There is a little girl dying of cancer in Seattle (there are, of course, little girls dying of cancer everywhere). There’s a positive aspect to the story, of a community pulling together and providing support for her family, but there is also a poisonous taint to it all—most of the support isn’t actually for a suffering young girl, but for a communal fantasy.
For four years, the 11-year-old has been a patient and a symbol, suffering with grace and galvanizing a community into action. The support is immense and mesmerizing, hundreds unifying to help this family with seven children. Hundreds seeing their religious beliefs manifested in this girl. Hundreds believing what Gloria believes: Instead of a medical breakthrough for her terminal illness, God will heal her.
No, no god will heal her. Entreaties to an imaginary being will not bring solace — they are an excuse to avoid reality, and in this case, to heap further burdens on a sick little girl. God will heal you if are good enough, if we pray hard enough, if every member of your family is sufficiently pious, if everyone obeys the whims of the monstrous superbeing the priests tell us about … and if you die, well, god must have wanted you dead. It’s the perfect combination of misdirected, futile striving and acceptance of that futility.
I’m not alone in being aghast at the elevation of religious belief over human reality. A surgeon feels the same way.
There is nothing — NOTHING — worse than the death of a child. I’ve attended to dying children and their families; and, as some have noticed in the sidebar of this blog, I’ve lived with it in my family. I have nothing but sympathy and sorrow for the family and for this little girl. But I think if I knew them well enough, I’d be saying this to them, off camera and away from the press: pray if you need to. Pray for comfort, for understanding, for strength. But get off this miracle healing thing. You’re ruining what life your child has left. Keep up hope? Sure, as long as it’s reasonable. But give her an out; give her a way to accept what’s happening to her, if such a thing is possible, without blaming herself.
God help me, I can’t stop. I should just shut up at this point, and let it be about the care of the poor child. But I can’t. I must also say this: there’s something perverse to the point of revulsion in the idea of a god that will heal the girl if enough people pray for her. What sort of god is that? To believe that, you must believe he deliberately made her ill, is putting her through enormous pain and suffering, with the express plan to make it all better only if enough people tell him how great he is; and to keep it up unto her death if they don’t. If that sort of god is out there, we’re in big, big, BIG trouble. If people survive an illness because of prayer, does that mean that god has rejected those that didn’t pray? If you pray for cure and don’t get it, and if you believe that praying can lead to cure, then mustn’t you accept that God heard your prayers and said no? If so, are you going to hell? But if you say either outcome is God’s will, then what’s the value of the prayer in the first place? In this case, it seems, it’s only to make the girl feel guilty and unworthy. How sad. Since the whole idea is so internally inconsistent, give the poor kid a break.
Read the comments there, too. It’s the usual mix of a few horror stories of people substituting religion for medicine, and a few oblivious apologists claiming that god makes life worth living. I’d say, rather, that god makes it easier to give up on life, to avoid the unpleasant realities, to rationalize avoiding the responsibilities. And sometimes, like when someone you love needs you, retreating into blissful fantasies is not the answer.
I’m always a little amazed at people who claim that prayer is the only way God can save someone. Using their own logic (but following it to a perhaps more “sane” conclusion): God is all powerful. God can do anything. God created all. Ergo: God created doctors. God’s already created a method by which this girl can receive attention and healing. By ignoring this method, which comes from God through man, isn’t that slightly blasphemous? I will never understand the healing by prayer alone. It’s like the story of the man in the sinking ship that’s waiting on God to deliver him, so ignores help from three passersby. When he arrives in the afterlife he’s angry and demands to know why God didn’t save him. God’s simple question: “What was wrong with those three people?” (greatly paraphrased)
Christopher Hitchens says the same thing in a debate with a fundie preacher, whose prayers for the survival of his own child have been answered:”So, how offensive do you think that is to those parents who, despite their prayers, lost their children?”.
But ultimately, that story admits that their god will do absolutely nothing for them directly and personally. Some people want to pretend that they have a “special, personal relationship with God,” and that kind of thinking negates that.
How can anyone doubt the healing power of prayer?
After watching the Lord respond to the millions of prayers a couple of years ago by effecting the miraculous recovery of Terry Schiavo, I’d have thought the matter was settled.
I find the people caught up in this circus to be revolting. Not only have they have completely abandoned rationality, but most of them are emotional vultures living vicariously through her suffering. When people ask why I became an atheist, besides the historical record that indicates much of it’s ripped off from other religions (successor/parallel) it’s the mindless dog-and-pony-show crap like this that really got to me.
All those people will scream about how God answers prayers, if you’re good enough. Bullshit. It doesn’t happen.
Even worse is the narcissistic mind-set that goes with prayer. Some omnipotent, omniscient grand-poobah in the sky is going to take a personal interest in you scoring a TD or getting a good job, even though people with greater problems are suffering and dying all over the world. Get over yourself, you’re not that important.
Fundie faith healers occasionally kill their sick kids. It sounds like this little girl is at least getting real medical care besides.
Some of the cults don’t even do that. We saw a 7 year old diagnosed with a very treatable and curable form of childhood leukemia. The parents of a local group refused medical care for their kid as they reject modern medicine for faith healing. In this state, letting kids die of diseases that are treatable is considered child abuse or child homicide. The docs actually got a court order but it was too late and the kid died.
It was such a hassle no one bothers anymore. The kids in the cult get sick. Some of them live and some of them die.
I rather think that PZ is missing the point. Just as a person suffering in terrible agony from their terminal disease might welcome spending their last days doped into near-unconsciousness on morphine, even though it means they lose whatever opportunities to interact with the world they have remaining, these people welcome a descent into delusion and religion as a relief from the terrible truths they lack the strength to confront.
I would admire the determination of a person who chose to forgo opiates so as to be conscious of the time they’re alive, but I wouldn’t dream of denying anyone access to the drugs if they wanted them.
These people are weak. They cannot withstand the agony, and desperately need the opiates to spare them from the suffering they cannot bear and thus cannot meaningfully choose to endure. Let them wallow in faith while they can.
Twist them tails, PZ.
A mother in Lebanon, Ohio last night walked naked down a two lane road, carrying her seven month old child. Apparently she laid the child down on the center line and walked away. She told police that she was “taking the baby to Satan.”
Hmm; guess her prayers failed . . .
The child was found unharmed, in the middle of the road. Go to daytondailynews.com.
They’ve turned her into a Catholic idol.
Can this little girl please have death with dignity? Without having to feel she’s letting down the people who pray night and day for her?
That’s the suckiest religious story I’ve heard in a long time. The only silver lining is reading the surgeon’s humane response. I hope when it comes my turn to leave this Earth, I get a doctor as smart as him.
This past school year a fifth grade girl fell while on her Heelies (don’t get me started on these abominations) and broke her arm. Her mom didn’t take her to the doctor’s office because she had prayed about it and if she then went to a doctor she was proving her lack of faith and God would punish her. Of course, after a few days of the girl crying and in pain and developing a fever and not able to use her hand at all, mom took her to the doctor. The doctor chided her for waiting so long and said that the arm may not heal properly. What was the woman’s conclusion? Her daughter’s arm won’t heal properly because God is punishing her for taking her daughter to the doctor instead of praying.
I applaud the surgeon for speaking out – this does not happen often enough. It seems like the temporary relief brought through religious delusion simply derails the normal grief process.
Thank you, PZ.
I live in Seattle. I have been seeing this article in the newspapers in my hometown for months, often seeing her on the frontpage. Unable to turn off my abilities to see or read, the headlines alone have allowed me to watch her slow decline. I felt aghast at the newspaper’s choice to unapologetically trumpet the day her parents pulled the plug on all but palliative care with a paean to their sky deity, telling her over and over that she’d make it, god would heal her.
Two weeks ago the newspaper front-paged Gloria again. The headline read, “Forgive Me,” a phrase which, if you’ve read Joss Whedon’s recent column, will make your stomach churn too. (Whedon’s article is about the overarching emotional malaise inculcated into women, but the same malaise can be found in the brains of jerks like the editor who chose that for his headline.)
It has been, and is, grotesque, the ongoing glorification of this little girl’s suffering. I’ve been struggling to find the right way to word my indignation, and I think you’ve found at least one clear way to say it.
With regards to pain and suffering, God has a lot to answer for. The people who are burdening a terminally-ill child with the expectation of a miracle have, I think, a little bit more to explain—though, of course, in any scheme that robs of us of our free will, God’s on the hook for their choices as well.
In reality, the vast majority of believers rely upon modern medicine in their distress, and do not expect a miracle. Ironically, this fact could be a cause for reproach from either the devout or the skeptical, as to their lack of consistency: ‘don’t you really believe?’, or something like that. Again, sad, and a challenge to any god worth worshiping.
And was that really a moment of compassion, old Scot? It’s one thing, I suppose, to grant the cloud of mourners that surround the child their veil of weakness—but don’t you think that the child herself deserves the truth? If it were me, and I was in a position to do something about it, I would tell the child, “Look, everybody dies. No one knows what happens after you die. What’s happening to you is terribly cruel, and it’s hard enough without carrying the burden of a miracle. No one has the right to tell you how to feel about what’s happening to you. However you want to deal with it is OK with me.”
And when she chooses to deal with her oncoming death by denying that it will happen?
You have much to learn about the hidden unity of cruelty and kindness.
It’s interesting that faith never seems to make severed arms and legs grow back. Supposedly it can make cancers go into remission, enable the blind to see, cure paralysis, reawaken the comatose, etc.
There’s a myth in one of the gospels about a ‘withered hand’ unwithering, and there are plenty of myths worldwide about the dead rising, but has anyone come across any myths about amputees regrowing limbs?
“but has anyone come across any myths about amputees regrowing limbs?”
No they cannot do it. But it would not surprise me if in another 50 years, science can by tinkering with the genes.
Of course when that happens it will be hailed as a miracle.
Rob #4
Touché .
sailor,
I can imagine science figuring out in principle how to regrow severed limbs, but having spent some part of last week presenting the American medical establishment with a mere broken nose, I cannot imagine them figuring out how to get around the liability issues.
Imagine the paperwork.
Ah, the theory of god as parent. Whine about something until he gets damn sick and tired of it, and says “Fine! Have it, just shut up!”
PZ, and others, you have every right to feel upset, within yourself.
But, then again, it’s their life, the girl is 11 years old, and HER decision will have absolutely no effect upon you, besides the bubbling up of anger towards her religious ways.
If it affected society as a whole – that is something different.
What’s the difference between this and abortion – besides a few years? You have no problem with abortion. Hmmm.
A bit of a disconnect, isn’t it?
Both are innocent life forms. But one has the ability to say she wants to live via praying to achieve health (influenced by her parents no doubt). The embryo/fetus/infant/zygote – can put forth no voice.
Leave the little dying girl alone to cling onto some sort of comfort in her last days.
Or, are you going to travel back to Seattle (since you were just there the bed might still be warm) and tell her like it is?
Myself, I have a signed God Delusion book (and am Pro-Life, and against the death penalty if you wish to know) but if the girl is basically signing her death certificate, then legally that is her affirmational, conscious choice.
It’s bizarre how Dawkins and PZ keep stating how elegantly poetical and beautiful life is to then turn around and accede abortion.
Oh and by the way, it’s interesting the recent front cover of Time has a huge spread on Obama, Hillary and dear old John because they’re all going religious for the votes, but unfortunately, it’s not posted anywhere on this site.
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20070723,00.html
Ugh, tragic and disturbing…something about stupidity being infinite, as well.
My grandfather died of stomach cancer. His family were “Christian Scientists”, and they apparently blamed my grandmother for causing his death, by not praying hard enough or by doubting God’s grace, or some such. There was a lot more to that ugly family drama, of course, but as a young child it brought home to me just how badly the whole God and prayer thing could be abused to bring misery into people’s lives.
PZ, if I misattributed words to you because of my poor memory, then I deeply and unreservedly apologise.
Guys, give them a break! God’s off in Darfur saving children with magic. We can’t expect him to do everything and be everywhere, right? And if she continues to get sick, then maybe God wants her to die. Sheesh! Am I the only one who thinks this?
Nope, no disconnect. And that you can’t tell the difference between this and abortion shows how intellectually and morally shallow you are.
Of course when that happens it will be hailed as a miracle.
Nope – it will be seen as hubristic meddling with God’s perfect design.
It is pretty obvious what is going on. The girl isn’t getting healed because they are all praying to the wrong God.
They need to find the right God(s) to pray to. Do that, and the girl will be healed. All these prayers to the wrong God are likely pissing the real God(s) off, and they are making this girl worse out of spite.
They should do an experiment. Have everyone pray to one God one week, a different God the following week, and keep changing Gods each week until she is miraculously healed. If she isn’t healed, then they didn’t find the right God(s) to pray to.
What exactly is this “innocence” that you speak of? It sounds like you’re suggesting once a person reaches a certain age his or her life is of less value.
I assume you’re talking about “sin.” I guess we can conclude that the death of a six year old that once told a lie to Mommy is a smaller loss than a miscarried embryo. And the death of a 15 year old that’s started to have naughty naked thoughts is a smaller loss than that of the six year old. And the death of an 80 year old, well, maybe we just shouldn’t get upset at all about that, what will all the stains on his soul.
And, of course, in the immortal words of George Carlin:
For those who haven’t been introduced- Philo is our new troll.
No, it isn’t. It’s terrible. But cruelty is a type of intention, a state of mind. Cancer doesn’t have it.
What’s happening to her is terrible and senseless. But it’s also mindless and as such, incapable of cruelty, even while it causes suffering.
Of course, if there *were* someone aiming cancer at some people and not at others, targeting her *would* be cruel, just like it’s cruel to aim tsunamis at densely populated coasts and hurricanes at cities with poorly maintained levees. But in the real world none of those things actually are aimed by intelligent beings capable of cruelty.
One of the burdens of atheism is that there seems to be a direct relationship between religiosity and the amount of pain in people’s lives. (1) If you’re dealing with a lot of horrible stuff, you really want to believe there’s a larger point to your suffering, or a better existence somewhere down the line, or that your life will magically improve. So I can’t really blame a family with a dying child for taking shelter in that particular cave.
And I’d say that’s nice that people help out with practical things like money and babysitting, except look at the price she–the kid, the dying kid–is paying for it: Being made into the star of a real-life soap opera, for everyone’s entertainment.
She won’t go to the fuck|ng Fantozzis’ prayer meeting? Good for her. But what absolute gall these people had in even asking. What boneheadedness of her family for even considering it. And apparently this sort of imposition happens to the kid weekly, daily. Sheesh. Most of these people don’t even know the girl. It’s not their loss, any more than any other dying child they don’t know. So what’s their excuse? They just want a sideshow.
(1) Atheists don’t proselytize (although ironically, theirs is the fastest-growing set of religious beliefs in the country), but if they wanted to proselytize, attacking hunger, poverty, war, xenophobia, ignorance and disease would be the way to go. Because conventional religions just feed on that stuff. Which explains the animosity of your more vampiric religions to science.
An oldie from the Onion: “God Answers Prayers of Paralyzed Little Boy — “No,” Says God”
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28812
(although ironically, theirs is the fastest-growing set of religious beliefs in the country)
What on earth is that supposed to mean? Fastest growing set (common set? whose common set?) of no belief.
Oh, I guess it’s this sort of god.
“When the Strausses went to Ocean Shores in May, they returned to a refurbished home. Friends cleaned the yard, cleaned the house, painted the house, added fresh pictures, bought a new trampoline and installed fresh carpet.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Kelley Masterson, who helped with the home makeover. “Up close, it’s hallowed ground. I can’t believe we did so much work. God was transforming the ordinary to the extraordinary.”
Take credit for your own generosity, kindness and unselfishness.
Appropriately enough, those who will die because they put all of their healing efforts into prayer deserve a Darwin Award. Ironic, isn’t it?
What?! The only logical requirement to be an atheist is to be without belief in deities. They may or may not proselytize, and it’s the case that many do not. But your statement is without foundation or merit.
How should we respond to ignorance?
PZ, like you, I often respond to reports such as this with thoughts of derision and ridicule. But in my more thoughtful moments, I remember that, as a materialist and atheist, I believe that people come to be what they are as a result of their genetic endowment and their environment, and that they choose neither.
And I ask myself, is it really appropriate to blame these people for their ignorance? No, I believe it is not. Therefore, I conclude that, if I knew these people and had a role to play, ideally, I would do what I could to educate them.
Perhaps ridicule is effective in educating the ignorant. I really don’t know. But I do believe that I have an obligation to do the best I can to educate the ignorant, and to search for the best means of doing so.
Of course I am not so naive to think that education will always be effective. Sometimes legal and other tactics are required. But I prefer to try education first.
People aren’t passive receivers of an external environment – they’re part of the processes that shape them. The people that have made themselves ignorant by their own choices are responsible for what they are as much as the world around them is.
I for one am sick and tired of trying to persuade, with rational discussion, irrational people. They spout all sorts of assertions with no backup information, toss any piece of “I don’t know” into some god’s realm, and are, in my opinion, willfully ignorant. I don’t need to be their nanny nor their teacher, especially when they metaphorically spit on said teacher. So I initially try to engage in considered discussion, but am not above pouring scorn and ridicule on their heads, especially once thickheadedess is proudly displayed.
Tim, I don’t think being an atheist position requires being either determinist nor fatalist as well. Virtually all jurisdiction is built on the premise that the individual has a response for his/her actions, regardless of their background or present conditions. I don’t think being stupid or ignorant is a criminal action, but removing the personal responsibility for stupid actions ain’t gonna help them in any way.
gah… ignore the first being.
When an atheist strives to be truly rational and truly compassionate, he or she has to admit that situations like this are just plain hard.
One of my family members has been dealing with life-threatening cancer, and he and his immediate family have a Catholic religious belief, and it clearly brings him solace. Although I don’t share that belief, it is emotionally impossible for me to even consider trying to convince them otherwise. It is probably not even ethical to do that.
Blogging about it provides an emotional firewall, one can get up a head of rationalist steam without the immediacy of the child and her family and their suffering. And yet, there is also a societal concern about sharing with others one’s justifiable concerns about the primitiveness of praying for a cure. So there is that tension between the local concern (a grief-stricken and misguided family) and the larger concern (a rational society).
Atheists should be discussing that tension searchingly.
I love the twisted logic.
My child dying is bad. I will pray to (deity) that she lives.
Child dies.
It’s good that my child is dead, she is with (deity) now, who needed her more than we did.
See also:
http://www.lot49.com/2006/06/god_will_save_me_if_he_exists.shtml
I read this just after I read the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer and the story of the passing of Little Audrey.
Little Audrey nearly died after her mother wanted to fly her to the former Yugoslavia to visit a shrine and spent the rest of her life in, what I will call, a permanent vegetative state.
The religious all used to come around and pay to shuffle past Audrey to receive their own miracle cure. In Audrey’s case they were looking for something from this poor living being and it appears the whole emotional well-being of some neighbourhoods in Seattle is dependent on Gloria.
Vampires do exist, emotionally speaking anyway and they feed on others and grow strong off of other people’s suffering. But they hide their foul deeds behind a cloak of piety and doublespeak.
cm: One thing that distinguishes this case is that we’re talking about a minor.
If an adult finds that prayer alleviates suffering, then that’s their business. I’m queasy though at the thought of a little girl becoming the religious idol of a group of fantasists.
Frustrating isn’t it PZ? Being surrounded by people who insist on seeing the Emporer’s new clothes.
I keep wondering if there is a genetic default system that allows most of us to believe in the supernatural when lack of technology and understanding limits our ability to comprehend how the universe works, in order to maintain sanity.
Since our pattern seeking human minds seek comprehension constant of our world, perhaps there is a function of the cognitive brain to settle for irrational answers when the lack of evidence or understanding is stymied. Superstition and religion have provided, the explanations for everything, as well as ways to control societies, when evidence and understanding were lacking.
The big question is why modern, seemingly rational, intelligent people still cannot separate irrational explanations from sound ones when they have science and technology at their disposal.
Is it simply the power of religious indoctrination before the ability to reason and the resulting dissonance of extricating fact from fiction in parental and socially/culturally supported fantasies and the underlying distrust it breeds? Or, rather that some people lack the ability to believe in fantasy once the tenets of reason and logic have been introduced?
Is the propensity for skepticism (not cynicism) a genetic trait? Is the acceptance of imaginary gods, faeries, demons, ghosts, sprites, witches, magic etc. as actuality a vestigial psychological failsafe that we cannot seem to rid ourselves of, no matter how rationally or logically adept we become? Are there belief genes?
When dealing with the prayer crowd I simply think “Horticulture”… as in “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think…”
I wish I knew the particulars of the case (or maybe not, cuz I might vomit). Most states will interfere to bring care to a minor whose parents are denying it.
In my state, there was an inverse case, where the docs wanted to offer basically hopeless, intensive treatment to a basically hopeless case. The parents finally prevailed.
It’s sad when courts have to get involved in this stuff, but where children are concerned things are crazy.
The famous Illinois case of Sammy Linaris (sp?) led to the passage of a health care surrogacy act, so at least some good became of it.
By their own logic, god made her sick, god gave her cancer, who are they to dare pray for him to change his mind?
God is testing their faith. If they show enough faith, they’ll be blessed, perhaps in this life, perhaps in the next.
Why God feels his need to test their faith justifies the suffering of a little girl is left as an exercise for the reader.
/By their own logic, god made her sick, god gave her cancer, who are they to dare pray for him to change his mind?/
No, you forget that SATAN is the cause for all the world’s evils (despite that he was created by an omniscient and omnipotent god, though he seems as powerful as this god) For a great a laugh google “Mr. Deity”.
In reply to comment #7,
you ignorant SOB It is obvious you have never felt true pain When you hurt so bad you want to shot yourself but can not remember where the bolt for your gun is because of the agony then you can decide if these peaple are weak!
This reminds me of some excrutiating interviews with survivors of the 2004 Tsunami. They claimed that they survived because they prayed, and God must have been looking out for them.
So, by that logic, God didn’t care about the thousands of people who didn’t survive? They weren’t as worthy as you?
Incredible arrogance.
PZ wrote:
“a poisonous taint”
That’s arguably redundant.
I don’t really keep up with theological research, but what is the minimum number of prayers required to effect a cure, or at least a remission? If this amount of prayer cannot be obtained I am gonna’ be really pissed! All those bastards had to do is pray which only takes a minute or so, and they wouldn’t?
By the way, this shows the reason it’s best to join yourself to an at least currently popular sect. A greater amount of prayers will be available at short notice, should you fall ill.
Fastest growing set (common set? whose common set?) of no belief.
Bob – Forgive the phrasing. Anyway, Americans are leaving all religions faster than they’re joining any of them.
However, in looking for a citation, I found that wasn’t quite true: Wicca (along with other forms of Neopaganism) is the fastest growing religion in America, doubling approximately every 30 months–largely, I believe, from people fleeing mainstream religions. (Note however, that these numbers are from 2001.)
As for nonbelievers, their numbers increased ~78% in 11 years (Taken from this and this. ) to ~14.2% of the general population. (Compare with Baptists, at 16.3%.)
* * *
Caledonian: Once again, go fück yourself.
Christian Burnham:
One thing that distinguishes this case is that we’re talking about a minor. If an adult finds that prayer alleviates suffering, then that’s their business. I’m queasy though at the thought of a little girl becoming the religious idol of a group of fantasists.
I understand, but “queasiness” is just the start. The real complexity begins with questions such as: who is harmed here and how? Is it that there are more than the immediate family members involved which bothers you, and if so, why? Could it be that this girl’s awful circumstance is actually made better by the sense of hope and community support that the religious community around her brings? If you would have things different, how would they be different, and how realistic is that to implement? Etc. Keep in mind, in this case no one is denying this girl real medical attention. It is a matter of the behavioral context of the family and the religious community that is triggering PZ’s and our reactions.
It is worth discussing, but it requires time and patience.
PZ Myers: “there is also a poisonous taint to it all–most of the support isn’t actually for a suffering young girl, but for a communal fantasy.”
You make an assumption (an erroneous one, I believe) similar to the one Coturnix makes when he insists that people of faith tend to be stuck at an earlier stage of moral development because they, he suggests, require an external locus of moral authority (namely, God). (Correct me if I’ve misstated this model.) In this case, you assume that their concerns are not really about a little girl, but mainly serve to reaffirm their faith.
Perhaps you and Coturnix ought to consider the possibility that invocations of God represent an externalized and symbolic projection of an internal state – an internal LOMA, for example, or deep concern for a suffering child. Of course, religious believers do not realize that God is merely an externalized symbolic projection, unlike say, comic book fans rhapsodizing about Superman or scholars of mythology discussing archetypes.
True, the faith healing part of the story is disturbing.
Ever consider that God is an external and symbolic representation of the individuals’ need to enforce social conformity and the desire to punish those who ignore their proscriptions?
Why has this phenomona never been quantified? Is it a matter of cumulative prayers, or the number of prayers per unit of time (P.P.M.). Is the prayers efficacy related to the moral standing of the pray-er? I have no doubt, I have complete faith the only reason prayer in not considered an effective adjunct, or even primary therapy is this lack of quantification, dosing data if you will.
I see a tremendous “faith-based” grant in the offing.
Thoughts on responses to my comment: How should we respond to ignorance?
Caledonian said:
But why did they make choices that made them ignorant? Because of some influence on them from their genetic endowment or environment. Presumably any characteristic or behavior ultimately derives from those sources.
forsen said:
I don’t think responsibility is the issue. Even if you accept my determinist view, it does not mean that we should not try to change people’s behavior. It only affects our attitude toward undesirable behavior. Here’s a very brief explanation from the Tenets of Naturalism:
Bob said:
One of my earliest thoughts about religion (probably not unique to me) was that it is an attempt to understand and control the universe, similar to science and technology in its aims, although not in the rigor of its approach. Assuming there are gods, the right sacrifices or prayers might get them to do something we want. That seems to be the hypothesis some are following in this case. I can understand that being worth a try thousands of years ago, but it is discouraging that people still think that way – or worse, that they continue to accept religion when its quid-pro-quo for prayers and sacrifices are no better than for placebos.
No, no god will heal her – PZ
You are probably right it is a statistical probability that she will not be healed by God. Part of Life is death, and in its finality it expresses change. The Change of losing a loved one (I have lost many recently) and God usually doesn’t do anything about it. I’m not going to insult your intelligence with the miraculous healing I saw, it would on cause division and elaborate arguments.
What I want to say to everyone who doesn’t believe in God is that Death makes you appreciate life and use it to its fullest.
When time has been forgotten
and no one remembers your name
The footsteps you have begotten
Will have no one else to blame.
So do your best
Every struggle is a test
Just do your best
The things that you have done
The labors you have made
Will see the light of sun
and help the people far away
So do your best
Every struggle is a test
Just do your best
My brother died from cancer in 1967 at the age of 19 (I was 16). It was first noticed in 1958; he had various symptoms and a doctor said he probably had a brain tumor.
Later there was pain, a diagnosis, surgery, radiation.
It came back and he died within a week of the pain returning.
He had sometimes felt guilty for the financial and emotional burden on the family.
I cannot imagine what an added burden, of having to apologize for not being upbeat all the time, would have done to his mental well-being.
BTW, a lot of people prayed for him, including me (Mother asked me to); that was the last time I ever did.
——————
Is this child’s last conscious thought going to be that she just didn’t try hard enough?
Chris postulated:
That is, of course, assuming that there isn’t a god. ;)
The Physicist blathered:
Oooooo, The Physicist saw some miraculous healing! I’m gonna go out on a limb and figure it was due to the medical treatment the person received. Ya know, seeing as there is no god.
Oooooo, The Physicist saw some miraculous healing! I’m gonna go out on a limb and figure it was due to the medical treatment the person received. Ya know, seeing as there is no god.
No actually what happened it was two days before his surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his brain. It was Sunday and we were at mass and as he walked down to receive the Eucharist, without provocation or planning 4 of us men stopped him and one grabbed him by the shoulders and he knelt down crying, We prayed over him all of with our hands on his head.
When they did the last MRI before his surgery it was gone. It was either God or an ant bite that did it.
Don’t mock me again, I respected you.
BTW, a lot of people prayed for him, including me (Mother asked me to); that was the last time I ever did.
I do understand that rejection, the desert is a nasty place.
And the reason the medical world hasn’t been stood on it’s head by this ‘cure’, or that you haven’t sought out Randi’s million bucks is … ??
I call shenanigans, so I’ll mock you all I want.
I call shenanigans, so I’ll mock you all I want.
Posted by: Spooky | July 15, 2007 08:33 PM
You can mock me all you want, but God will not be mocked, it is just a matter of time. Something most of you here don’t have a grasp on – Time
Oooh, what’s the imaginary sky buddy gonna do?
You can mock me all you want,
somebody called shenanigans?
*looks around for broom*
time to sweep this loon into the sub-basement.
When they did the last MRI before his surgery it was gone. It was either God or an ant bite that did it.
given that ants actually exist, I’d investigate the ant first.
Same thing happened to me. A piece of bread got moldy and it looked just like a squid. Had to be a sign.
So I took it out on the deck where the cats had brought a dead mouse and placed the bread over the mouse. Invoking mighty cthulhu, the other, in Panoptic, and lo and behold, that mouse got right up. Then he stole the magic piece of bread with the image of the other and scampered away. Like everything cthulhu gets involved in, the mouse seemed to have acquired a significant number of tentacles.
I would ask what it is about others and tentacles but something tells me the ways of the others are unknowable and besides I’ve already got enough tentacles, thank you.
Caledonian: you don’t know what you’re talking about. people in hospital do not ask for morphine because we’re “weak”, you ass, we ask for morphine so that it alleviates the pain enough that we can *think*. i am not a weak person, nor are any of the other people i’ve met who needed analgesics to live: the human response to pain is to rid yourself of it somehow. how does mindlessly struggling through it make me weak?
oh, and i’m happy to start a full-on discussion of this over at my place, if you want. you’ve insulted a lot of people there, buddy.
Lepht
God cures all kinds of things that are hard to diagnose or can spontaneously remit, like brain tumours.
He is pretty much incompetent when it comes to amputations and such.
Resurrections are also at all time lows, at least without medical intervention.
I’ve always wondered this…
Wouldn’t prayer, any prayer, be an insult to God? When you pray, you are in fact asking for something: bless this person, heal that person, help me blah blah blah. But God is supposed to have a plan for everyone, so when you pray to ask for someone to be blessed, you’re really saying “Screw you God, irrespective of your plan, I’d like this person blessed.”
If I was an omnipotent being and had a plan for everyone, I might let the first few requests like that slide, but I’d pretty soon be sending a very clear message about “I’ll bless whomever I damn well please, so help me, me.”
The sheer arrogance of prayer fascinates me. I can see praying to further prostrate yourself before the imaginary friend if that’s your thing, but to suggest that it should modify its master plan to suit some little human is the acme of hubris.
About 15 years ago, a cat was diagnosed with bone cancer (jaw); nothing happened for 2 years. The vet didn’t say it was a miracle, he said “I’m glad I’m not a pathologist.”
No prayer.
No ‘miracle’.
Just a mistake.
people in hospital do not ask for morphine because we’re “weak”, you ass, we ask for morphine so that it alleviates the pain enough that we can *think*
Apparently you aren’t taking enough, then, because when he referred to weak people, he was using opiates as a metaphor for the not-comforting-enough lies of religion. Opiates, in that they actually exist and accomplish something, are better than God.
Besides, I’ve been in major pain and needed opiates, and rest assured I needed them because I was weakened by pain. It’s not shameful, dude. Pain is a problem that cries out to be solved. If you feel offended that someone said you needed medicine for your weakness (even though that is not what he did say), then we’d better not mention that you need food when you’re hungry or sex when you’re horny, either, eh? The Horror.
speedwell: you’re right, they’re better than God, but i still can’t agree that those who ask for them are “weak”. physically weakened, sure, that’s just like a need for food or sex or whatever, but it sure as hell doesn’t imply a lack of mental strength.
i’m not offended at the fact that i need meds to live, i’m offended at the idea that that makes someone who doesn’t somehow “stronger” or more disciplined than me.
Lepht
When they did the last MRI before his surgery it was gone. It was either God or an ant bite that did it.
Or his immmune system finally got a clue and munched it. There are documented cases of spontaneous tumor regression in the literature. Prayer is rarely mentioned as a contributing factor. Alternately,(and I really hope that this is wrong) maybe the MRI was very poor quality and the thing was still there, just not visible on that MRI. If the event in question is recent and the patient still has symptoms, I urge him to get another MRI and/or other studies to ensure that the tumor is really gone.
Philos:
Hmm. So, if I understand correctly, extrapolating from your opposition and open contempt for one form of social welfare service in the Moore vs. Gupta thread, and your statement here, you support laws forcing women to give birth to children they don’t want, but oppose government programs that would ensure that those women were at least able to care for and provide for those children.
I think your input in any future moral disputes can safely be ignored.
The irony is this: The family has had their camera stolen, and are anguished by the loss of the “memories” that it held.
How many future memories have they lost because they refuse treatment for their daughter? There are decades worth of videotape lost, not simply a few years worth.
It is times like these that I wish there was a Hell, simply for these parents and for those in the community that are reinforcing the actions of these fools.
Christian Burnham in #57: “Could it be that this girl’s awful circumstance is actually made better by the sense of hope and community support that the religious community around her brings?”
In the recent big case controlled trial of prayer funded by the Templeton Foundation it was found that cardiac patients who were told they were being prayed for died sooner and more often than those who were not. The cancer doctors I have met all say it is the fighters who tend to go quickest. Sure, do not go gentle into that good night, just rage about the unfairness of it, don’t struggle too hard against that which you cannot affect, you will wear yourself out.
Physicist your faith in the complete perfection of modern science dsplayed in your anecdote is extremely touching and on behalf of biomedical scientsts everywhere can I just say ‘gee thanks’. BUT modern medicine is ‘gasp!’ not omniscient and diagnosis is certainly not perfect. Basically all your anecdote does is put ‘goddidit’ up instead of ‘we don’t know but isn’t it wonderful all the same?’.
People do go into remission from cancer, it happens all the time, statistically it must also happen to religious people and it may even happen to follow on from prayers for healing. But that is a correlation, it is not proof of causation. That is why we have clinical trials by high and agreed standards. Even the theists used them when they wanted to prove prayer worked. They failed, why should your anecdote trump a case controlled study?
I must also say this: there’s something perverse to the point of revulsion in the idea of a god that will heal the girl if enough people pray for her. What sort of god is that?
Doesn’t matter what sort of god that is. The whole point is that they want to pretend like they can make things happen by thinking about it. If it were impossible to make things happen by wish power, then that would mean their god isn’t real. It doesn’t matter “what sort of god that is”, all that matters is that they want to wish things into happening. If their god is real, then it is possible. You’re looking at it the wrong way, Doc.
“We’re sorry, but the Lord is currently busy and will return your prayer when time permits…thank you for contacting The Lord Line(tm).”
“Your prayer inbox has 39,593,944 new prayers…”
“You can mock me all you want, but God will not be mocked”
God mocked you just the other day putz…
While what you saw was remarkable, I really don’t think it’s fair to call it a miracle. Cancers go into remission, often without apparent cause. As others have said here in other ways, it seems to me that the appropriate reaction would be not so much Isn’t it wonderful he heals? so much as Why does he let so many sicken and die?
False dichotomy limiting the potential answers. Not surprising though.