Religion Kills Again
The next time someone argues against all evidence that religion is a benign influence in the world, show them this.
Doctors diagnosed the boy with leukemia in early November and began treating him with chemotherapy at Children's Hospital, but stopped a week ago because his blood count was too low, the Skagit Valley Herald reported. The boy refused the transfusion on religious grounds.
However, his birth parents, Lindberg Sr. and Rachel Wherry, who do not have custody and flew from Boise, Idaho, to be at the hearing, believed their son should have had the transfusion and suggested he had been unduly influenced by his legal guardian, his aunt Dianna Mincin, who is also a Jehovah's Witness.
So this 14 year old boy is now dead because his guardian felt compelled to indoctrinate him into a death cult that spurns modern medicine. Because "faith" in something with no evidence is more important than actually living.
"Dennis does present himself as a very mature man. But he really is just a child trying to please the adults around him," said Jan Curry, whose daughter, Morgan, is his friend.
Damn straight! He was just a child who couldn't really make an informed decision about anything based on religion. The lack of critical thinking skills is one reason churches focus so much on the young. If you're an adult and you're stupid enough not to accept life-saving treatment because of your religion, so be it. But this child was basically shoved off a cliff by adult believers.
"I don't believe Dennis' decision is the result of any coercion. He is mature and understands the consequences of his decision," Meyer said during Wednesday's hearing. "I don't think Dennis is trying to commit suicide. This isn't something Dennis just came upon, and he believes with the transfusion he would be unclean and unworthy."
Unclean and unworthy? What a horrifying (and deadly) thing to teach a child.
5 comments:
Thanks. Unfortunately, this type of "death by stupidity" is all too common and not limited to Jehovah's Witnesses.
Bob, that really is a pretty overblown statement. You do is select every bizaare incident showing the negative effects of religion and treat them as if they are typical of all religion and all believers. You could do that with literally anything you can imagine. Some people infect their lovers with AIDs, therefore sex is bad.
Obviously, if you have a bunch of nuts running around, almost anything is deadly. In St. Louis, a woman caused a teenage girl to commit suicide by pretending to be a teenage boy and then "dumping" her. Does that mean that the internet is, per se, a dangerous influence?
What you seem to be saying is that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for ANY religion to be a positive or even benign influence. What you refuse to do is cite the other side; for example, how about St. Jude's Children's Hospital where they look for cures for leukemia or Martin Luther King, Jr. basing the civil rights movement on religious principles. It's really loading the dice to take the most extreme examples and portray them as typical.
Yes, I agree the Jehovah's Witnesses are nuts. So are right-wing and left-wing political radicals. So are soccer fans in Europe that kill each other.
Not unfair at all.
Take the religion out of this story. Does the boy still die? Nope. He dies specifically because of the religious prohibition against transfusions.
You are overblowing it when you accuse me of saying that religion can never be benign or have a good influence. Of course it can. (Although in almost every case, such good influence can be had without the religion.) For example, couldn't St. Jude's Children's hospital exist without the religion? Of course it could.
Could this boy still have died without the religion? Of course. But when the religion proscribes no transfusions (a CLEARLY irrational position), it has to take credit when people die following that proscription.
Religion can be benign. But not at all when it requires stupid decisions to be made about life or death situations. For example, the Catholic prohibition against condoms is proving devastating in Africa. But, yes, it can be benign. My original post doesn't say it can't.
As far as "religion kills" that was accurate. I guess I could have said, "A specific religion kills" but that seems kind of silly.
Jehovah's Witnesses elders will investigate and disfellowship any Jehovah Witness who takes a blood transfusion,to say the issue is a 'personal conscience matter' is subterfuge to keep the Watchtower out of lawsuits.
Many Jehovah's Witnesses men,women and children die every year worldwide due to blood transfusion ban.Rank & file Jehovah's Witness are indoctrinated to be scared to death of blood.
FYI
1) JW's DO USE many parts aka 'fractions' aka components of blood,so if it's 'sacred' to God why the hypocritical contradiction flip-flop?
2) They USE blood collections that are donated by Red cross and others but don't donate back,more hypocrisy.
3) The Watchtower promotes and praises bloodless elective surgeries,this is a great advancement indeed.BUT it's no good to me if I am bleeding to death from a car crash and lose half my blood volume and need EMERGENCY blood transfusion.
Know this,the reason that JW refuse blood is because of their spin on the 3000 year old Biblical old testament,modern medicine will eventually make blood donations and transfusions a thing of the past.When this technology happens it won't vindicate the Jehovah's Witnesses and all the deaths that have occured so far.
The Watchtower's rules against blood transfusions will eventually be abolished (very gradually to reduce wrongful death lawsuit liability) even now most of the blood 'components' are allowed.
In 20 years there will be artificial blood and the Red Cross will go on with other noble deeds.
None of these changes will absolve the Watchtower leaders or vindicate their twisted doctrines
Are there dangers from blood?There are over 500 aspirin deaths in USA yearly.
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Danny Haszard born 1957 3rd generation Jehovah's Witness
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