catsittingstill | Cherished beliefs

Cherished beliefs

There is a belief in Africa (possibly in other parts of the world too) that children can cause harm to their parents and neighbors using supernatural powers. People who suspect a child of causing harm with supernatural powers punish the child. Machetes sometimes feature. So does acid, drowning, beatings, starvation and burnings.

Some people offer exorcism services to drive the evil spirits out of the children. Which, it turns out, in addition to being very expensive, also feature machetes, acid, beatings and starvation.

The Independent has an article.
So does the New York Times.
So does CNN
And MSNBC

Of course, suggesting that the supernatural doesn't exist, or that the idea that anyone, much less a child, could cause harm by supernatural means is bollocks, would be mockery. And some believers resent that rudeness and attack skeptics physically.

Part of the problem here is that well-respected individuals often share these evidence-free beliefs. Even senior police officers may genuinely believe in witchcraft, leaving the children, and the skeptics who would like to protect them, with nowhere to turn.

So when you're mad at skeptics, because the evidence for a cherished belief some people hold isn't strong enough to convince them yet, remember that a little skepticism can prevent a lot of harm, and that having someone say something that makes you think they think you are dumb when you're not is pretty small potatoes in the larger scheme of things.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hold on, I thought this kind of thing was an occasional isolated thing. I have a friend who was abused by her mother because of this type of thing. At the time I thought something was odd, but how do you say to your friend, does your Mum hit you? Then we moved to Canada and we lost track. We recently reconnected through face book and I heard the whole story.

This was 30 years ago, and her Mom was a very uptight narrow minded sort. In 30 years oh, The far right. . . a mind set that I just don't understand. At all. They don't seem to be willing to think that others have the right to believe or think differently than they do. What you are talking about is very scary. Very very scary indeed.

It's an occasional isolated thing here in North America.

These articles are about the prevalence of the belief in Africa, where it is more common.

I'm very sorry for your friend. I hope she escaped with minimal harm done.

On reading more carefully I noticed that. It's still very scary. Education is a long hard process.

My friend is very bitter, letting go of the past is hard for her. She doesn't realise that it's hard to move forward when you are still holding and blaming someone for things that have happened. Forgiveness is as much for the person wronged as anything else. This doesn't absolve her Mother at all. She just needs to move past it.

Forgiveness is as much for the person wronged as anything else.

I agree. But forgiveness is not as easy as just wanting to forgive.

You're making one of your points again, aren't you.

Caught me red-handed. So to speak.

1. ???
2. Follow link in your last para.
3. !!!

Edited 2011-01-26 16:10 (UTC)

That link...more disturbing than maybe smallville intended. I have no idea who smallville is, although I figure s/he can't be all bad, being a friend of Cat and all. But...*shudder*

Several police being fellow UFO enthusiasts? No wonder they needed quirky but lovable detectives to solve all the hard crimes that they attribute to space aliens. I keep wondering how that scenario really ends. Does the mob burn the quirky detective as a witch, or as a sacrifice to the UFO? Or does the respectable banker merely arrange to have the detective's mortgage foreclosed and the detective run out of town for "terracentric intolerance". Does Parliament pass laws allowing special discrimination against arrogant snoots who don't believe in UFOs?

Do you mean smallville or smallship1?

smallship1 is who seems to think this is directed specifically at him, and may be right; certainly he and

catsittingstill have been arguing for some time about the roles of religion/spirituality and atheism/skepticism in the world. Which I find ironic, since as far as I know,

smallship1's an atheist too, just one who would prefer to be a believer if he could. (That's what I'm picking up from what he posts; he is certainly free to correct me.)

That said, I think that American Republicans are doing a hell of a lot of damage by their beliefs and attempts to enforce them, but I don't get into fights with my Republican friends over it, because hurting each other's feelings is not going to convince anyone of what they didn't start out believing, and it will only hurt someone I care about. I treat theism the same way, and it concerns me that things have gotten to the point between

smallship1 and

catsittingstill that at least one of them feels hurt enough to withdraw from net contact for an indefinite time, even from those of us who love him and honestly try not to hurt him. If a discussion between friends has reached that point, then it's time to either end the friendship (if one absolutely can't bear being friends with someone who thinks the way that person does) or the conversation.

I usually opt for ending the conversation. There are things a friend of mine could believe about the world which would make them no longer my friend, but they are rare, and it hasn't come up even when I worried, for a while, that it might with one of my closest friends (who's a politically conservative Christian, and was the maid of honor at my wedding, and I at hers). She and I do talk religion and politics at times, but in a recent conversation, she said abruptly, "All right -- we disagree on the law, we disagree on the facts, and I'm starting to take this personally. It's time to change the subject." And she was right, and we did. And she's still just as close a friend and I still love her. We've gotten through twenty years by being able to do that.

catsittingstill, if you want to stay friends with

smallship1, either make some effort to avoid hurting him or, if you don't know how to achieve that, stop talking to him about this subject. (What you post in your own journal to other people is, of course, your business, but you might want to put it on a filter he's not on, so he doesn't have to choose between ceasing to read you altogether and coping with things that hurt him.) If you don't want to stay friends with him, say so. But I think this is going too far for a discussion between friends. Even when I think you're right on the facts, I care for

smallship1 and I don't want to see him hurt when I don't see how it is likely to change his mind or do anyone any good.

Edited 2011-01-26 17:36 (UTC)

Right, smallship1; I didn't remember the name right. I'd edit and fix the error, except that it won't let me.

Also, I normally tend to live and let live, as far as religions go. I'm less inclined to let things slide these days because the Christian Right is actively seeking to force Biblical law on all Americans, and there may be enough of them that there's a real danger it could happen.

Already, more people admit to being bigoted against atheists than against gays, women, minority racial groups, and are less likely to vote for an out atheist than any other subculture that is commonly targeted for discrimination.

This may simply mean that the other groups have made progress in overcoming prejudice through long, hard struggle over the decades, in which case it's time for atheists and agnostics to make the case in the public idea forum that they too are real people just like everyone else.

Edited 2011-01-26 17:48 (UTC)

I agree with you that it's an issue for many Americans who have to face the religious right here. But

smallship1 is neither American nor right-wing, nor even religious himself as far as I can tell. He defends religion because he thinks it can do good as well as evil, and he is just as disgusted with the evil done in its name as you are. So I don't think he's the right target for such a fight.

One of the things I see American progressives having the most difficult time realizing is that you don't tear your own base apart by fighting with your friends about things which you don't absolutely need to agree about. There's a reason the term "politically correct" came originally out of the lesbian feminist community as a snide comment on those of us (since I count myself as both a lesbian and a feminist) who didn't always want to have sex in a way which was approved as sufficiently anti-patriarchal by the rest. Yes, I think that atheists in this world, especially in America, have to do a certain amount of fighting against those who already persecute us to some extent and would do so more if they could. But

smallship1 isn't one of those people, and I don't think we need to fight him. And since he is not only a genuinely nice human being and a good friend of mine, but also someone who is passionate about doing political good in the world, including trying to see to it that nobody persecutes anybody, I'd rather see him treated as an ally with whom we have some differences, rather than an enemy who is thrown into that category needlessly.

thank you

I appreciate your input and respect your opinion.

Right now I just don't have sufficient distance to read his posts and refrain from responding, but I think I have figured out filters enough to employ some artificial willpower, so I'll just do that for a while.

I can certainly cut-tag my posts--is there a way to keep a particular individual from seeing one short of friendslocking it?

No, which means that cut-tag is probably your best bet. That gives him and others who find the subject triggering (and you've just acknowledged that you find it triggering yourself, so I'm sure you can understand) some warning and lets them decide whether they want to dive into it at that time or stay clear.

Okay I will bear that in mind.

Errr... I seem to have given entirely the wrong impression; sorry.

I haven't seen the TV show that Smallship_1 is reacting to, since I don't have a TV and live on the wrong side of the Atlantic to boot.

I don't think he is picturing, in his proposed rewrite of the offending scene (in which the skeptic originally apparently urged the ufo enthusiasts to, ah, broaden their interests) the ufo-believers doing anything more than chiding the skeptics for being, as smallship sees it, rude. Smallship is just not the kind of person who would advocate making dark-but-deniable threats; trust me on this.

I am so sorry I gave you this impression; that wasn't what I intended to be getting at at all.

Eeep!

The impression was given in that you chose to link to his post, which was not about being "mad at skeptics[1]" but about being annoyed with media portrayal of 'believers', especially those who are confused with SF fans and told to "get a life" (I have one, thanks, and I don't play anyone on TV). If you had linked to one of his earlier posts where he was indeed getting annoyed with sceptics in general, it may have been a valid point (although it would still look as though you were equating him with people who burn non-believers). Or, indeed, if you hadn't linked at all to a specific person (there are plenty of examples of people who dispute with sceptics after all).

[1] Aside: is the version with 'k' a US variant? I think I always write it with 'c' and it looks odd with 'k'; definitions I've seen don't have any indication.

Yes, "skeptic" is the US spelling of the word. I've seen it spelled "sceptic" and it looks odd to me; I have to reread it a couple times to make sure tht it isn't "septic," which is, of course, something else altogether.

Indeed, and I've had to read multiple times as well. But 'skeptic' made me think of the big bird-type creatures in Dark Crystal (Skepsis? something like that).

Thanks for your comments here, I agree with you about Z's position.

I guess I misinterpreted his intent. I am sorry.

In any case I am sorry that I wrote something that gave other people the wrong idea about him. That was an accident, but sloppy and careless on my part.

cflute proposed an alternative to my suggestion below that if you want to post stuff in your journal that's going to make

smallship1 feel hurt and attacked, and you don't want to make him feel hurt and attacked, you make a filter he's not on for such things. I think

weirdsister does something of the kind for her friends whom she knows disagree strongly with her about politics, and whom she doesn't want ti get into fights with for both their sake and her own. But

cflute mentioned that, if you don't want to go that far, a cut-tag will also work, so that

smallship1 and whoever else knows that your arguments on the subject of the wrongs of theism, whether true or false, make them unhappy, can have a warning that it's coming and decide whether they feel like reading it that time.

I don't say you're wrong on the facts. You know me well enough by now to know that I very rarely disagree with you by a very wide margin on politics; in fact, one of the reasons I like reading your journal is that you say what I want to, only often you say it better.

I just don't want to see friends hurting each other. I don't see a point to carrying this kind of argument past the point where both sides know they aren't going to persuade each other to change their mind, and it isn't fun anymore for at least one of the people involved. I'd like to see it matter, not just who's right, but that people who like each other well enough to call each other friends and read about each other's lives assiduously try to avoid causing each other needless pain.

I agree with you that skepticism can prevent a lot of harm, and that certain "spiritual" beliefs have caused a lot of harm. I just find myself remembering two quotes, ironically both from theists of varying sorts.

My friend Liz, in high school, was a fairly serious Christian. I asked her once, whether it was true that her religion obliged her to ry and convert people, and if so, why she never tried it on us. She said, "Well, yes, in theory we are. But I figured out pretty quickly that if I went around trying to convert my friends into being Christians, I wouldn't have one single more Christian, and I would have a whole lot fewer friends. Since I know I can't convince you, it seems pointless to try, and not very polite either."

And, from the Book of Proverbs, quoted by one of my favorite fictional defenders of atheism ever: "He who troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind."

Don't trouble your own house, Cat.

smallship1 is one of the good guys.

Excuse me but I've been friends with

smallship1 for well over twenty years (well, well over) and, while I do not specifically wish to offend him, I do it all the time. I refuse, totally refuse, to censor my views because they might offend someone, friend or not. The most I will do is head a post with a comment that some might find this offensive, but if I am going to venture this kind of opinion I do it in an open post, which is only fair.

As does smallship1

To add, as I should have done, I can't speak for Cat, but I really, really do not see when people who read her journal should be deprived of her views (as they would be on a restricted list, as, as I far as I know, you cannot have a post that is open to everyone except a specific person) because someone might be offended.

It is his choice to read my posts and comment, just as it is mine whether to read and comment on his. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, generally in the latter case because I don't feel like arguing.

Edited 2011-01-26 19:09 (UTC)

I can't stop you and won't try. But I disagree. I don't feel like arguing this one either, so I won't. You'll do as you like.

catsittingstill will do as she likes.

smallship1 will do as he likes. And I'll do as I like. Which includes suggesting that maybe being kind is as important as being right, sometimes.

You can certainly have everyone free to see her views on an open post with a cut-tag, which was the other suggestion I made. Lots of people put anything to do with dieting under a cut-tag so as not to upset people who are fat-positive and don't want to hear about other people's diets; why is that a more sensitive issue than this?

Sometimes I use cuts, sometimes I don't, depending on the length and how rude I am being. However, I've never know that deter Z!

That's his choice. At least it would give him the option. And since he has said he's staying away from LJ at all for a while till he stops being so upset, he clearly recognizes the value of not reading what will only hurt one more when one is already feeling vulnerable.

I worried the first time he deleted his journal - now I'm used to his (usually short) absences.

I worry whenever one of my friends says they're upset, even if I know they will come back soon.

I agree with you that skepticism can prevent a lot of harm, and that certain "spiritual" beliefs have caused a lot of harm.

In this case my point was not about the evils of religion (though I grant you certain sects of religion are deeply tangled in this "child witch" thing, which may have muddied the waters) but about the benefits of viewing any evidence free belief with skepticism.

My point was that maybe elaborate fantasies of making skeptics look like fools are uncalled for.

I don't want to hurt smallship1; I just want to persuade him to quit sneering at me and mine. It would, among other things, make his good guy nature more apparent.

But you're right--if I haven't changed his mind to this point one post more or less is not going to make a difference.

And I genuinely did not intend to make him so angry he quits the internet or anything.

I didn't get the impression that he was angry so much as hurt. You feel that he's sneering at you and yours. He feels that you're sneering at him and his. I wish you'd both stop sneering and make up, since I hate to see good people hurting each other.

I don't think your purpose was to "make him fel ashamed of his position," but that's what he thinks it was. I don't think his purpose was to sneer at you either. I do think both of you are getting so personally stressed out by this discussion that you can't read the other's point clearly, which is usually a good time to back off and take some time to breathe. I'm not worried that

smallship1 is choosing to do so; I think it's the smartest thing he can do under the circumstances. I just think it's a good sign that this has gone farther than its usefulness, and into the counterproductive range.

"He feels that you're sneering at him and his"

And since the "him and his" included SF fans (as commented on that post, the media at least don't seem to know the difference, and there are indeed a lot of SF fans and readers who also believe in extraterrestrial life and the possibility that it has/does/will visit), the position the sceptic was reported as taking in the TV programme was that we should all "get a life" (see Shatner) and stop wasting our time with fabrications. Which fabrications, of course, include the whole genre of SF.

I'm an SF fan myself (I think a lot of skeptics are, actually), so if the show (which I didn't see) was sneering at him for that it was sneering at me too.

Which would be art being very unlike life, because I've really had no trouble with people being rude to me because I like SF/F. I've had people tell me *they* don't care for it, of course, but that didn't seem like rudeness to me.

But art is sometimes very different from life, and goodness knows movies and tv shows can be as stylized and not-like-life in their expectations as any kabuki play. So I guess I can picture this.

I and most fans I know have experienced the "getalife" attitude. Sometimes for reading any fiction at all ("Why do you read known fabrication?"), but any 'minority' interest gets it (train-spotters are the stereotypical ones here, and Star Trek fans probably almost equally maligned). Usually, as in his example on TV, regarded as either credulous idiots, nerds, or unemployed/unemployable (generically weirdos). As he pointed out, but the media hardly ever does, most of $maligned_group are in fact 'ordinary' people with a similar distribution of jobs as the rest of the population.

But just as most of the population doesn't know that there are "SciFi Weirdos" among their friends, neither does most of SF fandom know that a lot of their friends are also 'weirdos' -- UFO believers, for example. So I also see 'mainstream' fans who look down on Trekkies and other 'fringe' interests, and who when confronted by someone who they didn't know liked or believed those things say "I thought you were an intelligent person, I didn't know you did/liked/believed X". Where X is things like UFOs, or acupuncture, or religion, or dressing up, or being a furry, or S&M, or whatever the 'superior' person feels is bad or wrong or unbelievable.

One of my new students is from Africa. She was being rude, and loud, and disruptive, making it hard for me to continue my lesson.

I told her that "This redhead does not permit such behaviors. If I can keep my temper, then so can you. Or you can take a time out from the classroom until you can get it together. If you continue these outbursts, I will have to do something about it, and there will be consequences." She sat down, eyes suddenly wide and frightened looking.

The next few days, she was *perfectly* behaved for me, while still being horrid to everyone else. Her staff asked why she could behave in English class, but not for anyone else.

Her reply? I have red hair, so I am a witch. I let her know that I would curse her if she crossed me, (I will have to do something about it, and there will be consequences...)so she wasn't going to cross me. And she was totally serious.

I have since made a point of smiling and being friendly, which seems to be a relief to her, but, really! How do I combat this?

Oh eep.

I haven't a clue. Hopefully she will be able to observe you working with other students and come to realize that "consequences" means the usual disciplinary methods of the school.

I'm tempted to suggest that you tell her you will be angry with her if she is rude to the staff, but I suppose that would just compound the problem. Sigh.

You could try telling her there isn't any way to harm anyone with the supernatural--that magic doesn't work. I expect she would just think you were lying, but at least it would (ironically enough) be honest.

The detective was Adrian Monk. The show was "Monk", an American show. It was a throw away scene, and I remember it because I identified with both Monk and the UFO people at the same time, and felt squeemish in how I was portrayed on each side.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cherished beliefs

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

Re: The tracks of my reactions

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject