198 Comments

This is the arrogance and hubris of Christianity, writ in boldface. Renee Bach decides that she's going to help the children of Uganda, and that her god is going to guide her actions. Of COURSE he will! The level of self-deception represented by Ms. Bach is truly staggering, and regardless of whether those children who died did so because of her action or not, she as an unqualified medical professional 𝗛𝗔𝗗 𝗡𝗢 𝗕𝗨𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗘𝗦𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘! If she truly wanted to make things better, she could have acted as an organizer, found REAL doctors and nurses to serve, and directed them where they were most needed. But nope ... she had to do it herself.

I just wonder how many lives her desire to "help" cost.

Expand full comment

The rabbit hole of white evangelical indoctrination is very deep and frequently deadly.

Expand full comment

That's not a rabbit hole, that's a spiked pit.

Expand full comment

If prayer worked, we wouldn't need doctors, hospitals, or medicine. There is no horror that cannot be, and has not been, justified in the name of religion. A well-intentioned fool is still a fool, and often times a dangerous one.

Expand full comment

Serving His Children?

IT'S A COOKBOOK!

Expand full comment

You are entering into another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and of sound, but of Rod Serling! 😁

Expand full comment

Unlike the imaginary Jesus, Rod Serling really was born on December 25th. :)

He joined the Unitarian Church in college. He said he believed in God but believed in man more. Guess that would make him a humanist.

Expand full comment

I actually heard Mr. Serling speak at Case Western Reserve University back in 1973. He was a brilliant speaker, enjoyable to listen to, and utterly opposed to censorship.

Expand full comment

As I recall, Rod was kind of cute, I wouldn't mind entering him.

Expand full comment

I met him and talked with him. I was surprised to find that I was a couple of inches taller than him (I'm 5'6"). :)

Very friendly and engaging man.

Expand full comment

For fuck sake, like others said, there are NGOs specialised in medical care.

Donating to one or several of them is what a reasonable person should do.

Expand full comment

Or join them as an orderly, or basic nursing school is like two years. (I'm not particularly familiar with the rankings of nurses, but I've seen plenty of ads from nursing schools)

Expand full comment

"Reasonable?" REASONABLE?!? Yer kidding, right? [yeah, yeah, I know! 😉]

Expand full comment

😝

(I am famished and I can't eat because my injury must be checked. Joking is the last thing on my mind right now).

Expand full comment

Damn, sorry to hear it. All I can say is GET WELL SOON!!!

Expand full comment

Injury? Are you OK? Did I miss something?

Expand full comment

I am better. If the check up results are good. It's back to a regular room and being released in a few day.

Expand full comment

I wish you well and good luck.. 🤞

Expand full comment

I don't know what's going on with you, but I hope you feel better soonL

Expand full comment

Infected injury which lead to me learning I have diabetes, probably for years.

Expand full comment

I'm sorry to hear that, but at least it's treatable.

Expand full comment

Yep. I already follow a healthy diet. I will just to replace my fruit yoghurt with greek yoghurt or sugar free skyr.

Expand full comment

Still? I guess your hospitals don't have a 5 day rule like our mess.

Still, I wish you restored good health.

Expand full comment

They finally gave me a meal. My check up is scheduled for 11pm.

Expand full comment

If your doctors are anything like ours, that means 3am.

Expand full comment

As long as my stomach is full I don't care. Remember I am Insomniac 😉

Expand full comment

😕

Expand full comment

She started out providing food for malnourished children.

Expand full comment

That's fine, although she wasn't trained for that either. The problem is playing doctor.

Expand full comment

(What do you do, though, when the actual medical facilities nearby don’t have the tools they need to help their patients?)

What do you do? What she should have done in the first fucking place, use the money she raised for her mission to fund the actual medical facility rather than play doctor in innocent children. Fuck off with that, if she hadn’t been there more would have died, she saved some of them. No she didn’t. She interfered in the opportunity for them to get trained medical help, full stop. Same goes for the Ghoul of Calcutta. She didn’t want to help those people, she wanted to be something she wasn’t and be seen looking like she helped those people. If she really wanted to help, she could have become a fucking nurse or doctor and gone over there with knowledge and skills. If that wasn’t in the cards since she was essentially uneducated as a fundamentalist Christian homeschooler, then she should have just raised that money for the facilities that were already there with actual doctors and nurses who, not only had the knowledge and skills, but the cultural background to be a part of the community and help with empathy. She could have even gone there and been a candy striper and been trained by the hospital on the real way to care for patients. But no, she had to raise the money for herself to get over there and do it her way, which obviously wasn’t effective.

No White Saviors may not be good people either, but someone should call out these missionaries making shit worse. That group might not be it, fine. They’re just as shallow as she was, but at least they weren’t practicing medicine without training or any knowledge of medical practice, and keeping folks from proper medical care.

God can’t cure people, it is clear day after day of folks dying over prayers.

She’s living in a small town with her kids and probably has a nice big house with lots of luxuries that many in Uganda could never dream about, and a good chunk of the USA too. How much of that is residual from the scam she ran?

Expand full comment

An unqualified person providing first aid when there are no actual professionals around is one thing- an unqualified person running a whole-ass medical clinic is something else altogether. I mean, if you want to use your prodigious resources to open and fund a clinic somewhere, lady, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶- but let a trained professional run the fucking place. Your magic words and ego do not equal a medical degree. They don't even qualify you to hand out lollipops to the kids in the waiting room.

Or maybe, y'know, you could've turned all that passion for doing good or whatever towards stopping your fellow holy-roller missionary types, who were 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 reaching across the pond to Uganda, from lobbying the government there to criminalize being gay! Using your platform to run counter-programming against that heinous fucking shit could've saved a whole lot more lives than your self-serving clinic ever did.

Expand full comment

Good samaritans (love the irony) will offer first aid. But they don't put on a white lab coat and stethoscope before doing it.

Though frankly there doesn't seem to be a lot to argue about here. The vast majority of posts on this thread are in violent agreement that "use your resources to help the actual professionals in country" was the much better way to go.

Expand full comment

But those were good, godly men doing the "Lord's work", demonizing people who never did anything to them and just want to live their lives in peace.

Expand full comment

There is a reason that it takes 7 - 12 years after college to train a physician up to the board-certified level. Anatomy, physiology, microbiology, psychology, pharmacology and therapeutics, etc. on and on - take time to grasp and integrate... To just go over with a pocket full of money and good intentions is hubris on a grand scale. For example - when I first got licensed, I noticed in the Alabama Practice Act that it includes something to the effect 'this act concerns the regulation of physicians and their ability to prescribe and administer poisons'... Drugs as people ought to know by now can be lethal if misused. But also, she just thought her god would somehow guide her in the diagnosis of complex diseases the likes of which most US physicians never see in their lifetime. This undetectable god of theirs causes a lot of inadvertent as well as overt evil in the world.

Expand full comment

Let's see...

Though Islam was the first non-indigenous religion to arrive in Uganda and makes up 13.7% of the population, it is a predominantly Christian country that is 39.3% Catholic, 32% Anglican and 11.1% Pentecostal with a smattering of Seventh-day Adventists, Baptists and Presbyterians.

A Christian woman in a mostly Christian country results in the deaths of 105 children. But it's gay people who are the targets in that country. This is fucked up beyond all measure.

Expand full comment

They have a law against "aggravated homosexuality." They should pass one against "aggravated christianity." It would do a hell of a lot more good.

Expand full comment

I've never found homosexuality to be aggravating. Religion, yes. Homosexuality, no.

They're just making up stupid shit.

Expand full comment

What else have they ever done? It's just so convenient to make up some damnfool rationale for anything you want to do, up to and including torture and murder.

Expand full comment

So, angry sex is out?

Expand full comment

A Christian quack like all others.

Expand full comment

> Imagine, says Kwagala, if a 20-something Ugandan woman had gone to the U.S. and set up an equivalent arrangement to treat impoverished American children. She would have been prosecuted. She would have been behind bars.

With all possible respect for Primah Kwagala, the assumption that the US justice system is actually about justice is almost as naive as the "God will guide me" mentality (though probably easier to understand and empathize with). If that hypothetical Ugandan woman was represented in court by ADF or Liberty Counsel there's a good chance, given the jurisdiction, that she'd have gotten off scot free. Child molesters who wear clerical collars usually walk; so do the clerics who protect and enable them; and so do parents who pray instead of seeking qualified medical help for their children, even if the poor kids end up dead. "Religious liberty" covers a multitude of sins, including murdering children.

Expand full comment

Didn't Hemant post a couple of times about a quack doctor from an African country ? Emmanuel or Immanuel something ?

Expand full comment

You mean the Cameroon-born, Houston-based Dr. Stella Immanuel who claimed that an anti-malaria drug could treat COVID-19? Yeah, he did a couple of pieces on her. His second article on her was dated July 28th, 2020, back when we were still on Patheos. Unfortunately, you can no longer access that article.

Expand full comment

BTW, that second FA article on her was titled "The Doctor Promoting Fake COVID Cures Also Thinks Demon Sex Causes Endometriosis"

*cukoocuckoocuckoo*

Expand full comment

No medical training, so bad at medicine. Did she have any theological training because her prayers didn't work either. /s

Expand full comment

It's the same as me giving diet advice because I know what's working for me. It doesn't work that way.

Expand full comment

For starters, you're anti peanut butter. I don't recall your position on pineapple on pizza (it's a good thing).

: )

Expand full comment

You want to start a religious war? Pineapple on pizza is nearly as divisive as the Vi/Emacs divide in the Unix community.

Expand full comment

Does that involve putting either peanut butter or pineapple in your computer?

Expand full comment

No, it was an argument that flared up periodically as far back as Usenet (pre-web) over whether Vi or Emacs was the better editor which provoked an almost religious fervor.

Expand full comment

Thanks, but I'll stick with textedit! 😁

Expand full comment

Weirdo. :)

Expand full comment

Youuuuuuuu betchum! 🤪😁

Expand full comment

"Vi/Emacs divide in the Unix community" has no meaning to me. : )

Expand full comment

And canned beetroot on a burger? A sacred tradition here.

Expand full comment

Sounds like you've all inhaled too much sheep dip.

Expand full comment

Sounds disgusting, but then so is mustard, lettuce and tomato.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Oct 2, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

But I luv me some jalapenos on pizza. 😊

Expand full comment

Pinapple for the win 😁

Expand full comment

Hey, Hawaiian pizza. You singin'-a MY song. :)

Expand full comment

Pineapple alone does not a Hawaiian pizza make. And we know BHM isn't carnivorous.

Expand full comment

I make my Hawaiian pizza even more Hawaiian. Besides the pineapple and ham (Canadian bacon sometimes), I add toasted coconut and shredded macadamias. No halfway measures for me. 'Ono, bruddah.

Expand full comment

Vegan chicken or homemade banana peel bacon 😁

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Oct 2, 2023
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

Five is right out.

Expand full comment

"I'm not a doctor but I play one in Jesusland."

Expand full comment

You're not being fair here, hemant.

Of course she didn't have or need any credentials in the medical field, because she was doing god's work. You no more need a credential for practicing nursing without a license then you need to call yourself a minister of God.

"God has called me" and "give me money" and "look at how magical I am, so give me power" is all you need.

Expand full comment

Those comparative mortality statistics are meaningless. There are several reasons for that. First, Bach did have a professional staff and the clinic had a well-stocked pharmacy. The question is not how many died. The question is: how many died due to Bach's arrogance? Moreover, mortality statistics are irrelevant without staging data. If Bach's clinic attracted patients earlier in the state of malnutrition (for whatever reason) it would reduce the mortality rate. Uganda has a VERY Christianized society. It is quite possible, indeed likely, that an outwardly Christian clinic would attract more parents of sick kids than a municipal hospital.

Hemant is giving this awful woman some wiggle room that she does not deserve. Simply stated, ONLY a qualified healthcare professional should treat kids. Period. Bach had a homeschooled high school equivalency and was clearly UNQUALIFIED. Moreover, some OJT doesn't count. Most states require an undergraduate degree for a registered nurse. Florida requires a minimum AA. New York, by contrast, requires the RN to be in pursuit of a baccalaureate. The degree means that someone is capable of learning, passing exams and doing the required work outside of class. Ms. Bach had none of that.

Furthermore, it was clear that Bach, as their employer, was pressuring the professional staff to allow her to do things that she had no business doing. In one scene, she inserted a shunt into a child' head. Years of training are required even with professional quasi-supervision.

Finally, the death toll is according to Bach's own records and might very well be inaccurate. Furthermore, how many deaths did she cause outside of the clinic due to her amateur clinical ministrations? Nor do we know how many children Bach injured.

Perhaps the worst part of this is that Bach did not have the humility expected of a lay person. She was utterly convinced that her god qualified her to be a clinician. Therefore, it is likely that she had no hesitation whatsoever to perform procedures that she had no qualifications to perform.

Expand full comment

Many people go through their upbringing in a church knowing ahead of time that they will be going as missionaries overseas. It never seems to be domestic missions, because converting Americans is a bit harder, and surely there are poor people of color elsewhere who won’t have additional expectations of basic rights beyond being “saved”. It’s gross. And it’s a very old religious practice. It has started wars. Disguising it behind providing needed medical care or resources doesn’t erase that it’s done under the premise of promoting a religion in another country where they are more vulnerable to conversion.

Practicing medicine without a license is illegal in the US. Regardless of the need for help in Uganda, the issue of promoting yourself as a medical professional and at times practicing medicine without a license is deeply unethical. If she wanted to be able to hands-on assist, because conditions required it, she should have supported the actual medical professionals and let them direct her, rather than the other way around. By misrepresenting herself, she took away people’s ability to make their own informed decisions regarding life and death circumstances of their children. Her success rate is irrelevant. Success rates matter when someone is a trained and certified medical professional, not when they are practicing medicine without a license while acting as a missionary in a foreign land.

Btw, it’s never good when citizens go overseas and do unethical crap that should be illegal everywhere. It promotes the idea that they represent their country of origin and their policies.

Expand full comment

He probably had a prior engagement hobnobbing with his good buddy Harlan Crow.

Expand full comment

So, I don't feel alone on the weight of the stone

Now that I've found somewhere safe to bury my bone

And any fool knows a dog needs a home

A shelter from pigs on the wing

Expand full comment

So the court will rule for Eastman 5-4 instead of 6-4.

Expand full comment

Ummm ... I think your math is a bit off there! 🤔

Expand full comment

Oops. Math has never been my strong suit. I learned it from Abbott and Costello. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzxVyO6cpos

Expand full comment

Can you lend me $28?

Expand full comment

Do you have change for a $30?

Expand full comment

Makes perfect sense. 😉

After all, if Christians can make 1 the equal of 3 and 3 the equal of 1...

Expand full comment

Even better than Certs, which is only two mints in one.

Expand full comment

Two...two...two mints in one. Don't those twos equal three? 😊

Expand full comment