Madeline Kara Neumann

227 comments on “Madeline Kara Neumann”

1. And of course we have the act of a President taking his country into an misconceived war because God wants him to. And then standing by for 5 years as his country writhes in agony.

2. Situations like this involve many serious and complex issues.
   Freedom of religion. What does that mean? HOw far does it go? Reason and common sense have lead use to conclude that it doesn’t extend to ritual sacrifice. Cases like this suggest that such extends even to death caused by inaction. Where does that line stop? At what point does the government have the power to force a family to seek treatment for their child?
   Our kids are under the age of three. They don’t attend day care, and only infrequently attend classes. They’ve had no vaccinations. We feel that the schedule for vaccinations is too aggresive in some cases, in that shots are prescribed too early, or in some cases that the risk from the substances in the vaccins poses a greater health risk than the illness the vaccine is designed to combat. This decisions isn’t one based on a whim, it’s based on hours and hours of research and thought, and when we felt we’d better understood the true risks of both actions, we made our decision.
   Can the government come into our home and force us to inject our children with foreign substances? I say no, and I pray it stays that way. But if the government can come into a home and remove a child because of the parents’ spiritual beliefs, which are somewhat protected under the Constitution, what, really, could stop them?

3. edhopper: Is another tirade about Bush and the war REALLY necessary in this thread?

4. Ron — no, it’s not necessary, but it is appropriate in some ways given the topic of religious faith run amok. Bush is a textbook case of a former drug addict who’s simply turned to religion as his new drug of choice, and has used it to justify things which impact a lot more people than poor Madeline Neumann.
   That’s all. No tirade intended.
   TWL

5. And Bobb — while on the whole I disagree with the choice you made vis-a-vis vaccinations, I certainly understand and respect it. I think there’s got to be some way of allowing informed choices legally, but you’re right that it’s tough to figure out where that line might be.
   TWL

6. And of course we have the act of a President taking his country into an misconceived war because God wants him to. And then standing by for 5 years as his country writhes in agony.

   While reason can’t be all things to anyone, privilege can be, as demonstrated when all the needs of a child provided by its parents. However, you can’t count on privilege as you can count on reason.
   Bush would have created a lot of slack for himself invading Iraq and all of his inaccuracies with a successful outcome. That part of what he did wasn’t wrong.

7. I’ve been blogging about this all day. What is killing me most is how people are saying we shouldn’t get moralistic or judge these parents.
   This would not be a conversation if they were wiccan, or scientologists, or believed they had psychic powers.
   The word ‘god’ makes it all OK.

8. I see this case as an extreme example of a wider dilemma: “Is it really right for parents to teach their religion to their young children?” I suppose almost all religious persons would feel outrage at the notion that they shouldn’t be allowed to instruct their kids into spiritual matters, but I always wondered whether religious instruction at a young age is respectful of the child’s free will?
   Are you a Catholic/Jew/Muslim because you really feel an affinity for that specific faith? Or just because your family trained/cajoled/bullied you into it? Wouldn’t it be saner to wait for a child to reach a certain age (13? 15? 18?) and then let them choose? Of course, adults aren’t immune to social pressure either, no one is, but it’s supposed that adults can make more informed decisions.
   I consider myself fortunate that my Mom was a Catholic and my Dad was a black sheep Atheist from a Evangelical family, and so in the clash between my parents’ different spiritual views I felt free to follow one or another or neither (I ended up not as skeptical as my Dad, but also not as religious as my Mom).
   Anyway, people either laugh or get angry when I compare religion to sex, in that both should have the same “age of consent”.

9. That’s an interesting question, Rene, but it can be expanded to more than just religion. I’ve seen plenty of families where voting for “the other party” is akin to treason. (For that matter, it took a while for my dad to forgive me when I was accepted into his college and then went somewhere else.)
   I haven’t had to deal with much of that on the parenting side yet, since my daughter’s only 3 1/2 … but my sense for all of these things is that it’s fine to teach them your faith/politics/school allegiance/etc., so long as you also teach them open-mindedness and that they should come to their own opinions honestly. My wife and I are both atheists, for example, but if Katherine winds up coming to a religious viewpoint honestly and thoughtfully I can’t see where we’d have reason to object.
   That said, of course, if she’s a conservative Republican we’re shipping her to my uncle. 🙂
   TWL

10. Rene, interesting you should bring that up.
    Catholic guy I work with has a daughter who is 9, now, I think.
    He said that she chose to be Catholic when she was 6. He takes great pride and puts great weight on the fact that it was her decision, and so she is being raised catholic.
    But, he won’t let her read Harry Potter. Not because of the morality, but he finds the magic concerning and the fact that there is no god or what-have-you. And he worries that the characters are so charasmatic as to drag her from her faith.
    So, he claims the girl made this profound decision, which justifies him raising her how he wants, but then places so little faith in her faith that she can’t read certain books.
    Oh, and he wouldn’t let her have a non-catholic boyfriend either.

11. When you need something and you pray for it, and it “happens” to work out-people are like god answered my prayers. Yet child and females get kidnapped, raped and killed, and I’m sure they were praying to god too!
    I was raised very heavily in religion, and I think some of the most biggest airheads are these religious zealots in religion.
    you need a job, you tell friends and family, you buy a newpaper. You won’t wait for someone to call you at of the blue. I’m sure this same family got that kid it’s baby shots and regular check ups.

12. Children are an odd thing in our society. Maybe it’s more accurate to say they are simultaneously many things, and not even the sum of all those titles truly encompases them.
    We find they aren’t legally able to enter into contracts until they turn 18. We place them in the care of their parents, who are presumed to be capable and responsible for their care and upbringing…until said parents demonstrate an inability or unwillingness to perform those duties. We don’t really tell parents what they need to do in order to fulfill those duties, but we pretty much recognize when they’ve failed.
    In many ways, we allow parents to punish their children in ways that we don’t allow our government to punish the worst criminals. Sure, we can deprive someone of their freedom, maybe even their life…but we aren’t allowed to force someone to stand on a corner bearing a sign proclaiming their crime for all to see. Yet we allow parents to do this, and without the benefit of a trial, no less.
    There’s so much interesting, contrasting social constructs built around children that most of us don’t even realize exist.

13. “edhopper: Is another tirade about Bush and the war REALLY necessary in this thread?”
    Why yes, it was. And thank you for using the right wing tactic of calling any criticism of the war a “tirade”.

14. Bobb Alfred: Our kids are under the age of three. They don’t attend day care, and only infrequently attend classes. They’ve had no vaccinations. We feel that the schedule for vaccinations is too aggresive in some cases, in that shots are prescribed too early, or in some cases that the risk from the substances in the vaccins poses a greater health risk than the illness the vaccine is designed to combat. This decisions isn’t one based on a whim, it’s based on hours and hours of research and thought, and when we felt we’d better understood the true risks of both actions, we made our decision.
    Luigi Novi: Bobb, is this a reference to the Thiomersal or MMR vaccine controversies?

15. “Luigi Novi: Bobb, is this a reference to the Thiomersal or MMR vaccine controversies?”
    Only partly. For some vaccines, the actual risk of getting the bug isn’t all that great. The evidence suggesting that the preservative used in recent vaccines…whether Thimerosal or otherwise…isn’t as safe as most Drs will tell is pretty large. From what I’ve seen, the numbers don’t justify the conclusions made. The vaccine court itself recently admitted that the MMR vaccine exacerbated a pre-existing condition that resulted in a tragic impact for one family, and I can’t believe that’s an isolated case.
    What it came down to for us was this…for most of the things that vaccines exist for, the impact for some was minor. For others, the impact could be pretty serious, even fatal. But the chance of exposure in all cases was remote.
    On the other hand, while there are few to none cases of those diseases in modern America, there’s a growing number of cases where children experience life-changing negative impacts or death immediately (as in the days after) following the application of a vaccine.
    If our children were to be afflicted with something that we could have vaccinated them against, we’d be crushed, but I know that we’d eventually recover. But if our children were to suffer an onset of autism, or death, as a result of something that we forced on them, I honestly don’t know how we’d be able to forgive ourselves. It would be like we had killed them.

16. Wouldn’t it be saner to wait for a child to reach a certain age (13? 15? 18?) and then let them choose? Of course, adults aren’t immune to social pressure either, no one is, but it’s supposed that adults can make more informed decisions.
    I think if you don’t indoctrinate a child into a religion, by the time they reach their teen years, I think they’re more likely to have no leaning toward any faith at all. Whether that’s a “good” thing or a “bad” thing is subject to individual interpretation, of course.
    I know a lot of parents who are of mixed faiths opt to raise the child in both faiths with the notion of having the child choose once he or she is old enough to make an informed decision. Personally, I think that’s a mistake because I think it puts the child in a position where the subtext is that he is deciding which parent he likes better. It’s not, for instance, “Do you want to be Protestant or Jewish” but rather, “Do you want to be daddy’s religion or mommy’s religion?”
    I don’t see how deciding what religion to raise your child in is any different than deciding what moral code one is going to instill in one’s child or what political leaning you’re going to teach him is the preferred one in your house. It doesn’t mean the kid won’t go a different way when he gets older. But I think if you don’t raise a child to believe in something, you’re guaranteeing he won’t believe in anything.
    PAD

17. The controversy is actually a number of sad, confused parents looking for a reason behind their children’s condition. There’s no actual evidence to support any of this (contrary to what John McCain has said…)
    The ‘one family’ MMR issue IS true. However that child had an EXCEEDINGLY rare condition, which, almost by definition IS “an isolated case”.
    These drugs/preservatives are not causing autism.
    What is more likely is that there is a genetic componant and more people than we realize are carrying a mild case of autism such as aspergers. It was noted that in silicon valley and around the microsoft HQ, a large number of people had aspergers, BUT, due to the nature of hard-core geeks, they didn’t actually seem any different than anyone else.

18. “if you don’t raise a child to believe in something, you’re guaranteeing he won’t believe in anything.”
    Well, thats simply not the case.
    If you don’t teach them to believe in god, yeah, they may grow up not having god or religion.
    But there are gazillions of other things worth believing in.
    The child will, simply, learn what he believes in.
    Perhaps he will believe that helping other people is the greatest thing in the world.
    Perhaps he will believe in the free market to make sure that everyone gets what they need.
    Perhaps he will believe, as Mr. Gillette does, that this is our only shot, here, now, and that we have to be good to each other because we don’t get another chance.
    Perhaps he will believe in things we consider bad, or evil. Perhaps he will believe in nigh-saintly ideals.
    But there’s no reason to think that he needs his parents to teach him to believe in something.
    Thats just ego.

19. *sigh* Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test. What part of that was unclear?

20. parents take their daughter to the desert and lock her in a hut without food or water. She dies of dehydration and stravation.
    The symptoms of untreated type 1 diebetes are being thirsty all the time but no matter how much you drink you are still parched; you just urinate almost as soon as you drink; loss of appetite; loss of weight; increasing weakness, vomiting, headaches; the body breaks itself for sustenance. I don’t know what comes after, but the final step is death. In order to survive the body needs insulin.
    It seems to me that what we have here is murder, pure and simple. The religious motivation is no different than honor killing of women in some arab societies.

21. Posted by: moleboy at March 27, 2008 02:20 PM
    “if you don’t raise a child to believe in something, you’re guaranteeing he won’t believe in anything.”
    Well, thats simply not the case.
    If you don’t teach them to believe in god, yeah, they may grow up not having god or religion.
    But there are gazillions of other things worth believing in.
    The child will, simply, learn what he believes in.
    Perhaps he will believe that helping other people is the greatest thing in the world.
    Perhaps he will believe in the free market to make sure that everyone gets what they need.
    Perhaps he will believe, as Mr. Gillette does, that this is our only shot, here, now, and that we have to be good to each other because we don’t get another chance.
    Perhaps he will believe in things we consider bad, or evil. Perhaps he will believe in nigh-saintly ideals.
    But there’s no reason to think that he needs his parents to teach him to believe in something.
    I totally agree, moleboy.
    Posted by: Mike at March 27, 2008 08:25 AM
    It isn’t fair or reasonable, but by definition of “Creator of the Universe,” it’s perfectly sensible. Your analogy doesn’t apply because no man is the creator of everything.
    And if a man actually WERE the creator of everything it would be acceptable, then?
    By making Job suffer that much when he’d done nothing wrong, God proved just how big of an áššhølë he was. In my opinion no child should be made to worship such a cruel deity.
    You all know Spider-man’s feelings about power and responsibility. Well, with ultimate power as God has there should come ultimate responsibility not to abuse it as the Bible says he did.
    Rene, I don’t think it’s silly at all to have an age of consent to indoctrinate a child into a religion. I think it’s a dámņ good idea.

22. “The ‘one family’ MMR issue IS true. However that child had an EXCEEDINGLY rare condition, which, almost by definition IS “an isolated case”.”
    Today’s practice is tomorrow barbarism…
    “Mitochondrial disorders are now thought to be the most common disease associated with ASD. Some journal articles and other analyses have estimated that 10% to 20% of all autism cases may involve mitochondrial disorders, which would make them one thousand times more common among people with ASD than the general population. ”
    Taken from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/government-concedes-vacci_b_88323.html
    20 years ago, something like 1 in 10,000 people were diagnosed with autism. Today, that number is 1 in 150. And for boys, it’s cloer to 1 in 100. Certainly some of that is through changes in diagnosis, with more conditions than before being associated with autism. But that alone can’t account for such a severe change. 1 in 10,000 is a rare event. One in 150 is normal occurrence.
    “These drugs/preservatives are not causing autism.”
    My research has uncovered hundreds of accounts of people having normal functioning, developing children who within days, sometimes within hours, of receiving their MMR shots begin to regress. Some of these children die. Some “only” turn into a shadow of their former selves. In most instances, these cases are not linked by their doctors as having been caused by the vaccines for the simple reason that the doctors are told that the vaccine doesn’t cause these effects.
    Think about that. If someone tells you that it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end, are you going to go jumping off buildings thinking falling is safe?
    For the majority of people, getting a vaccine shot won’t have any negative side effects. Some will experience a mild fever or illness. For others, though, the effects are devastating, even fatal. But people are not made aware of the risks, because if they were, more people wouldn’t get them. But the government can’t really force you to get vaccinated under normal circumstances. So they resort to misinformation.

23. Let us suppose for a moment that everything you’ve said is verifiable through something more than anecdotal evidence.
    Wouldn’t the smart thing be to get the vaccinations, while also pushing for further research?
    You said earlier that you would feel much worse if you got the vaccination and something horrible happened to your child, than if you did nothing and something horrible happened to your child.
    I’m assume that this is based on both your activeness in the process, and your suspicion of the vaccine.
    In what way is that different than NOT getting medical care for your sick 11 year old girl, because you are suspect of doctors and modern medicine in general?

24. Hey, thanks Rob.

25. moleboy, here’s the reasoning: because most of the things we vaccinate against are not fatal. they don’t result in brain-altering injuries that render your child incapable of ever functioning on their own in society. They don’t take away your child’s future by locking them in a body that can’t filter out the immense amount of information our senses take in. In some cases, we vacinate against something that a child would most likely encounter through sexual contact or unsanitary drug use…at the age of 6 months. What does that say about our government when it recommends that everyday, normal families vaccinate their 6 month old babies against what amounts to an STD or something coming off a shared needle?
    The difference is, in the recent case, the girl had symptoms of an illness and needed treatment. In the case of a vaccine, you’re taking otherwise healthy babies and injecting them with a foreign substance in the hopes that your actions will make them more resistant against getting sick in the future, should they ever come across the bug you’re vaccinating against.
    If you look at the history of vaccines, they were devloped to combat an outbreak of polio. Polio is serious, but treatable…it’s not generally fatal. And even those that suffer lingering effect generally don’t get serious ones. By the time the vaccine was created and cleared for use, the outbreak had already started to wane as treatment and preventative sanitation were implemented. Even without the vaccine, it probably would have dropped below epidemic levels on its own.
    Consider this…if an outbreak of something serious were to occur in our area, we’d get our kids vaccinated. Because that’s really how vaccines should be used. Vaccination the whole population isn’t a precaution, it’s a money generator for the manufacturors of the vaccine. The MMR vaccine is a further step toward cost saving by combining product, and inserting an untested preservative in oder to lengthen shelf life.

26. But I think if you don’t raise a child to believe in something, you’re guaranteeing he won’t believe in anything.
    That’s a pretty broad brush there. I’d prefer to acknowledge that different people have different beliefs, and that her own beliefs should be whatever works for her and doesn’t harm others.
    For instance, when the subject of an afterlife comes up (as I’m sure it will ere long — she already tells us that friends talk to her about pets “going to Kevin” when they die, and it’ll probably come up when we scatter my mom’s ashes later this spring), I’m leaning towards saying something like “nobody really knows. Some people believe X, some believe Y, some believe Z. We happen not to believe in any of those options, but we could be wrong. What do you think?”
    On a different note, I don’t think that you’re implying that one needs a religion to have a moral code, but I think it’d be very easy to misread your statement that way, particular for those with a vested interest in doing so.
    And out of curiosity, since you and Kath are of different faiths, which one is Caroline being brought up in and why? I won’t be offended if the answer is “none of your business,” but given that you think raising in both is a mistake you must have chosen one…
    TWL

27. With regard to kids being of a certain age and allowed to make their own choices about their faith, the Catholic church has both baptism at birth and confirmation in 8th grade (which would be about age 14). The now-teen aged individual, who would have taken confirmation classes concerning church doctrine and the like, essentially re-affirms the choice made on his or her behalf at infancy– that he/she accepts the tenants and teachings of the Catholic Church. Many people also choose a “confirmation name”, more often than not that of a saint.
    I suspect that Baptists and other denominations that baptize people as adults rather than as infants do so for similar reasons: the adult (or teen, as the case may be) understands the choice being given them, while an infant wouldn’t.
    As to the situation with Madeline Neumann and anyone else in similar circumstances, I have to admit I don’t understand how people can refuse medical help and choose to rely on a “miracle” instead. Does it never occur to such people that God is acting through members of the medical profession? Apparently not. Just as in the story PAD related of the man caught in the flood (though the version I first encountered had a woman, who had three separate chances to escape in boats. When she drowned, God said, “lady, I sent three boats!”).
    In fact, there was an episode of The Fugitive called “Joshua’s Kingdom” where Dr. Kimble encounters a young mother played by Kim Darby whose baby needs medical care, but her father, played by Harry Townes, refuses for religious reasons. At one point, Dr. Kimble (a pediatrician by training) confronts him and asks why he (Kimble) happened to come to this particular town and walk down whatever street it was that led to his meeting the young woman. I don’t recall exactly what came next, but he either said something to the effect of “how do you know I wasn’t sent here?” or left it as an unspoken implication behind his previous words. Whichever the case, her father relented and let his grandson receive the needed medical care.
    Before Kimble asked the question about how and why he happened to meet these particular people, he angrily demanded to know what sort of god this man would worship that this god would tell him not to get help for his grandson.
    I’ve got to say, I agree with Dr. Kimble’s thought process on both counts. How do such people “know” that God didn’t make specific doctors and/or hospitals or the medical profession as a whole available to them as the means by which God would “save” whomever in their family is afflicted?
    To coin a phrase, “Lady, I sent you more than 3,000 years of medical knowledge, especially modern medicine.”
    And then any “god” that would call on you to ignore modern medicine and essentially hope for the best is beneath contempt.
    Should the girl’s family face criminal charges for abuse and/or neglect? My gut instinct is to say yes, though I’ve no idea whether they would face such charges based on their religious beliefs and the laws of their state. The only reason I might hesitate to prosecute where I the county prosecutor, district attorney, whatever, would center on whether they acted (or rather didn’t act) in a genuine belief that they were doing the right thing. In short, was it willful neglect?
    On the other hand, if the girl was still alive and I was a judge before whom the issue of whether she should receive urgent medical help over her parents’ objections was brought, I couldn’t see myself siding with the parents. The child’s health and well being would take precedence over any religious considerations.
    On the other hand, if the situation involved something minor, say the occasional headache, and the family’s belief that aspirin or other such pain relievers are unnecessary, and that the body can heal itself, I’d likely rule in their favor. But once the (minor age) family member’s life might be in danger as a result of not seeking medical care, that’s something else altogether.
    Oh, and with regard to confirmation in the Catholic Church, the archbishop or cardinal (I forget which, and the guy in my case has now held both titles) holds out his hand for you to kiss his ring.
    I shook his head.
    I don’t kiss rings.
    If I remember correctly, there was a scene in a Babylon 5 episode in which Sinclair, who’d been educated by Jesuits, said something to the effect that those who are so educated either end up being obedient or impertinent. Or maybe JMS made the observation somewhere; or maybe the quote’s from something unrelated to B5. But one’s thing’s certain: We know which direction I’d already chosen in only the second year of my 10 years of Jesuit education.
    Rick

28. Posted by: moleboy at March 27, 2008 02:20 PM
    “if you don’t raise a child to believe in something, you’re guaranteeing he won’t believe in anything.”
    Well, thats simply not the case.
    If you don’t teach them to believe in god, yeah, they may grow up not having god or religion.
    But there are gazillions of other things worth believing in.
    The child will, simply, learn what he believes in.
    Perhaps he will believe that helping other people is the greatest thing in the world.
    Perhaps he will believe in the free market to make sure that everyone gets what they need.
    Perhaps he will believe, as Mr. Gillette does, that this is our only shot, here, now, and that we have to be good to each other because we don’t get another chance.
    Perhaps he will believe in things we consider bad, or evil. Perhaps he will believe in nigh-saintly ideals.
    But there’s no reason to think that he needs his parents to teach him to believe in something.
    Thats just ego.
    Beliefs don’t simply appear, nor are they an intrisic part of our DNA (at least, not the type of beliefs we seem to be talking about). They are a product of the interaction of our consciousness and our surrounding, whether environmental or personal. Much of our core beliefs come from our early childhood, as it sets the foundation by which our minds interact with the world. To suggest that parents should actively not teach their children to believe anything, you set up the stereotypical post-hippie situation of children “expressing him/herself” by acting however they feel in public.
    Of course, even that is a belief that has been taught (“I can do what I want, and authority figures, i.e. my parents, don’t care”). Unless the parents are removed from the child, they and their beliefs will influence the child in numerous ways.
    You suggest that “The child will, simply, learn what he believes in.” Please explain how this can happen without parental influence.
    I suspect that Baptists and other denominations that baptize people as adults rather than as infants do so for similar reasons: the adult (or teen, as the case may be) understands the choice being given them, while an infant wouldn’t.
    Indeed. The “Believer’s Baptism,” as it is called, is used for exactly that reason. It requires a conscious declaration of faith from the baptisee. Infant baptism has no such requirement, for obvious reasons.

29. Posted by: Tim Lynch at March 27, 2008 03:29 PM
    For instance, when the subject of an afterlife comes up (as I’m sure it will ere long — she already tells us that friends talk to her about pets “going to Kevin” when they die, and it’ll probably come up when we scatter my mom’s ashes later this spring), I’m leaning towards saying something like “nobody really knows. Some people believe X, some believe Y, some believe Z. We happen not to believe in any of those options, but we could be wrong. What do you think?”
    I think that’s a great way to do it, Tim.
    I’ve never been a fan of “because I say so.” I don’t have children and don’t want any, but if I did have a kid I would try to explain my reasons as often as I could.
    Such as…
    “Why do I have to hold your hand when we cross the street?”
    “That’s because the cars are moving very fast and could hurt us if they crashed into us. Now, as long as we’re waiting until that sign says ‘walk’ to cross then we’re probably okay, but there’s always the chance that somebody will just ignore the red light and come zooming at us. So if that happens, the car will be moving too fast for me to warn you if you don’t see it, and I want to be able to pull you out of the way before it hits you. And if you see a car coming and I don’t, then you can pull on my arm so I don’t get hit either, okay?”
    It takes more time than just telling them not to ask questions and doing what you say, but there’s nothing wrong with them asking questions. If they get in the habit of asking questions that’s the first step towards an interest in knowledge, and I can’t see how that’s a bad thing.
    With religion, I’m sorry, but I don’t approve of any kid being told “there is a God, and this is what he wants you to do, and this is what will happen to you if you don’t do it, and it is like that because I say so.” That stifles independent thought, discourages them from looking for answers, and in the worse cases turns them into zealots.

30. PAD,
    just curious. Given that you have a mixed faith family, and that you (and/or Kathleen) have stated that Caroline is being raised Catholic, how will you explain things to her when she asks (if she hasn’t started already) why everyone in the family doesn’t believe the same thing?
    Myself, were I parent in such a situation I’d try to explain to the child that different people have different beliefs and that none is the “one true religion” (or we have no real way to know which it is, if there is one, so we should respect them all). But even so, I imagine there would still be “how come this?” and “why not that?” and “But Fr. So-and-So said…” types of questions.
    Though, given that I asked such questions myself (and we were a one faith family) as a child, I guess they’d come in any event.
    Also, does she take part in Yom Kippur, Passover and other such celebrations? If so, how do you and Kathleen help her understand what’s happening without sending her mixed religious messages? If not, do you have any concerns that she might feel unwelcome in that part of your life?
    It just seems to me that no matter what someone does when raising a small child in a two-faith household (even if taught to believe in just one of them), it’s a bit of a balancing act with regard to how the child regards each faith in those formative years and/or how his or her eventual religious beliefs develop by adolescence.
    Rick

31. Someone made a comment about a Catholic insisting their child only marry another Catholic. That happens, sure, but really isn’t any different from Jewish parents who insist their kids marry … etc. Or parents from well-to-do families who insist their kids only marry someone with a certain bank account. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, mind you. Just that it does sort of makes a kind of contextual sense.

32. >I think if you don’t raise a child to believe in something, you’re guaranteeing he won’t believe in anything.
    Perhaps. Though I’m not sure that really is true. My parents, both devout Catholics raised me in that environment, and the first few years of school were spent in a couple of institutions with heavy religions leanings. Fortunately, my parents, being the wise sorts that they were, realized there comes a point where, to become a functional adult, the child needs to start making his own decisions, and what I decided, after much thought, was that I didn’t believe in it. Too much of what I’d been taught simply didn’t make sense in the cold light of logic. If, therefore, teaching someone something is no garantee that they’ll believe in it, how can not specifically teaching someone something be an assuranbce they won’t believe in anything thy might learn for themselves?

33. …Job calls out God to answer for allowing him to be punished in spite of his piety, and God responds that He has discretion as the creator of everything.

    Which makes about as much sense as saying “I created my daughter, so I have discretion to beat her as often and as severely as I want.” No way. Screw that. That’s inexcusable, whether it’s coming out of the mouth of a human being or the Creator of the Universe.

    It isn’t fair or reasonable, but by definition of “Creator of the Universe,” it’s perfectly sensible. Your analogy doesn’t apply because no man is the creator of everything.

    And if a man actually WERE the creator of everything it would be acceptable, then?

    Yes.
    Are you under the impression you don’t sustain yourself by consuming life? How much more within your discretion would ending life be with absolutely no dissent against you — by definition of “Creator of the Universe?”

    By making Job suffer that much when he’d done nothing wrong, God proved just how big of an áššhølë he was. In my opinion no child should be made to worship such a cruel deity.

    Alan Watts gave an account of a westerner visiting a Buddhist temple in Japan. I even think it was someone he knew. The westerner noticed the monks bowing to the statue of the the Buddha.
    The Nirvana of Buddhism is taken from nirvana the Sanskrit word for nothing. In Buddhism, there is no reward for obedience to diving will, and no punishment for disobedience. The westerner realized that the monks bowing to the statues were literally meaningless to their religion, and approached one of them and told him so. He said he would just as soon spit at the Buddha. The monk replied, “you spits, I bows.”
    Uncertainty is omnipresent in joy and despair. All progress moves the horizon further away. Pray, don’t pray, however you cope with the uncertainty of life, there is no escape from it either way.
    Dante said the hallelujah of the angels is the laughter of the universe. Do whatever the hëll is best for you.

34. Bobb, let me make it clear that I know you have your kids best interests at heart, no less than I do my own. That said, I have some differences with your views on vaccinations.
    If Thimerosal in vaccines is a cause of autism, why haven’t rates of autism dropped as it is being phased out? In fact, advocates claim that autism rates are skyrocketing, even as less Thimerosal is being used. Are there any good studies that link the two? I know there are anecdotal accounts but there are plenty of them regarding the power of prayer, horoscopes and homeopathic remedies as well. But I don’t know of any actual well performed studies or experiments that showed them to work. Anecdotal experiences should never be dismissed out of hand but there should be some hard scientific evidence to back it up if they are to be of value.
    What does that say about our government when it recommends that everyday, normal families vaccinate their 6 month old babies against what amounts to an STD or something coming off a shared needle?
    Are you referring to the Hepatitis A vaccine? Or something else? Hepatitis is easy to catch from many other ways besides sex and drugs (and rock and roll). I narrowly escaped being put at serious risk when a waitress at Joe’s Crab Shack infected a bunch of people–luckily, we ate there the day before she showed up sick. Wasn’t that the one that made a few hundred people sick from green onions a few years back?
    BTW, I’d definitely vaccinate the kids if you ever travel out of the country. A whole new ball game out there once you leave the US and Canada (ok, my Luxembourgian friends, I’m not talking about you, calm down.)
    If you look at the history of vaccines, they were devloped to combat an outbreak of polio. Polio is serious, but treatable…it’s not generally fatal. And even those that suffer lingering effect generally don’t get serious ones. By the time the vaccine was created and cleared for use, the outbreak had already started to wane as treatment and preventative sanitation were implemented. Even without the vaccine, it probably would have dropped below epidemic levels on its own.
    Actually, I think they were first used to combat smallpox. And I think you’re seriously underestimating the danger of polio. If it weren’t that serious it’s hard to understand the celebrations that followed Salk’s discovery. Given the high level of infectiousness of the virus (in some places the number of those infected approaches 100%) even a mere 1% of cases that become the more serious paralytic disease represents a lot of people. There is no cure.
    At the rate we’re going it may soon be perfectly safe to skip the polio vaccine entirely, as it appears that the disease may soon follow smallpox into extinction–but let’s keep in mind that this milestone would have only been possible with vaccines. The fact that the only diseases we have eradicated are those with vaccines should tell you something about their effectiveness.
    But people are not made aware of the risks, because if they were, more people wouldn’t get them. But the government can’t really force you to get vaccinated under normal circumstances. So they resort to misinformation.
    Why do you think the government is doing this? What are they gaining?
    I don’t think you can just say “money”. Vaccines are a pain in the ášš to produce and the profit rate is low. Nobody is getting rich on $10 flu shots and the few companies that bother to make them end up throwing out a good percentage. That’s why they don’t make enough, which shows up during bad years (and is why your plan to immunize the family during an epidemic may be flawed).
    Given the very real possibility of a global flu pandemic I’d urge everyone to at least consider getting a yearly flu shot. They don’t always work but if we ever get a repeat of the 1918 monster…it’s gonna be horrific beyond belief.
    Anyway, I respect your thinking on this but please keep a healthy dose of skepticism in mind. An awful lot of these anti-vaccine sites seem to have a very unscientific agenda going on.

35. Why do I have to hold your hand when we cross the street?”
    Your explanation is great, Rob, but speaking as a parent, there are also times when “because I said so” is necessary for time/safety reasons. I always try to explain things to her after the fact if for some reason I can’t do it beforehand, but if she’s about to step off the curb unescorted you don’t take time to explain — you grab her.
    TWL

36. ” Polio is serious, but treatable…it’s not generally fatal. And even those that suffer lingering effect generally don’t get serious ones.”
    Umm, post-polio syndrome – affects older people who contracted poliomyelitis when they were children? Polio a.k.a “Infantile paralysis”?

37. Dustin
    How can a child develop beliefs without the influence of parents?
    Well, first off, I’m not advocating that parents not try to instill their values in their children.
    That said, unless you raise your child in a bubble, literally, then you are but one of a long list of influences on your child.
    Here’s a few
    1. friends
    2. teachers
    3. personal experiences
    4. media
    5. physics
    A parent choosing (somehow) to not pass on any kind of belief system will not end up with some sort of automaton.
    Funny, we hear all this talk of how video games and movies and TV are taking kids away from their parents values. Or those kids who are ‘bad influences’. It seems odd to think that, in the absence of parental teaching, that kids wouldn’t use these same sources.
    again, not advocating this, just saying that you don’t raise a child in a box.

38. Very well said Peter.

39. Peter DavID: 00I don’t see how deciding what religion to raise your child in is any different than deciding what moral code one is going to instill in one’s child or what political leaning you’re going to teach him is the preferred one in your house.
    Luigi Novi: If the religion in question were composed entirely of principles that had secular uses and did not lend themselves to divisiveness and abuse (“Don’t cause others pain”; “Don’t steal”), then I would agree. But if they do not, and incorporate things like “Don’t avail your child of proper scientifically-validated medicine”, “You belong to God’s chosen group”, “Thou shall have no other gods before me”, “Cover your women in burkas against their will”, “Everyone not in your group is going to hëll”, “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live”, “You may keep slaves”, “lop off a part of an infant’s genitals”, or “Kill all the infidels”, then I’d say that there’s a big difference.
    As for teaching him a political leaning, I’d say that that’s wrong too. It is better to teach children principles, and maybe even explain why you think your political leaning fulfills those principles. But ultimately, he/she should be encouraged to see what those of other leanings have to say too, as they might have some good ideas, and leave it up to the child.
    Peter DavID: 00It doesn’t mean the kid won’t go a different way when he gets older. But I think if you don’t raise a child to believe in something, you’re guaranteeing he won’t believe in anything.
    Luigi Novi: Sure. But what does teaching him to “believe in anything” have to do with religion? I assume you’re not implying/saying that in order to believe in “something”, you have to raise him/her to believe in gods, right?

40. Gunter: Very well said Peter.
    Luigi Novi: Gunter, are you Peter’s father? (I remember your first name being mentioned somewhere, perhaps in the Comics Buyers Guide story on Peter’s second wedding. If so, it’s good to see you here. You’ve raised a fine son, sir, and you did a fine job by taking Peter to those movies for your review-writing, and influencing him through your own work as a reporter to become a fine writer! Kudos!

41. I always try to explain things to her after the fact if for some reason I can’t do it beforehand, but if she’s about to step off the curb unescorted you don’t take time to explain — you grab her.
    Yeah, that makes sense. As long as you eventually do give them an explanation instead of conditioning them to be unquestioningly obedient, because I think people should always ask questions.
    Posted by: Mike at March 27, 2008 06:01 PM
    Yes.
    Are you under the impression you don’t sustain yourself by consuming life? How much more within your discretion would ending life be with absolutely no dissent against you — by definition of “Creator of the Universe?”
    Look, Mike, there is a big difference between ending the life of another creature and tormenting that creature. I don’t eat (or “consume the life of”) any animal that I believe was treated inhumanely, which means that I’m almost a vegetarian at this point because I don’t trust slaughterhouses to be humane. I don’t want to tell anybody else what to do; rather, I’m saying that it’s stupid to equate my “consumption of life” with what God did to Job.
    There is a big difference between a quick, humane kill and living for a long time in agony. One big reason why people are so justifiably outraged over this particular case is because the girl did not die peacefully in her sleep or anything–no, what happened to her was the sort of slow, excruciating death that I would not wish on anybody but the most sadistic individuals in existence. Perhaps not even on them.
    If God had just killed Job, this wouldn’t make me so upset. If people who didn’t get into heaven simply ceased to exist instead of going to hëll, I wouldn’t be so upset about that either. But in both cases we have God either personally torturing a good man or allowing people to be tortured forever (which NOBODY deserves IMO), and that’s a level of cruelty that absolutely sickens me.
    I am not going to say “Oh, he’s God, he made the universe and therefore it’s not my place to say he’s wrong.” I absolutely will say he’s wrong, and I fervently hope that a being capable of such evil is nothing more than a myth, because I don’t want my ultimate fate to be in its hands.

42. “if you don’t raise a child to believe in something, you’re guaranteeing he won’t believe in anything.”
    Well, thats simply not the case. If you don’t teach them to believe in god, yeah, they may grow up not having god or religion. But there are gazillions of other things worth believing in.
    * sigh *
    Go back. Reread my post to which you responded. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
    Done?
    Okay. Now: Notice that in the sentence preceding the one you yanked out of context, I specifically said that choosing a religion to teach a child is no different than teaching them about a moral code or politics. I was speaking in broad strokes about the notion that parents impart all manner of values to their children.
    And you turned around and distorted the meaning into my asserting that if you don’t teach your children about God, they will have no values. A ridiculously untenable position that I never took.
    A little reading comprehension, guys. That’s all I’m asking.
    PAD

43. just curious. Given that you have a mixed faith family, and that you (and/or Kathleen) have stated that Caroline is being raised Catholic, how will you explain things to her when she asks (if she hasn’t started already) why everyone in the family doesn’t believe the same thing?
    I suppose it depends upon how old Caroline is when the subject comes up. Children readily accept the reality they’re presented for a good long time before it occurs to them to question it. Frankly, I don’t think it really amounts to much more than, “Well, there was this good and wise man named Joshua bar Joseph, and many people call him Jesus, and mommy believes God was his daddy and I believe that God wasn’t his daddy, but either way he was very learned and helped a lot of people.”
    Myself, were I parent in such a situation I’d try to explain to the child that different people have different beliefs and that none is the “one true religion”
    Which is great if you’re explaining it to a philosophy major. When it comes to parenting, however, I don’t see the need to overexplain. Your explanation is the equivalent of, “Daddy, where do babies come from?” “Well, honey, it begins with a man being in a state of arousal…”
    Also, does she take part in Yom Kippur, Passover and other such celebrations? If so, how do you and Kathleen help her understand what’s happening without sending her mixed religious messages? If not, do you have any concerns that she might feel unwelcome in that part of your life?
    She doesn’t really go with me to services at the synagogue unless it’s something that’s very kid oriented (Purim, for instance.) She participates in the Passover sedar, however. Why not? The Last Supper was a sedar.
    PAD

44. bobb alfred—
    You did right by refusing the vaccinations, although most people will disagree.
    Parents have had the right to refuse vaccinations on moral grounds for decades, but most don’t know that.
    On the subject of autism itself, some babies go through several rounds of vaccinations before they have a reaction; some on the earlier rounds. If it was a specific vaccination that was causing autism, the pattern would be obvious. The only thing the vaccinations had in common was thimerisal.
    Some people argue that VACCINES ARE SAFE. Bulltish. Most drugs aren’t safe.
    INFLUENZA VACCINATIONS—don’t work very well, and to even have a chance of making them work, they are re-designed every year and you have to get a new shot every year. VITAMIN D has recently been discovered to prevent influenza. 2000 IU (International Units) daily seems to be the proper amount. Cost is around $30 per year. If you are the type of person who gets the flu every 3 years, the Vitamin D will pay for itself when you don’t have to miss any work because of being ill. Plus Vitamin D is essential to proper absorption of Calcium. Prevent the flu and help build strong bones all in a dosage smaller than an aspirin.

45. …Job calls out God to answer for allowing him to be punished in spite of his piety, and God responds that He has discretion as the creator of everything.

    Which makes about as much sense as saying “I created my daughter, so I have discretion to beat her as often and as severely as I want.” No way. Screw that. That’s inexcusable, whether it’s coming out of the mouth of a human being or the Creator of the Universe.

    It isn’t fair or reasonable, but by definition of “Creator of the Universe,” it’s perfectly sensible. Your analogy doesn’t apply because no man is the creator of everything.

    And if a man actually WERE the creator of everything it would be acceptable, then?

    Yes.
    Are you under the impression you don’t sustain yourself by consuming life? How much more within your discretion would ending life be with absolutely no dissent against you — by definition of “Creator of the Universe?”

    Look, Mike, there is a big difference between ending the life of another creature and tormenting that creature.

    You mean punishment — of which throwing someone in jail qualifies — or benefiting from anyone’s incarceration? How much more within your discretion would punishing anyone be with absolutely no dissent against you?

    I am not going to say “Oh, he’s God, he made the universe and therefore it’s not my place to say he’s wrong.”

    Did I not say it was unfair and unreasonable?

46. Okay. Now: Notice that in the sentence preceding the one you yanked out of context, I specifically said that choosing a religion to teach a child is no different than teaching them about a moral code or politics. I was speaking in broad strokes about the notion that parents impart all manner of values to their children.
    Okay. It’s clear at this point what you didn’t mean, but not quite as clear what you did mean.
    When you say “they won’t believe in anything”, do you mean that they won’t believe in the existence of certain things, such as God? Or that they won’t believe in causes, such as freeing Tibet? Or that they won’t believe in something else?
    Finally, sorry, but that statement is easily misinterpreted. I don’t think he “distorted” your words, I think he really thought you were saying something you weren’t because of the way you phrased it.

47. On the subject of autism itself, some babies go through several rounds of vaccinations before they have a reaction; some on the earlier rounds. If it was a specific vaccination that was causing autism, the pattern would be obvious. The only thing the vaccinations had in common was thimerisal.
    Alan, there’s a fallacy there: you’re automatically assuming that the autism is directly related to the vaccinations at all. Correlation does not imply cause, and IMO the evidence for a correlation is still a lot further on the side of “anecdotal” than I’d like.
    Again, this is not to disparage Bobb’s choice — while it’s not the one we’ve made with our daughter, he’s certainly thought it through. The fact that I disagree with his conclusion is just that: a fact, not a judgement.
    TWL

48. “VITAMIN D has recently been discovered to prevent influenza. 2000 IU (International Units) daily seems to be the proper amount. Cost is around $30 per year. If you are the type of person who gets the flu every 3 years, the Vitamin D will pay for itself when you don’t have to miss any work because of being ill. Plus Vitamin D is essential to proper absorption of Calcium. Prevent the flu and help build strong bones all in a dosage smaller than an aspirin.”
    10 mins/day sun exposure will supply yourt Vitamin D requirements – it’s manufactured in your skin in the presence of sunlight.

49. “VITAMIN D has recently been discovered to prevent influenza. 2000 IU (International Units) daily seems to be the proper amount. Cost is around $30 per year. If you are the type of person who gets the flu every 3 years, the Vitamin D will pay for itself when you don’t have to miss any work because of being ill. Plus Vitamin D is essential to proper absorption of Calcium. Prevent the flu and help build strong bones all in a dosage smaller than an aspirin.”
    10 mins/day sun exposure will supply your Vitamin D requirements – it’s manufactured in your skin in the presence of sunlight.

50. “VITAMIN D has recently been discovered to prevent influenza. 2000 IU (International Units) daily seems to be the proper amount. Cost is around $30 per year. If you are the type of person who gets the flu every 3 years, the Vitamin D will pay for itself when you don’t have to miss any work because of being ill. Plus Vitamin D is essential to proper absorption of Calcium. Prevent the flu and help build strong bones all in a dosage smaller than an aspirin.”
    10 mins/day sun exposure will supply your Vitamin D requirements – it’s manufactured in your skin in the presence of sunlight.

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