Father convicted in Prayer Death

Remove all ads!

To be able to do this to your child, neglect them when your assistance is needed most, is a terrible crime. I can see only 3 ways this could of happened...

1 - The parents are completely insane.
2 - The parents are the stupidest people on the planet to believe that god will provide for them and no other assisstance is needed. As Aldeth pointed out earlier, did they also believe they did not need to do anything else, like provide food for their children, that god would provide that also? How patheticly stupid!
3 - The parents used the "faith healing" route as an excuse to not have to take any responsibility and actually care for their child. I believe this is most often the cause in these cases and these people are dispicable for doing so. Hiding behind religion to absolve yourself of your crimes just shows how little these people are.

 

T2, I would really like to think you're wrong, because I can't think of many things more terrible than willfully trying to throw blame for your own child's death on someone/something else just so you can get away with an appeal. I'd rather believe in someone being a stupid or even insane monster than in them being a cold, calculating monster. Then again... what do I know.

 

The parents should push for a insanity plea...

 

Blades, I'd love to be an cynical as you, but I've known way too many people that seriously believed some wacked out stuff in my life. That being said, I do think there's some level of either not wanting to be responsible or wanting to be oppressed (a pity factor thing) behind such a mindset.

 

NOG is actually an excellent illustrative example here. Anyone who frequents these boards knows that NOG is a pretty devout Christian. But there's a difference between being extremely devout and being a complete nutjob like these people.

There are some indications of healing powers of prayer. Scientific studies have been conducted that show people who believe that parying will help them get better and pray for such do show slightly better recovery rates than people who do not believe prayer will help them (regardless of whether they pray or not). I think such instances are a case of mind over matter and not divine intervention. Regardless, there are no scientific studies out there that show recovery rates are better for people who use prayer in lieu of traditional medicine.

 

Hmm, a cynic hey? Okay, I can live with that. It's not like your the 1st person to call me that. But mostly with my initial reaction. I do open up/lighten up after a little conversation about a topic. I won't profess to know everything and really enjoy conversations that can enlighten me on topics I don't know everything about. I will still give my opinion with my heart, but I'm willing to change when convinced otherwise. At least I'm not a stubborn cynic.

In these cases I agree with your assumption. It's at some level, for some reason that I can't fathom, that they are taking the easy way out and not taking responsibility for their little loved ones lives. Very sad stuff there.

 

Those two want handing over to some of us *good* parents! We'll give them something to pray about!

 

I chalk that up to positive mindset as well. Most areas of medicine (especially areas like cancer) have had studies show that those who expect to recover and look forward to life are more likely to recover (and do so more quickly) than those who don't.

As for the power of prayer, I was thinking more the (exceeding rare) cases where someone is diagnosed with severe cancer (or some other condition, doesn't need to be cancer), all the tests show it, scans show it, everything, the person and his/her loved ones pray and when the doctors go in to actually operate, either in preliminary scans or in the actual surgory itself, the problem is just gone. No cancer, no malformations, just perfectly healthy tissue.

 

I believe in the power of prayer and faith healing. I've seen it work. But it works when all other avenues have been tried and people have done all they can do. It's not supposed to be a substitute for using the gifts that God has already given us, gifts like the knowledge of how to prevent, treat and cure diseases. If you don't use what God has already given you, how the bleep do you see the logic in asking him to give you more?

I have to say that in this case I disagree with Drew's analysis. I don't really care that he won't do it again, or even if he's learned his lesson and is very contrite (it sounds to me like he's not and is playing the rights / victim card, but whatever) The fact is that another human being is dead due to his negligence. End of story for me. That requires punishment no matter how contrite he is or how little a danger he is to society. 20 to 25 years minimum IMHO. I don't care if he thought he was doing the right thing. She's still dead and if he'd pulled his head out of his excretory outlet she'd be alive. Community service is, IMHO, an insult to the memory of the little girl and totally devalues her life.

And he should lose his other kids. I don't want any more myself, but I'd make that sacrifice and take one and raise it as my own if it would stop him from killing him/her with his idiocy.

 

I showed Rob this thread the other night and he hit the roof! If he could get hold of this guy I think he'd kill him.

When Ashley was born we were told he was going to die. We had 4 phone calls telling us to get to hospital because he was going to die. I prayed so hard during those weeks, the local church prayed for him and a friend of mine who's a monk had the other people in his monastry saying prayers for him as well. I think that it helped a lot, some of the things he came back from really should have killed him. However, the main things that saved him were blood transfusions, an incubator, oxygen tanks and a team of medics who were amazing!
We all prayed and God helped by allowing us the nouse to use these things to our advantage. He wasn't going to let my little boy die just because I wasn't relying on prayer alone

 

An excellent example, Silvery, and I'm glad it turned out well. That is exactly what I believe. God gives you opportunities to do it yourself and, when you can't do enough on your own but you are trying, He'll fill in the extra needed (even if it's 99%), but God doesn't really give away freebies.

 

I remember this great line from iirc a Sindbad movie: Trust in Allah, but tether up your horse. That's basically the same Ben Franklin said, and very apt as well. You got your priorities right Silvery

 

Years ago I heard a joke that went like this.

A town was flooding and a man there went to the roof of his house and prayed. Someone with a rowboat came by and offered a ride. The man said he was praying and didn't need it. Someone else came by with a motorboat. Similar offer made and the same reply given. The water was getting really high and a helicopter came along. The people on board offered to pick him up and he declined. Later he drowned and went to Heaven. When he asked God why God didn't save his (physical) life God's reply was "I sent a rowboat, a motorboat, and a helicopter. What more do you want?"

Ragusa, think I caught the end of the same movie, old and not with the best effects (compared to today)? Didn't keep the crown did he?

Edit: This is why it may pay to read page 1 rather than the most recent one. It appears NOG has heard the same/a very similar joke.

 

Lmao, I loved that joke, pplr!

...
Seems a little familiar, though.


Still, at least we know great minds think (and apparently laugh) alike.

 

From that link:

I object to that. Plenty of children every day die of neglect and I'll bet money the majority of their parents are not actively religious. To blindly claim that parents being atheist means they are incapable of neglect is just as idiotic as believing God hates hospitals.

 

I think you are reading too much into this. The comparison being made is between an otherwise devoted pair of religious kooks and a similarly devoted pair of Atheists. The parents of that child were not neglectful in the traditional sense. They stayed with her, watched over her, prayed for her, and watched her die of a treatable illness because their severely misguided religious beliefs led them to believe that they were doing the best thing they could possibly do for their daughter by putting their faith in The LORD's healing power (™). They were neither inattentive to their daughter's illness nor were they -- coming from their point of view, at least -- careless. Remember that they really believed that the best thing they could do for their daughter was pray for her and that taking her to a hospital would have done their daughter no good.

A similar pair of atheistic parents would not have fallen for such nonsense and would have taken their kid to the doctor. Atheists most assuredly are capable of neglect...but not this kind of neglect.

 

Ok, Drew, that's a good point. But the atheists may well have had an abortion.

Every group has it's failings, and at least a few of them for every group are appauling and, thankfully, rare.

As for the discussion... Talk about idiots! I think I saw two people on there I could actually stand to read more than a paragraph from. One was an atheist (and I think either regular or moderator on the site or something) and one sounded like an agnostic. I think the worst claim that I heard on there is that atheism has never caused violence. Have these people never heard of the Holocaust, of Stalin, or of Mao Tse Tung?

There are a few good points, though. There is little more evidence of God than there is of a pink unicorn who likes pizza. And people worshiping the pink unicorn shouldn't be jailed or locked in psych wards, as long as they do so reasonably. And any religious people who do completely unreasonable things (like starving children to death to drive out demons, WTF) should also be jailed. Asside from that, since the entire topic is, by it's very nature, outside of the scientific realm, you can't really apply scientific tests to it. It'd be like asking someone to scientifically prove that Lord of the Rings was well written.

 

Christians have had abortions, too, NOG, and I've never heard of anyone (Atheist or otherwise) aborting a 15 month old child. That said, what does abortion have to do with neglect?

Atheism didn't cause violence in any of those instances. The Holocaust was not conducted in the name of 'No God". Despite the supposed Atheism of the Soviet Union, even Stalin allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to worship freely (they just didn't allow any other religions). Nothing Mao ever did was done in the name of "No God," either.

Even under Mao, Chinese religious policy was to "respect and protect" the people's freedom of religious belief. Unlike the Soviet Union, which claimed it allowed no religious worship of any kind while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the Russian Orthodox Church, China flat out guaranteed religious freedom (as is typical for dictatorships, that freedom was of course really only extended to those religions that already had a foothold in China).

Article 4 of the "Outline of the Chinese Soviet Constitution" stated that "the workers, peasants, Red Army Soldiers, and working people and their families, regardless of sex, race, and religion all are equal under Soviet law, all are citizens of the Soviet Republic." Article 13 stipulated "the aim of the Chinese Soviet Regime is to see that workers, peasants, and working people have real freedom of religious belief. The policy separating state and religion will absolutely be carried out."

 

Ugh... what a bonehead. What a clueless, heartless, misguided, dogmatic, self-obsessed bonehead.

That is why I am so annoyed by boneheadedness. It was not religion that killed the girl and imo it was not neglect, it was blind, pig-headed dogmatism. It would be little different if her parents were equally blind and pig-headed straight vegans who let her starve rather than get necessary foodstuffs because they did not believe they were proper food. It was the blind faith that you can not be wrong, that anything that is not 101% in accordance to you and what you believe in is wrong and actively evil, and in that case, that everything depends on you - YOUR faith. If this man is honest, then His daughter's illness was a test from God, apparently. Her own life was just something God used to test him and his wife's faith. Did he think that his daughter's life did not matter to God, or that he was another Abraham, asked to put his child's life in God's hands? Right, so God is just a miracle-dispensing machine now, bound to answer all prayers from the worthy. Why does he even bother eating?

It boggles the mind, really - putting the doctor before God? I'd think that a devout Christian would believe that the doctor is doing God's work, not opposing him. I don't care if he spends time in jail or community service - neither will bring the girl back to life, though the second may atone somewhat for what he did (but please, do not put him in anything near a position where he can choose his misguided principles over the well-being of another human). The couple should lose any other children they have, though - as they are apparently not responsible or mature enough to take care of any life other than their own.