Are churches responsible for bad consequences if their believers take their guidance seriously?

It happens all the time. Religious groups (call them churches, cults or whatever rocks your boat), busily marketing their superior wares, sometimes resort to suggestions along the lines that if their followers pray hard enough their ailments will be healed, without any need for medical interventions. There are plenty of examples of this, both with regard to religious groups in the West as well as with regard to cults like Falun Gong in the East or charismatic churches in Africa. To give you just two recent examples. I was recently in China, visiting both the Chinese as well as the Shanghai Academy of the Social Sciences, as well as community groups agitating against Falun Gong in the country. 

Falun Gong in China

Falun Gong is a nasty, racist, homophobic and misogynist cult that has successfully misled some of its adherents to not seek medical care and instead focus on its exercise regime as a means to fight illness. I met a man in Shanghai who told the story of how his family fell apart, his wife (like him and his daughter Falun Gong adherents) did not seek care for her cancer and died eventually. The woman believed that following the Falun Gong guru's teachings would translate into her being cured (without having to seek expensive medical care). The Chinese authorities have outlawed Falun Gong because they consider the organisation a destructive cult. Us Westerners get of course all flustered about this, because we believe that religious freedom is of greater importance than preventing the harm caused by these groups. 

Synagoge Church of all Nations in Britain

In East London the evangelical Synagoge Church of all Nations reportedly promises its followers miracle healing. As a result of this several people with HIV infection chose to stop taking HIV medication. At least three reportedly have died as a result of this choice. The BBC reports that a growing number of evangelical churches in the UK is making wild healing promises (no big surprise, they're outcompeting each other on this front in order to attract followers). Unlike Falun Gong in China, the Synagoge Church of all Nations as well as others like it may continues its practices unhindered in Britain and other Western countries, and more people will predictably die. 

I think it is reasonable to ask why religious freedom is somehow valued higher than other convictions (of an ideological kind) in the West. If a complementary medicine company made such false healing claims for its products, it obviously could not hide behind the religious freedom mantra, hence state authorities in the West would prosecute the company for making demonstrably false claims resulting into harm. I do wonder why there is this special dispensation in the context of religious belief, at least when this belief is uncontroversially harmful (as is the case in the context of miracle healings). 

Should groups who make such claims not be forced to provide evidence in support of their claims, and lacking that evidence should they not be prevented from making such claims? Why is the religious freedom mantra seen to be a more significant societal value than harm prevention? Most of the liberal reasons for permitting such religious groups to spread their deadly teachings are unsound. Just think of John Stuart Mill's famous justifications for permitting such ideologies to be spread without hindrance: 1)  we better be careful with censorship as they might be right after all - in this context surely an implausible proposition; 2) society can learn from debating their erroneous ways by getting a better understanding of why they're wrong, hence we are better off letting them continue to spread their views - what exactly are we learning in the case under consideration other than that poorly educated, vulnerable people tend to fall for such deadly quacks, no surprise in that; 3) people grow as persons if permitted to follow their eccentricities - in our case there's little growth as people die as a result of bad choices they make based on religious propaganda. Much of Mill's case seems based on all sides involved in freedom of expression cases having a serious (of sometimes faulty) case, ie that at least they believe what they say. This is a somewhat doubtful proposition in the case of money grabbing cults, they're in it for revenue generation and gains in political influence. If they were genuinely concerned about their members well-being they'd stop peddling lies about the benefits associated with following the cult rules, given that all the available empirical evidence points against their case..

I am not suggesting here that the Chinese answer to the problem of destructive cults is perfect compared to what we have in the West, but at least there is some recognition that harmful propaganda must be confronted and cannot be led go unanswered by the state under the guise of protecting religious freedom. Surely people's well-being must come first. Well, truth be told, I am ambivalent about this matter. Any comments are very much welcome.

Scientific misconduct

The news on research misconduct is coming in hard and fast. A Bradford University professor was reportedly caught having published content that he plagiarized from Indian academics.  Germany had its fair share of significant scandals fairly recently. Retraction Watch reported on Professor Joachim Boldt who had some 90 or so papers retracted because they involved academic misconduct of some kind or other. The country defense minister was forced to resign (mostly because of outrage among the conservative middle classes and widespread anger among academics) because his doctoral thesis basically was a patchwork of stuff he copied elsewhere. Der Spiegel weekly magazine reports that the head of sport medicine at Freiburg University is currently under investigation by university authorities for having plagiarized parts of his habilitation (a German kinda second doctorate that you need if you wish to go for professorial jobs - a waste of time by any stretch of the imagination, but that's a story for another day). As yet unsubstantiated rumors have it that he delayed his PhD student's thesis defence so that he'd be able to publish his habilitation first. The university also investigates claims that said professor's wife, in order to speed up her doctoral thesis defense misappropriated content from doctoral theses her husband supervised for her own thesis.

At Bioethics, a journal that I am associated with as an Editor, we had to face - in this year alone - two plagiarism cases, each time involving stuff we published being plagiarized elsewhere. One paper has since been retracted by BMC Medical Ethics, an Open Access electronic publication operated by Springer Publishing. The retraction did not occur until significant pressure was exerted on the reluctant publisher. In case of doubt, strangely, publishers and editors seem quite happy to cover their authors' tracks and opt for Errata as opposed to retractions, the dreadful word 'plagiarism' is avoided at nearly all cost by publishers and editors. It's unclear to me whether that is due to legal reasons as opposed to lack of insight on the relevant editors' part. The other plagiarism claim is still investigated. When you realize that we publish only between 55 and 65 manuscripts in any given year, that's quite a bad start into 2011.

In Britain the conservative paper The Telegraph reports the results of a nationwide survey suggesting that some institutions had to face down hundreds of cheating students in just one year. You'll be pleased to know that the supposedly best universities in the country, Oxford and Cambridge (where likely the pressure to perform is highest) reported in 2009/2010 12 and 1 instances respectively of cheating amongst their students. I guess, the good news is that once you've been admitted there you don't have to worry too much about getting caught while you engage in academic misconduct. Their  enforcement of academic standards is likely to be pretty lax indeed. Cambridge having caught one student cheating in said academic year seems to be the perfect place to study these days. I recommend the league table to you in case you consider enrolling in places where you stand a fair chance at getting away with cheating because nobody seems to bother checking too carefully. Go for those universities that report close to no students cheating, and you likely are on to a winner. To my academic colleagues asking for evidence I have to say that I do think students everywhere cheat in significant numbers. It's simply the case that some institutions care more so than others about catching cheats. A low number of caught cheats in my reality is not evidence of fewer cheats, rather it is evidence of lax enforcement and monitoring.

In unrelated news, the BBC reports that Germany is today the world's most popular country, closely followed by Britain...

Il Papa in good ol Britannia...

What a 4 days it must have been in Britain and the world, if you take the BBC World's word for it. Nothing much else happened in the world. The Pope visited Britain. As you might know, unlike other religious sects, the Catholic church was given a piece of land by the fascist state under Mussolini's dictatorship, and has henceforth called itself a state. So, accordingly, when the Pope visited Britain for 4 days, it's been a state visit. This charade, courtesy of Mussolini, explains why the cost of the state visit was fully paid for by UK tax payers, the tax payers of one of Europe's most secular societies. Surprisingly, our head of state then went out of his way to convert Brits in public speech after speech (pardon me, in mass after mass after mass) to his state. Not really, of course. The Pope busily tried to convert Brits to Catholicism. Begs the question why British taxpayers should pay their hard earned money for giving him that privilege. Imagine Barack Obama, or, heaven forbid, Stephen Harper, would head to the UK on a state visit to tell Brits that they'd join his country (or, more to the point, his political party). People would consider that distinctly inappropriate. Funnily, these diplomatic rules don't apply to the old man in the red Prada shoes.

The Pope managed to attract only a fraction of the crowd his predecessor attracted. This didn't stop him, of course, from insisting that UK policies should follow the teachings of his state - agh, damn, religion this time... what a mess this is with this 'state' visit. He busied himself with hectoring UK policy makers on the inapproriateness of permitting gay folks to live in state recognized civil partnerships. The Catholic church, ooops, 'state' doesn't do human rights, it does Catholicism and God. No news in that, of course. For some reason UK government characters fell over each other insisting that they do faith in public life.

No clever person would want to be found anywhere close to a bloke who's been busy preventing information about pedophile priests the world all over from reaching the police, and who's been busy with ensuring that these criminals don't go to jail where they belong. Not so in Britain, people in power queued to shake the old man's hand. I felt sorry for the Queen, who had pretty little choice on this occasion. The Pope busily apologized for the pedophilia scandal, but since when is this sufficient to avoid criminal prosecution? Let's just say that the British police failed its duties to protect the public entirely on this one. The Pope left Britain unscathed, he was not arrested as the head of an organization that has spent decades protecting child molesters among its employees the world all over.

The Pope left us with a remarkable insight, 'science can't explain our existence'. Even if that was true, of course, neither does 'God', so what's the big deal? He also left us with a remarkable demand, namely that we should leave the cold reality that we live in behind and return to his state, ugh, his ideology.

I must say, I am somewhat reassured after this visit. The decline of this organization - and organizations like it - across the developed world will undoubtedly increase. Only true fundamentalists will join forces with such reactionaries, no matter how colorful their clothes. This emperor is truly pretty naked, his going in drag notwithstanding. In many ways that's a good thing. I never had issues about people holding weird beliefs. What irritates me is that invariably, once they're in large numbers, they try to force everyone else to live by their holy book. That really is annoying. The Pope tried to persuade Brits precisely of that, join my ideology was his message on his 'state' visit. No chance this is going to happen, even with the current 'faith doing' conservative 'liberal' government in that country. Match and win for the enlightenment - may be not in Uganda and Jamaica, but pretty much everywhere in Europe at least. It's a start.

Britain becomes safe heaven for gay refugees

The UK Supreme Court issued a finding today that gay refugees from countries that discriminate against homosexuality may not be send back to their home countries if there is a risk that they might be persecuted at home. The new conservative-liberal government promised to implement the ruling immediately, adding that they already have stopped sending such refugees back to their home countries. Initially, UK Home Office officials came up with the ingenious idea that gay people, after their deportation, should simply hide their sexual orientation at home, and so they would be fine. Lower courts agreed with the Home Office proposition, but the justices of the Supreme Court decided that that would constitute a violation of these gay people's human rights.

Here are bits from the finding that I did truly enjoy (taken from the UK Guardian website):

Deputy court president Lord Hope said in his ruling: "The ultra-conservative interpretation of Islamic law that prevails in Iran is one example. The rampant homophobic teaching that rightwing evangelical Christian churches indulge in throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa is another."

A "huge gulf" had opened up in attitudes towards gay people, he said. "It is one of the most demanding social issues of our time. Our own government has pledged to do what it can to resolve the problem, but it seems likely to grow and to remain with us for many years." More gay and lesbian people were likely to have to seek protection in this country if it was denied in their home countries, he said.

Another member of the court, Lord Rodger, said normal behaviour of gay people must be protected just as it was for heterosexual people. "What is protected is the applicant's right to live freely and openly as a gay man. To illustrate the point with trivial stereotypical examples from British society: just as male heterosexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates."

Leaving aside for a moment the characterization of gay men as being typically this or being typically that, the point is well taken that if this is how you express your identity you have every right in the universe to do so without risking your life. You can see how important this judgment is when you look at how bad the situation for gay people in many countries is.

Britain does away with conscientious objection nonsense

A victory for sanity in Britain. A Christian counsellor (photo to the left), employed by the state, lost a court case that's essentially focused on conscientious objection. The guidance counsellor refused to provide services to gay couples, on religious reasons. The Guardian reports 'Lord Justice Laws said legislation to protect views held purely on religious grounds could not be justified. He said it was an irrational idea "but it is also divisive, capricious and arbitrary". Laws is correct here. The truth of religious belief cannot be established, there's competing and importantly conflicting religious beliefs about. Surely the question of whether someone receives professional services without a great deal of fuzz must not depend on whatever private beliefs a professional services provider holds.

Says Laws, "We do not live in a society where all the people share uniform religious beliefs. The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic....The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the state, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself."

Church people like the evangelical former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey suggested that rulings such as these could lead to 'public unrest' because special rules and special dispensation ain't provided to him and his fellow religious believers. Says Carey, "The comparison of a Christian, in effect, with a 'bigot' (ie, a person with an irrational dislike to homosexuals) begs further questions. It is further evidence of a disparaging attitude to the Christian faith and its values." Makes you wonder how else you'd described someone who irrationally discriminates against fellow citizens. 'Bigot' seems an appropriate description, adding 'God' as justification does precious little to change that situation.

Carey also claims, “It is, of course, but a short step from the dismissal of a sincere Christian from employment to a religious bar to any employment by Christians." This is utter nonsense, of course, a good teaching case for showing how unsubstantiated slippery slope claims are used for rhetorical gain. There is no short step of any kind here. All the court is saying is that Christians got to do their jobs like like everyone else, muslim or atheist, communist or liberal. If they don't feel like doing particular jobs they'd try to find other jobs. It's really a bit like a communist saying that she has conscientious objections to working for Deutsche Bank. We'd think that's funny, too, and suggest that perhaps she's in the wrong job.

The crux of it is, of course, that if you offer public services (particularly so if you're in the pay of taxpayers) you can't choose who you offer these services to, based on arbitrary criteria such as skin color, sex or sexual orientation. Nobody forced you to enter a profession that would require you to provide services to people whom your religious ideology tells you to discriminate again. Do something else, like for instance working in a church - if there is one not subsidized one way or another by the state - and enjoy the intellectual incest that goes with interacting with people like yourself. You certainly are not entitled to have your prejudiced life sponsored by tax monies.

Act of omission kills medical migrant - Ami Sumani is dead

The case of Ama Sumani is far from unusual. The 39 year old widowed mother of two died on Wednesday in Accra of cancer. What is unusual is how her preventable death was brought about by British immigration authorities. Ms Sumani went initially to the UK to further her studies but eventually fell ill. A bone marrow transplant would have preserved her life and prevented her premature death. Instead the British Home Office removed her from her hospital bed in Cardiff after her visa had expired, and put her on a plane back to Ghana. Ms Sumani, unsuprisingly perhaps, was unable to afford continuing private medical care in Ghana and eventually died, about 2 months after her forced return to Africa.

It goes without saying that the British Home Affairs ministry is unequivocal that it has followed procedure. Her visa expired, and medical care for her condition was available in Ghana. The immigration bureaucrats omitted to mention that minor snag, namely that Ms Sumani needed to generate a huge amount of money to pay for such medical treatment, because unlike in the UK in Ghana such care is not available thru its national health service. Not unusual in a two-tiered health care system. Everything is available - for a price. Miserable basic care exists for the overwhelming number of poor Africans and first class care for the continent's wealthy elites. So, Ms Sumani found herself in a situation not unlike very many Africans dying preventable deaths due to the lack of resources in their countries' health care systems - well, if whatever is in existence deserves the label ' health care system' to begin with.

The interesting ethical question is, of course, whether Ms Sumani deserved to be given compassionate leave of stay in the UK, and with that the right to receive continuing free care in that country's public health care system. This question, it goes without saying, is relevant not only to the case of Ms Sumani and not only to the UK, but equally to Canada, Australia and many other countries at the receiving end of medical migrants from the developing world. Why should we pay for the health care of impoverishes migrants from developing countries?

Well, for starters, because we can. The reality today is that our health care systems are able to absorb the comparably small number of medical migrants from developing countries suffering life-threatening illnesses. We could comfortably afford to resource our health care systems such that these additional patients won't break the proverbial camel's back. It's not unreasonable to suggest that we are morally obliged to act to prevent harm from happening if it is within our means to do so, and if the costs we have to bear are comparably small.

There is a second good reason: Only about 18% of the world's doctors and nurses reside in developing countries. We developed world people continue to recruit health care professionals that were initially trained in the developing world. About one out of every five Africa-born medical doctors works today in the developed world. The rich, in other words, are free-riders depending to some extend on a continuing transfer of health care professionals from the developing to the developed world. Developing countries use their resources to train very many of our doctors and nurses. Ghana, the country of which Ms Sumani was a native citizen has only about 6 doctors for every 100,000 citizens. It lost 3 out of every 10 Ghana-educated doctors to the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.

Perhaps we should consider offering free care to medical migrants that make it to our shores as one possible means to compensate the developing world for our continuing complicity in the stripping of their fledgling health care systems of health care professionals.

Great Britain - land of human rights and respect for human dignity

Well yes, up to a point, it seems. Incredible as it may sound, but British law enforcement agencies do seem to think that it is an appropriate course of action to remove a terminally ill Ghanaian woman from her hospital bed in Cardiff, and put her on a plane back to Ghana, because her visa has expired. 39 year old Ama Sumani, a woman requiring continuing kidney dialysis, was - incredibly - physically removed from her hospital bed by police officers and shipped off to Ghana. Home Affairs officials did not see a problem with this, as kidney dialysis is available in Ghana. They just forgot that tiny detail of affordability. Sumani tried desperately to get access to medical care since she got to Ghana, and failed, because she was unable to pay for dialysis. Of Ghana trained medical doctors about 56% work currently abroad, many of which in fact in the UK. While the UK seems content with being a free-rider on Ghana's medical education system, it does not seem to be content with giving something back to Ghanaians, for instance by way of treating some of its citizens in Britain. Surely, the visa issue has just been the excuse to get rid of a sick African migrant. Land of human rights and human dignity... I wonder.