Kill me twice?
What do you say about a "religious" couple who have so much faith that they let their 2 year old die in 2009 because they thought prayer was making him better and again letting their 8 month old die from diarrhea last week because, you guessed it, the power of prayer was better than Immodium or God forbid, a trip to the pediatrician.
Well, I won't tell you what I'd say, I'll say it. Maybe it's true that Gods don't kill people -- people kill people, but maybe it's also true that faith is dangerous and maybe faith kills and maybe it kills all the more because we worship faith itself and give special status to people who believe in such dangerous superstitions instead of charging them with manslaughter.
Herbert and Catherine Schaible have been teachers in and members of the First Century Gospel Church in Philadelphia, PA where 'faith healing' is promoted. A church that receives taxpayer support for convincing people to let their children die rather than receive medical attention. First Century indeed. In the 21st, it's unacceptable, it's shameful, it's ignorant, it's murder. Yes, I believe in religious freedom, but not in the freedom to inflict dangerous superstition on other people, particularly minor children. I fully support the freedom of people like the Schaibles to jump off cliffs to prove that faith will support them as long as no one is forced to hold hands with them in the attempt.
Too bad you can't make people blow into a meter and determine their faith level, but any level that allows children to die to prove their parents' devotion to asking gods for favors rather than doing what can easily save their lives -- is too damn much.
Oh, and by the way, if this is a "Christian Nation" why aren't we indicting the Federal Government? Why not the First Century Gospel Church? Why not Jesus as a co-conspirator, an accessory before and after the fact? If he could have acted and didn't -- if in fact he exists, isn't he guilty too?
If you're going to give me some crap about 'Heaven' and God's 'mysterious' ways, or God giving us free will, don't bother to blow into the Faith-O-Meter. You're already proved how full of it you are.
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2 comments:
It's even worse: 5000 years ago the Sumerians wrote about the use of opium to cure diarrhea. And note: diarrhea continues to be a major cause of death throughout the world. But as you say, there is no justification for that in the modern west.
What bugs me (and I write about it much too much) is that people mistake blind faith for theology. In America, almost no religious person is interested in the questions that religion was originally created to try to answer like, "Why does the universe exist?" Instead, they take stupid answers like "God" (as if that answers anything) and use the Bible (or similar) as a book of rules.
Why did the Schaibles kill their children? Because their church told them to. And where did, for example, their pastor learn that? From his pastor. Most modern religion is nothing more than a tragic game of telephone.
Everyone here in the Bible belt goes to Bible study at least once a week and listens to someone telling them that it's all the perfect word of God and this is what it means.
Only it almost never means that, or didn't to the man who wrote it. "Study" isn't really what it's about. And anything that smacks of informed and objective commentary or even honest translation is deemed heresy.
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