieves when battling childhood lymphoma (from the LymphomaInfo.Net):

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Cancer continues to be the leading cause of death in children younger than 15 years old, and lymphomas are among the most common cancers seen in children. Fortunately, survival rates for childhood cancers have increased significantly over the years. Children respond to and deal with chemotherapy better than adults. Today, 96% of children diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease will survive 5 or more years, and 5-year survival rates are 86% for children diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (American Cancer Society, 2009).

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What do you suppose the survival rates are for untreated childhood lymphoma? I'd say those rates are close to zero.Why has treated childhood lymphoma survival increased from nearly 0 to 96%? Because treatment works, and because science makes it progressively more effective.Edited by Omnivorous, : it-->treatment

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Have you ever been to an American wedding? Where's the vodka? Where's the marinated herring?!
-Gogol Bordello