Let's poll the readers and see if it's OK to kill children with neglect

It's another of those horrible stories of an ignorant fundie family with a sick child who could be easily cured by modern medicines, but they chose to treat him with the uselessness of prayer…and guess what happens? They're now the proud parents of a corpse.

The media doesn't help. They give a voice to all the frauds saying things like, "Our teaching is to trust Almighty God for everything in life: for health, for healing, for protection, for provisions, for avenging of wrongs" and "The result was not what they wanted because our faith is imperfect at times. But God is perfect." And then they go further and create a stupid poll for specious validation of the majority view.

Do you believe in the power of prayer to heal?

Yes 7.1%
Yes, but in conjunction with medicine 54.8%
No 38.1%
Don't know 0%

That "Yes, but in conjunction with medicine" is such a common cop-out. This is what the apologists for religion do: let the stuff that works give cover for the lies they spew that do nothing and do harm. And they're just as wicked as the ones who flatly say yes.

More like this

Those of us who support science-based medicine and do our part to expose and combat quackery are naturally outraged at how rarely quacks are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. All too often, all we can expect is for doctors practicing such chicanery to lose their medical licenses and be…
A couple of weeks ago, I made the observation that there seems to have been a--shall we say?--realignment in one of the central arguments that proponents of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM) and "integrative medicine" (IM) make. Back in the day (say, a few years ago), such CAM…
About a month ago, I wrote about an unbelievably sad story of a 12-year-old girl in Wisconsin who died of untreated diabetic ketoacidosis because she had been unfortunate enough to have been born into a family in which the parents believed in prayer rather than medicine. I say "unbelievably"…
Over the years, I've said it many times. Competent adults have the right (or should have the right) to choose or refuse any medical treatment they wish for any reason. It doesn't matter how ridiculous the reason might be. If a competent adult believes that magic water (i.e., homeopathy) can cure…