In the latest news on a tragic death of a diabetic kid: I’m relieved that the courts found her nut-job mother Leilani Neumann guilty of reckless homicide for the sheer idiocy of believing that praying was going to help their critically sick kid.
Neumann’s daughter Madeline died from untreated diabetes on March 23, 2008, surrounded by people praying for her. When she stopped breathing, her parents’ business and Bible study partners finally called 911.
Prosecutors contend a reasonable parent would have known something was gravely wrong with Madeline and that her mother recklessly killed her by ignoring obvious symptoms, such as her inability to walk or talk.
Praying simply does not work and it’s particularly stupid to pray for things which you yourself can fix. In this case prayer was not necessary because no miracle was required just standard treatment of a diabetic child. Modern medicine shits all over this particular problem thanks to insulin. Prayer and wishful religious inspired thinking however do nothing.
Praying for a cure list of steps. Just jump to the last one right away
It’s such a shame that a child ended up dead because of their parents’ superstitious belief that appeals to made up beings could work better than a trip to a doctor. The only trouble is that tolerance of this archaic practice of prayer is pretty widespread.
During closing arguments, Falstad described Neumann as a religious zealot who let her daughter, called Kara by her parents, die as a test of faith.
I wonder though if the witnesses in the trial were ordered to place their hand on a bible before giving testimony?
So is it really any wonder that a Christian might be prepared to sacrifice their child as a test of faith? Isn’t the whole idea of Christianity about a father sacrificing a son. One of the appalling parts of the bible I remember vividly from my (albeit limited) exposure to the bible thumpers for some reason let into school was the story of Abraham and Isaac:
“Take your son, your only son – yes, Isaac, whom you love so much – and go to the land of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will point out to you.” (Genesis 22:1-18)
A decent, moral parent would tell God where he could stick his idea and ask what kind of fucked up thing that is to be saying. Up there with “love thine enemy” and “turn the other cheek” type lessons in stupidity.
This woman probably blames herself not because she didn’t go to the hospital with its evil science and real medicine. No, she probably blames herself because she didn’t have enough faith. With more faith her prayers would surely have been answered. Or maybe she just thinks this is God’s will and she should be thankful for the chance to go to jail for 20-25 years to learn some divine lesson or fulfil some punishment.
I mean I really hope she has come to her senses and blames herself for believing that prayer was going to work. But sadly blaming lack of faith is how the logic of these religions work to strengthen their stranglehold. Hell, even the two faced Mother Theresa knew praying was bullshit and didn’t really believe it all.
It seems like never occurs that God must have been responsible for the bad thing the first place, or perhaps (if you have to have god in the picture) blessing you with close proximity to a fully stocked, clean, modern hospital.
Let’s hope this is the trigger for the people involved to realise that they need to stop just accepting “god speaks to me”, “I believe in the power of prayer”, “God will answer our prayers” and maybe religion will die out a bit quicker.
The Attorney said this in her closing statement:
“Basic medical care would have saved Kara’s life — fluids and insulin,” Falstad said. “There was plenty of time to save Kara’s life.”
It was an arrogant exercise in self delusion that meant that the real help (which they all knew was just a 911 emergency call away) was requested. It was the adults involved gambling a child’s life on the unlikely event that she might recover by herself (from a state of not being able to walk or talk) so that they could happy-clap each other and praise the lord. So for that reason alone they all need to go to jail.
I love how it appears that people involved still think the parent is praiseworthy.
He said Neumann was a devout Christian and took good care of her four children.
Aah, what part of killing a child makes her a good parent? I’m no parent, but I’m pretty sure that’s a “you have failed parenting” situation. My parents never killed me as a child and I turned out ok.
From an Earthly and morally good (e.g. not Isaac’s old man) standpoint – parents should look after their kids by taking them to a doctor when they’re sick or injured. If this was “mother high on crack lets baby die of neglect” these religious types would be treating this entirely differently. Both are a tragedy for the poor kid, both are situations where someone’s mind is not working quite right. One gets special government subsidies (tax free status) to promote and pollute people’s minds with rubbish, the other is illegal under anti-drug laws.
I’d suggest that the prayer group who sat by with the parents should also be charged for contributing and not calling a doctor when it was pretty obvious that the kid wasn’t getting better. But maybe they thought an exorcism could fix it right at the end.
By the way, if you’re reading this in Ireland: it may be illegal to do so thanks to rediculous “blasphemous libel” laws proposed by the Irish PM.
After all, my saying prayer is stupid, useless and dangerous is insulting to a whole bunch of religions.. *shrug*
Anyhow, let’s hope we see less prayer and more action and maybe people won’t end up unecessarily dying while good people stand by looking skyward when they should just get in and do something.
My mother’s cousin died in a similar situation.
She (mother’s cousin) married into the Jehovah’s Witness Church and because of the whole not accepting the blood of others things she wasn’t allowed to live. The doctor tried so hard but the church place a member of the parish at her bedside 24/7. Each claiming that it was her wish as a Jehovah’s Witness.
Mum said you could see it in her eyes that she wanted help but she was too weak to speak up.
They don’t come to our house anymore. Mum flat out abuses them over it to this day.
Yeah, I’m sure there’s lots of unnecessary suffering and deaths of little ones thanks to kids having parents do such horrible things. When I hear about stuff I’m struck with two sets of emotions: one is anger that people are let do this to their kids and the other is sadness that it progressed to the point where it has popped up in the news and a child is now dead.
I’ve had a bit of a debate about this with my sister (a doctor) and other medical people about the exact same situation you talk about Matt the blood transfusion issue: this idea that the parents’ religious beliefs take precedence over the well-being of the child. Apparently the process is once the kids get bad enough to NEED the care then they have to have the children taken away from them, the treatment done and then handed back. The worst bit is the kids are so brainwashed they probably get guilty about having their lives saved, which is a horrible consequence of such an upbringing.
The only way we’re going to be able to combat this stupidity (which you can stretch to any limit really if you accept even one religious belief as justification for something) is to disregard it as justification.
Someone says “My god says xyz”..
The answer should be “Well tough, you need an Earthly, rational reason as we’re not making exceptions for religion any more”.
Until they’re 18 when they can legally make up their own mind, the parents can make decisions for them so long as they’re of sound mind otherwise it defers to expert medical staff and child protection agencies evaluate whether there’s a risk to the kid.
I am a Christian, I believe in prayer.
I see where your comming from
And this woman screwed up. She should go to jail, she should have called 911.
Anybody who would do this is an idiot.
But dont base your opinions of ‘religion’ on this woman.
Also, the story of Abraham sacrifising Isaac was a test-He was never made to go through with it. It was meant to be an example..like, God would never actually make you sacrafice your child.
Im not leaving this message only to get unhappy responces, im just stating my opinion. I dont disagree with your opinion of the woman and her choices. Just that you think prayer is stupid. It has worked for me
Don’t make excuses for the story of Abraham/Isaac.. Why would any SANE being “just want to test” if someone will kill their child. It’s sick to even think that’s acceptable.
The point is entirely that you SHOULD be prepared to sacrifice your child, should
the voices in your headgod say so.After all, who are you to argue with the word of god huh?
Compare to someone who acts in worldly terms: there’s really no similar justification to be found in that situation.
“Hey, go kill your child Isaac”, “no, f**k off: that’s abhorrent, wrong and evil – no parent should do that for no reason.”.
And you wonder why I judge religion on stuff like that when anyone with any sense of fairness would know that it is completely ridiculous.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but I think your moral compass is screwed up if you think that lesson is anything other than a reason to not believe religion or voices in your head telling you god said to do something.
Prayer has worked for you about as often as chance would have dictated the same outcome. While it has some benefit in terms of positive thinking: the ability to change physical situations remotely via prayer has been shown to be rubbish. Worse actually, when people knew they were being prayed for: their outcome was actually worse in the study I read on it. That’s because the targets of the prayer had their mental suggestion came into play and put stress on themselves to perform/get better etc.
There are so many problems with the story of Abraham and Isaac that I sometimes do not know where to start. But here are a few things. How could it be a test? If god knows everything, it already knows what Abe is going to do. There is NEVER a need for an omnipotent being to test something. And, what about Isaac. The emotional trauma for Isaac would have been extreme. The poor kid probably never slept another night without one eye open, petrified at what loony tunes idea his deranged father was going to come up with next. What kind of god does that to a child? Thankfully, this is just a story but too many people think it proves something about faith. Actually, I, too, believe it proves something about faith. It just happens to be the opposite of what the religious minded think.
Claiming that god had no intention of allowing Abraham to go through with it sidesteps the issue that Abe did not know god was going to stop him and he was fully prepared to go through with it. A friend of mine is deep into the evangelical nonsense and claims that if god told her to kill her son, she would do it. I asked her how she could be sure that it was god telling her to do this and not the devil tempting her. Her response was that she would know the difference. I am not sure how she would be able to distinguish. Nor do I know if she would really do it. Regardless, it troubles me that she is probably not the only nutcase who thinks this way.