Faith-Healing Parents Arrested for Death of Second Child

[Jub]

Part of the problem is that atheists in the US have not been effective in promoting secular replacements. Obviously, with the current societal bias saying "Atheist Food Bank" is probably a non-starter, but what have you, as an atheist, done to promote secular charities, secular community centers, and so forth? Because until the secular alternatives are actually viable they don't replace the church role in that sense.

Frankly, I don't see atheists suffering from belief bias any more than anyone else outside the Abrahamic religions. Too many US Christians seem to think the first amendment applies only to freedom to choose from the Christian buffet. That is not a flaw in the Bill of Rights, it's a flaw in human beings. Freedom of belief, including the freedom to be free of some beliefs, is still a worthy ideal even if the practice is flawed.

I haven't done much to promote them, but that's more because that isn't what I'm good at. I admit that I should take a more community minded stance on things like this instead of being so introverted, but there are other personal changes I would have to make before that.

As for the level of suffering, I can agree to an extent. I think that Atheists still suffer more hate on the whole - outside of when people are fired up about Muslims - just because they are often seen as the enemy of all religions. A stance that is understandable given the views of people like myself. Though I would hope that they could see that I hate the religion and not the people that follow them.

[Jub]

See freedom of religion already doesn't seem to cover freedom from religion.

So you answered my question with a talking point.

If you want to legislate freedom from religion, you've got your steps out of order. First you push to have laws changed to remove things like freedom-of-religion exemptions to laws requiring kids to get proper medical care. Or freedom-of-religion exemptions to rules about hiring discrimination, or about what an employer's health insurance can cover. Because that actually does grant freedom from religion. Or at least, freedom from the only kinds of religion that actually harm anyone who didn't volunteer for it.

This is an American thing, I'm Canadian and I think we suffer far less from these issues so I didn't think to mention them.

Only then do you engage in policies that are designed purely to weaken "religion" in general. Because at that point you are no longer preserving "freedom from," and are simply abridging and attacking "freedom of."

I suspect your concept of "freedom" is actually a concept of "strength;" you want to remove the strength of one institution and transfer it to another. You believe that you are not free because you see 'your side' lacking the strength to do as it pleases, and you believe that to become free you must remove the other side's strength first (tax churches), and only then change the laws to get the outcome you desire.

That's not how freedom works.

It likely is backwards, but from my PoV you can't have freedom unless you have equal strength to that which would keep your view below their own. When the Christian view is so pervasive as to be the default view I think that should be chipped away at.

[Jub]

See freedom of religion already doesn't seem to cover freedom from religion. Example packages marked with atheist packing tape took longer to arrive or were lost in transit more often that packages with regular tape when being shipped to the US, yet nobody is stepping up to do anything about that.

Are you fucking stupid? I mean, really, are you that fucking stupid you think that link proves that there is a systematic oppression of atheist mail? Or are you just easily convinced by fancy looking pictures that don't even let you see the data in question? And, really, are you so stupid that a sentence like this doesn't raise red flags with you (from that retarded link you posted):

"But for packages to disappear completely, we see no likely explanation other than there existing an attitudinal bias and discriminatory motivation on the part of some people handling these packages. "

Yeah, packages being lost in the mail are a complete impossibility! The ONLY explanation is that the Christian illuminati has infiltrated the mail rooms to make absolutely sure that anything with "ATHEIST" scrawled on the side arrives slightly later than un-marked packages. MUAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA FUCK YOU ATHEISTS OUR DIABOLICAL PLAN IS UNSTOPPABLE!!! NOW HOW WILL YOU GET YOUR TOTE BAGS THAT SAY "I'M AN ATHEIST" IN GERMAN ON THEM???!!!!!

I mean ... really dude?

So explain the differences between two packages going to the same place with vastly different results? Does dumb luck really seem that much more likely than malice given the track record that the US has?

You also missed this post:

EPILOGUE 2: It’s 3 days now since we published this page and we’ve been overwhelmed by the response. Thank you to everyone who commented, emailed, or shared. And thank you for bearing with us on Wednesday, as our website slowed to snail-mail pace, due to so many visitors. For those wondering what USPS have made of this, we still await a response, though we have asked them if they would like to assist us in replicating / extending the research. It would be really cool of them if they did help us with that, as they only stand to benefit from a more expansive study. Many of you have asked sound questions about our experimental design and the background to the experiment, and we have tried to answer as many questions as we can in the comments below. However, there is a good deal of thinking and data that could not be squeezed into the infographic above (thankfully science does not operate by a process of peer-reviewed infographics!) and we are hoping to include much greater detail on the study in a paper to be submitted to a peer reviewed social psychological journal. A Professor from a leading US University has offered to assist us in the write up of this research, along with the implementation and funding of further research, for which we are very grateful. This first research was conducted on a tiny budget, without the expectation that we would find such significant results and also without the expectation that it would attract so much attention. Hindsight is 20-20 and we regret now that we didn’t invest a little more money to incorporate tracking, ideally GPS given the recent ineffectiveness of USPS tracking, and also one or two more conditions, to control for the factor of writing-on-tape vs no-writing-on-tape. We will implement these enhancements in the next replication, should the experiment still be viable post all the coverage. As for challenges that the absence of tracking or an additional worded tape condition might undermine the validity of our results, or our conclusion, we refer you to our responses in the comments below. To summarise, we don’t believe that USPS tracking would have enhanced the study as it has in our experience proven to be unreliable and time-insensitive in recent months. The one question it might help resolve, is whether the perceived bias occurred in US Customs or in USPS centers. At the same time, we are confident this question has been adequately addresses by pre-experimental controls showing an insignificant incidence of US Customs selecting our packages for inspection in a previous 600 shipments to the US. Based on what we have done, the factor of worded tape is difficult to eliminate entirely as a potential explanatory variable for the delays, the hypothesis being that the more noticeable nature of worded packing tape creates a perceptual bias that leads to greater selection of these packages for additional checks. However, our controls in Europe did evidence packages with worded tape traveling at the same speed as neutral taped packages, which would suggest there is no effect of the mere presence of words. And, if it were the case that worded tape led to a higher rate of selection for more intense processing (and we’d imagine USPS would be wiser to employ a randomized process of selection for additional checks) the additional scrutiny of worded packages resulting from a perceptual bias, is unlikely to explain the absolute disappearance of these packages, such as we have seen in or findings. Specially scrutinized packages should ordinarily return to the postal system, and eventually be delivered. But for packages to disappear completely, we see no likely explanation other than there existing an attitudinal bias and discriminatory motivation on the part of some people handling these packages. Nonetheless, thank you to everyone who pointed out the benefit of an additional worded-tape control and we look forward to having that next time round. For the time being we’re going to close the facility to leave comments on this page as we’re finding it hard to keep up with answering everyone, when there’s already a lot of repetition of questions and answers in the below. But we will be posting updates here, including our plans for further research, which we would like to keep as open source as possible. In the mean time, we can be contacted about the study at david@atheistberlin.com. Thanks once again! ATHEIST Shoes

There's also the fact that it's entirely socially acceptable to hand out Christian fliers in a public place or to walk around and place them in letter boxes, try that with an alternative religion or fliers advertising a secular church replacement and see if it's seen as acceptable.

I have personally seen people handing out fliers for things that have nothing to do with Christianity. So ... again, you are just being a moron. I think it's hilarious that people like you on these forums rail and rail about how religion is evil and should be dispensed with, while absolutely refusing to provide any evidence, and generally acting exactly like fundamentalist morons do during a debate about evolution.

Go and hand out fliers asking people to reject god and live free of religion and see what the response is. I bet it won't be very positive compared to handing out Jesus loves you fliers.

[Simon_Jester]

This is an American thing, I'm Canadian and I think we suffer far less from these issues so I didn't think to mention them.

If you don't suffer from them, why would you change anything?

It likely is backwards, but from my PoV you can't have freedom unless you have equal strength to that which would keep your view below their own. When the Christian view is so pervasive as to be the default view I think that should be chipped away at.

From my perspective, atheism in the US has sufficient strength to hold on for itself quite well; what prevents it from becoming dominant has more to do with culture and the way people raise their children. Trying to legislate that has its own problems.

[Jub]

This is an American thing, I'm Canadian and I think we suffer far less from these issues so I didn't think to mention them.

If you don't suffer from them, why would you change anything?

Mainly because I think that society would be better off if people gave up on things such as religion. Even here we get the old creationism vs. evolution debates and have issues with the bad sort of religions polygamists. Plus the more nations that reject religion the less chance religion has of surviving in it's current form. I can only see that as a good thing.

It likely is backwards, but from my PoV you can't have freedom unless you have equal strength to that which would keep your view below their own. When the Christian view is so pervasive as to be the default view I think that should be chipped away at.

From my perspective, atheism in the US has sufficient strength to hold on for itself quite well; what prevents it from becoming dominant has more to do with culture and the way people raise their children. Trying to legislate that has its own problems.

When we start getting massive Atheist voting blocs I might be more inclined to agree with you.

[TimothyC]

Mainly because I think that society would be better off if people gave up on things such as religion. Even here we get the old creationism vs. evolution debates and have issues with the bad sort of religions polygamists. Plus the more nations that reject religion the less chance religion has of surviving in it's current form. I can only see that as a good thing.

As a religious person (and I am) it is very easy to read that statement and have a take away that you want to destroy religion. This is because for many people their faith is a vital part of their identity and attacking it is seen as an attack on themselves. I find it humorous that the language used in your post is very similar to the language used by those who are 'against homosexuality, not homosexuals'. While I am not a member of a large Christian congregation I find your statement overtly hostile and I think that it only serves to harden against you those you might otherwise bring to your side.

[Jub]

Mainly because I think that society would be better off if people gave up on things such as religion. Even here we get the old creationism vs. evolution debates and have issues with the bad sort of religions polygamists. Plus the more nations that reject religion the less chance religion has of surviving in it's current form. I can only see that as a good thing.

As a religious person (and I am) it is very easy to read that statement and have a take away that you want to destroy religion. This is because for many people their faith is a vital part of their identity and attacking it is seen as an attack on themselves. I find it humorous that the language used in your post is very similar to the language used by those who are 'against homosexuality, not homosexuals'. While I am not a member of a large Christian congregation I find your statement overtly hostile and I think that it only serves to harden against you those you might otherwise bring to your side.

My view is that anything good that you can get from religion could be had out of a secular path with the same traits. Thus I cancel those two aspects out when looking at religion and only see the bad that it does. This means from my PoV there can be great people that are part of something evil without even knowing it or considering that their church might be doing harm.

I also do want to demolish religion and feel that if you had grown up without religion that you would likely have found a secular ideal close to your current faith. Thus you would have no need for faith as part of your self image.

[Broomstick]

And yet, atheists do produce children who then turn around and adopt a faith. Not always, but it does happen.

[Jub]

And yet, atheists do produce children who then turn around and adopt a faith. Not always, but it does happen.

That has more to do with how pervasive faith is than anything. If we lacked the passive pressure to join a cult I doubt that would happen at all.

[blahface]

Part of the problem is that atheists in the US have not been effective in promoting secular replacements. Obviously, with the current societal bias saying "Atheist Food Bank" is probably a non-starter, but what have you, as an atheist, done to promote secular charities, secular community centers, and so forth? Because until the secular alternatives are actually viable they don't replace the church role in that sense.

I've always wondered why we don't promote social organizations that promote education, debate, and critical thinking as well provide social support to replace churches. I think that would get off the ground faster than just promoting atheist clubs. The "morning services" could include debates among the members or of members and outsiders. Outsiders could be invited in to make their case in front of the congregation or in small group gatherings. Members could also volunteer their time offering free tutoring at libraries.

[Simon_Jester]

Re: Jub
Thing is, much like the gun control debate... if you actually DO have a long term goal of bringing about the destruction of the thing you don't like, you're not leaving much common ground for cooperation.

If we were talking about something like human trafficking, that's fine and good- destroying the institution is an unambiguous good, no one is going to be harmed by that, and everyone can agree that being a victim of human trafficking is bad.

But if we're talking about something where there IS, as a reality, such a debate, and where the moral arguments aren't comically one-sided... it makes it very questionable why anyone would ever want to implement your policies. If your stated goal is to literally create a slippery slope towards destruction of whatever you think society needs to learn to do without, then it makes even perfectly reasonable ideas of yours seem insidious and untrustworthy.

Part of the problem is that atheists in the US have not been effective in promoting secular replacements. Obviously, with the current societal bias saying "Atheist Food Bank" is probably a non-starter, but what have you, as an atheist, done to promote secular charities, secular community centers, and so forth? Because until the secular alternatives are actually viable they don't replace the church role in that sense.

I've always wondered why we don't promote social organizations that promote education, debate, and critical thinking as well provide social support to replace churches. I think that would get off the ground faster than just promoting atheist clubs. The "morning services" could include debates among the members or of members and outsiders. Outsiders could be invited in to make their case in front of the congregation or in small group gatherings. Members could also volunteer their time offering free tutoring at libraries.

Probably because most people who go hard-secular in their lives value their free time.

People go to church in the first place because in their minds that time belongs to God, which is too important to laugh off. Then they stay because their friends are there, because it's a community of people with shared values and backgrounds who can engage in lots of relatively low-cost and pleasant social activities. Very few secular organizations are good at creating that sense of camaraderie, while at the same time being inclusive enough to spread rapidly and organize broadly the way a church does.

[Irbis]

I suspect your concept of "freedom" is actually a concept of "strength;" you want to remove the strength of one institution and transfer it to another. You believe that you are not free because you see 'your side' lacking the strength to do as it pleases, and you believe that to become free you must remove the other side's strength first (tax churches), and only then change the laws to get the outcome you desire.

That's not how freedom works.

Not?

Freedom works in a way the law is the same for all. Otherwise, you no longer have freedom, you have perversion where some animals are more equal than others. The only case where law should be unequal is when you are oppressed minority and the law seeks to give you equal footing with everyone else. Religions are not oppressed, in fact, what you describe above is not "strength", it's fucking bullshit where law were perverted to be unequal for stronger majority. Any religious law privilege in just country should be instantly deleted, especially exceptions on medicine and child care.

You know where shit with religion given "strength" leads? To dead children and refusing help to victims of rape, that's where. Have example from one of the most modern countries in the world so you can't play the usual "backward hole" argument

But if we're talking about something where there IS, as a reality, such a debate, and where the moral arguments aren't comically one-sided...

I see anyone arguing that lack of rape help or dead children are not drastically one sided as comical, thank you.

But the fact is the vast majority of religious people AREN'T the ones killing their children by refusing medical care or going on Crusades - and the vast majority of religious people disapprove of the actively harmful elements of religion.

These people are actively ignoring what's written in their holy books so they should have no problem with state ignoring same holy books, too.

[Grumman]

Any religious law privilege in just country should be instantly deleted, especially exceptions on medicine and child care.

Agreed. There should be no such thing as a religious exemption: if a law is so unimportant that "God says" is sufficient grounds to ignore it, so is "It's Tuesday" or "I can't be stuffed". That, and religious exemptions inherently require that the government discriminate on the basis of religion, deciding what is and what is not a legitimate religion worthy of protection.

[Ziggy Stardust]

So explain the differences between two packages going to the same place with vastly different results?

How do you know the results are vastly different? They don't actually let us see the data, they just give us vague results without any means to corroborate them. So a package is "10 times more likely" to not arrive ... but what is the base rate of such delays and delivery failures by which we can compare these? These are just isolated numbers without ANY CONTEXT. (In fact, they claim that atheist packages are 10 times more likely to disappear, but then say that only 9 disappeared compared to 1 unmarked package. That is not only a minuscule sample size, but they don't even get the fucking ratio right on their own graphic).

Does dumb luck really seem that much more likely than malice given the track record that the US has?

Please provide evidence of the US track record of systematic mail fraud. I'm waiting.

You also missed this post:<snip>

Actually, I didn't (in fact, I quoted it in my last post). It doesn't address any of the problems with the study. So go ahead, answer any of my following questions, please:

They sent 178 packages to 89 people in 49 states. But they don't note the actual distribution of these people. Was this 1 person in each of 48 states and then 41 people lumped in the other? Was it distributed more evenly? Where in the states were they? Major cities, rural areas? How did any delays and delivery failures correlate to this distribution? Do we expect similar shipping times to Pocatello, Idaho as New York City?

What day of the week did packages arrive in various distribution centers? They only note the day they shipped them from Germany. However, they do not note the route that the packages took, and how different routes correlated to different delivery times. What if it was non-priority mail and it arrives on a Sunday morning? It won't get sent out from that distribution center until Monday - did they take that sort of delay into account? What about some major cities in which the mail needs to be routed through multiple distribution centers? What about places like D.C., which typically has extra delays due to the biologics tests they often perform at the mail distribution centers? Some places in the US don't do weekend delivery anymore, due to budget cutbacks - did the delays correlate with these or not?

They explicitly admit they didn't use GPS tracking, so they don't even have a real data set! That means they are only able to note the final delivery date. Are delivery rates from Germany to California typically similar or dissimilar to delivery rates from Germany to New York? How do we expect these rates to vary by geographic location, delivery route, etc?

Were the delays and disappearances scattered or clustered? That is, did 5 packages disappear from one sorting facility?

Why did they use shipping in Europe as their control? Are the U.S. and European postal systems comparable in this manner? What are the systematic differences between them? How does shipping within Germany, to other European countries, and to the U.S. differ in terms of normal baseline delay rates? Why do they not have a control group for the U.S. sample (I mean, there is literally NOTHING to compare this data against!)? What happens if they replicate this again - same results, different results?

Hell, they don't even tell us WHAT they are shipping. They just noted "packages." What kind? What size? What are the normal handling policies in the U.S. and Germany for these types of packages? You know that some states have different shipping laws, right? They don't mention anything about that.

Again, they jump immediately to this conclusion:

But for packages to disappear completely, we see no likely explanation other than there existing an attitudinal bias and discriminatory motivation on the part of some people handling these packages.

Why do they think this? How often do packages disappear in the US postal system? Considering their abject failure to even attempt to correlate disappearances or delays with even something so basic as geography, how do we know these results are accurate? Assuming they are accurate, are they rigorous and replicable?

I mean, seriously - from your posting history I don't find you to be a moron, but this is incredibly idiotic. This study is poorly designed (they completely lack a US control group, and try to use a European control without any effort at justification, they don't make any effort to address or control for dozens of confounding factors) to begin with. Not only that, but THEY DO NOT SHOW US THE DATA. I cannot stress this enough. THEY DO NOT SHOW US ANY OF THE DATA. They give "results" (even contradicting themselves in their own fucking graphic) and their own interpretation of them. Do you know WHY all scientific studies have separate "results" and "discussion" sections?

How can you honestly take what that website says at face value? They make no effort at being objective or even following the basic elements of the scientific method. They make no effort at even adequately describing the methods of their study, never-mind reporting the results.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Sorry for the double-post, didn't see another person replied to me.

These people are actively ignoring what's written in their holy books so they should have no problem with state ignoring same holy books, too.

I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make, here. I apologize if I misunderstand you, then.

This just sounds like a "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

"It doesn't matter that the vast majority of Christians aren't fundamentalist because they aren't real Christians ANYWAY because they don't follow the Bible to a T!"

This line of logic just goes down a rather difficult road:

What proportion of people of religious denomination X strictly follow that religions dogma to the letter? What proportion of that dogma is evil versus what is innocuous or also shared by other ethical systems (no murder, etc.)? To what degree are the ignored parts evil versus innocuous? How are you judging this evil, and how are you judging "ignoring"? What's worse - a homophobe literally stoning a gay person to death or simply hating gay people and not acting violently, and how does this dichotomy reflect on the holy book and the religion? What is the cut-off; that is, how much of a holy book does somebody need to follow literally to count as a member of that religion? What's more important for determining somebody's religious affiliation: the holy book or the social network/lifestyle? Are people that go to their local church on Sundays out of habit and a sense of community not "true Scotsman"? Why should we ignore this population while focusing on the fundamentalist minority?

[Irbis]

That, and religious exemptions inherently require that the government discriminate on the basis of religion, deciding what is and what is not a legitimate religion worthy of protection.

Especially seeing such a law just creates perversion that only further damages the weak. For example, right wing scum in Poland watered down abortion laws by adding 'religious' clause to give doctors right to refuse abortion - and all it did was that free, state sponsored abortion suddenly became far harder to access for poor women (rich ones can easily read on the net you can cheaply go do it to UK or Lithuania for modest fee and no hassle). And to make matters worse, in was majority of cases it wasn't even true religious motive, doctor just says "morals forbid me to do it in state-paid hours, but if you came later, when I have private hours, we can arrange something, wink, wink". Of course, poor patients hearing that often have no money to pay exorbitant private sum so they are forced to do it clandestinely, threatening their well-being and lives, all while right wingers pat themselves on the back how they taught these sluts what's what.

One recent case of woman which suffered drastic health complications because she was refused abortion everywhere despite medical diagnosis saying it's not just recommended, it's required was recently brought to Strasbourg Court of Human Rights - she won, which did not stopped howls from religious rights she should die if she really was a Christian and calls to send her daughter letters "mommy, why you wanted to kill me" she could read to her parents. That's where fucking "powers" thought up by medieval-minded imbeciles lead

Another example that is going on right now here is that Poland became major producent of halal/kosher meat by circumventing (and breaking if not in letter then in spirit) EU law concerning slaughtering of animals - instead of doing it humanely, while the animal is unconscious, said cow or horse is basically tortured alive to bleed the meat from any blood - just because some idiots are incapable of understanding meat contains the same substances as blood and clearing all blood is impossible anyway. Why we should allow sick practices because someone will be uncomfortable his Mzimu which supposedly dictated something we can't translate quite right today to illiterate peasants thousands of years ago might be offended?

This just sounds like a "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

"It doesn't matter that the vast majority of Christians aren't fundamentalist because they aren't real Christians ANYWAY because they don't follow the Bible to a T!"

This line of logic just goes down a rather difficult road:

What proportion of people of religious denomination X strictly follow that religions dogma to the letter? What proportion of that dogma is evil versus what is innocuous or also shared by other ethical systems (no murder, etc.)? To what degree are the ignored parts evil versus innocuous? How are you judging this evil, and how are you judging "ignoring"? What's worse - a homophobe literally stoning a gay person to death or simply hating gay people and not acting violently, and how does this dichotomy reflect on the holy book and the religion? What is the cut-off; that is, how much of a holy book does somebody need to follow literally to count as a member of that religion? What's more important for determining somebody's religious affiliation: the holy book or the social network/lifestyle? Are people that go to their local church on Sundays out of habit and a sense of community not "true Scotsman"? Why should we ignore this population while focusing on the fundamentalist minority?

My point is - modern, progressive Jew/Christian/Muslim pretty much ignores 80-90% of what was written in Torah/Bible/Koran saying 'it's parable' to fit to modern times. Stuff like 'thou shall not let witch live' or 'better everyone in the city to die than one heretic lived in it' are ignored - but if they are willing to make mental leap to ignore wast majority of their holy text, why they still cling to smaller stuff? Who gave them right to decide "we don't demand law to let us kill witches, but we need law we can use to kill our kids!"?

Law should be the same for all, written to best, ethical denominator common to everyone. You get exception only if it brings you to level of everyone else and allows you full self-determination. Anything else and we create second-class citizens harming everyone who wasn't lucky enough to have some illiterate shepherds in Middle East to write him or her some exceptions ages ago. These people do it themselves - so we can easily speed up the process a few decades and declare all of their holy writings a parable free to be followed if they wish, but having no legal standing.

[Simon_Jester]

I suspect your concept of "freedom" is actually a concept of "strength;" you want to remove the strength of one institution and transfer it to another. You believe that you are not free because you see 'your side' lacking the strength to do as it pleases, and you believe that to become free you must remove the other side's strength first (tax churches), and only then change the laws to get the outcome you desire.
That's not how freedom works.

Not?

Freedom works in a way the law is the same for all. Otherwise, you no longer have freedom, you have perversion where some animals are more equal than others. The only case where law should be unequal is when you are oppressed minority and the law seeks to give you equal footing with everyone else. Religions are not oppressed, in fact, what you describe above is not "strength", it's fucking bullshit where law were perverted to be unequal for stronger majority. Any religious law privilege in just country should be instantly deleted, especially exceptions on medicine and child care.

If your argument is, for example, that there should be tax-exempt secular institutions to counterbalance tax-exempt religious institutions, I quite agree.

Do non-religious people organize such things?

You know where shit with religion given "strength" leads? To dead children and refusing help to victims of rape, that's where. Have example from one of the most modern countries in the world so you can't play the usual "backward hole" argument

The solution is to disband the Catholic hospitals, am I correct?

But if we're talking about something where there IS, as a reality, such a debate, and where the moral arguments aren't comically one-sided...

I see anyone arguing that lack of rape help or dead children are not drastically one sided as comical, thank you.

Could I think that Catholic hospitals should have to provide proper treatment to rape victims, and think that parents should not be allowed to deny their children medical care, and still think it is a bad idea to systematically break down churches?

[Broomstick]

If your argument is, for example, that there should be tax-exempt secular institutions to counterbalance tax-exempt religious institutions, I quite agree.

Do non-religious people organize such things?

Yes. In the US such organizations are covered under Section 501(c) of the US Internal Revenue Code. See wiki entry here to get you started on what it is all about. In particular, note the 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) cateogries which, although encompassing religious organizations, also would cover educational, scientific, and social welfare organizations. I've been involved in a number of 501(c) organizations during my lifetime. There is no legal obstacle to atheists setting up various non-profit, tax-exempt organizations.

[Simon_Jester]

That being the case, the tax-exempt status of churches isn't the problem as such; taxing them would not remove a unique benefit only religions get. It would, however, serve to weaken their financial muscle.

Which is why I keep calling the removal of tax exemptions a tactic to weaken religion, not simply to create a balance of freedoms between religious and secular institutions.

[Terralthra]

That being the case, the tax-exempt status of churches isn't the problem as such; taxing them would not remove a unique benefit only religions get. It would, however, serve to weaken their financial muscle.

Which is why I keep calling the removal of tax exemptions a tactic to weaken religion, not simply to create a balance of freedoms between religious and secular institutions.

Except that charities and other foundations under 501(c)(3) must apply for tax-exempt status, meet certain requirements, and are typically audited regularly for compliance with a reasonably strict code. Churches are automatically exempted, without even having to file a form. Oh, and churches also routinely violate the 501(c)(3) restriction on influencing public policy and legislation, and have rarely more than a finger shaken idly in their direction.

[Omeganian]

The parents have been found guilty and will face sentencing in February.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... monia.html

[Kitsune]

I hope they do not just get a slap on the wrist but get some real jail time

[Borgholio]

I, for one, am curious where in the bible it states that using medicine is a sin? I have always interpreted the bible as God basically saying "Yeah I got your back when the shit hits the fan, but I won't do everything for you". So I can't see God being angry for taking your child to the hospital. I can actually see him being more angry for expecting him to do something instead of biting the bullet and getting a bottle of pills.

[Channel72]

Part of the problem is that atheists in the US have not been effective in promoting secular replacements. Obviously, with the current societal bias saying "Atheist Food Bank" is probably a non-starter, but what have you, as an atheist, done to promote secular charities, secular community centers, and so forth? Because until the secular alternatives are actually viable they don't replace the church role in that sense.

Fuck, yes. This is seriously a major problem.

If you'll forgive me for generalizing, atheists have a major PR problem - and I really don't see any solution in sight. The fact is that for all we (and by we, I vaguely mean SD.net denizens, the humanist community, the atheist community, (whatever the fuck that is), etc.) whine about Christians, Christians actually do spend a significant amount of money and time doing things besides stoning gays and cramming creationism down our school curricula... things like, um... feeding the homeless, building much-needed infrastructure in Africa, helping out Haiti, etc. It doesn't help that the most visible and well-known charity organizations (like the Salvation Army) are affiliated with religious persuasions.

The basic problem is that Christianity sucks and it does extreme harm... yet many Christian organizations also do a lot of good. This tends to muddy the picture a lot, and for every backwards, racist, homophobic asshole Christian hick in Georgia, you also have Christian organizations providing major humanitarian aid.

Yeah... that makes things complicated. Until secular organizations can compete with this sort of thing in a way that makes a dent in the national psyche, religious organizations will always have a strong claim to the moral high ground. It just doesn't matter how many fundies kill their kids.

[Channel72]

Part of the problem is that atheists in the US have not been effective in promoting secular replacements. Obviously, with the current societal bias saying "Atheist Food Bank" is probably a non-starter, but what have you, as an atheist, done to promote secular charities, secular community centers, and so forth? Because until the secular alternatives are actually viable they don't replace the church role in that sense.

Fuck, yes. This is seriously a major problem.

If you'll forgive me for generalizing, atheists have a major PR problem - and I really don't see any solution in sight. The fact is that for all we (and by we, I vaguely mean SD.net denizens, the humanist community, the atheist community, (whatever the fuck that is), etc.) whine about Christians, Christians actually do spend a significant amount of money and time doing things besides stoning gays and cramming creationism down our school curricula... things like, um... feeding the homeless, building much-needed infrastructure in Africa, helping out Haiti, etc. It doesn't help that the most visible and well-known charity organizations (like the Salvation Army) are affiliated with religious persuasions.

The basic problem is that Christianity sucks and it does extreme harm... yet many Christian organizations also do a lot of good. This tends to muddy the picture a lot, and for every backwards, racist, homophobic asshole Christian hick in Georgia, you also have Christian organizations providing major humanitarian aid.

Yeah... that makes things complicated. Until secular organizations can compete with this sort of thing in a way that makes a dent in the national psyche, religious organizations will always have a strong claim to the moral high ground. It just doesn't matter how many fundies kill their kids via denial of medical care, when half the fucking hospitals in the US are affiliated with the Catholic Church or some religious organization anyway.