Religious Faith results in Death

Matt beat me to it on this one. An eleven-year-old girl recently died from diabetes (which is treatable with modern medicine). Her parents decided to rely on God and prayer rather than doctors and hospitals. Now they believe that they just didn’t have enough faith, and even worse, they think that she can still be resurrected from the dead if they have enough faith.

Now, I know the Christian excuses here – God gives us doctors and medicine, they say. (As if we should credit God, rather than the hard work and intelligence of a the disproportionately atheist medical researchers.) I would add that while that philosophy might be a good way to get theists to rely on science-based medicine (rather than prayer – which has a ridiculously bad track record in medical studies), there’s nothing un-Biblical about prayer. In fact, the Bible is very pro-prayer. Here’s the bad advice that the “Good Book” gives:

Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit. (James 5:14-18)

You can read the whole chapter if you think I’m taking that out of context. The fact of the matter is that these parents were following the teachings of the Bible. God isn’t “the great physician” no matter how many times you say that he is.