Sorry, BB, but actually, this thread isn't in the Pagan Circle, this one is "Christians in the World". There was a similar thread in the other forum, from whence comes your confusion, I think.

I could swear that I found it in Pagan Circle last night, but you are right, it is in "Christians in the World". My mistake, I guess. It probably should have been in Interfaith, I suppose. My bad.

In any event, my other comments regarding the subject not being an attack on Christianity still stand.

If you could, and would like to, move it to Interfaith that would probably be appropriate.

Bad Bird: I truly find this subject very interesting. On one hand we have parents who believe doing nothing but counting on their God to rectify a problem and the child dies. Either "the God" didn't hear the prayers or "the God" wasn't in the matter in the first place.

A big hallabaloo is made over this because these people are religious of some sort. The reason it hits the headlines is because the word "christian" is attached to it and the overtones is to besmirch the religious wackos. If the same thing is done from ignorance and the child dies, then nothing is said.

You said...

They will get what the "law" affords them. But looking from the other side, why is it the state can refuse 1000's of people medical care because they don't like the doctor?

There is no shortage of stories where people die all of the time because they were denied health care.

Here is one story that covers everything. It has religion because the doctor is also a minister and he takes care of people who can't drive or go to the doctors office and they are the poorest in the USA. Imagine house calls for the poor and needy.

Wanderingspryte would like this one...

http://www.arpaincoalition.com/

http://www.cpmission.com/main/painpolitics/myers.html

Do you have the same compassion in regards to the boy that died involving a religious sect with the 1,000's who are denied help in this story? Many families are at risk in this story including small children if you look at the videos. What about helping them with the law of the state?

-thinker-

I'm aware of the situation in Mississipi regarding this pain doctor's malpractice insurance cancellation. Someone (probably you) posted a link to web-site a couple of months ago on the same subject, which I read carefully.

Yes, I do have compassion for the doctor and his patients' plight. His religious connection is irrelevant, but he obviously has strong beliefs concerning his obligation to help poor people in pain. Those beliefs are in conflict with the actions of the insurance organization set up by the state.

In my opinion, insurance companies make many decisions that are inequitable. My insurance, for instance, would not cover dialysis in the event that it was needed to sustain my life. It is expensive, so they won't cover it--along with a number of other similar medical problems.

I suspect that the locale where this is occurring, Mississippi, might be a factor. The fact that this African-American doctor (who claims never to have had a malpractice suit in his 17 years of treating poor people--in an essentially all African-American district--with prescription pain-killers) cannot get legally-required malpractice insurance means that he has de facto had his license revoked for no sound reason. Great example of "Beliefs vs The State".

I noticed that the web-sites that you posted seem to have been inactive over the last two or three years. Do you have a knowledge of where the issue has gone?

As a secondary, but related issue, I wonder what happened to the doctor(s?) that were issuing painkiller prescriptions to Rush Limbaugh and other high profile persons? Does the State think that the now-unlicensed African-American doctor was issuing prescription pain killers indiscriminately? If so, why was he not charge with that?

About the only thing we can do to get the insurance inequities under control is to consider how various candidates for public office view insurance reform when casting our votes.

Bad Bird: I only picked this doctor because of his association with religion. I don't belong to or accept his brand of religion but because he is religious and black and giving help to the poor, they wont cover the drugs he prescribes. We are not talking about expensive procedures here.

The doctor cannot do anything unless he has malpractise insurance. That includes access to hospitals. In other words, they don't want these people to have access to medicine or the hospitals and the way they cut them off is by not giving malpractise insurance to this doctor.

He is not the only one if you care to make a search. All over the USA and in Canada these doctors are being subjected to this kind of treatment, saying they are just legalized drug pushers.

If you follow the story, many people commit suicide because they can't endure the pain with conventional drugs like acetominophen and tylonal. In other words, the people in control are selective as to who get's what.

It seems ironic then that when a family with religious beliefs deny a certain treatment for a child, there is a great halabaloo but flip the coin and when thousands are denied treatment in something else that is not expensive, then we just read over it.

The insurance companies are controled by the Government as is the FDA and what you get is not necessarily the best or even good, but that's all your going to get even when it causes death.

The drug companies support the different Politicians in their endevors, so it is beneficial for the Politicians to give the drug companies what they want. This includes the insurance companies.

You asked...

That's an interesting point. We had a doctor run out of Cznada and it hit one of the documentary shows on TV over this very thing. He went to the States to practise. Some people were getting vast amonuts of painkillers just to function normally, where this amount would kill somebody else. They interviewed the patients who came from every walk of life, and some who could afford it, had to resort to illegal drugs just to cope with the pain. The only other way to be relieved from the pain is commit suicide.

This particular doctor discovered this quite by accident when an overdose would have killed a person, which made them well. Imagin getting the wrong quantity of medication and instead of killing you it makes you well.

When you investigate this subject you see thousands who are misdiagnosed or given the wrong drug which kills them. But we have the proclivity to zero in on a religious belief that kills one child. Both are a very sad state of affairs but lets give each equal time. The overtone in the first post has to do with religion more then anything else.

-thinker-

That was intentional, thinker. When I brought the subject up it was not so much about the medical aspects as it was about the general subject of how the state and religion interact when when their laws and beliefs are at odds. Polygamy, taxation, abortion (oops, thats medical, isn't it), military service; whatever.

Universal availability of good health care is, as you discussed, a real problem. It might be deserving of its own thread.

Bad Bird: You said...

That's an interesting subject. Did you know the amount of abortions is equivalent to the number of immigrants coming into the country?

The immigrants that are coming in have different social and religious beliefs which cause a segregation amd conflict within the country.

Is it possible God who used to be the God of our two countries, is allowing this degradation in the country?

It's never worked in history of the past where more then one religion in a country caused well being for it's citizens.

There is a reason why our countries have reaped great blessing, but as we see other religions coming in and taking over, we see the blessings disapear.

The reason why people want to come to our two countries, is because they want what we have. What are the reasons why we are so blessed? Why is our blessings being taken away?

Our nations were lenders but now we are borrowers and we are running out of places to get loans. Other nations are buying up our possessions and we are so far into debt that we can't possibly pay back or service the loans. Our wealth is dissipating and falling through our fingers and we can't do a thing about it. A borrower is servant to the lender.

Is it correlated to our sins, like abortion for example?

-thinker-

What country are you talking about; US or Canada?

As for the amount of yearly immigrants equalling the number of yearly aboritons, that sounds doubtful to me. You'd have to cite your sources on that with some government data. I won't accept numbers off some wack-o end-time religion site, only off a government cenus-type site.



Ex-CUSE me? The United States is a proud nation of immigrants. Perhaps them coming in is a good thing, to clean up the filth up beliefs such as "The different religious and social beliefs of immigrants are causing degradation of our country".

The more I learn about how you think, the more I....

Excuse me, I have to go vomit.

Hi Helice:

You wrote: Some days it might be difficult to differentiate between the two, if you listen to both sides of the media (Rush and Al Gore) with their extremes and opposites.

That may be a good thing, even if there were no more immigrants coming into the USA. Just based on birth rates, we have a population disaster coming. Just take a look at our population growth figures. Abortion makes a small contribution to slowing population growth as does sending off our young people to war so that some of them will never have a chance reproduce.



The reason that this country has been so "blessed" is not a matter of religion or even necessarily our form of government. It is because when the (primarily European) invaders stole it they found a vast amount of untapped resources. We would probably have been "blessed" no matter what the invaders believed, either religiously or politically.

We are losing our "blessings" because we have used them to the point where they are no longer as easily tapped.


I agree, but isn't this just the result of population growth and resource depletion, exacerbated by a culture of consumption?



Sure it is, but I define "sin" in terms of the mankind's survival. Whether or not abortion (or contraception) is positive or negative in terms of survival is arguable.

This might lead back to the subject of this thread. If society were to overwhelmingly decide--pass laws--to the effect that population growth must be controlled how would that affect you if you believed, for religious reasons, that your obligation was to have as many children as possible?