{"id":1081,"date":"2008-12-26T18:48:48","date_gmt":"2008-12-27T02:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=1081"},"modified":"2008-12-26T21:04:01","modified_gmt":"2008-12-27T05:04:01","slug":"god-as-mid-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/god-as-mid-wife\/","title":{"rendered":"God as Mid-wife"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just caught a glimpse of the grotesque reality show (a redundancy, I know) \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/tlc.discovery.com\/tv\/17-kids-and-counting\/duggar-family.html\">17 Kids and Counting<\/a>,\u201d which chronicles the \u201cfamily values\u201d of Arkansas evangelicals Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 17 children.\u00a0 The segment I saw was shot during the final weeks of Michelle\u2019s 18th pregnancy and included discussions of the medical precautions being taken to meet the obstetric challenge presented by a 40+ woman with 17 previous births.\u00a0 The hospital and medical sequence concluded with Jim Bob announcing unctuously: \u201cUltimately, we\u2019re just putting our faith in God,\u201d or something to that effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The heck he is.\u00a0\u00a0 I would love for once to see someone <em>really<\/em> put his faith in God and forego the fruits of centuries of patient scientific work based on empirical proof, not faith.\u00a0 Jim Bob cloaks himself in the superior virtue of the pious, and yet his actions in seeking out the best medical advice and care are indistinguishable from a heathen secularist.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One might say, \u201cWell, what\u2019s wrong with a belt-and-suspenders approach?\u00a0 Take advantage of medical science, but it can\u2019t hurt to throw in a little prayer as an extra insurance policy.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What\u2019s wrong is the implication when announcing your prayer policy that you are morally superior to those of us without such a policy, even as you behave (rationally and understandably) just like everyone else.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The baby was delivered safely on December 18.\u00a0 I can guess who will get the ultimate thanks.\u00a0 It&#8217;s unlikely to\u00a0be the unsung generations of empiricists who have triumphed over the childbirth mortality of mothers and infants, a condition\u00a0that has been the human race\u2019s God-given fate for most of history.<\/p>\n<p>And another guess: in those countries still plagued by high rates of childbirth mortality, parents pray with as much fervor as any Arkansas congregation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just caught a glimpse of the grotesque reality show (a redundancy, I know) \u201c17 Kids and Counting,\u201d which chronicles the \u201cfamily values\u201d of Arkansas evangelicals Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and their 17 children.\u00a0 The segment I saw was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/god-as-mid-wife\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[71,1132],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1081"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1086,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1081\/revisions\/1086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}