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AIDS Cured By Holy Water!

A little Cherry-Picking music, please?

[People are] risking their lives by refusing medication in favour of holy water ...

Naked men, women and children, some of them in chains to prevent them escaping ...

... priests hit them with wooden crosses ...

[she] knows she still has the virus, but prefers to come here rather than a clinic ...

"We don't allow patients to take medication ..."

"... They still have the sign of the virus, but the virus has no power on their body and blood because it is controlled by the grace of Our Lady."
... ancient superstition is woven into the teachings of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

That last line says it all. You'll never see the likes of Albert Einstein come out of that church or country.
 
Fnord said:
... ancient superstition is woven into the teachings of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

That last line says it all. You'll never see the likes of Albert Einstein come out of that church or country.
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Not convinced - ancient superstition is woven into the teachings of most churches (or most churches' teachings are ancient superstition?) The Catholic church still has an exorcist or two, iirc? Some of the more prominent woo treatments for HIV (e.g. Matthias Rath's vitamin pills) have come courtesy of Europe... Of course this Ethiopean cure is BS, but that doesn't mean there won't be many more positive things coming out of the country.

There are obviously plenty of Ethiopean scientists (wasn't there some interesting work on human fossil remains coming out of the country not to long ago). No Einsteins, but sadly there's not too many of the around...
 
Fnord said:
That last line says it all. You'll never see the likes of Albert Einstein come out of that church or country.
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Your right he's already dead and gone; but really what makes you believe that?
 
LawnOven said:
Your right he's already dead and gone; but really what makes you believe that?
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"... never see the likes of..." could also be written as "... never see someone like..."

I certainly don't expect Prof. Einstein to materialize in an Ethiopean church! I believe that no one like him will either because of the behavior and beliefs reported through the article linked to in the OP.

Albert was a scientist, and the "faithful" people of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church put more of their faith in beatings, public humiliation, and cold showers than they do in any proven science-based treatments.

Superstition is not science. You can question science, but only religion and superstition are certain about their "truth."
 
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Fnord- you said "that church or country". What evidence do you have re. the country as a whole? There are some superstitious/stupid/manipulative Ethiopians - does that mean there won't be some good scientists there. I mean, you wouldn't judge America based on [insert name of religious whackjob], and the fact lots of Americans have weird beliefs - would you?
 
jon said:
Fnord- you said "that church or country". What evidence do you have re. the country as a whole?
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Direct evidence: None. However, I have noticed a possible relationship between mass acceptance of superstitious behavior (with its lack of fact-based reason), the general reluctance to question authority (and its teachings), and widespread poverty and ignorance, especially in third-world countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and the Philippines (to name a few).

(Unfortunately, I've also noticed a rise in popular superstitions, the active suppression of skepticism, and a decrease in the standard of living and education right here in America. This has me worried.)

So let me assert my view in another way; unless a country actively supports science-based education of all its peoples, welcomes open skepticism and debate of all its policies, and provides for the health, welfare and education of all its citizens, it is doomed to a third-world status, and a diminished stature in the scientific community.

Such an environment does not seem conducive to the production of "Einsteins." It could happen, but I personally doubt it.
 
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Fnord, in terms of mass acceptance of superstitions, a story about one weird church in Ethiopea won't tell you much about how widespread these beliefs are. And I'd ask how this compares to the numbers of Americans who believe (or say they believe) in God, angels, and all kinds of other superstitions...

It would be nice for countries to "actively supports science-based education of all its peoples, welcomes open skepticism and debate of all its policies, and provides for the health, welfare and education of all its citizens", but I can't think of any where this is currently the case. I don't this this was the case in many (any?) of the countries where Einstein was raised, and began his studies.
 
Some answers to how widespread these beliefs might be (from Wikipedia's entry on Ethiopia/religion):

According to the most recent 1994 National Census,[39] Christians make up 61% of the country's population, Muslims 33%, and practicioners of traditional faiths 5%. Orthodox Christianity has a dominant presence in central and northern Ethiopia, while both Orthodox & Protestant Christianity has large representations in the South and Western Ethiopia. A small ancient group of Jews, the Beta Israel, live in northwestern Ethiopia, though most have emigrated to Israel in the last decades of the twentieth century as part of the rescue missions undertaken by the Israeli government, Operation Moses and Operation Solomon.[8]

Sometimes Christianity in Africa is thought of as a European import that arrived with colonialism, but this is not the case with Ethiopia. The Kingdom of Aksum was one of the first nations to officially adopt Christianity, when St. Frumentius of Tyre, called Fremnatos or Abba Selama ("Father of Peace") in Ethiopia, converted King Ezana during the fourth century AD. Many believe that the Gospel had entered Ethiopia even earlier, with the royal official described as being baptised by Philip the Evangelist in chapter nine of the Acts of the Apostles. Today, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, part of Oriental Orthodoxy, is by far the largest denomination, though a number of Protestant (Pentay) churches and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tehadeso Church have recently gained ground. Since the eighteenth century there has existed a relatively small Uniate Ethiopian Catholic Church in full communion with Rome, with adherents making up less than 1% of the total population.[39]

The name "Ethiopia" (Hebrew Kush) is mentioned in the Bible numerous times (thirty-seven times in the King James version), and is in many ways considered a holy place. Ethiopia is also mentioned many times in the Qu'ran and Hadith. While most Ethiopians accept that these are references to their own ancient civilisation, pointing out that the Gihon river, a name for the Nile, is said to flow through the land, most modern scholars believe that the use of the term referred to the Kingdom of Kush in particular or Africa outside of Egypt in general. Some have argued[citation needed] that biblical Kush was a large part of land that included Northern Ethiopia, Eritrea and most of present day Sudan.

Islam in Ethiopia dates back to the founding of the religion; in 615, when a band of Muslims were counseled by the Prophet Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and travel to Ethiopia, which was ruled by a pious Christian king. Moreover, Islamic tradition states that Bilal, one of the foremost companions of the Prophet Muhammad, was from Ethiopia.

There are numerous indigenous African religions in Ethiopia, mainly located in the far southwest and western borderlands. In general, most of the (largely members of the non-Chalcedonian Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church) Christians generally live in the highlands, while Muslims and adherents of traditional African religions tend to inhabit more lowland regions in the east and south of the country.

Ethiopia is also the spiritual homeland of the Rastafari movement, whose adherents believe Ethiopia is Zion. The Rastafari view Emperor Haile Selassie I as Jesus, the human incarnation of God, a view apparently not shared by Haile Selassie I himself, who was staunchly Ethiopian Orthodox Christian. The concept of Zion is also prevalent among Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, though it represents a separate and complex concept, referring figuratively to St. Mary, but also to Ethiopia as a bastion of Christianity surrounded by Muslims and other religions, much like Mount Zion in the bible. It is also used to refer to Axum, the ancient capital and religious centre of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, or to its primary church, called Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion.[41] The Baha'i Faith has had roots in Ethiopia dating from the 1950s, and today is concentrated primarily in Addis Ababa, but also in the suburbs of Yeka, Kirkos and Nefas Silk Lafto.[42]
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Orthodox Christians, indigenous religions, rastafari---I'm not reading much about secular humanism in Ethiopia, that's for sure.

On the other hand, you'll never hear me defending a more "progressive" religion as being less superstitious than any other. Once you accept something on blind faith, I have no idea why (or how) you'd pooh-pooh any other notion.
 
For one thing, you should never blame the victim.
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It is not a case of blaming the victim. It's a case of saying what the victim is likely/unlikely to achieve.
If someone has been the victim of an assault and as a result loses a leg, it is not blaming the victim to say s/he will not be a champion runner.
These church members are the victims of an assault on their reasoning powers which will influence the likelihood of their achieving scientific greatness. That's not blaming the victim, it's describing the results of the assault.
 
kerikiwi said:
It is not a case of blaming the victim. It's a case of saying what the victim is likely/unlikely to achieve.

If someone has been the victim of an assault and as a result loses a leg, it is not blaming the victim to say s/he will not be a champion runner.

These church members are the victims of an assault on their reasoning powers which will influence the likelihood of their achieving scientific greatness. That's not blaming the victim, it's describing the results of the assault.
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Thank you. I couldn't have said it better myself.

And welcome aboard!
 
Allright but it's still unfair to insult their intelligence.

Many of these countries are superstitious directly cause of poverty, war, disease and other social ills so you're slamming the victims for something that's no fault of their own and something they turned to out of desperation.
 
No, it is not 'slamming' the victims. It is describing the outcome of their superstition.
And are they superstitious because of poverty,war, disease and other social ills, or does superstition contribute to the incidence of poverty, war, disease and other social ills?

In the case of using holy water to cure AIDS, the superstition exacerbates the problems caused by the disease.
 
Funny thing how

1) Einstein emerged in a time where the climate in his habitat was rife with superstition (of the national socialism type amongst other things)

2) Your (Fnord's) defenition of a country of widespread superstition and lack of questioning authority, seems to include USA.
 
SomeGuy said:
Funny thing how

...

2) Your (Fnord's) defenition of a country of widespread superstition and lack of questioning authority, seems to include USA.
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Yeah, isn't that interesting? Maybe I'm just beating around the Bush, so to speak...

As far as "Another Einstein" coming out of a superstitious and oppressive environment, I was speaking metaphorically. Yet, could you imagine how many "Einsteins" could have been produced at the same time out of a freer and more learned environment? I won't Bohr you with a detailed list...
 
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