…and this is a 
Can we please just establish this one principle?
Category: Evil • Religion
Posted on: April 29, 2008 9:59 AM, by PZ Myers
Prayer doesn't work. Enshrine it in the law — prayer is not a helpful action, but rather a neglectful one. Teach it in the schools — when the health class instructs students in how to make a tourniquet or do CPR, also explain that prayer is not an option. Faith in prayer kills people.
The Wisconsin parents who allowed their daughter to die in a diabetic coma because they believed prayer was sufficient aid have been charged with second degree reckless manslaughter. That seems about right to me.
Read this account of the progression of their daughter's disease, and ask yourself at what point you would be taking her to the doctor, if she were your child. At some point between the first and second paragraph, I would have been rushing her to the emergency room; round about the third or fourth paragaph, I would have been freaking out and screaming into a telephone for an ambulance. They just let it go on and on, getting worse and worse.
Dale Neumann said on the Friday before his daughter died he noticed she was "a little more tired," but that she ate a McDonald's meal without any problems. By Saturday he noted the girl "seemed to act like she had a fever" while her breathing seemed a little labored.
Meanwhile, Leilani Neumann told police that by Saturday, "Kara was laying on the couch. Her legs looked skinny and blue. I didn't realize how skinny she was. We took her to my bed where I got her warm. I thought it was a spiritual attack. We stayed by her side nonstop and we prayed.
"I asked Kara if she loved Jesus and she shook her head yes."
Later Saturday, "Kara got up to go to the bathroom and fell off the toilet," Leilani Neumann told police.
Dale Neumann told police he thought his daughter was getting better on Sunday but that at one point he tried to sit her up but she was unable to remain up.
The investigator said he used the term "unconscious" to describe the girl's condition, according to the report, while Dale Neumann "preferred to say that she was 'in sleep mode.' "
Dale Neumann said Kara couldn't communicate and wasn't taking any water.
…
Randall Wormgoor encouraged Dale Neumann to call for medical help but the father "said he remained confident and steadfast in his belief that prayer would heal Madeline," according to an interview Dale Neumann gave to police.
Dale Neumann said he heard a "commotion" coming from the room where his daughter was lying down and that he began CPR efforts. One of the Wormgoors called 911.
Note that it wasn't even the parents who called for emergency help — it was a visiting friend. And professional help wasn't requested until she was dead. The Neumanns would no doubt have gone directly from neglecting their daughter to calling their local witch doctor priest to carry out the funeral ceremony.
The Neumanns have three other children. They've been taken away from them. That's good, too, given these statements.
Dale Neumann told investigators that "given the same set of circumstances with another child, he would not waiver in his faith and confidence in the healing power of prayer," according to the interview statement.
Police also said an e-mail Dale Neumann sent at 4:58 p.m. on March 22, the day before Kara's death, showed that the parents were aware their daughter was very ill.
The subject line of the email was: "Help our daughter needs emergency prayer!!!!" The e-mail was send to AmericasLastDays, an online ministry run by David Eells.
Right. If you want concentrated stupid so dense that it has turned into evil, check out that vile website, although it does rightly and horrifyingly point out a catch in the law.
Wisconsin law, Section 948.04 (6) states: "A person is NOT guilty of an offense under this section solely because he or she provides a child with treatment by spiritual means through prayer alone for healing…" Also in Section 448.04 (6) it states: "No law of this state regulating the practice of medicine and surgery may be construed to interfere with the practice of Christian Science. A person who elects Christian Science treatment in lieu of medical or surgical treatment for the cure of disease may not be compelled to submit to medical or surgical treatment." This section appears to refer to the application of Christian Healing as "Christian Science," since no reference is given to indicate it means a particular denomination such as the "Church of Scientology." And the writing of any law to protect only one denomination would violate the equal protection guaranteed under the constitution by protecting one sect over another.
In other words, the religious have an exemption that allows them to murder their children. "AmericasLastDays" thinks this excuses the parents; to me, it says that Wisconsin lawmakers should feel obligated to change a wretched loophole in the law that opens the door to the abuse of children.
Nothing excuses the lethal cruelty those parents exhibited to one of their kids.
Comments
Posted by: Shaun | April 29, 2008 10:06 AM
I wonder if they are going to call a lawyer or just rely on prayer to keep them out of jail.
Posted by: MaqrMarcus Ranum | April 29, 2008 10:08 AM
Think of it as evolution in action.
Posted by: Jacob Gjedde | April 29, 2008 10:09 AM
The parents should consider a legal defense based on an insanity plea - that ought to get them off the hook.
Posted by: Jim RL | April 29, 2008 10:11 AM
I originally didn't want the parents to go to prison because I felt they had been misguided and had suffered enough. Reading the quotes about doing it again totally changed my mind. Does he not realize his daughter died of something that is readily curable with modern medicine? It does appear that Wisconsin state law will keep them out of trouble, though. Hopefully, this will at least be a wake up call to change the stupid law.
Also, isn't calling it a Christian Science exception violate equal protection? Can idiot Jews, Muslims, or Hindus let their children die for the sake the superstition?
Posted by: AllanW | April 29, 2008 10:12 AM
Cue the bleating from religiots all over the place;
"That's not how WE think."
Yes it is; if you refuse to look reality in the face you are just a less severely dangerous example of deluded fool. Oh and you provide the umbrella under which these monsters are allowed to practice their evil without getting wet.
Posted by: firemancarl | April 29, 2008 10:12 AM
Dale Neumann told investigators that "given the same set of circumstances with another child, he would not waiver in his faith and confidence in the healing power of prayer," according to the interview statement.
What the fuck?!
Posted by: Greg Esres | April 29, 2008 10:14 AM
Jail is likely to solidify their beliefs and those of their brethren. Rather, they should be locked up in a room with several deprogrammers for a week.
Posted by: Jim RL | April 29, 2008 10:15 AM
MaqrMarcus Ranum,
That's in poor taste. The young girl that died didn't do anything to deserve idiot parents who would watch her slowly waste away. It's a tragic case of where beleiving in superstitions takes you.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 10:15 AM
This kind of thing happens more than I'd care to think about it, and it really is horrifying. At least these parents were convicted of the crimes that they are so very guilty of, but regrettably this is not always the case.
And this is the reason I have trouble taking people who say, "You have to respect my beliefs" seriously.
Look where blindly respecting people's beliefs has gotten this country. We have laws stating that, "A person who elects Christian Science treatment in lieu of medical or surgical treatment for the cure of disease may not be compelled to submit to medical or surgical treatment." We have laws saying that it's ok to show what should be criminal neglect towards your kids, just because you *believe* that what you're doing is somehow grounded in the one true interpretation of a religiomoral mythology.
If a person's religion required that they go out and sacrifice a virgin every year, or that they bomb abortion clinics, we'd have no problem curtailing their freedom to practice that aspect of their religion (I hope). This is really no different. Actually, I'd say it's probably even worse, because these poor children trust their parents to love them and care for them and to do what's best for them. As Kara's mother said, "I asked Kara if she loved Jesus and she shook her head yes." This is just. so. sad. The girl probably went to her grave believing that what her parents were doing was right. The indoctrination and brainwashing that leads to this kind of acceptance of abuse and neglect from the parents that are supposed to love and care for you really ought to be beyond just criminal. It should be utterly morally repugnant to any civilized member of society.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 10:19 AM
Just to be clear though: "Christian Scientist", while it technically is a term that can refer to any kind of Christian who believes in faith healing to the exclusion of modern medicine, is generally meant to refer to members of the faith-healing cult Church of Christ, Scientist. I think this is the context it is meant in the law.
Not that this in any way changes the complete amorality of that law.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 29, 2008 10:20 AM
Tuesday, May 8th, I am going to a seminar on "the science of prayer" at the Christian Science center. It is a "community seminar". Well, its my community and I was invited. I'm gonna have a few pointed questions for the speaker (this charlatan). Anyone have any studies/examples that I can bring to give me for support (besides basic frickin' common sense)?
Posted by: Richard, FCD | April 29, 2008 10:21 AM
With the release of Grand Theft Auto IV for the Xbox today all the usual media and others are on their soap boxes touting how this genre of video game is a bad influence for kids and should be banned.
I wonder if the same people will be using this case to argue against the dangers of religion?
Posted by: drew | April 29, 2008 10:22 AM
I am no lawyer, but as I understand it, the law above can only be applied to adults.
IOW an adult can opt out of medical treatment because they believe in prayer healing, and another adult cannot be held for murder if praying for another very sick adult who (our) common sense dictates should be in a hospital but has opted out of it.
But as far as I know, children by law cannot consent to faith only healing and as such parents are required to seek medical help for them. Which is why these people are being charged with murder 2 (reckless homicide)
Posted by: hyperdeath | April 29, 2008 10:22 AM
This should be treated as a mental health matter. If they'd refused medical intervention on the basis of fairies, they'd have committed to a psychiatric hospital without second thought. If they mention "God" on the other hand (for whom the base of evidence is roughly the same), their beliefs have to be "respected".
Posted by: Ross | April 29, 2008 10:22 AM
Is this another of those cultural differences between the US and Britain? Over here, shaking your head means no.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 29, 2008 10:23 AM
Besides the one above, obviously.
Posted by: raven | April 29, 2008 10:24 AM
Same thing happened in Oregon. A 2 year old died of an easily treatable respiratory infection. The parents are being charged.
Their Death Cult is called the Followers of Christ. It is estimated that over the last 4 decades, they have killed 30 to 40 of their own kids. These groups aren't called death cults for nothing.
Never have heard of an estimate of the numbers of kids killed by faith healers per year in the USA. Could be in the hundreds easy.
Posted by: Moggie | April 29, 2008 10:25 AM
...while Dale Neumann "preferred to say that she was 'in sleep mode.' "
Cute. Well, Dale, I hope you will soon find yourself in "restricted freedom" mode.
Be sure to read the press release from the "ministry" they were connected with. It's a jaw-dropper, not least that they still think the girl may come back from the dead.
I can't write clearly on this subject: it reduces me to mostly incoherent rage.
Posted by: Jeph | April 29, 2008 10:26 AM
In addition to the combination of nausea and slack-jawed disbelief, I am inclined to wonder: During any time that these True Believers spend locked in a tiny box (perhaps Mr. Neumann can witness to his new roommate, "Bubba"), will their fellows regard them as political prisoners?
I suspect the answer is yes, and they will trumpet it among themselves as evidence of "persecution."
Personally, my gut instinct is that parents who murder their children ought to be persecuted at some length. Perhaps with a horse whip.
Posted by: drew | April 29, 2008 10:26 AM
aparently I was wrong about the children thing I was under the impression that the supreme court ruled on this in the nineties and held that children couldn't be only faith healed nevermind my above comments but they are still being charged apparently.
Posted by: Jason Failes | April 29, 2008 10:30 AM
#2 wrote: "Think of it as evolution in action."
Although #8 is correct, it was in poor taste, my objection is that, unfortunately, your statement is also incorrect:
"The Neumanns have three other children."
Since the same type of Christianity that relies on faith-healing is also notably anti-contraception/pro-large family, we cannot rely on evolutionary algorithms do get rid of such people.
We will have to change minds, because these bodies aren't going away any time soon.
Posted by: thwaite | April 29, 2008 10:31 AM
Slightly off-topic, tho this NPR story is about school curricula: 'Morning Edition' reporter Greg Allen gave almost four minutes of naive credulous coverage for the 'academic freedom' debate going on now in the Florida legislature, which aspires to mandate equal time for criticism of the theory of evolution. Allen cited the Discovery Institute and Ben Stein for support of such critical thinking.
There's no specific response link on the NPR story page, just the general NPR contact info. Some critical e-mail seems appropriate.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 10:36 AM
@#15 Ross --
Over here, that's generally what is meant too if you just write "shook her head", but I have seen "shook her head yes" as a substitute for "nodded" occasionally. It's kind of bizarre though. Why use such a confusing phrase when you have the perfectly good word "nodded" at your disposal?
Posted by: Brodie | April 29, 2008 10:36 AM
Prayer: they're doing it wrong.
Obviously they were supposed to pray to god for the doctors to heal their child.
Posted by: Julian | April 29, 2008 10:36 AM
How sad. This, right here, is what's so terribly wrong about these kinds preachers and the message of blind conviction they peddle. A century and a half ago, if your child developed diabetes you had no other option than to beg for them o be saved miraculously while you watched them slowly die. Then, through careful study and a factual understanding of biology, doctors found its cause was insulin deficiency, developed methods to reliably use the insulin of specific animals found to produce a similar variety as a substitute in humans, and every farm-steader in the midwest and factory worker could buy it for their children through a Sears-Roebuck catalogue. People declared it a godsend; a miracle, and without science, without a dispassionate, unbiased approach to the basic facts of life, it would never have been possible.
Now fanatics like this internet preacher are so afraid of losing ground to science, as if it were a competition to begin with, that they denounce and defame its products at every turn, going so far as to pressure their followers to let their children die rather than accept the simple, cheap, inconsequential aid necessary to save their lives. How many mothers and fathers have cried over their dead children throughout the millennia because of this disease? How does faith justify this cruel sacrifice, letting one's child needlessly die to bolster some pastor's message?
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | April 29, 2008 10:38 AM
Jim RL writes:
That's in poor taste. The young girl that died didn't do anything to deserve idiot parents who would watch her slowly waste away. It's a tragic case of where beleiving in superstitions takes you.
The young girl didn't deserve anything - nobody does - but her parents did the equivalent of sawing off one of the branches of their genetic legacy while they were sitting on it.
All deaths are tragic, ultimately. And meaningless. Sorry you find reality in poor taste.
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | April 29, 2008 10:41 AM
I'd at first be tempted to convince them that treating physical ailments isn't contradictory with their belief that it was a 'spiritual attack', but these kinds of people are too far gone.
I'm sure we're going to get a few lurkers coming out and saying this a case of 'just a few bad seeds', and it's partially true, but I have a preemptive message for them:
The criminal negligence of the parents is appalling and extreme and (hopefully) rare, but the attitude that facilitated this wasn't just the clear lack of compassion, it was also the belief that spirituality trumps physical reality, and its this attitude that has led to so much ruin in people's lives.
I'm not trying to make a case for religions harm, since I know you find it disrespectful, but ask yourselves this: If your spiritual quest puts you at odds with the world around you, how do you expect to do good?
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 10:41 AM
From the OP:
Good. And I can only hope the death of their sister has at least taught them that what their parents were doing was *wrong*. Kids tend to naturally want to love their parents and believe that their parents will care for them. This natural desire allows abused and neglected kids to make up all sorts of excuses for their parents' behavior, and it's even worse when there's a built in religious justification for that abuse and neglect. The possibility that these kids could grow up thinking that their sister died because she wasn't faithful enough, or because they didn't pray hard enough, or because god decided it was "her time", or for any other reason than that their parents were neglectful, delusional, and unfit to have children is really saddening.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | April 29, 2008 10:42 AM
Dennis N writes:
I'm gonna have a few pointed questions for the speaker (this charlatan). Anyone have any studies/examples that I can bring to give me for support (besides basic frickin' common sense)?
You can ask him about the effectiveness of the long-running British Experiement On Prayer. Namely, millions of brits praying "God Save The Queen" daily. You could note that god has not chosen to save any of the prior kings or queens, in spite of centuries of prayer. :)
Posted by: Olorin | April 29, 2008 10:42 AM
This reminds me of the story about a man trapped on a rooftop in a flood. A neighbor came by on a raft he had made and offered to rescue the man. "No," he said; "God will save me." Later, firemen in a rescue boat offered to take him. "No," he replied; "God will save me." Finally, a helicopter swung him a rope to climb aboard. Same answer.
Of course, the man ultimately drowned. When he approached St. Peter at the pearly gates, he cried, "Why didn't God save me?" St. Peter answered, "Well, He did send two boats and a helicopter."
Posted by: Jex | April 29, 2008 10:45 AM
Wow.
Wow. Wow. Wow.
This kind of story makes me so very scared of the idea that Australia is turning into Mini'Merica (We haven't managed to outlaw Scamology. Bad sign I think.) Wasn't there some awesome study which found that prayer actually was consistent with increased fatalities, rather than helped people heal?
What makes me emotionally ambivalent and frustrated is the fact that these people will now believe that their daughter is happy and healthy and 'alive' in Heaven. :(
Posted by: CleveDan | April 29, 2008 10:46 AM
"Dale Neumann told investigators that "given the same set of circumstances with another child, he would not waiver in his faith and confidence in the healing power of prayer," according to the interview statement."
maybe he is setting up an insanity defense
Posted by: Dan | April 29, 2008 10:47 AM
From the link Moggie provided:
David Eells - 3/27/08
We at UBM would like to clear up some misconceptions from what we know, which is little.
No shit, Sherlock. If you actually did know something, your children wouldn't be dying.
Posted by: Raynfala | April 29, 2008 10:47 AM
<snarky>
I hope the parent's position is upheld. Really, I do. I hope the court comes right out and says that prayer is an allowable form of treatment.
Then, I hope on that very same day, the police arrest every single member and/or supporter of the Unleavened Bread Ministries on charges of manslaughter by depraved indifference. The Neumanns emailed the ministry for help in a life-or-death situation, but were obviously shunned. Because, after all, if prayer really, really works, then we can conclude that the members of U.B.M. didn't follow through. Had they prayed (and in earnest), the girl would've been walking around alive, chipper and happy this very day.
</snarky>
Posted by: Numerical Thief | April 29, 2008 10:48 AM
@ 18
That press release is terrifying. They actually compare themselves to doctors and then ask for the same respect that doctors get despite "medical mistakes" that kill "hundreds of thousands each year". GAH! First off, I'm almost certain it's not "hundreds of thousands" that die of medical mistakes. Certainly a lot of people die in hospitals. Multiple heart attacks, strokes, cancer, immune compromised patients, there's huge lists of things doctors have little ability to fix or deal with because the technology and research isn't done yet. Yet they still do what they can, and I'll be damned if "prayer" deserves even lip service as a method of healing stacked up beside real, evidence-based medicine.
Oh the Stupid, it burns bright and hot! Incoherent rage seems to be the only option when faced with such.
Posted by: Dan | April 29, 2008 10:49 AM
Ooops... I kind of borked the HTML tags in my previous comment. But, I think you can easily see where their madness ends and my anger begins.
Posted by: mcow | April 29, 2008 10:49 AM
MaqrMarcus Ranum:
It's true that it's "evolution in action" but so is anything that affects the number of times an organism (or its offspring, or even its relatives) reproduce and with whom. In other words, just about everything involving an organism is "evolution in action".
A better statement would be that it's natural selection in action. Even there, you're getting dangerously close to social darwinism. That these things happen in nature does not make them good.
I also seriously doubt that there is some genetic difference between Dale Neumann and you or me that makes him capable of this atrocity whereas we are not. What's more likely is that this is a behavior brought about by miseducation and indoctrination. That's no defense of his actions, but it means that evolution would be a very slow remedy.
Lastly, please note that he has three surviving children.
Posted by: Kristy | April 29, 2008 10:53 AM
I may be wrong, but didn't the father contradict his "prayer healing" statement when he attempted CPR? CPR is a considered an emergency medical procedure.
Posted by: Chris | April 29, 2008 10:56 AM
Now why does this article remind me of this one?
Posted by: Julian | April 29, 2008 10:57 AM
On the legal issue, their criminal culpability should be clear. As you say, if a neo-pagan Odin worshipper were to stake someone out on the sea shore in the "bloody eagle" they'd be arrested in a heart-beat. If a Muslim Shia community were to flagellate themselves and their children up and down the street most of the day as some do in other parts of the world on the anniversary of Ali's death, they'd be dragged in on charges of child abuse. Even the practice of animal sacrifice associated with Santeria is significantly curtailed in the United States on the grounds of public health. In fact, the Supreme Court stated clearly in Employment Division v. Smith (1990) that one's free exercise rights do not supersede government's legitimate right to enforce laws passed for the public good (in this case a drug ban, though to argue it can apply to that and not cover this would be the height of hypocrisy).
However, this is the United States, and majority European Christian sects that largely accept conventional protestant dogma get a pass. If these parents were of any other religion, they'd surely be facing jail time, at the very least, but because they're "Christian Scientists" who believe in faith healing, you can never be sure if a prosecution will succeed.
Posted by: jex | April 29, 2008 10:59 AM
#34, Raynfala - and maybe some xtians could be charged with dooming me to hell seeing as how they didn't work hard enough to convert me? Or, we could string up our disabled on the grounds that Gawd didn't answer their prayers to be healthy, for some undeniably valid reason, presumably because they are bad and evil? All sorts of fun to be had if you accept the premise that prayer works. I had an xtian friend tell me, in not so many words, that my sister had lupus and had been raped (on her way home from school) because I was an athiest. Sick, Sick, Sick thinking.
Posted by: kingjoebob | April 29, 2008 11:00 AM
This is tragic but all too common.
I'm reminded of the man who was caught in a flood:
First the police told him to evacuate and he replied:"The Lord will save me."
Next a group in a boat came by and asked if he needed help and he replied:"The Lord will save me."
After climbing to his roof a helicopter came by and he replied:"The Lord will save me." He later died and when he met his maker he asked why did you not save me and God replied: " I sent the police to warn you, a boat to help you and a helicopter to pick you up what more did you want? "
It is very sad that some believe that the only way to have faith is to shun science and medicine.
Posted by: Orac | April 29, 2008 11:00 AM
Actually this is true not just in Wisconsin, but in most states, 39 the last time I checked. I saw this story this morning before I left for work and was planning on writing about this case tonight for tomorrow. I was going to discuss some of the religious exemptions. (Plug, plug, even though PZ obviously beat me to this one...)
Posted by: Dennis N | April 29, 2008 11:01 AM
They actually linked to friendlyatheist.com. I can only hope people who know them go there and read it.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 29, 2008 11:03 AM
Wow, I missed this gem:
Posted by: Kitty | April 29, 2008 11:04 AM
"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way it treats its children." -- Nelson Mandela
For "society" substitute sect. Any one will do.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9521945
Posted by: Steve | April 29, 2008 11:04 AM
This is what "respecting other's beliefs" gets us. We (society) tried to stay out of it by saying "it's what they believe" - as though insanity is something that should be nurtured and protected. The result is that we have a child, needlessly dead, that could have been saved *easily* with modern medicine.
Respect your beliefs? No. Not anymore. Your beliefs are dangerous to yourselves, to your children, to the world, and I'll not have them any longer.
The most horrifying thing of all is that so many people will explain this away and keep on believing that magical fairies will take care of their every need.
Posted by: Tulse | April 29, 2008 11:05 AM
God did hear the father's prayer -- he had Banting and Best discover insulin. It's a shame the father wasn't listening properly.
I don't understand fundies. They certainly don't think they can survive without food, even though it is produced through modern scientific methods. They don't refuse to live in houses heated and cooled through technology. Why would they view sickness as something different than hunger or shelter? Surely if one has faith that sickness will be cured, one should also have faith that hunger will be assuaged and that one will be impervious to cold and heat. Right?
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 11:08 AM
#43 Dennis N quoted --
Huh?
Can someone please explain how "common sense" tells us this?
*Science*, not *god* is why life spans have more than tripled since biblical times. (Oh wait...they actually believe people lived for 900+ years in Old Testament times...crap....)
Posted by: Dan | April 29, 2008 11:11 AM
It's difficult to believe that other family members didn't turn them in to social services much sooner. A grandmother eventually did, but too late to help.
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/18336904.html
Posted by: Thomas J. Theobald | April 29, 2008 11:15 AM
Indeed any calling of 911, CPR, or other non-acceptance of the death of their child is counter to their faith.
Kid dead - "God" must have willed it. That they did anything at all, even pray, would indicate a desire in contrast with their "God's plan".
So not only insane, stupid, and criminally negligent, but heretical as well.
Way to f#&$ up completely, Neumann family!
T
Posted by: Peter Mc | April 29, 2008 11:16 AM
Dunno, Marcus no 29. The last Queen did OK, reached 102 although that was often put down to the preservative powers of heroic quantites of gin. This one shows no signs of frailty despite topping 80.
Mind you, if your son and heir was a head-the-ball who talks to plants, who wished on an unencrypted cellphone he was a tampon and believes in every kind of woo-istic medicine going, you might be inclined to hang around for the sake of the crown, singing 'Gawd save yaw gray-shus me!' in the hope it works.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 29, 2008 11:17 AM
Even within their own framework, I find it very selfish of them to deny her treatment. If I delusionally felt that treating my child and lacking faith would damn me, I would still do it; I would put my child first.
Posted by: House on Fire | April 29, 2008 11:18 AM
mcow, MaqrMarcus Ranum:
It's natural selection in action, combined with "nurture"al selection if you will. For humans rationality is an acquired trait, but a necessary one in the modern era. Human nurturing strategies that stunt rational development diminish the reproductive capacity of the group that practices them. Call that social darwinism if you must.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 11:19 AM
Does anyone else think it's about time some pro bono lawyer took these "religious freedom" child abuse protection laws to the Supreme Court? There must be someone willing to do it. I would, if I were a lawyer....
Seriously. If anyone knows of a good organization to contact about this, I might actually take some good ol' slacktivist action. Even if the case loses, it's important that this issue not be ignored.
Posted by: andrew | April 29, 2008 11:20 AM
Fucking people, wtf. Pisses me off.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | April 29, 2008 11:22 AM
OH NOES!
Better call davescot and the marines.
Posted by: Mold | April 29, 2008 11:25 AM
If you are a competent adult, the medical professional has a duty to follow your wishes about care. Even if it means you die. Refuse a blood transfusion, surgery, chemo, rad, and I'll watch your over-21 body die. Fine.
Children have no such avenue. They are totally dependent upon adults to provide and the kids are very, very trusting. One could tell little girls that the only way to Heaven is through sex with pervy old men. The kids will believe this. We taught kindergarten students the proper way to wash hands is to wash for as long as it takes them to sing 'Happy Birthday'. All day long the kids washed hands while singing.
Posted by: Tophe | April 29, 2008 11:26 AM
Perhaps Ben Stein simply forgot a word and meant to say "Christian Science leads to killing people."
Posted by: Hank Fox | April 29, 2008 11:26 AM
#28
I'm betting it will work the exact opposite. Both the children and parents will now believe even MORE strongly in what they did.
Killing the girl has put a roadblock in the path of seeing it any other way. To see prayer as useless, they also have to admit that their daughter/sister was essentially murdered by neglect. To avoid consciously realizing that, they'll do almost anything.
That's also what was behind the father saying he'd do it again the same way. To change his mind, he has to admit that he's done something wrong that would CAUSE him to change his mind.
After you've killed your daughter, you can either continue in this staunch faith mode, or resign yourself to extreme, corrosive lifelong guilt. Either way, you're screwed, but the lie lets you go on pretending -- lets you GO ON.
I used to wonder why the parents of kids killed in Iraq (or Vietnam) were such strong supporters of the war. I think it's this same reason.
They're frozen in place by the tsunami of guilt that will smash into them the second they admit they were anything but 100% right.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 11:26 AM
@#5 Rev. BigDumbChimp --
Wow. That website is chock full of true crazy-people illogic, with gems like:
I honestly can say I'd never heard *that* particular "argument" before.
Posted by: Physicalist | April 29, 2008 11:27 AM
The retribution theory of disease in action. Next they'll want it taught in schools ("Teach the Controversy"), and Ben Stein will be making a movie about how you get expelled from med school for even thinking that sin might be the cause of diabetes.
Thank FSM that the authorities are stepping it. Next time someone tells you that religious ignorance is bliss, remember to point out the cost of that ignorance.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 29, 2008 11:27 AM
I think 18 would be more reasonable than 21.
Posted by: Mena | April 29, 2008 11:28 AM
I take better care of my plants than these people did with their daughter. Maybe they are both dyslexic and think that it's the 12th century and not the 21st.
Posted by: Andrew | April 29, 2008 11:29 AM
Screw dangerous -- what happened to not respecting beliefs purely on the basis that they're wrong?
Posted by: illusory tenant | April 29, 2008 11:29 AM
Wisconsin law, Section 948.04 (6) ...
I don't believe there is any such thing as § 948.04(6).
Posted by: Michelle | April 29, 2008 11:29 AM
@#2 "Think of it as evolution in action"
I can't. I seriously can't put it so coldly. A girl died. All that happened was that she was born to unfit parents... who should've been removed from the gene pool before they gave birth, true. But their innocent girl still died.
Too bad I'm against death penalty. Can't make exceptions, even for motherfuckers like these. They should forever rot in jail though. And be paraded around as monsters. Yea, make a circus out of them. Humiliate them. And anyone else who does this shit.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 11:29 AM
@#59 Hank Fox --
Well, that was depressing.
But unfortunately probably true....
Posted by: wÒÓ† | April 29, 2008 11:30 AM
(.)(.)
Posted by: techskeptic | April 29, 2008 11:30 AM
@Dennis #11,
Skeptico has covered many studies about how prayer doesnt work (just search for "prayer"). My personal favorite is the one done by the Templeton foundation that showed prayer does nothing. i like it because it was a pretty well controlled study, had lots of participants and was funded (to the tune of 2.4 million dollars) by a foundation that promotes spirituality.
Posted by: Jason Failes | April 29, 2008 11:31 AM
Hank Fox @#59
Correct, you are basically describing cognitive dissonance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Posted by: SteveWH | April 29, 2008 11:31 AM
@ drew (#13, 20)
You may be thinking of 1944's Prince v Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses have the right to sacrifice their lives for religious reasons, they do not have the right to sacrifice the lives of their children for those same reasons.
The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the community or the child to communicable disease or the latter to ill health or death [. . .] Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves.
Also, in 1990, the Supreme Court ruled (in the Nancy Cruzan case) that a competent adult can refuse life-saving treatment. The Cruzan decision doesn't say anything about children specifically, although if I recall correctly, it does address some questions about patients who have become legally incompetent.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 11:33 AM
Funny. Prayer never worked for me, either, when a life was at stake. More than coincidence?
Posted by: locksmyth | April 29, 2008 11:33 AM
@ #31
The study found prayer only had effect if the recipient knew of the prayer and that lead to an increase in complications and fatalities.
I blogged about this family a few weeks ago at that time the police were not going to take the other children out of their custody because they couldn't see any evidence of abuse. A child is effectively starved to death and they cannot see any evidence of abuse. This country and everyone in it needs to remove their god goggles and recognize the shielding and enablement they provide to nuts like these.
Posted by: Ryan | April 29, 2008 11:35 AM
This kind of denial leads to deaths just so that people don't have to face the truth.
Posted by: Numerical Thief | April 29, 2008 11:36 AM
@ #60
Come on down today to Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax's Wonderful World of Witchcraft for all your Cancer, AIDS, and Diabetes needs!
Actually, I think Esme would just hit you with a stick and tell you to go to the doctor...
Posted by: Dennis N | April 29, 2008 11:39 AM
But my god goggles give me the special ability to block out transitional forms!
Posted by: M. Robert Bond | April 29, 2008 11:41 AM
Oh, come on, PZ. It was her time. If they'd treated her diabetes, she would've just gotten hit by a car instead or something, and you can't disprove that.
Posted by: eewolf | April 29, 2008 11:41 AM
So this fuckwit wants to compare his "prayer-healing" with modern medicine? Easy for him since he has no liability. If he wants to play this game he should be liable then. His malpractice insurance would be astronomical. Note: I noticed his web page took much care to separate himself from the couple in question. Fuckin' coward.
Since medical doctors are required to carry insurance, this should be the case with all these other charlatans.
Posted by: leeleeone | April 29, 2008 11:43 AM
Murder by any other name is still murder: "To kill intentionally with premeditation."
Period.
I hold no sympathy nor empathy for the parents of this child.
They murdered their daughter.
The charges they are facing in the State of Wisconsin are the least that they should be charged with.
These parents are not mentally ill. I am sick and tired of excuses for actions taken based upon "religion." Religiosity is not a mental illness. It is a choice.
These parents murdered their daughter.
They murdered their daughter willfully and intentionally.
Posted by: Kitty | April 29, 2008 11:44 AM
Would someone please explain a point of American law to me?
Is this sort of thing a crime covered under State or Federal law?
Could this be a criminal act in one State but not another?
Posted by: Bryn | April 29, 2008 11:46 AM
@ #5 - I'm waiting for, "They're not *TRUE Christians!" Ugh. Can't we come up with a test people have to take before they can become parents. And I'd trust Granny Weatherwax loooong before I'd trust that bunch of loons.
Posted by: Hank Fox | April 29, 2008 11:46 AM
I think homicide/manslaughter is all regulated at the state level, unless the person you kill is a federal officer, or maybe you cross state lines in order to do it.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 11:49 AM
Common sense tells me that if you were a statistician, you'd be laughed at and fired in an instant, because you seem to think that in two groups of very different sample size (much more medical care going on than faith healing, thank FSM), it is a good idea to use absolute numbers rather than percentages. Even if these numbers are accurate, and I really doubt that, your use of statistics is meaningless and made of FAIL.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 11:52 AM
@#82 Hank Fox --
I'm pretty sure you're right on this, but I also think there are certain mandates in Federal law that limit states' discretion. I would hope this sort of thing is covered under that...if not, it should be.
Posted by: rich (richmanwisco) | April 29, 2008 11:53 AM
God thought my father's work was complete when he was taken away from an aspiring career as a pilot (in a plane crash) at the age of 26. God thought my mother's work was complete when he gave her cancer and let her die a slow, agonizing death at the age of 61.
Yep, nothing left for my parents to do, so god took them away.
Sounds reasonable to me.
Posted by: flame821 | April 29, 2008 11:57 AM
Okay, I was curious so I did a google on Wisconson Law, Section 948.04 (6). There doesn't appear to be any, but I just did a quick glance over. I did find a few 948.04 regarding lasting harm and mental harm though.
google search
Posted by: June | April 29, 2008 11:58 AM
With good legal counsel, these parents may well go free. Under the common law (which may be modified by statute locally), a crime requires both criminal intent and action. These parents had no intent to kill their child. Quite the opposite, they did only what they were taught to do by their religious leaders, encouraged by their Bible, approved by tradition, praised by their community, supported by the state, financed with tax exemptions, and legalized by courts that sanctify the role of the parent.
The true horror of stories like this one is the fact that we as a nation do nothing to stop such tragedies.
Posted by: Dennis N | April 29, 2008 12:00 PM
Actually June #87,
It says they didn't belong to a church and were starting their own ministry and in local cafe. These were their own traditions, and they were their own leaders.
Posted by: mostlywater | April 29, 2008 12:00 PM
concentrated stupid so dense that it has turned into evil
Perfected summarized, in a manner my seething apoplexy prevents.
Posted by: Monado in Toronto again | April 29, 2008 12:00 PM
Dennis, you might just point out to the Christian Scientists that all the love and prayer and faith in the world didn't save ANY children from diabetes until Banting, Best, MacLeod and Cudlip isolated insulin and gave it to the medical profession.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | April 29, 2008 12:02 PM
Michelle writes:
I can't. I seriously can't put it so coldly. A girl died. All that happened was that she was born to unfit parents... who should've been removed from the gene pool before they gave birth, true. But their innocent girl still died.
I see it as no different from being born in a war-zone or any of the myriad misfortunes of time and place that can kill an uninvolved bystander. It's awful, and it's especially awful for the victim, but - seriously - if we're not ascribing events to a supreme all powerful evil being, then it's all randomness. If you want to look for an organizing principle or meaning behind this tragedy, "evolution in action" (Nitpickers: includes natural selection) is all that's left for the atheist. Am I being "cold"? I'm speaking about reality. Reality is a very cold hard place.
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | April 29, 2008 12:02 PM
Etha (#83) said,
I think you can reach those numbers if you lump together all medical deaths from untreatable illnesses, from the percentage of people that could not be treated normally, from deaths by accident as well as cases of criminal malpractice/negligence.
To them, they don't get that only the criminal negligence numbers should be compared, as that is what the case is, and even then, there's no success rate on their side to create percentages.
Bastards.
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | April 29, 2008 12:04 PM
Jeez, pray to god, but after you've rowed away from the freaking rocks!
This quote is enough to take the kids away to someone more responsible:
"given the same set of circumstances with another child, he would not waiver in his faith and confidence in the healing power of prayer,"
I wonder if that could be legally considered a threat of willful neglect for future problems?
Posted by: Alex | April 29, 2008 12:05 PM
The law seems to me to apply to adults, a Jehovahs Witness type thing where a person is not obliged to accept medical intervention, which, if someone is dumb enough, I'm fine with. While I agree parents should have certain freedoms in raising their children, I do not think that freedom is of an equal standing with their personal freedom, hence they should not under this law be able to abuse their children, even if they're willing to undergo that abuse themself.
This law does however open up the possibility of suicide by prayer.
Posted by: flame821 | April 29, 2008 12:08 PM
Big Shock!!! the preacher man appears to be lying about such a law existing. I found the most recent laws for Wisconsin on PDT.
Wisconsin State Laws, Chapter 948, Crimes against Children
Posted by: Greg | April 29, 2008 12:10 PM
Hmm, Pastor Bob claims the Neumanns are being charged for praying. I'm sorry Pastor Bob. That isn't correct. They are being charged with standing by watching their daughter die a slow painful death.
Posted by: sudo stfu | April 29, 2008 12:12 PM
Reckless manslaughter? That's a sick joke.
The parents prevented the kid from getting help -- no calls to the doctor, the hospital, or 911. The parents prevented the kid from leaving the house -- going to a friend, neighbor, or relative, for help.
Depriving her of the insulin needed for her survival is no different from depriving her of food, water, or air. They may as well have buried her alive and waited for her to die from asphyxiation.
They MURDERED her. Got that? And it wasn't a painless murder. Let's be honest, this was TORTURE-MURDER.
Shame on anybody who tries to shade the truth.
Posted by: Bobby | April 29, 2008 12:13 PM
OK, I don't want to go through 80+ posts to check if this has been brought up...
"I asked Kara if she loved Jesus and she shook her head yes."
WTF???
Now I don't know if there is in fact an american idiom where this makes sense (I'm German). But so far I've only seen the phrase "shake one's head no". Was this in fact the poor child's last plea for her idiot parents to see reason and call for medical help?
That would make the whole story even more horrifying than it is now.
Hopefully it is only a typo in the report.
Posted by: cicely | April 29, 2008 12:13 PM
mcow @ 37 and michelle @ 66;
It's possible that MaqrMarcus (#2) may not meant to seem either as matter-of-fact or as callous as you may think. "Think of it as evolution in action" may be a reference to Nivens' Oath of Fealty, where it was first made as an off-hand comment about a group of eco-terrorist wannabes being killed in breaching an arcology's security, that was then taken up as a sort of slogan in the PR "war" about the cultural differences between the arcology inhabitants and...well, I guess everyone who didn't live in an arcology.
Just for what it's worth.
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 12:15 PM
Let's not confuse the legal issues here. First and foremost, these parents are not being charged under the section that contains the "healing by prayer alone" exception. The parents are being charged with Second Degree Reckless Manslaughter, an entirely different criminal offense. Under Wisconsin law, the mental state of recklessness is defined as "the actor creates an unreasonable and substantial risk of bodily harm or death and is aware of that risk." The risk must be objectively unreasonable and substantial and the actor must subjectively be aware of it. Therefore, it's a higher bar to meet for the prosecution than the child abuse statute, but it does not contain the exception.
Also, as for #39, this is not a free exercise problem. If the exception were to apply, it is not a matter of someone being deprived of a right. In this case, the legislature has given a religious-exercise exception to a law when it need not do so. Several states do not have such an exception, and I know of no case in which parents have challenged the law, as applied to them, as a violation of their Free Exercise rights since it did not contain an exception.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | April 29, 2008 12:17 PM
At what point should stupidity be punished?
I think this is it. Reckless manslaughter sounds about right.
To the defendants, I recommend a plea for insanity. Perhaps folie à deux.
Nope. This gives separate treatment to either the Church of Christ, Scientist, or (less likely) Christianity as a whole, distinguishing it from all other religions. Unconstitutional.
This was first noticed in the late 19th century, and the statistics were done: the royal family does not even live longer, on average, than the rest of the upper class.
Don't they even notice that they're blaming this "medical mistake" on God?
Logical.
Which requires a capability for logical thinking.
Posted by: Monado in Toronto again | April 29, 2008 12:18 PM
From the point of view of the cult leaders, it's sound psychology for cementing membership in the cult. Once you've let one of your beloved children die while waiting for a miracle, you're never going to renounce membership because that would mean realizing that you let one of your beloved children die needlessly. And that would be intolerable.
Posted by: Tony P | April 29, 2008 12:19 PM
The bright side of this is that it's a genetic dead end. Oh there are the other kids but I doubt these religious idiots will ever see them again.
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 12:20 PM
#97, while I share your degree of disgust, the way Modern Criminal Codes operate prevents the parents from being charged with Murder as I interpret your meaning, 1st degree murder. Conviction of such a charge typically requires purposefulness, premeditation, or some equivalent state of mind. The parents in this case clearly do not meet that mens rea since their actions were not motivated by a desire to kill their daughter. Recklessness seems to fit a bit better (see my post #100 for an explanation), but even that is not a slam dunk.
Posted by: MarkW | April 29, 2008 12:22 PM
I've not read through all the comments, so I don't know if anyone's pointed this out:
Um. I thought shaking your head means no. Nodding your head means yes.Or is this just another USAian idiom that doesn't travel well across the Atlantic?
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 12:24 PM
Re: my #83 on statistics --
As another example (and I know I'm preaching to the choir here...), only about 300 people die each year of Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease. By comparison, there are about 36,000 cases of flu-related deaths each year.
By crazy faith healer logic, this means that the flu is more deadly than CJD. But in actuality, CJD is fatal in 100% of sufferers, whereas the 36,000 cases of flu-related deaths -- while tragic -- are a very, very small percentage of the total cases of the flu each year.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | April 29, 2008 12:25 PM
MaqrMarcus Ranum @ #2
I'd rather not. That is the kind of callous social Darwinistic apopthegm that those truthless godly try to stick on us atheists. I reject it. This girl was eminently savable and her parents are culpable for her death.
Marcus Ranum @ #29
Sorry, old chap. I don't believe this is widespread practice in this country.
Posted by: Pistol Pete | April 29, 2008 12:26 PM
Prayer is not a guaranteed magical form of treatment. At the same time, it can and does promote wellness when used in conjunction with other healing arts within the medical field.
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 12:27 PM
As for #101 and others who seem to think that the exception is unconstitutional since it appears to apply to only Christian Scientists or Christians more generally, don't think that the law would be struck down totally by a court because of this. If someone of another faith sought safeharbor in the exception and claimed that the law as applied to them was a violation of Equal Protection, the law would simply be extended to that person. This could happen on another ground since favoring one religion over another is nearly per se a violation of the Establishment Clause. Again, the court would simply extend application of the law to that particular defendant and avoid the Constitutional issue.
The only way the law could be struck down by a court is if an abused child challenged it as a violation of the Establishment Clause. Someone not affected by the operation of the law would not have standing to bring a challenge. So you would basically need a child challenging his/her parents. Even then it would be a tough hill to climb, especially given the current composition of our Court.
Posted by: Lorax | April 29, 2008 12:27 PM
A call to fundies everywhere:
You believe heaven is paradise. You believe the world is an evil place where satan will tempt your children with GTAIV and premarital relations (not unlike the ones you had?). Take the fundie way out: 1. kill your children, they'll be in a better place. Right? 2. Then simply pray for forgiveness (the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card) to restore your place in heaven. 3. Jump in front of an oncoming train and pray for it to stop in time. Since you prayed and have faith, this cannot be considered suicide, so you're still on the heaven expressway. If it stops, god has a plan for you; if not, god misses you and wants to hang out.
Remember heaven is a better place, strive to get there as quickly as possible. But please try not to take the rest of us with you.
Posted by: raven | April 29, 2008 12:27 PM
That number of 172 dead kids in 20 years is an vast underestimate. Most cases of faith healing mediated death aren't reported as such.
In fact, these morons try real hard to hide them.
The actual numbers per year are anyone's guess, probably 100 or more.
Posted by: Monado in Toronto again | April 29, 2008 12:30 PM
They didn't intend to kill her--that's why it's manslaughter and not murder. They should have known better--that's why it's reckless manslaughter.
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | April 29, 2008 12:33 PM
Personally, I wouldn't want these parents to go to jail. That would allow them to 'serve their punishment' and bolster their feelings of religious persecution.
Rather, simply take the three remining children away, and sterilize the parents (both of them), and notify any adoption agencies as to their previous (current) delusional state that allows them to kill children.
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 12:34 PM
Pistol Pete #108, "At the same time, [prayer] can and does promote wellness when used in conjunction with other healing arts within the medical field."
Would you please provide us with numbers to back up this claim? In fact, several studies suggest that those who know others are praying for them suffer more complications after surgery, and those who, unbeknownst to them, receive prayer, have roughly the same rate of complications and post-operation troubles as those that don't receive prayer. Your claim has been debunked several times over, and I assure you this is not the place to assert it again.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | April 29, 2008 12:37 PM
Second degree murder?! These fuckers should be shot. Somewhere not immediately fatal but likely to go septic so death comes slowly and painfully. We'll invite all the faith healers in the world to come by, and the entire Christian community can gather round and have a big fucking pray-off to save their lives, and it'll be a big fucking 'my faith is bigger than your faith' pissing contest, and when these two clowns breathe their last we can put this whole fucking faith healing thing to bed forever.
Retraction for the cruelty and violence endorsed above to be issued when I've calmed down a bit.
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 29, 2008 12:38 PM
Okay, seriously, to all the people saying that at least this is a genetic dead end, natural selection in action, and whatnot--you're being ridiculous.
It's not the callousness that gets to me, I honestly don't care if that's your way of dealing with things. But get your facts straight!
The fact is that these cranky ideas are based on faulty reasoning and illogic, fear, and cognitive dissonance, NOT genes. Without getting into a discussion about genetic predisposition, "god genes" and the like, these horrible notions can get by without relying on reproduction alone--that's one thing that's so dangerous about them. They can be spread amongst peers, relatives, elders, youngers, strangers, friends, etc. As we have seen, if nothing else this little girl's death has resulted in the *increased* cloistering of her community and dedication of her parents to choose this practice. She will be replaced by numbers of others who will carry on the same traditions.
The idea is like a virus--it doesn't care if it's hosts survive or die, as long as it is passed along to others. And it will be.
This is hardly the genetic pruning I think you had in mind.
Posted by: Amy Larimer | April 29, 2008 12:42 PM
They will be considered martyrs by their ilk if then end up in jail (and I hope they do). Here in Texas we have a case in which a woman KILLED a foster child by making him drink a concoction of cajun spices as punishment. He died of sodium poisoning. He was four. She was convicted and sent to prison for a long time. Her husband has yet to go to trial. But there is a groundswell of fundy idiots out there calling for her release. They say she was just practicing her religion (which apparently calls for punishing kids in a horrific manner- child abuse at the very least).
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 12:43 PM
Mark, it's "shake=no, nod=yes" here in the USA too.
Regarding genetic dead ends, removing the parents from the gene pool, and all that stuff:
This is primarily a memetic issue, not a genetic issue. I we wanted to talk gene pool, we'd be praising the parents for allowing their diabetic girl to die before she had a chance to reproduce - but nobody is doing anything remotely like that. I'm very uncomfortable with the notion that the parents shouldn't have reproduced, or (more to the point) shouldn't have been allowed to reproduce. Very uncomfortable indeed - as should we all be. Not only is that kind of talk a quote-mine goldmine, it carries the not-so-faint whiff of eugenics and worse.
Ok, anyways, if I could set a goal myself, it would be to stamp out, by way of education, belief systems that lead to tragically unnecessary deaths like these. I believe it's possible to use a story like this towards that end without exploiting the girl's death or her family's grief. These people have to realize that technology is, even from their point of view, a gift from man's god-given ingenuity. There's no hubris in recognizing that. The hubris is in rejecting it, for doing so not only scorns the gift - it spits in the face of the gift-giver. (And that's true from any perspective, secular or otherwise.)
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | April 29, 2008 12:46 PM
I can't say I agree. War may be chaotic, but that's not the same thing as random. Like any act of human agency it has a vector, it is preventable. The death of this Wisconsin child is definitely something where human agency was a primary contributor.
No. This is not the organizing principle behind this tragedy. The 'organizing principle', insofar as you can call it such, was the inaction of the parents.
This is not 'all that's left for the atheist'. What rot! This is the kind of calumny the Godly wish to paint us with. Rather, Humanist principles stand for compassion, for people doing the best by others. They are about humans organizing to prevent villainy like this.
I regard your words as callous and inhumane. They smack of that brand of atheism (and theism too) that is drawn towards the corrupting influence of social Darwinism.
I don't recognize your cold and hard reality. Very little randomness applies to this case. Rather, the very real and dead hand of religion, perverting the morals of humans, is to blame. If that's not an organizing principle, I don't know what is.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 12:47 PM
I see that EntoAggie has beaten me to that particular punch... well said.
Posted by: Muzz | April 29, 2008 12:50 PM
Wow, I was wondering when something like this would come up around here. This is pretty close to home. I was brought up in a devoutly Christian Science household and while I'm thoroughly lapsed and leaving such a strange environment has caused no end of inner turmoil I do feel obliged to come to their defense to a small extent. The first thing to stress is that they have nothing whatsoever to do with fundamentalist evangelical Christianity, which the a family of the story seem to have been. They're a weird offshoot founded in Boston in the early/mid 19th century by a woman named Mary Baker Eddy, who is effectively a prophet. She wrote an almost proto-post-structuralist interpretation of the bible that the church follows and because of all this stuff they are as repugnant to mainstream Christians as they are to Atheists (false prophets and all that). The name comes from the times that the church was founded when the term 'scientific' was a little more vaguely defined than it is now and basically seems to come from the idea that Eddy's interpretation of the bible systematises faith and teaches people to be systematic in their own faith (being systematic, as they saw it, being enough to call yourself scientific). Yes it's confusing and il-named, and no; people within the church generally don't understand what science means or the real scientific process and misuse it all the time.
In essence it's a trancendental religion that believes that material reality isn't the truth of the universe and through a proper knowledge of god we can escape it, defy it etc etc. It's kinda like the Gnostic Matrix without the kung fu or levitation or other fun stuff. So yes they eschew medicine and try to heal through prayer, and people have died in years past (might even be some recently, I don't keep track). They do have a get out clause though; no one is condemmed (no more than implicit self condemantions anyway) for lack of faith and people are always encouraged to 'be practical'.
The people in this story are trading on loopholes for Christian Scientists and that sucks (and is probably some shady business from eons ago), but they are not Christian Scientists (there's nothing apocalyptic or zionist in the faith at all, not a skerek, they don't believe that stuff). So no one ought to go beating up on them by association over this. When CSers do something dumb, go nuts. I have to say though, that while the whole no medicine thing is dumb and dangerous and a slippery slope, I can say that no one I knew in all my years in that strange little world would have let things get that far. Few people are as fanatical as my mum about CS and if anything even remotely resembling those symptoms were to present; hospital forthwidth. (actually I would hope that if the CS church catches any heat over this they would show some spine and loudly denounce these others, but they'll probably run for cover, unfortunately)
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 12:51 PM
Agh...re: my #106, I meant to say...those statistics for CJD and flu-related deaths are within the US. Obviously both would be larger for the whole world.
Posted by: negentropyeater | April 29, 2008 12:51 PM
flame821 #95
"Big Shock!!! the preacher man appears to be lying about such a law existing."
Can we please just establish this second principle :
Fundies always lie.
Posted by: spencer | April 29, 2008 12:53 PM
#9:
No, not convicted. Just charged.
I am hopeful that they eventually will be convicted, however.
Posted by: Mindcore | April 29, 2008 12:53 PM
I think you just put into words the feelings of a lot of people PZ. Thank you, that was cathartic.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | April 29, 2008 12:54 PM
Probably the "Harvard Prayer Study" --- the Templeton Foundation funded a double-blind study of intercessory prayer for cardiac patients. The group of patients who knew they were being prayed-for had slightly worse outcomes than the two groups who did not know whether they were being prayed-for or not (one actually being prayed for, one not). Not surprisingly, prayer had no effect otherwise.Posted by: Ex Partiate | April 29, 2008 12:55 PM
stupidity has gone to seed and unfortunatly we are not having a crop failure
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 12:56 PM
@#109 TheZog --
Would it be possible for a lawyer to challenge this law on behalf of a dead child?
I know the chance of these laws getting to court, much less a court ruling against them, are probably quite slim, but I have to hope...how we can abide such laws in our allegedly progressive, civilized nation is beyond me....
Posted by: SteveM | April 29, 2008 12:58 PM
if we're not ascribing events to a supreme all powerful evil being, then it's all randomness. If you want to look for an organizing principle or meaning behind this tragedy, "evolution in action" (Nitpickers: includes natural selection) is all that's left for the atheist.
I can't express how completely wrong this statement is. This is not "randomness", this was a choice by the parents to pray instead of seeking medical help. The alternative to theism is not "everything is random" but personal choice and responsibility.
Posted by: Jams | April 29, 2008 12:59 PM
The Argument I haven't heard yet (if you have, please point me toward it):
I've heard it argued that the clinical definition of delusion doesn't apply well to most religions. Apparently, the clinical definition excludes any notion that is popularly considered true. While this may be a logical fallacy (argument to popularity), there's still something to this: I can sort-of understand when someone believes in god, not so much when they imagine that various world leaders are actually aliens.
If delusion does not apply to individuals whose beliefs are frequently held within their society, couldn't it be argued that the popularization of false information is a crime in itself. In essence, it normalizes through popularity what would otherwise be considered dangerously delusional. Shouldn't a conspiracy to normalize delusional behaviour be a crime? Likewise, wouldn't the support of currently popular but otherwise delusional behaviour also constitute a conspiracy to normalize criminal behaviour?
It seems to me that this argument isn't completely divorced from the argument against hate speech.
Posted by: AndyD | April 29, 2008 12:59 PM
So they refuse to hire a medical professional to save their daughter's life but don't hesitate to hire a legal professional to save their own arses. I feel ill just reading about this level of evil.
How can people of so much faith not consider the possibility that their own God made doctors available for them to use?
It reminds me about the joke of the drowning man who refused three offers of assistance because "God will save me". In heaven, after drowning, he asks God why he didn't save him and God replied "I sent three people to help and you damn well refused!" But the reality isn't remotely funny.
The news link provided in PZ's story allows for a "letter to the editor". Hopefully some posters here will avail themselves of that service.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 1:00 PM
@#91 Marcus Ranum --
As human beings, we've evolved to have reason, self-awareness, and, I hope, a little thing called a *conscience*. These things allow us to create meaning in our lives beyond the simple struggle for individual existence. These things allow us to learn about our animal origins, and also not be beholden to them.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | April 29, 2008 1:01 PM
I call BS on the "172 in 20" claim too. In the last 4 months I've heard of AT LEAST 3 cases of prayer-motivated child deaths. There was one here in PHX where an Hispanic couple tried exorcising demons from their sick daughter. There was the very recent case in Oregon, and this one in Wisconsin. And wasn't there a similar case in Minnesota within the last 6-8 months? Just this news puts the "172 in 20" claim in serious jeopardy, on top of the fact that all the instances of such abuse go reported as something else.
But even if "172 in 20" WAS true, what does that even mean? Comparing prayer healing to people actually doing work trying to help people who are sick? Having the unmitigated gall to say the prayer method is better? I demand defiantly that you right now give me the numbers, because the implications of that statement are as bald-faced as claiming all healthy people are/were/will be saved by prayer (demonstrably false, as I, a healthy atheist sit here and type this), and that everyone who's sick in a hospital bed is a sad unbeliever. Where are the paryer-based hospitals? Where are the prayer-based urgent care clinics? Where are the prayer pharmacies that one can walk up to in Target and get his dosage of Hail Marys, Our Fathers and Acts of Contrition? Why aren't catechisms part of the typical medical curriculum? Where are the medical prayer professors and doctors who specialize in the field?
Oh but the answer to all of these questions is very simple: You would simply tell the sick to walk to their nearest church and kneel. You religious types never cease to amaze sane people with the level of arrogant ignorance you exhibit wantonly and apparently without thought.
Posted by: jimbob | April 29, 2008 1:02 PM
This is why the likes of Jefferson used the term "priestcraft."
Posted by: K. Signal Eingang | April 29, 2008 1:03 PM
Just wanted to share something since most of you missed it - "Unleavened Bread Ministries", aka "AmericasLastDays.com" had a press release about this case on their site when the news first broke. It was apparently written by David Eells, the church head. The opening paragraph, in its entirety, read:
I am not making this up. They published a press release about a dead 11-year-old that included a clown-nosed smiley face.
I guess what blind faith lacks as a moral or behavioral guide it makes up for in sheer class.
Posted by: Raynfala | April 29, 2008 1:03 PM
Re: #65 and #86
It looks like the statute that they're quoting does actually exist. They just got the index number wrong.
It's 948.03(6) (not .04) under "Physical abuse of a child"
:( :( :(
Posted by: Bobby | April 29, 2008 1:03 PM
OK, this might be the wrong place to post this rant but I just can't help myself, I'm literally sitting at my computer trembling with rage.
I'M SCARED SHITLESS!!!!
I am terrified at the idea of nuclear weapons being in the hands of Islamic fanatics like Achmanididshad (don't give a F**k about spelling). But there's a much more clear and present danger. And that's the possibility of a person coming to power in the USA who actually shares the views of poor Kara's parents. All those polls showing that no person swearing up and down that he believes in the LAWD and the BIBLE would have a chance to be elected president give me the shivers. The USA have already got those nuclear weapons and they are the only nation on earth who have ever actually used them. The thought that a person who shares the views of this poor child's parents is not all that unlikely, that are laws which even MIGHT their crime be called anything less than murder makes me want to scream.
Sorry if I stepped on toes, I know that there are a lot of fine minds on Pharyngula, and if you still love your country that's fine and great. I won't even take it personally if this post is "censored" or even if I'm cast to the dungeon. But I had to get it of my chest.
I'M SCARED SHITLESS
Posted by: spencer | April 29, 2008 1:06 PM
I think homicide/manslaughter is all regulated at the state level, unless the person you kill is a federal officer, or maybe you cross state lines in order to do it.
I think there is also an exception for crimes committed on military bases or certain other types of federal property; I base this on memories of a news story about a crazy nurse who was killing patients in the hospital where she worked. As it happened, though she committed these crimes in a non-death penalty state, she was working at a VA hospital or something, and was thus charged federally and therefore faced the death penalty for her crimes.
But don't quote me on any of this.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | April 29, 2008 1:12 PM
Does anybody else see anything wrong with feeding a McDonald's meal to a seriously sick child? Was this her last meal? That alone should be grounds for the 7th level of Hell.
But seriously, the people have been led away by their religion from all understanding of how medical treatment works to heal the body.
Diagnosis, testing, treatment; what's evil or Satanic about that? Of course, having read Matt Taibib's story of how all the demons of the modern world are expelled, these types of parents are not likely to accept any demons for their child. I think that a class action lawsuit against all fundamentalist religions is in order.
Posted by: Kitty | April 29, 2008 1:12 PM
Thanks Hank @#82, Etha @#84 and The Zog for helping out on American law.
But surely there is serious neglect here which could be covered under legislation other than the murder/manslaughter route?
I know America has never ratified The Convention on the Rights of the Child but there must be some Federal control to ensure that State laws can't be hijacked by the warped beliefs of the religious right. There would surely be a way to prevent -say- Florida from adopting Sharia Law in the event of mass conversion to Islam!
Please tell me there is!
If the following was entrenched in Federal law and, like all other signatories, America was open to international scrutiny to ensure its enforcement, many of the variables you are all discussing would be anachronisms.
"The Convention sets out these rights in 54 articles and two Optional Protocols. It spells out the basic human rights that children everywhere have: the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life. The four core principles of the Convention are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child. Every right spelled out in the Convention is inherent to the human dignity and harmonious development of every child. The Convention protects children's rights by setting standards in health care; education; and legal, civil and social services."
Etha @#128
"how we can abide such laws in our allegedly progressive, civilized nation is beyond me...."
It's beyond me too but the sort of people I find here on this Blog give me hope you'll change things.
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 29, 2008 1:12 PM
I think a lot of us feel that way, Bobby. Perhaps not so much scared shitless (at least for me)..but definitely a sense of ominous, impending doom. And a feeling that no matter how much we try to reason, and discuss, and convince, we have already been overpowered by a gigantic tide powered by glaze-eyed soldiers promised an eternity of love, or power, or or or.....
It's like in zombie apocalypse horror. You can build an impenetrable fortress. You can stockpile months (years!) of food, water, ammo, entertainment, and comforts. But it doesn't matter. Because no matter how long you survive, *they will still be there.* The hungry outnumbering horde, feeling no pain or misery, driven only by the hunger for flesh. And no matter how much you convince yourself that you've made it, that you're a survivor, that there's a future...every once in a while, you hear a low moan in the dark, and know that they're still there waiting.
There's just nothing you can do. They'll always be there. It's horrifying.
So, perhaps I should stop reading zombie comics.
Off to work....
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 1:15 PM
Response to Etha Williams' question at 128,
Unless the particular jurisdiction, i.e. state, in which the claim was brought speicifically allows for such a claim, then generally no. The concept is known as standing, and generally to have standing, you, or someone legally in privity with you, must have had some sort of injury. In federal courts, the requirement stems from Article III of the Constitution, and most, if not all states, pretty much mirror the same concept. Claims brought on behalf of a deceased person are typically done by parents, spouses or, sometimes, children. Also, they can be brought by the executor/rix of the estate, but that's only when the claim concerns the estate.
In a set of facts such as this, if the child died, the parents would bring the claim, but then they'd be challenging a exception to a law that they themselves were charged under. So, as far as I can see, the only way the law could be challenged is by a child who decides to challenge the constitutionality of the law as applied to his/her own parents.
Posted by: Tulse | April 29, 2008 1:17 PM
No, just about its designation: the proper numbering is 948.03 (6). If you check in the linked PDF, you'll find it there. It's appalling that it exists, but exist it does.
Posted by: Rieux | April 29, 2008 1:22 PM
illusory tenant (#65):
That's right; there appears to be a typo in here somewhere. The correct citation is § 948.03 (6).I note, though, that that § 948.03 isn't a homicide statute; it's the section defining the crime of "Physical abuse of a child." According to the reports here, that's not what these parents are being charged with, so subsection (6) won't get them off.
Not quite. According to the accounts linked from the OP, the parents are being charged with second-degree reckless homicide, which is defined in Wis. Stat. § 948.06. As the Wisconsin Judicial Council noted in 1988 (visible at the statute link), "Second-degree reckless homicide is analogous to the prior offense of homicide by reckless conduct. The revised statute clearly requires proof of a subjective mental state, i.e., criminal recklessness." Criminal recklessness is an intent--a mens rea. You're right that the defense is likely to challenge whether the parents had adequate intent, but given that criminal recklessness is the standard, it would seem to me that the prosecution has a reasonably good case.On that point, from June (#87):
Wisconsin statutes (specifically, § 939.24) define criminal recklessness as follows:
Do you think the Neumanns acted (or failed to act, which in this case is legally equivalent) with criminal recklessness? I sure do.- Rieux (IAAL)
Posted by: Ryan F Stello | April 29, 2008 1:22 PM
K. Signal Eingang (#135) said,
Did you happen to take a screenshot?
The press release linked at #18 didn't have it.
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 1:22 PM
Kitty @ #140, "I know America has never ratified The Convention on the Rights of the Child but there must be some Federal control to ensure that State laws can't be hijacked by the warped beliefs of the religious right. There would surely be a way to prevent -say- Florida from adopting Sharia Law in the event of mass conversion to Islam!"
Yes, there is. It's the First Amendment of our Constitution and it's proscription against "Congress passing any law recognizing the establishment of religion." The 14th Amendment has applied the proscription to the states, and it has always applied to all branches of government, not just the legislature. In the scenario that you laid out, Florida adopting Sharia Law, the Establishment Clause would clearly come into play and invalidate such adoption.
The law in this case, the "healing through prayer alone" exception as I like to call it, is much less obvious. It applies to all religions, despite the text of the Wisconsin law, so it doesn't recognize one religion over another. Also, it's a close call on whether or not it is an endorsement of religion over irreligion, which would be a violation of the Clause as well. Regardless of what we think, the current Supreme Court would likely not strike down a law like this.
Posted by: God is Fictional | April 29, 2008 1:23 PM
If Dale Neumann is so sure that prayer works then why did he use such a primitive device as email to ask for "emergency prayer"? Surely he could have just prayed for their extra prayers and they would have known.
So it's OK to use a computer that was invented by big bad evil science but it is wrong to get medical help for his poor dying daughter!
The idiocy and hypocracy of these religious fantatics knows no bounds.
Posted by: PixelFish | April 29, 2008 1:23 PM
You know every time I read about one of the kids in a religious convictions versus medical treatment issue--THEY ALWAYS DIE. When I lived in Calgary, there was a big deal about (I think it was) a Jehovah's Witness girl refusing a bone marrow transplant. I've seen other articles where the family refuses treatment and the kid dies. It's starting drive me crazy--like it's a death sentence the parents can pronounce in the name of martyring themselves on their faith. Blech.
Posted by: Holydust | April 29, 2008 1:26 PM
Even when I was Wiccan, we had some "DUH" rules about spells and prayer -- do everything you can in your own human way to get something done FIRST. In other words, don't just pray for someone to get better, don't work a healing spell to encourage their body to get itself moving... TAKE THAT PERSON TO THE EFFING DOCTOR. It was pretty much a Wiccan standard to, you know, not be an idiot and to take advantage of normal human technology to aid you in problem-solving. It's a commonly held belief that deity helps those who help themselves.
Because in reality, there is no deity, and well, nothing is going to happen if you sit around praying for it to. It's like the old joke -- the guy sits on his house in the flood and turns down a life boat and a helicopter to save him because he has put his faith in God to do it. And when he gets to Heaven, God says, "I sent you a boat and a helicopter, so what were you waiting for?"
Why can't these psycho fundies do the same? Are they so desperate for a true sign that they're willing to put the lives of others and themselves on the line?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | April 29, 2008 1:26 PM
You can ask him about the effectiveness of the long-running British Experiment On Prayer. Namely, millions of brits praying "God Save The Queen" daily. You could note that god has not chosen to save any of the prior kings or queens, in spite of centuries of prayer. :) - Marcus Ranum
I doubt that millions of Brits do pray that daily. If you're thinking of the national anthem, it's not sung that often. I think High Church Anglicans would pray it on Sundays; don't know about Catholics. Prayer frequency would certainly have fallen over the last half century, but Liz Windsor has already outlasted all her monarchical predecessors other than Victoria, and I'd say there's a high probability she'll surpass the latter - less than 2 years to go, and she appears to be in robust health. So maybe this is additional evidence that being prayed for (and knowing it) actually shortens your life? Or that temperate habits (in marked contrast to many of her predecessors), modern standards of hygiene, and modern medicine tend to lengthen it.
Incidentally, even if Liz surpasses Victoria in longevity, she won't immediately become the longest-lived British Head of State. That will still be Richard Cromwell (4 October 1626 - 12 July 1712), otherwise known as "Tumbledown Dick", who succeeded his (considerably) better-known father, Oliver, as Lord Protector from September 1658 to May 1659. There are unlikely to have been many prayers for his long life from the general public.
Posted by: Jay | April 29, 2008 1:27 PM
Christian science? That's like saying Jumbo Shrimp or IT Girl.
I'm getting really tired of this Jesus asshole.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 1:27 PM
@#
I think there may be legal precedent in the 1944 Prince v Commonwealth of Massachusetts case that #71 SteveWH cited above, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses have the right to sacrifice their lives for religious reasons, they do not have the right to sacrifice the lives of their children for those same reasons:
But as we all know, legal precedent is not always followed by subsequent courts.
I'm thinking maybe you could file a case on behalf of a child asserting that their 1st amendment freedom of religion had been violated, but I think that would only work if the child had explicitly asked to be treated by a doctor and their parents had refused, and even then the rights of minors in this country are so poorly delineated that it's debatable. In any case, I doubt this would happen anyway since children who have been brought up in this kind of environment typically trust their parents' love and concern for their welfare implicitly. It's a depressing situation.
I keep trying to think of another way this law could be challenged but I'm having difficulty. If someone can think of one, please share it.
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 1:28 PM
Rieux at #144,
I'm not quite as sold on the prosecution's case as you are, though I agree that they have a strong case. The mens rea of criminal recklessness has both an objective and subjective part. I think there's little quesiton that objectively the parents created an unreasonable and substantial risk of death in this case. The tricky part is the subjective prong, whether or not the parents were aware. Someone saying, "well they should have been aware" is not enough, since that is negligence, not recklessness. Finding subjective proof of knowledge of the risk is hard, and while it does not require admission of knowledge by the defendans, inferring it from the circumstances is difficult especially in light of the burden of proof on the prosecution: beyond a reasonable doubt.
Posted by: negentropyeater | April 29, 2008 1:29 PM
Thezog #114,
can you please provide links, really interested about this.
Then here's one question, are you certain that in some cases prayer which would work as a placebo effect (via hope of a betterment) in conjunction with a medical treatment not improve the chances of the patient. If you can provide studies on this I'd be interested. Thx.
Sorry if this has already been debunked previously on Pharyngula, maybe you can just point me to the relevant thread.
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 29, 2008 1:31 PM
@153 TheZog:
Would certain actions the parents took, such as the e-mail alert calling for "emergency prayer" from the community count as evidence that the parents were aware of the risk?
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 1:32 PM
Etha @ # 152,
There's a fundamental difference between the facts in Prince and the facts here. In that case, the appellants were acting in violation of a law they felt was unconstitutional. In this case, there's an affirmative, legislative action that allows the very conduct of the parents, i.e. the exception to the child abuse statute. It's somewhat moot, however, since these particular parents are not being charged under the child abse statute, but are charged with homicide. Therefore, the exception is not applicable.
Posted by: Kitty | April 29, 2008 1:35 PM
TheZog@#146
Many thanks. The intricacies of the American legal system have passed me by. An eye-opener, I will continue to read with interest.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 1:37 PM
So the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act gives the following definition of child abuse (in the "Definitions" section of the act):
Seems pretty clear cut that what the Neumann's did was abuse. I don't know if CAPTA would be enough in and of itself to challenge the legality of the state laws, but it might be a start....
Posted by: MikeM | April 29, 2008 1:38 PM
I bet these parents already have a justification. I bet they'd tell you, even today, that if prayer didn't do the trick, insulin would not have either. They're still wrong, and their daughter is still dead, but I bet in a few years, they'll look back on this and "comfort" themselves with this thought.
I find a connection between this story and the fundamentalist Mormons in Texas... Half of the 14-17 year old girls taken are either currently pregnant, or have been. I know the courts down there caused immediate pain by dispersing these children, but I just don't see what choice they had. As parents, we really do have to look out for our kids, even if it means short-term pain for those kids.
That's the connection here; people taking the easy way out because of a sky fairy. I mean, an insulin shot... How painful can that be?
In a couple of years, though, these parents will be able to tell you, with not a trace of tears, that if prayer didn't work, nothing would have. They'll still be wrong; they still won't get it. This probably affirms their convictions, instead of smashing them to smithereens (which is how rational people react).
If you can't take care of your kids, some authority (almost always the government) has to take the kids away from you. Where possible, the kids would preferably end up with a family member who has strongly denounced the actions of the parents; but when no such family member can be found, sorry, but "back to the compound" is not the solution.
I'm not sure the law should allow the Neumanns in the same room with their other three kids, ever again. They are a danger to them; keep them away.
Posted by: Holydust | April 29, 2008 1:39 PM
I guess I just don't understand this insanity.
As a Christian child and knowing lots of Christian people, I had pretty much been raised with the assumption that prayer was what you did when it was "out of your hands and into God's". I never saw anyone skip straight to prayer without taking common sense measures. I read the "pray for the Neumanns" page and it made me want to put my monitor out the window... it is the most creepy, disgusting tripe I've ever read.
Every day I get more and more afraid of these people. I've gone from raising my eyebrows to wanting to punch them to seriously fearing for my lives. They are delusional and dangerous. The fact that they continue preparing themselves for "persecution" just exacerbates things. There's no way to show them that they are indeed nuts and that our being afraid of them is not just some prejudice, but a logical reaction to a psychopathic group of deranged people.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 1:40 PM
@#156 TheZog --
Ah, I see. Thanks for the law clarification.
Basically, I'm desperate. I want to come up with some way that these law could be overturned, because they really horrify me...so I throw laws and court decisions and what not at the wall in hopes that something will stick ;).
Posted by: Steverino | April 29, 2008 1:43 PM
Stupid, stupid parents...poor child.
If the child had broken her leg or cut herself badly, would they have prayed for healing? No, of course not!
Stupid hypocrites.
Posted by: ShavenYak | April 29, 2008 1:44 PM
#109:
In this instance, the child is dead and the state is prosecuting the parents on her behalf. So, if the family is found not guilty, wouldn't the state prosecutors then have standing to challenge the law's constitutionality?
Posted by: Melonie | April 29, 2008 1:50 PM
Something similar happened to me when I was 16 years old. I had meningitis with septacaemia and became unconscious at 6pm. My parents called some of their friends over to pray for me. It wasn't until 2am when I wasn't getting any better that they decided to call an ambulance. I was rushed to hospital and in a coma for several days. When I recovered they naturally assumed it was due to prayer and not the excellent medical treatment in intensive care!
Posted by: ShavenYak | April 29, 2008 1:56 PM
#115:
Rather than shooting, how about letting a Komodo dragon bite thir private parts? Guaranteed to go septic.
By the way HOW MANY OF YOU PEOPLE ARE GOING TO POST THE STUPID JOKE ABOUT THE GUY ON THE ROOF IN THE FLOOD?
Posted by: Just Bugging ShavenYak | April 29, 2008 1:58 PM
Hey, did you hear the one about the guy on the roof in the flood?
Oh, you have?
Well, I tell it better. It goes like this...
Posted by: kmarissa | April 29, 2008 2:00 PM
I believe the difference is that the manslaughter charges are criminal, whereas a challenge to the law's constitutionality is civil in nature. The prosecutors aren't really prosecuting on the child's behalf in the sense that prosecutors can prosecute violations of the law on their own. They don't need special standing; they already have it (in fact, they can prosecute even against the wishes of the victim if they choose). For civil cases such as a challenge to the constitutionality of a law, you need standing to bring suit.
Posted by: TheZog | April 29, 2008 2:01 PM
ShavenYak @ #163, "So, if the family is found not guilty, wouldn't the state prosecutors then have standing to challenge the law's constitutionality?"
Nope, violation of Double Jeopardy. Once acquitted by the jury, the state cannot prosecute an accused for the same crime. Plus, it would be an odd pairing of parties since you'd have state officials, the district attorney, challenging a state law. That one wouldn't really go over well.
EntoAggie @ #155, "Would certain actions the parents took, such as the e-mail alert calling for "emergency prayer" from the community count as evidence that the parents were aware of the risk?"
That would serve as very good proof in my estimation.
Posted by: Aegis | April 29, 2008 2:09 PM
"Sadder still has been the response of many so-called Christians who make statements like, "They should go to jail"; or "They should have taken her to the doctor, praying on the way." I must ask, where is their faith?"
Their faith, "Pastor Bob", is dead in a box along with an innocent girl. I reserve this wish for the worst of humanity - Pastor Bob, I hope you die, sooner than later. While conceptually I know my wish, like prayer, has no effect in the real world, it makes me feel a bit better.
Posted by: sailor | April 29, 2008 2:11 PM
"These parents had no intent to kill their child. Quite the opposite, they did only what they were taught to do by their religious leaders, encouraged by their Bible, approved by tradition, praised by their community, supported by the state, financed with tax exemptions, and legalized by courts that sanctify the role of the parent."
I think June has an excellent point here, regardless of whether they belonged to a mainstream church or their own cult. In a society where we give such support to nonsense ideas, can you really blame some members of society for believing them? In advertising we have a modicum of protection against fraud, even so people will still pay ridiculous amounts of money for junk that does nothing. (How many of of you have bought magnetic fuel enhancers?)
The parents are dumb and far from blameless, but before we start jailing people for this should we not insist society holds those church officials who advertise this idiocy responsible?
Posted by: kmarissa | April 29, 2008 2:13 PM
Question, though: if the prosecution were able to challenge the constitutionality of the law, they wouldn't be prosecuting the accused for the same crime, they would be challenging the state itself for enacting the law, right?
Posted by: me | April 29, 2008 2:13 PM
HOW MANY OF YOU PEOPLE ARE GOING TO POST THE STUPID JOKE ABOUT THE GUY ON THE ROOF IN THE FLOOD?
Hey, didya hear the one about the guy on the roof in the flood?
Posted by: MikeB | April 29, 2008 2:13 PM
#43 Dennis N
So let's say you are sitting in a restaurant and you see a child choking on a chicken bone. Would you suggest that an appropriate response would be to rise up and lead the restaurant patrons in prayer so god will reach down and pull the bone from the child's throat?
What if I were to perform the Heimlich maneuver on the child and successfully dislodge the bone and save the child? I trust in my knowledge of first aid. Oh wait, if that happened then you would probably say your prayer was answered because someone in the restaurant knew how to save a choking victim.
If the rescue happened to be unsuccessful, and the child died, then somehow it got out that I was atheist, I wonder how well that would go over?
Sad, just sad. The unrelenting, white hot, searing, uber stupid burns.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 2:13 PM
Marcus Ranum, re: atheism and social darwinist morality:
Please read my latest blog post for an explanation of why you are wrong.
Posted by: ThirdMonkey | April 29, 2008 2:17 PM
So, he had a computer and was knowledgeable enough to email and access prayer web sites, but he couldn't go to WebMD and look up her symptoms? I just tried with the symptoms described. WebMD came up with 20 possible illnesses (including Diabetes), all of which were terrible.
I guess you can lead a horse's ass to the internet but you can't make it think.
I'm just glad that the other kids are in protective custody and the parents are being brought up on charges. When the story first broke it wasn't clear whether either of those things would happen.
Posted by: Adrienne | April 29, 2008 2:18 PM
So a guy and a roof walk into a flood...or is that a guy, a roof, and a flood walk into a bar?
Posted by: Rieux | April 29, 2008 2:23 PM
TheZog (#153--BTW, whatta handle!): I guess we're agreed that the prosecution has a strong, but not overwhelming, case here. I'm with EntoAggie (#155), though, that there appears to be a fairly large amount of evidence that the parents had a subjective understanding of the risk.
And anyway, if I were prosecuting this one, I think I could bring up the whole account of the victim getting worse and worse and trust the jury to connect the dots. ("How could they have seen that happen to their daughter and not realized that she was in grave danger?")
Again, this isn't a slam-dunk case for conviction, but it's better than plenty I've seen.
Posted by: Just Bugging ShavenYak | April 29, 2008 2:24 PM
A roof is floating upside-down in a flood, and there's this guy swimming ahead of it, pulling it with a rope in his teeth...
Posted by: Lago | April 29, 2008 2:24 PM
After my brother and sister had died, I went to a support group for several months. I became friends with a lot of people that had lost loved ones due to tragic events. The support group was run through a local hospital and a counselor was always there as a monitor.
One day the monitor decided to tell us about, "The power or prayer." She gave examples of how God would help her out in daily life. What was her example? Well, it was near Christmas time and she talked about how hard it was to get a good parking spot. She then went on to tell how, if she prayed, a spot would open up for her.
I sat there in shock. I was in this group because I had lost several family members. Didn't she realize that I had prayed desperately for them before they died? The guy next to me that I was friends with had lost his brother to murder where a gang had tied him to a chair, poured gasoline on him, and set him on fire. I imagine his brother prayed quite loudly. Both of us were just typical examples of the people in that group, and this lady was telling us god listened to her prayers for parking spaces.
As you might have guessed, I got very mad at this lady and asked her why God was answer her prayers for a parking space, but was not answering the prayers of all the parents of missing children, or the prayers of starving children, and so on.
I was afraid the rest of the group was going to be mad at me, but I found out that most agreed with me, and the monitor actually left shortly after that...
Posted by: Zbu | April 29, 2008 2:30 PM
Holydust, you shouldn't be afraid of these people. You should be angry. People this stupid and so deaf to rational thought need to seek immediate help. I wouldn't be afraid of them. I wouldn't give them the power that fear has over people. If anything, these people simply aren't smart enough to realize what they're doing. They're just a sad bunch of pathetic idiots who'll swallow any bullshit. If someone with a collar told them that the Earth was flat and dog feces was chocolate, these idiots would start eating turds as soon as they could.
Don't fear idiots. Just get angry. These people need a good yelling at.
Posted by: Adrienne | April 29, 2008 2:33 PM
Then God zooms by in a speedboat, creating a lot of annoying waves for the poor schmuck pulling the roof by his teeth....
Posted by: Lettuce | April 29, 2008 2:36 PM
If I see one more comment about Britons shaking their heads "no".
I'm in Wisconsin. I shook my head no.
I shook it when the folks in Wisconsin got themselves charged, I shook it when the guy in Austria got charged, I shake it when Australia fancies themselves "Mini America", I shake it when the folks in Africa are going on about their penises...
And I shake it when British people do the same.
You're ignorant.
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 2:37 PM
I wonder if the marriage will even survive this. If the father was crying and wanted to go to the doctor...
I don't know if I'd ever forgive my wife if I were him. If I were willing to displease God and get satanic-scientific modern medical care because I loved my daughter and she talked me out of it? Yikes. Not pretty.
Posted by: me | April 29, 2008 2:38 PM
You're ignorant.
Now, now, lettuce not throw around such insults.
Posted by: MikeB | April 29, 2008 2:38 PM
#180 Lago
Whether it's war, death, the super bowl, slot machines or parking spaces, prayer has the same effect.
Posted by: Rieux | April 29, 2008 2:39 PM
"Joke"?I just heard a different account of the events in question:
I'm not sure how two different versions of that story got around.Posted by: dieselrain | April 29, 2008 2:40 PM
"Believe what you want to believe; I don't care what you believe. But I DO care about your acting upon/not acting upon your beliefs." How about a constitutional ammendment worded thusly: "In this country (the U.S), seriously ill children (under age 21) must be taken to a medical doctor for treatment regardless of what the parents/guardians believe." Or, we can have this protection enacted into law. We already have other laws protecting minors (license to drive, incest, abuse, etc.) so protecting children from the excesses of religion should be a no-brainer. Belief must be separated from acting upon/not acting upon a belief.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield | April 29, 2008 2:41 PM
Maybe I'm pessimistic, but I think it'll start when McCain wins, which he probably will, then appoints a Nino Scalia clone to the SCOTUS when Stevens retires (he's already 87). In less than 20 years, you'll be electing President Phelps: "Hello, theocracy!".Why do you think the rest of the world cares about the "internal" religio-politics of the US?
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 2:42 PM
I can't get through much of the article without wanting to comment.
These people couldn't tell the difference between PUBERTY and FATAL DISEASE. They are so reason and science phobic they can't tell this?
Oh, favorite quote: "Dale Neumann "preferred to say that she was 'in sleep mode.' "
I a computer/technology quote for him too. "Game over".
Posted by: Rieux | April 29, 2008 2:43 PM
Sorry; here's the cite for my version of the "guy on a roof" story.
Posted by: Raynfala | April 29, 2008 2:55 PM
...and then God creates a horse ex nihilo. The horse looks at its reflection in the water, turns to God, and says, "Hey, why the long face?"
Posted by: K. Signal Eingang | April 29, 2008 2:57 PM
Ryan F Stello @ 146 (did we lose a post somewhere?)
Sadly, I didn't get a screenshot. I should've, the press release has evolved considerably since it was originally posted. The original version read like (I'm paraphrasing) "We hardly knew these people but we're very sorry they didn't have enough faith to heal their child, because usually this totally works. BTW we're praying very hard for Jesus to bring her back to life. HTH."
The current version still has a lot of snake oil and insanity, but no clown nose, and a bunch of stuff has been tacked on asserting that the Neumanns are being "persecuted" and besides, doesn't the AMA make mistakes too? I think it must be on its third or fourth revision by now.
Posted by: Aegis | April 29, 2008 2:58 PM
The wife says this in her statements: "I thought it was a spiritual attack."
This is for every ignorant theist in the world:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SPIRITUAL ATTACK.
Your 'pastors', 'priests', 'mullahs', 'reverends' or whatever term you wish to assign to people who have no clue as to what reality is like are FOOLING YOU, and your children are dying because of it.
There is no such thing as 'spirtualality', and if you think there is, guess what? You are wrong.
Here's a fun thing to do - I'll put myself on the line for your education:
"Demons/evil spirits/nether-realmers, you have complete freedom to attack me personally today, up to and including killing me. This offer is rescinded after 11:59:59 on April 29th, 2008 when I return under the protection of the fact that you don't exist. Come and get it!".
I'll post again tomorrow, to let you know that the boogeyman didn't get me before the 'dead'line.
Posted by: Chuck | April 29, 2008 3:01 PM
You know, it almost seems like these people willfully neglected to save their daughter. Has the possibility that this faith healing story is merely a cover to let go of a daughter whose medical condition was perceived as a burden to the family? As rampant as braindead stupidity is in our culture, there are plenty of frauds, willful child abusers, and murderers, too.
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 3:03 PM
God's will sure is a funny thing. I for one can't help but notice that when people tell me what God wants it is ALWAYS exactly what they want.
When I was a teenager a couple in Iowa had septuplets after fertility treatments. When asked why they didn't selectively abort, they said it was God's will.
Even at the tender age of 14 I realized what utter BS that was. If you believe in God's will, it was for you not to have any kids. That's why you were infertile.
Posted by: Jim A | April 29, 2008 3:07 PM
Re: the "Think of it as evolution in action," subthread.
Yes it IS tastless. Of course if we were to take it seriously, we'd have to point out that since we're talking MEMES instead of GENES, the evolution in question is Lamarkian and not Darwinian. People do indeed learn new things during their lives and pass them on to their children. Even if the congnitve dissonance referred to above will fix the parents in their ways, it's reasonably likely that the removed children won't be passing THIS particular stupidity on to their children.
Posted by: Aegis | April 29, 2008 3:09 PM
"Even at the tender age of 14 I realized what utter BS that was. If you believe in God's will, it was for you not to have any kids. That's why you were infertile."
Game, Set, Match.
Posted by: Adrienne | April 29, 2008 3:09 PM
And then the guy pulling the rope (attached to the roof) with his teeth spits out the rope, and turns out to be former presidential candidate John Kerry, who says, "I'm getting REALLY TIRED of that joke." Meanwhile, the roof sinks.
Posted by: OctoberMermaid | April 29, 2008 3:14 PM
Disgusting.
I said similar in the chatroom, but one thing that the Christians I know and have lived around believe is that you MUST love Jesus more than your spouse and children. You must always be careful to be sure never to love your family more than God. If you do that, you're in trouble, apparently.
So maybe these warped bastards thought "Well, if we don't rely on prayer, that means we don't trust Jesus and we care about our daughter more. Can't do that! We'll pass your sick test, Jesus!"
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 3:20 PM
#115
Prayer helps the same way meditation helps or relaxing helps or exercising helps. Stress reduction is such an easy preventative medical procedure we could all do. There's no woo to it.
Posted by: DCN | April 29, 2008 3:20 PM
I wonder how much prayer will be needed to fix dad's asshole--in a few months it should resemble a basketball hoop.
Posted by: mikecbraun | April 29, 2008 3:25 PM
Hopefully they toss the dad in with hardened criminals and let him fend for himself. The other criminals are going to LOVE this guy. Not only do they hold a special place in their hearts for child killers, but I'm sure they enjoy virgins just as much as other religious folk do...
Posted by: thadd | April 29, 2008 3:28 PM
I agree with Drew, I think that the law quoted in defense of these terrible actions likely only applies to adults, since children cannot actually consent to this.
While adults can often act as their childrens' gaurdian and give consent, there is usually a level where failures as a gaurdian can be considered abuse. ie giving your child crack or a nice stiff drink is considered abuse, not the right to consent.
Posted by: John Bode | April 29, 2008 3:29 PM
I've been trying to organize my thoughts for a post/article/paper/whatever exploring the area where religious and/or cultural practice comes into conflict with the law, mostly inspired by the recent raid on the FLDS compound in West Texas, but this story plays into it as well. Unfortunately, I just don't have the bandwidth to really think it through.
On the one hand, the document that defines this nation explicitly guarantees religious freedom:
But on the other hand, we have laws on the books that do limit, if not prohibit, the free exercise of some religions (notably laws against polygamy). We can argue that those practices are harmful or that the people practicing those religions are almond nutbars, but does that negate the language of the first amendment?
Ahh, like I said, I just haven't had the time to think this through.
Posted by: Moggie | April 29, 2008 3:32 PM
@ #146:
Unfortunately, I didn't get a screenshot, but I can confirm that the press release did contain that smiley on 27 March, because I commented on it elsewhere (and cut-and-pasted it, so I know I didn't imagine it).
Posted by: Steve Sutton | April 29, 2008 3:42 PM
I'm so thrilled to read that they're not going to get away with it, like nothing even happened. They let their daughter die and seem to have no problem with letting their other kids die, as well. At least, now, they won't be allowed to.
Posted by: Tulse | April 29, 2008 3:43 PM
And in spite of that same First Amendment, the US also has laws that limit free speech (such as libel laws, laws against incitement, laws against fraud, laws against false advertising, etc.). Freedoms are always balanced against each other, especially when harm to others is involved. If my religion demanded human sacrifice of unwilling victims, then the US Constitution wouldn't protect that, either. It shouldn't come as any surprise that First Amendment protections are not absolute.
Posted by: Nentuaby | April 29, 2008 3:44 PM
John Bode @#205:
The key principle in such cases is that religion is not an expemption from culpability in cases where the action is in and of itself illegal, setting aside religious aspects. Thus, for instance, slaughtering animals is legal, so there's very shaky ground for prohibiting animal sacrifice (except on cruelty grounds, but like I said- shaky.) On the same grounds, there's certainly no way we could legitimately forbid ritual blood drinking, provided the animal it's taken from was slaughtered by FDA standards. On the other hand, allowing a minor to die of neglect is illegal without respect to religion, so it's still bad if it's on religious grounds.
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 3:44 PM
#152 - "Christian science? That's like saying Jumbo Shrimp or IT Girl."
-snark-Yeah! Girls are stupid and can't handle technology!!!!!-/snark-
Girls or women aren't or can't be in IT? *This* girl is in IT now and graduating with a computer science degree. I don't get why the random attack on a gender while making your point that Christian Science is an oxymoron. Unless it's to prove that you have inherited some of the sexism that I believe is largely the promoted by the religions you are insulting. (Incidentally, I think this attitude also accounts for why you think IT Girl is an oxymoron. Turns out if you tell people they suck at something they either don't try or it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.)
My girlfriend dislikes playing on XBox Live because it turns out that when you get bunches of young white guys together with anonymity, many like be as vocally and vilely racist, sexist, and homophobic as possible. Simply having a female voice on-line gets her targeted by the most vicious misogynistic crap it's not funny. It's to the point where I think we wasted our money on the gaming system and the Live subscription.
Feel free to add to that culture.
See XKCD entitled How it Works
Posted by: AJ Hawks | April 29, 2008 3:54 PM
As a Type 1 diabetic for just the past 2 years, I find this especially sickening, and frightening.
Frightening because I know I would suffer a similar death if for some reason I can't get insulin.
Sickening for obvious reasons.
Posted by: Aegis | April 29, 2008 3:56 PM
"It's to the point where I think we wasted our money on the gaming system and the Live subscription."
You can use the voice-altering thing in the preferences; perhaps that would give you some relief?
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 3:57 PM
Lago (#180) Boy can I relate to that. I still get a dull ache in my belly when I hear someone cheerfully proclaim, "Prayer works!" When it's someone who knows me, it's more like a stabbing pain.
Posted by: Jorge666 | April 29, 2008 3:59 PM
Concerning Double Jeopardy - Between the 2 different systems, Federal and State - If there is a state and federal law that fit the specification, someone can be charged in either jurisdiction. If they are found not guilty, then the other jurisdiction can charge and try the person. It is not double jeopardy as they are two separate systems. The prosecutors take advantage of this when the penalty in one jurisdiction is more than the other. For instance, medical pot. In state where they have passed medical pot laws, usually an individual is charged with a violation of Federal Law as the State Law has the medical exception. Typically, federal drug laws have a stiffer penalty than state statutes.
Now we get to civil and criminal. Reference the OJ Simpson affair. He was found not guilty of murder, but he was sued in civil court which found him financially liable for the death.
As far as a crime being committed on federal land or against federal agents/employees in the pursuit of their official duties, the federal system takes precedence unless there is an agreement with the state or local government.
For what it is worth, I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on the Internet. YMMV
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 4:04 PM
#195 -
I think you have gotten to the crux of the problem with the exemption. Even if we wanted to allow the religious exemption for child abuse, it opens doors. It is far too easy to say, "I am doing this because of my faith."
Of course, I can't even go far. I'd be curious how the exemption was framed when it was written because "religious exemption to abuse children" doesn't really seem like it would garner a lot of support.
Posted by: Barno | April 29, 2008 4:06 PM
You're right: Prayer is neglectful like sending get well soon cards is neglectful.
I can't wait until we find drugs for everything so we can be free of all this psychosomatic crap and live as the well-tuned molecular machines we are.
Posted by: frog | April 29, 2008 4:07 PM
jex #41: I would have beaten the crap out of this "friend", then told him it was because he lacked faith.
I would have been tempted to do something even stronger.
Posted by: Who Cares | April 29, 2008 4:11 PM
I know of a good parable for this.
During a stormy season the water in the river is rising and people get evacuated except for one couple that says God will save them.
One last bus comes around asking them to please get out and move. The couple says no God will save us.
When the levee bursts they have to move from ground floor to the upper floor. A boat comes around so they can be evacuated but the couple refuses since they believe God will save them.
The water continues to rise and the couple ends up on the roof where after some time a helicopter comes around to rescue them. Again the couple refuses because they believe God will save them.
They drown and arrive at the gates of heaven where they complain that they put their trust in God but instead he let them drown. To which God responds I sent a bus, a boat and finally a helicopter.
Posted by: sphex | April 29, 2008 4:18 PM
I keep hitting 'refresh' because I just cannot believe that nobody else has commented on this gem of a statement from helptheneumanns.com. Under the heading "From the Neumann family" you read of their daughter that...
WTF??? "washing our feet"??
I am agog.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | April 29, 2008 4:19 PM
I'd like to suggest another principle for establishment: for people who have done wicked things to be tried, convicted, and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment is just; for them to be raped in jail is not, whatever they've done, and a prison system where this happens routinely is a disgrace to the country it belongs to.
Furthermore, gloating about the likelihood of someone being raped is disgusting.
Posted by: Tulse | April 29, 2008 4:21 PM
Oh, dear, it's getting really hard to tell sarcasm here. That said:
If that is all you do for someone under your direct care, then yeah, it's neglectful.
I completely agree except for "psychosomatic" (since almost all illnesses have some sort of proximal physical component) and "well-tuned" (since we obviously arent very well made, ID to the contrary).
Posted by: Longtime Lurker | April 29, 2008 4:21 PM
I have often prayed "God Save the Queen" myself, and the prophecy of "No Future" has never come to pass!
Please, guys (I don't think women would ever even consider this sort of statement), stop it with the prison-rape comments. I'm not a prude, but these comments fall under a "secular Hell" concept- leave the torture fantasies to the religious. These parents deserve to be punished harshly by the civil authorities, vengeance is really not something we should wish for.
Poor girl, judging from her picture, she seemed like she was a spirited child, and she bravely faced an ordeal that should never have come to pass. I have half a dozen friends who have type-1 diabetes, I'd hate to even contemplate what MY life would have been like if their parents had been fundies.
Posted by: Nentuaby | April 29, 2008 4:26 PM
@#219:
Washing the feet is a common spiritual act among some Christian sects. It springs from an ancient ritual of greeting for guests amongst everyone's favorite sandaled desert-dwellers. Its spiritual significance comes from several bible passages that make a fairly big deal of people who did this for various religious figures, including of course Jesus. This was, of course, simply because it meant they were being unusually welcoming to these figures, but weirder things have become spiritual rituals.
In modern form the ritual is often performed by children simply because that's the traditional of it. It's not really all that weird, in context.
Posted by: EntoAggie | April 29, 2008 4:27 PM
Just jumping in to third the "quit the prison rape" thing. Rape is not funny nor desirable, no not even when it happens to men, no not even when it happens to criminals. I agree with the Longtime Lurker--these "secular hell" fantasies are infantile and vindictive, and no better than their religious counterparts.
Posted by: sphex | April 29, 2008 4:44 PM
@ Nentuaby #223
I am familiar with foot-washing as an "ancient ritual" among some Christian sects, as I am aware of the "ancient ritual" of hanging bloody sheets out the window after the marriage has been consummated. Neither of them make any sense to me.
And it struck me as odd that in a three (short!) paragraph statement from the family about their 11 year-old dead daughter, that would be what they'd choose to mention.
...but maybe it's just me.
Nah. It's truly odd.
Posted by: jjbang | April 29, 2008 4:51 PM
Doesn't this strike anyone as being allegorical for what is happening with the Texas education system?
Posted by: Ab_Normal | April 29, 2008 4:52 PM
gex @ 210:
Thanks. This ol' lady in IT was just coming up with *sputter* *grumble*
(relurk)
Posted by: Nentuaby | April 29, 2008 4:54 PM
sphex:
When the elephant's tail strikes you as truly odd, it's a clear sign that you have lost sight of the elephant itself. :P Flippancy aside, though, seriously- ritual is odd. The ones involving violence aside, one is really not odder than another in the same sense fluffy are not really whiter than fresh snow. The washing of feet was what they remembered about her, doubtless, simply because it was a ritual... Feelings of significance enhance memory, and ritual invokes feelings of significance as its very purpose.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | April 29, 2008 5:02 PM
Etha Williams writes:
As human beings, we've evolved to have reason, self-awareness, and, I hope, a little thing called a *conscience*. These things allow us to create meaning in our lives beyond the simple struggle for individual existence.
Bah - that's wishful thinking and word-games. If you want to make an accurate statement, you could rephrase it as:
"These things allow us to choose to believe in meaning in our lives beyond..."
...which is just as much 'religious thinking' as believing in Jebus or whatever. There is no evidence that your life or mine or anyone else's has any meaning. In fact, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence indicates that "meaning" you "create" is just a closely held personal delusion - just like any other form of faith. You may as well convince yourself you're going to heaven for your good deeds - it's going to work as well and mean as much in the end.
Posted by: speedwell | April 29, 2008 5:05 PM
gex, I'm a girl and I work in IT. But I'm barely old enough, and certainly literate enough, to recognize that the original commenter meant "It Girl" and not "I.T. Girl." Look it up, I have a sinus headache that feels like a bear attack and I don't want to do any work besides help tickets today... :>
Posted by: kmarissa | April 29, 2008 5:07 PM
Nentuaby, I do see what you're getting at. But, perhaps some rituals strike us as stranger not only because we're unfamiliar with the rituals, but also because the nature of the ritual seems to express values that we don't share ourselves.
For instance, here, in describing the foot washing, her parents make reference to "her servant's heart." This strikes me as odd in itself, regardless of the associated ritual. I suppose at its most charitable, this statement could mean that her parents appreciated her compassion and hospitable nature. At its worst, they valued her subservience most about her.
Also, quick question, but I had thought (perhaps incorrectly) that foot washing was usually done for guests. Traditionally, would a child regularly have done this for her own parents, as they seem to imply?
Posted by: Pyre | April 29, 2008 5:08 PM
gex @ 210, I'm not sure whether your snark extends to deliberately (for the sake of humour) misunderstanding "IT Girl" as referring to technology. In case not:
The reference is to the neuter-gender pronoun "it", combined with the definitely feminine-gender noun "girl"; that combination is what makes the oxymoron (= "contradiction in terms", not "a type of moron").
The term "It Girl" was applied in the 1920s to silent-film star Clara Bow, long before the development-and-naming of the field "I[information] T[echnology]." (The "it" in question was sex appeal, as in "She's got it!")
Posted by: Tulse | April 29, 2008 5:09 PM
I don't mind if people convince themselves of that -- it is the convincing of others (and wielding of socio-political power against those who aren't convinced) that I object to.
Posted by: Dave | April 29, 2008 5:12 PM
I dont know that it is. It is however, an appropriate response of civilized society. Frankly, while Im not sure what justice is, it seems to me to be a lot closer to this. Their daughter was helpless as she suffered an easily preventable attack, while those she trusted to care for and protect her neglected that duty. Abhorrent as it is, that seems quite analogous to the prison rape scenario, and thus is justice under the eye for an eye standard. While I think an eye for an eye is a good principle for a criminal justice system, there are many that do. This part, I agree with.Posted by: James F | April 29, 2008 5:21 PM
#22 thwaite,
Thanks for the tip - the sound file and transcript are here. You can use the "contact us" tab and choose the program you wish to comment on.
Here's what I wrote:
In your Morning Edition segment ("Bill Lets Fla. Schools Teach Evolution Alternatives" by Greg Allen, April 29), you reported that bills approved by the Florida House and Senate would permit the teaching of "alternate theories" to evolution. The glaring error in this report is that no such alternate scientific theories exist. Rep. Hays admonishes his critics to "search for the truth." The truth is, a scientific theory (unlike the casual usage of "theory" as a guess or an idea) is overwhelmingly supported by evidence and heavily scrutinized through peer-reviewed scientific research until it gains general acceptance in the scientific community. Scientific theories provide a framework for understanding the natural world, and can be used to make predictions that can be tested and applied in the natural world. It is clear that the "alternative" is Intelligent Design; as you reported, the bill is influenced by the Discovery Institute, which promotes Intelligent Design, and Rep. Hays is on record saying, in defense of his bill, that "too many people are afraid to even mention the theory of intelligent design." (http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/04/evolving-scient.html). Intelligent Design utterly fails to qualify as a scientific theory, not only because of its lack of data in peer-reviewed scientific research journal articles, but because it invokes supernatural causation - it is repackaged creationism. Rep. Hays asks, "What are you afraid of?" I'm afraid that a non-scientific concept will be forced into the science curriculum by government fiat.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 5:21 PM
Pyre - LOL. Funny. I used the term "It" Girl in another thread earlier today. In this context, with "it" in all-caps with no quotes, I read it the same way Gax did, as "info tech girl". Ooops!
This changes everything!! :-D
Posted by: Pyre | April 29, 2008 5:25 PM
Please also see, in the aforesaid PDF of Wisconsin Statutes 948:
That last is a possible alternative for either a plea bargain or a jury's lesser verdict.Posted by: Pyre | April 29, 2008 5:28 PM
Sorry for typo: "actions for failure to take action" should read "actions or failure to take action", minus the "f" (and emphasis).
Posted by: Pyre | April 29, 2008 5:41 PM
Dave @ 234:
I suspect there was a word omitted here, involving a negation; perhaps you meant "While I don't think an eye for an eye...."?Posted by: maxi | April 29, 2008 5:44 PM
Barno @216
Wowee! What an amazing analogy, it so puts everything in perspective. So the next time I'm babysitting and I notice the child is unwell, instead of calling the doctor or 999 I will nip to the shops and buy a get well soon card.
Yeah, because that's not neglectful!
Leave prayer for the last resort, not the first. Dumbass Troll.
Posted by: madprophet | April 29, 2008 5:46 PM
Just another reason people should be licensed to have children. You have to have a license to drive, practice medicine, law, get married, fish etc., etc..
But no one EVER suggests that something as important as having children should be scrutinized. Consider how difficult it is for people to adopt. If the rules to have a child were even one quarter as stringent as that of adoption, humanity would be miles ahead planet-wide.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 5:47 PM
Marcus:
Evidence? LOL. True. What's your definition of "meaning"?
I try to think of this in terms of the tangible. For me, it's not unmeaningful to leave the world a slightly better place for humans than I found it. The world doesn't stop when I die. I want the people I leave behind to be in a better position than they'd have been in if I'd never existed. In my time here, I want to have made a contribution to the welfare and longevity of my race. That's just "local" meaning, but it's enough for me. It's not a delusion, for I fully acknowledge that one day, in the far distant future, it will all end, but so what? "The job is here, and the time is now." I can no more affect the outcome of events 5 billion years in the future than I can affect the outcome of events 5 billion light-years removed from Earth. That's inarguably true, but doesn't serve as a compelling reason for me to be terminally apathetic about the Here and Now. Nihilism is boring. To each his own, I guess.
The delusion I do NOT share is the one that has me believing that my spirit will live forever, and that my corporeal existence is just a way station en route to the Great Beyond, and the things I do Here and Now have any effect on what will become of ME after I did. But it's not ME that I'm concerned about. Again, YMMV.
Posted by: Monado in Toronto again | April 29, 2008 5:50 PM
As we recognize that loving our families comes from being human, not from God, so we must also acknowledge that hating the outgroup also comes from being human, not religion. It Religion just happens to be the excuse of choice for many people. If it weren't religion, it would be some other excuse. Rats don't need religion to snuggle up to their brothers and exterminate the other tribe. Neither would we.
I think that Prof. Dawkins has forgotten this basic fact when he gets angry about religion being a source of hatred.
Posted by: Monado in Toronto again | April 29, 2008 6:00 PM
There was, literally, a case where people were shipwrecked in, I think, the 1800s so they prayed and sat down to await rescue. They didn't build a shelter, they didn't look for food, they didn't build a boat, they didn't run up a flage, they didn't walk back to civilization. They all starved to death.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 6:01 PM
Not necessarily, and your use of the phrase "a source" demonstrates why. There's both a quantitative and a qualitative difference between religious zealotry and, say, loyalty to the hometeam. Sure, even something as mundane as a sports rivalry can still up irrational hatred, but I have yet to see a half-million well-armed Red Sox fans march on The Bronx to exterminate all those Yankee fans because according to our absolute moral authority it's the right thing to do or because if we do not, they will overrun us and force their way of life upon us, and won't somebody please think of the children?!?
Posted by: Angel Rose Young | April 29, 2008 6:02 PM
So, they use prayer in Wisconsin and get away with it, do they? Down here in Texas they use amnesia and get away with it too. It should be warm already, but it isn't really, thank goodness. I dread summer down here every year.
I always wonder how many people will be stupid enough during the coming summer to leave their tiny children locked in a vehicle outside. Not just leave them in there, but with the windows up, the doors locked, and the engine off. It's 105 degrees in the shade at late morning; the car isn't in the shade; the humidity level is 98%; and the child dies because they FORGOT they had the child with them. Male and female alike do this. Parents, and day care center employees, and babysitters all leave children in vehicles this way.
Someone please tell me: how do you forget you brought a child, even if that child does go to sleep? You don't look around the car before you get out and go? Isn't a child in a carseat, or a child in a seatbelt, large enough to spot in a stationary vehicle in broad daylight?
Watch Texas when the heat gets up. If there isn't at least one child that dies this way it will be a gosh-darned miracle.
Posted by: kmarissa | April 29, 2008 6:08 PM
Angel, in all honesty, that really can happen. And I'm sure the great majority people that it happens to will never ever be able to forgive themselves.
This almost happened to my mother when my brother was a baby. Luckily he was only alone in the car for 10 minutes or so. It had nothing to do with not caring for her children. It is extremely sad and tragic, but it doesn't hold a candle to the type of behavior in this news story.
Btw, my mother has since been diagnosed with adult ADD.
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 6:09 PM
#230 -
Hmmm. I am not familiar with "It Girl", but after looking it up, I don't see how that can be what he meant. "It Girl" doesn't appear to me to be an oxymoron like he intended Christian Scientist to be or the more well known Jumbo Shrimp.
Can you explain how "It Girl" fits into that set? I'm going to assume my original interpretation holds until a better explanation comes along.
Posted by: kmarissa | April 29, 2008 6:13 PM
Re: It Girl vs. IT Girl
For what it's worth, when I read the original comment, I couldn't tell which of these was intended. Neither really seemed to make much sense to me -- so there seems to be confusion all-round on the topic.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 6:16 PM
Gex, it's an oxymoron on a low-level syntactic and semantic level.
We know what it means, (the girl who has "it") but syntactically it's weird, not unlike "them us" or "he it".
What the phrase actually does, of course, is use "it" as an adjective - as in "the 'hot' girl."
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 6:19 PM
Thanks #232.
Not having been alive in the 1920's I was not familiar with the usage. So my rant is withdrawn about girls and IT. My apologies for the misunderstanding and the assumptions made about original poster's attitude towards girls.
Although I'd take care in using analogies from the 1920's to make points with people on the Internet! Especially when capitalizing the word "it" becomes IT which is a modern, Internet kind of acronym which will come to mind more readily.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 6:19 PM
Actually it's probably a little more accurate to say that it means "The girl who is 'It'," where "It" is "The next/current Big Thing in the realm of superstarlets."
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 6:27 PM
"I think that Prof. Dawkins has forgotten this basic fact when he gets angry about religion being a source of hatred."
I don't think he says that at all. I think essentially says people are capable of good and bad with or without religion. But religion has this special quality about it that can make the bad really bad. When a person KNOWS God's truth, when they are more concerned with pleasing God and making it to the next life than what happens in this life, you get people who fly planes into buildings because they want to get to Heaven.
And no, don't tell me about Stalin or Pol Pot. My claim is not that lack of religion = good. I'm just saying that adding religion can make bad into bad++.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 6:27 PM
It's also not as anachronistic a term as you might think. I learned of it back when I was a kid, when I ran across it in a magazine article about Gwyneth Paltrow. That was a while ago, but not more than 12 or 14 years. According to the article, she was The It Girl. She was rocketing to stardom, she was pretty, graceful, talented, everyone loved her; she was with Brad; and she was only... holy crow... only about as old as I am now (23). (Geez, back then, I figured I'd be the It Girl by now... LOL.)
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | April 29, 2008 6:29 PM
It's also not as anachronistic a term as you might think. I learned of it back when I was a kid, when I ran across it in a magazine article about Gwyneth Paltrow.
I came to the term via AbFab.
Posted by: Monado, no longer in beautiful Revelstoke, BC | April 29, 2008 6:29 PM
Kseniya {#245], good point. But I think they would find some equivalent for marching, whether it was accent, invade-them-before-they-invade-us, economic status, spreading (or defending) the home culture, etc.
Posted by: maxi | April 29, 2008 6:30 PM
On this whole 'IT' vs. 'it' girl debate. For what it's worth (and I realise that may be very little), I took the original post as it was meant: as an 'It girl' (eg: Paris Hilton and Tara P-K),and not Information Technology Girl (eg: all the wonderful computer women on this thread!).
Maybe it's a culteral/generation thing?
Posted by: Barno | April 29, 2008 6:32 PM
Tulse @221:
Thanks for picking up the sarcasm.
I completely agree; the parents valued religion over human life - a definite, awful wrong.
Agreed, though I want to know why you said "almost all illnesses" instead of "all illnesses."
Posted by: thalarctos | April 29, 2008 6:35 PM
Maybe he was just channeling Mark Twain:
Posted by: gex | April 29, 2008 6:40 PM
Good culprits, I'd say. Culture and generation are really good grounds for finding misunderstandings. It sounds like a timeliness and a context issue too, though. So okay, Gwenyth Paltrow and Ab Fab are more recent than the 1920's but these examples are still over a decade old.
In any event, is anyone else out there wondering the percentages for each of the interpretations? I'm curious to know which was the more common interpretation and by how much.
Oh well. I suppose I'm not the only person in this thread that likes to measure and test things to find out stuff, even if it is only of passing curiosity...
Posted by: Angry | April 29, 2008 6:54 PM
#116
"Second degree murder?! These fuckers should be shot."
Agreed, but only shot once in the gut with a .22 hollow point (dipped in feces). Food and water but no antibiotics...Then let nature take it's course and they can see how well prayer works on a septic belly wound.
Killing is too good for them...
Posted by: frog | April 29, 2008 6:56 PM
Marcus Ranum: "Bah - that's wishful thinking and word-games. If you want to make an accurate statement, you could rephrase it as:
"These things allow us to choose to believe in meaning in our lives beyond..."
...which is just as much 'religious thinking' as believing in Jebus or whatever. There is no evidence that your life or mine or anyone else's has any meaning. In fact, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence indicates that "meaning" you "create" is just a closely held personal delusion - just like any other form of faith. You may as well convince yourself you're going to heaven for your good deeds - it's going to work as well and mean as much in the end."
Now, that's a bit simplistic, isn't it? If you mean there's no "absolute" or "ultimate" meaning, then of course there is no meaning in that sense.
But sensible people don't mean "absolute" meaning. The meaning they mean is within the context they exist - my life has meaning within the context of my family, my community, even to an infinitesimal extent within the ecosystem. The existentialists are wrong when they say we are born alone and we die alone - our skin is not an absolute definition of ourselves.
Those meanings are real and objective, even if they depend on our subjective context, in the same way that money is real and objective, even if that objectively found reality depends on our subjective response. On the other hand, God is subjective - only the belief in God is an objective reality, as attested to by many stonings.
That's what distinguishes a decent morality, one based on our objective realities (even if they depend on the objective fact of our subjective realities), and amorality masquerading as morality, one based only on subjective realities with no reference to the underlying objective reality that gives rise to them.
Posted by: Sastra | April 29, 2008 7:10 PM
Etha Williams #28 wrote:
Ok, I know that's from way back in the thread, but I think it helps to explain what I think is happening here with the parents. Their religion has infantilized them. You can read the paragraph above and substitute the parents for the child, and God for the parents. God's children have a built-in need to believe He will care for them. He wants them to be children. Forever.
THAT is what happens when your faith tells you that the entire purpose of your existence is to learn to be a good, obedient child to your Heavenly Father. It is very easy to read the Bible and come to the conclusion that Original Sin is simply another word for self-will. In such a Christianity, then, the ultimate goal is Ultimate Docility. Humble yourself and allow yourself to be directed by God.
Look at the what the Unleavened Bread Ministries writes:
When Christians begin to put their trust in The Lord they are as babes learning to walk in a new Kingdom.
Become as a baby. Trust like a child. What example did the girl's parents use to show how wonderful their daughter was? Foot-washing. She had a "servant's heart." Just like they did, when they refused to take action. Prayer is not action -- it is an act of submission. "If I make myself really, really small, perhaps you will reward me with a favor which I don't deserve. But whatever you do, it is a favor."
BlueIndependence above called it "arrogant ignorance." It's more than that. They KNEW that "ordinary people" would call a doctor. They weren't ignorant.
They had that special thing called "arrogant humility" which religion breeds so well. As Christopher Hitchens put it, religion "manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism."
The crime of the parents -- the root of their neglect -- is that they see themselves -- and their children -- as characters in a cosmic drama. Life and death don't matter, except as stage settings set up so they can play their role: the willful children who learn how to submit to their Divine Parent. Neither they -- nor their children -- are really individuals, who matter and have intrinsic value. No, they and their choices are at the center of the universe, the focus of God, only to the extent that they learn that worth and value are all God's, and their job is to show faith. Trust. Dependency. It's all a story, they're all characters, and the entire world becomes nothing but a narrative where they live inside their heads. Believe.
And society smiles on them and encourages them and applauds them -- until they go "too far." Somehow, the moderates expect Faith has been set with brakes.
/rant
Posted by: sphex | April 29, 2008 7:14 PM
For what it's worth, I got the "Gwyneth" version, not the "computer genius" version.To get you started on your stats, gex. :)
Posted by: PaulC | April 29, 2008 7:14 PM
"Read this account of the progression of their daughter's disease, and ask yourself at what point you would be taking her to the doctor, if she were your child."
By the word "blue" at least, though that's an indication that earlier would have been much better.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | April 29, 2008 7:18 PM
Sorry, but I reject your nihilism, Marcus. Are you not a Godly troll trying to give us atheists a bad name?
Of course life has a meaning. At its most basic level we have a drive to procreate, rear young and protect and nurture both the current and next generations. These are profound biological imperatives, fecund with meaning.
However, our intelligence permits us to transcend even this, to create vivid and vibrant cultures. Civilization has its deeply squalid side, but can also be sublime, ineffable, wonderful. You may regard this as a delusion and liken it to the empty comforts of religious faith, but that's a nihilist's view, bleak and unhappy. It is, if left uncorrected, an inhuman perspective.
Culture exists. Civilization has tangible benefits. Even religion is real, though the gods the faithful worship are not. These things cannot be dismissed lightly as illusion. They are the products of life and existence. They have meaning, even if sometimes that meaning is hard to discern, or we squabble about the exact nature of that meaning. We can certainly state with confidence they do not have NO meaning, except possibly in the fevered imagination of misanthropes such as yourself.
I must renounce your hateful and inhumane world view.
Posted by: Leo Tarvi | April 29, 2008 7:23 PM
I see a lot of people calling 948.03(6) an exemption, as though it's a sort of "get out of child abuse free" card. Let's take a look at the text,
Section 948.04
(6) TREATMENT THROUGH PRAYER. A person is not guilty of an offense under this section solely because he or she provides a child with treatment by spiritual means through prayer alone for healing in accordance with the religious method of healing permitted under s. 48.981 (3) (c) 4. or 448.03 (6) in lieu of medical or surgical treatment.
I would like to draw your attention to the word "solely" in the first sentence. As I read it, this is clarifying that Christian Science or faith healing itself is not abuse. It do not say that you cannot be charged for standing by and letting your child die if you pray while you fail to call an ambulance.
For example, Lil Suzy catches a cold and you pray for her to get better, not child abuse. Lil Timmy falls down a well and you pray for his broken bones to repair themselves as he magically floats out, child abuse.
Posted by: Jams | April 29, 2008 7:25 PM
John Bode @#205:
I think the spirit of religious freedom isn't that religion is exempt from legal restriction, or that any action is fair game as long as it has a religious association, but that the simple fact that an act is religious is not in itself grounds to restrict it.
For example, saying, "you can't carry a concealed ceremonial danger in school because it's religious" is unconstitutional. However, saying "you can't carry a concealed ceremonial danger in school because it represents an unreasonable threat to other students" isn't unconstitutional.
That's where I think the argument is.
Posted by: Sastra | April 29, 2008 7:28 PM
I immediately got the pronoun/noun conflict (girl--it) and it took a second for me to figure out what gex was going on about ("oh, IT also has some sort of technical meaning about computers or something ha ha.") Maybe it's an age thing.
As for the confusion regarding the phrase "shook her head yes," that may be a regional thing. I'm in Wisconsin, and it doesn't strike me as odd. I think it's common, though Lettuce apparently disagrees.
However, the all-too-popular Wisconsinite phrase "come here once" (instead of just plain old "come here") makes me wince.
Posted by: kmarissa | April 29, 2008 7:35 PM
Leo, I see what you're getting at, but note the "through prayer alone" language. If they had left out the word "alone," I would probably agree with your interpretation.
(6) TREATMENT THROUGH PRAYER. A person is not guilty of an offense under this section solely because he or she provides a child with treatment by spiritual means through prayer alone for healing...
Posted by: slang | April 29, 2008 7:42 PM
These 'parents' make me puke. They're in the same class (sic) as that monster in Austria that's all over the news right now. I'm too disgusted to check if anyone else wrote this already. As a father of two young girls even the thought of the remote possibility that these morons might have some influence in their life scares the hell out of me.
Posted by: frog | April 29, 2008 7:46 PM
Lee #266: "However, our intelligence permits us to transcend even this, to create vivid and vibrant cultures. Civilization has its deeply squalid side, but can also be sublime, ineffable, wonderful. You may regard this as a delusion and liken it to the empty comforts of religious faith, but that's a nihilist's view, bleak and unhappy. It is, if left uncorrected, an inhuman perspective."
I think you have the key there with "inhuman". That sort of nihilism imagines a universal view from which one can make a universal judgement on meaning. That is a profoundly religious assumptions - instead of starting from humanity to understand our world, one starts from an imaginary abstraction.
In the end, nihilism is the dead end of religion. It recognizes that God is dead, but goes no further to abandon the absurd neo-Platonic assumptions that allowed one to fantasize the existence of God in the first place. It is the cold comfort of masochism when sadism is denied us.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 7:52 PM
I'm not talking about an objective meaning that will resonate to the ends of the universe and the end of time. I'm talking about a subjective meaning which, for me, is helping in creating a better world for humanity. And the fact that as I share that meaning with others (such as Kseniya) makes this shared meaning all the more meaningful (since I firmly believe that it is through mutual cooperation that a better world will come about), but even if I were the only one to hold this value, it would still be meaningful *to me*.
There's a difference between subjective experience and delusion -- contrast my constructed subjective meaning to religion, which claims to be objective universal truth...
I have evidence for my "meaning" existing only insofar as I can see the difference I make, and know that people will remember me as being a positive influence after I am gone. I don't always accomplish what I set out to -- who does? -- but when I do, it brings me joy, and when I don't, at least I tried. And I know that this is meaningful to me.
I don't have a fear of death (the main motivation for belief in 'heaven'...actually, I find the idea of eternal life quite repulsive) except for the fear that I may not do all the things I want to do before I go. The fear of a wasted life, something I think a lot of people have. The only thing I can do to combat that fear is to try to accomplish them to the best of my ability while I am here, and to try to take pleasure in what I see as a meaningful existence.
I could look out at the cosmos and see a universe heading towards an eventual and inevitable end, in which I am nothing more than an insignificant, meaningless speck. Or I could look out at the cosmos and feel a sense of wonder at the great complexity and chaos I see, and at the small but beautiful place I and my fellow human beings have in it. Given the choice, I think I'll take the latter.
Posted by: Helioprogenus | April 29, 2008 8:02 PM
How is it possible to read this story and not go into the kind of rage that might break a few keyboards and computer screens. These religious fucks are so irresponsible, and yet, the overall impression in our culture is that we should respect all beliefs. Fuck that, respect is earned through merit, not praying incessantly for a possible 2000 year old jew to return and lead the world towards a catastrophic nexus of some invisible judgemental asshole to determine the fate of these fuckheads. There clearly isnt' enough possible anger that can be directed at these stupid parents. I bet many religious assholes are already apologists for these parents' actions and probably believe that they didn't pray enough.
I've got an idea, why don't we incarcerate them in the polar bear exhibit and allow them to pray themselves safe. Polar bears could use a few tasty fuckwits.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 8:09 PM
@#262 frog --
Good points, and well said...revise what I said about subjectivity of meaning in my #273. ((Though I think you are being a bit harsh on the existentialists re: their stance on alone-ness...Sartre was very humanistic and aware of the individual's place in society -- ultimately, he believed that no one is purely a being for-itself, or a being for-others; we are all uneasy beings for-itself-for-others))
Even though this is a science blog, I think it's done as much to help me explicitly formulate and (where appropriate) revise my ethical philosophy of life as it has taught me about science :).
And funny you mentioned money...I was just thinking about money as an analogy for humanistic meaning & morality today (while spending copious amounts of it that I don't really have...oops).
Posted by: frog | April 29, 2008 8:20 PM
Etha: "I could look out at the cosmos and see a universe heading towards an eventual and inevitable end, in which I am nothing more than an insignificant, meaningless speck."
We don't know that - we don't have the physics to know what the rules of conservation of energy on a universal scale is, or whether the universe is a closed system in the entropic sense. So the nihilists don't even have that to give them pleasure.
You're right about Sartre - usually the initiators and writers are far more reasonable than their followers. Look at the PoMo mess of deconstructionism. You start with the eminently reasonable cultural relativity of Boas and other early anthropologists, then you are degraded to Foucault's deconstructionist word games, and now you have a million intellectual fakers (fakirs?) giving us non-self-consistent idealisms that ignore all of twentieth century philosophy.
If I recall correctly, when Sartre got his Nobel in literature, he mailed them a curt letter informing them of his bank number if they wished to forward him the money; he really couldn't find the time for their song and dance. My kind of misanthrope.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 8:24 PM
@#263 Sastra --
Oh, well spotted, and well put.
This reminds me of an Xian song, I Just Wanna Be a Sheep. Yes, you read that correctly. No, it's not meant ironically. And it's not just sung at fundie gatherings. The mainstream, generally fairly moderate church groups sing it too.
The song in and of itself is kind of bizarre and perhaps a bit frightening, but here's the really scary part: as I've mentioned before I was religious for a while during my troubled teenage years -- from about age 12.5 to 14. Now, I've always been generally a fairly independent thinker, even as a very small child. It's a quality in myself I've always valued very highly. But when I was religious, when we would sing the song -- and we sang it fairly often -- the bizarre ethics it was preaching didn't cross my mind ONCE. I never felt a moment of cognitive dissonance until much later, when I had lost my "faith" and was thinking back on the song. Suddenly I realized -- what was I thinking? How could I sing that song without even a momentary critical thought?
But I did. And so do millions of other Christians.
(For the morbidly curious, the song is online here.)
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 8:27 PM
#272 frog --
Is this a quote from somewhere? I seem to remember reading it at some point, but I can't for the life of me remember where.
If it isn't, and it's a sentence of your own invention, I must congratulate you on an idea well articulated.
Posted by: Charlie Foxtrot | April 29, 2008 8:28 PM
#117 EntoAggie
Great way of putting it - thanks! That has made it so much easier for me to visualise: The Death Cult is a parasitic mind-virus - jumping from host to host down the generations, evolving as required and not caring about the fate of its hosts as long as it continues to propagate itself.
Clarity!
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | April 29, 2008 8:29 PM
I'm pretty sure you meant to write "I don't think", but if I take what you wrote at face value, I agree: it's a good principle for a criminal justice system, that is, for a justice system that is criminal. (As opposed to a criminal-justice system, which would be a system of criminal justice.)
For me, it's completely meaningless. But so what? I like doing it anyway.
I simply don't understand how terms like "meaning" or "purpose" or "sense" are supposed to apply to "life". I don't get it. Is it because of Aristotle?
Do tell me about them, because they had their very own personality cults inside of communism (which is already a rather messianic ideology). Complete religions, only without an afterlife -- that's reserved for Kim Jong-il (and to a lesser extent Mao, whose apotheosis is not official).
Posted by: alex g. | April 29, 2008 8:32 PM
Right when I read about this on yahoo yesterday I knew it would be on this blog the next day.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 8:34 PM
@#267
As much as I'd love for this to be true, sadly, it is not:
(Emphasis mine...)
Posted by: frog | April 29, 2008 8:46 PM
David: "I simply don't understand how terms like "meaning" or "purpose" or "sense" are supposed to apply to "life". I don't get it. Is it because of Aristotle?"
Because biological systems are teleological? Teleology is a terrible principle in physics, but in biology it is applicable - biological systems are functional components of larger system, so they have "goals", "means", and "ends". It has to be carefully applied of course - and we can't get too caught up in it - but in self-referential, feedback driven systems like people, cultures and literature, meaning has meaning. Aristotle just didn't know when to stop (like most folks).
If it feels good to be good, that probably implies that it's meaningful, in the context of culture and biology. It's not just an irrational random desire.
Etha: Thank you, I think it's mine - but you never know, I may have read it somewhere and it's gotten encrusted back in my reptilian brain.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | April 29, 2008 8:49 PM
Looks like a calque from German (where it means "come here for a bit" or so, and is used all the time).
:-D
Ingenious.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | April 29, 2008 8:52 PM
That's what I mean.
Of course not. It has been selected for.
Posted by: Leo Tarvi | April 29, 2008 9:00 PM
kmarissa,
I'm pretty much just guessing here, but I think it was written that way so that Christian Scientists(sic) aren't automatically child abusers under the law. This way you can't use the law to retaliate against that CS waitress who spilled your coffee, but there is still legal protection for children whose parents, say, email for emergency prayer rather than calling 911.
I hope it's something like this, I'd hate to think that the spirit of the law considers allowing a child to die without medical attention acceptable as long as you pray about it.
On a side note, does this quote give anyone else the creeps or is it just me?
"Her servant's heart was clearly evident in the little significant things she loved to do like washing our feet..."
Posted by: RamblinDude | April 29, 2008 9:27 PM
Etha Williams;
"But when I was religious, when we would sing the song -- and we sang it fairly often -- the bizarre ethics it was preaching didn't cross my mind ONCE. I never felt a moment of cognitive dissonance until much later, when I had lost my "faith" and was thinking back on the song. Suddenly I realized -- what was I thinking? How could I sing that song without even a momentary critical thought?"
You're making me laugh. When I was growing up, one of the churches I went to had a mural on the back wall that portrayed Jesus with a hooked staff in his hand, sitting on a rock, and surrounded by contented, complacent sheep. I never thought anything about it. It seemed perfectly appropriate. It was the perfect distillation of the message we heard every time we went to church. We all aspired to be sheep! It was only years later that I was able to look back on it and realize how bizarre it all was.
Even after I had begun to realize that Christianity was just one among many religions, with no inherent objective claim to the truth, I was still very slow about disabusing myself of the notion that "Jesus is Lord". I remember reading someone who said that "The Christians have tripped themselves up over Jesus," and it bothered me, I wanted to defend Jesus! I just watched myself doing this, rather fascinated at how strong was the pull of all those years of indoctrination.
Group conditioning is powerful stuff.
Posted by: Pwnagepanda | April 29, 2008 9:31 PM
ugh
it always makes me sad when I read these stories. At least the criminals might actually get justice for once.
Posted by: kmarissa | April 29, 2008 9:43 PM
This may be (part of) why prosecutors are bringing charges under manslaughter, rather than child abuse charges. The referenced exception does appear to protect behavior such as this in at least some situations short of death. That is to say, it appears from the statutory language that a failure to obtain medical care, which otherwise could arguably be considered child neglect or abuse (but where the child did not die), could be excused by the language of this exception.
My guess is that the language is intended to prevent a parent from being charged with child neglect or abuse solely for refusing to take the child to a doctor generally speaking for religious reasons. I'm not sure exactly where the boundaries of this exception would lie in terms of resulting harm to the child. I'd be interested in any relevant caselaw citing this exception.
But yes, it's pretty abhorrent.
Posted by: AndyD | April 29, 2008 9:51 PM
I assume this story is being carried in newspapers across the states? If so, can I please urge everyone here to write letters condemning this situation and the religious industry that supports it?
Comments in skeptic blogs are great for supporting each other but comments in mainstream media are more effective in terms of swinging public opinion (and therefore policy)
Posted by: Monado, no longer in beautiful Revelstoke, BC | April 29, 2008 9:52 PM
One of the choral songs in Handel's beautiful Messiah starts out, "All we like sheep have gone astray." But it's sung to a different rhythm and with repetitions, so it sounds like
For some reason people look at me oddly as I stroll down the street singing it. Perhaps it lends itself to the wrong interpretation?
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 9:54 PM
Okay, in re: my 277 about "I Just Wanna Be a Sheep"...I don't want to bring undue attention back to a musical atrocity I'm sure we'd all rather forget, but I need to know:
Is it just me, or do does the one guy look like he's miming sodomizing the other guy at 1:24? I know they're supposed to be miming sheep sheering, but really. (Also, why would the good shepherd Jesus want his flock to be shorn anyway?)
Actually, the more I watch it, the more the entire thing looks like an advertisement for repressed homosexuality...'specially the hip-slapping gestures during the "I don't wanna be a hypocrite" verse....
Posted by: Monado, no longer in beautiful Revelstoke, BC | April 29, 2008 9:55 PM
Besides, it's a traditional image. Mithras, a favourite God of the Roman soldiers, was called the Good Shepherd of his flock. Who are you to fight tradition?
Posted by: Monado, no longer in beautiful Revelstoke, BC | April 29, 2008 9:59 PM
So let's see.... in the U.S., poor pregnant women can be thrown into jail so that they don't take drugs that might harm their fetus, but parents of a middle-school child can fail to provide the necessities of life and get away with it? I think the law lacks a sense of proportion. As Robert Heinlein wrote in Stranger in a Strange Land, "Straining at gnats and swallowing camels are required courses in law school."
Posted by: craig | April 29, 2008 10:19 PM
Where's Kenny?
He need to come into this thread and tell us how we just have closed minds, how we just don't understand.
Posted by: Holydust | April 29, 2008 10:27 PM
Zbu:
Your post was comforting, but the idea remains -- getting mad, yelling, all it will ever do is vindicate them in their idea that they are being persecuted and that it makes God happy that they are suffering for him.
*They're* suffering. My ass, they're suffering.
...that sounded weird, but you get my point.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 10:33 PM
@#295 craig --
He'd probably tell us that the faith healers have Christianity wrong because they don't know how to read.
...actually, on that last point, he might be right :\.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 29, 2008 10:40 PM
...actually, on that last point, he might be right :\.
a broken clock...
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | April 29, 2008 10:45 PM
"Dale Neumann told investigators that "given the same set of circumstances with another child, he would not waiver in his faith and confidence in the healing power of prayer"
What's that old chestnut about "The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result"?
Posted by: freelunch | April 29, 2008 10:57 PM
You'll notice that the parents aren't being charged under the child abuse statute (Chapter 948), so they probably aren't home free. If I read the JS article correctly, they are charged under the much simpler:
"Section 940.06 Second−degree reckless homicide. (1) Who-
ever recklessly causes the death of another human being is guilty
of a Class D felony."
Of course, it might be interesting to see if the prayer exception only applies to the followers of Mary Bakker Eddy or Watchtower who routinely put their children at risk for their foolish beliefs.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 29, 2008 11:07 PM
Of course, it might be interesting to see if the prayer exception only applies to the followers of Mary Bakker Eddy or Watchtower who routinely put their children at risk for their foolish beliefs.
don't forget the pentecostal snake handlers!
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 11:13 PM
On this "sheep" thing and the god-parent/parent-child/child-child relationships Etha, Sastra and others have brought up:
This idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while, the idea that a mature creator-god wouldn't want a bunch of sheep keeping him company for all eternity. Like any good parent, she'd want her children to grow up and mature to be competent, whole, independant and mature adults in their own right - adults whom he could one day meet as peers, not as chattel or perpetual children. Why else endow us with both the yearning and the means to touch the stars?
Ok, maybe that's the Childhood's End in me talking, but dammit, that's what I think. The "Father" paradigm, as realized by most manifestations of Abrahamic religion, debases us all - the creator-god included.
Posted by: eigenvector | April 29, 2008 11:13 PM
Of course prayer doesn't work! If it did I would have won the last 47 California lotteries, but then again so would have 3 or 4 million other people times 47! Guess what? I'm 65 and still doing 8 to 5 every day for the man! Stupid prayer!
Posted by: S. Fisher | April 29, 2008 11:13 PM
"There was, literally, a case where people were shipwrecked in, I think, the 1800s so they prayed and sat down to await rescue. They didn't build a shelter, they didn't look for food, they didn't build a boat, they didn't run up a flage, they didn't walk back to civilization. They all starved to death."
Perhaps they should have built a roof and climbed on top of it.
Posted by: norca66 | April 29, 2008 11:14 PM
Prayer, or any personal contemplation of a difficult existential circumstance should not be conflated with acting like blinded jackasses, as these parents most certainly did. If you see suffering, as in the case of this most unfortunate and precious child, hopefully most individuals would act rationally first, and seek a knowable solution. After that, if prayer or any other interior act of consciousness keeps you from flying part, then so be it. Most posters here seem wildly untested by the vagaries of a completely contingent existence. Any of you folks out there sui generis? I didn't think so.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 29, 2008 11:17 PM
Doesn't Liberty University offer a major in Acting Like A Blinded Jackass?
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 29, 2008 11:22 PM
Most posters here seem wildly untested by the vagaries of a completely contingent existence.
dude, smoke less pot.
seriously.
Posted by: RamblinDude | April 29, 2008 11:35 PM
"This idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while, the idea that a mature creator-god wouldn't want a bunch of sheep keeping him company for all eternity."
Try telling a born-again Christian that.
I know many who subscribe to exactly that idea that God does want them to be perfectly obedient and sheep-like in every way. I grew up hearing lectures on how the most faithful, obedient and godly people glow with an internal light, and how obedience and sheep like behavior empowers one and gives one wisdom--and makes God happy.
We were taught that every instinct in man is willful and disobedient and leads to unhappiness. That perfect obeisance to God's will is the only path to true happiness.
And if you succeeded in your quest for sheepiness? Then you would become one with God and his will would be yours and you would have true power. That is the real reason people want to be sheep-like. They want the empowerment that goes with it. It's like a carrot on a stick. And yes, when people are manipulated into aspiring to this "spiritual" greed, it is indeed debasing.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 29, 2008 11:44 PM
@#305 norca66 --
"personal contemplation of a difficult existential circumstance?"
What does that even mean?
I agree with Ichthyic #307. And if you're not smoking pot...then I'm a little worried by your bizarre usage of pseudo-intellectual language....
Posted by: Tim | April 29, 2008 11:45 PM
Religion in the United States could be more entertaining if mainstream churches denounced these loonies as heretics with (more than usual) tenuous and bizarre interpretations of scripture. There are good historical reasons to tolerate wacko churches, within limits, which the Neumann family crossed. BTW, I wonder if a link could be proved between the resurgence of faith-healing and astoundingly expensive health care?
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 12:08 AM
I guess everyone looks for an excuse to pull out sui generis from time to time.
I do agree with the "should not be conflated" sentiment.
Posted by: RamblinDude | April 30, 2008 12:14 AM
I dated sui generis for a little while. Couldn't relate to her.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 12:18 AM
@#302 Kseniya --
No, no, no...you've got it all wrong.
*God* didn't endow us with the yearning to touch the stars. That's the devil tempting us. Like the serpent tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. Then that unholy yearning was passed down to all future generations in the form of Original Sin (read: curiosity and the desire for human achievement).
As for the means -- let's not forget the great tale of human folly told in Genesis 11:
Yeah. So much for a god who wants his children to have the means to reach for the stars...
Wow. It's been a while since I read that story. The utter immorality of it kind of scares me now. So let me get this straight: a group of people decide to work together in mutual cooperation to try to accomplish something great. (The motivation to "make a name for ourselves" might have been a bit superficial, but hey, whatever works. I'm just impressed that people from the whole world were able to work together.)
So then upon seeing that if they work together, man can accomplish anything, God decides that "we" need to divide the people and make it difficult for them to communicate with each other.
Basically, on the nth day, God created prejudice, that the growth of civilization might be stinted. Nice going, God. Well, I'm sure all your sheep were duly impressed anyway.
Every time I read the Bible, I find myself respecting its "morality" less....
Posted by: Josh in Philly | April 30, 2008 12:31 AM
Let me add to the chorus of "Good news that they got charged."
Prayer is not a guaranteed magical form of treatment. At the same time, it can and does promote wellness when used in conjunction with other healing arts within the medical field.
The only way this makes sense is that (obviously) if praying or meditation makes a person feel good, it could make him/her feel better when they're ill; and if it lifts their spirits, it could mitigate whatever affective component is associated with their dysfunction: a lot of people who are sick get depressed. My atheist mother, rather than prayer, is partial to John Mortimer stories for uplift/
Frog: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet. Michel Foucault was not a deconstructionist, a player of word-games, or a philosopher of language: you're thinking of a different Frenchman, an opponent of Foucault's. Foucault was a philosopher whose speculations dealt with history and power; and he's become something of a gay lib icon too. I commend to you David Macey's mini-bio: he found himself on the picket line alongside your man Sartre on a couple of occasions when protesting the French police or prison system.
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 12:49 AM
LOL! Perfect! :-D
Etha, on the 0.01% change that you've misunderstood me on some level, I know I've got it wrong. That's exactly the problem, eh? The "right" interpretation is so damned oppressive.
The Babel story is a perfect example of what's so twisted about the whole mindset. (Good choice, btw.) I take heart in knowing that our skyscrapers, aircraft and spacecraft aren't continually tumbling to the ground at the push of a terrible finger...
I believe I wrote. Not that I believe in a creator-god who's waiting for us to grow up -- what I mean is, if there is such an entity, it sure as hell isn't the capricious, bearded thunderer of the Old Testament.
[Insert Ellison, Pullman, and other gnostic references here.]
Posted by: Charlie Foxtrot | April 30, 2008 12:55 AM
sui generis???
I guess that must be Ellen-De's sister...
but I thought she was unique, one of a kind...?
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 12:56 AM
Sigh. I am getting SO sick of my own crappy proofreading.
(Brain fatigue is a terrible thing.)
Posted by: Pyre | April 30, 2008 1:07 AM
If it's any comfort, Kseniya, upon reading your correction @ 316, I went back and re-read your 314, and was amazed to see there the errors you corrected -- because the first time through, I'd mistakenly read them as you meant them, rather than as you actually typed them.
Sort of like someone meaning to type "the" actually types "teh", but others read it as "the" anyway; the static in the receiver corrected the static in the transmission.
So, tree-falls-in-woods-and-nobody-hears-it style, did the typos actually occur?
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 1:09 AM
@#314 Kseniya --
Nah, I didn't misunderstand you, just being sarcastic. Channeling our dear friend Kenny a bit.
You have no idea how much the Babel story horrifies me though. The OT (and NT) god did a lot of really awful stuff -- slaughtering infants, wiping out entire cities, damning all of humanity for one woman's curiosity, turning someone into a pillar of salt (okay, that one's so out there it's actually kind of funny) -- but of all of them, I don't think I've ever been so utterly horrified as while rereading the story of Babel. It's so...wrong. I think god here goes against pretty much everything I believe in: the desire to achieve things, the desire to understand each other as fellow human beings, the desire to cooperate with one another constructively.
The fact that anyone can look at YHWH and see a being deserving of any respect at all -- let alone total adoration and worship -- is really saddening.
This is seriously upsetting me more than it probably should...I just wrote a very long, very angry analysis of this passage in my blog....
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 1:11 AM
Yeah. The utter immorality of it... Think of all the suffering caused by the tribalism imposed upon us, against our will, by our kind and loving creator!
You know what's even more scary? That a good number of people believe it to be (a) literally true, (b) inerrant on every level, and (c) our own damned fault, thanks to that accursed apple!
It doesn't trouble me in the least as a myth explaining the diversity of peoples, cultures, and languages around the earth. But as an example of the very real behavior of a supposedly divine being who wants us to be his worshipful, grateful, and adoring sheep? Uhh... No. I think there's a cookbook somewhere in that version of the story.
Posted by: norca66 | April 30, 2008 1:20 AM
I said nothing of established religions and their well established failures. It's a simple fact we all face. We are here, and what we know, is not equal to what we yearn to know. That is why we strive... especially for social dominance;)
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 1:22 AM
I am so with you on that. It's making me feels sorta weird, now, too... LOL... sad and depressed, even. I guess it must be bedtime.
Nitol. :-)
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 1:28 AM
Indeed.
Point taken.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 1:29 AM
IDK...it kind of bothers me even on that level, since along with the explanation of the diversity of peoples, cultures, and languages is the implicit moral principle that this was done to prevent cooperation and achievement.
Surely they could have come up with something better?! Anything, really. Fuck, they could say that God whisked people away to learn about other parts of the world and then for no apparent reason possessed them so that they spoke in tongues. At least it would be more moral than this piece of crap story.
(Yeah, sometimes I get really unreasonably upset about these things...:\)
And I'm with you on the depressed & sad. Totally with you...
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 1:34 AM
And while we're on the dual subjects of child abuse and theistic outrages committed in the name of language...
In the 13th century, Emperor Friedrich II of Germany raised a number of children in total silence, hoping that eventually they would start speaking the "language of God."
Predictably but nonetheless tragically, the children never spoke a word, "the language of God" was never discovered (or maybe it was; it was silence), and the children eventually all died.
That's religious "science" for you....
Posted by: MikeM | April 30, 2008 1:35 AM
Speaking of bizarre behavior...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/04/29/teen.charged.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Posted by: RamblinDude | April 30, 2008 1:38 AM
"Yeah. The utter immorality of it... Think of all the suffering caused by the tribalism imposed upon us, against our will, by our kind and loving creator!"
Tsk, tsk, I can see that neither of you understand God's infinite love.
When one is truly subservient to the Lord's will then miracles happen!!
Because Shadrak, Meshak and Abednego were obedient servants and followed God's commandment not to eat of the unclean meat, they were able to stand untouched inside a fiery furnace while those around them were burned to death! Glory to God!
And because Joshua obeyed God and circled a city seven times, God caused the walls of Jericho to fall down and the city was completely destroyed and Joshua's army was able to kill every man, woman, and child! Praise God!!
You are both young, but someday you will see that being obedient to God enriches one's life and gives one great power! Glory to God!!
(Okay, I have to stop now, I'm feeling a little nauseous)
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 1:45 AM
@#326 RamblinDude --
Sadly, your statement bears an eerie resemblance to Psalm 2:
(Taken from the KJV, because no other English translation so aptly captures the true spirit of God's vengeful, grandiloquent love.)
Posted by: Interrobang | April 30, 2008 1:48 AM
You can use the voice-altering thing in the preferences
So why should it be her responsibility to prevent them from engaging in their nasty behaviour? News flash: It's not women's job to make men behave. (Saying so is rapist logic, for what it's worth. Please tell me you're not a rape apologist.)
Count me as another woman in IT. I'm now the head software tester at my company; I took over the job from the man who had been doing it. I can build a computer from parts and did my first Linux install before I ever did a Windows install. Take your sexism some other place.
Incidentally, if we didn't have all this religion cluttering up the world, probably the proposition that women are also people and entitled to all the rights and responsibilities apportioned thereto wouldn't be so incredibly controversial...
Posted by: Kseniya | April 30, 2008 1:55 AM
RambDude, you're a very, very
evilwise man.Etha:
Yes, yes, but the subtext is revealing in a way that encourages me: This was done to eliminate the competition!
That's right, and No Way would an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god have done such a thing. Factor in the "us" (which you've already pointed out) and what do we have? We have the act of a flawed, insecure, power-grasping deity, one who's worried about the security of his seat in the firmament and who's part of a larger pantheon of (comparably flawed) deities. The entity responsible for Babel may as well have been Loki, The Trickster.
Ok, now I'm really going to sleep. :-)
Posted by: RamblinDude | April 30, 2008 1:56 AM
Etha,
As disturbing as those verses are, it's even more disturbing that throughout this land there a millions of people who go to weekly prayer meetings to study this stuff, assiduously, in order to apply it to their lives.
I gotta go.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 1:59 AM
@#329 Kseniya --
Personally, I think it's just another case of an insecure male over-compensating. I mean, look at what he's feeling threatened by...a fucking *tower*. How more overtly phallic can you get before you turn your entire mythology into a subject for Freudian analysis?
Also, the raping a virgin thing? So not cool...
Posted by: DLC | April 30, 2008 2:00 AM
I had a sharp and profoundly acidic rant in mind when I started reading the comments on this.
however, the length of the comments have allowed my blood pressure to return to normal, and at any rate I've been up for 33 hours straight and just don't have the energy for eloquence. However, I feel compelled to make a couple of points.
First: I gather from the post, and some of the replies, that these people were not only prey of witch-doctors, but wannabe witch doctors themselves. They wanted a miracle, and were willing to sacrifice their daughter to get one. They got no miracle and lost the daughter and three other children into the bargain. They face jail time and possibly even permanent loss of control of their surviving children.
They have been held up to public scorn and ridicule.
All for good reasons. This is the dirty, vile end of religion which has caused nothing but death and misery for over 2000 years. to paraphrase their own holy book:
When I was a child I thought childish thoughts and did childish things. Now I am a man and I must think as a man and act as a man. Is it not clear that this religiosity,
this following of the witch doctors is the thoughts and acts of children ? Can we not put away this childish thing?
Finally, some have said that they fear these followers of the witch-doctors. There is reason to be apprehensive.
As for me, I do not fear them, I despise them.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 2:01 AM
@#330 RamblinDude --
What's even more disturbing is that these people then turn around and tell us we have no morals.
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 2:08 AM
@#332 DLC --
It's the story of Abraham and Isaac all over again, except this time, God forgot to step in and say, "Just kidding!"
(And here's the really depressing part: Abraham is held up to be a model patriarch in Judeo-Christian mythology. Take the following words of a Xian children's song:
Ummm...no thanks. I think I can do without being the child of a patriarch who is willing to slaughter his own child at God's beck and call. Being the child of our last universal ancestor seems like a much better option....)
Posted by: norca66 | April 30, 2008 2:09 AM
Thanks for an engaging exchange, Kseniya. I like your intellect. Hate to talk all dirty like that :)
Posted by: Etha Williams | April 30, 2008 3:01 AM
Not to self-promote, but:
My take on this whole shameful incident and its basis in biblical morality.
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 4:26 AM
Jeepers, what a discussion! I almost regret my policy of reading all the comments before I respond. I posted in the "Proposed site redesign" story that a threaded mode would be great to make long discussions like this easier to follow, but I digress.
Super Reply Mode - Engage!
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 4:56 AM
Re: Evolution in action
As Jim A (#197) and Kseniya (#119) so rightly point out, it's an issue of memetics (much as I hate the term) not genetics. While the parents have demonstrably reduced their reproductive viability (BY KILLING THEIR CHILD), it is not because of genetic factors and is not heritable except in that parents tend to pass their beliefs on to their children.
There is also the consideration that in normal evolution offspring which do not survive are unlucky or were maladapted to their environment. Nature is red in tooth and claw. This poor girl had intelligent (technically) but criminally negligent parents who stood by and watched her die. As humans we hold ourselves above natural selection and do not accept that chance, disease or poor adaption are right or just reasons to let somebody die. To state otherwise is to commit the naturalistic fallacy, which reasonable people abhor, particularly in cases of life and death.
In summary, this case is not an example of evolutionary pressure on genes. It is an example of a poisonous and irrational idea leading to the death of a girl.
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 30, 2008 5:04 AM
it is not because of genetic factors and is not heritable except in that parents tend to pass their beliefs on to their children.
actually, that might not be quite accurate.
there are several studies now suggesting a heritable component to extreme religious behavior.
There was a twin study discussed on Pandas Thumb a few years back, for example.
I can dig up the references, if you like.
there is also a decent overview of the subject in this book:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t777347226
Posted by: Ichthyic | April 30, 2008 5:09 AM
some articles worth reading on the subject:
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/160/11/1965?%20the%20study
http://www.atypon-link.com/AAP/doi/pdf/10.1375/twin.2.2.59
second one is pdf and is a basic review published in 1999.
there was some popular news coverage of the issue in the late 90's/early 2000's too.
Posted by: bernarda | April 30, 2008 5:16 AM
A French catholic organization did a poll of Europeans and Americans about their knowledge and use of the bible.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2008/04/29/01001-20080429ARTFIG00019-la-france-mauvaise-eleve-pour-la-connaissance-de-la-bible-.php
partial translation,
"France is the country most affected by the disappearance of religion in the public forum, and by consequence in private life."
"Contrary to a lot of other countries, religion is not a part of culture in France. It is very marginal."
49% of the French said they never prayed. In the U.S., 87% said they prayed and 63% said they prayed every day. In France, less than 50% of the people had a bible at home, while in the U.S. only seven percent didn't have one.
The U.S. has a long way to go before becoming a rational country.
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 5:36 AM
Re: Section 948.04 (6)
First, June (#88).
As a rule of thumb, certainly. But every jurisdiction has laws about manslaughter and criminal negligence which apply when crimes have been committed due to stupidity or carelessness rather than malice.Now...
I'm with Leo Tarvi (#267) on this one. I don't think Etha (#282) quite caught his meaning. Still, it's not clear cut and I'm unhappy that the law exists at all and could be argued in court.
I will try and highlight the difference I see between Leo and Etha's interpretations
Case 1: Girl has a fever, parents only pray for her and she recovers.
Case 2: Girl has a fever, parents only pray for her and she suffers mild brain damage.
Leo argues that in case 1 the parents are protected because by Section 948.04 (6) they are "not guilty of an offense ... solely because [they provide] treatment by spiritual means through prayer alone ... in lieu of medical or surgical treatment [though they may be guilty for other reasons]", so as much as concerned neighbours might like to set child services on the parents, they cannot be charged specifically with providing prayer instead of proper medical attention, and there are no other complaints to answer. However in case 2 there is the additional complaint that the parents allowed permanent harm to come to the girl by denying her medical treatment - which they are not protected from.
In Etha's interpretation the parents are also protected in case 2 because they are "not guilty of an offense... because [they provide] treatment by spiritual means through prayer alone ... in lieu of medical or surgical treatment".
The correct interpretation hinges on the meaning of "solely". It is either a bad law or a disgustingly bad law. Leo's interpretation is like saying that dangerous driving is not a crime as long as you don't actually hurt somebody. Etha's is like saying that dangerous driving is not a crime if you were too drunk or stupid to know any better.
I apologise if I have misreperesented Leo or Etha, or if you feel that my elipses have been misleading.
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 5:50 AM
Thank you Ichthyic, the links are appreciated. When making such posts I always worry about finding the right point between overstating my position (as I may have just done) and making a wishy-washy meaningless statement.
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 6:06 AM
Re: Bad statistics about deaths from malpractice
Ridiculous lack of appropriate comparison. Just for starters, they should be talking about deaths per 10,000 participants or similar. Does anyone really believe that comparing the absolute number of deaths between [almost the entire United States] and [the occasional nutjobs who reject modern medicine] is useful? Even if you scale the numbers to deaths per 10,000 participants, the second group will have error bars up the wazoo.OK, I'm done with my mathematical indignation now.
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 6:13 AM
Re: Bad statistics about deaths from malpractice
BlueIndependent (#134):
3 cases per 4 months = 9 cases per year
9 cases per year over 20 years = 180 cases, a lot like 172
Of course, that's if you assume that every case is publicised. And not that I disagree with your sentiment. Just being a math nazi.
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 6:29 AM
Re: The IT girl
gex:
Indeed. I'm an almost-young white guy, and even from my superficially-conforming perspective, voice chat is a great reason to avoid a game. Even the text channels in Counter Strike are abominable. You cited XKCD and I assume you'd be familiar with Penny Arcade, but I haven't seen anyone cite John Gabriel's G.I.F.T yet.
Posted by: negentropyeater | April 30, 2008 6:34 AM
Bernarda #341,
and I can't stop reminding myself how at the root Frankin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau were all so close ... And nowadays, we are so far apart. So strange how history writes itself.
Posted by: Andreas Johansson | April 30, 2008 6:44 AM
Re: the It Girl/I.T. Girl thing, I wondered which was meant - the former made more sense, the capitalization suggested the later.
Re: America, irrationality, and Bible knowledge, remember that survey of Huckabee supporters? The majority had a flunk sunday school level of familiarity of the Bible. A survey by the Swedish Bible commission back in the '80s had a similar result - the large majority of Christians rarely if ever read the Bible. Meanwhile, as can be seen in this very thread, plenty non-believers are quite familiar with the book. I'm forced to conclude that Bible knowledge and use is largely useless as a predictor of belief or rationality.
Finally, Pastor Bob? Are we being Poe'd by some Piranha Club fan?
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 6:52 AM
Re: Lets throw them in prison and rape them repeatedly LOL
Respect to Nick Gotts at #220. Retributive prison rape is a profoundly disgusting idea and it seems to be firmly entrenched in the mindset of some people. I know the death of this girl is a very emotional subject and you need to blow off steam, but I wish you'd tone down the casual barbarism.
I firmly believe that the highest punishment it is ethical to inflict is excision from society. Practically, this would be life in prison without parole. The most important thing is to prevent further crimes, although I am open to arguments about the deterrent value of visible punishment.
The finer points of crime and punishment aside, if anyone would like to seriously suggest that retributive rape is a moral act I'm prepared to wage a bitter flame war all up and down teh internets.
Posted by: Hematite | April 30, 2008 7:01 AM
Re: feet washing
Nentuaby (#223):
Thanks for the explanation, but I respectfully disagree that it's not weird. Even knowing the context, it's as kooky as that mayor the other day with his sack cloth and ashes. Or saying the pledge of allegience in schools.
Well, maybe weird is relative. I didn't grow up with this kind of bible craziness, in my family or in my community.