In March 2008, Leilani Neumann’s daughter was sick. She and her family prayed and prayed for the girl to get better, but she didn’t.
They thought their God was testing their faith. They didn’t want to show their lack of faith by going to a doctor. So the child died of untreated diabetes.
When she was on trial last Spring she explained her thinking:
Leilani Neumann told the jury in her husband’s trial that she thought her daughter’s March 2008 illness was a test of her religious faith and she didn’t take the girl to a doctor because that would have been “complete disobedience to what we believe.”
Leilani Neumann testified for nearly five hours Tuesday, describing the events leading up to her daughter’s March 23, 2008, death on a mattress on the floor of the family’s rural Weston home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone called for help when she stopped breathing.The mother said that she and her husband believed their daughter’s deteriorating condition may have been the result of a falling out with another couple, and called them once the girl was unconscious and persuaded them to come pray for the girl.
“I asked her if she loved Jesus,” the mother testified. “She might have said yes. I know for sure she was acknowledging it. What sounds came out, I don’t remember. She was making noises. … My focus definitely was to pray.”
“We thought even the lifelessness was something that she would come out of,” the mother said. “Everything for us is about faith. It is about trusting in God. We either believe in God’s word or we don’t.”A pediatric expert on diabetes told the jury Monday that even right before her death, doctors might have been able to save the girl’s life had she been brought to a hospital.
I think everyone can agree that this kind of faith is dangerous. They had “biblical” faith — they put their trust in God and not in man. And, as usual, God failed where humans could have helped.
Believers constantly say they need to rely upon God, but why would anyone put their trust in a God who has failed, over and over again? Granted, it’s hard not to fail when you don’t exist, but you’d think that people would stop relying on someone so notoriously unreliable.
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304 Comments
Religion poisons everything…
(Again)
This is disgusting. Having type one diabetes myself I can imagine the agony that she went through. I’m against the death penalty, but I wonder if her parents would pray while flitting in and out of hypo/hyperglycemic shock.
Murderer.
I truly wonder what she thinks of her god now. Did not even her daughter’s death crack her faith?
She’s no doubt thinking that He works in mysterious ways, it was all a part of His plan, and her daughter is in a better place now. And the prison sentence she’s likely to face will probably somehow fit nicely into it all as well.
That’s disgusting.
I hope, one day, you are privileged enough to be “tested” in the same manner.
Hahahahaha!
woooop woooop woooop woooop woooop
*Missed Sarcasm Alarm*
I liked trj lampooning this christian mommy’s insanity.
Erm, what? I’m not sure what you’re berating me, Alan. Did you think I was making a snide comment on behalf of the mother? I sincere believe that is exactly how she will react.
Pathetic troll is pathetic
This story is a classic example of why blind faith can be dangerous, it’s so bad in fact that it’s funny, how pathetic the mother the is to let her daughter die for the sake of her own self esteem in the eyes of a fictional character (god). The comments on this page are funny too though, and some very true.
He was implying that she was a crazy person who will justify anything that happens to be a work of god. This sentiment is echoed in the article and most of the subsequent comments. That’s far from trolling. Why is reading comprehension so difficult for some?
Waaaiiitt… You’re hoping that, one day, trj will have their own child die in front of them? Jeez, please try to THINK about things before you say them!!!
Sadly, I think trj is right, when you’re so far into a delusion like this, in this case blind faith, sticking to your guns and never failing is what they believe they are meant to do. Continuing on through failure, even one as horrible as this, can now be worn as a badge of honor for their tested faith. i mean the whole point, and the sick part, about faith is that you’re supposed to have it no matter what, and somehow that’s supposed to be good thing.
Also, think what denouncing God would mean for her. It would mean that her daughter died for no good reason and that she was directly responsible for killing her. No, keeping her faith, even more fervently than before, is the only conceivable solution for her. The alternative would probably destroy her. – That’s my armchair psychologist diagnosis anyway.
obviously just about everyone who comments on this has about zero faith in any kind of religion…so you having a comment on what people should or shouldn’t believe in is bogus. Was this family wrong in not seeking medical attention..yes…because god planned for there to be doctors in this world.
But the fact that others say religion ruins everything in this world is insane. The only thing that ruins this world are the people (believers or non-believers) who stray from their good nature. Have religions done some stupid things in the past…yes, lots of em…but they are caused by a few corrupted individuals straying from the morals laid down by their various faiths…so can the whole religion is bogus thing until your small mind can wrap around something bigger than itself
you ignorance astounds. if one were to follow the tenets of their faith strictly the earth would be a dead husk at this point. if anything, YOU are the corrupt one for not following your faith strictly.
most of your comment means well. I understand that you don’t like people saying that your belief is bogus. My advice to someone of any religion is to live and let live. _reply to DX_
^_^ .
Good nature? We’re brutal predatory primates.
The only reason we’re here at all is because a squad of nasty vicious chimps trumps saber tooth tiger, and everything else.
We didn’t get to the top of the food chain with diplomacy and hope. We got there with cunning, brutality, and a talent for slaughter. Thats what intelligence is. A weapon.
Our very existence depends on the suffering and death of other life forms. Take some responsibility for what you are.
Or is selective memory the order of the day? Let me guess everyone that has ever tortured is a monster, and only the rest of us are human.
Only after acknowledge what we are can we begin to grow past it. You have to admit a problem before you can solve it. Take your self love and shove it.
@ BMS… wow. Brush up on your neuro anatomy and evolutionary facts and theory before you impulsively and aggressively say things that are simply not true. Humans have done some very horrible things to each other and to other living things and to our world. However, there are many, many highly intelligent people who are also peaceful, and who are also not religious fanatics. While you yourself may feel evil at your core, I assure you that this is not true for the rest of us.
@BMS Sure being able to defend ourselves from predators and kill prey was a huge part of human beings becoming what we are today. Human beings are predators and our inteligence certainly can and does serve as a weapon. Evil acts don’t take away from the fact that we’re a part of the human species… but kindness is fundamentally human as well. In order to be what we are we worked in “squads” as you put it. In order to work together to succeed as a social group we needed and still do need the capacity for “diplomacy and hope”. Human beings would not be even remotely as successful a species if our ancestors hadn’t developed this human kindness so that we could cohabit and share resources etc.
The problem is that religion takes away a persons ability to reason. God issues orders, and we follow them. Look in the bible, God told Abraham to sacrifice his son. What did Abraham do, did he say “that is immoral and I would never do that” or “this must be a test because my God would never say such a thing” or did he say “okay God, whatever you say”? The answer is of course (C).
Religion is 100% about putting ones life in the hand of deities and their spokespeople. Most theists even argue that all morality comes from God. So this woman was not being evil or stupid (in her mind), she was simply following the commandments of her religion and the spokesperson of her God (as she believed it).
Good religionists are only good because their shepherds tell them to be good. Evil religionists are only evil because their shepherds tell them to be evil. To truly believe that one religion is true, that its God has ultimate moral authority over the world, and that the shepherds of that religion speak for this God; is to give over completely ones free will, conscience, and ability to analyze situations. No longer is one allowed to decide for oneself if an act is right or wrong. One must now ask the owners of your soul (God and his mouthpiece) if the act is right or wrong. She was led to believe that the right and moral thing to do was not waver in her faith. She should be praised by Christians for actually doing what they all claim to want to do. Of course those of us who do not value blind faith and antipathy to individual morality do not praise her.
Christianity (her religion, ergo it is the one used here) encourages people to have faith. It says that faith is more righteous the less it is based on evidence (read “reality”).
Mathew 17:20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
So tell me, did Leilani lack faith?
Well then, didn’t god plan for there to be people who “stray from their good nature”?
The problem you will have here is nearly impossible for you to ever comprehend: the farther people get from their old beliefs, (the more they let go of it), the more insane religion, (and the religious) appear. And it’s just as sad for us to see people wasting their lives on some magic made up by a bunch of old bronze age men, as it is for you to believe we’re going to some hell or whatever.
Z
@zarba: yes yes!
@DXs007: How do you know which things happen because “god planned” them? This is a classic example of a religious argument that us non-religious types don’t have the option of using. It’s circular reasoning; something is because it is (or is supposed to be). We must accept the premises “god exists,” “god has a plan,” and lastly and easily the most suspect, “DXs007 is somehow privy the details of god’s plan,” if we are to accept the conclusion that doctors exist because god wants them to.
As for the idea that a few fringe elements are solely responsible for the negative consequences stemming from religious belief, I will cite a single example (there are many others) in which this is not the case: Hegemonic restriction of education about, and access to, birth control by the Catholic church in central America (among other places). It is extremely common for women in impoverished conditions in these countries to give birth to 10 or 15 children in their lives, of which less than three survive. If an infant doesn’t cry loudly and appear to be full of life they are simply left to starve, because “god didn’t intend for them to live.” Often these children would be perfectly healthy if fed and cared for; the reality is that these families have no way of feeding or clothing this many children. Apparently this is a better situation in the eyes of the Vatican than preventing these pregnancies in the first place. Abortion, condoms, and the pill are evil, but millions of infants starved to death is A-OK.
@TRJ. That’s accurate. In order to psychologically protect herself, she would have to rationalize her inaction as a “test of faith.”
@Shaidar007: Can you back that up, the Catholic Church thing? I know religion is the spout of evil on our earth, but such a story, as plausible as it sounds, seems just a tad bit far fetched.
I know, I should have posted sources. There are a couple non-current journal articles in the cultural anthropology field I was using as the source material…very depressing stuff but I will post ‘em when I find ‘em. It may take a day or two; I need to get to the li-bary.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29734328/
The pope, on March 17th, 2009, spoke on the issue of AIDS in Africa
“You can’t resolve it [AIDS] with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane heading to Yaounde. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”
So, yes, the pope says that distributing condoms to Africans that are having way too many babies and dying of AIDS is a bad thing.
If the mother was deluded enough to watch her own daughter die in front of her, could anything crack her “faith”?
At the very least I used to have faith in humanity, after reading stories like this im not sure.
Ya, use the extreme nut jobs as your argument point. That’s wrong. I’m religious and I think this girl was bat shit crazy. You would be no better to use the poor little girl as cannon fodder in your zealous fight.
Josh…it is the batshit ones who we need to fight against. The more sane ones have there own beliefs, just as I do, but never try to inflict them on others.
Keep your faith in humanity; just don’t place it in the imaginary hands of a 2000 year old zombie who wants YOU to eat HIM!
Lmao. I have to love that quote :D
She was tested for her faith, and she passed the test, of course.
Her child died, and she managed to not do anything- just as “God willed.”
So I’m assuming not.
Are the parents guilty of murder – or is their priest?
I shall use this example from now on when people say “Oh, yes, but not all religion is bad”. I truly believe it is. You can’t have moderates without fanantics and fundamentalists being produced. The fact is, this woman was being truer to her “faith” than she would have been if she’d have taken the child to a doctor.
From the msnbc article: “The family does not belong to an organized religion.”
This is pretty much their own horrible choice.
you mean their own horrible FAITH
it’s the same basic irrational principle at the heart of all faith—suspend your reason, turn away from nature and the natural order and believe in that which is not at all understandable within natural terms. The only difference here is that these people were literal and serious about that irrational approach to reality in a way most Christians blithely avoid being. Thankfully they live mostly according to reason and a belief in nature. But they should STFU about how wonderful irrationalistic, non-natural beliefs are.
Not really, they borrowed this ridiculous shite from religious groups. It’s the new thing amongst religious whackos these days. “If only I believe/pray hard enough, I can change reality to fit my twisted belief system”. This girl died for dogma.
the way they spoke pretty much reeks of christian faith.
“Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” (James 5:14-15)
Faith doesn’t have to be organised to be lethal. Cults are started by individuals.
It doesn’t really matter if they were members of an organized religion. I hear christians saying that you don’t have to attend church to be christian. All the organized religion does is get a group of believers together to reinforce their beliefs. It was still an act based on the belief of a test by their god.
Yet another innocent victim of faith. I hope that ignorant pile of excrement and her husband rot in jail.
All religion is a form of insanity. It’s just a matter of degree and circumstance. If this little girl hadn’t had diabetes, then this might never have happened, and the parents might be right now be being praised by their religious leader as one of the devout faithful.
It doesn’t make me angry. Maybe it should, but it doesn’t. I’m just saddened by people like this. They were following their teachings…they thought what they were doing was right.
I was going to say that in more primitive times, perhaps what they did would have been excusable. But I don’t know. Diabetes has been along since the dawn of mankind. Even the most primitive of doctors should have had some idea of how to treat it to an extent.
We can lock up two of the symptoms, but the disease marches merrily on.
You know, I think Jesus would have tried to treat a diabetic coma by casting out devils. His healing methods were uninformed by knowledge of modern medicine. He didn’t even understand the germ theory or he might have taught his disciples how to avoid getting sick in the first place. Then there really would have been a miracle and there might be some believable evidence that Jesus had some claim to esoteric knowledge, even if clearly was not omniscient. BTW, if he was not omniscient there is no reason to believe that everything he said was, ahem, gospel truth. :-)
I’ve thought for many years that religion is a dangerous thing, & this is just more proof.
Are the parents being tried for negligent manslaughter? Stupidity is not a viable defense in my opinion.
“Granted, it’s hard not to fail when you don’t exist, but you’d think that people who stop relying on someone so notoriously unreliable.”
(…people would stop…)
But we know what the problem with this is: these negative outcomes aren’t the ones that get repeated from church to church and from generation to generation. It’s the “answered” prayers that do. And because every person’s life naturally contains both good and bad occurrences, some good occurrences will necessarily, at some point, follow bad occurrences, People are also naturally driven to assign explanations to everything. When people look back over a long period of time, these two facts combine into people thinking that God caused the bad for the “reason” of the good thing that followed. I call it pre hoc ergo propter hoc: before this, therefore because of this. It’s an even worse fallacy than post hoc ergo propter hoc, being that “post hoc” is just something that isn’t always true, but “pre hoc” is completely impossible. Always.
My people perish for lack of sense.
Thankfully most religious people aren’t this brainwashed. They believe in Jesus mostly as an insurance plan. They live exactly as I do, but just in case Jesus is real they go to church every Sunday. When a person faces death, virtually everyone reverts to carnal self preservation. This child never had a chance under the care of these nutty people.
i used to think that too…. then i realized that if they are right and there is a god and a jesus, they would know that i dont actually believe in them and that i was just pretending. all that do that are just atheists in denial.
Why do these people not think that perhaps their god has called some people to be doctors to heal them???
Why should them? I don’t remember any passage in the Bible speaking about doctors, but as “germ” has remembered:
“And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.” (James 5:14-15).
Believing that doctors were called by God is as illogical as believing that “praising” could cure here. Of course, that girl would be still alive, It’s less risky to have “faith” in the doctors, and then rationalize it with your argument.
Most christian would have done that. Surprisingly enough (sarcasm) bible can be read in both ways. But when a lot of brains are used to work with supernaturals beings as real, some of them will be too crazy to survive.
God didn’t need doctors in the time of Jesus and the first century Christians so why would he need them today? [/sarcasm]
Doctors are products of man’s wisdom, which is lesser than God’s wisdom.
God says in the bible that prayers heal the sick, man says that medicine heals the sick. To quote Kent Hove “who are you gonna believe, the scientists, or God?”
Of course I’m going to believe the scientists, but that is why I am not a religionist.
So then. If it was a test of faith. Was the outcome? Did faith work? Or did it FAIL?
They would say that the test was of THEIR faith. They passed the test by not calling a doctor to save their child’s life. It was all about them. Religious belief is 90% narcissism, i.e. there is an all knowing, all powerful being who cares what I think, say, do.
Faith exists only in the absence of knowledge. There is no need for it if we understand. Educating ourselves decreases our need for faith. Total understanding negates the need for faith. Continuing to strive for total understanding is a life goal. When we stop searching for it we need faith to prop us up. It is a crutch that breaks when we are faced with those who have more knowledge. Religion organizes those with faith and tells them you don’t have to have knowledge, you may remain ignorant as long as you have faith. Children and others die when we choose faith over knowledge. This is only a single example of what faith does. There are scores of others.
Reading this, I can’t help but feeling that these parents are incredibly self-centered. They seem to feel that the entire universe revolves around them. Their daughter was not a person in her own right, just a device by which their god tests them.
I really do support people’s right to believe whatever they want, but only so far as it imposes on the rights and safety of their children. I don’t think anyone, parent or not, has the right to impose their belief on a child who really has no concept of faith themselves. I’m sure if she had been given the choice of life or death, their daughter would have wanted to live. I find it very hard to believe that her parents said to her “We know there are doctors who can help you, but we’re going to sit here and do nothing and hope God makes it all go away. But if he wants you to die…we’re okay with that.”
Certainly criminal negligence, manslaughter, something needs to be done to step in under circumstances like this. Maybe I’m stretching the thread a little but most people who think like this are anti-abortion yet think nothing of standing by and watching their own children suffer and die without proper care? They think nothing of brainwashing their children into their same ridiculous way of thinking?
Seriously, I wish we had some form of Eye-for-an-Eye punishment in this country so her parents could suffer in the same way she did as she died, slowly. I don’t think any other punishment would be fitting enough.
If they both don’t get a life sentence in prison then there is no justice in this world.
There isn’t. Justice is a manmade concept, an abstraction that is imperfect, and relies on the anger of others, a vengeance of the people, of society, and their outrage.
How much of a vain asshole do you have to be to believe God punished your daughter to test YOUR faith?
Religion poisons everything.
The parents rationalization is probably something like: “It was probably our daughters time to be with the Lord, PRAISE THE LORD!”
I hate these people.
There is a trackback here to a post by Cory Tucholski trying to refute Dan’s assertion that God failed as usual because he does not exist. The argument runs that God DOES heal and sometimes it’s with doctors and sometimes, it’s with miracles, and these parents were to criminally culpable for not availing themselves of the healing means which God made available in the form of doctors. So, I wrote the following in reply:
Whew, it looked like you were going to actually have to think for a second there! But it’s easy enough to just call doctors “God’s way of healing” and then not have to worry about any of the challenges involved in actually proving that anything above the actual doctors, worth calling “God” was actually at work. This way, God gets the credit when the doctors heal and some odd time when there is an unexpected recovery, that gets to be thrown in as a bonus—God’s miraculous healing option. And whenever God does not provide a miracle or whenever God’s doctors fail, then that’s just also (drumroll please) God’s will! That’s a perfectly insulated and unfalsifiable hypothesis you have there! Of course it’s also meaningless since God’s at work no matter what happens.
To really be able to defend God would be to have some evidence that God, being like a parent and loving those love him, would be more responsible to his followers, his “children” than these parents who let their child die of neglect were. But instead, God does not save those who call on him. Why couldn’t God get it across to these people who were beseeching him so fervently that the answer to their prayers was to go to a doctor? Don’t tell me about their “free will”—these were people who were calling out to God for help, who were willing to sacrifice their child rather than not trust him. These weren’t people in any rebellion against God, they were people looking for him. So, why couldn’t God have corrected their reason so that their wills would have followed the route to proper guidance?
If they’re bad and irresponsible parents for not getting their child the medical help she needed, why is God not a bad and irresponsible parent for not fixing the reason of those most devoted to trusting him, those willing to lose a daughter rather than doubt him?
Let me guess—God works in mysterious ways, right? Abracadabra! The faith is once again defended!
Let’s for a second drop the debate over god being real or not and look solely at the scenario. Being raised christian, (though now i stay out of this debate), there is quite a popular saying “God helps those who help themselves.” By sitting there praying and doing NOTHING to help her daughter this woman blatantly ignored that. Im sorry to all of you chritians, and if this offends, well i dont care, but NO DEITY OF GOOD INTENT WOULD EVER EVER EVER CONDONE LETTING A CHILD DIE WITHOUT TRYING TO GET MEDICAL ATTENTION AND JUST PRAYING. That is the opposite of good, caring, loving, or any other adjective used to describe the christian god. There is NO tale in the bible of the lazy beggars getting what they want or being rewarded. The people rewarded by “god” are those who work hard, and do WHATEVER THEY CAN to help others. NOT the ones who sit about talking to themselves. and yes, when praying, whether god is rela or not, you are talking to yourself. An all knowing god would already know what your heart truely desired and needed and so you must look to actually get that and work for it. F***ing christian zealot idiots. Chritianity – You’re doing it wrong!
I AGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“The lord was testing our faith”
YOU FAILED!@!!!! JESUS would NOT have sat dormant “praying” while his child lie writhing in pain and torment.
I am disgusted. DISGUSTED.
What book and verse in the Bible says “god helps those who help themselves”? Seems like I saw something like that when I read it, but I can’t remember where exactly. Not that it would explain anything, since there are probably a hundred other verses that say faith in god is more important than human deeds, but I’m curious. I’m going to guess there are some popular verses that encourage people like these to pray instead of taking action. Even “the devil can quote scripture for his own purpose”.
It’s not in the bible.
This sickens me.
Does anyone know what the verdict was for the parents?
Both now convicted of second degree reckless homicide.
http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20090801/HOMESSEO/90801018/1981
Wow, I went to the site you linked and read a few pages of comments. There is some deep, disturbing idiocy out there. “God gave some people knowledge to be doctors” and the like. I’m pretty sure they got their knowledge about doctoring from working their asses off in med school and internships. What a bunch of foolishness. These people hear this terrible logic being employed so many times in their xian circles that they are incapable of thinking clearly anymore. They just regurgitate the same ignorant drivel over and over. Ugh…it’s like reading the comments of a bunch of poorly programmed robots.
You actually misjudge and misquote here. People are indicating simply that if God designs people and has a purpose (which I acknowledge many of us here do not believe), then he may provide them with an inclination or a direction that leads to the medical profession. People are not saying that God gave them all of the textbook knowledge to be doctors. The point, from a theological perspective, is that if God exists, and if he has a purpose, then he will design people to fulfill certain roles. Whether those people accept their purpose and pursue their inclinations is quite up in the air, and whether or not these people become doctors or electricians or teachers is really up to them. Truthfully, everyone regurgitates some amount of ridiculous drivel due to what they’ve been taught or influenced to believe, whether they are believers in a faith or not. The really sad thing is hatred of others for having the same human nature with which we ourselves have been infused.
As the Smother Brothers said, “god? God who? Is that his first name or his last name?”
Religion is the cause of most of the world problems and now a young child dies in his name! WTF!
Good thing this “religion” is not what Christ came to bring, not even close.
Scholars admit it’s very difficult to know what the historical Jesus taught, but John C has it all figured out. They should just ask him.
You make an assumption that we cant know, but He said just the opposite and believing Him has made all the difference in my life. Not that I have (fully) arrived but nevertheless, I press on.
It’s been my experience that we settle for far less than we have to and I find that regrettable and unnecessary.
The problem is, you don’t know “He” said any such thing. He didn’t write anything himself, and what we have is other people claiming what he said generations after he died. Translators then translate and interpret that into English, then you read it and interpret that — confident you know his exact meaning, even though you’re so far removed you have no idea what he meant, if he said it at all.
I know it’s fruitless to point these things out to you. I’ll try and stop, because it doesn’t ever get anywhere. You just ignore the issues and talk about what you know, and never the foundations of your knowledge.
Daniel, here’s the difference. You’re referencing an historical Christ but the crucified Him remember? You are “looking back” and I am “looking in”.
Its no longer “I” that lives, but Christ lives in me now. Surely you remember those words from Paul. And “when Christ WHO IS OUR LIFE shall appear”.
You’re missing the Truth of His resurrected life within, that’s where we find Him today, that’s where He lives. Yes, He lives.
There’s no difference. Both perspectives are a matter of faith. And I might add that your built-in Jesus has even less to support him than the traditional scriptural, external Jesus.
As Daniel said, the foundations of your knowledge are never questioned. And they are indeed questionable – they suffer every common problem of unfounded personal convictions: bias, subjectivity, using its own conclusions as premises, the inability to ever confirm anything, disregard of contrary information, etc etc. But you view this as a strength rather than a weakness, because it simply confirms your need to believe.
You’re stuck in recursion, John.
TRJ…
You’re right. I’m stuck alright…with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God ruling and reigning within. Have been that way for a quarter century now. And what has been the result? Peace like a river, love, joy, fellowship, mercy, all the benefits of sonship.
There is more…
… Elvis?
Incoherent babbling.
@John C: “Peace like a river, love, joy, fellowship, mercy, all the benefits of sonship.” Not quite sure what sonship is, but I have all the rest without an invisible ceiling cat.
@TRJ
Built-In Jesus, I like that term. (stealing it)
sonship=sun worship ?
@Sunny Day
Nah what you want is Built-In Turbo Jesus …
I’m calling troll on this guy.
Which was the sun-worshipping festival holiday that the Christians turned into a Christian holidy to make conversion easier for the pagans…. Christmas?
Sol Invictus
@John C,
I think that’s one of the first things you’ve ever written that has made any real, coherent sense.
“Good thing this ‘religion’ is not what Christ came to bring, not even close.”
Bad thing that not one Christian can prove that they know what “Christ came to bring”, because if they could, then people dying because of “religion”, and its byproduct, “faith”(wishthinking), could be prevented, or at least, lessened.
I sure as hell don’t know for sure… and i’m agnostic at this point anyways… but I’m pretty sure the overall message was “Don’t be a dick to people.”
The funny thing about that is, in some of the stories about Jesus, he was totally a dick to people. Dude rolled up in the temple and opened a can of whoop-ass on people for selling stuff (socialist!), engaged in a game of “Yo Mama” with a Samaritan woman before (allegedly) healing her son, screwed up a pig herder’s flock by causing them to be possessed by apparently suicidal demons, and frequently spoke in completely obtuse riddles and then berated his illiterate, mostly uneducated disciples for “not getting it.”
These two parents were not part of any organized religion. They were relying on their own interpretations, just like you John.
Actually, the father was a member of some apocalyptic church, although I don’t know how this ties in with their distrust of doctors.
This should never happen in a free society. Whether the mother is a Fundamentalist Christian or not is irrelevant, she should not be on trial to begin with. The raising of this child and the values passed on to it and under which it lives (and dies) are the responsibility of the parents not the state. That they have a different set of priorities that values preservation of their immortal soul above continuation of their life is their right and should be respected. Before you can demand that they stop trying to enforce their ethical system on you and permit you to live the life you choose, you must first be willing to grant them the same privilege.
Excuse me?! People’s fundamental rights do not extend to cause other people’s death! Your rights end where they encroach on the rights of others.
These parents are criminally negligent. They are not to be given a free pass on what they have done – or rather, neglected to do.
So… if my set of values includes raping young children under my care that should be hoky-dory, shouldn’t it? It’s my values. It’s for the sake of our immortal souls. If I don’t rape them, they’ll be damned forever. You can’t punish me for acting on my sincerely held beliefs.
Right?
Did I mention that I recently converted to the Church of Progressive Armageddon? We believe in hastening the Second Coming by proactively killing as many people as possible. Some people object to this, but they have no right to discriminate against our faith like that.
Well, be seeing you, I have a sniper rifle that needs assembling.
Hehe…you should try Discordianism. Probably just as much fun and (potentially) less jail time.
oops…this was meant as a reply to trj’s comment.
You are a hypocrite. Naturally you won’t tolerate child sacrifice from worshippers of Ba’al, will you? Try to think, just for a few moments, before you spew that kind of idiocy.
This has got to be an atheist troll, trying to make xians look more stupid than usual. I can’t accept anyone could be this much of an imbecile.
you’ve… you’ve not spent much time around really serious fundies, have you?
Go poke around at, say Conservapedia, or Answers in Genesis. You’ll learn.
I checked those sites out. Oh my….
For industrial strength stupidity see Rapture Ready discussion board.
Not really, if you make certain assumptions then the actions that follow are completely logical.
If you’ve already gone far enough to believe that God has a plan for us all, why is it so hard to go one teeny tiny step further and say that God has included in the plan the ability for us to discover and use modern medicine (and while we are on the subject) and the use of stem cells in research?
But then again (to paraphrase the famous quote) – if religious people were capable of reason they wouldn’t be religious in the first place.
The extraordinary, underlying solipsism within every post by John C. becomes more and more evident to me.
“Daniel, here’s the difference. You’re referencing an historical Christ but the crucified Him remember? You are “looking back” and I am “looking in”.”
I believe Christ (or any other hero-type God for that matter) is a simple projection of the abstract ideas of human hope and goodness; hell being the abstract concept of fear and suffering.
People need to realize that these are just ideas if they ever wish to emancipate themselves and truly appreciate the luminous and transcendent universe we live in.
Einstein – “The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.”
“Hero-type God” … I like to refer to this as a Greatest Conceivable Being. If you refer to GOD as GCB, it ruffles the zealot feathers a bit. ^^
@Michael
I like to refer to that as a Greatest Conceivable Being. ^^ That way, you’re not being specific between teh Christian God, or Ba’al like someone else mentioned… just roll em all up in one nice neat little package.
…plus it ruffles some zealot feathers.
That is fucking sickening.
…natural selection at work…move along…
Someone killing you would be “natural selection at work” too — your point?
+1 to Daniel. Cheshire Cat’s line of argument is preposterous.
I suspect Cheshire Cat may have been suggesting that these parents qualify for a Darwin Award.
Darwin Awards are normally handed out to those who improve the gene pool…by accidentally removing themselves from it! Killing one’s offspring through stupidity may also qualify. Hence “natural selection”.
So this family was severely confused…God provided help; Doctors, medicine, hospitals…
God was providing help the whole time.
It was the people not seeing the help, blame their organized religion, their own psychoticness, not God.
Of course gawd is blameless. Isn’t he always? When untrue xians misinterpret his meaning, which he is tragically vague about anyway, then it must be their fault for not being able to guess what gawd meant when he had his croneys assemble the most ambiguous conglomeration of fairy tales in history. That makes perfect sense to any self-respecting drug-addled monkey.
Either way, “God” would not intervene on behalf of a defenseless young girl who had no control and no choice, and she died. You obviously haven’t read any of the posts above or you wouldn’t be spouting bullshit arguments that have already been shot down.
Plus, they apparently weren’t part of any organised religion; not that it makes any difference, but you should have your facts right.
The family? You don’t think the little girl deserved to have a life on her own? You also think that God let her die, because of her parent’s fault? What a fair God! Even assuming that the parents could have choosen “God’s help trough doctors” -sic- that was never an option for the little girl so, wich God’s help was provided for the girl?
I agree with Pearl. Blame the people, not god. They were too stupid to realize that, if god exists, he has a really crappy batting average as far as miracle-on-demand prayers go.
Absolutely tragic.
However……………………
Did anyone wonder if a couple hundred Philistine foreskins would have been enough to push God into miracle mode?
How could they be Christian? Even in the New Testament Jesus says “You should go to a doctor when you’re sick” when people ask why he hangs out with sinners so much. While he was speaking in metaphors, he didn’t exactly advise against doctors.
It’s almost as if the Bible can be interpreted in more than one way.
We are in a sarcastic mood … :-)
funny :)
…You are my new favorite person EVER :P
Where on earth does Jesus advocate doctors?
I think, from a literary analysis point of view, it is pretty obvious that faith is the biblical answer. Lets see. In the bible faith achieves:
Moving mountains (Jesus), being fed by ravens (Ezekiel), knocking down stone walls (Joshua), surviving poison and snake bites (Paul), all of the healing miracles by Jesus up to and including the resurrection of Lazarus (Jesus), murdering children by bear conjuration (Elijah), Surviving being burned alive (Shadrack Meshack and Abendego), parting the red sea (Moses), mana from heaven (Moses), water from a rock (also Moses)….and many more.
In the bible doctors achieve:
absolutely nothing.
So, the bible does not support going to doctors to be cured of sickness. Like any book based on divinity it claims that by trusting and praying in God, and listening to his advice (usually passed down by a prophet but not always) all troubles in life will be solved.
Now one might say that she didn’t listen to God’s voice, because God would have told her to go see a doctor. The problem is that you base this belief on your “hearing” of “God’s voice”. Why is your internal God more legitimate than hers? Without some verifiable evidence, you cannot say that your perception of a God voice is any greater or more valid than her perception of a God voice. Unfortunately the evidence for what the God voice would say falls strongly on her side. With a good reading of the bible (which I have done multiple times) one can see that you are actually the false Christian.
As much as I hate it, fundamentalists are the only true Christians. They are the only people that actually read their holy books and listen to what it says. Now, our evangelical friends are only half way to being true fundamentalists as they have not called for us to wipe the Muslims of the face of the earth. That is what God would do.
This is why I left Christianity. I decided that as a young Christian I should actually sit down and read my bible and figure out what God really wanted. After reading it I realized that the modern churches hold to almost nothing of the bible. Of course this is a good thing because the bible is a terribly evil book with a terribly evil God. I could not hold the dissonance that I should only believe the good and happy parts of the bible that fit what I want to believe and ignore the rest. So, after really thinking about it, I realized that the bible is incompatible with reality on many levels, such as science and morality, and that it was obviously false. I even had some fun with the Pascals wager problem. In the end I decided that if I did die and meet the God of the bible; the one who “hardened Pharoah’s heart” and then killed thousands of innocent children (the twelfth plague); I would rather suffer eternal torment than give my worship to such a truly evil creature. Fortunately that is not the case.
That lady is insane….if I were that girl I would be SO pissed!
too bad! you’re dead!
Darwin was once asked if the reason he did not believe in god was due to his belief in evolution. He said no. The reason he did not believe in god was because of what wild animals were able to do to other wild animals. He pointed out how an attacking animal can bring down it’s prey then proceed to eat that prey while it is still alive. The prey might even look up at the animal that’s eating his flesh. Yet that animal often just goes right on eating.
Now if there is such a thing as a benevolent god, one that has designed everything to be as it is, why didn’t that god put an ever so slight tweak into the instincts of wild animals so they would actually fully kill prey before they eat it? Allowing of course for not really knowing if the prey is dead.
Would that have been so hard? Religion has all kinds of excuses for when man does this kind of thing to man. But what could possibly be the explanation for why god’s innocent creatures do this to god’s innocent creatures.
Frankly, I think this is one of the most powerful arguments against the existence of a benevolent god there is.
For goodness sakes- the bible is nothing but jewish fairy tales. It was allegedly written 70 years after the death of “Jesus”, who I think was just another schizo. I mean, come on, all schizophrenics say they are “Jesus”. What makes him so different? I believe that schizophrenics have a
misfiring in their brain that make them say different things, do different things. I personally love these people. If you would ever have a conversation with them, you would know what I am talking about.
I’m talking about the schizophrenics.
Word.
Let’s just say there is a God. (I know, I know…but for the purpose of this argument) And God is responsible for everything. Wouldn’t he/she/it/whatever have been responsible for the discoveries and science of modern medicine? Didn’t God supposedly create the doctors? So use “God’s creations” and then pray your thank you’s! Use your own religious ridiculousness to save your daughter instead of killing her. Ugh.
Whatever scientific progress has been made, has done so against the will of people who would pray for health instead.
As veevers mentions, where do they think doctors come from, then? Are all doctors then the tool of the devil? If their god is responsible for all good in the world, isn’t insulin a tool for man created by their god? Don’t they believe that man has “dominion” over all plants and animals? That should make medicines “a gift from god,” right? Aren’t they “denying him” by denying the benefit of lifesaving care to their daughter? Isn’t that murder?
I accept that other people don’t believe as I do, but to deny basic medical care to your deathly ill child is criminal. Kid has a cold or mild flu, maybe allergies or a mild headache? Sure, you can skip the doctor. Unconsciousness, however, should be an immediate call to 911.
I would also like to hear these folks explain why their god never “cures” an amputee. There is an interesting website, Why won’t god heal amputees?, that addresses this question and its significance.
I love that website =)
Following that line of reasoning, reason is also a God’s gift. If reason takes me to the conclusion of not believing in god, shouldn’t that conclusion be accepted?
After the new Orleans disaster happened a poll found peoples “faith” was stronger. Why? I believe religious people are less intelligent. 90% of Americans are religious yet 90% of scientists are agnostic.Does that tell you anything.We must stop all supernatural teaching to our children to avoid the above crimes.
Actually, only about 3/4ths of Americans are religious, and 90% of scientists don’t claim agnosticism. The majority of them aren’t religious, but they fall into many different categories of non-supernatural beliefs (when I say belief here I mean something that represents what we can experience in the real world, not religious style belief, which is really faith, and in my opinion not belief at all). Where I can agree with you is your last comment about stopping the indoctrination of children into religion. There should be a minimum age to get into a church, like bars. Nobody under 21 has any business being fed a pack of absurd and poorly constructed lies. At least they’d be able to defend themselves. Nothing stifles the mind quite like religion, and indoctrinating children into it should be a criminal offense.
people want to believe that things happen for a reason. They want to believe that tragedy is part of God’s plan. If tragedy is part of God’s plan then it was not really a tragedy and the people can feel that their suffering is part of some greater good. They cannot face the reality that bad things happen.
It occurs to me the Government by their failure to intervene indirectly though constructively aided and abetted the loss of this poor girl’s life. How is it that this scenario was permitted to play out when surely the local authorities would have been well aware what was going on and evidently did absolutely nothing but stand idly and indifferently by?
IMO the District Attorney, if not the State Governor should have been jointly charged with aiding and abetting culpable manslaughter for failure to act appropriately and in a timely manner in keeping with their respective oaths of office.
How were the local authorities supposed to know about it?
Fucking despicable behavior. I hope that the murderers of that child get everything they have coming to them. Why do we, as a society, tolerate faith at all? It’s harmful and horrible.
Surely the love and belief in your children should overtake your love and belief in God? To see your own child in pain and suffering to the point where she actually dies in front of your eyes while all you do is go and knock on the neighbours’ door to ask them to come and pray with you – these are not the acts of any mother worth her salt. When your baby is sick, you will do anything you can do to make them better. Any mother who can allow her child to die of an illness that is very easily treatable is disgusting, no matter what God you were praying to. And if God were involved, I’m sure that He would think the same. Your child was not a martyr sweetie, she was a sick little girl who died for your selfishness.
And yes, this woman will probably say that this was God’s will and He moves in mysterious ways….well it don’t look so mysterious to me. If God had anything, anything at all to do with this (which of course, He didn’t) it ends in Him punishing you for being a poor excuse for a mother.
Don’t mothers have a special instinct to protect their children that can, for example, cause them to lift impossible weights under adrenaline rushes and things like that? It would be a biological thing, the mother ensuring future generations and all that.
I make this point because I think the mother of this girl must have had to work hard to suppress this maternal instinct, unless she was a total automaton. I can’t believe her blind idiotic faith won out against her instincts and she let her child die.
Not all mothers, also a matter of natural selection. Those who are not closely bonded to their children will put them at risk, neglect, abuse, etc..
Also, many religious people I know seem to put God above all things. God first, the world after. Including children, husbands, wives, etc..
Wow, that’s incredibly frightening!
This happened to me with appendicitis when I was 8, I didnt die, but my trust in my parents did, and all their stupid olive oil weilding prayer-buddies.
So…you got better?
I went to the hospital after a couple of weeks of pain. They said I was denying god’s power, he would have healed me if I accepted it. I insisted on seeing a doctor. I was labled a ‘bad apple’ after that.
yeah, a bad and alive apple ;-)
Religion has stolen the joy and innocence from more children then any other form of abuse. The fact that parents everywhere are not only permitted but encouraged to drill lies and bullshit into their childrens’ heads literally from the moment they are born sickens me. In fact, a recent article in a prominent religious magazine suggested that mothers play “Classical music, christian music and sermons” to their unborn kids. While the greatest tragedy is the death of this young girl, it is equally tragic that she may have had no idea that it was possible to save her. But surely she was aware of her parent’s theory about their falling out with another couple (because a loving god likes to punish innocent children with horrible illnesses when mommy and daddy shaft the Joneses from their latest backyard Bible-becue). What kind of guilt and anger must she have been carrying in her last moments?
Religion is child abuse.
The question now is, if one of those parents gets sick, will they rust on their faith too?
Or just run scared to the nearest doctor?
why are religious people so stupid? oh yeah, because they are religious.
While I wouldn’t choose these actions myself, we do have free will, in the end means free choice. This is the moms choice, feel sorry for the child, hate the mom if you will, but you must understand as long as their is free will, nothing will ever stop people from making similar choices.
I am sorry, but you are wrong. She could have survived, but their god intervened.God has become the major problem in our society. Both Christianity and Islam have become the players in the biggest terrorist programs in our times,
When will the people be allowed to speak about this?
This isn’t about religion, it is about politics!
You don’t have “free will” to cause, through negligence or intent, the death of another human being. That’s why those two assholes are going to jail (let’s hope it sticks). This isn’t about free will. It’s about two adults’ ridiculous fantasies directly causing them to withhold medical attention to a grievously ill child in their care. You can choose to “believe” anything that kinks your curl, but when that belief harms other people, you are committing a crime. I hope they get beaten to within an inch of their lives in prison, and the guards, instead of getting them medical attention, just hover above them beckoning for a miraculous recovery. Maybe then these savages can get a taste of how that poor little girl felt as she lay there dying while her parents showed indifference to her suffering in order to appease their nonexistent sky king.
The mother got off scott free, no jail!
Correct, we can’t stop people from making similar choices, but we can educate them so they have a better range of choices.
If that fails we can always lock them up.
Yes, they will. Just like a sociopath will make the choice to kill someone in cold blood.
The difference is the sociopath is reviled by the populace and locked up, preferarbly forever; this mother will too, I suppose, but she will also harness sympathy from the craziest segment of the public simply because she did it for God.
This is a problem I have with many cases of justification from religious belief – why is it that doing something from a religious viewpoint is somehow considered more acceptable than from a non-religious based belief? In the UK there have been a few, thankfully less tragic, cases of Christians claiming ‘persecution’ for having to marry same sex couples. If this was from a non-religious belief then there would be no argument about sacking them for not doing their job and discrimination. As it based in religious belief it all of a sudden means that the view has to be respected and accommodated. My view, if you don’t like it resign and get another job.
I have the same problem with this I have with so many other areas of christianity – the elasticity in interpreting what is the same damn book. This family believed that to do anything other than pray would offend god. Meanwhile, many very pious people will see doctors. So…is god providing knowledge & relief from suffering thru drs like he provided land via the US continent? I mean…I’m not at all clear on where modern medicine fits in here. It all came along after the bible anyway, so where are the pro & con arguments getting traction from? I’ve read of people who availed themselves freely of high tech for getting pregnant, ending up with 5 or so fetuses, & when told that they should selectively abort a couple fetuses so the remaining ones will have room to grow & be healthy, object firmly & say its god’s will they have all these children. I would say the clearer message on god’s will was telling you your path doesn’t involve parenthood. You see my problem. All christians operate from the same book – the bible, & declare most adamantly that their little lump of land is the only dry place, yet their actions are all over the place.
natural selection
That’s pretty nasty… if your point with that is that the “weaker” species die out… tell everyone how that little girl even got a chance to be strong or weak. She could have been so much, but we won’t ever know that now.
perhaps it’s better this happened. imagine another child brought up thinking the very same thing the parents do. at least with this situation the ideas won’t pass from one generation to another. it’s certainly harsh, but the parents will get their comeuppance eventually. there is one thing that does bother me though…they prayed to God for help, but wouldn’t seek medical help. they believe God is responsible for everything we have, everything we get, everything we achieve…yet they’re not willing to use it. that sort of hypocrisy has cost more than just one life. i would love for this to be a lesson to those who feel the same the parents do. i’m far past expecting people to learn lessons.
maybe she would have grown up to be a serial killer and god prevented it; even though god knew when he started everything. god works in mysterious ways. don’t question god. and by god i mean my god of course, the only one there is.
God requires faith for every blessing that comes from him. With that faith you need to remember one other thing as described by the following short story:
There was a man who lived by a dam. The dam started to slowly break due to a strong earthquake.
The man believed he had enough faith to move mountains and he prayed and believed that God would not let him be hurt.
As the water started to spill from the dam the man’s neighbor, who stayed because he believed the dam wouldn’t break, drove by and told the man that he needed to jump into his car so the two of them could escape the coming flood. The man refused the ride because he said that he believed and had complete faith that God would save him and keep him safe from any danger caused by the dam breaking.
As the streets started to flood with water another neighbor, who thought he would wait it out too, came by in a boat and also told the man he needed to jump into his boat because he believed the flood would just keep getting worse, but again the man refused because he knew God would save him.
The flood poured out forcing the man on to his roof to avoid being swept away by the rising water.
An emergency rescue helicopter that was out looking for stranded people flew over and tried to rescue the man but again he refused stating that he had prayed and had all the faith in the world that God would save him and keep him safe. The water rose and the man drowned.
After the man went through the gates of heaven he questioned God saying “God you told us to pray and have faith and that all our prayers would be answered. I prayed and had so much faith that you would keep me safe, I don’t understand why you didn’t save me? Then God replied “I tried, my son, I sent you a CAR, a BOAT and a HELICOPTER”.
There is a joke that I think would be good for this:
There once was a man who was drowning in a lake screaming for help several people in boats tried to help him but he refused saying”God will save me don’t worry” after the 4th boat he drowned and asked god”Why didn’t you save me?”god replied”What do you mean!?I sent FOUR boats to save you!”
I do not hate religious people,they just need to learn whether or not you think god will save you,you need to try to find help yourself.
Why does whether the daughter lived or not become the test of faith? If you’re very religious you believe in the next world and the glorious heaven good souls go to. God just brought her into the next world; perhaps it was her time. Or perhaps that in itself is the test. If you really have no uncertainty of an afterlife then why be so shaken when someone transitions to it?
I agree with Nate. Religion is child abuse. Furthermore, to secure our rightful place in the future as an intelligent, independent minded compassionate people.. we need to stop this “everyone has the right to believe” bullsh!t. The earth is not flat, aids doesnt come from touching gay people, and JESUS WAS A CON-ARTIST! I refuse to allow those around me to talk about their imaginary friends anymore. period.
btw.. if i were dying sooner than later, id want to believe i didnt waste my life either, and that the best was yet to come. just sayin….
the problem is that people like this never learn. I bet if you asked the mother now, she would say that it was the Lord’s will that her daughter die and the “god works in mysterious ways”
…Disgusting
Woot! Darwin wins again!
Do these losers have any other children? If so, quite likely we’ll be seeing this story again, with a different child’s name. As neilaso says, people like this refuse to learn from their mistakes, no matter how criminal those mistakes are.
Religion and blind faith are toxic.
Only someone who is completely ignorant and heartless would write something like this. God has not “failed over and over again.” Why? Because God is perfect and it is impossible for him to fail. You just need to read up and stop talking about things you clearly don’t understand. Why WOULDN’T anyone put their trust in someone who has succeeded over and over again?
Now, I most definitely don’t agree with these parents who didn’t do anything but pray. I strongly believe in prayer- and I believe in angels. Why do you think we have people who know how to help us when we’re sick? My dad has type 1 diabetes and we pray for him but he also see’s his doctors regularly; I know he wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have doctors.
As for you Mr. Florien- if God truly doesn’t exist why have people been worshipping, praying to, rejoicing, and loving him since the beginning of time? Do you really think everything we have on this earth would be here if God didn’t put them here? Educate yourself- go read the scriptures. Maybe you should even try talking to him- then tell us what you think.
rai rai,
Ignorant and heartless?
Tell me, if you are perfect, and it’s impossible for you to fail (the very qualities you ascribe to your god), would it be heartless to sit back and allow people to die because they prayed in your name?
Also, do you honestly believe that people have been worshiping, praying to, and loving YOUR GOD from the beginning of human history? What about the Hindu gods? What about the Persian gods? What about the Egyptian gods? What about all the religions that are older than your religion? What is your answer to that, rai rai?
Why don’t you educate yourself before you insult us?
@Rai rai
I think this case story is excellent evidence that your belief in a perfect god (the Christian one?) is bullshit. If such a god as yours existed, and it happened to be the same one that these people were praying to, then it is either powerless or ignorant and heartless (to borrow your unwarranted description of Daniel Florian). If it can’t heal as well as trained physicians then it could at least have made it clear to these beseeching followers that they had got their interpretation of him wrong and should seek a human instead of a god.
I’d say it argues against a benevolent God, at least, or a God that personally cares for human suffering.
@Rai rai
How has God (outside of the bible) ever succeeded? Now I’m sure you’ll come up with some lame thing like “my car wouldn’t start, I prayed, and it did” or “I prayed to get a good job and I got one” or any other number of things that are perfectly explainable without resorting to God. In the bible there was a classic example. Elijah (or Ezekiel, but I’m pretty sure it was Elijah) was offended that the Jews were worshiping foreign Gods (I think Ba’al, so we’ll go with that one for now). So Elijah did a demonstration of Gods power. Two altars were set up, one for YHVH and one for Ba’al. The priest of Ba’al prayed for the altar to be lit by Ba’al. Obviously it didn’t work. Elijah doused the altar in water and then prayed that YHVH would light the altar. YHVH sent down a column of fire that consumed the entire altar, all the water, and even jumped out and killed the priests of Ba’al.
So my question is this, when has God ever succeeded in such an endeavor within the last, oh thousand years or so? How about we do a repeat. We can even televise it for the world. You will pray to YHVH and I will use naturalism, science, and all the intellectual achievements that have been gained against the will of the church (like a match or a flamethrower or something). These are the same rules used in the bible, your God versus my “God” or lack thereof. So yea, God succeeded, not so much.
People believe in Gods because they feel the need to control the universe. Imagine we are the ancient peoples. We cannot control weather, food supply, child birth, sickness, or pretty much anything in our environment. However what we can do is create abstract concepts. So we abstract the idea that effects have causes and that there must be some giant “causer” living in the sky. We supplicate this entity, that we call “God”, to control the chaotic world around us. God controls the world, and we control God through prayer and prophecy, thus we control the world. There are many other reasons why humans believe in God. For some of them you can pick up a nice little book called “The God Delusion”.
The other counter to this argument is: why hasn’t everyone already heard of your God. Why was the almighty YHVH, the supposed sole creator of all reality, worshiped by everyone? Why do Christians have to preach the word of God to aboriginal tribes? If YHVH is really so all powerful and all present why does every single tiny tribe on the planet have its own God? Maybe its cause all of them, including YHVH are just make believe.
Why is the earth here? Read a science textbook. They are actually quite fascinating. Or go on Youtube and look up “History of the Universe Made Easy”.
There is only one punishment that fits this crime. Take them out into the yard and shoot them in the back of the head. Maybe get all of their friends over and have them pray to see if God can stop the bullet. What infuriates me is that in cases like this, the Judge will see their faith as a mitigating circumstance rather than an aggravating one. It’s the height of evil to fly aeroplanes into buildings under the guise of Islam but this sort of murder is allowed to go on all the time. These children are abused and brainwashed and should be removed from their care before tragedy occurs.
What could be the objective to punish them with a death sentence? I’m pretty sure the best punishment for them -and horrible enough- would be to help them fully understand what they did
Religion…will it ever go away? What is it with these people and why are they the majority? Kooks!
It’s great that they believe in “God” enough to think he can save their daughter, but if they were true Christians they would have sought medical attention right away. It’s absurd to think that people won’t rely on other people because they don’t think they will help in the way that “God” would.
“Religion is a crutch for the weak.” Period.
It is indeed sad that the little girl died.
To the christians and other believers in omnipotent beings that keep leaving comments, please first answer (honestly and to yourselves) the questions posed by Epicurus (Greek philosopher 341BCE-270BCE):
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
Then realize that the majority of organized religions are for the control of the masses for the benefit of the few. Next realize that jesus didn’t exist in the form portrayed in that badly translated/misinterpreted book written by a committee of humans in a misogynistic culture.
and realize that all the best cons are perpetrated on half truths. I suggest a couple of websites to have a look at, if you can break free of your indoctrination, Zeitgeist the movie .com and Crichton miller.com the latter will explain about the symbolism of the serpent and 666 etc (not evil or anything to do with evil, just more lies spread to deny education and control the ignorant masses) it will also explain why there are pre christian Celtic artifacts in America, etc etc
Yes you probably do feel spiritual energy? Current science says there are something like 13 dimensions so there could be other (spiritual?) planes. Like I said the best cons are based on half truths, and by believing you are keeping the selfish (evil?) 2% owning the 50% and the people that pay are you and me and the little girl who payed everything.
Current thinking in ethnoarcheology suggests that all religion originated from the ingestion of hallucinogenic substances or other methods to induce trance states about 40000 years ago.
I am not a Christian, though I definitely have respect for religious faith. With that said, allowing a child to die when human knowledge could have saved her is going way too far. Have these people reverted to the Dark Ages? They seem to think it was God’s job to remove their daughter’s illness rather than their job as parents to take care of their child, and it cost her life. Don’t Christians believe that God will “help those who help themselves”?
Why?
– Douglas Adams (excerpt from a 1998 speech)
Faith (religion) came about as man attempted to explain that which he did not understand. Blind faith came about as a tool for man to control others. Blind faith demands that you accept and do not question that which religious fundamentalists present to you as fact. What is ironic is that faith in and of itself is based on questioning why things are the way they are.
If this girl had say, sprained her ankle, and could not get food or water for herself would these people allow her to die of dehydration and hunger? Following the mother’s philosophy it would be God’s will if her daughter lived or died; depending on how quickly the daughter recovered. The parents are selfish, heartless and ignorant. May “God” forgive them because i don’t.
This child’s death was a tragedy Her parents are being put away and that’s exactly what should happen. It is difficult for me to understand how anyone can look around them at the possibilities for the world and some how choose an abstract religious concept to solve a simple medical problem instead of taking advantage of all we know to help a dear child.
Religion came about as a methodology to make life a little more tolerable in a very harsh world. Early on its proponents wrote a book to support their point of view. It was not written by a god but a bunch of stone age monks who thought it important to have a story and to impose rules on believers. It grew offering panacea to a very difficult world However it has taken over human kind as the answer to everything. No objective review of religion will result understanding how it has dominated the minds of so many. People in this forum have said their deity has never made a mistake! Who would be privileged enough to know if a true deity had ever made a mistake? Religion has no answers but many many questions. There is absolutely no evidence of a god in this world. Note that millions of things that have been dubbed as gods work have been explained objectively over the centuries and the explanations have nothing to do with a god. Our continued quest for knowledge has answered so much and will continue to decrease the need for a god explanation.
Religion is in a tough place, so much of our existence can be explained rationally and objectively that they are now grasping at the straws of creationism and miracles. Intelligent Design was lauded as explaining creation but has not met scrutiny to the point its been laughed out of court and textbooks. Miracles of faith almost always have a logical scientific explanation and if not there is never any proof whatsoever that it was a miracle ! God never takes credit! Why?
Because he is not there. Never has been there. Does not exist. Any intelligent human being who chooses carefully looks at all sides of the God issue will always find no proof and no reason to believe. However too few take the time to look for truth. We would rather take the written word of others no matter how ridiculous and silly Why spend energy to find out for ourselves when we can take the word of stone age monks.
So much positive could come from no religion. First, war would all but disappear. Birth control would finally minimize populations needing resources. Many nations borders would change for the good. Most of all, people would work to make a better world instead of praying for it.
You had me all the way up to the last paragraph. Wars will continue to be fought over resources and borders will still be disputed. However, you’re exactly right that the world would be a better place, because most of the impetus for hatred, bigotry, misogyny, genocide, etc. would all but vanish. I sincerely hope we get there.
Honestly, though – where does the Bible prohibit going to a doctor? Does anyone really know where it’s expressly forbidden to utilize modern medicine? Oh yeah, wifey, Luke (the guy who wrote the book of “Luke”) was a physician, huh?
That’s why Christians tend to look stupid – but that’s okay. Everyone else does too.
This is crazy, how do you let your child die when you know their is knowledge and medicines out there that will save them, even if it is a man made source? These religous kooks should be taught a lesson. We should take a super strain of Necrotizing Fasciitis and infect them with it, just a small dose in their small toes. Then lock them away providing only shelter, food, and water. Of course denying all medical recourse, that could save their pathetic lives. Then just tell them pray to god that he takes the disease away as the disease starts to slowly eat their flesh away as it spreads from their feet to their legs. As awful as this would be, we should also broadcast it nationally and maybe even have a live web feed of them at www willgodsavethem dot com. This may not teach these two morons anything as it is too late for them, but you talk about stories like this, slowing the freak down. This is becoming too common lately, just the other month or so it was two of those idiots denying medical treatment for their son that had cancer. You would think that stories like this would becoming something of the past with all the technology and knowledge available to the public, but seems the opposite is happening.
Mike……this is crazy!
Yeah I understand what I described was disturbing. Though don’t you think it is equally crazy that a child die in today’s world from diabetes. We know a lot about the disease and can easily treat it, so that someone that has it can lead an almost normal life. We may not be able to cure it but nonetheless this is disturbing. Surely their daughter wanted to live and enjoy life to the fullest. Instead these crazed loons let her spend the majority of her life in pain and misery. This girl will never be able to experience socializing with friends, sleepovers, going to the prom, and all the things of life that 98% of the general population take for granted. Instead she spent life couped up in a bedroom in suffering and misery while these loons prayed to their “god” and asked for forgiveness. They even forced this religious bs down her throat, the very thing that killed her. The thing that gets me is when I tell people I am an atheist, they look at me like I am the reincarnation of Hitler. Though these loons in the eyes of those people that are so quick to judge me, were just misinformed and doing what they thought was right. Though it took the girl going unconscious and becoming lifeless for them to call the couple that they thought that this “curse” was brought on about. The more I think about this girl, the more these people enrage me. Screw killing them, we just should just beat them to within an inch of their pathetic life with blunt objects everyday for the rest of their life. The idea of “god” makes me sick to my freaking stomach. That this almighty, all knowing, gracious and merciful god would let this happen. You know if god is real he is one sicko ####.
with the same reasoning she used in not helping her daughter by getting medical attention, why take the time to do anything. Why not pray for the food to enter your mouth and slide down your throat into your stomach. Why work when you can just pray for money. Why donate when you can just pray for others who are worse off than you. why am i even using the word reason for this argument. Obviously there was no correct reasoning used at all.
justcallmetom said the same thing I was thinking, except the version of that story I’ve heard is slightly different. I’m firmly against organized religion, and while I’m not exactly sure what I believe when it comes to “God,” (I’m agnostic), I’m pretty sure I think that if there is a “God,” or, a higher being that has created us and our world, he’s not how the Bible portrays him. I just can’t imagine being, who supposedly loves us and everything he creates, let us go through so much pain and suffering while he sits and watches. Yeah, he “works in mysterious ways,” whatever. I just know that I, having feelings and empathy for others, could not ignore the suffering of billions of people. He either doesn’t exist, or is a being that is so above us and our ideas that he has no concern for how we live our lives or what happens to us.
I remember, even as a small child at about 7 or 8 years old, I would question my mom about the stories in the bible. She’s a Jehovah’s Witness, which no, is not a cult. It’s just another branch of Christianity. There was a book she used to read to me that simplified and illustrated a lot of the bible stories for children. I can still recall today (8 years later) what I asked her and about what stories. Some that come to mind at the moment…I was extremely disbelieving about the whole idea of “Noah’s Ark,” and how Noah was able to gather up all the animals on Earth and put them on a giant boat. Even at such a young age, I asked my mother how that was possible, and she just said it was. I also remember being horrified at the story where Lot (I believe) offers up his daughters to an angry mob to protect travelers he invited into his home. I don’t remember what my mother said to explain that to me, but I do remember wondering why on earth anyone would do that. I can see wanting to protect someone, even a stranger, but why would it be any better to offer up someone else to protect them?
I could obviously go on and on about all the strange stories in the bible, but others have done that and I’m tired. Even though my mother is a Jehovah’s witness, my father is an atheist. Oddly enough, neither of those groups of people normally believe in “holidays” (at least, religious ones), yet I grew up celebrating Christmas and Easter and all that fun stuff. My father was raised Catholic though, so maybe it was force of habit. I grew up attending some Jehovah’s Witnesses meetings, but by the time I turned 14 I hadn’t been to one in a couple years and I was certain I was agnostic and could never be a part of a religion (even if some day I did decide I believed in God). In my opinion, religion causes more problems than it solves, and the world would be a far better place without it.
If I’m not mistaken, the different “branch(es)” of christianity are called sects. I felt exactly the same way about biblical stories. Oh, and that Lot story? He offered his two daughters up to serial rapists, rather than let them sodomize strangers who came to his house (think the strangers were supposed to be angels, but I might have that part wrong). Nevertheless, I have two daughters. I don’t care if it was god himself, come down from heaven just to tell me he’s real. I’d shove his arse out the door before I’d offer up my girls to serial sodomizers.
The bible is replete with crazy stories, a bloodthirsty, egotistical, immoral psycho of a god, and far too many contradictions to count. The more I learned about my faith and religion, the more obvious it became to me it was nonsense. I actually thought I might become a pastor some day. Funny to think of that now.
I don’t think the problem is that God is unreliable. I think he simply creates a lot of other people for us to rely on. God isn’t absent because he works through people he created to be medical professionals. The real shame is when religion provokes this sort of situation by indicating that you have little or no faith by trusting in medicine when, in fact, God made people to be doctors and chemists so that others who are not may be aided in their time of need. Christians tell you to keep going to church because you need fellowship, so why would they tell you not to obtain the help of the people who can help you most? Jesus is often referred to as The Great Physician, and he himself declared, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Really, this situation is just a shame, and it certainly is due to the ignorant maxims of a sick religion; however, I don’t believe it is necessarily the fault of an erring, irresponsible, or absent God.
So your god creates people to be doctors but also creates people to become ill to be treated by doctors. Not exactly the nicest person is he? Maybe a better explination is that god just doesn’t exist.
I never said he was my God. I don’t know whom you think my god to be. Your assumption that God simply creates people sick and lame is in disregard to the belief of most theologies, that God created man perfect, man chose to disobey his god, and then God allowed men to become sick and lame because of their own choices. I don’t say this so that you will believe it, but to remind you that people of faith are employing this logic. I don’t know who the nice person is, man, or God, or whether God is a person at all or a force or a collective energy of some kind. In any case, I don’t believe that the only rational belief system is that God does not exist at all; rather, I think many faiths are sane and practical; moreover, I think that many individuals within those religions are spurred on to greater good than they might be otherwise. I don’t know, I simply propose that if my explanation contains the theory that God exists, it really is just as good as any other man’s theory that he doesn’t exist. We can’t know, though we may have faith one way or the other, but the best we can do in the meantime is rely on other people who have somehow been created to support us in times of need and to lift us on their shoulders in time of victory.
“God isn’t absent because he works through people he created to be medical professionals”
I didn’t realize god created people to be medical professionals. I thought they decided they’d like to have that job and spent years working their butts off for their educations. Now I know those lazy bums didn’t even earn it. I’ll never respect a doctor or a nurse again!
Anybody ever hear that saying “Trust in god but lock your car?”
“The lord helps those who help themselves?”
You can’t just sit on your ass and hope that good stuff happens to you, no matter what you see on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Unbelievable.
Except the little kid didn’t exactly have a choice about helping herself, so she’s being punished by her parents’ inaction.
You can blame religion ALL you want. A true Christian is against religion. (a True Christian remains to be about 1% of the membership of any church, that means that not evryone that calls hinself a Christian IS.
But my point is that I agree with you on that. I have personally known people that have scientific proof that God exists, but im reaaaallllyyy tired of replying to pseudo-scientists and therefore I will retire from this blog.
I also want to recomend some books, aaahhhgg, Later fellas!
No True Scotsman fallacy.
Okay, the people saying God made Doctors really need to consider a few things. First was adam and eve born doctors with vaccines, ability to perform open heart surgery, brain surgery? If you answered that question Yes than you can say God created Doctors. As everyone with an sense knows God did not create doctors. We have evolved and learned on our own how to cure aliments, God did not give us the word of Masters in Medical Science degree in the beginning, I’m sorry, but it just didn’t happen folks. Science, doctors and all that you see hear happened by natural progression, years of testing, years of trials that failed and eventually succeeded. It is in no way “Divine.”
Also, if you honestly still believe that Gods awesome power is thousands of years of mans trial and error and the failure( and deaths) that have come about while we attempt to fix this “Perfect” world. If you still honestly believe that. Please ask yourself why would a God work in such a way that makes him seem less and less likely. If we rely on doctors or herbs instead of the “Faith” Jesus taught then why have faith at all? If Jesus died for our sins AND our DISEASES and we are relying on our diseases to be helped by doctors, then what reason should anyone believe our sins are cured as well? Or should I go to the local shaman to cure my sins…. I’m sure God put the shaman to cure my sins too….. just to confuse everyone further…. If God exists he wants people in hell id have to assume.
Yes, but if God does exist, then the progression itself would be a non-entity. Our conclusions are rife with pre-judgments and emotional colorings, whether we are atheists, agnostics, or deists. Really, the worst thing is that no matter how good we get at employing logical argument and sifting through difficult problems, if God exists, then his logic is not our logic. Then we have to investigate further.
Lots of errors in my above post. I’m in a hurry and can’t find an edit button. Anyways still read and consider it.
What people fail to see is that God does help, but humans fail to see how that works. Some expect him to appear to them personally or some white light of a miracle to just undo what has happened. Do lets wake up. At the same time, I find God bashing to be an utter waste of time, because why bother bashing what you cannot understand or even begin to fathom. Let me tell you a story (for the benefit of those who havent come across it before”:
A great flood inflicted this town, and there was a priest in the town, a very devout man he was. As the flood waters were rising and the authorities wanted to evacuate him, he remained in his house claiming that he prayed to God and He will save him. The water level rose again and he had to go the the first floor of his house, they again came to evacuate him in a boat, but he remained adamant on the grounds that God would save him. Water rose even higher, the priest found himself on the roof of the house. Again the authorities came to evacuate him in a helicopter, and yet again they were met with refusal, they left him and eventually he drowned. Having reached heaven he asked God why he didnt save him. God simply answered him “I sent people to save you by foot, boat and helicopter even, what more did you expect”.
So the moral of the story is blind faith is no faith at all.
Your story reminded me that story:
http://cectic.com/167.html
Now, if our supernatural god can only work through natural means, how do you know he exists? Couldn’t authorities have sent that people to rescue the priest without god’s intervention? What happens with the believers who die everyday, without any kind of help?
death is not a punishment…they die because its their time today..now imagine a world where no one died. Anyway, that is a singular instance of such “intervention”. The possibilities are endless. I dont mean to preach for i take a largely neutral view to religion and such, however, God bashers do take it a notch too far, as do relgious zealots..this logically makes me think that they’re two sides fo the same hate-monging coin.
Their time today? Ok, I know I’m going to die, but I hope that’s far from today. It’s not necessary to die young. It’s not necessary to die starving. It’s not necessary to die tortured by a sickness because your mother is expecting a supernatural intervention. There are a lot of horrible deaths also for believers. Do you have any statistic showing that “believers” have better deaths than atheists? That could be a proof for god’s existence.
“death is not a punishment…they die because its their time today…”
“i take a largely neutral view to religion and such”
Those two sentences are contradictory, as the first one is pretty religious.
“God bashers do take it a notch too far, as do relgious zealots”
Define god bashers, please. So far it seems to me that you are trying -as a lot of religious people out there- to compare atheists and fundies. Would I be a “god basher” because I think that probably there is no god?
Logically, “possibilities are endless”, and most of them point to no god. Why, then, should we assume his existence? Asking again, is it possible to explain all those people coming to rescue the minister without a supernatural being in the equation?
First off…do forgive me for a rather odd typo..”their time today” should have been “their time to die”…that could probably explain how you could have mistaken it to be religous, hopefully you can see now i was just stating a fact of life. On another note. i would like to also amend wot i have said that death is NOT a punishment, it very well could be…but thats just it, the very fact that we do not know, is the reason we’re so terrified of death.
Strange enough -as english is not my mother’s language- I didn’t read “today” but “to die”
:-)
Still, it gives me the idea of a destiny for every human, wich I don’t believe. Same for the “punishment”, it needs a counscious judge and punisher, that’s why I thought it was a pretty religious sentence. Have I been too… fastidious?
I think that the fact we are so afraid about death is genetic, an specie that didn’t do his best for survive will have disappeared. Or maybe we know that death is the end of our being.
its quite funny that our arguments seem to be on the path of convergence and eventually we would agree on some issues. anyway, while i respect your right to an opinion, i find your lack of belief in a “destiny for every human” to be a little disturbing, as this would imply an aimless existence..unless our understanding of destiny is very very different.
Indeed the idea of the end of our being is a bloody terrifying notion, but again i’d say to you, we cant really tell because no one has died and came back to tell us about it. It could be the end of the Affair or a beginning of a totally different story. After all if you wish to think scientifically, its just energy changing forms. and energy is a constant, neither created nor destroyed.
ps. it was quite an interesting coincidence that you chose to read wot i intended to write, not as i wrote it..
cheers
Well, I understand destiny as “someone has planned something important for my future that I should accomplish”; and yes, it means an aimless existence. I understand your necessity to have a transcendent objective in life, but I don’t have that belief.
“we cant really tell because no one has died and came back to tell us about it”
As far as we know, we -our counsciousness- are our brains. Biochemical reactions between his cells; and as far as we know they “disconnect” when we death. So it’s rational to assume that we disappear, to deny that, we should propose a theory to explain how can those reactions survive -in any way- cerebral death.
Indeed we are energy and matter and they don’t disappear, but we have with our minds the same problems as with our physical bodies. I mean, you get buried, your body is discomposed and then some plants grow from it. Your body is now those plants? The birds who ate from them? Or is it not anymore your body?
Your mind is energy -every tought- but it is also physical -connections between neurona. The neurona gets descomposed and the energy dissipates -as heat?- so… where could “you” be after death?
Have you ever actually read the bible? Jesus never preached death, he raised the dead. No it is nobodies “time to go” I have no idea where you got that hogwash. Old testament God killed people, but that was before he found his happy pills. Once he found those he realized him to kill himself for himself so he could love us.
Why do we expect a white light or something miraculous to happen instead of natural things that man does anyways as proof of God? Seriously dude have you read the Bible? The one with all the miracles? Do you have any idea what your talking about at all. If the whole Bible was just people doing normal natural things and that was God this religion wouldn’t of gotten very far. Please, please go read at least some of the Bible. 2 times over preferably. It was the second time through that I lost my faith.
Also, me seeing someone drowning and saving them, is just human kindness. We want our species to live on. Lets say that “humans” did not create helicopters and boats, or their were none around. Then in your mind it was just his time? So unless we do something God is powerless? So we are God? I think you just proved the atheists point….
Once he found those he realized that he could kill himself for himself so he could love us.
Just to point out, the Bible is not the only religous doctrine out there, so before claiming to be an atheist or attempting to defend their point, I suggest perusing other doctrines. Two times each, if i might add. I will not try to argue your stance,however, i’d like you to broaden your scope a little adn it might make you a little more of a sceptic or less.
Cheers
Do you need to study astrology to say it’s bogus?
Religions all insist they know things they can’t possibly know.
So you just posted without having read any of the others or you would have seen that that story has been referenced twice already…
“why bother bashing what you cannot understand or even begin to fathom”
Prove that we will never understand or fathom? Curiosity is what keeps people going in life. If no one ever asked questions, or tried doing something just a little bit differently to see what happened, our race would never have developed as much as it has. We “bash” because this has gone quite far enough – we don’t need to be abused and pushed around by people who claim that they (and “God”) love us and want what’s best for us, all the while feeding us lies and clinging desperately to control. But if you are content in perpetual intellectual darkness, be my goddamn guest.
The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it – for example, no matter how fervently you believe my hair is blue, the fact remains that it is brown. These things are not subjective.
I reiterate…express opinions but do not attack others for their beliefs. Intellectual darkness Is the blind faith i mentioned before, of which i totally disapprove. I do agree that variety and adaptation is what caused man kind to survive and strive, yet strangely through out the ages there has been a theme of an omnipotent power/being or what ever you wish to call it. The idea of God does not have to be a dude with long hair siting up on a throne pushing our buttons making a laugh of it, it could be just a collective energy and experiences, of past present and future. I ask you a simple question..what do you believe in?
Why would such a thing be God?
I love how people try to skirt criticism of their beliefs by making “god” into a airy fairy metaphor and concept. As if that’s what they want to call god in the first place.
If beliefs are illogical or ridiculous, they may be attacked. I was not attacking you personally, but your notion/belief that there are some questions that we musn’t or shouldn’t ask. The fact that you even think you are entitled to make that distinction does not count in your favour.
I believe in critical thinking, looking beyond face value, asking for help if you need it and not letting your children die…I believe that on this earth, this life is all we will have. That belief is not comforting but until evidence is found, it is the truth.
in that case i would ask you to read my posts again, because i agree with you on some level, that we MUST realise that at times help is right there for the taking and not an intangible power that would swoosh your ills/worries or bothers away.
Gods of past and present that you refer to (the ad populum argument) are not because a higher power exists, but because humans are hugely ignorant of the world. Gods have been a projection of a cultures ignorance of the natural world. Yahweh created life, Zeus threw lightning bolts, and Helios pulled the sun across the sky.
so in your theory that atheism signals the beginning of enlightenment?
I want to say again I am not a defender of either camp, just that it all boils to ideals and opinion.
I didn’t say any of that, did I?
You can be enlighten with a theistic belief, it’s religion that hinders. I’m merely explaining why we have gods. It’s the people who worship these delusions, and have other people share in that delusion, that causes problems–that couldn’t be more obvious. You can believe all you want that Zeus throws lightning, but knowing how lightning occurs–that pursuit of knowledge–is generally what separates atheists from theists. Natural scientists, the ones asking “why does this happen,” are overwhelmingly atheist and agnostic.
To keep things related, God made it rain, Zeus threw lightning, and Helios carried the sun across the sky. Gods are just used the explain the weather.
Why bother at all with something you cannot ever begin to understand or fathom? Wouldn’t it be just a tremendous waste of time?
Cody , I think the idea of “god created doctors” doesn’t mean literally .. I think its more that the creator (if you buy into that) as part of the creation gave us the ability to think and reason and learn .. god didnt create the wheel either but even the religious nuts use it. “god” didnt create printing but where would you and all these people be without their bibles? I feel some sorrow for this poor child but on the other hand … its good to thin the herd. This story doesnt say what the verdict was but i hope at least manslaughter maybe second degree murder; child abuse? neglect? anyone know the outcome?
My point being that of course God didn’t create doctors. Its just aggravating to hear someone say something so moronic. If you believe that our successes and massive failures are from God or are divine in some way. Then you yourself are saying God is a failure, which would actually make since. Anyone ever wonder why their are more plants and edible looking substances on the planet that can kill you and only a select few (in comparison) that can help you? God gave us no handbook on that one, but I’m sure it was just our time. Even though we have freewill so our time is our choice, so its not actually our time. Because nothing about God makes any sense. Of course I’m sure he made us so that we couldn’t understand, to confuse us. Even though he isn’t the father of confusion, but he is, but isn’t….., but he is……….. but he isn’t………….. Yeah I’m glad I quit religion.
To be totally honest with you, I can’t feel sorry for the girl or the mother. the girl would have grown up to be as religious as the mother. Also, she didn’t die in vain. another death to wake up the religious idiots. A final note, I am against religion but totally for baptism. problem however with baptism is that they don’t keep the head under water long enough. I figure about 30 minutes would be good.
These religious nuts will not learn. They’ll just bury head deeper in the sand of religion, keep believing and thumping the bible. They’ll just say “Oh, it was his will, he works in mysterious ways.”.
Clearly, this woman had the WRONG religion. The sickness may have been a test, but to go about not treating it would be a slap in the face to God. He created cures, medicines, vaccines, EVERYTHING. This girls death SHOULD NOT be put on God, as if He failed at curing her. The fault is purely to be put on the parents of the child who were ignorant enough to believe not to go to a doctor.
Even if this whole thing were the case, isn’t God sovereign and just? Shall not the Lamb who was slain receive the reward of His suffering?
If you’re under the impression you’re giving us something new, think again. If you’re actually interested please read the discussion before being assuming and insulting. And have you ever considered that maybe God is NOT sovereign and just? I mean, you’re asking as though you want us to say yes or no, perhaps trying to trick people on an ATHEIST BLOG into saying that we actually do believe in God, we just hate him or something. Have you ever considered that maybe-probably God is not real?
If you don’t feel sorry for the girl who died, just say so. Don’t dress it up in stupid rhetorical questions that only make sense to Godbots.
Look at the religion of christianity. God who knows everything that will happen gets born, sacrifices himself to himself in order to forgive us for our sins that he created to begin with. He basically killed his only son just for kicks. he could have just said “I forgive you.” OK probably this is not the place for this discussion. But I can’t believe that in this day and age people still believe in God. it’s like believing in the easter bunny or santa clause.
What exactly is the “wrong” religion. In the eyes of the atheist, pretty much all religion is wrong. In the eyes of a True Christian like yourself, everyone has the wrong religion but whatever particular branch of Christianity you follow.
God didn’t create cures, medicines or vaccines: Humans created those. Your God, should you choose to accept such a claim, created the diseases in the first place.
THIS IS WHY IT PAYS TO BE AN ATHIEST!!!! WE unlike RELIGOUS FREAKS would SAVE our dying daughter! not wacth her dying on the floor syaing :oh it’s fine. she be fine and dandy tomorrow when our imaginary god saves her!!”" i mean really!! religon has serieously messed these people up!
Obviously this goes to prove just how much religion screws people up. I can see the good points in it but this is just ridicolous. How can anybody deny their child medical attention because of their faith?
Christianity has been corrupted by the Roman Catholic church and has turned itself into an extremely rich and powerful organization in the world. The richest in fact. What other religion has influenced so many people to commit such evil deeds? Mary I, the Crusades, conflict in Ireland ring a bell?
Putting the blame strictly on religion here is a mistake. I’m sure it was a contributing factor to the tragedy, but probably there is a lot more to it than that. Atheists just want a blanket end all response to put down religion, but millions of people have faith in religion. Faith that is completely harmless and, maybe (Cue lightbulb) healthy. Saying that noone should believe because some people are corrupted or confused is juvenile. That’s like saying that because there are car accidents there should be no cars. It works the other direction too. Some people are stupidly adamant about their faith. I think my point is that a zealot can work in either direction. You don’t have to agree with someone to understand them. It seems stupidly simple, but i say try a little bit of that on for size.
But if there was someone egging you on, insistently, from a very young age, that driving very very fast was OK and nothing bad couldn’t possibly happen, and traffic laws are just for those who don’t know how to drive properly… and then you got into an accident because you were doing so, the way you were taught, wouldn’t you say the accident was a consequence of it?
Much like this woman was a consequence of religion. Except the ones who do teach such things won’t even get a slap on the wrist, because it’s religion, and those who believe such a thing – when it doesn’t end in tragedy – won’t be stopped, either, because it’s religion, and how dare you blame religion for something it’s caused!
I don’t totally disagree but, religion isn’t the only catalyst for people throwing away reason. Unreasonable people do it without the help of religion all the time. Religious and non-religious people alike agree that this is a tragedy. Commentors want to blame Catholics for this, but 99%(made up statistic) of church affiliated people would have counseled this lady by telling her to go to a doctor, and THEN pray for her daughter’s health. Not to say that religion is blameless either. It’s true that Humanists and Catholics could both stand to take a little bit of each others advice. At the end of the day we know what we know because of what he have learned. So ignorance is to blame! A person can beat the ignorance by simply understanding both sides of the argument. Bottomline, in my opinion, is that anyone on here who just wants to say that religious people are all freaks or, vice versa religious people who want to say that atheists are all soulless psychopaths are all just as bad as that mother. They are uninformed and happy about it. Well, I guess she wasn’t happy about it.
You’re right, it’s ignorance and delusion that are the real culprit. Too bad religion fervently promotes both.
I don’t say all religious people are freaks; that would be hypocritical, since my mother is quite religious (thankfully not kind that thinks praying > modern medicine, otherwise I’d be as dead as the girl in the story).
What I do think is that propagating the belief you can be cured if you talk to the sky spirits long enough, sans doctors, is dangerous, but people who DO teach such things won’t ever be criticized for it because it’s religion.
Religious reasoning is like a bag of marshmallows,squeeze hard enough and it all fits together.
stop blaming religion and God for our mistakes.
God provided with brains and reasoning and science.
God already answered her prayer, God must have been: “Wake up! theres treatment for diabetes”
But we are humans… and we always blame somebody else for our mistakes.
God in this case.
I don’t blame God. Makes no sense to blame someone who doesn’t exist (or doesn’t care).
I blame, however, the people who go out to convince other people that Gawd works miracles and heals incurable diseases, sans doctors, if only you pray really hard, much like I blame homeopaths when people die because they are led to believe homeopathy actually works.
Sorry but I will continue to blame religion when it is at fault. If you take your blinders off and study history, you will find that religion, be it worship of a god or an idea, is the cause of most wrong done by man. Until religion is a personnel thing not something that is done by groups it will; continue to destroy lives for no other reason then others are different then them.
I agree with Siberia that I can’t blame something that doesn’t exist.
just how stupid can people be.i am totally lost for words.the bible and religion are just a load of codswollop.high church? just forget it.
Great story- great story.
I don’t understand how a parent doesn’t feel the inclination to do as much as possible and anything possible to save their child from pain.
And diabetes! It wasn’t even some form of outrageously rare disease that is difficult to treat! She died in pain because of her parents’ ignorant persistence that “all will be better.”
When you are dead, there is no “better;” you’re just DEAD. The child died, and the parents are murderers, no matter what they say.
ok I’m an atheist of course blah blah no need for a life story, I feel that some of the final comments made at the end of the article where a little… uncool? can’t think of a good word for it so i’ll explain. As atheist’s we don’t put down faith, as Atheist we consider ourselves more enlightened than the enlightened because we see the lie in the unquestionable truth. True this family should be prosecuted for murdering their daughter, and it is all their faiths fault, but I hate sarcasm, and the last few comments in this article seem very sarcastic to me, tell it how it is, and leave the attitude out.
Ah- but how can we express something like this without coming to the final truth that they killed their child out of negligence, no matter what the explanation is?
It doesn’t matter if the parents thought they were doing the correct thing by allowing their daughter to suffer to death. The child did not deserve that.
I try to understand the thought processes of people of faith. However, not helping children who are helpless to fend for themselves, who deserve to live, should not be compromised because of their parents’ ego.
Sure, there were stories about “Testing of Faith” in the bible, where God came at the end to make everything better. But in these days, I highly doubt God comes at the end to make everything better, when He has so many other things to worry about that does not involve a young child suffering from untreated diabetes (though my Christian friend tells me that God is omnipotent, and cares about everyone and everything, and can take care of everyone and everything at the same time- which I think is impossible, but who knows).
If put to an extreme, I consider things like this as related to cult suicides. One example would be the mass suicide from the “Peoples Temple” which included over 270 children. They had a life to live. To people who were not part of the cult, the act seems outrageous, because we cannot think of why some people would commit mass suicide in a number close to a thousand. But for the people in the cult, if I recall correctly, they were dying for a “cause” which they believed firmly in, so it was rational that this act be put through.
And with cult suicides- who knows- they may actually have been picked up by a space ship and taken somewhere, or went to somewhere better where they are released from their “vessel.” But to us, they are all murderers.
Even if her parents thought they were doing the best thing for their daughter by believing in God and believing that he was testing their faith to see if they can sacrifice their daughter to Him, to me, it’s still murder.
And I’m sorry you dislike sarcasm. I happen to like it quite a lot- it conveys many things just speaking straight through does not.
After all, I’m glad we don’t see too many of, “OMG THESE PARENTS R EVIL EVIL PEOPLE THAT NEED 2 GO BURN IN HELL (EVEN THO THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS HELL CUZ I DON’T BELIEVE IN HELL)!!!!!111oneoneone.”
270 children? Yeah, that sucks, but what about the thousands of children that die from starvation every day? If only birth control weren’t a sin…
Faith is about following what you believe, regardless of the consequences. As tragic as this story is, the real tragedy is the weakness of persons who cannot get through their lives without religion.
Wow. That’s not faith, that’s stupidity. In days of old when there was no other alternative, when medicine and doctors were non-existent, then, and only then was faith the only option. I’m not speaking out against faith by no means. But I also believe God means for us to use what he has provided, i.e. doctors, hospitals, etc. Too many uneducated people out there that think it’s a lack of faith to take your child to the doctor. =(
The first hospitals ever opened were by the different churches. Why would a church, of FAITH, create a hospital if it was going against the Christian faith. I have total faith that God can and still does heal. I’ve witnessed it. That still doesn’t mean that I believe in throwing out medical treatment and it’s not a lack of faith that I do so. I trust that God will work His healing through the gifts and talents that He gives each and every doctor, paramedic, nurse, surgeon, etc. I believe in the unseen hand that guides the surgeon’s hand. I’ve heard first hand accounts, not from articles or second hand, third hand stories but people that I personally know that have been out of the body, according to their testimony, during heart surgery and in their altered state of consciousness witnessed a hand on top of the surgeons. To add a bit of validity to it she recanted to the doctor a implement that was almost left inside her that the doctor caught and retrieved. This was just after stopping her heart during surgery.
It’s funny, the author seems to be criticizing the parents for not doing what they completely should have done, and then saying there is no God because he didn’t save her. Personally, I think it was rather merciful. If those parents were so ill equipped to take care of their daughter in sickness, she’s in a lot better place now than she would be if she’d have survived due to the “unreasonable faith” that the parents had.
Again, not neglecting faith at all. But it states in the Bible, faith, without works, is dead. No irony or pun intended. It also says it’s better to have a millstone hung around your neck and plunged into the depths of the sea than to be a stumbling block to one of these precious little ones.
Also I might add, God’s hand is not moved by faith at all but by worship.
” I have total faith that God can and still does heal. I’ve witnessed it.”
–Then tell your God to heal the amputees. They would like their limbs back.
Any time now.
Maybe he means they’ll have them back in the OTHER world.
Nice, the typical atheist reply. “the amputee remark”.
Ok. According to the bible, nothing is impossible for God. But its really up to one’s faith.
If you have faith that an amputee can grow limbs back, he/she will. Also, the amputee has to have enough faith to believe something like that. Healing amputees is a very (nearly impossible) thing to do. I personally dont have faith, but that doesnt make me a bad person either.
The faith required to heal an amputee must be a lot larger than the faith required to move a mountain. Why is my faith required to heal an amputee? Is it anything like clapping your hands so tinkerbell gets better?
Not your faith, but the amputees faith. Jesus was very clear about this subject, he would emphatize: “Do you believe that you can be healed?” SickPerson: “Yes Lord” and then he would perform the miracle. I have deep faith, but trust me, If I would lose a limb I would NOT believe that I would get healed. lol. In the sermon of the mount Jesus also spoke about people with “less faith than others”.
Apparently god only heals when people suck up to him sufficiently, and even then only if he already decided he wanted to anyway, which means the gratuitous sucking up was pointless. So god, basically, is an egotistical jerk who doesn’t care about people enough to heal them out of love. He prefers grovelling.
Exactly why bother with all the modern medicine stuff (which was created by god anyway, it’s just that he didn’t like people that much a few hundred years ago or all those nasty foreigners who don’t believe in him anyway) when you can just shove your tongue right down the back of god’s trousers and get cured.
How can an all-powerful and loving god *not* heal an amputee? He’s all-powerful, and he’s loving, so it should be something very near the top of his list of things to do, of prayers to grant. Not one amputee has had a limb regrow, and for good reason. Because the human body is incapable of functioning that way, just as this girl’s body was incapable of functioning without (or with too much) insulin.
Some illnesses will get better on their own, and praying for them appears to work. Not praying for them appears to work as well. It would appear (and studies agree) that prayer doesn’t work.
So Adam up there can shut his big loud trap about prayer: it doesn’t work.
And for the record, the amputee argument succeeds because it is something that 1. cannot be done through normal medical means, 2. will not occur naturally, and 3. is within the realm of possibility for an all-powerful being. If an all-powerful being only worked through nature, why exactly would we postulate this all powerful being exists in the first place?
If you want to talk about religion (in this case Christianity) you have to understand this specific religion. One can not make comments on something that has not been studied thouroughly, that would be just a plain ignorant attack. What I can guarantee you is that Jesus was very clear when he spoke about miracles, he said that the person has to BELIEVE or in other words have a DEEP FAITH about the healing. Trust me, even the most fervorous religious person COULD NOT believe that an amputee could heal. And that is due to the nature of the handicap. And you gave yourself some very important arguments that back this theory: “Some illnesses will get better on their own, and praying for them appears to work”
I am still looking for scientifical answers on how my uncle healed from terminal prostate cancer, and how my grand fathers best friend recover his sight (through praying). (chuckles) It is very hard to believe for those who have not experience these kinds of events on first hand. But I get very happy when I hear this doctors talk about it.
And yes, there is a God and there are spritual entities.
You’re saying that people have to believe something is the result of something: Wishful thinking. I believe a magic space monkey took the cancer from my aunt’s left breast. In reality, it was the radiation, and it’s been in remission ever since.
Doesn’t matter how much you believe something to be true, it doesn’t make it true. Even the Pope himself with all the power of God and the full faith endowned upon him, the Pope could not heal his own amputated leg, because humans are incapable of regrowing limbs.
You’re also cherry picking. I’m making the argument that if something gets better on its own, and the studies show that prayers don’t work, why would we assume the prayer worked in the first place?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html
As for your stories, just as mine, are merely personal testimony. You’re expecting me to believe stories on an internet without any credible basis to believe those stories. Even assuming your stories are true, cancers do remiss, and people undergo hysterical blindness (a likely trait when Jesus healed the blind man in Mark 8).
Your party hasn’t even given evidence of a supernatural deity, and I have a study showing prayer not working. You have–stories.
I do have stories. And I have credibility by the people that have withnessed them. By no means Im interested that you will believe me. About the hysterical blindness, theres only a very less than 1% chance that was that. The man had like white eyes or something.
The pope doesnt have any “powers”. See, in order to fully understand where I come from, you have to see that I despise any Catholic, Orthodox or any other organized religion.
I do believe in real miracles, I also believe in spiritual entities. I have also experienced those first hand. But you say again I have “stories” abd its cool.
You believe what you want to believe and that will set you free.
P.S. I also believe in evolution to some extent.
You believe in evolution to some extent? Wow.
Which part?
It’s sort of like asking a Christian if they believe in the bible; when they say “yes”, you then ask do they believe in ALL of it. If they still maintain full belief they’ve suddenly lost credibility. They’re back to ‘faith’ and good on them – bless their little hearts.
I think all this just about proves the difference between religious believers (non-rationalists) and non-believers (rationalists).
So all those people whose cancers were not healed just didn’t believe hard enough. Gotcha.
I’m glad to know I wasn’t healed because I didn’t believe hard enough, though. When I was six. Goes to show that the Abrahamic God only concedes favors to those who suck up to him. Kindness my ass; worship me and good things happen. Don’t and boy, you’re in deep trouble.
Yeah, doctors can be as silly as everyone else on this aspect. Believe it or not, cancers do spontaneously remiss, whether in religious or irreligious people.
Was your father’s friend born blind?
Says you.
I always forget about that, when people take the exception and apply it as the norm. What’s the name of that fallacy…is it a confirmation bias or just bad sample…
Not really. See, When you talk about the Abrahamic God. We are talking about two different deals here. I would like you to focus on the new testament instead.
About the spiritual entities. Says me because I have experienced them first hand. But you will call that hallucination (Though I have never done any drugs in my life).
My grandfather’s friend suffered an accident in which he was severily injured.
See, I understand that anybody could spontaneusly heal (hysterical blindness) But the chances that this one man heals, on the spot, after 3 days of straight praying, hmm, that doesnt sound like a coincidence to me.
But again (sighs) these are my stories and no one will believe them (except the ones that are deeply closed to me). I dont need to lie about things like this. What do I gain? respect? Salvation? faith?
Keep looking Siberia, knowledge is always the way to the truth.
chuck, how many of the people you know who were miraculously healed underwent extensive medical treatment at the time of their recovery?
Coincidences do happen, ya know.
For instance, I had months and months of horrific pain in my hip… most of a year, in fact. I had to quit school (I was 14) and had to have a surgery that was never performed because public hospitals are awful.
Then, one beautiful day, I woke up without any pain at all. Never felt it again.
I never prayed for it.
In fact, whenever I tried to pray for something, things often went counter to what I prayer for. I think God just doesn’t like me.
Of course, He doesn’t exist; and if He does, well, tough titty. He can play his Tyranny Tycoon SIM game all he wants, I won’t be a part of it.
And it doesn’t matter whether I focus on the New Testament or Old, since it’s One God and He’s unchangeable, as per the book itself.
Still wondering on people who die of cancer anyway in spite of their fervorous faith.
“Scientifical”!?!? Bahahahaha.
“Trust me, even the most fervorous religious person COULD NOT believe that an amputee could heal.”
How can you attest to what the most fervent religious person can or can not believe? Do you read minds?
“If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to your
mountain, “MOVE!” and it WILL move… and NOTHING will be
impossible for YOU!”
– Matthew 17:20
If you have as much faith as a mustard seed? That’s not much, since mustard seeds can’t have any faith at all. So either Matthew is a liar, or you’re incorrect. Your holy book says only a little faith can move mountains. Surely there are amputees who have more faith than a mustard seed. Why haven’t they been healed?
You can’t explain why it is that you believe god heals people, but never heals amputees, so you simply claim it isn’t possible for them to have enough faith. I challenge you to find a verse that supports your claim without contradicting the one I just quoted.
The mustard seed is an analogy for something small that grows up to become large. It’s not meant to represent a dumb object that cannot have faith.
But anyway, I agree with you that chuck is being extremely presumptuous about other people’s faith. And there’s no need to restrict the discussion to amputees. If we are to believe chuck, prayer works in any kind of situation, and the stronger the faith the better it works. I think it’s safe to say that the parents had extremely strong faith in God as they preferred to risk their daughter’s life by trusting exclusively in God rather than just go to a doctor who could easily have cured her. If that’s not complete and genuine faith, I don’t know what is.
So why didn’t their prayers work, chuck? Is it because God is capricious?
Konrad, the only big loud trap in here seems to be you. You are extremely rude and arrogant and I will say whatever I dad blame will if I feel it’s pertinent to the conversation.
I may be able to provide you the proof your looking for. My second hand experience or my story that I told you about the healing my friends witnessed/took part in was that of a girl who had one limb that was shorter than the other.
Is this an amputee, no. But, unlike cancer that can go into spontaneous remission overnight in rare cases, if you talk to any doctor they can tell you that a bone does not grow overnight.
And for your information, and you’ll have to do the research to it, in the Azusa Street Revival in California in I believe it was 1908 or 1909, there WERE amputees that were reported heeled, and witnessed by hundreds in attendance. It was held in a warehouse and it was reported that limbs grew from sockets.
AS FOR YOUR REPORT, just as stories are biased, I hate to break it to you honey, but, reports are biased as well. The NY Times is one of the most atheistic liberal left papers in the country and you bet your boots that they would slant any numbers to get the report to say what they would like.
Now, you show me a report from an experiment conducted by an TRUE agnostic with NO bias for either side, double blind study where nobody knows who’s being prayed for, what doctors are believers, which ones aren’t, which patients are believers, etc.
And to answer you snide comment about if God shows favoritism the answer is yes. If you believe with all your heart and worship Him with every fiber in your being and believe in the healing with every fiber then, yeah, you got a better chance than 90% of the rest of them. And I can TELL my God to do ANYTHING. I can ask Him. But He’s also a personal God, so He’s not going to mass heal all the amputees cause the He’d have to mass heal all the sick to be fair, then you’d be bitching about how evil he was he put the doctors out of work!
And though I’m not God, if I were and you came to me with your snide attitude, I aint gonna heal you anyway because you are putting a condition on your belief in me on whether or not I scratch your back or do what you want me to do. Try hating this God that you don’t believe in so much, a little less. I hear so much rage in your voice for someone who doesn’t believe at all. Why would anything I say enrage you so badly when what I’m saying is completely pointless and invalidated by the fact there is no God in the first place? It’s not like I defended any of these lunatics that let that little girl die. Let them suffer their punishment. I just shared with you my experience.
Sounds to me like you believe but you are just pissed off at Him. Hmm, wonder if that could be the true case?
First you use the ‘Azusa Street revival’ report as evidence and then, in the very next para, you inform us that reports are biased.
Breathless!
Which way do you want it? Evidential or circumstantial?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azusa_Street_Revival
A bunch of lunatics gather in a building and have a gigantic orgy of a mass delusion. Not only are these geniuses believers of faith healing, but there is no objective view inside that building to verify anything as legitimate.
Cancer can remiss naturally, bones don’t grow naturally. Cancer which heals itself, as rare as it is, occurs whether people pray or not. Anything that happens naturally cannot be known to be a prayer answered by God or not. The only things that we can affirmatively attribute to an omnipotent god would be supernatural and unnatural events.
The spontaneous re-growth of a bone of an amputee to the point of a fully functioning limb would be such a thing, specifically if prayer was involved. God, being the all-loving omnipotent being that he is, only seems to work through natural methods. If natural methods operate on their own will without the help of a higher power, why have hte higher power in the first place?
“Now, you show me a report from an experiment conducted by an TRUE agnostic with NO bias for either side, double blind study where nobody knows who’s being prayed for, what doctors are believers, which ones aren’t, which patients are believers, etc.”
You wonder why I insult your dumb ass? Because the NYTimes merely reported the results of the study: they didn’t conduct it. The study was published in the American Heart Journal.
http://www.ahjonline.com/article/PIIS0002870305006496/abstract
If you’ll notice, they specifically mention that praying increased the likelihood of complications. It would seem your God doesn’t like people praying to him.
“Sounds to me like you believe but you are just pissed off at Him. Hmm, wonder if that could be the true case?”
Not in the least. I just get routinely tired of religion and ignorance, which tend to go hand in hand. I could no more hate your God than I could hate Santa Clause.
Bones do not grow overnight, but tendons do stretch. I should know; I have a leg shorter than the other, too (12 cm) and managed to gain quite a few of those back, no miracles required, by simply exercising the limb.
Well, if we’re to believe the Bible it was at that point humans became able to tell the difference between good and evil, so under this premise I think you’re correct. Apparently God preferred Adam and Eve to basically be a couple of retards.
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The inference that people without faith are bad people? You may not be bad chuckthephuck, but you certainly aren’t logical or thoughtful.
I’d have thought that ‘badness’ was equally proportional throughout the believing and non-believing communities but then I considered the crimes committed by the religious and by the religious in the name of their god and I want to reconsider. I consider ‘badness’ to be over-represented by believers.
And on a slightly different observation, it seems that the more pious a community is, the greater the natural tragedies that befall them. The most recent Christian example being the victims of the Italian earthquake.
Badness can not be proportional. There are basic rules for human kind we can not ignore (murder, adultery)
Now, the “badness” that a church or state might induce into a community would be sins that affect morality (in this case fornication, lust, etc).
Church and religion has brought us nothing more than cruel stories and regret.
True believing brings miracles (which is in this case the topic)
Your basic rules are not absolute. We commit murder on a regular basis in the United States. Adultery isn’t law in many of the United States.
“True believing brings miracles”
–So, apparently those parents didn’t just believe hard enough. Why do I feel like I’m going in circles with you. Those parents, and those surrounding that girl in her final moments of life, had pleanty of belief to go around. A miracle would have been for that girl to get better at that stage. But no, her disease progressed and killed her instead. Why? Because praying. doesn’t. work. No matter how much you believe it to, no matter how wishful your thinking, prayer is just a means of psychological defense against ineptitude. You pray because you’re incapable of doing real work to fix the problem.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=no-prayer-prescription
If faith can and does heal people who are terminally ill, and all we have to do is have faith and pray hard enough, then it follows that the mistake the parents made was one of not believing hard enough rather than one of not going to the doctor.
This makes the perfect irrational argument. It’s the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. You say that belief and prayer can do anything. When we point out a contrary opinion you state “they didn’t REALLY believe”. Of course you don’t know how much they believed, unless you are also psychic or God is feeding their thoughts into your head.
I think the most disturbing thing is what this thinking leads to. Those with the most faith are the most honored in religious circles. Therefore the woman is not a worse person for having let her daughter die. She is a better person, because she had enough faith to try and let God save her. Of course if she had possessed more faith then she would have saved her daughters life, but at least she tried. So you shouldn’t be condemning her, you should be praising her. If you go to the doctor then you lack faith that God can heal you through prayer. Why are you spending money and time going to doctors and bolstering the secular medical establishment when you could spend that time and money in the church and achieve the same results.
Of course in real life we know the reason why Christians go to the doctor. It is because they don’t have faith that they will be healed. They know, as do you, that if you really want to be healed then you go to a doctor. Jesus is just the last resort of those who have nowhere else to turn. They don’t pray to Jesus because he makes things better, they pray because it makes them feel like they have some control of their situation even when they don’t.
Scientific tests (i.e. the studying of actual facts rather than anecdotal stories) has shown that prayer doesn’t work. In the few cases where prayer does have an effect, it doesn’t matter whose prayers they are and it is no more effective than positive thinking. There is a well documented reason for this, it is called the placebo effect. If I believe that I will get better then there will be an actual physiological change. This is why medical studies use placebos to determine if a drug works rather than simply measuring the change that a specific drug uses. So prayer is no more effective than sugar pills, meditating, or kissing boo boos. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all. For every story you can tell me of prayer working I can tell you one of prayer not working. If God is truly all mighty then let him show the power of prayer in an actual scientific study. God already did this once in the bible (the story of Elijah and the prophets of Ba’al) so why not do it again. Oh yea, I know why, he doesn’t exist.
This is murder, those parents should go to jail.
This wasn’t a test of faith, it was a test of intelligence, and Mom FAILED.
What the parents did is sick. Theres always going to be crazies around both religious and non-religious. But to say they had ‘biblical faith’ and thats how ‘believers’ act as if all ‘believers’ act like that is ridiculous. God gave us doctors for a reason. And 2 of the books of the bible (Luke and Acts) were written by a physician.
It’s similiar to the fictional story of the man stranded at sea, who prays to God to save him. A boat comes a long and he rejects it saying “God will save me”. A helicopter comes along and he rejects it saying “God will save me”. God gave that family doctors and they rejected them.
That been said this site is meant to have “reasonable thoughts”. But to group all Christians together when one does something stupid is not reasonable, and just really annoying.
I don’t think anyone has lumped all christians together but could be wrong since I haven’t read every single comment. You are wrong about calling them sick if you are a christian. They were going by their interpretation of what the bible says and if you are a christian you should understand that by allowing their child to die was an act of great faith by their view of what the bible says. By saying they are sick you are saying that all faith is sick. If that is your feelings on this then you are saying anyone with faith is stupid also. Since it was really stupid to not take her to the doctor because of faith.
One day, that mother will go to heaven and meet her maker.
And she will get to ask him: “Why didn’t you rescue my daughter? I prayed all I could!”
And HE will answer: “That’s what I made 911 for, stupid!”
Why do you insist on giving credit to your god for the actions of men. Is he that weak that you have to give him credit so he can appear to be strong?
I’m not sure if I understand you correctly, but I am sure you can answer that question for yourself.
You seem to want to give your version of god the credit for anything good, and yet naturally you will absolve him of guilt for anything bad.
(God did not make 9-1-1.)
I think y’all are taking the anecdote at face value, and it is generally not meant to be so. Other versions of this anecdote abound in fiction, including a rather memorable application in The West Wing episode “Take this Sabbath Day”; and the general points are “the God(s) help those who help themselves” and “you are thinking too damn literally”, not “God(s) created all this fine rescue technology for your enjoyment”.
The point is not to credit God with anything, but to scorn the protagonist of the anecdote for expecting direct intervention of any sort.
It can’t hurt to point out that the concepts behind the words are ridiculous and hypocritical, can it?
That was my point exactly. Thank you very much, I’m usually way too intuitive to explain myself.
Well, at least they’re keeping the genetic genepool free of their stupidity.
Sounds good to me.
what a bunch of worthless arguments. Posting you’re thoughts on this matter don’t justify everyone here not doing something about this problem. Unless you all want to talk about this problem until the end of humanity, I suggest someone steps up and does something.
Right! Something ought to be done!
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