THEIST_WATCH
  Msg  : 25                                         Written : 07/03/94 07:12pm
  From : ROBIN MURRAY-O'HAIR                        Status  :                 
  To   : ALL                                                                  
  Subj : Thank God for Measles                                                

    You can thank god -- and religion -- for the largest outbreak of
measles in the United States since 1992.
    On Thursday, June 30, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and
Prevention reported that an outbreak of measles began on April 4 when an
unvaccinated 14-year-old girl returned to Illinois from a trip to
Colorado, where there was a small measles outbreak at that time. While
living in Illinois near Principia College, she commuted each day to
school in St. Louis County, Missouri. Within a month, 141 persons in St.
Louis Country and 49 people living at or near Principia College were
diagnosed with measles.
    What's the religion connection? The girl attended a Christian
Science day school in Missouri, and Principia College is an institution
where all the faculty, staff, and students are Christian Scientists.  Of
the 190 cases of measles, only 2 involved non-Christian Scientists. All
the victims were unvaccinated.
    This is not the first time that measles has hit Principia College.
There were measles outbreaks there in 1978, 1980, 1985, and 1989. Three
students died during the 1985 outbreak.
    Christian Science advocates the sole use of "spiritual healing,"
that is, prayer. And state laws allow parents to claim a religious
exemption from vaccination laws.


THEIST_WATCH
  Msg  : 29                                         Written : 07/03/94 07:51pm
  From : ROBIN MURRAY-O'HAIR                        Status  :                 
  To   : ALL                                                                  
  Subj : Baptism a Health Hazard                                              

    It seems that even men of the cloth are admitting that traditional
baptisms can be a health hazard.
    Traditionally, American evangelical churches have baptized members
in creeks and rivers. But now our waters are so polluted that many
pastors are switching to indoor ceremonies. As Jame Kelly Caudill of
Tom's Creek Free Will Baptist Church in Nappa, Kentucky, put it
recently, "There's none of them [creeks] fit to baptize a dog in, to be
honest with you."
    It seems that the Christian god just can't keep the rivers and
creeks clean enough for true believers now that open dumping and raw
sewage is being put into creeks. According to the EPA's National Water
Quality Inventory, 29 percent of U.S. stream miles are at least
partially unfit for swimming because of pollution. The Kentucky water
division claims that 52 percent of stream miles in that state are "at
least somewhat impaired." Or perhaps Pastor Dick VanHoose of the
Salyersville Free Will Baptist Church in Kentucky puts it best: "My
reasoning [for discontinuing outside baptisms] was if you walk into a
river or stream and you've got dead animals, you've got open sewers and
all other types of debris, that just in my opinion makes it unsafe to
take someone for a water baptism."
    But not everyone agrees. Elder Joe Evans of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Old Regular Baptists in Delbarton, WV, says simply, "Don't
mind the stuff that's in it [the water]. It's not what baptism is all
about -- to clean your body .. . Jesus has nothing to do with
pollution."

    Ah, blind faith.



THEIST_WATCH
  Msg  : 42                                         Written : 07/21/94 05:33pm
  From : ROBIN MURRAY-O'HAIR                        Status  :                 
  To   : ALL                                                                  
  Subj : Prayer Bad for Health                                                

    Atheists always knew that prayer was bad for your mental health. But
now a near study suggests it causes arthritis.
    In a report released Wednesday, July 20, Dr. Cyrus Cooper and Dr.
David Coggon of the environmental epidemiology unit of the University of
Southampton in England reported that ministers, nuns, and priests are
among those most at risk of getting arthitis in the knee joints. The
study was based on 2000 people. Also at high risk are carpet fitters and
construction workers.
    Apparently, kneeling to pray for long periods puts the knee cap
under strain and wears away at the protective cartilage.
    Now, the question is, if there is a Christian god:

1. Is he so dumb that he would tell people to pray in such a way that it
would injure them, knowing that it would because (a) he is all-knowing
and (b) he made them that way?

2. Is he so indifferent that he would not "heal" those who pray to him
most?

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