Many who would not subscribe to such fundamentalist views as belief in faith healing nevertheless share in the underlying irrationality. Faith healers are simply further along the belief spectrum, more irrational than those nearer the pragmatic end, which is the real world of cause and effect.
When the judge suggested to the Neumanns that their time in jail would give them an opportunity to reflect on what God wanted them to learn from this tragedy, he is reinforcing the same irrationality that led to the catastrophe in the first place. It is unfortunate that the judge's own beliefs should interfere in the sentencing, and in doing so, perpetuate the irrationality that led to such a tragedy.
We can all feel for the family that has lost a child. They will also feel a heavy sense of guilt and responsibility. One can only hope that they will reflect on the dangerous irrationality of believing in a supernatural being as the source of medical care. It should make all believers sit up and think about the irrationality of their own religious beliefs. Private inner contemplation is one thing, but expecting a real consequence from belief in a supernatural being is another. Just how far would you trust your god?
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - ambassadorphantom
I am not sure about this one. The prosecution based this on the assumption of "a legal duty to take their daughter to a doctor." They have a legal duty to not harm or abuse their children, but this presupposes that the state can mandate certain kinds of treatment and not others. Would relying on a homeopath, accupuncturist or chiropractor be much different? Moral implications aside, it seems like slippery legal ground but that's not my area...
I am asking as a believer who also feverently believes in the God-given gift of modern mainstream medicine. As a Catholic, my Church runs 12% of the hospitals in the United States and is the country's largest single health-care provider. So I've never quite understood the problem some religious people have with life-saving medical treatments such as transfusions, etc.
2 - Dr Dreadful
One wonders why the courts didn't override the parents' wishes and intervene sooner, as has happened a number of times, for example in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to allow their children to receive blood transfusions.
3 - Ruvy
If a child has a chronic disorder that has obvious causes, and which can be controlled chemically so as not to harm the child, it is incumbent upon a parent to take the child to a doctor to obtain the chemical treatment and to teach the child to administer the treatment himself, as the occasion requires. In this category would fall such disorders as narcolepsy, epilepsy, diabetes and asthma or bronchiolitis.
Having done this, it is healthy, IMHO, to pray for the child's full recovery from the disorder; though it should be noted that sometimes, perhaps more than sometimes, the disorder may have very positive effects in the long run that are impossible for either child or parent to see or perceive.
But, there is a whole category of "disorders of convenience" where "educators" seek to drug children just to shut them up. I ran into this in the States with a son of mine who has a mild case of CP. All sorts of idiots at hais school were trying to get us to have him take Ritalin therapy for no good reason at all. I'm sure there are many other parents in this position in the States.
4 - Bob Lloyd
I'm not a lawyer but it is interesting that there is a conflict between the rights of the parent to bring up their children believing anything they choose, even at the risk of grossly misinforming them and inculcating very questionable values, and at the same time a duty of care which can result in a charge of reckless homicide.
The parents in this case apparently still don't accept responsibility for their action - God moves in mysterious ways, and all that stuff. Religion makes it very easy to shirk the responsibility for our own morality, depending instead on the assumption that our morality comes from a supernatural being. Even the acceptance of free will is done so inside a supernatural world-view in which one or more omniscient beings can overrule the laws of nature.
When considering what counts as acceptable treatment, we have to use some measure of efficacy. Prayer is not a treatment. The various attitudes are exposed very easily by comparing different gods. Devout Christians may well entertain the idea of the power of prayer, but they would balk at the idea of praying to Zeus, or Odin, or Ganesh.
It's the irrationality that's the problem and wherever you are on the faith spectrum, you've already made compromises with rational thinking.
Ambassadorphantom raises the question whether it would be different relying on clinical medicine rather than acupunture, homeopathy, etc. Well, yes it would be different, fundamentally different. Because, for all its faults, clinical medicine can demonstrate effective treatments and provide clinical trials data as evidence. The others can't. It's a choice between treatment and non-treatment.
5 - Ruvy
I'm not a lawyer but it is interesting that there is a conflict between the rights of the parent to bring up their children believing anything they choose, even at the risk of grossly misinforming them and inculcating very questionable values, and at the same time a duty of care which can result in a charge of reckless homicide.
The parents in this case apparently still don't accept responsibility for their action - God moves in mysterious ways, and all that stuff. Religion makes it very easy to shirk the responsibility for our own morality, depending instead on the assumption that our morality comes from a supernatural being
When you live in a society that DOES NOT believe that believers (i.e. the Children of Israel) are all resopnsible for one another, you can come up with such a distorted world view. In my own culture, parents have a responsibility to do what they can to insure the survival of their children (or their spouse or themselves), and that responsibility trumps all but three commandments in the Torah; not to murder, not force someone else to murder, and not to commit rape or sexual immorality.
But the underlying meme that insures that common sense instead of fanaticism is what is followed is that sense of common responsibility for all Israel. You Americans, and most of the rest of you reading this as well, lack this meme in your societies - thus, such idiotic choices are allowed.
6 - Bob Lloyd
As it happens, I'm not American but my nationality is, of course, irrelevant to the argument I'm making.
That a religious view of morality relies for its justification on commandments, does indeed imply that its moral authority lies outside of personal decisions. That's exactly the point I made - religion provides some other responsible agent for moral choices, namely some god.
The fact that it appears possible to "trump" commandments indicates that nonetheless, people will override such strictures when it becomes socially and morally more correct to do so. Religious morality validates itself against social values in practice, despite what theologians might argue in theory.
Far from being a distorted world view, the position I've presented respects very much the social formation of ethical and moral values, endorses that essential opt-out clause that all religions seem to have, and applauds those situations when people stop following commandments and take responsibility for their own morality and ethical decisions.
The more you look into this, the more you see that any religious morality necessarily has to compromise with social values in order to remain ethical and moral, or else has to break significantly with the use of dogma to justify moral stances. Islam is a good example of ossifying morality because dogma is not allowed to change. In all cases, the most orthodox of all the leading religions have no qualms about overriding even the most stringent commandments when they feel their interests are threatened. That itself is a convincing demonstration that they themselves adjust their morality to their perceived needs.
7 - Ruvy
Bob,
I haven't seen words like belabour in your comments (or maybe I wasn't looking carefully enough), so I assumed you were American. My bad.
My point, which you miss entirely is that the concept that "all Israel is responsible for one another" IS a commandment from G-d, and we are expected to view fellow Jews and other Children of Israel as brothers. Do you really have any such expectations where you live?
8 - Christine
This is so sad and if the parents knew anything about the Bible and Jesus, they would know that one of His disciples, Luke, was a physician, although it is unclear what type.
As a Believer, this really frustrates me...
Jesus showed that there are protocols to healing, case in point, when He told the "blind guy" to put mud on his eyes. Even for Christians, prayer is only part of of the protocol to all healing and should always be coupled with the proper medical procedures, medicine, and/or lifestyle adjustments.
9 - Bob Lloyd
Christine, it's clear that the parents had a very detailed knowledge of the Bible and that's the problem. It's so contradictory, that almost any interpretation can find extensive support from the text. Their mistake was to think that prayer could have a physical effect at all.
Jesus was living in a time when medicine consisted of a mixture of potions, prayers and sacrifices. The idea of putting mud on eyelids and trusting in prayer is of course not accepted today BECAUSE we don't need the mythical beliefs as we now understand enough about the human body to treat it effectively in many cases. Prayer, even if it's part of a faith, has no place in medicine. It's an unnecessary and ineffective thing to do in treating individuals.
10 - Bob Lloyd
Ruvy, that very selective category "all Israel" is at best problematic, and at worst seriously prejudicial as is seen in the relationship between Israeli and the Palestinians whose land they have occupied. We don't need to get into the legitimacy of the land claims to know that belief in such a commandment is the ultimate justification for land seizure and occupation. It's the religious justification for such claims that undermines any moral legitimacy. For example, historically, you'd include in Children of Israel, all of the palestinian peoples as well.
The secular equivalent belief, of inclusion of all peoples as "brothers" is widespread in declarations such as human rights, democratic institutions, equality of treatment and access, and so on. That's a widespread secular principle that requires no commandments because it is already validated against social values.
11 - Jordan Richardson
Luke, was a physician, although it is unclear what type.
I always kinda thought Luke would have been a good veterinarian.
12 - Fran
I think the more important question is not persecuting or prosecuting parents who thought they were doing right by their God and their child, and now have to deal with that grief, in addition to additional distress by the state. But what about all those who have lost children due to things like cancer where treatments are available but are very costly, and where they couldn't afford the treatment, or HMOs that won't cover due to pre-existing conditions, or unproven treatments for conditions where there may not be hope otherwise.
There are a lot of inequities in this world. Using the courts as a hammer on grieving families is, in my opinion, in bad taste at best.
13 - Bob Lloyd
"unproven treatments for conditions where there may not be hope otherwise"
It's amazing that so many people assume that where the treatment is unproven, that somehow equates to hope. If the proposed treatment is not yet proven, then it actually offers NO hope. To make it useful, the proposed treatment needs to be tested and demonstrated to have some efficacy. Then it might offer some hope.
You have to question the values of a society that denies cancer patients effective treatment on the grounds of their ability to pay, which then leads them to base their only hope on untested treatments. Their desperation is understandable, but unfortunately their hope remains unjustified.
14 - Irene Wagner
"It should make all believers sit up and think about the irrationality of their own religious beliefs."
Sorry, Bob. I'm missing the connection between my reflection on the Neumann case and the sudden shocking realization that my religious beliefs are irrational.
What I am "sitting up and thinking about" is the church-going and church-eschewing Americans who feed their kids a diet characterized by a French Fry to Fresh Vegetable ratio of about 75 to 1.
I am sitting up and thinking about how the testimony of a common bricklayer or a waitress is enough to convict a man in a court of law but the same people bearing witness to their own miraculous healings are told that they are lying or mistaken. Why? Because miracles can't happen...because...miracles can't happen. Pshaw.
What evidence do you have that any of the accounts here are falsified? I could list many others, but Akismet would throw out my comment.
And when answers to prayers for healing, attended or not by appeals to the white-coated Gods of Almighty Western Medicine, receive a "No" answer? I am sitting up and thinking about how death is a part of life. Thousands of people dying together in a tsunami say no more or less about the goodness of an omnipotent God than thousands of people dying thousands of different kinds of deaths individually.
I'm sitting up and thinking about the wonder of a scientifically-minded man, who, in the absence of personal evidence (or acknowledgment of the same) of a caring God to be thanked for the food he eats, the air he breathes, and the ears with which he hears music--most UNSCIENTIFICALLY assumes that no one else on the planet has any evidence of that either.
There are many color-blind people (I speak metaphorically) who weren't born color-blind. They've gouged out their own rods and cones. Bring out your cut-and-pasted lists of "Bible Contradictions" and "Horrors Committed Against Mankind by People of Faith." It's not incumbent upon me to make you see colors you squeeze your eyes shut to avoid seeing.
15 - roger nowosielski
Hi, Irene. Long time no see.
You do understand that science is a form of religion, no?
16 - Wonderer
If science is a form of religion then it must be the greatest religion and all others should be thrown aside.
Science can explain how a car engine works and why the sun rises in the east. Science has proven much better at explaining, predicting and controlling the world than any other religion.
Therefore, science is the King of all religions.
If you would seek understanding then throw aside your bibles, torahs, korans, etc., and start reading physics, chemistry and mathematics.
All others are blasphemous.
17 - Ruvy
Bob,
Please do not embarrass yourself publicly with your ignorance. Children of Israel is a term from the Tana"kh, the Hebrew Bible, and has nothing whatever to do with the current conflict going on here between the Children of Ishmael (Arabs) and that portion of the Children of Israel known as Jews.
This conflict is indeed a religious conflict, with Jews misreading the Qur'an, and the with Arabs misreading the Qur'an as well. The chief cause of Arabs misreadxing the Qur'an has been Europeans and Americans interfering in Arab affair so as to put the worst of Arab heretics, the trash of ibn-Saud, into power in Arabia. This action by western bankers and oil men has caused much of the unnecessary deaths which have occurred in this region of the world. As for Jews misunderstanding the Qur'an, much of that misunderstanding - but not all - is built on secular Jews refusing to recognize that many of the condemnations of Jews are condemnations of Jews who are hypocrites - like secular Jews who refuse to follow their own law.
18 - Christopher Rose
Irene, the accounts you link to are simply anecdotes and don't amount to proof of anything. The rest of your post is simply incoherent.
Roger, that's drivel; there is no way that science is even remotely a form of religion. I'd stick to your philosophical musings if I were you...
Ruvy, as you routinely embarrass yourself with your public displays of ignorance and arrogance, which is a particularly ugly combination I hardly think you're in any position to criticise anyone else at all.
This conflict is based upon various cliques that believe in fairy stories squabbling over whose understanding of the story is the right one. It is embarrassing to all of us that we are letting such immaturities ruin our planet.
19 - roger nowosielski
Missing the point, Mr. Rose. It wasn't a drivel on my part. The reference was made to the manner in which our Bob here regards science: with religious like adoration.
Ergo . . . to him it is a religion.
20 - roger nowosielski
" I'd stick to your philosophical musings if I were you..."
But you're not me, Mr. Rose. So, are you suggesting here, perhaps, that you should be given the whole floor, or is just a snotty remark?
So which is is?
21 - roger nowosielski
"So which is it? - sorry)
22 - Christopher Rose
Roger, if you think Bob is regarding science with religious like adoration, then you are mistaken.
It isn't a snotty remark to suggest you should stick to the fake science of philosophy. As you don't appear to be able to think in a sufficiently clear way to deal with real science, it is simply good advice.
23 - roger nowosielski
Well, your expressing but your own ill-informed opinion. Philosophy doesn't pretend to be a science, or vice versa, and I made no indication whatsoever that such is the case. You must have gotten that idea elsewhere.
Secondly, I haven't the faintest what Bob regards science as, with adoration nor without. I think we should let Bob answer THAT question, because you don't know either - unless you're his twin or have telepathic powers.
And thirdly, I don't think any scientific subject matter has been raised thus far in this rather general discussion - like the gravitational field, or the status of the quantum theory - for you to be pronouncing a judgment regarding my ability or inablity to discuss subjects scientific - so let's just shelf this matter until the right occasion present itself.
So forgive me if I won't take your advice at this time. But I'll always be open to suggestions.
24 - roger nowosielski
you're ...
25 - roger nowosielski
inability . . .
shelve . . .
(Rushing to damn much.
"Take your sweet time, Roger. He can wait. Now he'll hold it against your for being a horrible speller, an uneducated moron."
A reminder to myself.)