A recent case in the papers caught my eye, as a young child was denied medical treatment because her parents subscribed to a faith healing cult.
Alayna Wyland. Article
Is it time for the government to shut these people down? Children are dying and suffering permanent damage because of faith healing cults, yet in some places it's still a viable defense in the court of law.
Some further reading material for those interested.
ordinary
Quackwatch
FaithHealing
HumanRights
Skeptic
Liberties
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion. ”
Does faith healing infringe on fundamental liberties?
No. In fact the opposite may be true. It is a fundamental right of a person to seek healing for their own body in whatever manner they choose is it not?
However, Does faith healing pose a danger to the vulnerable?
When it is excersised in the manner shown above, Yes.
Quote by: Jesus of Nazareth
"No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty save in accordance with law."
Doesn't a child have a fundamental right to receive proper medical care, instead of people praying and sprinkling oil all over,while they all watch him die? Faith Healing
Do the laws need to be change to protect those who cannot protect themselves?
There is also a huge social outcast problem for those who go outside the cult to receive real medical help.
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion. ”
Proper? Do placebos work? They do. Nocebos too. Are treatments with these considered 'proper?' If they work they are proper, if they don't they are not.
The law allows the practice of medicine if the practitioner is licensed. Are there no mediocre practitioners? They are insured but the practitioner is likely still mediocre.
There are anti-vaccination advocates who would ban vaccinations on the same grounds. Perhaps GM (Genetically Modified) foods should be banned on the basis of industry concealing the side effects of GM foods and so keeping us from the knowledge necessary to protect ourselves.Do the laws need to be change to protect those who cannot protect themselves?
I don't see that as a problem given your premise that help within the cult is illusory at best.There is also a huge social outcast problem for those who go outside the cult to receive real medical help.
The cases mentioned do, at first glance from an atheist moral landscape peak, example dereliction of parental responsibility.
But what is the atheists expressed reason for having children? Shotgun wedding reason? "I want to have a BABYYYYY," reason? Perhaps the religious are the same and perhaps they are not.
Who will say what is the proper reason for having children? Is the providence of a broad tax paying population sufficient to endorse the removing of children from a parents responsibility should the parents actions indicate the removal of another tax paying slave, uh, citizen? Who is that cold? Seen it listed by the Pro-Life crowd, I have.
We postulate proper medical care does exist and leave the justice system to decide whether the child is the responsibility of society, government, or the parents. As government presumes to remove society from responsibility what becomes of society's role? Is this the outcast problem you allude to?
I've a bit of interest in whether the practice of religion includes the intentional philosophy of having children as well as the method of their upbringing. The case could be made that the practice of religion included the manner of aiding an ill child or self.
Likely compassion and empathy for the individual child gives rise to the condemning of the Church of Christ, Scientists who eschew modern medicine where a child suffers, seemingly needlessly. At issue is a Massachusetts Supreme Court decision. Did the parents reasonably believe that they could rely on spiritual treatment without fear of criminal prosecution? TWITCHELL, COMMONWEALTH vs., 416 Mass. 114
Commonwealth v. Twitchell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
44 states have laws protecting such ill considered methods of tending a distressed child or self. Religious Exemptions From Child Abuse Statutes
44 states have laws recognizing that religious authority is at least on an even keel and may supersede that of the Federal Government as far as establishment of religion and establishing parental authority in the practice of that religion while a child is a minor.
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
I'm not sure how having the power of the state supersede the power of the parents in determining what is best for the child can be described as a net increase in the liberty of the child. In both cases, it is an entity other than the child making the decision about what is in the best interest of the child.
So the only real net loss of liberty in the scenario is if the state's power supersedes the right of the parent to make those decisions for their children; the parents have suffered a loss of liberty to the state. The child's net "liberty" is going to be the same regardless of what authority is making the decisions.
Rules For Conservatives
They don't know what evidence for intelligent design would look like, but they know such evidence has never been observed!
But in one scenario a child ends up living and not being permanently damaged. In the other, the boy died of a ruptured appendix because dad and mom would rather sprinkle oil on him and pray, instead of taking Zachary to a real medical doctor. (Per my linked articles.)
If neglectful parents have to suffer a "net loss of liberty" then so be it. The fact so many states allow people to hide behind the guise of religion to practice laying on of hands, or similar prayers and rituals, and pass it off as true healing, is absurd.
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion. ”
Of course, liberty doesn't just work in the sense 'free to do'; it's also 'free from'. I could not care less about a parent's freedom to neglect their child's health. The child's freedom from that neglect is more important, because, as we see here, it can result in death.
We've already judged children incapable of making such decisions. Think of sex.
If the law in any state allows this, it should be changed, and the law more vigorously enforced.
For a void without a question is just perverse.
How can it be more vigorously enforced, when it hardly ever reported? If you've been brainwashed by a cult the last thing you're going to do is seek real medical help, for fear of becoming a social pariah.
Which creates a problem with cults in general. If they are spreading lies which influence people to believe things that put defenseless children in harms way, shouldn't the cults themselves be held responsible in some facet?
“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion. ”
And that of course is the beginning of fascism, when the state begins enforcing what it believes to be in the best interests of individuals and families, and treating children as property of the state.
Rules For Conservatives
They don't know what evidence for intelligent design would look like, but they know such evidence has never been observed!
Ever hear of smiley-face, or nanny-state fascism? Forcing people to do what the state considers "best" for them is exactly how fascism begins. Individuals and parents have the right to make lousy decisions - that's the messy nature of individual liberty and limited government.
Rules For Conservatives
They don't know what evidence for intelligent design would look like, but they know such evidence has never been observed!
I see your point, but isn't the case in the OP a situation where the child and family have become property of the cult and still are not free to exercise their right to decide for themselves? The brainwashing and peer pressure practiced by cults are employed precisely to prevent members from acting according to their own opinions. I don't know that either is better than the other, I'm not in favor of either state control or cult control. And we still have the problem to deal with of the parents acting in place of the state by making life and death decisions for their children based on inaccurate beliefs.And that of course is the beginning of fascism, when the state begins enforcing what it believes to be in the best interests of individuals and families, and treating children as property of the state.
The Forum Rules
Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
[John F. Kennedy]
The principal value of debate lies in the development of logical thought processes, and the ability to articulate your positions publicly.
[Senator Dick Clark of Iowa]
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.
[Terry Pratchett]
Why not call them religions? Jehovah's Witnesses, a cult, or religion? Church of Christ, Scientists, a cult or religion? Presbyterian, cult or religion? Catholic, oh yeah, they be a cult. Why pussyfoot around the issue? You're talking about religions. Philosophies of life that parents select to condition their children to survive the challenges that life presents and in turn a model by which to raise grandchildren. This includes attitudes toward death and dying that often are considerably different than ours. Is it our business to alter their experiments in religion? I think so. What do we offer? Spend some time in a nursing home and see how a majority dies.
Were there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Which lies, spread intentionally or not, affect our children? But the topic is children dying from parents' choices that might differ from our own. Early death that is entirely preventable in our ideal world should be the ideal of all and will be if only the laws can be changed. I don't think one child rearing ideal best for all anymore than one medicine is best for all. I tolerate diversity.Which creates a problem with cults in general. If they are spreading lies which influence people to believe things that put defenseless children in harms way, shouldn't the cults themselves be held responsible in some facet?
The religions do bear responsibility for deaths that might have been prevented. The membership buries their dead according to their traditions. They grieve. Would you hang them? Or press them with large stones? Nah, that reeks of witch hunting, also prevalent and under reported and far more intolerable to my own sensitivities as that practice destroys the lives of good people to serve the hunters' sense of righteousness. Witches. Let's go after the witches. The witches preying on innocent defenseless children. The witches who need our young for the labor pool to tax and fight in the witches interests.
Want to change the laws? Change the religions' practices. Look to the case of the Mormons who were forced to alter their religious practices on the issue of family matters; multiple wives in particular. Similar pressures can be brought to bear on those situations that so egregiously assault your or my delicate empathies. Catechism for example. Mandated conformity to some standard will lessen the diversity of child rearing and greatly enhance the standing and authority of the agency holding all to the standard. I hope the standard is worth it.
Does your or my interest in the welfare of defenseless children extend beyond their health concerns while under the age of consent? Can attention to lifestyle change be instilled in our young? Well, when we get individual genomes sequenced and some mapping of them at an early enough age to condition the child to the lifestyle that will give him/her the longest disease free life indicated, will the religions fight against such controlling methods? Persuasion to the righteousness of our cause is vital.
So many adults still die of Type II Diabetes which is essentially a disease of lifestyle that modern medicine has failed to cure. Why? The cure is in the altering of the lifestyle. Pharmacology manages the disease failing the altering of the lifestyle that is responsible. The same can be said of alcohol and drug addictions. Courts require of those that they attend therapy/rehab to alter their lifestyles and not a few embrace the 12 steps principles that seem founded on cult practices.
Can we fault parents when our own courts use similar practices? Sure we can but it looks hypocritical. I think pragmatically that if telling a kid that pointing the ray gun looking device (Ultra Violet light source) at a wart soaked with a fluorescent, makes the wart go away, then the Placebo effect has some mechanism that if not as automatically effective as a double blind tested medicine, then so what? Use it and hang the reason for its working while you're figuring that part out. Parents have a closer relationship than you or I to their children. They suffer more than you or I from mistakes in their own judgment regarding treatment of health.
Lifestyle conditioning at a young age will soon enough be found to NOT be one of conformity, with some genomic indications requiring wide variances in lifestyles if a long and healthy life of the individual is the goal. Then we can justify taking newborns and segregating them to camps that condition them to lifestyles best suited to that epigenetic sensitivity indicated by their genome.
Until then, prepare. Steel yourself to the idea of diversity. But let's agree on the end goal of such diversity being a long and healthy life as dictated by the Genomics of the day and NOT the imagined dictates of a god from the minds of ancient herdsmen. Don't forget the guiding principle that justifies the ordering of society: a healthy populace does more work and can pay more taxes.
If the terrain and the map do not agree, follow the terrain.
When motherhood becomes the fruit of a deep yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become a new race.
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