ChatterBank2 mins ago
A Literal Belief In The Bible Is Bad For Your Health?
44 Answers
A further example of what appears to be the needless death of a child because the parents believed that prayer would be sufficient to cure their children.
I find such a fundamentalist belief truly baffling - that you would put your child ren at risk for your faith. Its not as if they did not have evidence that this might happen. The same fate occurred to the child of another couple who were members of the same church.
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I find such a fundamentalist belief truly baffling - that you would put your child ren at risk for your faith. Its not as if they did not have evidence that this might happen. The same fate occurred to the child of another couple who were members of the same church.
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Answers
Adults can risk their own lives but they have an obligation to protect children. There is no justificatio
19:28 Fri 30th Aug 2013
Mad - utterly mad! I had a quick look at the church's website - founded 26AD, apparently. :o/
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Will investigate further when I have more time.
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Will investigate further when I have more time.
@jno Well obviously they were doing what they believed was right; What their faith told them - that prayer could heal, that doctors were unnecessary. The tragedy here is that children die from treatable diseases as a consequence of this belief, this faith. And it is not as if this has never happened before - they even have examples from within their own church.
Given that the vast majority of the religious are happy enough to go along to a doctor - rationalising it if necessary by remarking that god is working through the doctor - why can't this lot?
As it stands, it is the children, who are deemed incompetent to make their own decisions in cases like this who suffer. Another family have lost their 2 sons and are being tried for murder over the death of the second - how is this not baffling? You do not think such a literalist interpretation of religious tenets at all remarkable or worthy of comment? We should just put up with it because its a faith -based decision?
Interesting that you bring MMR into this argument, too. Those parents who refused the MMR vaccine initially might have had understandable reservations, but those who subsequently continued to refuse the MMR vaccine are effectively exhibiting a faith in the presence of evidence of fraud and misconduct in Wakefield. I find that an interesting parallel to the mindset of the religious fundamentalist.
Indeed I am pretty sure there is something of a correlation between those with a fundamentalist faith and the anti-vaccinationists.
Given that the vast majority of the religious are happy enough to go along to a doctor - rationalising it if necessary by remarking that god is working through the doctor - why can't this lot?
As it stands, it is the children, who are deemed incompetent to make their own decisions in cases like this who suffer. Another family have lost their 2 sons and are being tried for murder over the death of the second - how is this not baffling? You do not think such a literalist interpretation of religious tenets at all remarkable or worthy of comment? We should just put up with it because its a faith -based decision?
Interesting that you bring MMR into this argument, too. Those parents who refused the MMR vaccine initially might have had understandable reservations, but those who subsequently continued to refuse the MMR vaccine are effectively exhibiting a faith in the presence of evidence of fraud and misconduct in Wakefield. I find that an interesting parallel to the mindset of the religious fundamentalist.
Indeed I am pretty sure there is something of a correlation between those with a fundamentalist faith and the anti-vaccinationists.
@ Sandy Well thats precisely my point.
These preventable child deaths are as a direct result of the particular interpretation of biblical screed by fundamentalist churches. And the belief and faith is so strong that it transcends even previous personal experience - there is at least one couple who lost one child to a preventable death, were warned in court to take their other children to a doctor, and then had another son die again from a preventable disease. This church, Christian Scientists put faith above doctoring, it seems.
In a similar manner, JWs have interpreted a particular verse within the bible as an instruction not to receive transfusions of blood or blood products.
These preventable child deaths are as a direct result of the particular interpretation of biblical screed by fundamentalist churches. And the belief and faith is so strong that it transcends even previous personal experience - there is at least one couple who lost one child to a preventable death, were warned in court to take their other children to a doctor, and then had another son die again from a preventable disease. This church, Christian Scientists put faith above doctoring, it seems.
In a similar manner, JWs have interpreted a particular verse within the bible as an instruction not to receive transfusions of blood or blood products.
The problem is, we are not born knowing how to think . . . and many never advance very far beyond that stage.
Thinking is not a product of evolution, it is rather a highly evolved capacity that must be fostered and developed into an efficient effective process, a process the understanding of which has itself evolved, mostly through trial and error, over millennia, a process for which by the way, for the vast majority at least, there is still much room for improvement.
I can't think of anything off hand that has done more to discourage the development of the art of rational objective critical thinking than religion, believing without reason in that which defies, condemns and proclaims the human mind as our own worst enemy. Reason is our means of and the process responsible for our survival, progress and well-being as a species, a species potentially unrivalled in thought and caring that is defined and exists only by virtue of reason apart from which we would still be kneeling before and sacrificing our virgin daughters to the nearest erupting volcano.
Thinking is not a product of evolution, it is rather a highly evolved capacity that must be fostered and developed into an efficient effective process, a process the understanding of which has itself evolved, mostly through trial and error, over millennia, a process for which by the way, for the vast majority at least, there is still much room for improvement.
I can't think of anything off hand that has done more to discourage the development of the art of rational objective critical thinking than religion, believing without reason in that which defies, condemns and proclaims the human mind as our own worst enemy. Reason is our means of and the process responsible for our survival, progress and well-being as a species, a species potentially unrivalled in thought and caring that is defined and exists only by virtue of reason apart from which we would still be kneeling before and sacrificing our virgin daughters to the nearest erupting volcano.
It’s pretty well-known that I have my doubts about MMR which is why I suspect the subject has been raised. However, my doubt demonstrates a lack of ‘faith’ rather than the opposite so the analogy doesn’t work. Let us not allow the thread to be side-tracked.
The strange thing is, these parents have ‘faith’ in their religion to cure their children, but when that fails, clearly demonstrating that their methods don’t work, they don’t question the failure – and if they do, although they know that by other means death was preventable, they assume it was God’s will to allow their children to die, and once again God is off the hook. There’s no rationality in that.
The strange thing is, these parents have ‘faith’ in their religion to cure their children, but when that fails, clearly demonstrating that their methods don’t work, they don’t question the failure – and if they do, although they know that by other means death was preventable, they assume it was God’s will to allow their children to die, and once again God is off the hook. There’s no rationality in that.
@ Naomi Not sure quite why you assume that MMR has been raised to be directed at you, but why not ask Jno if that was the case, since they raised it?
And whilst you might argue that your own reservations about MMR are perfectly rational, perfectly sound, not at all dictated by faith or otherwise, I am not sure that your specific thought processes surrounding the issue of MMR prove my hypothesis wrong - namely, that many of those refusing the MMR vaccine have an absolute faith with a capital F in Wakefield,have an absolute faith in the idea that it is some component of the vaccine - thimerosal, or stem cells, or something - that cause autism, flying square in the face of the mountains of evidence that show otherwise. They continue to portray Wakefield as a brave plucky maverick researcher, stomped upon, conspired against and villified by "big pharma" and the medical establishment. This, despite facts and evidence showing the conflicts of interest that he clearly had.
And I know that there have been studies demonstrating a link between a fundamentalist religious worldview and an anti-vaccination stance. I will have to dig out the papers sometime.
Nor do I think the issue of MMR, raised by Jno, derails the original subject.Presumably the parents in the link provided in the OP thought that faith and healing through faith was the best thing for their children, much the same way that parents refusing the MMR vaccination for their children thought they were doing the best for theirs - and to my mind from a similar mindset; rejecting the evidence and expert advice in favour of a faith-based worldview.
And whilst you might argue that your own reservations about MMR are perfectly rational, perfectly sound, not at all dictated by faith or otherwise, I am not sure that your specific thought processes surrounding the issue of MMR prove my hypothesis wrong - namely, that many of those refusing the MMR vaccine have an absolute faith with a capital F in Wakefield,have an absolute faith in the idea that it is some component of the vaccine - thimerosal, or stem cells, or something - that cause autism, flying square in the face of the mountains of evidence that show otherwise. They continue to portray Wakefield as a brave plucky maverick researcher, stomped upon, conspired against and villified by "big pharma" and the medical establishment. This, despite facts and evidence showing the conflicts of interest that he clearly had.
And I know that there have been studies demonstrating a link between a fundamentalist religious worldview and an anti-vaccination stance. I will have to dig out the papers sometime.
Nor do I think the issue of MMR, raised by Jno, derails the original subject.Presumably the parents in the link provided in the OP thought that faith and healing through faith was the best thing for their children, much the same way that parents refusing the MMR vaccination for their children thought they were doing the best for theirs - and to my mind from a similar mindset; rejecting the evidence and expert advice in favour of a faith-based worldview.
LG, I’m not suggesting that the reference to MMR was aimed specifically at me – merely noting the association. And I don’t have ‘faith’ in Wakefield – simply doubts that the subsequent reassurances are wholly acceptable. That equates to reservations – not immovable faith – which is what the people, the subject of this thread, possess.
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