Faith Healing Parents Watch Their Child Die… but Won’t Be Getting Jail Time for It

Oh no western religion isn’t like the rest of them, they don’t harm others. Just let them be. How many times have you heard that before? How many inocent children have to die to these monsters in desguise?

Why does Christian Science get special treatment under the law?  Number-wise it’s a tiny sect.  Seems to me like there should be protection for any and all faith-based groups, or none.   

To clarify, the Swezeys are not members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. They’re members of the Church of the First Born, a cult that has had a number of run-ins with the law over the neglect and deaths of members’ children. They were trying to claim (not without reason) that they were being unfairly discriminated against because Christian Scientists are allowed an exemption and nobody else is. 

Christian Science is, fortunately, in decline, but there are still probably around a thousand practitioners in the U.S., and about 900 active congregations. Incredibly, practitioners are allowed to practice in all fifty states and their ‘care’ is even covered by Medicare, according to Quackwatch. Google ‘Rita Swan’ for more information. Swan is a former Christian Scientist who became an activist for children’s welfare after her child died under the care of a Christian Science practitioner. 

This just makes me furious…

And in some macabre irony, how much do you want to bet these “parents” are also against abortion because its “killing babies” or some such nonsense?

 It should be noted that the exemption offered to Christian Scientists under many state laws was not granted “just because”.  State legislators had to be convinced by the various members of the local Christian Science communities that the care they sought to provide both for themselves and for their children through Christian Science treatment was a reasonable course of action to allow for under the law.  As you note, a tiny sect is not likely to have undue influence on the members of state legislatures. And indeed, if Christian Scientists have not been found to be acting as responsible citizens, they would and should expect the provisions in law granted to them to be revoked. But on the other hand, if they can provide sufficient evidence to the state legislatures that the care they provide is effective, then their exemptions should continue. (The first amendment allows for petitioning the government for redress of grievances, thus, the exemptions in state law for Christian Science practice are a natural outcome of such a provision. And note that petitioning  does not mean an automatic grant of a petition. A valid case for any such petition has to be made in order for this to occur.)

It should also be noted that the various diatribes against Christian Science here and elsewhere are usually based entirely on reactions to cases with a negative outcome. It is impossible for anyone to reach a fair and balanced conclusion about any subject matter if all of the evidence being considered is only positive or only negative. Christian Scientists have been practicing this form of care for over 130 years and there were often many legal challenges to the practice of Christian Science during its early years. But as those early cases were adjudicated, the conclusions reached were often that Christian Science care was a reasonable approach for its adherents to take, and gradually provisions in state laws were granted to allow for its practice. It should be further noted that Christian Scientists, as a group, are law abiding, and if any state law has requirements that that there are no exemptions for, Christian Scientists will obey such laws.

Isn’t the term Christian Science kind of an oxymoron? 

Like sodomy laws, these archane and immoral laws need to be stricken from the books STAT.

This is disgusting, foul, vile and a deliberate act of evil.

ENOUGH.

 Yep, the people in this article are horrible… but that’s how you can tell that they aren’t “true” christians, because christianity is perfect and so no “true” christian would ever do anything that makes christianity look bad.

This is just plain evil. A friend of mine watched his father die while his Christian Science family prayed over him. It has to stop.

When we know that medical science can save a life very easily, then there ought to be no religious exemption. If you’re a competent (questionable if you elect to be prayed over, but let’s be generous on the definition of competent) adult, then you can choose not to be treated, but a minor, or an adult of diminished capacity, should not be prevented from receiving adequate medical care by those responsible for them. Reasonable exceptions can of course be made for living will type situations. I believe a decent lawyer could craft a law making clear what should and shouldn’t be legal, and letting appendicitis kill your kid because you choose prayer alone over medical intervention should be illegal, no matter who does the actual praying. I hope this kid’s parents at least realize how foolish they were and feel the appropriate guilt.

Find a parent convicted of murder for neglecting to care for their child. Get them a lawyer to sue the state under the equal protection clause. Watch the media feeding frenzy.

Disgusting

I’m not clear on what’s actually happening in legal terms.  The judge prosecuted the parents?  Surely not? Judges surely don’t make that decision in that jurisdiction . . . do they?  
Did the judge void the plea bargain, maybe?  It’s hard to tell.  If so, is that an earlier plea, or the one described in this post?  The post first reads like the plea is a done deal, then mentions the judge declining the plea . . . but maybe that’s an earlier plea?

In any case, from my layman’s point of view, it looks like unless the parents are “accredited” (putting aside the validity of that accreditation, which must certainly be based on very stringent standards of . . . . Christian science?) they’re not entitled to a defense based on that exception.

Not very famil

“Christian” scientists are not Christians nor do they practice the teachings of Jesus.  Jesus said, bring the sick and infirm to me.  He healed them in a time when medical science was basically unknown beyond bleeding the sickness out of them.  There is no science to a Christian Scientist.  It’s another bullshit religion like Mormonism.  Sorry if I sound bigoted in this but it’s appalling for any parent to allow their child to die without proper medical intervention.  How many would be alive today if they had a doctor available to them?

Believing some all powerful force / being,  somewhere in the heavens, is going to pay attention to a dying child and whammy some magic out of thin air to cure them is a sign of mental illness to begin with.  I have no issues whatsoever with faith and belief in any religion, as long as it pertains to the preservation and protection of life, love, peace, and harmony.  I’m a big believer in medieval justice.  Bury them up to their heads in the sand during low tide on a beach and let them pray their way out.  More people have died in the name of some god, than every world war put together.  Allowing them to skirt the law due to some antiquated backwater, bible thumping state statute should be at the least criminal neglect, and at best – Murder.   All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing,  Thinking thoughts directed at some invisible deity and calling that treatment is like me praying to hit a home run while playing football.  It makes no sense.  These people are criminals and should be treated as such.

Even most fundies think the faith-healing crowd are bug-nutty. I may oppose fundies in most things, but they by and large aren’t any more into human sacrifice than I am.

ETA: The old joke about God, two boats and a helicopter applies. In spades.

Going easy on “faith healing” parents because they have lost a child is like giving a lighter sentence to someone who shoots their parents because they are an orphan.

While the death is a tragedy for the family, I take solace in the fact that today the human gene pool is just a little bit cleaner than it was before. I fear the kid was headed in the same deluded direction as his parents. At 17, he was old enough to get help for himself- appendicitis isn’t instantly debilitating. He was pretty clearly operating in cooperation with his parents. Were he just a few months older, there would have been no criminal charges brought at all.

I think that our current laws are correct in the scenario you mention at the start: if a child drowns in a public swimming place, those who happen to be standing near by would be charged with nothing.  And this makes sense of course: the parents would already be grieving over the death of their child; trying to pin criminal penalties on them solely because you believe in some stupid version of the just world fallacy would only make things worse.  Hopefully laws regarding medicine can catch up to this standard and realize that punishing parents when their child dies there is just as stupid and counterproductive.

Although you can spend time in jail if you let your five and eight year old kids walk a block and a half to the park.  
http://www.wcyb.com/news/31172555/detail.html

Not sure how I managed to spend the entire day alone downtown on my bicycle in the 70s.

…every YEAR, that is

I think praying is the healing of the spirit. not of the body. When one is spiritually wounded ,praying is proper but when one is bodily wounded medical treatment is necessary.

I completely disagree with you. In a situation like that a person can easily lose years of intellectual/emotional maturity. Who knows what would have happened if he’d been out in public when it happened, someone had called an ambulance and his parents hadn’t been around. It’s very likely he didn’t know he was facing possible death.

What’s the joke, and what does it have to with a Basque separatist terrorist movement?

I don’t know how I survived either, I walked to school alone with my younger brother at age 7. Completely normal in the 60’s and 70’s.

If Jesus said “bring the sick and infirm to me” I don’t see how they’re going against (in their minds) what Jesus said because (in their minds) that is exactly what they were doing.

Of course it’s horrifying, and they need to be punished, but despite your objections and unwillingness to be associated with them, they are indeed Christians following their interpretation of the scripture.

Even if the kid wasn’t as cracked as his adults, we’re still better off without those genes contaminating our species. Survival of the fittest is hard on those who are less fit.

Flood waters are rising, but a man refuses to leave his home when the sheriff arrives in his SUV.  “The Lord will provide!”

Waters keep rising, and some neighbors come by in a boat.  Man calls down from 2nd story window “No thanks!  The Lord will provide!”

Man is now on the roof and a helicopter tries to drop a ladder.  “No, the Lord will provide!”

Waters are about to engulf the man, and he cries out “Lord, why hath thou forsaken me?!”

“I sent an SUV, a boat, and a helicopter!  What more do you want?!”

(I had an aunt who suffered severe epileptic seizures.  She refused any treatment, because if she did, she would not know when God had answered her prayers and saved her.  That is, it would be giving into the Devil’s temptation.) 

So you support the deaths of victims of indoctrination? Sick. 

Faith kills… lives and minds.

 But he wants us to never use them. That’s what most sins boil down to, punishments for following the nature he supposedly gave us.

Family pressures can be severe and debilitating.  I would not, however, think this be a genetic result, rather a result of the home environment.

By singling out one religious group specifically, this law violates the constitution of the United States of America and is therefore invalid.  To follow this legislature is to break the law of the land.  Those sorry murderers need to be treated as such.

I do not support anybody’s death, not even murderers. But I also recognize that there are deaths, which when they occur, leave us better off as a species, and I’ll not mourn those. Nature will find ways to weed out the unfit.

It was even normal in the early ’90s in my town. Somehow I’m still here too.

Ultimately those with faith always have my lack of confidence because it can always revert to this kind of insanity at a moments notice.

what a shame that this poor kid had to die. Being so closed minded to one way no matter what it is, is just stupid and dangerous. they totally should have taken him to the hospital. however, to think we arent able to cure or even help our situation at times through the focus of our own minds is stupidity as well.

People are often not rational when it comes to pain. Plenty of men will ignore massive chest pain, especially if going to the hospital will interfere with their plans. I knew one guy who went swimming while he was having a heart attack, another who decided to ‘walk off’ his chest pain and could quite possibly have died if he hadnt collapsed on the sidewalk and someone called an ambulance. While stupid such behaviour isn’t really that abnormal and definitely not confined to the religious.

How is a 17 year old supposed to seek his own medical treatment as a minor? Not possible where I live; a parent has to accompany you or be contacted. If your parents don’t believe in medical treatment, you probably don’t have medical insurance or a primary care doctor, etc. So he’s supposed to call 911 with minor abdominal pain? Because many people don’t know what the underlying cause of the pain is–at 17, you don’t assume it’s fatal. And when the pain gets severe, the sick person cannot think rationally. By then, you hope you die so it will end. Give me a break, please. This is in no way the victim’s fault.

You don’t really “get” evolution, do you? 

Even if you were correct, evolution is not a moral imperative. And for you to say such a callous thing about an innocent teen who’d been brainwashed all his life is wrong. 

No, they have clear evidence that they didn’t pray hard enough.

I don’t. But neither do I know that he wouldn’t have gone on to become the next cannibalistic serial killer. There’s no point in speculating what might have been.

The only phrase that I might respect that includes the words “Christian science” has the word “monitor” at the end. Seriously in what universe does faith healing substitue for medical treatment? It’s the height of absurdity…

Yes, you pick up the phone and call 911. If a 17-year old can’t manage that, something is seriously wrong. With appendicitis, the pain gets worse and worse, but it takes a long time to become septic and delirious. And long before that happens, you know you are really sick.

There’s no suggestion in the story as presented that the parents prevented their son from using the phone, or locked him in his room. Everything here suggests that the kid was going along with his parents’ deluded approach to “treatment”. He made a bad choice… terminally bad. And while he probably didn’t have the maturity and intellectual skills we’d expect an adult to have, neither was he a “child”.

The parents’ actions were criminal, and it’s a travesty they aren’t being held more accountable. The son’s actions were foolish… and he paid the price for that- as teenagers sometimes do when they use bad judgment.

Of course it’s Christian, blatantly christian.

There was an old man sitting on his porch watching the rain fall. Pretty soon the water was coming over the porch and into the house.

The old man was still sitting there when a rescue boat came and the people on board said, “You can’t stay here you have to come with us.” 

The old man replied, “No, God will save me.” So the boat left. A little while later the water was up to the second floor, and another rescue boat came, and again told the old man he had to come with them. 

The old man again replied, “God will save me.” So the boat left him again. 

An hour later the water was up to the roof and a third rescue boat approached the old man, and tried to get him to come with them. 

Again the old man refused to leave stating that, “God will save him.” So the boat left him again. 

Soon after, the man drowns and goes to heaven, and when he sees God he asks him, “Why didn’t you save me?” 

God replied, “You dummy! I tried. I sent three boats after you!!”

It seems that religous freedom equals parental neglect in some cases.

just thinking that this kind of shit happens in a developed country blows my mind

Absolutely. You cannot dismiss the power of brainwashing. This 17-year-old was likely so shielded from society, that he simply did not know better than to fully trust his parents. Sadly, it is that very blind trust that resulted in his death. Disguising brainwashing with religious freedom is a very dangerous practice, and a slippery slope indeed.

 If there’s “no point in speculating what might have been”, then why do you state that we are “better off” without him in this world? Religion is not genetic, by the way…so to state that we would be “evolutionarily better off without him polluting this world” is very ignorant and hateful (both distasteful qualities of the religious teachings that you seem to dislike).

Perhaps if your third eye developed cataracts.

Let’s take a look inside the medicine cabinet at the parents home.  Any aspirin?  Cold medicine?  Toothpaste (after all if the mighty-invisible-personal-relationship-having-sky-wizard wanted you to have fresh breath It would provide fresh breath for you)  Yes to any of these?  Then they are guilty of neglect and the death that came about because of it.

Alcohol?

We see how that is working out – Death is a cure – I am praying for the parents ant the legislators who signed this – I pray they get the same result

Sorry, but that’s about as scientific as the crazy beliefs of this poor guy’s parents.  Lots of atheists and agnostics are the children of religious zealots.  I should know, I am one.

May GOD just provides knowledge and the ability to make your breathe fresh.

He was 17, plenty old enough to decide this issue for himself. My only question is did he choose to die or did his parents choose to ignore his pleas for help? And yes, that distinction does matter. The former means he lived and died as he preferred. The latter means he was murdered by his parents. Unfortunately, we’ll never KNOW if Zachery asked his parents to call a doctor or if he was so brainwashed into his parents’ religion that he chose to die, but based on their willingness to accept a plea bargain I have to say they know he didn’t want to die. They should have their appendices ripped out without anesthesia and left in a room with only a faith healer for company as they die.

This is crazy.  Just as crazy as abortion.  Killing at any age is still killing. And standing by and doing nothing when you can easily save a life is killing.  Thou sahlt not kill.  Simple.

Not looking good for the human race then if bouts of irrationality make a creature unfit for survival.

You’re poeing it aren’t you

Maybe the law should be changed to read that any parent who takes a child to a medical doctor and does not enlist the help of a Christian Science Practitioner and the child dies should be prosecuted for manslaughter?  What’s good for the goose is good for the gander is it not?

The goofiness of Christian Science is no worse than the goofiness of other religions. Jesus is the son of God and his mother was a virgin? Ya right.
 
Jews are God’s “chosen” people and the rest of humanity has to throw itself on its sword and put Israel’s interests before those of all other nations.  How stupid it that?
 
So if you want to get your panties in a bunch over silly religious BS, then forget the isolated deaths of the children of Christian Scientists and concentrate on the million Iraqis that were murdered by our invasion of Iraq to protect Israel.
 
Focus on Fukushima and how its control systems did not shut down the reactors because they were infected by the Stuxnet worm created by Israel. Think about the 5-10 million Japanese people who will die of cancer because of Israel’s virus. Think about how if the cooling pond at reactor #4 collapses how the entire northern hemisphere of the earth will become uninhabitable, all in the name of ensuring that Israel can continue to occupy Palestine.
 
Get some perspective folks.

Christians: It is time to get your facts right. Jesus was not his name (joshua bin joseph) and Christianity is premised on violence and murder. The cross was merely equipment on which people would suffer more when murdered and Christ is merely Greek for ‘one who is anointed’ Anyone who takes the bible as anything more than a book created by HUMANS and/or literally is truly psychotic.

The parents should most definitely be charged….directly or indirectly, they refused to get him medical attention. He had fucking appendicitis! Easily treated in a hospital, when has ‘faith’ ever healed anything but a broken spirit? These people are moronic, and a perfect example of why religion is useless. It gives people false hope, so much so that they’re willing to let their own 17 year old son die for their ‘faith’. America makes me sick. I despise this country in its’ entirety.

So heaven has a line? God would certainly be able to process more than one person at a time. I think you’re going to hell for insinuating God has limits.

give me liberty or give me “HELL”

Unbelievable. 

You realize that you’re representing eugenics and not necessarily evolutionary theories, right?

hahaha Idiotbox is appropriate. God doesn’t make mistakes with genes? What about Downs Syndrome? Or any other of the multitudes of genetic DISORDERS that exist. You don’t think a kid born with cerebral palsy would prefer to have better genes that allowed him to control his body properly? Stupid religious fool> there’s a redundancy there. Religious fool. Its like saying dumb stupid

Faith healing is not very common,  but I guess this article is just here to aid it’s readers in feeling smarter than everyone else, not that you all really need any help in that department.

And the comments about how we are somehow better off as a society because an innocent kid is dead, who most likely went through pain that most of you can’t even conceive while his parents, who despite their foolishness and missinterpretation of God’s word, loved him just as much as anyone else loves their children, are pathetic. Hitler was that smug about his own superiority, we all know how that turned out.

 Yah, God doesn’t make mistakes. Except for creating appendix that are worthless while functioning normally, but then can fail and kill you at completely random moments.

 You can’t tell me that you “love” your children, when you are willing to watch them die one of the most agonizing deaths possible to appease the whim of an imaginary creature in the sky.  Give me a break, pal… you zealots and your nonsense need to get all the laws protecting you shattered and this kind of idiocy mocked on a daily basis.  It has ZERO to do with superiority, it has everything to do with living in reality.

 If there was really one deity, and he really had his word out in a book to the humans, why didn’t everyone get the same book?  It is absolutely disgraceful that an intelligent society has allowed man-made literature to persist as “law” to some people for like 1700 years… especially when most of the book’s stories are direct rip-offs of prior fables… (Horus is the classic example)

I’ve had appendicitis. I was seven and to this day (over a decade later) I can remember that day with absolute clarity because of the amount of pain I was in. By the evening of the day it started hurting I was in so much pain all I could do was curl up into a ball and cry.

My appendix wasn’t even close to rupturing.

I’m not a parent but I don’t see how anybody who has an inch of compassion could sit there and watch somebody be in that much pain and not help them. Because I doubt Zachery went peacefully. Judging from my own experience he probably spent his last few hours screaming and crying in agony.

That’s not something I could allow to happen to somebody I hated. Let alone my hypothetical child.

How deeply into this fairytale do you have to be to not do anything as your child dies in a horrific and easily preventable way? How narrow minded do you have to be not to once question your faith when your god doesn’t respond even to ‘could you make his death a little less painless? How could you live with yourself, worshiping the same god, after your faith caused the death of your child?

It boggles the mind.

In medicine, if a child is a minor, as this 17 year old was, he cannot choose to martyr himself. It takes the “logic” and “intelligence” only an adult possesses to decline life-saving treatment such as blood transfusions. How, oh how, can this not be the same thing? I am sure no one would choose a death in this manner, regardless of age.

I certainly am not. I’m not advocating any sort of action against people like that at all. What I’m saying is that some negative traits were removed from the gene pool. That is purely an issue of natural selection.

He might have been. And I did not reduce his life to a genetic value. I said that, on balance, I think the gene pool was improved by what happened. That doesn’t make the situation any less tragic for the individual, or his family and friends. They have their own values that they place on him.

Personally, I think pro sports is evidence of a genetic disposition to religious belief.

Me being a mother if I told my boys some thing of course their gonna believe me and will comply, their kids. It is my responsibility to make sure they get help cause they depend on me to know what to do,doesn’t mean they agree to it cause they have a choice. The blame is totally the parents, if u see ur child suffering like that how do u refuse him help and call urself a loving parent. I would sell my soul if it ment sparing my children any pain. Thankfully God does not have us so desperate, he has given us the means to heal our bodies through medicine and medical care. Why would anyone be arrogant enough to think making another suffer needlessly and resulting in a childs death and call it Gods will when he gave us the ability to heal and end needless suffering.

This is a terrific, brief (6 min) TED talk by a former Moonie who explains how cults rewire the thought process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e39mZB-eb6I

And at least we recovered children-of-theists tend to renounce all religions & not pick & choose at the dogma buffet.

Sure, and if a frog had wings it could be a bat…..coulda shoulda woulda….we could play the future game ad infinitem and come up with millions of scenarios about what may have been, but alas, the kid died. All your prognostication is moot.

C Peterson and I don’t often agree (on anything) but in this case, I thkink she is right. I agree that the death if this kid, while horrific and sad, is nothing that is going to make a lick shit of difference in my life.

Sometimes there are deaths that help humanity. I didn’t know the kid, so I cannot make a judgement, but I can say that I do not mourn his passing.

Everyone has, or should have, the right to refuse medical treatment.  People need more protection from medical abuses.

Let’s try looking at this from a different indoctrination perspective.  I’ve volunteered with domestic abuse recovery, and am eternally frustrated with “She must have wanted it because she stayed with him” kind of bullshit.

You cannot presume to know how an abused brain works unless you’ve been there.  They don’t think the same way.  They. Just. Don’t.

You have to toss all your presumptions out the window about options and maturity and anything else.

And don’t apply the example of one person to another.  Some people see through it and make it, others don’t.

(Obviously I don’t mean this to Liz directly, but to the discussion in general, but Disqus is putting me here)

If you’ve been a good parent, I’d expect that your children, at age 17, would be quite adult in many of their decision making abilities. There’s plenty of evidence in this and similar forums of freethinking teenagers- and they don’t all have freethinking parents.

Check this one out. A baby is conceived but it will inconvenience the mother. So they decide to remove it from the mother and throw it in the garbage.

Is this being protested? Is there someone we can write to on behalf of this poor child to get this law changed? “Faith healing” of any kind is not medicine. It’s just like god: a figment of your imagination. The legislators who voted that into law should be charged as accessories to murder since that’s exactly what was committed here.

its kooky and backward and i wouldnt do it but 1) Zachery Swezey was 17, more than old enough to get help from a child advocate, emancipate himself, call cps on his parents etc. 2) parental rights are obviously important to y’all otherwise you probably wouldnt post it, so how would you feel if a medical procedure which you did not agree with or consent to performed on your child? this issue looks like a no brainer with a life saving procedure like an appendectomy, but what about cosmetic surgery or an elective abortion? many people even doubt or question the safety of chemotherapy and vaccines. its easy to gawk and shame these fundamentalists, but the issue is more complicated and frankly, ones i’d rather make for my own kid than have someone make for me. and 3) a sympathetic jury may (and did) not convict despite the facts and laws on the books. I wouldnt exactly call a dead child, having to call the cps for any other medical decisions and a manslaughter trial “scott free”misinformed? backward? negligent? yes. criminal? possibly.worthy of a legal precedent with countless unintended consequences that would limit YOUR parental rights?..additionally, i would consider myself an athiest, but “Claudia”‘s moralizing and smug tone is as bad as any fundamentalist, especially since she did not consider any of the consequental issues in this case and instead just mocked and gawked.

You can believe what ever you want but your behavior is what is in question here.  I have been a “healer” for nine years now and doing nothing is beyond stupid.  Prosecute please!!!  There is a place for ALL forms of medicine in this world and that is what God has given us  This boy clearly needed attention other than a religious belief, because at the end of the day “religion IS man made.  God wanted this?  Please.   For the love of God snap out of it.  No 101 classes for parenting, but people need a license to fish, WT….

In my opinion I think the parents are a victim as much as the 17 year old. the real crime here is religion 
particular Christianity, it’s disgusting, it teaches ignorance, intolerance,  hatred, bigotry, misogyny. it’s a backwards,
anti-scientific Thought and outdated morality based on Fictitious characters
from the Iron age. And needs to be treated
with ridicule, & hatred, &
contempt. Religion poisons everything. I do think the parents loved their child, I have no real proof other wise, because they truly thought that jesus would save their child, well <– that is the proof that Christian religion is horrid & disgusting & needs to be smashed.

 I’ll just leave this here…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o

Shit, if we hadn’t had ~1,000 years of enforced ignorance, we’d be waaay more advanced than we are!

This is one of the reasons why there is separation between church and state.   Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. This is part of the first amendment.   These parents killed their kid through medical neglect and they got off because an unethical law was made that went against the constitution.  Not only were they wilfully stupid but now their other kids face a similar danger in the future.  An atheist won’t just talk to themselves (pray), they will call a doctor.

 Yup. Went in for just that kind of pain twice in one week. It turned out to be a pinched nerve in my back, but I’d rather have gone in for nothing than tried to stick it out and end up dying.

To bad you weren’t selected against…the world would be a much happier, smarter place.  But alas, you exist…too bad your mother didn’t have the balls to abort you.  I guess something must have made her feel you were important.  Since you are so evolution gungho, riddle me this…what do you feel about all the scientific advancements that are basically reversing survival of the fittest and just letting everyone survive?  You have your precious science to thank for that.  If you think about it, religion was the only way to insure survival of the fittest.  O well….

“Hitler was that smug about his own superiority, we all know how that turned out.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Absolutely, and at the risk of being labelled a ‘misandrist’ again being a man can make you even more irrational when it comes to pain.

 Oh, like a Logic Bomb.

 Starting to understand PZ’s hatred of that particular joke. It’s… I’ve seen it at least three times in this discussion alone!

Thanks for proving that atheists are immoral.

You’re not just making a positive statement. You’re making a normative one by saying that the removal of traits from the gene pool was a good thing. Which is disgusting.

This is fantastic, and it perceives the religious as victims of their religion, while suggesting we admit that ideologies which threaten critical thought are a problem that needs solving.  I had already come to these conclusions myself, but the way they’re presented in that talk is very powerful.

 Piled Higher and Deeper…

 Not well enough to realize he had siblings, and thus the genes likely survived…

 LOL, I know! Men can be such babies when it comes to pain!

It has nothing to do with Christianity.  I’ve never run across a TRUE Christian in my life that would think it’s okay to sit back and watch your child die without taking any kind of action.  Having a spiritual walk with God and being religious are not the same thing.  These parents were religious, but they definitely were NOT Christian.

It wasn’t his fault that his parents thought prayer would heal his appendix rather than medicine. The parents continue to live and be ignorant while their teenage son, with a cureable condition, dies. 

“Medical abuses” like life saving operations to fix a curable condition? If the parents want to refuse medical treatment, fine. Refusing treatment for their teenage son which resulted in his death, is not. 

I will never understand the anger of some atheists.

To quote Greta Christina, we’re not angry because there’s something wrong with us, we’re angry because there’s something right with us.  If injustice such as this doesn’t make you angry, then there’s something wrong with you.

He neither needs nor craves our approval.

That doesn’t seem to be supported by scripture.  Perhaps not ‘approval’ but he does seem to want his ass kissed.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

(just a pretty much random selection)

It isn’t my place to judge them.

Fortunately a court of law did see fit to judge them.  I may not agree with the punishment (or relative lack thereof), but at least they were found guilty of a crime.

OMG all atheists are immoral! SEE! This one guy said he is glad this guy died, therefore all atheists are immoral! 

Oh please. 

Where do you get your fucking rhetoric and bullshit? CPeterson is as far from a sociopath atheist as Dawkins. SHe made a very valid point, but you dinks don’t even take the time to look at it without emotional knee-jerkl stupidity. And I thought atheists treasured free thought and the pursuit of truth, knowledge or gains in the cranium.

Your accustaion is 100x worse than anything CPeterson said.

Oh.for fuck sakes relax F.

When the gene pool is improved, that is a good thing for our species. That does not mean it’s a good thing for the individual that was culled. I did not say I was happy he was dead, I said I took consolation in the incremental improvement of our species.

I believe my morals toe closely to the ideal most humanists strive for.

so basically we are allowing people who make the lifestyle CHOICE  of religious beliefs that are neither rooted in science, fact, or logic, to get away with murder.  I know we have done this in the past when they kill gays, but what is next, are we going to allow them to kill their daughters for having sex outside of marriage or burning a witch????  The protection of people of a faith is carried over from the old days to protect their power and money this needs to stop.  a child never chooses or is able to understand the complex beliefs that their own parents dont fully understand or follow.

*snort* sorry, I do that if I laugh too hard. ;D

talk about religion –  you @!@@!   DO WHAT THOU WILL IS THE WHOLE OF THE LAW!!!!!!!!!!     Unless you are a polition making laws against parents parenenting!!!!!!

I have to admit, now that I’m used to it, I find it kind of endearing when he takes his dick out and waves it around.

Yes, go towards the light…. and give the rest of us a friggin’ break from this crap.

who is anybody to tell anybody how to raise their kids and until then fuc********** off you orginized religin bastards. love it or leave it you holy rollers!  You voted – deal with it fuc2ERS

There once was a man with great faith in god and thought that god would save him from anything. One day, there was a flood and the man was caught in a great rush of water and washed into the sea. Another man soon came by in a raft and attempted to rescue the man. But the man said “NO! God will save me!”. So the other man left. Someone came by later in a boat and tried to rescue the man. The man again refused, saying “No! God will save@facebook-1059360979:disqus 
me!” and the boat went away. Not long after, a helicopter came by. They threw down a rope to the man, but he refused again saying “No! God will save me”. The helicopter went away and the man drowned. The man got to heaven and said to God “Why didn’t you save me?” God looked at him in disgust and anger. “What do you mean?” God said. “I sent a raft, a boat and a helicopter!”

I would also state that this is against the 1st amendment as it give special priveledge to one religious group over another.

This decision was obviously stupid, but in total there are more deaths caused by blind trust of the medical establishment than are caused by blind mistrust or blind faith in the supernatural.

Your brain and google are the best resources when confronted with medical dilemmas.

Did you have a stroke in mid-thought or…? Seriously, are you ok?

Sounds  like something Mittens Rommey could answer. Or how about the one he worships.

 Yes, they have the right to believe whatever they want.

UNTIL their beliefs HARM OTHERS.

In this case, their beliefs resulted in the death of a child, due to an easily-treated condition. (Well, as “easy” as abdominal surgery ever is, really — it’s no picnic.)

Hey, they’re only stupid christies. So, let them kill themselves off for their ridiculous sky fairy. I, a rational Atheist, will survive!

Darwin is my Homeboy!

“Blatant lies being able to self-perpetuate”… isn’t that the definition of religion?

Yes, it’s remarkable how convenient faith-based “morality” is. It sort of reminds me of William Lame Craig lecturing that it was ok for the Israelites to massacre the Canaanite children because they would go to Heaven, and it was ok to massacre the Canaanite adults because they would go to Hell. So either way, massacre is A-ok.

they aren’t rip offs, perhaps they are the same stories or similar because it is  ALL REAL. geez. 

Thanks for the troll, please come again.

sounds like you have had more time on your hands-HAHAHA-to go mountain climbing than most of us . do you want to be told how to run your life or are you one of those who bitch and complain remember – fool me once – shame on you   WMD KITTY fool me twice shame on me! it is not my turn wmdkitty. Did you hold up the podium and if so -just what were you doing under the podium kitty.   now days everybody tries to tell everybody what to do when they cannot do or explain for themselves.  figure it out. it is really not that  hard wmdkitty. you suck like a hoover.

Wh- what the fuck are you smoking?

I haven’t said a single damn thing to you, Dandeline, what is your problem with me?

I first read this story at another site that wasn’t as clear on the details.  Reading this version a couple of times, it is unfortunate that they plead out. 

I’m not so sure of Webber’s position. 

“They never wanted to be the poster child for changing the law in Washington, even though the law begs to be changed,”

Does sound like he’s arguing that the law shouldn’t just apply to Christian Scientists.

But then

“It’s a bizarre thing that that law is out there,” 

Makes me thing perhaps he was just working for his clients, but really didn’t agree with the law even existing.

hm,

another article http://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/2012/jun/08/jurors-have-mixed-reactions-to-swezey-plea-deal/
says:

[2nd defense attorney] Korte said despite the media attention and what he said was the misconception that the case was about a couple’s right to decline medical attention based on their faith, there was not a connection between the Swezeys’ faith in God’s healing powers and their decision not to call a doctor. They really thought their son had the flu, and could not be helped by a doctor, he said.

“I suggest the assumption has always been that there’s a nexus between the two, but there was no evidence there ever was,” he said.

[district attorney] Sloan agreed that the case was not about faith healing, but rather whether a reasonable person in their situation would have called a doctor.

It seems like the defense was a mix of “they didn’t think he had anything more than a flu” and “you’d let the Christian Scientists get away with it”

Yeah… Life begins at conception. Life is also around when a guy jacks off into a sock. KILLING INNOCENT LIFE!!!!! OMGGG. When a girl has her period and releases the egg? MURDER!!!! When most abortions are performed, the ‘baby’ IS NOT A HUMAN. It is a fetus!!! A human can survive without being inside of another human, feeding off of its energy and whatnot. A fetus cannot speak for itself because it literally is part of the woman carrying it, if the woman doesn’t want the little sack of cells, she doesn’t have to let it grow and contribute to the 7 billion+ people on the earth. 

Did you know there are about 54 billion dead bacteria, per gram of human feces? How can you know this and live with yourself?

Is it because bacteria is insignificant?

Can you tell me a few differences between the cells in the bacteria in your poop, and cells in a zygote? Do either of them feel pain, or deserve empathy?

I didn’t think you’d know, but your ignorance isn’t really proper evidence. What is proper evidence, is your apathy towards killing insignificant “life”. Without (unfounded) belief in human souls, there is absolutely nothing wrong with killing a few cells that are unable to facilitate the feeling of pain, much less experience it. Up until a much later point in a pregnancy, a zygote is more the parent than it is itself – it has virtually no individuality. I say ‘it’ because it doesn’t have a gender until it is given the proper equipment. Calling it anything else only serves  to humanize something that isn’t any more ‘human’ than in the sense that the dandruff from my head is ‘human’.

Furthermore, what is the difference between a man blasting off a few billion knuckle babies in the privacy of his parents’ home, alone, and an abortion?  One kills many more potential lives, yet you’ve got some special knowledge that would rock the scientific community – you have proof that fetuses, incapable of feeling pain, are deserving of our empathy, because we should feel bad for causing damage to something that doesn’t feel pain, like rocks for example. You also have special knowledge that proves that killing a single zygote is way more immoral than killing a few quadrillion sperm over a weekend when mom’s not home and the porn channel’s unblocked.

Your stance is founded on none other than ignorant emotion, which is fine if you’re deciding for yourself. However, you have no right to decide that it isn’t okay for somebody who makes a different decision.

Arrest both parents immediately.  Remove  all their other children from them, and deny any contact .  Then,  jail them for manslaughter for an indefinite amount of years, and let them reflect on their religious stupidity. However, judging by their behavior as written in the article, they won’t abandon their infantile, immoral and demonstrably dangerous beliefs.

As for these (c)christian (s)cience practitioners, have them receive the same punishment. If they’re still at large, deluding and endangering people, arrest them ASAP. If they have children, keep them FAR away from them, though the damage to their minds has already been done. And imprison them for indefinite amount if time.

There is no rehabilitation for these kind of people, not rehabilitation as we know it. Their obvious crimes against humanity, their own family and that of others stem from their deeply held religious/cultural upbringing and as such they are unlikely to abandon those beliefs, or stop their practice (as they are obligated by their own faith to “help” people). Upon release, they are likely to continue their “mission”  somewhere else. Unless they develop some moral and intellectual courage and actually educate themselves in order to help them abandon such beliefs, their destructive religion.

So just because something’s natural it’s not disgusting? Guess that means rape sprees for every male then; gotta spread that seed!

The whole natural = good thing is a theme I see with atheists often. The large number of likes C Peterson’s social darwinist comment got seems to confirm this asinine “morality” atheists have. 

And yet you don’t think it’s a bad thing either. I think that speaks volumes. 

Killing off a couple billion could also help humanity by putting less strain on resources. Is that what you atheists are advocating now? Mass murder of “undesirables?” Christ. 

Hate to say it but it was written by an atheist. So I am of the opinion there is a huge bias in this article. Don’t get me wrong that what they did was wrong but it isn’t like this in 99% of the cases. The parents were obvious insane as they were already convicted of other crimes. Maybe if anything could been seen from this is how broken the law is that it can’t protect people from their parent’s ignorance to a problem. If there was a life-threatening problem that science had the answer to you should take it.

Put jesus on trial! Along with Muhammad and all the other prosperous nut bags!

Ridiculous. 

Morality is a relative concept that varies depending on place and time, there’s no “superior” morality.

Obviously if most of us knew how… we’d block your idiotic responses… just leave and take your Natural Selection rants with you..

The thing is that you religious sheeps have the tendency to try and force your little fantasy on everyone else.

Okay lets see you writhe in pain and pick up a phone when you can barely breathe because they pain is so horrible … guess we’d just tell your family not to worry about it, after all… natural selection oh wait, guess they wouldn’t care seeing as you get your genes from them. You truly are an insensitive prick

 Uh, yes we do. A rapist in the new s where  I live just so happens to be atheist. Does this mean all atheists are rapists. Of course not. Being raised in the south I can attest to the fact that I’ve never seen this type of behavior in any church I’ve been to. Don’t generalize an entire group for a few misguided retards. I find that as insulting as these people who got away with killing their child. I have a firm belief in the lord above, but would never let this happen to my children. Its just human compassion to seek out all possible medical help for when your child is suffering. It sickens me that this happened and Christianity as a whole is blamed, not the people directly involved. As in all things; its the retarded few that cast a sour light on any good done by any group, religious or other wise. God bless and may swift justice find these parents.

 Please tell me how a very, very small sect can cause a state legislature to consider their request “politically expedient”. Christian Scientists are in no position to be able politically threaten anyone (nowhere near enough votes in any particular state to put someone into or out of office), they don’t support their legislative requests by offering campaign contributions to key politicians, and they have nothing to hold over anyone. They simply make their request known and back it up with letters from the local Christian Science community explaining why they would very much appreciate political support by their state representative for a change in law supporting their form of treatment.

And this post proves nothing pro or con about the effectiveness of Christian Science care since the couple were not Christian Scientists.

 I am guessing you have never even visited a Christian Science nursing facility so how is it possible for you to make such an observation without any specific evidence to back up that kind of cynical comment?

Thank you!  You actually looked for and quoted from a more informative article. You seem to be  the only one here who thinks that doing a little research before commenting  is a good idea!

That being the case, why didn’t you also point out the following sentence?

“[Defense attorney] Webber said it wasn’t until after Dr. Bradley Craig — a physician who testified for the prosecutor — described how a healthy 17-year-old boy could mask his illness due to his strength, that JaLea Swezey understood why they didn’t know Zachery’s condition was life-threatening.”

Think of it. The prosecution (not the defense) brought up a point from an expert witness that helped shed a bit more light (rather than heat) on the case. If what Dr. Craig said is accurate, it makes the Swezey’s claim a bit more understandable. And based on that and some other comments here about the nature of this ailment that it might actually take time for the more serious symptoms to show up (at which time it might be too late), it makes a little more sense for the Swezey’s claims of ignorance in this particular instance a bit more understandable.

Why is it that most posters here haven’t done more simple research before jumping to their often angry conclusions? Anyone can mouth off without thinking. It takes a bit more effort to come up with a balanced and reflective response.

I would suggest that most here (including Claudia, the original poster) would benefit from reading the article that Rich Wilson cited. Real life is a lot more complex and deserves much more careful thinking than the “Hang them!” attitudes on display here would indicate.

 You should also note that that same First amendment which keeps government from establishing a state religion or prohibiting other religions from existing, also gives people and groups the right to petition for redress of grievances. Thus it allows for corrections to  state and national laws that might infringe on the rights of people and groups, including religions.

Since the law being cited (prior to its amending) could easily have been used against Christian Scientists who rely on their very specific approach to healthcare (and who apparently made a convincing case regarding the utility of their approach to the state legislators so that they would consider the request for an amendment to be a reasonable one), it only makes sense for that specific Christian Science approach to be cited as an exception.

In other words, if other groups wish to make their own convincing cases for their methods to be considered as safe practices, then they should do so. Then, if it appears that each of these different methods (Christian Science and any other groups who have made their own convincing cases) actually share a great deal in common, perhaps a more generally stated exception could be crafted. But until those other convincing cases have been made, it would be better for the exemption that was allowed for and passed by the state legislature (and the specific conditions under which it is to be used) to remain standing as it was written.

If Christian Scientists asked for the exemption and the specific conditions under which it is to be used, and continue to be able to provide a convincing case to the state that what they are doing is reasonable and safe, the exemption should continue. If not, and the state considers this to be a danger, then the state may find reason to have the exemption altered or removed. But simply citing Christian Scientists by name in the statute does nothing to establish their religion by the state, it simply recognizes the right of Christian Scientists to practice in their own unique way without interference by the state, which is obviously very much in keeping with the intent of the first amendment.

it shows

 Eat me.

 Oh, how brave and MANLY of you to belittle someone for being disabled.

FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID FUCK.

You wouldn’t last one day in my life, and you know it.

Common human decency and rationality should trumps religious brainwashing and magical thinking every time.

whhahwhhah////evve….***evveevver…***///IIiia canna babbbbabeerrrallallyyy ttyyyppeppe

at least I have one and am not ashamed of it.

Rich,,,psssst….no chick likes the sensitive guy….

And history shows that those who “PraiseHim” are some of the most violent, dangerous and vile people on the planet, not to mentiomn untrustworthy.

Shocker there.

Some Italian lawyer tried putting God and Jesus on trial about three years ago. Seriously. I forget the actual case, but the purpose was to try and devalue the Vatican and show there is no god.

The history of medicine? As an RN extensive palliative care experience, I know what happens when pts are in need of symptom control medication, and don’t receive it. The idea that CS ‘healers’ have some special dispensation to perform magic is beyond ridiculous.

So unless you have proof that the CS church is able to continuously perform miracles then grand guignol it is.

“Hitler was that smug about his own superiority, we all know how that turned out.”

Yes a lot of people suffering and dying for pointless dogma just like Zach.

I don’t think I’ve said anything that should lead anybody to think I don’t care about people. I think there is good evidence that some people, including you, have jerked out responses without reading or thinking about what I’ve said, however.

Peterson should feel bad about the death because it would show that he cares about people’s lives. By not feeling bad, Peterson reveals that he doesn’t care about human life. If he could get away with it, he’d murder someone who he determined was bad for the species. You don’t think this is a problem?

My personal beliefs are irrelevant to my disgust with Peterson because I’m operating off of Peterson’s atheist assumptions. I know he doesn’t believe in an afterlife, therefore it makes his acceptance of preventable death all the more disgusting. My beliefs do allow me to take some solace in the teen’s death (because heaven), but Peterson has no excuse.

I find it somewhat amusing how any particular  Christian defines who is and who isn’t a “Christian” Just in case you are too delusional to recognize it the definition of who is a Christian is purely subjective. Most Christians definition of who a real Christian is people that have belief systems like their own. They ignore 99.9% of the Bible and cherry pick parts of it that conform to their own lifestyle and wa-la your a real Christian. I have no idea how you compare an Atheist rapist to you deciding who is a real Christian based on your own subjective belief system. It seems like the most supreme kind of narcissism their is….

But you said that the death was good for the species. Why would you say that criminal charges should be pressed? You should be rejoicing, but for some reason in all of your comments you’re not.

There is no Hippocratic Oath. That is a myth.

Ray,

Let’s play a game.

You MUST kill someone (there is no out in this game, this is what must happen, there is no wriggling out or trying to be a weasel), and are given a handgun with one bullet. Let’s say that in order to save all of humanity you have to kill someone – and no, you cannot opt to kill yourself.

Okay, you are then put into a room where there is a degenerate/meth addict/three-time violent felon who abuses kids and never pays child support for his eight kids.

On the other side of the room is a Nobel Poet Laureate, Rhodes Scholar who has discovered a cure for ____ diseases, pays his taxes, donates time to soup kitchens, saves money and spends most of his spare time with this family.

Who are you going to kill and why?

Facts are, there are some deaths that benefit a culture. We make these value judgements daily. We may not always act on them, but if we are honest, we know there are lives that are more valuable then others.

“if we are honest, we know there are lives that are more valuable then others.”

I don’t believe that, and it’s horrible that you do. Someone’s right to life is dependent on their value to society? It’s shit like this that made me self-hate all throughout secondary school. My worth, and everybody else’s, comes from being human, not from being useful. 

 You’ve never had a pinched nerve, have you? Those things hit a 12/10 on the pain scale.

Yeah, but at least I’m curious enough to actually look things up and LEARN…

 So this article, about a child dying—in the twenty-first century—because
of very
bad, archaic beliefs being exalted over the individual, is “just here to
aid it’s [sic] readers in feeling smarter than everyone else”?

Surely, you’re not offended by the ridiculing of this couple’s
“missinterpretation [sic] of God’s word.” Maybe you’re smart enough to clarify
God’s word and where we can all find it. You know, the “real” word: King
James, New World Translations, the Torah, the Qur’an or the Hadith, the
Vedas. I’m just so confused. I don’t know if sending my kid off to blow
something up or just letting him die in lieu life-saving blood
transfusion will ensure his eternal . . . what is it, soul or thetan or
Jiva?

And just share your trick to knowing which is the “true” word so that we
can show those others why we’re right and they’re wrong.

Thank you so much. This is going to be great!

 Great video. Thanks for sharing!

Better look at some of his other replies. He thinks a person’s right to life is dependent on their achievements. It therefore seems very like that he supports mass murder of “useless” people.

Not a single one of those comments argues against my caring about people in the way humanists generally do.

 Eh, I’m mostly just rolling my eyes at his lack of creativity.

? “I’ll not mourn this loss” = I don’t care about this person. It seems straightforward. 

no chick likes the sensitive guy

Really?  That is good news!  Then maybe I won’t have to take care of the chickens my wife is planning on getting!

Ray,

You are being deliberatly vague and not answering the test question.

Who would you kill?

Don’t be disingenuous, you know as well as I do that the Rhodes Scholar who takes care of his/her family, bills, etcx…and contributes versus acts like a felon is more valuable, and you know as well as I do that you would clip the meth addict.

I like sensitive guys.

I have never been to an Alchemist’s lab, but based on scientific knowledge, empirical evidenceand common fucking sense, I don’t need to visit to know it is pure bullshit.

If CS nursing facilities are so miraculous in their healing, why doesn’t CS have more followers?

Has a CS center ever grown back a limb for an aputee through faith healing? Has it ever cured cancer or moved a mountain? The answers are No, No, and No.

says the broad who worships a cat-goddess…..

Uh you better learn to read, “we’re better off without him” does not mean “we’d better kill people like him”

Yeah, yeah, keep flapping yer lips, maybe you’ll come up with something original.

You really are a nasty piece of work. Keep going, I’m waiting for you to hang yourself with your own words.

I would flip a coin to decide who to kill. Do you realize the implications your beliefs have? You must support destruction of the “degenerates” to fuel the wealth of the successful according to your views.Not to get dramatic, but I contemplated suicide when I was younger due to low grades which gave me a feeling of worthlessness. According to your beliefs, this is a view that we should encourage in struggling children. You’re hearless.

I guess we define mourning differently. I view mourning as simply being sad that someone died. I don’t think you need to cry or anything. So I guess you do care. It was just a misunderstanding. 

I am faithful in god, but even he needs a little help. What they did was monstrous and full blown murder. 

Ray, Bubala, did you have a bowl of “Illogic-Os” for breakfast this morning, because that little non-sequitor gem made NO sense at all and was just way out there!

I’m not mocking the disabled. Just you, who happens to be disabled, but mocking the disabled as a group, no.

(and sweetheart, I was once the director for an Adaptive Ski and Outdoor Rec program, so I have worked and given my time to the population)

Sorry, I’ll try to clarify. You value the lives of people who accomplish much for society over the lives of people who don’t. Most Syrian citizens do not help humanity much. NASA scientists do greatly help humanity. Therefore, you value the lives of NASA scientists over the lives of most Syrian people. It would make sense for you to invest resources with the people you value more. Therefore, you should invest your resources in NASA and not in Syria’s people.

If you reject my proposition that you should invest resources with the people you values more, why?

If you truly have faith in God, you will sit on a bench with your thumb up your ass and take no action whatsoever, because everything is in God’s hands! Obviously having a brain and mobility was the devil’s handiwork.

you have no idea what christianity stands for…this story is an unfortunate incident of how people have misunderstood the bible n did what they thought was the right application..while in reality they were wrong to interpret the verses that way…what do u have to say for christians who take their kids to the hosp n take care of them….if u hate someone…keep it to urself instead of posting such empty comments…

 I assume “behave like a lady” means “sit down, shut up, and don’t worry your tiny little lady-brains — the men are talking.”

Fuck that shit.

I wouldn’t take that bullshit from my ex, and I am NOT going to take it from YOU.

 I think we can all clearly see the answers to those questions. Just look at how he’s treated me…

 I remember this bloke in the bible.. jesus or something, who said that if you love anyone on this planet (including your own children) better than jesus or god then you won’t be accepted to heaven.

So I’d say that god’s word (Sentencing people to eternal anguish in hell for LOVING THEIR CHILDREN BETTER THAN GOD) is pure evil.

You see, Mr. Cavemanben, if a christian’s love for his fellow human beings is inferior compared to his love towards god then I’m pretty sure you can’t say that these parents loved their kid as much as anyone else loves their children.

Also, have you ever contemplated how is it possible to misinterpret an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving god’s words? It should be impossible, by definition.

 I am more than willing to hear some specifics about this particular instance of a state legislature somehow being convinced to pass a provision in law granting an exemption to Christian Scientists who, politically as a group, have very little influence because of their small numbers, money, or just about any other form of influence.

Do you have some specifics about this instance that you can provide, or are you simply making a cynical assumption here?

1.  I am not trying to act as an apologist here, but I would like to see a more measured take on this tragic situation. Other than you, no one here (including Claudia) even tried to find out more in other news articles  before rushing to judgement. To me, that is never a good sign.

2. I think long before the constitutionality of the law was judged, the applicability of the law to the plaintiff’s case would be judged and found to be inapplicable because it’s use as well as the restrictions under which it was to be used were narrowly defined. The legislature obviously considered the ramifications of passing such a law, and had been convinced to whatever degree that the Christian Science residents of the state had made an effective case for their practice to be allowed with explicit restrictions as to its allowed defense in abuse or neglect cases.  Thus, with the law crafted as it was, no one could simply say “I am a Christian Scientist” or “I prayed” and therefore be exempt from charges of neglect. They would actually have to prove that they had followed the explicit provisions of the law that the legislature felt were necessary to ensure that specific  effort was made on the patient’s behalf.  So even though an outside observer might question the law itself, they could not say that the law did not adequately describe the conditions under which it was to be used.

3. The plaintiffs were probably not even aware of the law when they were caring for their son the way they did. Their lawyer probably found the law while crafting their defense and tried to use it.

4. Even though the plea bargain brings an end to this particular case, there is nothing stopping residents of the state of Washington from making a petition to have this specific law amended or repealed. The same constitutional provision that allowed Christian Scientists in Washington state to seek relief for their practices through petition is also available to any other residents of Washington state to petition to seek to have it removed.

5. Christian Scientists, as a group, are law abiding and try their best to work within the scope of the laws of the areas in which they live and practice. If local laws seem to restrict their practice, they will seek, through open, legal means, to ask for an exemption or an accommodation in the law. This means that the normal give and take of the legislative process (including input by other interested parties) is available during the entire time that a provision might be under consideration. If the exemption or provision passes, Christian Scientists will then have the option to use such provisions. If, however, a provision cannot be made, Christian Scientists will follow the law as it exists. Thus if vaccinations for any diseases are required, and no provision exists to be exempt, Christian Scientists will undergo vaccination. If a quarantine and notification of the board of health is required in case of infectious diseases is called for, Christian Scientists will obey such directives. Christian Scientists live among the general population (they are not isolated) and thus are very much aware of the need to be good neighbors and law-abiding citizens.

Hitler intentionally massacred hundreds of Jews. These parents basically just stood by their  son, loving him as much as parents do, but not willing to do the one thing that would save him.

What Hitler did was a planned genocide.

What these parents did was stubborn unwillingness to catch up with the times and take their dear child to medical experts who could have saved his life.

My little sister had appendicitis just like the boy in the article above. My mom took her to the hospital. And ya know what? SHE WAS FINE AND FUCKING DANDY 3 DAYS LATER!

You know what? I think you love being the victim. I think you wallow in it. In almost every post by you, there is an element of “oh woe is me” and victimhood. Even this little gem suggests you are a victim, yet if you go back to our original exchanges, not in the post, but the first exchanges made on this blog, you WILL find you attacked me and started with ad homs and attacks.

But NOW, all of the sudden you become the victim.

Sister, you are one sick little puppy.

 He’s just trolling, so far all of your comments have been very articulate

Frankly, as long as the planet is overpopulated with people, especially religious people, I have no problem with letting nature take its course. The preciousness of life is a term I’d like to see removed entirely from our language, and also remove some medical power over  our personal choices. I’m a third generation atheist, a biologist, an activist, but Homo sapiens is a plague to the ecosystem.

Yeah, you’d know all about little pricks, wouldn’t you…

Who the hell are you to talk about the way God works? I would be embaressed to call myself a christian. Christianity and religion is the true evil here, when you tell people their is an all powerfull, all knowing God  and a special infinate life after you die these are the kind of things that are bound to happen. And your mental terrorist organization that you support “christianty” is fully resposnsible for the dumbness and ingnorance in so many sectors of our lifes. I only hope that you reach a state of enlightenment to realize the evil cult you are a part of.

 Since you brought him up, hitler was a christian, specifically catholic (the proof is in his own writings) and almost all his henchmen were ether catholics or lutherans.

They deserve to go to jail

This is not BLATNATLY Christian….I know MANY MANY Christians, am I Christian myself and none of them, or me, would deny our children or ourselves medical treatment.  

So sad. Americans should be receiving educations that militate against the “God’ll fixit” perspective. I’m further interested because my sister was hospitalized a while ago for appendicitis and was not treated at all, because the inflamed appendix encapsulated itself and no surgery was necessary. A miracle? No.  She was monitored and the doctors concluded that the episode had resulted in a situation where appendicitis had been contained and dealt with by her own body.  IT’S A MIRACLE! No, it’s not. But it would have looked like one in a faith-healer community.  Please, don’t rely on the faith-healer community. You have the right to refuse treatment by the medical community, and never forgot that, but DON’T IGNORE THEIR INPUT!

Sorry blstr, just saw your post, wondering if you have a point. If so perhaps you could tell me what it is.

Last I heard the First Article of Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids laws respecting a religion. It looks like this statute definitely respects a specific religion. It would be nice to find someone with sufficient standing and inclination to challenge such laws in Federal court.

Since you referred me to your earlier postings on this subject in your response to my first posting on this subject, I’m going to reply to your first as well.

You directly referred to the specific language of the 1st Amendment. In fact you quoted it in full. 

Let’s go over your arguments. 

 “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of  religion,…”. What does that mean? Thanks to Everson v. Board of Education (1947), this means that no state or Federal statute can refer to a specific religion, or it’s practices.  They can in no way promote such faiths, or the lack thereof. Creating an exception to in law for a specific religion is indeed a “law respecting an establishment of religion”. I suspect this statute, and similar ones in other states, may have been written before that court decision. This is a dangerous statute for the Christian Scientist faith, because it also implies that the state legislature can define what its practices are under law. Really. 

“…or prohibiting the free practice thereof,…” What does this mean? Actually this part is made redundant by the previous, but it’s intended to reinforce it. The Supreme Court has made it quite clear that the peaceable practice of any religion (or lack thereof) cannot be unreasonably hindered by any public authority. An couple of immediate examples come to mind concerning human sacrifice, or of prisoners still being able to go to their regular church after incarceration.  “Freedom of religion” is not a license to disregard public order and safety.

“…and to petition the Government for the redress of grievances.” You suggested such a petition could lead to statutory exception. Only if the granting of such an exception does not conflict with higher law (such as the U.S. Constitution).

The otherwise peaceful nature of Christian Scientists is not an argument to granting an exception to their practices. The “equivalent care” is also not a compelling argument for such (and is questionable for other legal reasons).

It is discouraged under the 1st Amendment. In fact it’s prohibited. “Respecting” does not simply imply only establishment, but any direct reference.  Any religious reference must be very, very general in nature.

Actually, it still would not be a tenable law. A child lacks the ability to consent to participation in a specific religious practice. The parents here violated HIS 1st Amendment rights.

 BTW, thanks for your response to my first post. Very informative.

Interestingly enough I know of one nation at least that prohibits that specific religious practice for the very reason I cited. (Norway or one of the other Scandinavian countries – I’ll have to go look it up again). Circumcision has been exempted not for religious reasons, but for health and hygiene reasons. There is a lot of criticism about this recently, but that’s the purpose for the exemption. 

Without examining the legislative record for that state government at the time the law was enacted it is difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate their reasoning behind a specific exemption to a statute.  Anything else is speculative. But their “good reasons” does not carve an exemption to their obligation to U.S. Constitutional law. They all took an oath (as I did) under Article VI, Clause 3, of the Constitution in support of it. That same clause also gives very specific instruction to the judiciary at the state and Federal levels. Additionally, the preceding clause is known as the “Supremacy Clause” which identifies the Constitution and all lawfully entered treaties as overriding any other state or Federal statute. 

Not a knock on the faith, but in the political climate at the time (and, unfortunately, even now), religious groups managing to lobby for specific legislation successfully, despite legal conflicts, has happened all too often – and without any actual compelling argument. It’s been a long-time complaint. Members of the legislature are all too quick to act based on personal prejudice or political expediency in enacting law. They just leave it to the courts to clean up the mess. Often after many years and much harm later. What you state is the ideal, but not the documented political reality. Needed something solid? Nope. Just needed no objections in any sufficient number when it came up to vote, and its sad commentary that a lot of state and Federal legislatures don’t often read what they are actually voting for in any great detail. 

That exemption is scary though. It meant that that state legislature also gave themselves discretion to regulate Christian Science practitioners. By identifying certain persons as having an exemption, the government was also giving themselves the ability to limit who those people could be – and that doesn’t mean who the Christian Science community thinks it should be. That’s not something ANY religions group can want if they wish to be able to fully exercise their freedom of conscience. 

I sympathize with parents trying to instill their most cherished values in their children. But such desire does not override their essential duty to protect the health and safety of any dependent persons in their care (not just children, but the elderly or other similar persons).  Even though they weren’t Christian Scientists, they should have taken their son to even one of those care facilities that you have mentioned if possible at the very least. 

 Thanks for the comments avel. I especially appreciated your comments warning of the dangers of inadvertently placing the state in charge of religious practices. It’s not the first time I have heard that, but it is nice to have someone from the skeptic community point it out as well.

Speaking of which, I still note skepticism or cynicism (or maybe just honest dismay) regarding how the Washington State law might have possibly have been rushed through or forced through or manipulated through without any serious consideration by the legislators. I agree, it certainly is possible for this to have happened, but from what I know regarding the Christian Science community’s view of things, local Christian Scientists don’t, to the best of my knowledge, try to use such such tactics when proposing changes or legislative accommodation in their state’s laws. (The whole point of being granted an exemption is to have it be a solid legislative achievement that the community can rely on for the long term, not to have it slip through by stealth or manipulation so that it will be ripe for removal by those who may have opposed it but could not stop it for other reasons.) The practice, as I have witnessed it, is to notify the local members of upcoming legislation so that they can have an opportunity to support the proposed changes by writing letters or giving testimony regarding their own experience relying on Christian Science for their family’s health care to the sponsor of the bill or to the committee considering the bill. Other than performing this simple and straight forward task (and praying about it, obviously), there is very little wheeling and dealing going on. (Remember, the Christian Science community is very small compared to just about any other group out there in any particular state and thus do not wield any sort of political power.) And from what I have seen over the years, there is no guarantee that the viewpoint of the Christian Science community will be given a friendly response. The whole legislature may not read every detail of a change, but committees usually try to make sure that they can recommend a bill to the entire assembly and there is no guarantee that anyone in the committee other than the sponsor will back the proposed changes. And if the changes seem contentious or highly questionable or dangerous, push-back is likely to occur.

“I sympathize with parents trying to instill their most cherished values in their children. But such desire does not override their essential duty to protect the health and safety of any dependent persons in their care (not just children, but the elderly or other similar persons).  Even though they weren’t Christian Scientists, they should have taken their son to even one of those care facilities that you have mentioned if possible at the very least.”

This is an interesting paragraph because, according to the news article cited by Rich, the parents didn’t seem to be aware of the serious nature of the illness facing their son, nor did their son realize it until it was too late and tragedy struck. According to them, they thought their son had the flu. And a doctor testifying for the prosecution apparently admitted that it was possible for the son’s inherent physical strength to have been able to mask the real problem until it became too severe. So yes, they were praying, but initially that seemed reasonable even to the prosecutor. The problematic moment seemed to revolve around the question, what should the parents have done when the condition became very severe? And based on what I am reading into this, I don’t think the parents even knew about the law regarding Christian Science treatment, nor had they ever heard of it until their lawyer found the statute. I am pretty sure they had never even heard of the Christian Science religion until the trial. Thus they were very unlikely to have taken advantage of what the law offered to them.

But even supposing that they had taken their son to a Christian Science nursing facility, even there the healing method to be used would be to rely on prayer from a Christian Science practitioner. Thus the familiy would have told to contact a practitioner by phone before their son would have been admitted. (The nursing facilities are there to offer practical sick room care for a person while they are being treated by a practitioner, but they do not administer anything to the patient themselves. And medical treatment or diagnosing is never used in such a facility.)

The interesting thing is, reading this thread inspired me to research cases of acute appendicitis being treated through Christian Science. There are quite a few of them listed in testimonies of healing in The Christian Science Journal, The Christian Science Sentinel, and The Christian Science Herald. (Bound volumes of these are often available in local Christian Science Reading Rooms.) You might be interested in reading one or more of these incidents if you are curious as to the effectiveness of the treatment that Christian Scientists rely on since you appear to be asking an honest question regarding the health and safety of patients relying on such treatment. I have included a few references to some that I found particularly interesting. (Note that because Christian Science is a religion, these are religious testimonies expressing gratitude for the help received and thus are not medically oriented nor do they contain highly detailed descriptions of the illness or its symptoms. The condition of acute appendicitis was diagnosed by medical professionals in each of these cases, however and the narratives describe the situations the person found themselves in, what was done to address the situation, and what its outcome was.)

(May 1991 Journal pp. 36-37 (adult on cruise ship),  July 23 1955 Sentinel pp. 1314-1315 (former medical nurse), August 1959 Journal pp. 444-445 (non-CS teenage student, burst appendix removed by surgery, gangrene had set in, doctor recommended CS), December 28, 1940 Sentinel pp. 335-336 (7 month pregnant woman), July 30 1955 Sentinel pp. 1358-1359 (adult with interesting comment by doctor), March 8 1969 Sentinel pp. 422-423 (male student reminiscent of the case being discussed in this thread), September 24 1967 Sentinel pp. 1656-1658 (4 year old child in Capetown), January 21 1950 Sentinel pp.127-129 (student at college)).

It’s sad that people will go to great lengths to disprove Christianity/God when they could be doing something more useful…like feeding the hungry or helping build homes and give jobs to the homeless so they can get their lives together. But no..apparently we have to spend time, money, and energy trying to disprove the existence of a deity (which, is impossible if you actually know what a deity really is {ya know, supernatural..not bound by the limitations of time/space/nature})…

“I’ll have to see direct sources and evaluate them. Current data does not support the efficacy of prayer in medical practice. The titles of the references you cite are incomplete. I’d have to see the origin of that list.”

Actually, there usually are no titles assigned to testimonies of healing in any of the Christian Science publications I cited. (Articles and editorials in the publication do have titles, however.) Typically there is a section in each periodical that has a a series of testimony narratives, each followed by the person’s full name and their city and state of residence at the time the testimony was submitted. (In order for the testimony to be considered for publication, the testifier needs to supply the names of 3 people who can verify the veracity of the healing’s details, or who can vouch for the integrity of the testifier. The Christian Science Publishing Society edits the testimony and sends a copy of its final form to all 4 people who then have to sign a statement as to the accuracy of the text and also that nothing has occurred in the meantime to bring into question the permanence of the healing. Also, a sufficient time period must have passed before submitting the testimony to verify to the testifier (and anyone else) that the healing is solid. The healings are often also confirmed by medical examination requirements when the person who was healed entered the armed forces, applied for insurance or employment, etc.) Although each bound volume comprises one annual volume number of the publication, the spines of the actual books list the title of the publication and the year(s) covered within the volume. (The Christian Science Journal, for instance, was started mid year in 1883, so volume I of that publication would have a date on the spine saying 1883-1884 and volume II would say 1884-1885, etc.) The page numbers and the dates I gave are accurate for each of the instances I listed and obviously I shortened the name of each publication to its main name (Journal, Sentinel.) The text in the parenthesis is simply my own quick personal annotation regarding the case, and obviously would not appear in the publication itself. You should have no problem looking up these testimonies when (and if) you visit a Christian Science Reading Room.

As to the efficacy of prayer in medical practice, I have pointed out in other threads elsewhere that the mixed results for tests of prayer actually just test a single instance of a hypothesis (what an experiment designer’s thoughts as to what prayer might be, how it might work, and the methodology of how it might be engaged in, etc.), rather than testing everything there is to know (or that might be known) regarding prayer.  Long story short, while I applaud the general notion of scientists trying to understand such a thing, I am not at all impressed by how it was attempted in the studies I have read. There are simply too many vaguely defined pieces (starting with “prayer” itself) for me to feel like these experiments were well designed and therefore produced useful results. Furthermore, I do not think it is even possible to “test prayer” since the whole notion is (theologically speaking) an attempt to test God. And since God is presumed to be intelligent (rather than a blindly operating, mechanistic force), it would seem that God could choose not to participate in such an effort (even as the individuals participating in the experiment could also choose not to be part of it). And without the explicit and verified presence of the main actor, how could anyone seriously presume that any test would ever produce valid results? (Just my thoughts.)

“As far as the family in this case is concerned, I’m suspicious of their claims.”

I also do not have any solid knowledge of their claim. However, that’s why I included the citation of a testimony regarding a similar teenage student in my list of Christian Science testimonies. His experience with the ailment seemed to match the description put forth in the news article. In essence, it strikes me that if the condition of appendicitis developed slowly in a particular individual, with symptoms not especially painful or frightening, the person experiencing them might not give the matter too much serious thought until there was a sudden, rapid change in the condition (acute appendicitis) that brought about a crisis. But up until that time, nothing super serious seemed to be going on and the whole episode (a relatively lengthy buildup with a rapid, critical conclusion) might strike someone unfamiliar with the cause as all one (up until the end) not very deadly condition.

Thanks, once again, for the courteous, thoughtful replies.

The commands given by Jesus Christ is ‘to love God with all your heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbour as you love yourself’ – He Himself laid down His life for us.   Medicine is a gift from God and to deny a person treatment is ungodly.  To stand by and watch a person die is contradictory to what Jesus Christ taught.  It is unjust to hate God or even deny Him based on the errors of fallible human beings.   God remains true, just and Holy and those who love Him and do His will, not man’s will are His true church. 

That fucking sucks. Idiot parents, idiot legal system. People say justice is blind, I say find out who blinded her and burn them alive.

BTW, Apologist Creatard Pres.George Bush himself handpicked Judge J.Jones. 

It is human to want to intervene on behalf of the suffering of any other animal.  It is human to react in frustrated anger against those who exhibit no sense of human justice but justice is a human concept evidenced nowhere else in the cosmos in which we exist. This story bears witness to evolutionary survival of the fittest, tragically from the perspective of those of us who are rationalists.