Little girl chooses heaven......

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

A little girl who is dying prefers to stay at home and go to heaven rather than undergo (presumably painful) treatment in the hospital.

http://us.cnn.com/2015/10/27/health/girl-chooses-heaven-over-hospital-part-1/index.html

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Julianna Snow is dying of an incurable disease. She's stable at the moment, but any germ that comes her way, even just the common cold virus, could kill her. She's told her parents that the next time this happens, she wants to die at home instead of going to the hospital for treatment.

If Julianna were an adult, there would be no debate about her case: She would get to decide when to say "enough" to medical care and be allowed to die.

But Julianna is 5 years old. Should her parents have let her know how grave her situation is? Should they have asked her about her end-of-life wishes? And now that those wishes are known, should her parents heed them?

When Julianna told her parents how much she hated NT suctioning, her mother tried to make her understand why they'd done it. "I told her that even though it was really hard in the hospital, it let her get better and come back home to us, so wasn't it worth it?" Michelle remembers.

Julianna would never answer. That's when Michelle decided to have a conversation about heaven.

Michelle asked Julianna, then 4 years old, if she were to get very sick again, did she want to go back for more treatments, or did she want to die at home?

Julianna's answer was loud and clear. She chose heaven over the hospital.

Now Michelle and Steve had to decide: Would they abide by her wishes?

*********************

Any views?

Sriram

[Shaker]

Disgraceful 

[ippy]

This is little girl that is dying Shaker. It was a conversation she had with her mom when she was 4 YEARS OLD. A scared little girl Shaker, nothing disgraceful about it. What saddens me is that her parents are not encouraging her to keep fighting anymore. She knows she is dying Shaker and she is scared of that. Of course you wouldn't understand a parent trying to alleviate some of that fear for their little girl with heaven talk.

What is disgusting is your one worded and very stupid comment.

You've got no idea Vlad and I doubt if Shaker's words were clarified, especially for you, even then you'd never be able to grasp it.

ippy

[Harrowby Hall]

This is little girl that is dying Shaker. It was a conversation she had with her mom when she was 4 YEARS OLD. A scared little girl Shaker, nothing disgraceful about it. What saddens me is that her parents are not encouraging her to keep fighting anymore. She knows she is dying Shaker and she is scared of that. Of course you wouldn't understand a parent trying to alleviate some of that fear for their little girl with heaven talk.

What is disgusting is your one worded and very stupid comment.

You've got no idea Vlad and I doubt if Shaker's words were clarified, especially for you, even then you'd never be able to grasp it.

ippy

Not that it matters, but it ain't Vlad this time but the one who talks to monkeys on rocks and lives with a snork.

[jeremyp]

This is little girl that is dying Shaker. It was a conversation she had with her mom when she was 4 YEARS OLD. A scared little girl Shaker, nothing disgraceful about it. What saddens me is that her parents are not encouraging her to keep fighting anymore. She knows she is dying Shaker and she is scared of that. Of course you wouldn't understand a parent trying to alleviate some of that fear for their little girl with heaven talk.

But it's not just about alleviating her fear. The girl has made a choice to refuse future treatment and that choice was based partly on false information.

[Hope]

Disgraceful 

I agree, disgraceful that you should question other peoples' perfectly legitimate experiences and undertanding (or are you, hypocritically, saying that the holding of any understanding is disgraceful?)

[Hope]

You've got no idea Vlad and I doubt if Shaker's words were clarified, especially for you, even then you'd never be able to grasp it.

ippy, Shaker is concerned that beliefs that are no less legitimate to those believed by him and yourself, amongst others, should be being passed on to children.

Have you ever noticed that the only people who don't want young people to be able to make a choice between a variety of equally legitimate beliefs are the likes of yourself?

[Shaker]

Disgraceful 

I agree, disgraceful that you should question other peoples' perfectly legitimate experiences and undertanding

What experiences and "undertanding" [sic]? Do you know the family?

[Shaker]

ippy, Shaker is concerned that beliefs that are no less legitimate to those believed by him and yourself, amongst others, should be being passed on to children.

They're not legitimate.

[Hope]

But it's not just about alleviating her fear. The girl has made a choice to refuse future treatment and that choice was based partly on false information.

Interesting to see you saying that the medics - who you usually support - had given the family false information, jeremy?

[Hope]

ippy, Shaker is concerned that beliefs that are no less legitimate to those believed by him and yourself, amongst others, should be being passed on to children.

They're not legitimate.

And your evidence for this is ...?  Come on Shaker, you have made comparable comments on other threads, but never provided any supporting evidence for them.  Isn't it time you put up or shut up?

[Shaker]

ippy, Shaker is concerned that beliefs that are no less legitimate to those believed by him and yourself, amongst others, should be being passed on to children.

They're not legitimate.

And your evidence for this is ...?  Come on Shaker, you have made comparable comments on other threads, but never provided any supporting evidence for them.  Isn't it time you put up or shut up?

I've certainly made the comment many times that such beliefs are precisely that, with absolutely no evidence whatever to support them. They are not legitimised by evidence.

You must have missed these. Perhaps they disappeared into the ether along with the responses to my questions about numerous bald assertions you've made - the "good reasons" why homosexuality has been "viewed with revulsion through history and across cultures", and where I've employed the negative proof fallacy more than you (or indeed at all) amongst them.

[Rhiannon]

In response to the OP, I can't imagine the agony of having a child dying and in pain. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, I find I can't judge someone for giving their child a way out of it.

[Shaker]

This is little girl that is dying Shaker.

Yes. Having mastered the arts of reading and comprehension some considerable time ago, I gleaned this fact from having read the article.

It was a conversation she had with her mom when she was 4 YEARS OLD.

I refer you to my previous response.

A scared little girl Shaker, nothing disgraceful about it.

That's not what I was referring to as a disgrace, though.

What saddens me is that her parents are not encouraging her to keep fighting anymore. She knows she is dying Shaker and she is scared of that. Of course you wouldn't understand a parent trying to alleviate some of that fear for their little girl with heaven talk.

What is disgusting is your one worded and very stupid comment.

What is a disgusting is that a four year old girl facing death is having her head filled with the entirely unevidenced beliefs of her mother, predicated on a belief system which given her age - which means her lack of critical thinking skills - she cannot possibly be expected to understand ... because the adults who hold such beliefs don't claim to understand them either. For reasons best known to herself these may very well be beliefs that this woman holds, but given that I've always been of the opinion that children and religion go together like children and depleted uranium shells, inside her own head is where they should have stayed. It's not necessary to say anything one way or the other about what adults believe about death - there's no call for it. And don't give me any bullshit about "If the child raises it first" - no child of 4/5 initiates conversations about this sort of thing spontaneously; they have to pick it up from somewhere else, usually in the home, i.e. from the parents. Anybody who works with children of that age knows that if out of the blue they suddenly demonstrate an awareness of sexual matters far, far too advanced for them, stuff that they wouldn't otherwise be capable of grasping until a good many years later, something is very badly wrong somewhere - they're picking it up from an outside source somehow. Well, the same applies here.

Five-year-old Julianna Snow has never been healthy enough to attend Sunday school at the City Bible Church in Portland, Oregon, where her family belongs, so most of what she knows about heaven, she knows from her parents.

They tell her that heaven is where she'll be able to run and play and eat, none of which she can do now. Heaven is where she'll meet her great-grandmother, who shared Julianna's love of shiny, sparkly, mismatched clothes.

Julianna knows dick about heaven. The same goes for her parents. These are her parents's beliefs, which in their lumpen heaven-as-playground-next-door-to-McDonalds crassness unsurprisingly appear to be at the level of sophistication of a five year old.

The heaven-instead-of-healthcare brigade are not exactly unknown amongst American Christians after all, probably because heaven doesn't have to be paid for via your taxes*.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/02/us-daughter-pray-death

* As Marx (of so very many - Joe Hill of course being the best known) observed a long while ago, it's always easier to convince the credulous that they'll have pie in the sky when they die by and by than it is to find the money and put the hard yards into making their actual lives in the real world better. Prayer and pious hopes are free; schools and hospitals cost money.

[Owlswing]

Shaker, I could not agree with you more.

Foe reasons that I will not go into I have had to refrain from commenting up to now. I too find the idea that this child knows what she is talking about to be incredibly unlikely.

This case seems to run along the same lines as Floo's diatribe against Sunday School indoctrination, the child's vision of dying and of heaven to follow are obviously those impalnted in her head by her parent or parents and no amount of Christian indignation is going to change that!

If the child is refused treatment what is to say that her future between now and death is going to be free of pain up to thge point of agony and, if she does suffer such agony the reresponsibilty for inflicting that pain/agony will all be upon the parent/parents heads.

To love your religious beliefs more than your childs life suggests that these parents may well be JW's.

[Red Giant]

Wrong jeremy, that girl made her wished known that she would rather die at home than go back to the hospital for further painful treatments. That her parents and the child have a Christian faith and believe heaven awaits, is NOT false information. Now if they told their dying little girl that nothing awaits her after death, would you call that false information? I would. The girl knows she is dying and she has stated to her parents that that scares her. They believe in a heaven and you cannot tell them that that is false. Why should they believe you? What info do you have to show them they are wrong? This is a dying little girl, she knows it and a belief in what awaits her after death is something that she can cling to in her final days. This isn't a time to parade the heaven and God doesn't exist BS. She's dying.

Even if there's a heaven, there's nothing in Christian theology to say she's going there.

But if you're actually justifying Christianity as a comforting fairy tale, who cares whether it's true, she needs it, well maybe we're in agreement for once.

[jeremyp]

That her parents and the child have a Christian faith and believe heaven awaits, is NOT false information.

Yes it is.

Now if they told their dying little girl that nothing awaits her after death, would you call that false information?

Of course not, because nothing does await.

I would.

Ye, because you are in the grip of the Christian delusion.

The girl knows she is dying and she has stated to her parents that that scares her. They believe in a heaven and you cannot tell them that that is false. Why should they believe you? What info do you have to show them they are wrong?

What info do you have to show them that they are right?

This is a dying little girl, she knows it and a belief in what awaits her after death is something that she can cling to in her final days. This isn't a time to parade the heaven and God doesn't exist BS. She's dying.

And she has made a decision based partly on false information.

[Sriram]

The decision of the parents is based on a belief, of course...but that does not necessarily mean that they are wrong. There is no evidence that there is no heaven or that the girl will not go there.

There are enough NDE's in the world to provide evidence that there could indeed be a heaven....and the parents/girl's decision could be correct.  Many children have had NDE's and been very happy with the experience.

[SusanDoris]

The decision of the parents is based on a belief, of course...but that does not necessarily mean that they are wrong. There is no evidence that there is no heaven or that the girl will not go there.

There are enough NDE's in the world to provide evidence that there could indeed be a heaven....and the parents/girl's decision could be correct.  Many children have had NDE's and been very happy with the experience.

Well, I'm not going to mince my words here. That is absolute, unmitigated rubbish. Thank goodness that Shaker and others have posted. I tried reading the woolly, sanctimonious-type posts but had to scroll past them.

So glad to see you're back, Shaker. Keep well!

[ippy]

You've got no idea Vlad and I doubt if Shaker's words were clarified, especially for you, even then you'd never be able to grasp it.

ippy, Shaker is concerned that beliefs that are no less legitimate to those believed by him and yourself, amongst others, should be being passed on to children.

Have you ever noticed that the only people who don't want young people to be able to make a choice between a variety of equally legitimate beliefs are the likes of yourself?

Perhaps the little girls mother should have suggested she could spend her time at a Father Christmases toy making factory on the north pole instead?

After all it would be equally as truthful, legitimate and equally as distasteful.

The only difference between you and Vlad on this thread Hope, is that Vlad doesn't get it and the determination of yours to not get it.

ippy

[ippy]

The decision of the parents is based on a belief, of course...but that does not necessarily mean that they are wrong. There is no evidence that there is no heaven or that the girl will not go there.

There are enough NDE's in the world to provide evidence that there could indeed be a heaven....and the parents/girl's decision could be correct.  Many children have had NDE's and been very happy with the experience.

 There is no evidence that there is no heaven or that the girl will not go there.  Prat.

ippy

[jeremyp]

The decision of the parents is based on a belief, of course...but that does not necessarily mean that they are wrong. There is no evidence that there is no heaven or that the girl will not go there.

There is no evidence that there is a heaven and that the girl will go there. She was lied to in a decision about life or death.

[Owlswing]

Shaker, I could not agree with you more.

Foe reasons that I will not go into I have had to refrain from commenting up to now. I too find the idea that this child knows what she is talking about to be incredibly unlikely.

This case seems to run along the same lines as Floo's diatribe against Sunday School indoctrination, the child's vision of dying and of heaven to follow are obviously those impalnted in her head by her parent or parents and no amount of Christian indignation is going to change that!

If the child is refused treatment what is to say that her future between now and death is going to be free of pain up to thge point of agony and, if she does suffer such agony the reresponsibilty for inflicting that pain/agony will all be upon the parent/parents heads.

To love your religious beliefs more than your childs life suggests that these parents may well be JW's.

Except J W 's are doing it out of love for their child.

Because they believe blood transfusions will deprive their child of heaven.

And if heaven does not exist?

I find this part of the JW belief to be tantamount to manslaughter at best and murder at worst.

[jeremyp]

The child is dying.

There is no advantage I can see, in forcing a child who is dying anyway,to accept there is no heaven and that long and painful hospital procedures are all there is to look forward too.

There is no advantage you can see and no advantage I can see, but it is her life not yours or mine or even her parents'.

I think atheists who would ram their own beliefs down the throat of a four year old child ..... Disgraceful!

I wouldn't want to ram any beliefs down her throat, that's the point.

What matters is the child, if the child is happy believing in heaven, it would be immeasurably cruel to deny the child their beliefs.

But the child is taking a decision to shorten her life based partly on the belief that she is going to heaven. It may be that, if she had doubts about that, she would want to endure the pain she has to go through to stay alive for a little longer.

However what would never be acceptable would be a bunch of one true way'ist atheists forcing their own POV on death on a vunerable four year old.

But it's OK, in your opinion, for a bunch of one true way'ist Christians to do the same.

[Rhiannon]

There is no 'ok' in this situation. God alone knows what it must be like to see your child suffering so.