Hayden Edwards had the misfortune of being born to parents who are people of faith. His parents, Blair and Taylor Edwards, are members of the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon.
Hayden was born at 6:40 p.m. on June 24, 2023. He was healthy and was eating. However, on the morning of June 26 he had stopped eating.
Hayden's parents, being sincere believers in the Christian Bible, called their fellow Bible believing Christians who then came to the home of the Edwards and began to pray for Hayden and to anoint Hayden with oil, for this is what the Christian Bible claims will cause people to be healed according to James 5:14-15. Some of the faith-based Christians who were there said they noticed that Hayden's "lips were turning blue."
Prosecutors reported that "by 2:35 p.m., the baby stopped breathing temporarily. He started to breathe again after his mother, Taylor, poured cold water on him. Then, at 3:05 p.m., the baby died."
An investigation found that two-day-old Hayden was "severely jaundiced including a yellowing of the skin and other organs." Jaundice is a common problem for many newborns and is usually very simple to medically treat.
Why would Hayden's parents not seek medical help when they realized that he was so ill that his lips had turned blue, his skin had turned yellow and that he had stopped eating and had even stopped breathing? The answer is faith. In particular, faith in the Christian Bible.
The Deist Thomas Jefferson made an important and profound observation about faith. Jefferson wrote,
"...man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such person, gullibility which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason, and the mind becomes a wreck."
If Hayden's parents had been people of God-given innate reason instead of clergy concocted faith, Hayden would still be alive today. There are too many innocent and helpless children who meet the same fate as Hayden did, and not just from the religious nonsense of faith healing, but also from religious/superstitious belief in demons and evil spirits and the requisite imagined need for exorcisms as well as Christian parents who believe in the ungodly biblical story of God commanding Abraham to kill his son (Genesis 22:1-12) and who believe God is telling them to kill their children, too.
Many mainstream Christians point out that most Christians take good care of their children and do not withhold medical care from them in order to heal them through faith. This is true. HOWEVER, it does not at all change the FACT that their Christian Bible does teach Christians to rely on faith healing. The Christian parents who let their children die from treatable illnesses while relying on faith, prayer and anointing with oil as the Christian Bible teaches are true Christians because they are truly following the harmful nonsense in their Christian Bible as if it were the Word of God. The mainstream Christian parents are deviating from their own Christian Bible.
Deists, and all freethinkers, have a very powerful tool we can all use to get sincere Christians to realize the Christian Bible is NOT the Word of God and that it should not be taken seriously. That powerful tool is John 14:12-14 (pictured above). If these verses and the promise they contain were true, any person who believes in Jesus, that is, any Christian, would be able to do all the things the anonymous authors of the Christian Gospels claimed Jesus did, which includes turning water into wine, walking on water, healing the sick and bringing dead people back to life, among other ridiculous claims. One of the great things about these verses and the empty promise they make is that there are no conditions on it. It doesn't state "if your faith is strong enough" or "if you are without sin", etc., etc. Since it includes Christians doing all the things it is alleged that Jesus did, a great and safe test for any sincere Christian is walking on water. They should ask Jesus to empower them to walk on water. If, after asking Jesus in accordance with John 14:12-14, they cannot walk on water, many of them will realize this Christian Bible promise is a false promise. They will begin to wonder if Christianity's biggest selling point of eternal salvation is also a false promise. They will then be on their way to realizing that The Supreme Intelligence/God gave them their innate reason to allow them to protect themselves from such false claims and false beliefs.
We owe it to Hayden and the other beautiful and helpless children who fell victim to irrational faith-based beliefs to realize the urgency in promoting God-given reason and Deism and act accordingly.
