I often get asked where religious liberty should end, and I often respond with “there’s a gray line”.But the death of children is clearly over that line.I don’t know the details of the Travolta tragedy. It’s not my business, but it IS a good basis for discussion. Scientology (a malevolent scam for foolish people) does not “accept autism” as a possibility, so the parents don’t normally treat it. Duh. This goes along the lines of Christian Scientists withholding medicine from their kids, deciding to pray to their god instead (again, duh).This is not gray. This is parents killing children in the name of mythology. This is bad parenting, to the point of the state having the rightful need to protect the children and remove them from the parents. Child abusers lose their kids, and withholding medicine is child abuse, whether it’s done for religion or not. My sympathies go out to the Travoltas, and I AGAIN say I don’t know the details of their son’s death, nor should I. However, if the speculation is correct, and he was receiving the wrong medication because Scientologists don’t believe the real condition exists, then they ARE responsible.ANY parent responsible for killing their own kid due to idiotic teachings cannot blame the teachings — they must take the responsibility for believing the idiocy and pay the price. Religious liberty ends BEFORE the kids’ well-being is endangered.
Apparently the $cientologists have already made a statement concerning the churches support of using medicine for a physical ailment but not mental/emotional issues. I dont trust anything that these fucks say so who really knows what happened and if Travoltas kid was on proper medication or not??? Heres the story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28511424/
If it is true that they withheld medicine because of religious reasons, they should be investigated for child abuse. But, you and I know that will never happen because of who the father is.
Also, if it is true about withholding medicine because of religious reasons, we (not just the non-religious) need to be more vocal about what a circus sideshow religion really is, especially Scientology.
When are these freaks ever going to wake up to the fact that it (Scientology) was all started as a way to make money?
Dave
With nothing but speculation in hand you are opening fire on parents in grief because they belong to some loony sect yet to date you have not posted a bit of criticism for the ADMITTED 50 billion dollar fraud Bernard Madoff who operated within the modern orthodox jewish sect.
Yeah, this is a bit too much like protesting at the funeral. And, if you do that, you could have all the reason and logic in the world on your side but everyone is still going to hate you. The subject is of great interest for a religious freedom discussion, but I’d have let this wait a few weeks.
This is nothing but speculation about the Travolta boy. We don’t know. Yes, of course, these kinds of thoughts entered my mind as soon as I heard about the circumstances of his death. That says plenty about the reputation of this so-called religion, and granted (before the trolls weigh in), it also says plenty about my skepticism.
Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses definitely withhold medical treatment from children, and I think that is criminal. That the adults forego treatment themselves is just plain stupid, IMO, but their right. My mother-in-law is life-long Christian Scientist but decided to bow to family pressure and finally accept medical intervention a couple of years ago. The members of her church shun her (nice people, ha), but at least she is alive to enjoy her first great-grandchild.
My son suffered seizures until the age of about 10, at which point they stopped and have never returned. He did have medications from a very young age which left him lethargic and only partly controlled the problem’s return. Clandestinely he stopped taking his medication, and when reminded of it pretended to take it, instead slipping it under the microwave. He weaned himself from the medication in this way.
I will not comment on the Travolta tragedy until and if it is learned if proper medications were taken to control it. If not controlled the seizures can lead to debilitation and death without having to fall on anything.
It is a wonder though why such people do not explode as soon as such a contradictory label of “Christian Scientist” is applied.
Jehovah’s witnesses are worse, blood transfusions are incredibly essential. In British Columbia there were sextuplets born to Jehovahs, a few of them died before the government stepped in. At least the government stepped in at all.
Best that we can do is to protect our loved ones and friends from being pulled into Scientology and Christian Science.
I don’t understand how Scientology can discount the good that comes from diagnosis of Autism and treatment of it.
Aliens who can’t accept the latest medical technologies will never make it in the 21st century.
I contest your arguement as religious child abuse. Parents all over the land kill their children every day, and nothing happens to them. They aren’t properly restrained in a car. Parents allow their kids to fall into the wrong crowd. They don’t lock up their guns in their homes. So, regardless of what happened in the Travolta case, there’s an epidemic of child abuse that nobody cares about in this country. It has nothing to do with religion, or the lack of. Common sense is dying.
What, Maddoff isn’t a C/S issue. He is not a religious leader, he’s just a criminal.
If he gets an easy sentence because he is Jewish, then there’s something something to blog about. Until then, he’s just another bad guy who is religious.
atheistgoddess
Yes, it does, if they are found negligent.
Kids select their friends, and sometimes the best of kids choose the wrong friends
Leaving guns lying around is negligence, but again, the child has to be into stuff they shouldn’t be.
Non use of available medical services is abuse, and when directed by religion, becomes religious abuse, and when children are involved, it becomes religious child abuse.
Common sense is alive and well, but sometimes ignored for different purposes.
David
Are you claiming that you have only commented on C/S issues on this blog? No you wouldn’t make that claim because anybody can check its validity by simply looking at your posts from the past few weeks – this very thread for example.
Are you making a promise to, from this time forward, only make posts concerning C/S issues? If so then you can count on me to hold you to that promise. Are you making that promise Dave?
I think the thread is something to talk about….If Travolta wasnt a television and movie star…..I dont think we would know of this story….how horrible would it be for him if his stupid religion got in the way of better diagnosis and treatment….we all would have some level of guilt as a parent if we lost one of our children….I couldn’t imagine the guilt I would suffer if I later in life decided my religion was just another scam that got in the way of the best medical services available….
The only thing I dont understand about Maddoff is why is he not behind bars today….50 Billion is a little bit more than steeling some candy….
stealing that is
DW… I applaud your bright hopefulness.
What made this admirable observation:
With nothing but speculation in hand you are opening fire on parents in grief because they belong to some loony sect yet to date you have not posted a bit of criticism for the ADMITTED 50 billion dollar fraud Bernard Madoff who operated within the modern orthodox jewish sect.
Short comment, since you are a guest here, it may be more appropriate to leave your KKK style anti-semitism to your Neo-Nazi web posts. Dave has already been more patient with you than I would have been.
NeoWolfe
I am appalled when people withhold medical treatment because of their religion. Apparently, here in FL, parents can send their children to school without vaccinations if they do so for religious reasons!
However, I’m not sure that the Travolta’s were withholding treatment for their son. Of course, we don’t know all the facts, but from what I’m hearing, Jett had been on anti-seizure meds, but had recently gone off them. Maybe the meds had bad side effects.
Parents make all kinds of medical decisions that are controversial. They try herbal treatments, accupuncture, prayer, etc. Jenny McCarthy treated her autistic son with diet. Especially with autism, sometimes it is hard to know how to treat children. There isn’t any medication I know of that cures autism.
I’m sorry for the Travolta family. I hope their denial of autism didn’t contribute to Jett’s death.
Tarma,
A well written post. I hope that saying that is not a kiss of death from those who hate me. I quote:
“Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses definitely withhold medical treatment from children, and I think that is criminal. That the adults forego treatment themselves is just plain stupid, IMO, but their right.”
Years ago, Jehovah’s Witnesses actually had a scientific leg to stand on. To accept a blood transfusion, unless it was absolutely a life threating situation was a really bad idea. It’s kinda like your mom telling you that when you screw someone, you are screwing every person they have ever screwed. But, now that modern science has ways of testing for almost any infection in donated blood, still the JW’s stand their holy ground. They will watch their children die rather than permit a blood transfusion. Not to save their children’s souls, but to save their own.
They say that illegal drugs are fatal, but Darwin’s “opium of the masses” is just as fatal.
Nice post Tarma, and great topic, Dave.
NeoWolfe
Neowolfe
You are nut. I ask for impartial treatment of all religious groups and you respond with ‘anti-semitism” accusations. Sorry Neo but your childish accusations of bigotry wont keep my from pointing out Dave’s bias.
my -> me
“Religious liberty ends BEFORE the kids’ well-being is endangered.”
So children are to be freed from the tyranny of their parents for the tyranny of the politically powerful? Why not just save a step and let the politicians decide who is allowed to have children in the first place?
Dave
Are you going to make that promise to only comment on C/S issues?
What, who, I guess thinks he’s an atheist made this comment:
“You are nut. I ask for impartial treatment of all religious groups and you respond with ‘anti-semitism” accusations.”
I ask for equal treatment for all religious groups as well. Fuck all of them.
Leave Dave alone, the issue wasn’t religion, it was race.
NeoWolfe
PaleoWeasel
Race? What on earth are you talking about? No mentioned race here. Dude you are off the charts whacked.
You seem to have great difficulty making and following arguments.
How about it Dave? C/S issues only?
geoih,
Responding to your comment:
“Why not just save a step and let the politicians decide who is allowed to have children in the first place?”
I guess I kinda missed the connection, were you implying that parents should have the right to allow their children to die based on their belief in myths? Isn’t that kinda like super late term abortion?
As far as politicians are concerned, if they really had a window of perception on the future of mankind, or would give a damn if they saw it, they would know that unrestrained overpopulation is at the root of every major problem humans face as a species. China knows it, but you don’t get elected there, you get appointed by the ruling party. Population control IS THE LAW there.
But, back here, even though insanity is still the order of the day, you don’t refuse life saving medical treatment to your own children.
NeoWolfe
Whatthefuckever had a problem with my post:
“PaleoWeasel
Leave Dave alone, the issue wasn’t religion, it was race.”
My question, my hood wearing enemy, would be how you found a connection between Mr. Madoff and Mr. Silverman. What was the connection? Mr. Madoff is a corporate criminal, and Mr. Silverman is an atheist who focuses on separating church and state. Where is the connection?
Leave Dave alone, religious prejudice against him is irrelevent, he’s an atheist. Every comment you make about his Jewish heritage is therefore purely racist. I’ll bet you never put those facts together in your nematod ganglia.
NeoWolfe
NeoCon
Did I say there was a connection between Dave and Madoff? You are whacked.
Quote from neowolfe: “I guess I kinda missed the connection, were you implying that parents should have the right to allow their children to die based on their belief in myths? Isn’t that kinda like super late term abortion?”
You’re implying that your opinion of what is best for a child, or the opinion of some politically powerful person or group of politically powerful people, is automatically correct, while the opinion of the parent is wrong, based simply on your perception of that parent’s religion. What is your proof that the child’s parent is wrong and that you, or the politically powerful, are right?
Scientific knowledge is inductive, so at best only gives a probability of being correct and as with all probabilities, the results depend enormously on your premises. Add to this the fact that politics (i.e., the source of the power for which you’ll co-opt the parent’s decisions) often has a religious character of it’s own. I don’t see how any opinion, other than that of the child in question, can logically be shown to trump the opinion of the parent.
So the connection is that you appear to believe that your politics trumps the biological connection between the parent and the child. In that case, why not simply eliminate the potential problem at the beginning by have your politics decide who gets to have children in the first place.
The only logical thing to do is to have the child decide, because it’s their body, their life. Unfortunately, the biology of humans does not always realistically allow for this, hence why we have parents.
Don’t get me wrong, I think any parent that denies care to their child based on some silly superstition is barbaric, but once you start down the path of co-opting biology with politics, then where you draw the line is entirely arbitrary and you open the door for any group of politically powerful people to do the same arbitrary thing to you.
What you’re ultimately advocating is that the state is actually the parent, and biological parents only exist at convenience of the state. So, why not let the state decide who gets to have children at all?
geoih
Don’t be too hard on Neo. He really has no idea what he is advocating. It’s part of his free-from-thought ideology.
“This is parents killing children in the name of mythology.”
I wouldn’t of phased it that way Dave. I think the parents wanted to practice scientology, not kill their children in the name of it. It wasn’t premeditated, which it would have to be using the statement.
“This is parents killing in the name of mythology.
I do understand your concerns about Scientology.
geoih, I liked your post, valid points:
“What you’re ultimately advocating is that the state is actually the parent, and biological parents only exist at convenience of the state. So, why not let the state decide who gets to have children at all?”
Think about it, that condition already exists. If you are a drug addict, and you are not properly caring for your children, the state will, reluctantly (understanding the additional trauma to those already victimized) remove custody and place the child in licensed foster care. Now, let me cement the analogy. Darwin said that religion is the “opium of the masses” and he was right, an injected ingredient that prevents one from making clear decisions and causes one to lose sight of priorities. When that addiction causes the death of a child, the addict is responsible under the law, as well he should be.
On the subject of the state deciding who gets to have children, probably a bad idea in view of the agenda of greed and corruption that is capitalism, but here’s some food for thought. Darwin spoke of a force called “natural selection” which basically proposed that the gene pool is protected because the defective die, and therefore don’t reproduce. But, now, we have the miracle of modern medicine. If a baby is born with a congenital defect, a team of surgeons fix it and then pat each other on the back. They fixed the malfunction, but not the DNA. Baby grows up and lives a long life, has a bushell of children. Happy ending. Cinderella story. Only the genetic defect, whether recessive or dominant is passed on to all of baby’s children. I think you know where I am going, while this life saving procedure turned into a happy outcome, the end result of such interference is as inevitable as free trade was to our economy. But in general people are offended at laws requiring sterilization of the mentally retarded, let alone any other potential threat to the gene pool.
No good deed goes unpunished, and like the rest of the world, the medical profession doesn’t care about the ultimate outcome, they’re getting rich TODAY, and that’s all that matters now.
The law of unintended consequences.
NeoWolfe
Again what finds himself without a valid point, so he turns to personal attacks”
“Don’t be too hard on Neo. He really has no idea what he is advocating. It’s part of his free-from-thought ideology.”
What, even though you may never have a point in an intelligent discussion, you can take comfort in the fact that you will always have that point on the top of your skull. Keep it honed and sharpened, you never know when you may need to head butt a Jewish sympathizer.
NeoWolfe
NeoWolfe
Unlike you the medical profession understands that less than 20% of congenital defects are due abnormalities in DNA. Once again you fill your knowledge void with assumptions – part of that “free thinker” thingy – rather than with facts – part of the scientific thingy. Within the scientific community we call that talking out of your anus – well not those precise words.
Quote from neowolfe: “Think about it, that condition already exists.”
Even if it does, it doesn’t make it right.
I’ll save you the argument on how I decided what is “right” by stating a premise: I own my body. If you wish to argue with that, then an argument is a waste of time (because I won’t accept a different premise).
You see Dave, what I’m talking about?
geoih said:
“Quote from neowolfe: “Think about it, that condition already exists.”
Even if it does, it doesn’t make it right.”
Then some rant about control over his or her own body. What the hell does that have to do with the points I made?
Then Whatsbetweenmylegs said:
“Unlike you the medical profession understands that less than 20% of congenital defects are due abnormalities in DNA.”
While that is total bullshit, lets just change the senario to purely genetic defects. Same surgeons, same procedure, same happy outcome, same Cinderella story, same mini tribe of children with dominant dna defect. Somewhere, nematod, you missed the point again. But that’s what you do. You don’t discuss, you disrupt.
NeoWolfe
NeoWolfe
Really? Inform me. What percent of congenital abnormalities are due to genetic defects?
In other words lets just forget what you actually wrote eh?
Neowolfe
Your point was obvious. What is also obvious is that you don’t know what a congenital defect is. Equally obvious is the gross ignorance exemplified by your statement that “medical profession doesn’t care” about this obvious problem. Ever hear of genetic counseling? Obviously not.
What wasted our time again by saying:
“”Your point was obvious. What is also obvious is that you don’t know what a congenital defect is. Equally obvious is the gross ignorance exemplified by your statement that “medical profession doesn’t care” about this obvious problem. Ever hear of genetic counseling? Obviously not.”
You are right, I have never heard of genetic counseling, in fact, I tend to believe you made it up. As you made up the statistic about congenital defects. The operative word in congenital is “gene” as in genetic. If I did use the wrong word, that does not excuse your mental feebleness in missing the point of the post. That modern medicine has bypassed natural selection, and that another unintended consequence, another human disaster inevitably looms on the horizon. And believe it or not, this time, the Jews didn’t do it.
NeoWolfe
NeoWolfe
Buffoon.
What, wikipedia,
:Congenital disorder involves defects or damage to a developing fetus. It may be the result of genetic abnormalities, the intrauterine (uterus) environment, errors of morphogenesis, or a chromosomal abnormality.
Buffoon,
NeoWolfe
Quote from neowolfe: “Then some rant about control over his or her own body. What the hell does that have to do with the points I made?”
It has to do with the original point, of which you don’t seem to have any concern about (i.e., that if you don’t like the way a parent is raising their child, then you have no qualms about kidnapping that child through the power of the state).
If a person owns their body, then it is no business of the state when people decide to have children. Your casual advocacy of the state’s coercive authority into the decisions of individuals on reproduction and the raising of children is essentially an acceptance of slavery to the state.
Do you agree that individuals, parents, perspective parents, children, etc., own their own bodies and are not slaves of the state, or are they all mere property of the state and subject to the whim and coercive authority of the state?
geoih
I wouldn’t bother asking Neo for his opinions. They are just too unstable to bother documenting them.
But I think you are looking at this from two extremes only as exemplified here:
Clearly overpopulation is a huge problem and something must be done about it. If education doesn’t work – and I doubt that it will be sufficient – then the state will have to step in. One’s right to procreate must be balanced against the rights of others to live in a relatively healthy environment.
Quote from what: “Clearly overpopulation is a huge problem and something must be done about it. If education doesn’t work – and I doubt that it will be sufficient – then the state will have to step in. One’s right to procreate must be balanced against the rights of others to live in a relatively healthy environment.”
I would agree that population is an issue, but there are many factors that can effect it. The Malthusian view is over simplified. There is plenty of evidence to show that a post industrial society naturally leads to reduced populations. This is perhaps due to the increased resourses needed to raise a child in such a society (i.e., it takes more effort to raise an engineer, or even an electrician, than a simple laborer).
To say that the group gets to tell you what to do with your individual body, then you can only conclude that the group, or the state, is the master and we are all slaves.