In my opinion, we are a country where too many people follow the teachings/rules/threats of organised religion. In a general sense it creats a situation where others are forced to adhere to these principles through the presence of socially oppressive laws (abortion, ETOH laws, etc). However this post is more about how strict adherence to these beliefs can be detrimental to one’s health.
Examples I have seen personally include:
1. A 31 y/o male Jahova’s Witness died in front of his young family because he refused a blood transfusion for an easily curable condition.
2. A family of Orthodox Jews almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning because they left their gas stove on for 24 hrs during a holiday where they were “not allowed” to turn it on or off during that period since it’s considered “work”.
3. A diabetic Catholic man came in seizing because his blood sugar was 23. He had been fasting for a holiday and ate or drank nothing for 24 hours. Of course he had taken his oral Meds before the fast started.
4. A Muslim woman nearly died from vaginal bleeding because she initially signed out AMA when she found out there were no females providers available that night to examine her.
I know there are a jillion other cases like these out there. It reinforces my belief that being inflexibly religious should come with a Surgeon General’s warning.
20
Jun
Re #2: If it’s a question of life and death, you’re allowed to flout shabbos law. In fact, you’re *supposed* to flout shabbos law in that case. Either that or my religious education was woefully lacking.
Diabetic Catholics are exempt from fasting. The gentleman was either poorly informed or determined to adhere to a rule that he was not required to.
Adults are entitled to make their own decisions, even bad ones. It’s when religious parents are making the decision to refuse medical care for a child that infuriates me. There was a case in the last couple of years where a diabetic child died because the parents tried to pray her better instead of giving her her insulin. In my book, that’s murder.
Religious fervour does have it’s drawbacks, but the quiet faith I’ve observed of people as they endure painful procedures is admirable. I’m guessing it’s the dose that makes the poison.
I agree that adults can make “unwise” decisions (although for me that shifts the blame to their holy person of choice in the first two examples).
I also agree that imposing religious requirements on children that ultimately kill them is even worse (circumcision anyoe?)
Agreed, I remember seeing a case on the news a year or so ago where a baby died from ECZEMA because her parents were naturopaths and were using only homeopathic treatments despite the advice from dermatologists etc. The cause of death was ultimately malnutrition, I think the poor little girl was a toddler and was the the weight of a newborn when she died. Horrific.
There is an inverse correlation between intelligence and religion. If you’re willing to be a sheep then your brain is approximately as complex.
@ Not Moldy Jello — you’re totally right! Shomer Shabbat comes with the understanding that even if there is a QUESTION of life endangerment, that always takes precedence. I know people who have driven on Shabbat to a hospital because of a bump to the nose and bleeding that would not stop.
Your 4 examples = Darwin at work.
Maybe if the religeous kill themselves off the world can get on without their imaginary friends.
Sorry, ‘religious’
I’ve seen multiple Jehovah Witnesses die from anemia, refusing blood transfusions. They never think they are going to die. They tell me all of these stories about “artificial blood” their leader told them they could get. Sorry, no such thing. They tell me stories about members of their church who had a hemoglobin of 2, and survived just fine. Unlikely story, but even if true, she musta had healthy bone marrow. You have leukemia. It’s sad. The brain washing seems intense.
Yep, the Catholic man was exempt from fasting because of his medical condition— I haven’t had to fast or abstain for the last 3 years because of pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Over the recent holiday, the oven was on low for two days, and sure enough the CO detector went off.
We shut the oven off. Shabbat or no Shabbat, you are prohibited from committing suicide. The Torah says regarding the Sabbath laws that you should live by them (Levit. 18:5), which the Sages interpret to mean “…and not die by them”. For clarification, we were not in violation of the Sabbath by shutting off the oven; we were not only permitted, but *required* to do so.
Some religious people have the mistaken idea that by doing more than God asked us to, they’re somehow acquiring merit, but they’re not. We are strictly enjoined from creating new laws or restrictions on ourselves (Deut. 12:32). I’ll give you another example of this: On Passover, we get many calls from patients who want to know if there’s any leaven (usually wheat starch) in their medications. Most of them don’t, but we don’t always know. Every rabbi I know has proclaimed that if you need the stuff to save your life, you take it, regardless of the minute chance that there may be something prohibited in there. (Hell, even not on Passover, there’s non-kosher gelatin in every capsule, and plenty of tablets are even worse, having both mag stearate (beef derivative) and lactose (milk derivative) in them.) Regardless, you’re not supposed to stop taking your meds. If you can get them certified kosher for Passover, which is increasingly rare these days what with many generics coming from India, then fine, but you don’t have to run to every pharmacy in the state to find one that has the pills listed in Blumenkranz’s book. Had they bothered to ask the rabbi, they’d have been told this, but no, they have to assume it’s forbidden. As the dean of my dad’s yeshiva told him when he decided not to study for ordination, you don’t have to be a rabbi to say Thou Shalt Not.
So one EMT was in synagogue on Passover, when someone passed out. They took him to the hospital (yes, driving on the Sabbath; you’re allowed in this case) and on the way, asked him the usual questions.
“Do you take any medications?”
“Yes.” (he listed them)
“Did you take them today?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“Well it’s Passover, I wanted to be strict.”
So the EMT tells him, “So because *you* wanted to be [unnecessarily] strict, *I* had to drive on the Sabbath, and write, and use the radio, and miss prayer, and draw blood, and go outside the “t’chum” [i.e. the 2000-cubit limit of travel on Sabbath] and all these things you can’t [normally] do on the Sabbath, just so you could be ‘strict’?!”
It drives me crazy when people try to be more catholic than the Pope, if you’ll pardon the expression.
Eliana, you are right, my Chabad friend drove his sister to the hospital during Yom Kippur because she was pregnant and bleeding.
Life endangerment trumps all (I think). 613 mitzvot.
(Oh, and we did have the gas company come down afterward to check the stove, as well as the furnace, water heater etc. There wasn’t anything wrong, except that the windows had mostly been closed with the AC on, and there just hadn’t been enough ventilation. He did tell us to replace the CO detector anyway, as it was come to the end of its usable lifespan, which we did.)
Right. Of course about Shabbat. However, their leaving their stove on had nothing to with suspending the rule for possible life threatening danger. Once they became semi-conscious, THEN they called 911 because their lives where in danger.
Agree about endangering kids, who should be allowed the opportunity to grow up and decide for themselves. Voluntarily checking out when you have young dependents is a related issue.
There is a perspective of most religions that the physical body is only temporal. So, on a different note, many will refuse heroic measures when the things become obvious.
Just a third Catholic voice to add to the fact that #3 would have been exempt due to his medical condition.
Plus, how one fasts can be vary from person to person. One person’s fast can be NPO for 24 hours, while another’s can be to not eat something they always eat. The official Catholic teaching for fasting during Lent is 2 small meals that do not equal a full meal and 1 regular size meal with no snacking in between. Plus, fasting for Lent only applies to people age 14-60ish (I forget the exact upper number).
Sam Harris wrote the best book: The End of Faith about the rottenness of what religion has done to our world. He received so much Christian criticism that he wrote another book: Letter to a Christian Nation. I recommend that everyone read them. A thinking person must take pause and reflect on what Harris says.
A second critical lesson from #2 is to have -working- carbon monoxide detectors in the house!
A friend had a very close call when she could not locate a beeping noise in the house and called the fire dpt.
They found a blocked (slumped bricks) in the furnace chimeny and climbing CO levels.
Hard to tell what would have happened without a working detector but she vaguely remembers a bad headache was part of what led her to call.
@LeeM–
“-working- carbon monoxide detectors”
But if they’re Jewish, they can’t work!
I have to find it kind of ridiculous that the canons of these belief systems conveniently come with exemptions for the diabetic. In the mainstream religions it seems like a CYA measure.
As long as the CO detectors are not (orthodox) Jewish it is OK, most are Baptist or Lutheran…
Actually it is fine to start something before sundown and leave it going, as in the oven that caused the problem.
You just are not allowed to start it during shabat.
Preset timers are also ok, often used for lights.
I blame the Jews.
amen.
oh wait, that was the whole point…
@GrumpyRN… Perhaps if you had an ‘imaginary friend’ you would not be so grumpy? Just saying…8)
Sharon,
I did have an imaginary friend.
According to my mum he got left on a bus when I was 4 and was never heard of again. I spent my formative years up until I was about 16 doing the church thing and even later I was involved in an organised religion but I have read and I have learned and I now think for myself.
You do realise that in the 2nd decade of the 21st century we are seriously discussing rules and regulations which were thought up more than 6000 years ago for living as a nomadic desert people?
Where is Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens or Sam Harris when you need them?
So the Christians have been spoken for, and the Jews as well. The Muslim perspective regarding male doctors treating Muslim women, with regards to this case specifically, is as follows “If the treatment is on her private parts, then it is necessary that a female is instructed to treat her. If this is not possible and it is feared that the woman may perish or undergo unbearable pains, only then will it be permissible for a male to treat her.” (See: Radd al-Muhtar ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar, 6/371). The same has been mentioned in other Hanafi Fiqh references. See: Ibn Nujaym, Bahr al-Ra’iq, 8/192, Qadhikhan in his Fatawa, 3/409 & Bada’i al-Sana’i, 5/124.
So, with regards to Islam, at least, it is not about how religious a person is, this comes down to about their knowledge (not interpretation, not religiousness) of the religion.
Thank you Salma. So basically this entire post is built on a solid foundation of ignorance. As a Jew, I can speak specifically towards the Jewish angle here. There is nothing in any branch of Judaism which allows you to endanger your life to follow the Sabbath laws. The family in this case was probably unaware that there was a danger of CO poisoning. We leave our oven on – note that GE and other brands have a specific mode which overrides the automatic shutoff, designed for Sabbath observant Jews – but we keep the kitchen well ventilated and have a functioning CO alarm.