Another Faith Healing Death

17-year-old Zachery Swezey died of a ruptured appendix a few months ago… his body got warmer, he began vomiting, and he suffered from severe diarrhea.

What did his parents do about all this?

During those three days, aunts, uncles and grandparents came to his bedside to pray. On March 17, his father did not call a doctor or an ambulance. Instead, he called elders from their church. They came to the house and anointed Zakk with olive oil, and prayed for him as Zakk’s family waited outside in the hall. Members of the Church of the First Born, the Swezeys believe in faith healing.

At midday on March 18, Zakk told his mother he loved her, and asked for his father to come to his bedside.

Shortly before 1 p.m, his breathing slowed. His hands got cold and turned a bluish color. With both of his parents at his bedside, Zakk Swezey died.

Parents Greg and JaLea Swezey say they offered Zakk the option of medical help in the last hours of his life, but Zakk may not have been in proper condition (or mindset) to accept that help and the parents never called on doctors. When you teach your children that medical help is unnecessary when you have faith, it’s not surprising the son would remain ignorant of what modern medicine can do and not want to call on doctors during the time he needed them the most. Not to mention he was still legally a child — it was his parents’ responsibility to get him the help he needed, and they failed.

“We don’t force our kids, our kids have a choice. At no time did Zachery ask to go to the doctor,” [Okanogan County Sheriff's investigator Josh] Brown wrote in notes from his interview with Greg Swezey. He also told investigators that his oldest son once broke his leg, and they gave him a choice of going to the doctor, but his son chose not to. Swezey put a cast on his leg, and later they saw a physical therapist who confirmed his son had broken his leg.

It will be tough to prosecute the parents. The law in Washington state, like in many states, provides exemptions to parents who kill their children because of their religious beliefs:

Most states, including Washington, have child abuse laws that allow some religious exemptions for parents who do not seek medical treatment when their children are sick.

Washington’s law specifies that a person treated through faith healing “by a duly accredited Christian Science practitioner in lieu of medical care is not considered deprived of medically necessary health care or abandoned.”…

Judges must continue sending the message that religious beliefs should not trump the life and health of a child. They have to punish these parents for their neglect and ignorance.

(via Deep Thoughts)

Another Faith Healing Death
Hemant Mehta
Sat, 29 Aug 2009 18:00:58 GMT

Related articles by Zemanta

• Shame on Washington state (scienceblogs.com)
• Shame on Washington state (theatheistmind.info)
• Parents in faith-healing case never considered calling a doctor (irreligion.org)
• When is the Life of a Child Less Important than the Beliefs of the Parent? (atheistnexus.org)
• Why Would a Loving God Allow Pain and Child Abuse? (faithallen.wordpress.com)

What Causes Atheism?

Strongly felt religion has always been around; what needs explanation is its absence rather than its presence.

- Peter Berger

Religion had a stranglehold on humanity until the 20th century, when it suddenly lost its grip on nearly a billion people in the course of a single century (non-believers skyrocketed from 3.2 million in 1900 to 918 million in 2000, or 0.002% of world population in 1900 to 15.3% in 2000). What happened, so suddenly? What causes atheism?

Part of what happened is that a few atheist dictators took control of populous nations, burned all the churches, and wiped out religion as much as possible. The people in these nations did not choose atheism. As soon as the dictators were gone, religion sprung right back up again.

But in other places, Scandinavia in particular, people just stopped believing. Why?

One theory is that Scandinavians were never really that religious in the first place. But that’s hard to swallow. All the evidence suggests that Scandinavians were just as fervent in their beliefs as everyone else, until recently.

Another theory is that atheism can be caused by lacking the need for a cultural defense. The idea that when a society’s cultural identity is threatened, religiosity increases to strengthen cultural bonds (as with Catholicism and Irish nationalism). For centuries, Scandinavia has lacked the need for a cultural defense. They have not been dominated by a foreign conqueror with a significantly different culture or religion, and there have been no other popular religions to challenge Lutheranism’s dominance. However, many other isolated societies throughout history have not needed a cultural defense, and yet they did not secularize.

A third theory is that wherever one religion has a monopoly, it doesn’t need to compete for believers, it gets lazy and lets religiosity decline. This certainly fits Scandinavia, where Lutheranism has been state-supported for many decades. But many other religions have enjoyed a national monopoly for much longer than that and never gone secular.

A fourth theory is that it’s simply a matter of education. Denmark was the first country to provide free, compulsory elementary-school education, in 1814, and the rest of Scandinavia soon followed. Polls have shown a strong correlation between higher education and religious skepticism.

A fifth theory is that women are to blame. It has long been known that women are, on every measure and in every society, more religious than men. So it is plausible that it is women who have done the most to keep families interested in religion. But in the 1960s, women saw a dramatic shift in their identity and possibilities and moved into the paid workforce, leading to a “de-pietization of femininity.” Now that women were working and pursuing their own interests rather than keeping their families religious, religion declined. But then why did religion not decline in all the countries that saw a mass movement of women into the workforce, such as the United States?

Societal causes are complex things, and not easy to measure. Perhaps all of the above have contributed to the rise of atheism in some very complex way with other factors we can’t yet measure. But now let me turn to the explanation I find most persuasive of all.

Security

In Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (a great read, by the way; stuffed to the brim with charts, tables, statistics and careful analysis), Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart argue that when people experience less security, they tend to be more religious. This is what Marx said 170 years ago – that when things get tough, people turn to religion for comfort. But Norris and Inglehart actually provide thousands of data to support the theory.

And what about when times are not tough? When people have food to eat, clean water, adequate housing, jobs, cheap medicine, safety from natural disasters, political stability, and general contentment, they tend to be less religious.

This certainly fits with Scandinavia. Scandinavian countries consistently rank among the healthiest, most peaceful, stablest, and safest nations in the world. Thanks to the best-developed welfare systems in the world, Scandinavia boasts the smallest gap between rich and poor in the democratic world. Unlike the United States, nearly everyone in Scandinavia has access to health care and higher education. Moreover, the Scandinavian states all rank among the top 5 most peaceful societies in the world (the United States ranked 83rd).

Simply put, Scandinavian society is the most secure society in the history of our planet, and this may explain Scandinavians’ abandonment of religion. They just don’t need it anymore.

In Society Without God I showed that there are strong correlations between atheism and societal health. But I don’t think atheism causes societal health. Rather, I suspect that societal health causes atheism.

(Via What Causes Atheism?)
lukeprog
Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:49:44 GMT

Proud to be an American?

Throughout small town America today, one will see flags, fireworks, and junk food on display. A common sentiment you'll encounter is pride, and many find it necessary to express their pride in being Americans. I'd like to make two small additions to this conversation, neither of which are original and one of which is presented in video form.

First, please consider the following from "10 Things Every Adult Should Know" written by f*cking c*nts:

America is not #1. Well, not unless you count military spending and handgun related deaths. We’re shit at public education. Our health care system is both the most expensive and the least effective in the developed world. Literacy, infant mortality, per capita living below the poverty line and/or without any health insurance … etc., etc. We’re kind of horrible at a whole lot of things, if you want to be honest about it. We’re also, on average, fat as fuck.

Second, consider the absurdity of being proud over something that one did not do and had no control over (i.e., being born in America). But don't take my word for it. Instead, see what George Carlin had to say on the subject:

Have a good day, stay safe, and enjoy spending time with family and friends. Take pride in what you have accomplished (e.g., managing to break free from religious delusion), but don't get sucked into the mire of blind patriotism. I'll try to do the same.

H/T to toomanytribbles

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