Cherished beliefs

[catsittingstill]

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.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

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.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

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.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

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.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

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?

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

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!

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

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.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

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

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

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

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

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.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

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.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"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.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

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.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

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.