[learc83]

The national debate was mostly pro-life groups trying to spin the situation for political gain.

And even among those groups, I don't remember it being a common argument that she should live because God would miraculously heal her.

The argument was that (they believed) she was still conscious and that her life was still worth living.

[GalacticDomin8r]

> The national debate was mostly pro-life groups trying to spin the situation for political gain.

That is what I would call a distinction without a difference. The underlying motivation for those actors is still the same no matter you call it religion or politics. They appealed to the identity of the religious and largely got the response they wanted. Same thing Russia did with BLM except Russia was inciting both sides.

Christian's believe in miracles/supernatural by definition. This includes faith healing. It absolutely prevalent everywhere in the religion and its different sects. The Terri Schiavo incident was not specially exempt from this belief.

[learc83]

>Christian's believe in miracles/supernatural by definition. This includes faith healing.

The first assertion is true. The 2nd doesn't follow from the first--many Christians don't believe that miraculous events still happen. Faith healing in particular has a very specific meaning, and many denominations outright condemn it.

As to what extent belief in the possibility of miraculous healing affects the vast majority of Christian's actions. I'd say no more than the belief that there is a tiny chance that a science might be wrong about a diagnosis affects a non-believer's actions.

>It absolutely prevalent everywhere in the religion and its different sects. The Terri Schiavo incident was not specially exempt from this belief.

People existed who believed that there was a small chance that God could choose to heal her. It doesn’t follow from that premise that these people were against removing her feeding tube because of that belief--it certainly doesn't follow that the broader Christian community was against it because of that belief. That was not the stated reasoning of the vast majority of her parent’s supporters.

This case just doesn’t provide evidence that Christians are more likely to pursue aggressive treatment or less likely to accept death because they believe God will save their family members because there was no national debate about miraculous healing.

The national debate at the time was primarily about whether or not she was conscious and was her life worth living, whether or not it’s cruel to kill someone by denying food and water, and whether or not denying food and water through a feeding tube is the same as killing someone.

[GalacticDomin8r]

> The 2nd doesn't follow from the first

We'll have to disagree on that. I did not assert there is a 100% correlation. I did mean to imply there is a high one.

> many Christians don't believe that miraculous events still happen.

I reject that assertion. I believe nearly all Christians engage in intercessory prayer at least once in a great while. Doing so shows they believe in the possibility their prayer coming true.

> It doesn’t follow from that premise that these people were against removing her feeding tube because of that belief--

You are overlooking the fact the main court challenges were by her parents on the basis she was not brain dead when in fact as a point of knowledge she was. They held the belief she might recover even after numerous experts and medical scans showed the damage was irreconcilability permanent. They then went further to cloak the case in religious themes. There were several organizations with strong ties to faith healing working with her parents. There was a large volume of innuendo and direct appeal to faith healing for the duration of the event. Some of it's even still around if you look.

This was similar to the Dover intelligent design case in that the side holding supernatural belief doesn't come straight out and say what their true beliefs are, and for good reason. Instead they attempt to sow uncertainty in court, in hopes of what they belief will come true.

> there was no national debate about miraculous healing.

You're right on that mostly, but only because it's very rare to find the open questioning of another Christian's supernatural beliefs in America. Even Mormons are generally afforded that. I won't speculate as to why that is.

[jrnichols]

>I don't remember it being a common argument that she should live because God would miraculously heal her.

It was one of many arguments for continuing care. No, it wasn't the only argument, but I remember it being a fairly common one. I remember the dozens of websites popping up around the time and the frequent call for "prayer warriors."

there are still a few pages around, but a lot of them went away with the demise of Geocities, or just link rotted.

[learc83]

There's always a call for prayer warriors about literally every major news event--elections, judicial confirmations, catastrophes, droughts etc...

Yes there were people praying for her to be fully healed, but there's a difference between believing it's possible to be healed and arguing that we should keep her alive primarily because of that possibility.

The focus of the argument was that her life was already worth living because they believed she was still conscious, and other sanctity of life issues. At the end, the most common argument was that it was cruel to deny someone food and water. They were talking about how the family couldn't even give her ice chips.

The pro feeding tube people believed she should keep being fed regardless of whether God was going to heal her.