Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: December 06, 2022 02:01PM
Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Some of the beliefs, traditions, imperatives
> seem
> > to overcome a mother's protective instinct
> towards
> > her young.
>
> Absolutely true and absolutely Mormon.
Yes indeed.
Same with JWs and other fundy groups. How else explain a mother who would refuse lifesaving medical treatment for a beloved child because "God said so", according to the overseers of whichever particular faith group she happened to be in.
With JWs, it's the blood transfusion teaching, of course. If you look up which religions don't believe in medical science, JWs come up first, and there are more JW members than members in other offshoot faith groups so that's a significant number of people potentially avoiding that simple lifesaving medical treatment. The fact of JWs coming up first in a search of anti-medical-science believers can give a false impression as they do seek all other medical care but balk at that one treatment (blood transfusion or any surgery or other treatment that may require one).
With Christian Scientists, it's a belief in "spiritual healing" ("alternative healing methods") to the point of, as one example, experiencing potentially deadly epidemics of measles and other unnecessary illness in children due to not being vaccinated.
I have been astounded during the pandemic to see the numbers of Evangelical Christians who rejected the recommended vaccines, a simple preventive measure that helps the vaxxed individual as well as anyone with whom they come into contact and assists in safeguarding the general population, because that's how vaccines work.
One EV Christian minister in the US advised her flock to avoid the vaccine as "She claimed that Jesus was himself protection from the flu and suggested that people avoid the virus by repeating the phrase, “I’ll never have the flu.”
Yeah, that'll work. "I'll never get old. I'll never get old. I'll never...".
There's also, of course, the imperative in the Bible to "obey secular authorities" so how does one square that with rejecting government mandates I wonder. I guess it's in the same realm, perhaps, as being a conscientious objector but I think that's a poor attempt at paralleling those principles.
Here's a brief write-up about the beliefs of a few main groups of religious believers who reject some or all medical treatment:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/07/health/religion-medical-treatment/index.htmlI cannot get inside the mindset of a mother who can accept such beliefs that could rob a child of health and even life. Other than to try and imagine how it could be to believe so strongly that one's child will be healed directly by God instead of realizing that the treatments are already right there - in the person of the doctor and the solutions being offered.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2022 02:06PM by Nightingale.