Faith HealingDo what extent should allow irrational, non-scientific logic determine the way in which people take care of others? The way it should be: People and children are educated with medical facts ... and if they have an overriding belief then they should be allowed to ignore it.What should not happen is that children are forced, before the age that they can reasonably think about, to shun medical knowledge due their parents inhibitions. Anyway, any normal person knows this is true, but out of the billions of people in the world some beliefs are life endangoring. This is fine, as people are free to do dangerous things as long as it harms no other undeserving people. Examples: Extreme sports, autoeroticasphysiation, holding-your-breath-for-as-long-possible. But if a parent, due to their irrational beliefs, denies a child medical attention or education because of the *parents* beliefs and not the childs own interests, then this is immoral. Bizarre magazine, a month or two ago, printed several accounts of religious fanaticism that resulted in death (in all cases it was the killing of their own possessed, evil or 'wrong' child), in recent events. Two further examples follow at the end of this page. The psychology that leads to this type of behaviour is far beyond me, but it is safe to say that certain systems of thought promote it, and these systems should be changed. "The second child pictured above* is Amy Hermanson from Sarasota, Florida. She had diabetes. She also had Christian Science parents. The two don't mix and Amy lost. Amy was visibly sick for a period of four weeks. As many people do who believe in the hocus pocus of faith-healing, Amy's mother was pretending everything was alright. She took Amy to visit a neighbor who encouraged her to take Amy to a doctor. She refused. A few minutes latter Amy crawled into the room begging her mother to take her home. Amy died a few days latter. |