Faith healing couple acquitted of manslaughter charges! How can this happen?

[Rhizomorph13]

@Meatball - LOL

Binny,

I am from the Portland metro area. The heat is crazy! I'm going out dancing tonight so I might die from heatstroke but I need to get out of my house!

Nice to know there is at least one person from my side of this country!

Rhizo

[binny]

Rhizo,
I live across the river in the overly christian saturated 'couve
Nice to have a neighbor here.

[Overmars]

I am always baffled by how far human stupidity and ignorance can go. I can't imagine what jury would let this "savages" get away with such a thing, it's disgusting to see how people can sink so low because of religion.

[Beholden]

Because challenging anything but the very most extreme (Koresh, Jeffs, Alamo) flavour of Christianity ires the wee beastie called 'doubt' inside each and every one of the rest of them, and most would rather repress lest they find something they don't want to face. There is an inherant risk in searching and examining, and when a lifetime's belief is at stake, the very foundation of your family and community, most would not dare. To them, it is not worth the risk. Ignorance is bliss.

A small child died due to the criminal negligence of the parents, and that is a truly terrible thing. That these parents will walk away from this, scott free, praising God for proving that they were in the right, as evidenced by the knuckle-wrapping from the Courts only emboldens them more.

Pippy,

I have to disagree with several of your statements and interpretations, though no more than many others. Prayer as you define it is nothing more than talking to yourself. No, I don't think that it makes you crazy, and I don't believe that there is anything at all wrong with it, so long as you realise that you are, in fact, talking to yourself. If you don't believe that there is a deity out there, but feel better when you pray, by all means, have fun. If it makes you feel better, marvelous. You can credit your cerebral cortex.

Personally, I have no use for any god. I've seen no good that could be attributed only to a god, nor have I seen any bad. I talk to myself more often than I talk to other people, and it has nothing to do with any mental illness. I am rather a private person, and I have very little need for other people. I also find the vast majority to be dull, arrogant, hypocritical, self-assured, and in more cases than not, just plain wrong on the vast majority of subjects. I am a loner, and I've spent my life buried in books and in learning. One of my majors at University was in Humanities, which was of interest to me because I didn't know 'people' in general, and they were simply another subject for study and contemplation. In other words, I talk to myself because I find I'm my only decent conversational companion - talking to myself, simply put, is what keeps me sane.

Now, basically, all of this is written simply to reassure you that there is nothing at all wrong with talking to yourself, especially if it makes you feel better. It's often called 'working things out on your own.' Calling it prayer is rather a challenging descriptor, though. ;-)

[Pippy]

I disagree. One can associate prayer with talking to yourself if there is no evidence that anyone is listening.

There is no evidence no one is not listening. I thought we had been over this. It is pointless to just up and assume that god doesn't exist, as I could just up and assume he does. That gets us no where, so we should treat the question as unanswered.

How exactly would you argue such a statement? Evidently you thought it was appropriate since you mention it.

I wouldn't, it is untrue. It is not appropriate for me to call all atheists crazy, only because we disagree. You can call religion a mental illness... I can call atheism a mental illness... Who is right, neither of us. Who sounds more silly, the one claiming the other is a mental defective for having a different point of view.

I only maintain that prayer as a concept can have a good side, and it would be easy for you guys to miss it. Just like it is easy for you to see no good from the concept of god.

Thanks,
-Pip

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Until only a few years ago, I regularly spoke to God on my great white telephone. ( the one in the bathroom). It was invariably late at night or in the wee small hours.

My prayers were for mercy,or to let me die. Can't say I can ever remember him granting either prayerful request..(I was on my knees and everything).

[Giff]

I wouldn't care if someone prayed. I would think they were slightly stupid to think someone would listen to them, and stange.. But I wouldn't care, unless like in this case, that they pray instead getting their child proper medical treatment.

It is highly inresponisble and there is no excuse for what they did. To passivly stand by and just watch someone die is a crime, atleast where I live.

[Beholden]

In the United States, especially in more rural areas, or nearly anywhere in the Southern half of the country, religious beliefs still hold sway as a defense, and any attempt to rebut religion as a defense brings out merciless ad hominem attacks from large and powerful religious groups. It also brings up the Free Exercise clause of the Constitution, which many take to imply that they can do whatever they want to, so long as they can justify it religiously. It has been established through precedent, however, that freedom of religion falls lower in importance than, and is trumped by, adherance to national and state law.