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Ebola stuperstition

arcticpenguin

Philosopher
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...=3&u=/nm/20031125/hl_nm/health_congo_ebola_dc

BRAZZAVILLE (Reuters) - An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has killed 18 people in northwestern Congo Republic, where the disease killed 120 earlier this year, state television said.
...
Many locals, however, believe occult forces are behind the spread of the disease. They have recently blamed Red Cross workers for conjuring up the virus through black magic.

During the previous outbreak, villagers stoned and beat to death four teachers accused of casting a spell to cause the disease.
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What harm can it do to let people believe weird things?
 
Posted by Bill Hoyt

Perhaps we should create a thread for your broader question. Woos raise it so often, and so often miss the obvious. Your example, for instance. Or the AIDS nonsense going on in Africa. And so on...
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Some beliefs can typically risk physical harm to oneself and/or others.

Other beliefs don't, Bill, unless they're misused by individuals who hold them. (Isn't that kind of obvious?)
 
Re: Re: Ebola stuperstition

BillHoyt said:


Perhaps we should create a thread for your broader question. Woos raise it so often, and so often miss the obvious. Your example, for instance. Or the AIDS nonsense going on in Africa. And so on...
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I think several threads with similar titles and concepts have already appeared.
 
Clancie said:

Some beliefs can typically risk physical harm to oneself and/or others.

Other beliefs don't, Bill, unless they're misused by individuals who hold them. (Isn't that kind of obvious?)
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An erroneous belief always causes harm. Sometimes the harm is simply wasting time on nonsense. More often it includes wasting money. Erroneous beliefs also cause the deluded to try to force others to conform. Examples of that include Islamic terrorism, creationism, and the U.S. religious right.

Isn't that kind of obvious?
 
BillHoyt said:


Isn't that kind of obvious?
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It would become moreso should any long-term societal benefit be shown to be based on materialism/atheism/secular humanism. Which political-economic system based solely on those ideals made it into the second generation in a beneficial way? First we should identify the success stories in generation one; which cultures do you cite that had world-wide (or even broad) significance?
 
hammegk said:

It would become moreso should any long-term societal benefit be shown to be based on materialism/atheism/secular humanism. Which political-economic system based solely on those ideals made it into the second generation in a beneficial way? First we should identify the success stories in generation one; which cultures do you cite that had world-wide (or even broad) significance?
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Let's tease apart hammy's pretzel logic here. The proposition here appears to be that the harm to an individual can be made more apparent by demonstrating a political-economic system based solely on ideals antithetical to that harm.

Test case 1: Murder harms the murder victim.
Application of hammy pretzel: Show me a political-economic system free of murder.
Result: None found.

Ergo, the harm caused by murder is not apparent.

Next week we'll demonstrate that poison is actually good for you because there are no political-economic systems free of poisons.

:brk:
 
Nice dodge. Care to cite a successful example for us to admire?

Answer: er, no, there are none. Several failed attempts could be mentioned.
 
A rebuttal in effect that "ideas don't kill people, people kill people" is a slippery slope I hope the world doesn't go down. It removes all value judgement or evaluation of ideas. It makes them all equal only differing in how they are applied.

Theories of any atrocity we can think of are equally valid as theories of mutual cooperation as long as they are not misused? No.

Stupid ideas kill people.
 
uneasy said:


Stupid ideas kill people.
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Very true. Now, you just have to convince enough people, and keep them convinced, that the the ideas you are espousing are not stupid. Rather, the stupid ideas are those that don't agree with you, today.

Would anyone care to explain how the scientific method and/or scientists have negated that historical fact?
 
hammegk said:

It would become moreso should any long-term societal benefit be shown to be based on materialism/atheism/secular humanism. Which political-economic system based solely on those ideals made it into the second generation in a beneficial way? First we should identify the success stories in generation one; which cultures do you cite that had world-wide (or even broad) significance?
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Isn't this running on the assumption that a population of any size has been able to self-govern utilizing principals of altruism or at least purity to ideals that, thanks to political and social acts of corruption, been unable to justly execute in the first place? And isn't that so for any practicing form of government?
 
hammegk said:

It would become moreso should any long-term societal benefit be shown to be based on materialism/atheism/secular humanism.


Then you dismiss, completely, all of science, which is a materialistic, secular undertaking?

Do you use penecillin? Aspirin, ibuprufen, celebrex (tm), paracetamol, acetometaphan, toothpaste, electricity, automobiles, the internet?

Are you claiming that there is no long-term benefit to medicine, transportation, communication, etc?

Please be brief, but answer the question instead of spewing more of your hatred.


Which political-economic system based solely on those ideals made it into the second generation in a beneficial way? First we should identify the success stories in generation one; which cultures do you cite that had world-wide (or even broad) significance?
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Perhaps you've confused science (done by trained individuals) with politics (done by trained liars to those they've deliberately sabotaged the education of)?
 
hammegk said:

It would become moreso should any long-term societal benefit be shown to be based on materialism/atheism/secular humanism. Which political-economic system based solely on those ideals made it into the second generation in a beneficial way? First we should identify the success stories in generation one; which cultures do you cite that had world-wide (or even broad) significance?
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Those Canadians seem to be doing pretty well. From monarchy to self rule to independence, no established religion, universal health care (if a bit slow), best Chinese food in Montreal... that's a nice society.
 
Oh, if only they new the benefits of the all raw diet! They wouldn't have any of those pesky diseases!

Wow, apparently I'm bored enough to feel nostalgic for Big Fig. Scary.
 
Suezoled said:


Those Canadians seem to be doing pretty well. From monarchy to self rule to independence, no established religion, universal health care (if a bit slow), best Chinese food in Montreal... that's a nice society.
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I am glad to see that you admire my country. However, in the interests of clarity, I feel the need to inform you that there are some practices that would probably violate the "separation of church and state" thing you guys always talk about in the USA. Chief among these is the funding of separate Catholic schools. I went to Catholic schools (under)funded by the province from JK to grade 13.

Having said that, I do believe that religion plays a much lesser role in our political system than it seems to in the USA.
 
Hammy said:
It would become moreso should any long-term societal benefit be shown to be based on materialism/atheism/secular humanism. Which political-economic system based solely on those ideals made it into the second generation in a beneficial way?
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What the heck do you mean here? Are you asking us to find a society that was "purely" materialist/atheist/whateverist? Can you give an example of a society that is purely anything? No. So therefore there are no examples of the success of any pure system and there never will be. Purity only occurs in philosophy, not in reality, and certainly not in politics.

~~ Paul
 
I could have bumped any number of threads for this, but this one seemed the best.

Al Jazeera is reporting that the men who burned the ebola victims' bodies are now ostracized. Many people believe the dead that weren't properly buried are going to come back to haunt people and they blame these guys.
 
arcticpenguin said:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...=3&u=/nm/20031125/hl_nm/health_congo_ebola_dc


What harm can it do to let people believe weird things?
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More:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...hild-witches-exorcised-devil-beaten-them.html
'They accused me of killing and eating my grandmother': Agony of Congo's 50,000 'child witches' who are brutally exorcised to 'beat the devil out of them'
• There are around 50,000 children living on the streets of*Kinshasa, all*abandoned*after being accused of witchcraft
• The communities say they are capable of horrific crimes, drinking the blood and eating the flesh of their relatives*
• But a lot of the time the children are rejected simply because their parents cannot afford the extra mouth to feed*
• It means the children - some newborn - are left to fend for themselves, turning to crime and prostitution to survive’

Note from the article that many ‘Christian’ churches are involved. Many Christian ministers are performing exorcisms. Pagan superstition is certainly involved. However, churches are reinforcing the superstition.

This is starting to remind me of how the witch trial craze started in Europe. About the 13th century, the church reversed its original position that witchcraft was just superstition.

I have a suspicion that economic stress is reinforcing these superstitions as much as religion. In medieval Europe, the victims of witch hysteria were often poor women who couldn’t take care of themselves. Some novo rich may have also fallen into that category. Women who inherited property, for instance. In the Congo right now, it is often poor people especially children.

The people who bury the Ebola dead may fall into the category of poor and novo rich. I suspect that one wouldn’t bury an Ebola victim properly without lots of economic incentive. Maybe there are locals who resent the wealth that these people have acquired.


Anyway, it sounds like the Burning Times are back on the dark continent.
 
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