Child dies due to faith healing; parents get 6 months of jail time

[Andres]

Interesting posts all round, but missing a crucial point. These people are unlikely to cease believing in God, so lambasting their religion is pointless, unless you just want to assert your intellectual superiority. That seems to be what people are doing here.

These people are not murderous, they are misguided and a longer prison term would not solve this. Telling them, "God would have wanted you to call a docter" is both a more effective punishment and has a better chance of changing their behaviour. Under the circumstances, the Judge's sentence is probably the best that can be managed.

I think you're missing my point.

The impartiality of the judge is a fundamental principle of your legal system. Even appearing to be not impartial is enough to be problematic and make the judgement invalid (at least, that's how it is in Belgium). This judge at least appears to be biased and prejudiced. I take it you don't want biased judges.

I also fail to see why he needs to refer to God and religion in the motivation of his judgement. The only motivations should be legal ones, not religious. I hope you can see the dangers of bringing religion as a law making factor into your judicial system. If that's something that wouldn't make you feel uncomfortable, then there's probably no point for us to discuss this together.