The Case

A ten year old girl from Perth Australia named Tamar is diagnosed with advanced liver cancer. According to the hospital, she has a 50-60% chance of survival if she submits to a seven week course of chemotherapy and no chance of survival without it. The parents refuse the treatment for their daughter, opting instead for "natural" cures. As the weeks drag on the hospital becomes increasingly desperate and so appeals to the Supreme Court in Perth to intervene and force the treatment. The night before the case is to be heard, the mother flees with her daughter to El Salvador so that she can be treated for her cancer naturally, that is with herbal tea and mud wraps.

The rest of the story, told on an Australian news program (and available here: http://blip.tv/file/2707012/ [with thanks to Conversational Atheist who drew it to my attention]) then unfolds at an agonizing pace. The film crew follows the family to San Salvador where they are interviewed. It is clear that Tamar is growing worse by the day and is in great discomfort. Soon, doctors predict, her airway will become obstructed, thereby creating the sensation of suffocation. And we are filled with anger and disgust at her parents, wondering how they could let their child die for such foolish beliefs.

The story makes clear that this family is not only drawn to alternative medicine, but also holds a devout Christian faith. Both parents have a peace that also has something of the spirit of resignation about it. The mother says "We just trusted that the Lord will protect us." And the father adds: "I don't want to lose my daughter, but if it is God's decision, who am I to fight against it?" The grim situation is summarized by the reporter: ""Tamar's parents are risking everything on a miracle cure. As devout Christians they believe ultimately it is God who will decide her fate."

Analysis

Conversational atheist introduced this story with, it would seem, a certain frustration over religious beliefs and my defense of them. This is how he bluntly put it: "There is a girl dying of liver cancer, right now, because her parent's superstitions. The beliefs that RD is providing cover for have real consequences in the world."

The assumption here of course is that arguments I have offered in defense of the justification of religious belief apply here as well. Thus it is perfectly okay for the parents to forgo modern medicine and wrap the child in mud because the mother's belief that mud cures every ailment is perfectly justified for her.

Without having yet seen the video I responded as follows:

Like you I think that is a tragic story. It is a story that could be repeated with an atheist who believed that his quackery scientific theory would save his child instead of chemotherapy. I am not sure how you would establish, as you seem to, that a religious or theistic worldview simpliciter makes an individual more prone to such lamentable actions than a non-theistic or non-religious one.

This is an important point, if I do say so myself. Critics of Christianity often throw out such cases without explicitly arguing that Christianity or religion or theism makes people especially prone to such mistaken actions. But this can't be implied or assumed, it must be argued.

Certainly there is nothing about Christianity that would necessarily lead one to trust mud wraps over modern medicine. Moreover, parents subject their children to all sorts of abuse out of completely non-religious concerns. Note for instance that balloon guy in Colorado who subjected his family to untold grief due to his desire to be on television. Should we thus blame religion and reality television for poor parenting?

Let's approach the objection from another angle. Doesn't religion promote quietism, that is a do-nothing attitude? As the father says, "if it is God's decision, who am I to fight against it?" Maybe that is where the problem lies? God will heal her if he wants to so we need not try?

This is a mistaken analysis of the present case since the parents are not doing nothing, they're just doing the wrong thing. Thus, their Christian beliefs don't lead them to be inactive.

That said, it is true that some Christians have reasoned in a quietistic direction based on their understanding of providence. But it is crucial to note that this fatalistic attitude also has no intrinsic connection with religion, Christian or otherwise. For one thing it is rejected by most Christians who believe God works through modern medicine and expects us to use our common sense. For another thing, one could be a fatalist without being a theist at all. After all, "Que Sera Sera" ain't a hymn.

In sum, Tamar's case is terribly tragic and it seems to me that her parents' beliefs were completely unjustified; they were inexcusably incompetent to make the decisions they did. (For further evidence of this judgment, watch the story.)

But far from allowing us to put away this troubling case, this only clears the deck for us to consider the real difficult question: why does God allow children like ten year old Tamar to die of horrible illnesses to begin with?