In NGNG I wrote

“your religion is a cruel, terrible, and sometimes deadly joke on you”.

If you need proof for this, look no further than today’s story of a teenager who suffers from a life-threatening disease (Hodgkin’s) and refuses life-saving treatment because of the twisted, sick religion that his parents and priests poisoned his mind with.

Here we have a young man who is ill, who needs help, and whom his community abandoned because they are willing to sacrifice him on the altar of their superstition: Jehova’s Witnesses. To sum up, this particular Christian sect was invented in the 1870s; it believes that the ‘end of days’ has already happened in 1914 (they have to, otherwise a holy prediction of theirs from 1877 would be false), that the end of the world is imminent, and – which is relevant here – they are opposed to blood transfusion.

As a boy he was so heavily indoctrinated by his parents that today he refuses life-saving blood transfusions. Since he’s only 17 and legally a minor, a court ordered the treatment be forcibly administered – at least until he turns 18 in January 2014. Given the history and level of brain washing this youth has undergone I think it is likely that he’ll die soon after his coming of age.

Now, cynics may argue that we really shouldn’t bother: grant his wish now, and put him on the list for a Darwin Award (posthumously awarded to people who removed themselves from the human gene pool by means of stupendous stupidity). But this is really a tragedy.
Our society has failed to protect this youth. I believe that Religious Freedom must be curtailed when it endangers an innocent’s life. Now, even though I am against religion, I still think that Freedom Of Religion is one of society’s highest social achievements, so I do not say this lightly. Everyone should be free to do to themselves as silly as they wish.

Yet, brainwashing an impressionable child into self-sacrifice for a religion should be a crime. Telling a child that basic modern medicine is harmful is a morally bankrupt act of religious selfishness. You may believe it, but your child suffers the consequences. Society must step in and prevent this cruelty.

A crime was committed. The boy’s parents and his priests are the perpetrators. They should have been stopped when there still was time.

Ours is a guilt of omission.