Study: More children being abused in the God's name than Satan's

Fire
Fire's picture
Posts: 116
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
Study: More children being abused in the God's name than Satan's

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2008/01/shawn.html 

 

Quote:
Abusing Children in the Name of God

By Shawn F. Peters

A hemophilic boy in Pennsylvania bleeds to death over a period of two days from a small cut on his foot. An Indiana girl dies after a malignant tumor sprouts from her skull and grows so enormous that it’s nearly the size of her head. A boy in Massachusetts succumbs to a bowel obstruction. (His cries of pain are so loud that neighbors are forced to shut their windows to block out the sound.)

None of these children benefit from the readily-available medical treatments that might save their lives, or at least mitigate their suffering. Because the tenets of their parents’ religious faiths mandate it, their ailments are treated by prayer rather than medical science. The results are tragic.

It is difficult to determine precisely how many children in the United States lose their lives every year as the result of the phenomenon that has come to be known as religion-based medical neglect. A landmark study published in the journal Pediatrics uncovered more than 150 reported fatalities over a 10-year period – a tally that one of the study’s authors later said represented only “the tip of the iceberg” of a surprisingly pervasive problem. Assessing whether forms of religion-related child abuse pose a greater risk to children than more widely publicized threats, such as ritual satanic abuse, a wide-ranging study funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect concluded that “there are more children actually being abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan.”

Since the late nineteenth century, hundreds of such instances of abuse have resulted in tangled criminal litigation. The parents charged in these cases – many of them Christian Scientists or members of small Christian churches that ground their doctrines in narrowly literal interpretations of the Bible – often have argued that the First Amendment safeguards their decision to adhere to their faiths’ religious traditions and treat their ailing children solely by spiritual means. Prosecutors, meanwhile, have balked at the notion that constitutional protections for religious liberty provide an absolute bar to state regulation of religious conduct, particularly when that behavior puts the safety of children at risk. Their task often has been complicated, however, by murky state manslaughter and abuse statutes that appear to provide exemptions for religious healing practices.

Arguing that they were “Christians first, citizens afterward,” a prominent Christian spiritual healer once urged his followers to disregard secular laws that might compel them to forsake their religious beliefs regarding healing. Such is the dilemma that confronts parents who choose to treat their sick or injured children with prayer instead of medicine. Not only must they safeguard the health of their sons and daughters; they also must try to reconcile their devotion to God with their duties as citizens in a society that boasts a long and sometimes checkered history of regulating uncommon religious conduct.

Defining these obligations through the enforcement of secular laws – especially ones that are constitutionally fuzzy – can be a complicated business. Moreover, there is no guarantee that it will deter devout and stubborn parents from engaging in religious practices that endanger the health of their children. But the alternative – simply ignoring the suffering of the youngest and most vulnerable members of our nation’s churches – seems unconscionable.

Shawn Francis Peters’ latest book, "When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law," was published in October by Oxford University Press. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

I believe parents who advocate this and act on it by abusing their children should not have custody of their children. I had a friend whose parents were divorced and his Jehova's Witness father got custody of him. He's got a pretty fucked up life right now and I believe it has everything to do with his father doing things like putting security cameras in the bathroom to make sure he wasn't masturbating. Adults should have every right to practice their religion until it infringes on the rights of another person. Children have a right to not be neglected or abused by their parents.

 


Cpt_pineapple
atheist
Posts: 5492
Joined: 2007-04-12
User is offlineOffline
This is previously why we

This is previously why we need to get people to integrate science understanding into their religion/


latincanuck
atheist
latincanuck's picture
Posts: 2038
Joined: 2007-06-01
User is offlineOffline
You can't get people to

You can't get people to understand science when their beliefs are based on blind faith of a holy book that they misinterprete from the get go. Their beliefs are that god is right and science is the devil.


deludedgod
Rational VIP!ScientistDeluded God
deludedgod's picture
Posts: 3221
Joined: 2007-01-28
User is offlineOffline
There are some interesting

There are some interesting conclusions that can be drawn from this. Religion, of course, is a mind virus, but such a virus is unusually low-fidelity at replication, very low in fact, compared to say, genes. The transfer of the religious mind virus, therefore, has distinct spreading pattern, and yet, it is, from an evolutionary perspective, puzzling that it would have the ability to override the central

Of course, it could be argued that the virus in question is rather like the common cold, a mutating virus which is difficult to kill because of its adaptability. Nonetheless, the mind virus in question, religion, shows interesting signs with regard to evolutionary psychology, especially in regards to the faithful fanatics that will happily watch their own children die. Given that protection of genes and next of kin is so central to all psychological mechanisms ingrained in higher animals (although it could be argued that deeply devout people do not constitue higher animals), it would not be unreasonable tosay that far from being an evolutionary advantegous trait, the mind virus under consideration would be a misfire of normal modules,and in that sense, behaves in a very real sense, like a real virus.

Certainly, the murder of one's own children (this is essentially what these parents are doing) would constitute insanity. The mind virus in quesiton, therefore, must have had some severe effect on the deeply ingrained instinct for the protection of next of kin, that is to say, the religion actually diverted resources away from the next of kin. In higher animals (again, keeping in mind that the deeply devout may not fit this category), such a diversion must have very powerful benefits, for aminals rarely divert resources from their next of kin, hence their genes. Although it hasn't actually induced any neurological symptoms, the religious mind virus in question has produced similar results, successfully altering a critical evolutionary instinct for the purpose of its own survival. But the real question is how does a religion which tends towards the propensity of the next of kin dying, hence the genes, because the mind virus diverts such resources away from the next generation, encouraging their neglect, manage to survive? Surely, it would die quite quickly. Perhaps these people simply breed too much, but that is mere speculation. How can a mind virus which needs to survive whilst simultanously encouraging the diversion of resources away from its potential shells, the children, continue to propogate? I suppose it is testimnoy to the adaptability, and therefore teh danger of infection, from the mind virus in question.

And now that I have engaged in that little bit of speculation on evolutionary psychology, please allow me to express my sentiments in regard to these outrages: The parents should be executed, presuming they are in states in which execution is lawful. I am opposed to the death penalty, but I shall make an exception.  

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

Books about atheism


munky99999
munky99999's picture
Posts: 46
Joined: 2007-12-28
User is offlineOffline
I think satan should be

I think satan should be jealous and should get to work...

 

I think the problem is that the most evil people in history went to heaven. So God has them as council.  

 

Also of note... the fact that satan does far far less killing than God.

http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2006/09/satan-vs-god-past-and-future-killings.html

 Perhaps they got it the wrong way around... to go to a blissful place you have to oppose God. By being an atheist or satanist.

:D 


wavefreak
Theist
wavefreak's picture
Posts: 1825
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
The title of this thread

The title of this thread isn't helpful. How many Satanists are there? How many Christians are there? What is the rate of abuse in each population?

 

The events described are tragic. They boggle my mind. But if you want reasonable people to help stamp out such insanity, you need to remember that it doesn't help to enflame their emotions with reactionary rhetoric. 


aiia
Superfan
aiia's picture
Posts: 1923
Joined: 2006-09-12
User is offlineOffline
wavefreak wrote:The title

wavefreak wrote:

The title of this thread isn't helpful. How many Satanists are there? How many Christians are there? What is the rate of abuse in each population?
Good questions. I think the comparison to Satanists is irrelevant.

People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.


aiia
Superfan
aiia's picture
Posts: 1923
Joined: 2006-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Corroborating supplemental

 


Corroborating supplemental source for:

“study funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect concluded that ‘there are more children actually being abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan.’”


 The research reported here was funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (Department of Health and Human Services) 

{fixed}

People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.


wavefreak
Theist
wavefreak's picture
Posts: 1825
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
aiia wrote:Corroborating

aiia wrote:


Corroborating supplemental source for:

“study funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect concluded that ‘there are more children actually being abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan.’”


 The research reported here was funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (Department of Health and Human Services)

Broken link. 

{fixed}


Bulldog
Superfan
Bulldog's picture
Posts: 333
Joined: 2007-08-04
User is offlineOffline
I've seen a lot of child

I've seen a lot of child abuse over the years that was based on religious beliefs, some of it benign (meaning injury, physical or psychological was minimal) and some of it criminal.  I've always had a problem with delusional people forcing their beliefs on others and this is especially true where children and religion are concerned.  Any indoctrination of children that teaches fantasy as fact is abuse as far as I am concerned.  Too bad kids can't be protected from such indoctrination by laws.  They can be protected from the idiocy of parents who put faith in the bible and prayer over science and sound medicine, and they should be.  However, we need to get politicians who aren't corrupt and who couldn't care less about the evangelical vote.  We also need to marginalize evangelicals to eliminate what power they have over politics and politicians.

"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
www.myspace.com/kenhill5150


wavefreak
Theist
wavefreak's picture
Posts: 1825
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
Bulldog wrote: I've seen a

Bulldog wrote:

I've seen a lot of child abuse over the years that was based on religious beliefs, some of it benign (meaning injury, physical or psychological was minimal) and some of it criminal. I've always had a problem with delusional people forcing their beliefs on others and this is especially true where children and religion are concerned. Any indoctrination of children that teaches fantasy as fact is abuse as far as I am concerned. Too bad kids can't be protected from such indoctrination by laws. They can be protected from the idiocy of parents who put faith in the bible and prayer over science and sound medicine, and they should be. However, we need to get politicians who aren't corrupt and who couldn't care less about the evangelical vote. We also need to marginalize evangelicals to eliminate what power they have over politics and politicians.

Extremists will not be marginalized without help from the mainstream. This is the problem with rhetoric like the title of this thread. It fuels the rabid foaming at the mouth reactions of the far right. It also encourages a false perception of atheisism. Atheists are not by default demon spawn ass holes bent on the corruption of the innocent. Some of them actually care about stuff. Fundamentalism is a strange beast. It draws strength from attacks. Frontal assualts re-inforce their self perceptions as martyrs and warriors for god. Even as atheism comes "out of the closet", it will be a minority position for a long time. If eliminating some of the insanity perpatrated by extreme religious ideas is an importnt goal, atheists will have to learn to work with the theists that also consider such things abhorrent.

 

 


Fire
Fire's picture
Posts: 116
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
wavefreak wrote: The title

wavefreak wrote:

The title of this thread isn't helpful. How many Satanists are there? How many Christians are there? What is the rate of abuse in each population?

 

 

There aren't any. Satanic ritual abuse was a moral panic based on a series of complete hoaxes, caused by over eager social workers and psychologist who believed that children never lie about anything. Some children eventually started adding to their accusations that they had been flushed down the toilet and other such impossible things. Lots of innocent adults were charged with multiple counts of child abuse because psychologists asked children for the answers they wanted to hear.

 The number of actual acts of abuse is so vanishingly rare that acts of abuse in the name of god are greater by default. Satanic Ritual abuse, and really satan himself, are boogymen created by theists to take the focus off of the real evils that theist institutions commit. 


wavefreak
Theist
wavefreak's picture
Posts: 1825
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
Fire wrote: wavefreak

Fire wrote:
wavefreak wrote:

The title of this thread isn't helpful. How many Satanists are there? How many Christians are there? What is the rate of abuse in each population?

 

 

There aren't any. Satanic ritual abuse was a moral panic based on a series of complete hoaxes, caused by over eager social workers and psychologist who believed that children never lie about anything. Some children eventually started adding to their accusations that they had been flushed down the toilet and other such impossible things. Lots of innocent adults were charged with multiple counts of child abuse because psychologists asked children for the answers they wanted to hear.

The number of actual acts of abuse is so vanishingly rare that acts of abuse in the name of god are greater by default. Satanic Ritual abuse, and really satan himself, are boogymen created by theists to take the focus off of the real evils that theist institutions commit.

This is blather. First you say there aren't any, then you say the actual acts of Satanic abuse are vanishingly small. So which is it? Zero, or a small number?  How about abuse by non-Christian cults? How much Chrisitan ritual abuse is there versus just abuse by people that are "Christian" by heritage? Do you really want to see an end to such acts or are you trying to score points with your atheist friends by using reactionary language? 

 


Fire
Fire's picture
Posts: 116
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
wavefreak wrote: This is

wavefreak wrote:

This is blather. First you say there aren't any, then you say the actual acts of Satanic abuse are vanishingly small. So which is it? Zero, or a small number? How about abuse by non-Christian cults? How much Chrisitan ritual abuse is there versus just abuse by people that are "Christian" by heritage? Do you really want to see an end to such acts or are you trying to score points with your atheist friends by using reactionary language?

 It is rare enough that there have been no known cases that have not been hoaxes or proven with extremely dubious evidence.


wavefreak
Theist
wavefreak's picture
Posts: 1825
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
Fire wrote: wavefreak

Fire wrote:
wavefreak wrote:

This is blather. First you say there aren't any, then you say the actual acts of Satanic abuse are vanishingly small. So which is it? Zero, or a small number? How about abuse by non-Christian cults? How much Chrisitan ritual abuse is there versus just abuse by people that are "Christian" by heritage? Do you really want to see an end to such acts or are you trying to score points with your atheist friends by using reactionary language?

It is rare enough that there have been no known cases that have not been hoaxes or proven with extremely dubious evidence.

And so what is your point? You keep dodging my point about the usefulness of your rhetorical approach. 


Hambydammit
High Level DonorModeratorRRS Core Member
Hambydammit's picture
Posts: 8657
Joined: 2006-10-22
User is offlineOffline
Quote: Extremists will not

Quote:
Extremists will not be marginalized without help from the mainstream.

The mainstream will not help. To them, this is not a symptom of religion -- it is a symptom of religion gone wrong. Until they understand that these people are only different in degree, not kind, they will not help.

The mainstream doesn't understand that they practice a less insane version of insanity. Everyone who believes in the supernatural accepts a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. They must, for religion is inherently illogical. The only difference between moderates (mainstream) and these nutjobs is the amount of illogic they will accept.

How logical is it to gather in a ten million dollar church three times a week, donate 10% of your income to the upkeep of this church, and then pray for the poor to magically receive some help? The logical answer is to shut down all the mega-churches and give the money either to the poor directly, or to organizations who are better equipped to get the money to them.

The mainstream is also practicing and tolerating insanity.

Quote:
This is the problem with rhetoric like the title of this thread.

Satan doesn't have anything to do with it... no more than god, to be certain.

Quote:
If eliminating some of the insanity perpatrated by extreme religious ideas is an importnt goal, atheists will have to learn to work with the theists that also consider such things abhorrent.

I'll happily volunteer my time for any churches who wish to spend 50% of their tithes on helping the poor. I'll work for next to nothing, and will research the available organizations, distribute money to them, and present the whole thing to an appropriate CPA in a nice set of manila envelopes.

You see what I'm saying? We would be happy to work with churches if they were doing something sane. It's fine to decry such incredible stupidity, but let's look at this in context. Suppose the number of deaths is ten times the reported number -- 1,500 children. That's less than 1/5000th of the population of New York City. Now, consider the number of people in Africa who have AIDS because of Church teachings regarding condoms, contraception, and abstinence only sex ed.

It's not that we shouldn't point out the stupidity of these folks, but the mainstream doesn't give a rat's ass. They know the percentages, and they're going to completely disregard this, because they can easily say, "That's just extremism. That happens in any belief system. Look at the unabomber, or Stalin. Atheists can be really bad, too. It doesn't mean anything."

Maybe a couple of laws will get passed, and we can put these folks in jail. That's a plus, because they can't make any more stupid Christian babies when they're in jail. However, it's not going to solve anything. The problem is not these idiots. It's the idiotic notion that "faith is a virtue." This is the same virtue shared by the mainstream, so the mainstream will not help.

 

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism


wavefreak
Theist
wavefreak's picture
Posts: 1825
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
Hambydammit wrote: The

Hambydammit wrote:

The logical answer is to shut down all the mega-churches and give the money either to the poor directly, or to organizations who are better equipped to get the money to them.

Here is the problem. You would prefer that the logical thing happen. And if you wait for that, nothing will change. You don't need to compromise your core ideas to elimnate the egregious things done in the name of relgion. There will never be a single death blow to fundamentalism. But it might die the death of a thousand cuts.

I'd bet that a majority of people would be willing to criminalize religious abuse.  But if you told my wife she was insane for being a catholic, even if she agrees that letting a hemophiliac child bleed to death is a crime, she won't help you stop it. She may vote against it, but not as an ally.