Sometimes I get showed up . . . religious folks stick to their guns

One of the flip things I say about the relative levels of real faith attributed even by believers between science and religion goes thus: "When you get sick, you might pray, but you go to a doctor for the cure." Well, apparently, not everyone does. This family let their little girl die because rather than taking her to the doctor the decided to let her wallow for about a month in agony as diabetic ketoacidosis with such fun symptoms as stomach pain, muscle wasting and air hunger. Instead of going to the hospital or contacting the family doctor, they instead decided to pray and when that didn't work they prayed a little more. And their their daughter died.

If they'd taken to the hospital? Not a problem. Diabetic ketoacidosis responds very well to treatment and almost all patients make a full recovery.

Which does mean I'm wrong now and then. At least some people will just pray to Jesus instead of see a doctor . . . but what will happen is treatable conditions became fatal. They apparently still have faith that their god will raise their daughter from the dead.

What I find most fascinating is that the case has merely been referred to the DA's office. In any rational society, when parents pray while their child dies a slow wasting death would obviously be a sign of the most grotesque form of child abuse. They have other children, too. I mean, if an atheist did nothing while their child wasted away from this terrible illness when all they had to do was take the kid down to the hospital - I mean, this was not a quick death, either, but a slow, lingering one where the kid's last days would have been agonizing, the whole sweaty sheets gasping and clutching at the bed business, for days - I don't imagine for a moment that anyone would doubt it's child abuse and that the parents would not only be arrested but their other children taken away from them. But religious folks? Hey, they can murder their little girl, but because they believe in magic sky fairies there's a good chance they'll get off scot-free. Because religious child abuse is the norm in America, and much of the rest of the world. Religions are allowed to consistently abuse their children, because they they are treated differently than any other organization on earth. They're special. And because of that murderers are now walking free, immediately threatening at least two other children.