A prayer before dying

There's a short item in today's Guardian concerning a Wisconsin man who has been found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide after the death of his daughter.

The man, 47 year-old Dale Neumann, decided that rather than seek medical help when his daughter, 11 year-old Madeline, was unable to walk, talk eat or drink, he would pray to G-d for a cure instead.

Now I'm all for prayer and believe it can have a positive influence on the sick, but really now, the chances of G-d miraculously curing your daughter's undiagnosed diabetes are pretty slim.

What's all the more infuriating is that G-d has already answered this guy's prayers in advance. He made man inquisitive, knowledge seeking and self-preserving. This ultimately led to medicine, doctors, surgeons. G-d gave man the freedom, ability and intelligence to solve his own problems. If your car has broken down, do you pray for G-d to fix it? Of course not.

Neumann said at the trial...

If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before G-d.

What a pity he didn't realise G-d put doctors and their gift of healing before him and if only he would have taken advantage of them his daughter may well still be alive today.