BBO Discussion Forums: BBF religious matrix - BBO Discussion Forums

Fluffy, on 2013-January-18, 08:27, said:

Memories of when my family had a place in Spain in the 70s-90s. The town we were in had 3 parts (town/beach/port) separated by bits that couldn't be built on. Suddenly a petrol station appears in a prime spot between the town and the beach. Turns out to have been built by the mayor's brother with no planning permission whatsoever. Corruption in local politics got so bad the expats even formed a political party to try to clean it up.

Codo, on 2013-January-18, 09:28, said:

This behaviour was directly caused by catholic believes, that noone claims it does not make it untrue. And you don't have to be sorry about not caring what an effect our politicians or cardinals have on our lives, standard human behaviour (mine too). But to put out a factor out of an equation while you say that you are talking about it, will lead to nowhere. Maybe you have a more theoretical approach about pure concepts without humans being involved. I do not buy this religion without humans.

Codo, on 2013-January-18, 09:33, said:

As you can see I linked to Zeit Online. If you really think they specialise in bashing Christians ... well, I don't know what to say. The Kölner Stadtanzeiger had more or less the same text so it seems to have been from a news agency. I checked your first source, WDR, which claims the Archbishopric had apologized. However, they give no quote, whereas the sources I just mentioned give an actual quote from a speaker for the Archbishopric which does not sound apologetic at all. On the other hand, the WDR article mentions that the central organisation of catholic hospitals in Germany supports the hospitals which denied aid to the victim. So it seems like things are not as clear as you claim they are.

Since this thread addressed the issue of tolerance, I will say a few more words, maybe not totally repetitive, of how I see tolerance.

First an extreme, and as far as I know, a fictitious example. A person is rushed to the hospital from a car accident or whatever, he is in serious need of transfusion, the doctor in charge announces that his religion forbids the giving of transfusions. Do we all agree that this is unacceptable?

My tolerance toward religious practices is, I believe, broad. Somene wants to go off in the woods and practice witchcraft, good luck to him and his fellow witches/warlocks. Just go easy on the animal sacrifices, and in extreme cases society may have to intervene on behalf of children, but largely I accept a person's right to worship as s/he pleases.

It changes if the person becomes a doctor. The first responsibility of the medical community is to the patient, not to the religious preferences of the doctors. Doctors of course can be religious just as mathematicians can be religious. But if their religion interferes with accepted medical practice then they must put aside their religious views or they must arrange for the conflict to be managed in some other way. I imagine that ear/nose/throat specialists seldom have religious crises in their practice. They could try that.

I apply this not only to religion but to any selection of a profession. It is not reasonable for a person to take a job with a tobacco manufacturer and then expect to be exempted from the production and marketing of cigarettes. Nor is it reasonable for a person to take a job that he cannot perform and then expect accommodations.


Many years back I read Bartleby the Scrivener, a short story by Melville. I can't say that I enjoyed it that much or that I much remember the details, the main good part was that it was a lot shorter than Moby Dick, but the main character takes a job and whenever he is given a task to do, he replies "I would prefer not to". Well, then, he needs to find a job he prefers to do. I don't get to announce I would prefer not to do a job that I am being paid to do, and neither does anyone else, religious objections notwithstanding. You do the job or you go get a different job that you find more suitable. In the case of a medical job, it is completely irresponsible and incredibly arrogant for a doctor to assert that his religious needs take precedence over a patient's medical needs. Such a doctor needs to be gone, and gone quickly. It does not matter at all which religion we are speaking of here, or even whether it qualifies as religion.

32519, on 2013-January-18, 08:58, said:

This is a terrific non-refutation of all the points I made. Copies, yes. Predominantly Greek means nothing to a illiterate Aramaic-speaking fisherman.

kenberg, on 2013-January-18, 15:15, said:

I agree with all, the first case should be unacceptable by laws of whatever country it happens. If it happened to me while visiting some country, well then it is my problem, but as other things I've said about tolerancy, I think my views are easier to say than to follow, if this ever touched me somehow I might not be strong enough to stand. When a country has a law that is uncommon for torists it is normally very well announced before/whle you enter the country.

The second I fully agree, again some laws protecting animals and children might apply.

Third one also fully agree, if your beliefs doesn't let you be a doctor, well just don't be.



The problem in northern Mali is that islamists have conquered the land, and are imposing both their beliefs and their laws, this is so unfair for locals who never ever picked any of them. A minorty is imposing the laws and the beliefs.

Fluffy, on 2013-January-18, 16:41, said:

Long ago someone observed to me that the problem is not with this religion or that religion, but with the uncompromising true believers of any religion. It's not that simple of course, but the observation is on the right track.

Fluffy, on 2013-January-18, 09:53, said:

The most obvious problem with this is that the rape victim might not have had a choice which hospital she went to; she may well have been brought to the closest one. So she did not willingly accept the limitations of the Catholic hospital.

Quote

The concept is the same? Ummm... suppose the rape victim was also asked to remove her wedding ring. This is the same. Were you refused necessary treatment, or procedures that might help catch a criminal? Are you really as naive as your posts suggest, or are you putting up a straw man to make a point?

Whenever I've gone in for surgery, I've been asked to remove all jewelry, watches, and anything else metal or detachable, such as dentures. I never asked, but I can think of several possible reasons for this: in the case of dentures, if they're planning to stick a tube down your throat, they don't want anything getting in the way. In the case of jewelry two possibilities occur: they don't want to deal with patients who claim "when you put me under I was wearing a $5000 watch; now it's gone. You owe me $5000", or possibly they prefer that patients who may require electric shock to restart their hearts not be wearing things that conduct electricity. I suspect the latter is more likely.

Vampyr, on 2013-January-18, 18:19, said:

This is a law problem as well you should not send a victim to a hospital where she won't get the attention she needs/wants.

Fluffy, on 2013-January-19, 02:33, said:

This is not the solution, but it suggests one -- don't have Catholic/inadequate hospitals in the first place so that this never happens.

Fluffy, on 2013-January-19, 02:33, said:

Sorry Gonzalo, but this is nonsense. This is an emergency hospital. That is where you get rushed to in an emergency. They have to give the medical attention that is prescribed for these situations.

I am very tolerant towards religious people, pretty much how Ken describes it. Independent of what I think about their believes, they can believe whatever they want, practice whatever they want... as long as it isn't at the expense of others. At that point, my religious tolerance stops. Finito, basta!

In this case, we are talking about doctors and nurses who are supposed to be the ultimate people acting in the interest of their patients. But since they were Roman Catholics they decided to practice their religion at the expense of defenseless patients.

This I won't tolerate, and neither should society. Fortunately, many Christians agree with this.

Rik

Fluffy, on 2013-January-19, 02:33, said:

Sorry, this defeats the purpose of emergency medicine in a hospital. The point is not to have to travel to the next city (if you're not fortunate to live equidistant from 2 hospitals), but to get the necessary treatments ASAP.

The only times I've ever taken patients (when I was on an ambulance) to a hospital that was not the closest was:

a) When they had a speciality issue such as a crushed skull and needed to get to the specialist ASAP as opposed to just the closest doctor for stabilization

or

b) the difference between travel times was < 2 minutes and the patient requested the farther hospital for medical reasons (e.g. there was a doctor there who knew them)

Demanding that patients know the differing policies of a hospital is absurd. Treat them ASAP in the best way uniformly everywhere--that should be the law (if it isn't already).

Mr Lettsom said:

Arguably, there's no such thing as an exact Science. Anyway, Medicine isn't one. Good doctors do the best they can for patients. It's understandable if an unborn child is regarded as a patient. Just like contributors on both sides of this debate, doctors have irrational beliefs. Removing tonsils and adenoids used to be a craze. Later, hysterectomies became a fad. Doctors seem to have genuinely believed that they were doing the right thing (Surgeons routinely permitted unnecessary hysterectomies on their wives). Many a modern medical hobby-horse will turn out to be a chimaera. Bridge bidding-theory is another possible analogy

nige1, on 2013-January-19, 09:41, said:

So many religious people argue that atheism is just another form of their own irrational world-view, as if there is no real difference: both sides operate on belief. I suppose that makes it easier to avoid confronting the truth that they cannot rationaly defend the tenets of their religion.

But while we have seen a great deal of irrationality on the part of some (but not all) of the religious posters here, I wonder what posts from atheists exhibit irrational beliefs?

Being rude or confrontational may not be desirable traits, but when the thoughts are based on evidence, they need not reflect irrationality.

This post of nige's appears to reflect scarabin's error: just because there are two sides to a debate doesn't mean that both sides possess equally valid arguments. Thus I contend that the non-believers offer rational reasons for their non-belief while the believers vary in the rationality of their arguments, with the mycrofts and codos offering rational arguments for choosing to believe irrational things with the 32 type being on the lunatic fringe.

mikeh, on 2013-January-19, 10:01, said:

hrothgar said:

Idiotic cranky Yahoo said:

mikeh, on 2013-January-19, 10:01, said:

Idiotic cranky Yahoo said:

Hamlet said:

What is curious to me is that all of the believers who have posted in this thread are believers in specific anthropomorphic gods and specific holy books. I should have thought that these people would be heavily outnumbered by those who think there is "something" out there, that did not necessarily create the world, does not necessarily care what we do, does not necessarily dole out rewards and punishments, etc. But we have not heard from the latter sort of people, or if we have, they have not identified themselves as such.

I find this a shame, because, to me at least, the idea of the divine is much more seductive than the tenets of an organised religion or quotes from its scriptures.

Trinidad, on 2013-January-19, 05:29, said:

Yes, they are suposed to, by law. But if they aren't suposed to by law, they don't have to do it*. It doesn't matter what they believe or not, if the law allows it, then they are allowed to do it, saying that they are enforced to follow laws that don't exist doesn't make sense.


If you don't like it then change the laws, not their beliefs. Trying to change their beliefs its really stupid in the first place.

* for me its pretty rare that laws don't force doctors to save lives.

If whatever test its neccesary for the investigation then you should require it by law, or else someone will not do it, it can be a fanatic, or it can be an atheists doctor who happens to be the uncle of the assaulter.


If you give someone the option to choose, don't complain that he chooses what you don't want.

BunnyGo, on 2013-January-19, 08:37, said:

Yes this is really obvious, and then, if a hospital is not adequate for emergencies, you either make it adequate, or don't let it take emergencies!, or at least those for wich its not adequate.

Fluffy, on 2013-January-19, 16:33, said:

To whom is this directed? I wasn't aware that anyone in this forum gave these doctors and nurses the right to choose what procedures to carry out.