True or False - if there were no religion Ameen Washington would still be alive

[el_bryanto]

The story is here.

Bryant

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[goldent]

1. Not sure, but I would guess if there were no TV or Internet he would probably be alive.

[trotsky]

2. Quite possibly, but we can't know for sure.

Your poll lacks that option.

[el_bryanto]

3. Added that option

That said - the nature of the question is that it's speculation as we can't ever know what would have happened. Perhaps I should have phrased it "To what extent is religion responsible for Ameen Washington's death?" and given percentages; but I'm not sure that would have gone any better.

Bryant

[Iggo]

4. If human history was completely different?

I suppose he probably wouldn't have existed in the first place. But I don't think that's what you're getting at.

I think that if there was no religion, exorcism wouldn't have killed anybody that day.

[el_bryanto]

5. That's the question

To what extent is religion culpable for this child's death? To what extent are those who continue to practice religion culpable for this child's death?

Bryant

[Beachwood]

6. Perhaps we should look at more than one child's death to answer that question

Children denied care for religious reasons:

These examples from only one state: Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia parents Roger and Dawn Winterborne let five children die of pneumonia without medical care because of their religious beliefs. Only after the fifth death did child protective services become aware of these tragedies and briefly monitor the family. Later, the couple moved to Harrisburg, where a sixth child died of untreated pneumonia.

In 2002, an anonymous caller alerted authorities to the neglect of 9-year-old Benjamin Reinert. Benjamin's father, Paul Reinert, was a member of Faith Tabernacle. Child-protection workers visited twice and instructed the father to seek medical care if the boy's condition worsened. One day later, Benjamin Reinert was dead. An autopsy revealed that the boy had died from a treatable form of leukemia.

In 2009, Herbert and Catherine Schaible chose prayer instead of antibiotics for their 2-year-old son, Kent, who died from bacterial pneumonia. The Schaibles received 10 years' probation. Recently, their 8-month-old son died without medical care. Their other seven children have now been removed from the home.

I was a young attending physician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in 1991 during a massive measles epidemic - one that occurred almost 30 years after the invention of a measles vaccine. The outbreak centered on two fundamentalist churches in the city - Faith Tabernacle and First Century Gospel - which didn't believe in medical care. None of the children of church members was vaccinated. Among members of those two churches, 486 people were infected and six died from measles. The virus also spread to the surrounding community. Among non-church members, 938 people were infected and three died. The nine who died were all children. Church members had made a decision for their own children as well as those with whom their children had come in contact.

http://articles.philly.com/2013-05-10/news/39144680_1_child-abuse-neglect-first-century-gospel

There is no evidence of schizophrenia in any of the above examples, but plenty of evidence of religious-based medical neglect of children.

[el_bryanto]

8. So that's another 16 children killed by religion.

And presumably if there was no religion those 16 children would be alive as well, correct?

Bryant

[Beachwood]

10. Would you care to broaden your question to include those 16?

Or would you like more examples from other states before doing so?

I think any sampling of only one child would never be sufficient to make a single valid conclusion.

Perhaps Mr Washington, or even Andrea Yates are poor examples, since we can readily see evidence in their own rationalizations of a very unhealthy psycopathy. But for every Mr Washington, we can find several examples of children's deaths mostly or entirely attributable to religious- based medical neglect.

[el_bryanto]

11. I'd be more likely to start a new poll; but lets get some more data first

How many children a year does religiously motivated medical neglect kill - do you have figures on that?

And do you fill comfortable suggesting that the continuation of religion is responsible for those deaths, i.e. even those faithful who do give their children proper medical care are responsible, in part, for these deaths by their continuing support of a belief system that, in other cases, justifies not giving children proper medical care?

Bryant

[Beachwood]

16. I see you've taken the refuge of the rationalizer here

Rationalization:

Because some children, (and adults) die from other causes, including medical malpractice, auto accidents, gunshots, falling off a roof, Cancer, whatever, religion itself cannot be an issue worthy of a healthy and reasonable discussion regarding the deaths of innocent children.

If that is your rationalization for dismissing the topic, just let me know.

Except that in the cases of all the other causes of deaths for children (and adults), we have a society that has agreed to try to minimize those instances, and we devote enormous resources toward uncovering ways to prevent as many of them as we can possibly prevent, not successfully so far, but we are still trying. However, when it comes to deaths where religion may have played a large part, religious rationalizers somehow don't want to talk about it, or want to change the subject, as in your question to me above.

If, on the other hand, you really are open to an honest discussion of the times wherein religion may have been closely related to deaths
of some children, then let us proceed.

In other words, I find your original question in the OP frightfully self-limiting, highly unscientific, and overly simplistic.

[el_bryanto]

19. Well let's get something out of the way first

Are you talking about religion in general as leading to the deaths of innocent children or are you talking about specific practices of some religions?

Is the issue that these people don't believe in providing medical care to their children? Or is the issue that religion exists at all, and therefore creates a framework wherein some people feel that it's ok to not provide medical care to their children?

I don't know of a theist who says that any criticism of religion is beyond the pale; but many of us do disagree with saying that all religion is wrong because some religious practitioners do horrible things.

Is that what you mean by rationalizing - my need to believe in God causes me to rationalize away the fact that my belief is killing innocent children?

Bryant

[hrmjustin]

46. He was banned.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=311642

[el_bryanto]

52. That's a pity; I didn't find anything he said here particularly offensive. nt

[hrmjustin]

54. He was a previous banned poster that tends to get very nasty.

[el_bryanto]

58. Well maybe he was trying to turn over a new leaf - did he get banned for what he said here? nt

[hrmjustin]

59. He was banned for being previously banned.

[cbayer]

62. He's a serious disruptor who is in the top 10 list of people

repeatedly banned here.

He has the capacity to engage in a relatively civil way for a while, but always implodes after a while.

And when he does, it's nuclear.

He was not banned for what he posted here today, if that is your concern.

And I am sure he will read this and I hope he either just stays away or truly readjusts his method of engaging others.

[cleanhippie]

55. For what? I didn't see anything that merited a PPR.

Something he posted in another group?

[hrmjustin]

56. He has been banned several times before. He tends to get nssty after awhile.

[cbayer]

9. You really should post links when you put this kind of anecdote up.

Are you Paul A. Offit? Did you write the last bit about the measles outbreak in Philadelphia from a first hand perspective?

Anti-vaxxers are a menace and come from both religious and non-religious groups and not providing medical care to children is wrong no matter how you look at it.

The other cases are pure anecdote and one could find just as many abuse/neglect stories regarding children that don't involve religion as you could those that do.

[Beachwood]

12. ALL of those paragraphs (examples) are from the SAME LINK!!

Feel free to read the link I provided.

Or you can use Google to find the news articles and court records on each and every name of those parents mentioned.

The author is an expert physician in this field, a practicing physician and activist in the State of Pennsylvania.

Or perhaps you would like to read other studies on this largely hidden and seldom legislatively reviewed phenomena existing in America, (and other nations) today.

Faith Healing: Religious Freedom vs. Child Protection

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/faith-healing-religious-freedom-vs-child-protection/

Faith healing is widely practiced by Christian Scientists, Pentecostalists, the Church of the First Born, the Followers of Christ, and myriad smaller sects. Many of these believers reject all medical treatment in favor of prayer, anointing with oils, and sometimes exorcisms. Some even deny the reality of illness. When they reject medical treatment for their children, they may be guilty of negligence and homicide. Until recently, religious shield laws have protected them from prosecution; but the laws are changing, as are public attitudes. Freedom of religion has come into conflict with the duty of society to protect children. The right to believe does not extend to the right to endanger the lives of children. A new book by Cameron Stauth, In the Name of God: The True Story of the Fight to Save Children from Faith-Healing Homicide, provides the chilling details of the struggle. He is a master storyteller; the book grabs the reader’s attention like a fictional thriller and is hard to put down. He is sympathetic to both the perpetrators and the prosecutors of religion-motivated child abuse, and he makes their personalities and their struggles come alive.

Rita Swan: From Christian Scientist to Crusader

Rita and Doug Swan were Christian Scientists who firmly believed that disease was an illusion, and that “the most dangerous thing they could do was to show lack of faith in God by relying on medical treatment.” (One wonders just how strong their belief was, since when an ovarian cyst caused intractable pain, Rita had surgery to remove it.) When their baby Matthew developed a fever, they paid a Christian Science practitioner to come to their home and pray over him. She told them fever was just fear; and indeed, Matthew recovered.

At age 16 months, Matthew developed a fever again and this time he didn’t improve with the practitioner’s prayers. Rita and Doug were worried but unwilling to reject the lifelong beliefs that made sense of their lives. Rather than taking Matthew to a doctor, they compromised by calling in a second Christian Science practitioner. The practitioner accused Rita of sabotaging her work with fear, and both parents believed that defects in their own thoughts were responsible for Matthew’s illness. Eventually they called in a Christian Science “nurse” (trained in metaphysics, not medicine). She did nothing except talk to Rita. Shortly after she left, Matthew began having convulsions. The desperate parents found an escape strategy: they would take Matthew to a doctor with the complaint of a broken bone (something the Church allowed to be treated by a doctor), and would not mention the fever. He was quickly diagnosed with bacterial meningitis and a brain abscess. They had waited too long. Despite intravenous antibiotics and surgery to relieve pressure on the brain, Matthew died.

That happened in 1977. The Swans promptly resigned from the church. They filed a wrongful death lawsuit, but the case was dismissed. Ever since then, Rita Swan has devoted her life to preventing the deaths of other children from faith healing. She founded the Matthew Project, which developed into a foundation called CHILD (Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty). She exposed case after case of child abuse that would otherwise have gone unnoticed and reported outbreaks of polio and measles in Christian Science schools and camps.

[cbayer]

14. You do know that your edit history is available. Are you going to try and claim that the

link was there when you first posted this? Really?

Faith healing is a problem and merits attention, but it is isolated and only a sub-group of child neglect and abuse.

The question here is whether child neglect and abuse would still occur if there were no religion. The answer to that is most certainly yes.

And there is no doubt that when it occurs in any kind of institutionalized manner, including religious organizations, it should be aggressively addressed.

[hrmjustin]

45. He was banned.

[cbayer]

47. Ha! Got him again.

[hrmjustin]

48. Glad they got him.

[cbayer]

49. I've known it was him since early on, but he was laying very low.

[hrmjustin]

50. I wll pm you.

[hrmjustin]

41. Thanks for playing again. See you next time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=311642

[cbayer]

7. If people stopped conflating psychiatric illness with religiosity, the world would be a

better place.

That is, if we as a society want to reduce bigotry against both the psychiatrically ill and against people based on their religious beliefs.

I had not seen that thread and am sorry that I have now seen it. My DU experience is much better when I can shield myself from the bilious hatred that comes from some supposed liberal/progressive democrats on this site.

[trotsky]

13. And perhaps if we took these situations and quit labeling people as

extreme bigots with "bilious hatred" and subhuman monsters, and instead looked at them as opportunities for dialog and discussion, we could make a difference.

Or just keep labeling people and defining teams, your choice.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. If psychiatrists could clearly distinguish between psychotic delusions and religious beliefs

you might have a point, but you don't, because they can't.

[TM99]

32. At least educate yourself on what you are attempting

to talk about:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3016695/

[Warren Stupidity]

37. Your link does not even attempt to address the distinction between delusional

beliefs and identical religious beliefs, a problem addressed inconclusively by both DSM-IV and DSM-V and in many other sources. In the end the distinction appears to be special pleading to avoid an unpleasant reality.

[skepticscott]

51. It once again dodges the question

of whether there is any empirical evidence or clinical justification for a priori excluding any and all religious beliefs or behaviors from being classified or diagnosed as any sort of mental disorder, simply by virtue of their being religious, or whether that decision is simply politics or special pleading.

[TM99]

61. Then you did not actually read the lengthy article.

If you are going to insist on throwing around psychological labels, terms, and the manuals we use, at least take the time to actually educate yourself as much as possible on what you are doing.

If you don't want to do so, then you are just using spurious arguments full of terms that you have defined as you wish to suit your own conclusions. Read up again on logical fallacies.

[Warren Stupidity]

64. it eventually regurgitates the DSM-IV "distinction"

•In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a delusion is defined as: A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained despite what almost everybody else believes and despite what constitutes incontrovertible and obvious proof or evidence to the contrary. The belief is not one ordinarily accepted by other members of the person’s culture or subculture (e.g. it is not an article of religious faith).

Which is just hugely problematic, the difference between a delusional belief and a religious belief is that a religious belief is a religious belief because enough people also believe it. It is just a huge illogical carve out to avoid the religion problem.

So, back to the exorcism example: it is a psychotic delusional belief and a religious belief. It is the same core belief: "demons" can "possess" people. When the child dies, it is psychosis, when the child doesn't die, it is religious.

DSM V attempted to address this problem and failed. The exorcism example illustrates why actually defining a valid distinction is problematic.

[cleanhippie]

15. U mad, bro?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=116853

[el_bryanto]

22. I'm fine - thanks for your concern though. nt

[cleanhippie]

24. Glad to hear it. So what's the point of this poll, an exercise in futility?

It calls for nothing but speculation about a single event that may or may not happen in an alternate reality that doesn't exist.

Where you hoping to learn something from this?

[el_bryanto]

26. I suppose what i'm interested in is how culpable is religion and those who practice religion

for the death of this innocent child. I have my answer; but I'm curious to see what others think.

Or alternatively I'm being a passive aggressive nuisance who should just shut up - take your pick.

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

28. Such a poorly framed, speculative question is unlikely to yield the answers you seek.

[el_bryanto]

29. How would you have phrased it? I posted Skepticscotts suggestion, and i'm not sure

how many polls on this question I will be allowed to get away with; but if you have a really strong idea to get the answer to that question how would you do it?

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

33. It's unknowable speculation about an alternate reality that doesn't exist.

It's not a question I would have asked at all, because it's irrelevant to the topic at hand: the role of religion as a contributing factor to mental illness.

[el_bryanto]

34. The roll of religion as a contributing factor to some mental illness, surely.

Surely some people develop mental illness without the input of religion?

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

35. Of course they do, that is not in dispute. But in THIS case, religion played a major role

As a contributing factor in this mans delusions that resulted in his sons death. Are you disputing that?

[el_bryanto]

38. No - my issue isn't that this particular person did a horrible thing

and that religion played a roll in it. My issue is extrapolating from this horrible example to a condemnation of religion in general, i.e. "Religion Kills Yet Another Child."

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

40. In THIS case, it did.

Distracted driving killed one too. So did the trusted family dog.

THIS child is dead because his father suffered from severe religious delusions that he acted upon.

I'm unsure just what you are arguing here.

[el_bryanto]

42. Mental illness, in which religion played a roll, killed this child.

Let's start with a basic - I assume that, as an Anti-Theist, you believe that those who practice religion, including DU religionists, should wise up and abandon religion and a belief in God. Is that a fair assessment?

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

53. You should assume less and listen more.

You've already made up your mind what I think and who I am, so why even ask? AND you are deflecting from the topic and trying to make this about me. IOW, you're taking it and making it personal.

In here, that never ends well. For anyone.

Let's talk again, perhaps on a different topic, where your personal investment isn't so large and you are able to have a discussion without making assumptions about the person you are talking to.

[el_bryanto]

57. You could correct those assumptions

But fair enough.

It's unlikely though that if the subject is "Religion kills yet another child" that I'm not going to be personally invested.

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

60. I already made those corrections. We're you listening?

With no disrespect intended, your opinion of me personally means little to me. This is an anonymous message board and we really don't know each other (this applies to most all of us) at all as real humans.

In THIS current discussion, I care only about how we can recognize and prevent future deaths of other people cause by mental illness fueled by religious delusion.

To speak as if religion plays NO ROLE WHATSOEVER in furthering some peoples mental illness is intellectually dishonest and reflects a person unable or unwilling to examine the reality we inhabit.

[el_bryanto]

65. But to speak as though religion were solely responsible for the death of that child

is equally intellectually dishonest. But presumably that's not what you meant when you said "Religion Kills Yet Another Child."

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

66. I'm THIS case, it did.

Are we going in circles again?

If a majority of the population used the Mary Poppins story as a basis for belief about the world we live in and a man killed his child by repeatedly forcing spoonfuls of sugar down his throat, the I would say "Mary Poppins kills yet another child."

[el_bryanto]

67. OK - if your assertion is that Religion is the sole cause of that innocent child's death

than, yes - let's stop going around in circles. Because of course there's no way I would agree with that assertion.

I would agree that religion played some role in that child's death, but not as the sole cause. Simply one regrettable contributing factor.

Bryant

[cleanhippie]

72. Dude, you only hear what you want to hear.

It seems that no amount of discussion can persuade you to abandon your preconceptions about what others are trying to say.

I urge you to go back an retread this thread and the other OP and digest what I and others have actually said, as I have no desire to repeat myself yet again.

[Warren Stupidity]

17. That is ridiculous.

nobody has made that claim.

Here: religions that support delusional beliefs like demonic possession must share some responsibility for psychotic people acting out on those delusional beliefs.

Try that on for size. See if it fits. See if you can find it within yourself to admit that it is obviously true.

[edhopper]

20. What's the point of your poll

To reduce a complex story into a yes or no statement? Don't you think we are intelligent enough to form our own answers?
What is your point?
I would say in this case the parent seems severely disturbed. Maybe that was exasperated be Religion, maybe not, we clearly don't have enough information.

Are there instances were religious belief has been the cause of children's deaths, yes, assuredly.

Parents not getting their children medical help are prime examples.

The Saudi religious police allowing girls to die in a fire rather than rescued by male responders is anothe , where religious belief was the cause of the tragedy.

This is a poor case to use as a reference and a sloppynway to present your argument.

[trotsky]

23. ^^^ This. n/t

[cleanhippie]

25. +1

[el_bryanto]

27. I'm curious why 9/11 isn't coming up - wasn't that also caused by religious belief?

Or do you see that as being more motivated by political motivations.

Obviously the way that some Muslims (and Christians for that matter) see woman is terrible - and I really don't understand the logic of not getting your kids medical help, including vaccines.

Bryant

[edhopper]

36. 911

for me was a combination of both. Hatred for the West and the idea it was sanctioned by Allah (to put it bluntly) both played a part.

Yes, it was more complex, but that is the simple answer to your question.

The ones I cited are predominately religious IMO.

[skepticscott]

21. Why not ask a sensible question instead?

Like "Would Ameen Washington have been horribly killed like this if his father had been an atheist?"

Asking people to project what would have happened to one person on one day if the whole of human history for tens of thousands of years leading up to that had been totally different is just rank silliness.

[kysrsoze]

30. I'm sure there are plenty who would still be alive... and plenty who wouldn't.

Religion/dogma taken to extremes has damaged a lot of people. But it has also helped a lot as well, with millions finding solace in it and oodles of charitable acts like food/clothing donations, done in its name.

You could also argue Ameen Washington would still be alive if the father had already died.

This was a really inane post.

[dem in texas]

31. Give it up, this has nothing to do with religion, but about mental Illness

The father was delusional and it could just as easily have been about little green spacemen that were inhabiting his son. It just happened that he focused on God and the Devil as part of his delusions. I don't who is trying to blame this on religion, but they are showing their ignorance about mental illness.

[skepticscott]

39. Um, no..

It couldn't "just as easily" have been about little green spacemen. Can you cite even one case where a parent has killed their child to exorcise extraterrestrials from them? If this were solely about mental illness, why are so many of these cases about exorcizing things that are based in religious belief, and not just as many about space aliens?

Try post 17 for a more rational take on things.

[okasha]

43. Wrong question.

The only rational speculation to be had here is whether Ameen Washington would be alive if his father weren't schizophrenic.

[cbayer]

44. Even more importantly, would he still be alive if his father had been adequately treated.

The real tragedy here has everything to do with our massively broken psychiatric system and nothing to do with religion.

[AtheistCrusader]

63. Not necessarily.

There are additional dimensions. Such as, could the father have perhaps suspected something was wrong/he needed help, if he hadn't found some ideas in which to invest his behavior? (Believing in something like demonic possession, for instance)

Take away religious precepts of things like demons/possession, and maybe it still ends tragic, maybe he hurts himself, etc. But perhaps he doesn't attack his son.

We can't know, but I think it's reasonable to conclude the outcome would have been different in a world completely devoid of religion. (though not certainly less tragic)

[cbayer]

68. People with psychosis will grab on to whatever they can to try

and understand or explain what is happening to them.

Sometimes it is religion, sometimes the government, sometimes aliens.

There is no data to support the idea that religion will lead to psychosis, but plenty to show that religion can be incorporated into a psychosis.

Interestingly, this can happen to those that were believers and non-believers prior to their episode.

The only thing one might say could have been different if there were no religion is that his psychosis would have had a different theme.

Again, there is no data to support that someone is more likely to be violent or aggressive if their psychosis has a religious theme as opposed to a non-religious one.

[AtheistCrusader]

69. I agree, but an idea suggested it could be coming from his son.

Take away the general idea of demonic possession... does he attack his son, or maybe do something else?

Lots of 'maybes', I tend to suspect he may have harmed himself at least, without the religion.

[cbayer]

70. Again, if his basic delusion is that his son is the problem,

then he would be likely to find something other than demonic possession if that were not an option.

Anyway, it's not a question that can really be answered, but as I noted above, there is no data to support that religiosity results in higher rates of aggression or violence either towards oneself or others.

[AtheistCrusader]

71. Actually there is such data.

Religiosity is a strong predictor of violence. For instance; Domestic Violence.

"Using data from the 2000 Religious Congregations and Membership Study (RCMS), one-day domestic violence service counts, and demographic data from the US Census, the current study investigates the relationship of fundamentalism to domestic violence at the macro-level. Although the data proved too erratic to provide accurate regression and correlation data at the national level, a positive relationship was noted at the regional level. Other variables investigated include total religious adherents, total non-adherents, total Catholic adherents, and total Protestant adherents. Although the national pattern once again proved too erratic for use, regional significance was noted for total adherents, Protestant adherents, and religious non-adherents. Correlation coefficients and statistical significance in the two regions (West and Midwest) showing significant correlation on total adherence, fundamentalism, Protestant adherence, and non-adherence (inverse relationship) were compared with macro-level correlational data on known non-religious correlates of domestic violence. It was determined that, overall, the religious correlates of domestic violence displayed coefficients equal or higher than coefficients for known non-religious factors in the two regions studied. Suggestions for further study are provided."

http://ideajournal.com/articles.php?id=47

[cbayer]

73. As the author notes, there is no statistical significance to this "data" at all.

[AtheistCrusader]

74. at the national level.

At the regional level it works rather nicely.

Likely there are too many other variables on income/culture, etc at the national level for it to clearly work.


One interesting bit I noted, it called out Mormons for DV, but Mormons occupy the neighbor slot to Atheists in percent of prison population, about 1 quarter of one tenth of one percent.

Why? I don't know. I imagine it might have to do with lax reporting of the crime, or lax enforcement, but those are just guesses on my part.

[cbayer]

75. These kinds of "studies" rarely account for the enormous amount of variables, as you note.

There really is not data that is reliable on this.

There are serious problems with the status of women in the Mormon church. Reporting one's spouse might lead to being shunned, which has all kinds of repercussions, particularly for women.