The Ostrich Strategy

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Michael

Apologist after apologist will claim that there is evidence for God. Ya know, if you want to find it. The reasoning for this claim is that those who have found clearly must have wanted it, otherwise they wouldn’t have found it. It’s sort of like how when you find 5 bucks on the ground. You must have wanted to for it, otherwise you would have looked right over it. In the wacky worldview of the religious, scientists don’t want to find 5 bucks.

Of course, it’s all hogwash. There are plenty of ways for science to verify or deny certain claims made by religions. Does faith healing work or is it all a load of horseshit? It isn’t too uncommon a tactic at this point for the religious to use The Ostrich Strategy (TOS). This is where they bury their heads in the sand* and ignore all the evidence against their anti-evidence faith. Jerry Coyne sums it up nicely.

Oh dear dear dear. Russell, I, and others have addressed the idea of science and the supernatural many times before (see here, here, and here, for example), dispelling the soothing idea that “science has nothing to say about the supernatural.” That is, of course, hogwash. Science has plenty to say about the Shroud of Turin, whether faith healing works, whether prayer works, whether God seems to be both beneficent and omnipotent, world without end. Science can, as we’ve repeated endlessly, address specific claims about the supernatural, though it’s impotent before the idea that behind it all is a hands-off, deistic Transcendent Force.

People who deny these facts always engage in TOS. You may say this makes them all a bunch of TOSSERS.

*Ostriches don’t actually do this. At least they don’t do it for reasons that merit the meaning of the phrase “head in the sand”. They do turn their eggs by putting their heads in the sand/ground, but they do not do it to avoid danger or ignore what they don’t like. That may well be a bad survival strategy. Though it is cute when dogs do it under the coffee table.

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Speaking of which…

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Michael

Speaking of the tendency of believers to avoid responsibility for their actions, Dale Neumann is nearing the end of his trial with the jury currently deliberating.

“If I in a moment of crisis and in a moment of time, I went to anyone else but the Lord, it would not have been favorable to God,” Neumann said.

I wish I could find the better quotes I came across earlier today. Neumann wants to be acquitted of the charges because he really believed in his religion. No, he couldn’t have called a doctor for a relatively simple remedy to the problem. The audacity! That would be an affront to his particular, cultural god. It is merely his deeply held belief which deserves condemnation for being horribly wrong, not him. Christ.

I just hope Wisconsin juries know when they’re getting the wool pulled over their eyes. This guy is a danger to society directly as a result of the (especially) wacky religious views he and many others hold. Prayer does not heal. That is a lie, perhaps a delusion at best.

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Family only prays for daughter; daughter dies

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Michael

A wholly ignorant couple did nothing but uselessly pray for their daughter. God’s apparent response was, as has often been the case, murder.

Kara Neumann, 11, had grown so weak that she could not walk or speak. Her parents, who believe that God alone has the ability to heal the sick, prayed for her recovery but did not take her to a doctor.

After an aunt from California called the sheriff’s department here, frantically pleading that the sick child be rescued, an ambulance arrived at the Neumann’s rural home on the outskirts of Wausau and rushed Kara to the hospital. She was pronounced dead on arrival.

The county coroner ruled that she had died from diabetic ketoacidosis resulting from undiagnosed and untreated juvenile diabetes. The condition occurs when the body fails to produce insulin, which leads to severe dehydration and impairment of muscle, lung and heart function.

People like the aunt of this little girl should be praised as heroes. Her actions were unfortunately too late, but they were done with rationality and unselfishness. The parents of this little girl, on the other hand, acted without regard to reason and sensibilities. Rather than care for their daughter, they endangered her in a selfish effort to ensure themselves a place in the fictional land of heaven. People like that should be shunned from society. They are nothing but socially irresponsible. Unfortunately, it comes as no surprise that there are those who actually support such stupid actions.

A link from the site, helptheneumanns.com, asserts that the couple is being persecuted and “charged with the crime of praying.” The site also allows people to contribute to a legal fund for the Neumanns.

The Neumanns are not being “charged with the crime of praying”. They have all the freedom they could possibly desire to pray, as should be the case. What they are being charged with is the crime of indirectly causing their child’s death when they should have known better and known enough to take proper action. They do not have the freedom to be negligent parents. It just so happens their negligence came in the form of prayer.

Hopefully the other three children the article mentions the Neumanns having will not be subjected to possible death as a result of such poor parenting.

Chris Goebel, 30, a shipping department worker for a window maker, said many people in the area felt strongly that the parents should be punished.

“That little girl wasn’t old enough to make the decision about going to a doctor,” Mr. Goebel said. “And now, because some religious extremists went too far, she’s gone.”

This quote pretty much nails down the issue. These people are religious extremists. They have no right torturing their children by withholding medical care. Their actions deserve severe punishment. More importantly, their actions deserve to be recognized as activity which is to be derided and condemned as fundamentally ignorant and harmful.

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