Faith healing claims another child's life...

[Andonyx]

Police are investigating the death of a baby whose family had tried to heal him with prayer.

Four-month-old Caleb Nathaniel Tribble died last Friday, two days after a Northland district health nurse advised his parents to take him to a doctor.

...

He said his father, John, had been trying to heal the baby by laying his hands on him and praying, according to the beliefs of the Auckland-based Liberty Christian Church, to which the family belonged.

...

A plan to take Caleb to the doctor, after the nurse advised it, had been put off twice, first because the family could not get away to make the trip and later because Caleb had stopped vomiting and started eating again so they thought he was getting better."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3538851&thesection=news&thesubsection=general



The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.
Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), Phrixus

[Yahweh]

Faith healing claims another child's life...

It gets old after a while, it never stops being depressing :(...

[c4ts]

The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.
Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), Phrixus

This is actually just a reiteration of Solonic philosophy that Zeus sometimes punishes your children and grandchildren for your hubris.

Anyway, I'm sure the family will continue to believe that prayer is an effective means of healing, despite evidence to the contrary.

[ImpyTimpy]

From the provided article:

"I've got nothing against doctors. I've never told anybody not to go to the doctor or take medicine. ... Doctors do a wonderful job for people who have['nt] got any faith."

So in first sentence this kook says he doesn't tell people not to see doctors and he's got nothing against them, but next thing he utters is that doctors are for people who have no faith? Rough translation: doctors are only there to help the sinful disbelievers, those of us with faith have no need to go and visit the lackies of Satan.

Obviously the little kid didn't have enough faith...

F***ing kooks. :mad:

[Mercutio]

Originally posted by Yahweh


It gets old after a while, it never stops being depressing :(...
Seconded. I lost a friend in junior high school this way...30 or so years ago.

[c4ts]

Beliefs like that are dangerous, but I think it's better that people have the right to hold them. I'd rather have similar tragedies than the government telling us what not to believe.

[Andonyx]

Originally posted by c4ts
Beliefs like that are dangerous, but I think it's better that people have the right to hold them. I'd rather have similar tragedies than the government telling us what not to believe.

I agree mostly. I'm not arguing against the right to believe, I'm arguing against the point of believing.

[rachaella]

Originally posted by c4ts
Beliefs like that are dangerous, but I think it's better that people have the right to hold them. I'd rather have similar tragedies than the government telling us what not to believe.

Why do parents have the right to decide what their innocent child believes when the child's life is in danger? If adults want to die from completely curable ailments, that's perfectly fine with me. But when children, who are powerless to get medical help for themselves, are allowed to die completely preventable deaths I think it's time to step in.

[ImpyTimpy]

Originally posted by c4ts
Beliefs like that are dangerous, but I think it's better that people have the right to hold them. I'd rather have similar tragedies than the government telling us what not to believe.

But in this case the beliefs of this kook have cost the life of an innocent human? Does he still have the right to believe that? What if someone believed that they can raise people from the dead and shot someone in order to prove it? Should we just stand back and let these kooks run amock with their ideas? Surely not.

[reprise]

I'm wondering how the district health nurse came to be involved in the baby's care to begin with; it sounds like it might have just been a normal "well baby check" of the kind which happens in rural areas. The fact that she suggested that the baby be taken to see a doctor (rather than calling for an ambulance or doctor herself) would seem to indicate that she did not regard the baby's condition to be particularly serious.

I'm also wondering about just how far away the nearest doctor was. It sounds like these people may having been living a fair distance from a doctor or hospital (the article says the home is "isolated" but doesn't give any further details).

This is one of those cases where I'd like to know a whole lot more details about the baby's condition when seen by the district nurse and the ultimate cause of death before putting all the blame on the parents beliefs.

[calladus]

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Thomas Jefferson

What Would Jefferson Do?

I definitely believe this to be more than an 'inconvenience' to the child, but at the same time would be reluctant to take away the parent's right to worship the way that they want.

It IS depressing. :(