Time for skeptics to grow up?!

[dann]

In this week’s newsletter there is an interesting quotation from a reader, Sandra L. Hubscher, who has read an article in The Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 30, with the title, “In Congo, superstitions breed homeless children”.
Sandra writes:
“It appears that as poverty has been increasingly plaguing this nation, children are being turned out of home after being accused of witchcraft. Javier Aguilar, a UNICEF child protection officer, states that of the 20,000 street children in the city of Kinshasa, 70% of them have been accused of being witches. The article implies that many of these children were living with step-parents or extended family members who no longer wanted to have to support them and so, voila, an easily-explained incident such as a broken glass or a still-born child becomes an excuse to turn them out of home as practitioners of black magic. Any who hide behind the excuse that pseudo-science can be tolerated out of respect to the beliefs and feelings of others, should realize that this type of situation is the ultimate consequence of tolerance of dangerous nonsense. We certainly don't need to force people to be sensible, but neither should we remain quiet when we see truth and logic being assaulted.”

To this James Randi adds that he not only agrees, but “I agree enthusiastically”.
The newsletter in question. (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11)

I am not quite sure, but it appears to me that skeptics sometimes tend to ignore quite obvious truths when looking at reality, something they appear to have in common with Christian Scientists in this case and with many others: ”superstitions (!) breed homeless people”
If we look at cause and effect as it is described at the beginning of this quotation, however, poverty seems to be the real problem: Very poor families, extended or not, and parents, step- or not, can no longer support their children. Destitution drives them to get rid of these children, and to justify this they come up with an excuse which happens to be black magic. And this, of course (?), is when skeptics start to get upset!
“Any who hide behind the excuse that pseudo-science can be tolerated out of respect to the beliefs and feelings of others, should realize that this type of situation is the ultimate consequence of tolerance of dangerous nonsense.”

To me “this type of situation” seems to be the ultimate consequence of poverty, not of “tolerance of dangerous nonsense”. (Not that it isn’t nonsense and thus dangerous!) And I find it truly amazing that skeptics seem to think that the victims of this calamity are not simply the starving children, but primarily the sentiments of skeptics who cannot stand to ”see truth and logic being assaulted.” Is that really all that skeptics have to offer? A much more rational way of starving?

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? Or do they really believe that these children would be so much happier if they were starving without the added insult of being called witches?

The writer Steve Kowit already pointed out the truth about the relationship between poverty and superstition in his article in Skeptic, Vol. 11, Number 1, 2004, The Mass Suicide of the Xhosa. A Study in Collective Self-Deception ( http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol11n01.html).
Scandinavians can read a translation of the article here:
Xhosaernes masseselvmord. Et studie I kollektivt selvbedrag (http://www.skeptica.dk/2005/kowit.htm)

Merry Christmas!

[TheChadd]

To me “this type of situation” seems to be the ultimate consequence of poverty, not of “tolerance of dangerous nonsense”. (Not that it isn’t nonsense and thus dangerous!)

But it can be both due to poverty and tolerance of dangerous nonsense. The skeptics are merely (as, being a skeptic would imply) focusing their attack on the dangerous nonsense.

Destitution drives them to get rid of these children, and to justify this they come up with an excuse which happens to be black magic... Or do they really believe that these children would be so much happier if they were starving without the added insult of being called witches?

What makes you so sure that they just came up with an excuse to get rid of the children? What if they could have at least offered some support to the children, but due to irrational fears they now will not?

[Slimething]

If we look at cause and effect as it is described at the beginning of this quotation, however, poverty seems to be the real problem: Very poor families, extended or not, and parents, step- or not, can no longer support their children. Destitution drives them to get rid of these children, and to justify this they come up with an excuse which happens to be black magic. And this, of course (?), is when skeptics start to get upset!


This is a forum for exchanges among skeptics. As such, the topic at hand is the dangerous reasoning that many families in this tragic situation are using to dump their children. Let that sink in a minute.

Skeptics are human beings and express different feelings at different times and in different ways. This discussion group is not a discussion group about world hunger or poverty. Those discussions occur elsewhere. Person for person, you will find skeptics quite as concerned about the ravages of hunger, privation, repression and all other world evils as the rest of the population. (In my opinion, given an unbiased review, you would probably find more concern among skeptics about their fellow man than any other subpopulation but that's only my opinion.)

The topic at hand is the unthinkable justifications being used to oust these children. Suppose the economic factors in the DRO improve and sooner-or-later we have the surviving elders and the group of ostracized kids that have been labeled supernaturally evil. What do you think will happen to these kids then, Dann? Will they enjoy the revival of their community? I...don't...think...so. Quite the contrary.

Get off your high horse. You are trying to claim some type of moral high ground on the basis that, "if everyone is starving, who cares what these people do to their kids?". Keep your comments in context or don't make them at all.

[dann]

TheChadd: "But it can be both due to poverty and tolerance of dangerous nonsense. The skeptics are merely (as, being a skeptic would imply) focusing their attack on the dangerous nonsense."

The only thing we've got is a summary written by a skeptic of an article from the Christian Science Monitor, and it doesn't seem to point in the direction that you would like it to!

TheChadd: "What makes you so sure that they just came up with an excuse to get rid of the children? What if they could have at least offered some support to the children, but due to irrational fears they now will not?"

Nothing makes me sure, but please read the quotation again! Your what-if question is interesting, but what do you base it on apart from wishful thinking? According to the summary of the article that doesn't seem to be the case!

[dann]

My comments are in context, Slimething. Let that sink in a minute ....

[TheChadd]

The only thing we've got is a summary written by a skeptic of an article from the Christian Science Monitor, and it doesn't seem to point in the direction that you would like it to!

What direction would I like it to point to? That misery brought about by poverty can be further accentuated by superstitious beliefs?

Nothing makes me sure, but please read the quotation again! Your what-if question is interesting, but what do you base it on apart from wishful thinking? According to the summary of the article that doesn't seem to be the case!

The article implies that many of these children were living with step-parents or extended family members who no longer wanted to have to support them and so, voila, an easily-explained incident such as a broken glass or a still-born child becomes an excuse to turn them out of home as practitioners of black magic.

It is quite possible imo that they truly do belief the superstition, i.e. that it's not something they consciously made up as an excuse to get rid of the children but rather something that their mind made up for them, out of 'necessity'. So, while they did not wish to support these children, they would have, if it was not for the emergence of this supernatural excuse which they would not have had, if they were rational.

i.e. I'm claiming that real superstition on the part of these people was the key that led to their abandoning of these children, even though even without it they had no desire to look after them / merely felt obliged.

[dann]

What direction would I like it to point to? That misery brought about by poverty can be further accentuated by superstitious beliefs? Now we're getting somewhere! I think the article should be aptly named then: not "Time to grow up", but instead Time to accentuate properly!It is quite possible imo that they truly do belief the superstition, i.e. that it's not something they consciously made up as an excuse to get rid of the children but rather something that their mind made up for them, out of 'necessity'. To distinguish between them and their minds is too weird for me! I don't think that that's possible, but you're right that they may have been superstitious even before the "'necessity'". (Why the ' '?)So, while they did not wish to support these children, I think that they probably did wish ...they would have, if it was not for the emergence of this supernatural excuse which they would not have had, if they were rational.I think that you are starting to become irrational! "the emergence of this supernatural excuse"???? READ THE QUOTATION AGAIN, PLEASE!i.e. I'm claiming that real superstition on the part of these people was the key that led to their abandoning of these children, even though even without it they had no desire to look after them / merely felt obliged.Yes, that is what you are claiming. Let's leave poverty completely out of the picture, that would be the skeptical way, wouldn't it?!

[TheChadd]

I think that they probably did wish ...

Within the confines of reality? No they did not. They may have wished their situation would be different so they could look after these children, but in their situation, they did not wish to look after them.

To distinguish between them and their minds is too weird for me! I don't think that that's possible

All that I was saying was that I doubt they simply are using the superstition as a convenient excuse and more that they really do believe it, even if it was brought on by their situation.

I think that you are starting to become irrational! "the emergence of this supernatural excuse"????

I have done so... can you quote it for me and explain how you feel I've made a mistake?

Yes, that is what you are claiming. Let's leave poverty completely out of the picture, that would be the skeptical way, wouldn't it?!

lol no, I never advocated ignoring the poverty. The poverty created the situation, however the superstition was a key necessary ingredient to make them abandon these kids.

[athon]

In my experience, it's equally common for skeptics to over-simplify a situation as it is for any other member of the public. In all honesty, I wish I could say I was exempt from doing this, but I can't. I can try to, however.

I agree with dann's central point, that a key contributor to the behaviour of the people in these African communities is poverty, with the influence of superstitious belief resulting in children being abandoned. Highlighting one over the other is to miss how they relate, how the situation evolved in the first place, and importantly, how it can be helped.

Superstitious belief is often derided by skeptics as if it is a form of stupidity, a choice where people can either follow it or abandon it. Again, this simplification is the reason why skeptics have trouble convincing others of critical thinking, and why we have a reputation for being smug and elitist.

Superstition is essentially the result of social thinking; the acceptance of a belief solely because others believe in the same thing in order to belong to the group. In a social group where people are raised with the value that the needs of the community far exceed the needs of the individual, criticising a socially held belief will ostracize you. Superstition is a way of tying together communities. We might not understand the merits of that, however I'd bet that none of us have grown up in impoverished collectivisit cultures.

Enriching a collectivist community with resources, wealth and healthcare can help lead the way to education, and to shunning the need for superstitious belief. Suggesting that they should abandon social beliefs purely because they are wrong might seem a positive step to us, but encouraging such an action in a poor, collectivist community is futile.

Dann is right; poverty plays a key role in how superstition is applied in some communities, and to try to separate the two is to be ignorant on how to address the problem.

Athon

[Slimething]

I agree with dann's central point, that a key contributor to the behaviour of the people in these African communities is poverty, with the influence of superstitious belief resulting in children being abandoned.

No, Dann's central point was to criticize skeptics for caring only about the witchcraft stuff while ignoring that the overriding blight affecting the community. He only referred to a writer who wrote about the link between poverty and education. Dann is trying to claim a high moral ground, a practice typical of antagonists who don't have the facts to win a point fairly.

Superstitious belief is often derided by skeptics as if it is a form of stupidity,...

No, one of ignorance. There's quite a difference. But I admit that stupidity and sheer laziness can also lead to superstition.

this simplification is the reason why skeptics have trouble convincing others of critical thinking, and why we have a reputation for being smug and elitist.

Again, disagree. This has not been my experience at all and most of my fellow skeptics are very congenial, down-to-earth people. As you later point out, acquiescing to community superstition/dogma/mythology is a way of least resistance. This is not ignorance, just a lack of mettle. That does not make these "believers" evil but it does make them dangerous under the wrong circumstances. In my mind, witch accusers are dangerous under almost any circumstances.

Enriching a collectivist community with resources, wealth and healthcare can help lead the way to education, and to shunning the need for superstitious belief. Suggesting that they should abandon social beliefs purely because they are wrong might seem a positive step to us, but encouraging such an action in a poor, collectivist community is futile.

It is strange that you include education in your first sentence then short-circuit education is by stating that idiotic social beliefs be allowed to fester. That does not mesh with my concept of education. If the society refuses to learn a lesson is one thing but not to offer knowledge is a crime.

[dann]

Dann is trying to claim a high moral ground, a practice typical of antagonists who don't have the facts to win a point fairly.Strawman, Slimething!
... stating that idiotic social beliefs be allowed to fester. And another one!

[Kopji]

That it all seems futile is something I can agree with.

On the one hand, there is an advocacy for a secular society that eliminates poverty, and by so doing lays a foundation for reducing superstition.

On the other hand, as this secular foundation is laid the forces whose power and influence depend on faith and superstition take credit for the progress, and so reinforce their position.


So does the better strategy involve a religion that works to eliminate poverty as a primary goal? Even the religion were a lie, it would eventually lead to a state where the worst superstitions could fade away because they served no need.


So it seems that advocacy of a secular society must include being engaged in treating symptoms as well as core causes. Superstition should be opposed even if there is a deeper cause. Otherwise the progress made is for nothing, religion wins in the end.

All seems rather dark - Live a lie and win, or directly pursue the truth and fail.

Help us out dann, I end to agree with your analysis.

(btw, just what IS the illusion of happiness? How is it different than REAL happiness?)

[Zep]

Superstition comes from fear. Fear comes from ignorance. You can be poor but still not ignorant, although that may be more likely.

Question to the table: Do you think these people would have abandoned their children so if they were educated but then had hard times visited upon them forcibly?

[CFLarsen]

Superstition comes from fear. Fear comes from ignorance. You can be poor but still not ignorant, although that may be more likely.

Education is also a huge factor.

You can be poor but educated (somewhat, at least - it usually takes money to get a higher education), but the moment you start becoming educated, at least you have the knowledge and tools to be able to see through those who want to scare you into submission.

That's why suppressive governments are so keen on either keeping the population ignorant, or control what the population learns.

[dann]

(btw, just what IS the illusion of happiness? How is it different than REAL happiness?)
Do you remember the way some Christians look when they tell you how happy they are because JESUS LOVES THEM?
This weekend on CNN there was a programme, Happiness and Your Heatlh: The Surprising Connection, featuring the extremely happy members of a laughter yoga club. Unfortunately I cannot find a link anywhere, but I can assure you that it made the difference between real and illusory happiness very obvious!

Superstition comes from fear. Fear comes from ignorance. You can be poor but still not ignorant, although that may be more likely.Yes, and you can even be rich, in good health, extremely well educated, have a beautiful wife and well-behaved, successful children .... and still believe in astrology! What is your point?

Question to the table: Do you think these people would have abandoned their children so if they were educated but then had hard times visited upon them forcibly? We are not merely talking about hard times, but apparently people like Slimething and TheChadd seem to think that skepticism is a kind of moral fibre that will somehow prevent you from doing unpleasant things no matter what the circumstances are. No wonder I'm accused of "trying to claim some type of moral high ground".

the superstition was a key necessary ingredient to make them abandon these kids. Somehow skeptics cannot be forced by circumstances such as extreme poverty to abandon their children! Never happened, apparently, never will ....

[Zep]

Yes, and you can even be rich, in good health, extremely well educated, have a beautiful wife and well-behaved, successful children .... and still believe in astrology! What is your point?Then you are hardly likely to be abandoning your children, are you. ;) But if you did, I would expect there would be just as much puzzlement and despair as a result.

We are not merely talking about hard times, but apparently people like Slimething and TheChadd seem to think that skepticism is a kind of moral fibre that will somehow prevent you from doing unpleasant things no matter what the circumstances are. No wonder I'm accused of "trying to claim some type of moral high ground".Yes, you ARE talking about "hard times". Whoops! There goes that goalpost!

Somehow skeptics cannot be forced by circumstances such as extreme poverty to abandon their children! Never happened, apparently, never will ....I see no smiley, so I can only assume this is sarcasm. True?

[Moochie]

In this week’s newsletter there is an interesting quotation from a reader, Sandra L. Hubscher, who has read an article in The Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 30, with the title, “In Congo, superstitions breed homeless children”.
Sandra writes:
“It appears that as poverty has been increasingly plaguing this nation, children are being turned out of home after being accused of witchcraft. Javier Aguilar, a UNICEF child protection officer, states that of the 20,000 street children in the city of Kinshasa, 70% of them have been accused of being witches. The article implies that many of these children were living with step-parents or extended family members who no longer wanted to have to support them and so, voila, an easily-explained incident such as a broken glass or a still-born child becomes an excuse to turn them out of home as practitioners of black magic. Any who hide behind the excuse that pseudo-science can be tolerated out of respect to the beliefs and feelings of others, should realize that this type of situation is the ultimate consequence of tolerance of dangerous nonsense. We certainly don't need to force people to be sensible, but neither should we remain quiet when we see truth and logic being assaulted.”

To this James Randi adds that he not only agrees, but “I agree enthusiastically”.
The newsletter in question. (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11)

I am not quite sure, but it appears to me that skeptics sometimes tend to ignore quite obvious truths when looking at reality, something they appear to have in common with Christian Scientists in this case and with many others: ”superstitions (!) breed homeless people”
If we look at cause and effect as it is described at the beginning of this quotation, however, poverty seems to be the real problem: Very poor families, extended or not, and parents, step- or not, can no longer support their children. Destitution drives them to get rid of these children, and to justify this they come up with an excuse which happens to be black magic. And this, of course (?), is when skeptics start to get upset!
“Any who hide behind the excuse that pseudo-science can be tolerated out of respect to the beliefs and feelings of others, should realize that this type of situation is the ultimate consequence of tolerance of dangerous nonsense.”

To me “this type of situation” seems to be the ultimate consequence of poverty, not of “tolerance of dangerous nonsense”. (Not that it isn’t nonsense and thus dangerous!) And I find it truly amazing that skeptics seem to think that the victims of this calamity are not simply the starving children, but primarily the sentiments of skeptics who cannot stand to ”see truth and logic being assaulted.” Is that really all that skeptics have to offer? A much more rational way of starving?

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? Or do they really believe that these children would be so much happier if they were starving without the added insult of being called witches?

The writer Steve Kowit already pointed out the truth about the relationship between poverty and superstition in his article in Skeptic, Vol. 11, Number 1, 2004, The Mass Suicide of the Xhosa. A Study in Collective Self-Deception ( http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol11n01.html).
Scandinavians can read a translation of the article here:
Xhosaernes masseselvmord. Et studie I kollektivt selvbedrag (http://www.skeptica.dk/2005/kowit.htm)

Merry Christmas!


Excellent post.

Happy Holidays :)

M.

[Moochie]

But it can be both due to poverty and tolerance of dangerous nonsense. The skeptics are merely (as, being a skeptic would imply) focusing their attack on the dangerous nonsense.

Too narrow a focus, IMO. Making the connection how economic and intellectual poverty may foster the growth of woo is pretty damned elementary.

M.

[dann]

Then you are hardly likely to be abandoning your children, are you. ;) But if you did, I would expect there would be just as much puzzlement and despair as a result. Definitely!

Yes, you ARE talking about "hard times". Whoops! There goes that goalpost! What I mean is: There's a difference between hard times and utter despair, hunger and destitution.

I see no smiley, so I can only assume this is sarcasm. True? Yes! Sarcasm! :)

[Merko]

My grandmother was abandoned because of her mother's poverty, much like these children. I do not believe that superstition was a factor.

She was taken care of, more or less, in various foster homes. Eventually she found a family that treated her as their own child, and she grew up a strong person, living a happy and successful life by any measurable standard.

Now, imagine that she had not only been abandoned, but also labeled a witch. Do you think she would have had much chance of finding a good foster home?


Obviously the big problem is the poverty, but the stigma caused by superstition seems to aggravate the problem, not only in the long run, but for these particular children.

[dann]

I have done so... can you quote it for me and explain how you feel I've made a mistake? Since you don’t like the simple explanation that even the writer of the article in The Christian Science Monitor presents only to ignore it again and come up with a misleading title, you present us with a very convoluted way of getting around poverty as the explanation:
It is quite possible imo that they truly do believe the superstition, i.e. that it's not something they consciously made up as an excuse to get rid of the children but rather something that their mind made up for them, out of 'necessity'. So, while they did not wish to support these children, they would have, if it was not for the emergence of this supernatural excuse which they would not have had, if they were rational.
i.e. I'm claiming that real superstition on the part of these people was the key that led to their abandoning of these children, even though even without it they had no desire to look after them / merely felt obliged.
I.e. 1) These people had no desire to look after their children, so 2) their mind (the Freudian subconscious?) made up a lame excuse for them, which 3) would never have emerged if only they had been rational. Within the confines of that reality 4) they may have wished (!) that their situation would be different, but 5) in their actual situation they did not wish (!) to look after their children!
Within the confines of reality? No they did not. They may have wished their situation would be different so they could look after these children, but in their situation, they did not wish to look after them.
To make this piece of mind acrobatics work, you have to distinguish between two very different meanings of the word wish: when you wish within the confines of a certain reality (4), and when you wish within the confines of a certain situation (5). Within the confines of reality you can wish that your situation were different so you could take care of your children, but within the confines of the situation you don’t even wish to look after them! Brilliant!
All that I was saying was that I doubt they simply are using the superstition as a convenient excuse and more that they really do believe it, even if it was brought on by their situation. So supernatural excuses can emerge, brought on by certain situations, but not conveniently? I don’t think that I ever use convenience as an argument, contrasting convenience with genuine belief! Apparently your argument rests on this distinction between convenient conscious excuses and genuinely supernatural excuses, which you truly do believe emerge only in ye weak in skeptical faith! Argument, please.
lol no, I never advocated ignoring the poverty. But that’s what you do. The poverty created the situation, however the superstition was a key necessary ingredient to make them abandon these kids. So without superstition they would not have been able to make up a simple (!) excuse? Or at least not a supernatural one? And the ‘necessity’ would then no longer be a necessity:
if it was not for the emergence of this supernatural excuse which they would not have had, if they were rational. No, they would probably have had a (psedo) rational excuse!

[dann]

My grandmother was abandoned because of her mother's poverty, much like these children. I do not believe that superstition was a factor.

She was taken care of, more or less, in various foster homes. Eventually she found a family that treated her as their own child, and she grew up a strong person, living a happy and successful life by any measurable standard.Good for her and you! (No sarcasm!)
Now, imagine that she had not only been abandoned, but also labeled a witch. Do you think she would have had much chance of finding a good foster home? I don't know. Maybe a skeptic one?
Obviously the big problem is the poverty, but the stigma caused by superstition seems to aggravate the problem, not only in the long run, but for these particular children. Stigmatizing children is never a good idea. Pretending that they are the incarnation of evil (be that in religious or more secular terms, by poor or wealthy parents who may or may not threaten to or actually abandon them) is not a very nice thing to do, and it may damage them for life, in particular if they don't have anybody else to go to. OK?!
This is why I talked about "the added insult of being called witches".
However, there doesn't appear to be much chance of finding a foster home for the children Kinshasa where "an easily-explained incident such as a broken glass or a still-born child becomes an excuse to turn them out of home as practitioners of black magic".
However, you cannot really prevent this kind of abandonment or abuse by insisting on rational reasons for abandoning the children. It would not help a child to be turned out of its home accused of being extraordinarily clumsy or stupid!
In other words: Superstition or not is completely beside the point in this case.

[dann]

I have done so... can you quote it for me and explain how you feel I've made a mistake? Since you don’t like the simple explanation that even the writer of the article in The Christian Science Monitor appears to present only to ignore it again and come up with a misleading title, you present us with a very convoluted way of getting around the problem of poverty as the explanation:
It is quite possible imo that they truly do believe the superstition, i.e. that it's not something they consciously made up as an excuse to get rid of the children but rather something that their mind made up for them, out of 'necessity'. So, while they did not wish to support these children, they would have, if it was not for the emergence of this supernatural excuse which they would not have had, if they were rational.
i.e. I'm claiming that real superstition on the part of these people was the key that led to their abandoning of these children, even though even without it they had no desire to look after them / merely felt obliged.
I.e. 1) These people had no desire to look after their children, so 2) their mind (the Freudian subconscious?) made up a lame excuse for them, which 3) would never have emerged if only they had been rational. Within the confines of that reality 4) they may have wished (!) that their situation would be different, but 5) in their actual situation they did not wish (!) to look after their children!
Within the confines of reality? No they did not. They may have wished their situation would be different so they could look after these children, but in their situation, they did not wish to look after them.
To make this piece of mind acrobatics work, you have to distinguish between two very different meanings of the word wish: when you wish within the confines of a certain reality (4), and when you wish within the confines of a certain situation (5). Within the confines of reality you can wish that your situation were different so you could look after your children, but within the confines of the situation you don’t even wish to look after them! Brilliant!
All that I was saying was that I doubt they simply are using the superstition as a convenient excuse and more that they really do believe it, even if it was brought on by their situation. So supernatural excuses can emerge, brought on by certain situations, but not conveniently? I don’t think that I ever use convenience as an argument, contrasting convenientt superstitious excuses with genuine superstitious beliefs! Apparently your argument rests on this distinction between convenient superstitious excuses and genuine faith-based supernatural excuses, which you truly do believe emerge only in ye weak in skeptical faith! lol no, I never advocated ignoring the poverty. But that’s what you do. The poverty created the situation, however the superstition was a key necessary ingredient to make them abandon these kids. So without superstition they would not have been able to make up a simple excuse? Or could not have come up with the supernatural ones? And the ‘necessity’ would then no longer be a necessity:
... if it was not for the emergence of this supernatural excuse which they would not have had, if they were rational.

[dann]

Since the article did not include a link, I was surprised to find out that the Christian Science Monitor is an online newspaper: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1130/p12s01-woaf.html
I find this excerpt very interesting: How children get stigmatized
Many of the children at the center are like Frida Tshama. Orphaned at the age of 1, taken in by her grandmother and later, an aunt, Frida is a typical 13-year-old: bubbly, rambunctious, talkative. But when asked why she was thrown out of her house, two months ago, she gets teary and quiet.
"I was staying with my aunt, and one day I was cleaning the house, and a glass that was on the table fell and broke," she says. "My aunt asked me to get out of the house. If I stay, she will poison me."
For months, Frida survived by selling oranges in the Matete market, but came to the center a few weeks ago. An attempted reunification with Frida's family failed. Frida's grandmother said that Frida had stolen from her aunt. Her son-in-law said that if she took Frida back, the entire family would reject both Frida and the grandmother.
I don’t see any signs of superstition here. Interesting that Christians and skeptics alike focus only on the children accused of being witches when poverty, the question of survival, is the problem!
Peace has brought its own challenges, as refugee families flow into the capital, Kinshasa, and find they cannot feed themselves. Out of survival, many are using witchcraft as an excuse to expel their most vulnerable members: children. And others simply use a broken glass ...

[dann]

Sorry about the double post above.

[athon]

No, Dann's central point was to criticize skeptics for caring only about the witchcraft stuff while ignoring that the overriding blight affecting the community. He only referred to a writer who wrote about the link between poverty and education. Dann is trying to claim a high moral ground, a practice typical of antagonists who don't have the facts to win a point fairly.

Well I read it very differently. We'll just have to disagree there, but I can't help but feel a sense of paranoia in your argument.

No, one of ignorance. There's quite a difference. But I admit that stupidity and sheer laziness can also lead to superstition.

Indeed it can. But while you readily accuse Dann of taking the high moral ground, you take it yourself quite readily. Superstitious thought is the result of accepting the beliefs of others without criticism. To criticise other's beliefs in a social group where the bonds between community members is necessary to survive is detrimental. Sure, it's easy for us to exist as individuals in a society which is affluent, so it's easy for us to define supertition as the result of laziness. But again, you're demonstrating a very narrow-minded point of view.

Again, disagree. This has not been my experience at all and most of my fellow skeptics are very congenial, down-to-earth people. As you later point out, acquiescing to community superstition/dogma/mythology is a way of least resistance. This is not ignorance, just a lack of mettle. That does not make these "believers" evil but it does make them dangerous under the wrong circumstances. In my mind, witch accusers are dangerous under almost any circumstances.

I don't disagree that supertition can be dangerous, especially in circumstances such as these. And I never said skeptics weren't congenial. However, is it better to see the problem in its complexity with an aim to solve it, or is it preferable to simplify it into an issue where people can simply choose to not accept supertitious beliefs? Because accepting the latter will get your nowhere.

It is strange that you include education in your first sentence then short-circuit education is by stating that idiotic social beliefs be allowed to fester. That does not mesh with my concept of education. If the society refuses to learn a lesson is one thing but not to offer knowledge is a crime.

Whoa there. First, point out where I said 'they should be allowed to fester'. Misrepresenting my argument won't get you anywhere, mate.

I said suggesting off the bat that they should simply abandon their beliefs is futile. It is. The groundwork for it must be established, which allows for education to take place. Here's an example; walking into a community and saying 'your witchdoctor is wrong' when the community is established on accepting as gospel the words of their elders will get you booted quick. Australian Indigenous communities are prime example of that. Sure, you can feel smugly satisfied that you offered them an education and they refused it, but you didn't solve the problem.

Rather, providing an infrastructure which is supportive of critical reasoning (which means addressing the issue of poverty) is paramount to placing value in such an education program.

Athon

[athon]

Superstition comes from fear. Fear comes from ignorance. You can be poor but still not ignorant, although that may be more likely.

Question to the table: Do you think these people would have abandoned their children so if they were educated but then had hard times visited upon them forcibly?

I disagree that superstition comes from fear. In part, it comes from socially significant beliefs. If others believe in it, then it must be true, otherwise you don't belong to the social group. In other part, it is the result of our pattern-making thinking skills. In both cases it is incorrect, but only because when it is addressed critically it fails to stand up to scrutiny. Hence it survives when people either lack the skill to use critical thinking and/or, importantly in this case, they can't afford to.

As to the second part of the question, you're ignoring the relationship between education and poverty.

Collectivist groups such as those in Africa rely on strong social ties. This is useful in situations of extreme poverty, where it is important that the community has a shared distribution of resources in order for it to remain strong. Critical thinking is a skill that is not only seen as unnecessary, but is detrimental to the individual, as it means that they will be ostracised from the group for not sharing beliefs.

If they have those skills and can use them, then they would be less likely to be collectivist, and would be an individualist social group which then subsequently faces poverty. In such situations, people will often band together into socially strong groups, again neglecting critical thinking.

Would 'educated' (i.e., critical thinking) people abandon their children if they found themselves in poverty? I doubt it, as they hopefully already possess those skills which critically address the belief. However, the poverty is linked with the lack of skill in the first place. The question is, how do you empower collectivist, impoverished communities with critical thinking when the very nature of the social group rejects such education?

Athon

[TheChadd]

you present us with a very convoluted way of getting around the problem of poverty as the explanation:

I'm not ignoring the poverty at all, I can see how poverty has fostered this situation where there are poor children etc

1) These people had no desire to look after their children,

Due to the circumstances of their reality... since you like to point out "Oh I'm sure they would desire to look after these children, if they could".

so 2) their mind (the Freudian subconscious?) made up a lame excuse for them

My simple distinction with the mind was to note that they probably have genuine belief that these kids are witches.

which 3) would never have emerged if only they had been rational.

Yes, if they weren't superstitious then they'd not imagine for a second that these kids are witches.

Within the confines of that reality 4) they may have wished (!) that their situation would be different, but 5) in their actual situation they did not wish (!) to look after their children!

That extra bit there, is really just point 1. All you've done is replaced my word 'wished' with 'desired' - In essence I can make the same claim as you did before, it's a problem with the language that I personally couldn't figure an easy way around.

To make this piece of mind acrobatics work, you have to distinguish between two very different meanings of the word wish:

And you've made the same mistake with your first point instead using the word desire. I could argue that they did desire to look after these kids etc etc

I'm sorry it comes off odd but if you can give me a sentence saying "They had no will/desire/wish to look after those kids" that simply eliminates one of the two posibilities I'll use that from now on :)

So supernatural excuses can emerge, brought on by certain situations, but not conveniently?.... Apparently your argument rests on this distinction between convenient superstitious excuses and genuine faith-based supernatural excuses, which you truly do believe emerge only in ye weak in skeptical faith!

My argument does rest on the assertion that these people aren't simply (at least most of them) lying i.e. They know these kids aren't witches.

So without superstition they would not have been able to make up a simple excuse?

They could, but the thing is I don't think they would have. I don't think the 'witch' claim is an 'excuse' to get rid of the kids, but a genuine belief that has led to their abandonning of these children.

Would 'educated' (i.e., critical thinking) people abandon their children if they found themselves in poverty? I doubt it, as they hopefully already possess those skills which critically address the belief. However, the poverty is linked with the lack of skill in the first place. The question is, how do you empower collectivist, impoverished communities with critical thinking when the very nature of the social group rejects such education?

I agree with you and as such I feel the people do have little blame for what they've done. It doesn't change the interest for skeptics, to see such things happening in absence of critical thinking, however it does mean no condemnations should be placed upon this community.

[athon]

I agree with you and as such I feel the people do have little blame for what they've done. It doesn't change the interest for skeptics, to see such things happening in absence of critical thinking, however it does mean no condemnations should be placed upon this community.

Personally, whenever the terms 'blame' and 'condemnation', and other such value judgements, come up in addressing a problem, I tend to walk out. Judging the values do nothing to understand how a problem came about.

I agree we - as skeptics - have an interest in how critical thinking can help these people. I spent time in the Indigenous communities in North Queensland this year, and asked myself how I could better teach the kids up there to be more critical. The thing is, one of the last remaining values they possess is the respect they have in the word of their elders. To encourage them to argue against it in favour of rationality might seem like the right thing to do, but without a supportive atmosphere any kid who was to do that would find themselves rejected from their social group.

Poverty is only one piece of this puzzle, but it is a significant one.

Athon

[Kopji]

Do you remember the way some Christians look when they tell you how happy they are because JESUS LOVES THEM?
This weekend on CNN there was a programme, Happiness and Your Heatlh: The Surprising Connection, featuring the extremely happy members of a laughter yoga club. Unfortunately I cannot find a link anywhere, but I can assure you that it made the difference between real and illusory happiness very obvious!

The positive effect of laughter could probably be measured chemically if we knew how. If we could, would the ecstatic happiness of a Christian be measurably different than the yoga practitioners? I don't know, it seems like bias though.

I would say the difference is that some happiness is founded on a more nurturing or lasting foundation than other happiness. This does not make some happiness an illusion.

Superstition has an infectious quality about it that makes building a quality foundation for happiness difficult. It is a weakness rather than strength of character.

[Slimething]

Well I read it very differently. We'll just have to disagree there, but I can't help but feel a sense of paranoia in your argument.

I've dealt with many, many people like dann, in more public arenas than this one. Perhaps you haven't and that's very good for you. People without facts will often try to claim a superior moral stance to their opponent, especially if the forum is public. I prefer not to concede this, ever, as it's only a ruse. (Or, if I'm wrong, kindly point me to where dann has offered a solution to the problem.) My opinion on this topic is not a condemnation of the poor and suffering but a condemnation of an ignorant practice that will ultimately lead to additional tragedy.

So, you accuse me of paranoia? Whom do I fear? You? dann? Get a life!

But while you readily accuse Dann of taking the high moral ground, you take it yourself quite readily.

No, I don't. I just want my comments discussed on a factual, unemotional arena. I could not care less about the morality attached as that stuff is so arbitrary. Dann (and maybe you) don't want to argue the merits of discussing the foible of labeling kids witches but that's what I came here for, "mate".

But again, you're demonstrating a very narrow-minded point of view.

So, enlighten me. But keep your moral outrage out of it. I have no use for half-baked philosophy.

And I never said skeptics weren't congenial.

Ummm, yes you did.
Again, this simplification is the reason why skeptics have trouble convincing others of critical thinking, and why we have a reputation for being smug and elitist.


Whoa there. First, point out where I said 'they should be allowed to fester'. Misrepresenting my argument won't get you anywhere, mate.

The tools provided in this forum make plain what is a direct quote and what is not. I wasn't quoting you directly, "mate". I was applying my own description of what you wrote in my own stylish manner. You said that the community would benefit from education but not to the point of challenging their superstitions. That, to me, is allowing those folk to fester in ignorance. Don't like the way I put it? Awww!

Here's an example; walking into a community and saying 'your witchdoctor is wrong' when the community is established on accepting as gospel the words of their elders will get you booted quick. Australian Indigenous communities are prime example of that. Sure, you can feel smugly satisfied that you offered them an education and they refused it, but you didn't solve the problem.

You're not a teacher, are you? 'S OK as neither am I but what you just described isn't what I would classify as "offering an education". You'd be just beggin' for an ass-whoopin'. So, get real.

Athon, this exchange is an example of the real danger in allowing an opponent in any debate, woo or not, try to pull this holier-than-thou bull and getting away with it. You, like a very nice person which I'm fairly sure you are, feel that you have to defend his/her/its position or be tarnished like the unfeeling, amoral ogre I am.

I've seen this crap before and I don't fall for it anymore. You can learn the hard way. Ta!

[athon]

I've dealt with many, many people like dann, in more public arenas than this one. Perhaps you haven't and that's very good for you. People without facts will often try to claim a superior moral stance to their opponent, especially if the forum is public. I prefer not to concede this, ever, as it's only a ruse. (Or, if I'm wrong, kindly point me to where dann has offered a solution to the problem.) My opinion on this topic is not a condemnation of the poor and suffering but a condemnation of an ignorant practice that will ultimately lead to additional tragedy.

Fine. I never suggested otherwise. But I do think you've oversimplified the matter by suggesting that dann remove poverty from the discussion as a key factor.

So, you accuse me of paranoia? Whom do I fear? You? dann? Get a life!

Your indication that dann is taking moral high ground feels paranoid. I don't see that he does.

No, I don't. I just want my comments discussed on a factual, unemotional arena. I could not care less about the morality attached as that stuff is so arbitrary. Dann (and maybe you) don't want to argue the merits of discussing the foible of labeling kids witches but that's what I came here for, "mate".

You seem to be doing a fine job of introducing emotions into this. I apologise for the use of my colloquial 'mate', as it seems to have upset you.

Discussing the fact that labelling kids as witches is detrimental is fine, however to dismiss the influence of poverty is narrow minded. The issue is more complex than being just about superstition; it's also about the reasons superstitious belief exists in such communities in the first place.

So, enlighten me. But keep your moral outrage out of it. I have no use for half-baked philosophy.

I'm at a loss to see where 'moral outrage' comes into it. The fact that skepticism often over simplifies the issue is not a moral judgement, but a practical one.

Ummm, yes you did.

Skeptics have a reputation for being smug and elitist, and I stand by this public perception. If you care to discuss that, start another thread to avoid derailing this one. Whether they truly are or not is another matter, and I never commented on that.

The tools provided in this forum make plain what is a direct quote and what is not. I wasn't quoting you directly, "mate". I was applying my own description of what you wrote in my own stylish manner. You said that the community would benefit from education but not to the point of challenging their superstitions. That, to me, is allowing those folk to fester in ignorance. Don't like the way I put it? Awww!

Well, your juvenile approach is noted. What was that you were saying about discussing this without emotion? Hmm...

Whether you were directly quoting or not, your summary of my position was misrepresentative. I'm not worried, as my argument stands for anybody who wishes to compare our views. But I do think it's poor argument on your behalf.

Again, my apologies for provoking you with the term 'mate'. It seems to be more offensive in your parts than in mine.

You're not a teacher, are you? 'S OK as neither am I but what you just described isn't what I would classify as "offering an education". You'd be just beggin' for an ass-whoopin'. So, get real.

Actually, I am. I've got quite a bit of experience in education in different parts of the world, including in impoverished, collectivist communities of remote Australia. So I am speaking from a position of experience and expertise, and not just of speculative opinion. And what I described as education is what often happened in the past; government and private (often missionary) imposed education programs often failed to make an impact as a direct result of a rejection by the community.

Athon, this exchange is an example of the real danger in allowing an opponent in any debate, woo or not, try to pull this holier-than-thou bull and getting away with it. You, like a very nice person which I'm fairly sure you are, feel that you have to defend his/her/its position or be tarnished like the unfeeling, amoral ogre I am.

I've seen this crap before and I don't fall for it anymore. You can learn the hard way. Ta!

Again, you seem more inclined to get heated over some 'holier than thou' argument than to address the facts. While there are some points of Dann's I disagree with, I feel he brought up an interesting point worth discussing; skeptics often attack superstitious beliefs in isolation from the circumstances in which they develop.

You've done little to argue against this, but have a whole lot of angst about some moral attack against skepticism, which I just don't see.

If you have something to say on your view addressing the influence of external social factors such as poverty in a discussion on superstition, then I'd love to hear it. My stance in this argument is that you cannot remove such issues from the discussion.

If you're happier ranting about moral high grounds, then please proceed, but I have nothing to contribute to such emotional ranting.

Athon

[dann]

Let us take a look at the argument in the second half of the article about Africans who refuse to grow up:
Another example from Africa:
In Zimbabwe, John Munkombwe, 29, has been charged with having sex three times with an under-age girl, and impregnating her. He offered the court the explanation that the girl had in fact slept with goblins. Munkombwe has denied the charge of statutory rape. He told the court:
I have been tried before in the chief's court but I have maintained my innocence, and I still deny the charges. I have heard it said that she was impregnated by goblins. I certainly don't know her.
What makes this of interest to us, is that Zimbabwe is a country steeped in supernatural beliefs. As evidence, consider that the country just recently changed their old colonial law to now recognize the existence of witchcraft. Folks, this is no way to join the community of international nations. This is not only standing still, it’s moving backward – rapidly. http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11

What is the point here?
A man is charged with statutory rape. Not unlike most perpetrators in the enlightened world of industrialized countries with a market economy he denies the charges held against him. In case of actual rape the accused often use the she-made-me-do-it excuse, but since this guy is accused of having sex with and impregnating a minor, that is not an option and he resorts to the I-never-met-her-and-she-made-up-the-charges excuse instead. What made her do it and who is the lucky father? The goblins!!

What makes this case relevant to the skeptics? The same goblins!
If only John had said in court that he had sex with a minor because it was the rational thing to do, he would never have been quoted on a website for skeptics! Or if he had behaved like any other decent civilized rapist and accused the victim of being the one that seduced him (her provocative way of carrying a school bag) he would never have offered them this opportunity to point out that his country is not fit to join the community of civilized international nations whose rapists are able to distinguish between rational and superstitious excuses! (And, no, I don’t advocate rape, be it statutory or not.)

In a very disgusting case in Denmark right now a man in the town of Tønder is accused of abusing his two very young daughters (3 and 5 years old when it started) sexually and hiring one of them out to a number of men. Several have already been convicted. Today the headlines of one newspaper tells us that he is also a member of a cult of Satanists (http://www.bt.dk/article/20061212/KRIMI/61212019).
A few years ago Ole Wolf, the leader of this cult, lied about me and Claus Larsen in his Forum and prevented us from refuting the lies. His wife, Amina, also a leading member, complained about me in a letter to my employer because I had asked a student at my school, a satanist whom I knew as a very sensible young man in most respects, what (the hell) was wrong with these people.
Now, of course, they are very busy trying to distance themselves (http://www.sataniskforum.dk) from the rapist in Tønder.

However, even though I have no reason to like any of these guys, I would not recommend that the Danish skeptics write an article linking Satanism with the incestuous rapist pimp in Tønder. Satanism is stupid enough as it is, and their particular brand of it is not any better than the rest, but it does not include raping children. Neither does superstition in Zimbabwe, I think, so why write an article linking the two just because a man accused of statutory rape uses a reference to witchcraft to get off the hook? And why use the patronizing headline Time to grow up? in an article about two incidents in Africa? To me it sounds too much like The White Man’s Burden (http://www.boondocksnet.com/ai/kipling) ….

Unless, of course, James Randi makes up for it by writing an article in his newsletter on Friday, blaming Denmark that its laws and constitution recognize the existence of God and that the country thus does not really belong in a community of civilized nations.

By the way, this might even be one of the many points where he and I would tend to agree! :)

[dann]

My simple distinction with the mind was to note that they probably have genuine belief that these kids are witches. And I agree. They probably do. But if you read the article, it becomes obvious that these people seem to lack food and a decent living, not excuses. When a broken glass suffices as an excuse to throw your children out of their home, superstition does not seem to be a very necessary ingredient!
Yes, if they weren't superstitious then they'd not imagine for a second that these kids are witches. No, but abandoning children is possible without superstition. (And at least the poor child knows that it's not a witch. However, it does know that it broke the glass!)
That extra bit there, is really just point 1. All you've done is replaced my word 'wished' with 'desired' - In essence I can make the same claim as you did before, it's a problem with the language that I personally couldn't figure an easy way around.
No problem! They seem to be synonymous.
And you've made the same mistake with your first point instead using the word desire. I could argue that they did desire to look after these kids etc etc.

I'm sorry it comes off odd but if you can give me a sentence saying "They had no will/desire/wish to look after those kids" that simply eliminates one of the two posibilities I'll use that from now on :)
I do not think that this is a problem of language. It becomes apparent when you put it like this:
My argument does rest on the assertion that these people aren't simply (at least most of them) lying i.e. They know these kids aren't witches.Yes, they do know that these kids aren't witches, but because witchcraft is accepted as an argument in this society, that is the excuse they decide to use in a situation of extreme poverty. The same way that they know that breaking a glass, in other circumstances, would never be reason enogh to abandon them.
Parents in our countries might have claimed that their children were either possessed by the devil or suffered from at genetic disorder: DAMP etc.
You seem to contradict yourself when you say this immediately after:
They could, but the thing is I don't think they would have. I don't think the 'witch' claim is an 'excuse' to get rid of the kids, but a genuine belief that has led to their abandonning of these children.
I agree with you and as such I feel the people do have little blame for what they've done. It doesn't change the interest for skeptics, to see such things happening in absence of critical thinking, however it does mean no condemnations should be placed upon this community. I think that you probably should criticize these people: They are in a desperate situation, but it is still stupid to accuse their children of being witches. They may not see a way out of their problems, but superstition offers nothing but psychological relief. They should concentrate on what is wrong with the (market?) economy of their society, try to find some real answers: Why is it impossible for them to feed their children?
And this process might actually lead them to condemn their community in a rational fashion ...
Why are many people in developing countries poor? (http://gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html)

[dann]

I've dealt with many, many people like dann, in more public arenas than this one. Perhaps you haven't and that's very good for you. (...) I've seen this crap before and I don't fall for it anymore. You can learn the hard way. Ta! :)

[dann]

The positive effect of laughter could probably be measured chemically if we knew how. If we could, would the ecstatic happiness of a Christian be measurably different than the yoga practitioners? I don't know, it seems like bias though. To me both groups seem to be trying too hard to look happy. I don't think that people who are actually having fun look this way. But you're right that I don't have hard scientific evidence!
I would say the difference is that some happiness is founded on a more nurturing or lasting foundation than other happiness. This does not make some happiness an illusion.The metaphor nurturing or lasting foundation of happiness doesn't do it for me. Sometimes very insignificant, superficial and fleeting things may make you happy. Why shouldn't they? The new-born Christian or the member of a yoga laughter club may even be happier than they were before they were before they were saved. I just think that it looks too much like hard work, too much like pretence, like shamming. (And it's not that hard work cannot sometimes make you happy when your enterprise is crowned with success.)
Superstition has an infectious quality about it that makes building a quality foundation for happiness difficult. It is a weakness rather than strength of character. Well, it's probably not as infectious as a good laugh! Like James Randi says, they not only want to, they actually need to believe, but this need does not take away the effort that you have to put into maintaining a delusion! It is very hard work to convince yourself and others to believe nonsensical stuff! We have probably all tried it a couple of times: to maintain an illusion about something that we would not want to be the way that it happened to be, in the world of emotions, finance, politics or whatever.
Fooling yourself is not conducive to happiness, I think, but in a certain situation you may prefer it to the truth that scares you. I don't remember if you have the same saying in English that we have in cold Scandinavia, but it is a little like peeing yourself in order to keep warm!

[dann]

We have probably all tried it a couple of timesLet me rephrase that: With the exception of Slimething we have probably all tried it a couple of times! :)

[dann]

This weekend on CNN there was a programme, Happiness and Your Health: The Surprising Connection, featuring the extremely happy members of a laughter yoga club. Unfortunately I cannot find a link anywhere, but I can assure you that it made the difference between real and illusory happiness very obvious!
Now I've found it, Kopji! (My spelling did not make it easy: Heatlh - corrected in the quotation above)
This is the link to the programme on CNN (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2006/happiness) Go down to: Web Extras --> The Power of Laughter.
But see for yourself/-selves: Do they seem happy to you?

[TheChadd]

Yes, they do know that these kids aren't witches, but because witchcraft is accepted as an argument in this society, that is the excuse they decide to use in a situation of extreme poverty. The same way that they know that breaking a glass, in other circumstances, would never be reason enogh to abandon them.
Parents in our countries might have claimed that their children were either possessed by the devil or suffered from at genetic disorder: DAMP etc.

It's possible that they do know they're not witches and they're merely using it as it's an excuse that will not be looked down upon by the social elite of their town (whether it be elders or just some popular clique) -- But there's really nothing imo to suggest that. From what we've been given I do think it's equally likely that they may truly believe they are witches.

You seem to contradict yourself when you say this immediately after:

Sorry, again not a contradiction but I guess a problem with language.

My argument does rest on the assertion that these people aren't simply (at least most of them) lying i.e. They know these kids aren't witches

The example was to explain what I mean by 'lying', not what my entire argument is. My argument is that they may think the kids are witches :)

I think that you probably should criticize these people: They are in a desperate situation, but it is still stupid to accuse their children of being witches.

Without access to proper education etc these are the sort of things that the human brain will naturally percieve - So I don't think it's stupid to accuse their children of being witches, just that most of them don't have the time to consider the question of whether this is true in any meaningful way.

They may not see a way out of their problems, but superstition offers nothing but psychological relief.

With this sentence you seem to be implying that they do believe in their superstition?

They should concentrate on what is wrong with the (market?) economy of their society, try to find some real answers: Why is it impossible for them to feed their children?

While I agree, I think it would be much harder to do that when you're struggling to live day by day.

[dann]

It's possible that they do know they're not witches and they're merely using it as it's an excuse that will not be looked down upon by the social elite of their town (whether it be elders or just some popular clique) -- But there's really nothing imo to suggest that. From what we've been given I do think it's equally likely that they may truly believe they are witches. They are superstitious, they do believe in witches, and the excuses they come up with have to make sense to themselves as well as to others. These excuses just don't depend on their superstition, and skepticism would not help them out of their immediate predicament that makes them need excuses.
Without access to proper education etc these are the sort of things that the human brain will naturally perceive ...Arrrgh, please do not make this distinction between them and their brains, minds etc. And please don't turn it into a question of nature. They may misinterpret things that a proper education would help them understand as coincidences, diseases caused by germs etc., but that does not make their superstition something that occurs naturally, sort of behind their backs.
- So I don't think it's stupid to accuse their children of being witches, ... But they aren't witches, so it is stupid (and still not natural).
... just that most of them don't have the time to consider the question of whether this is true in any meaningful way.Probably not a question of lack of time - based on the little I know about African countries. It just wouldn't make much practical difference since they cannot feed them anyway.
With this sentence you seem to be implying that they do believe in their superstition?Never denied it, I hope!
While I agree, I think it would be much harder to do that when you're struggling to live day by day. Definitely. Their conditions result in the need to believe, and they also do not have access to the luxury of scientific contemplation, which requires at least an analytical distancing yourself from the immediate problem facing you. This is something that is very hard to do in a situation that resembles an emergency.
This is the reason why we shouldn't simply demand that they "give up the illusion", but help them get rid of the "condition which needs illusions" - to quote my sig. Simply telling them to grow up is cynical, arrogant and thus stupid.

[Slimething]

But I do think you've oversimplified the matter by suggesting that dann remove poverty from the discussion as a key factor.

Nah. All I said was that dann was trying to claim moral superiority and that granting that would be sheer folly. Obviously, the economics of the situation belong in a more holistic discussion of the problem but that's not what dann said. Note the title of the thread: "time for skeptics to grow up?" Also note the underlying message that skeptics should not talk about woo crap if the woo crap is part of a larger problem. (Like, what isn't?)

Your indication that dann is taking moral high ground feels paranoid. I don't see that he does.

Your problem, not mine. If you can psychoanalyze people from what they write in a few lines on the web, perhaps phone psychiatry is next for you. Lotsa money in it!

I apologise for the use of my colloquial 'mate', as it seems to have upset you.

Overly familiar and too soon.

Discussing the fact that labelling kids as witches is detrimental is fine, however to dismiss the influence of poverty is narrow minded.

No, it just signals a narrower discussion than you and dann are willing to let the rest of us have. Why don't we consider the weather in this as well? (Bad weather leads to poor crops, leading to famine.) How about the interplay of religions in the area. (Perhaps the witchcraft thing is a natural reaction by a sect reacting badly to an encroaching sect that does not believe in witches.) It could go on and on.

The issue is more complex than being just about superstition; it's also about the reasons superstitious belief exists in such communities in the first place.

[sarcasm on]Really? I thought these things just popped out of nowhere! :eek: I'm so glad that you and dann have made me see the light! [sarcasm off]

I'm at a loss to see where 'moral outrage' comes into it. The fact that skepticism often over simplifies the issue is not a moral judgement, but a practical one.

The moral outrage aspect is what dann is trying to do to the discussion about the burgeoning prepubescent witch population in the Congo. All in all, I see that you've distilled our disagreement to the ageless conflict between holism and reductionism. If so, relax. Reductionism won a long time ago.

Well, your juvenile approach is noted. What was that you were saying about discussing this without emotion? Hmm...

Thanks. I usually get juvenile when told I can't talk about something because I'm not a good enough human being.

I've got quite a bit of experience in education in different parts of the world, including in impoverished, collectivist communities of remote Australia. So I am speaking from a position of experience and expertise, and not just of speculative opinion. And what I described as education is what often happened in the past; government and private (often missionary) imposed education programs often failed to make an impact as a direct result of a rejection by the community.

Merely because it happened in the past does not mean I'm going to swallow the shallow and false description of education you posted earlier. That is why I says to myself, I says. "thing, dis guy don't know wat edjicashun is awl about, he don't!" But, as always, you respond to tell me that what you wrote is not what you meant. So be it.


Athon, you go ahead and worry about the what the water buffalo is thinking. The statement in the JREF was that people who label kids as witches are ignorant fools and I fully back it. It matters not whether they're poor or rich. If you and dann want to say it's OK for adults to do this to kids because they're starving, that's your prerogative. Don't expect me to agree with you. And don't expect me to be apologetic about it either.

End of discussion. Go join your friend who likes to argue via smilies.

[athon]

Your problem, not mine. If you can psychoanalyze people from what they write in a few lines on the web, perhaps phone psychiatry is next for you. Lotsa money in it!

Total loss as to what you're implying here. It applies more to your analysis than mine; you seem to read into his claim as being 'holier than thou' stance...

Overly familiar and too soon.

I don't know if this was humour or not. I laughed anyway.

No, it just signals a narrower discussion than you and dann are willing to let the rest of us have. Why don't we consider the weather in this as well? (Bad weather leads to poor crops, leading to famine.) How about the interplay of religions in the area. (Perhaps the witchcraft thing is a natural reaction by a sect reacting badly to an encroaching sect that does not believe in witches.) It could go on and on.

Only if you're willing to be absurd.

Discussing what influences the poverty is irrelevant in the face of the fact the inargubale fact that poverty in this situation exists, and the arguable fact that it is is directly linked with the need for superstition to flourish in such a society. Just discussing the influence of poverty in this situation is suffice to understand the impact of superstition.

[sarcasm on]Really? I thought these things just popped out of nowhere! :eek: I'm so glad that you and dann have made me see the light! [sarcasm off]

This has added nothing to the discussion, other than to demonstrate some condescending attitude. I don't see how it furthers your point.

The moral outrage aspect is what dann is trying to do to the discussion about the burgeoning prepubescent witch population in the Congo. All in all, I see that you've distilled our disagreement to the ageless conflict between holism and reductionism. If so, relax. Reductionism won a long time ago.

Again, this is meaningless rhetoric. You seriously don't seem to have a point other than the fact your panties are in a knot about dann allegedly taking high moral ground against skeptics. If that's the case, take a deep breath and walk away.

Either you agree that poverty is intrinsically linked with superstition or it's not, and you have something to say on that matter. From all indication you seem to feel it's the latter, yet have little to say to back this up.

Thanks. I usually get juvenile when told I can't talk about something because I'm not a good enough human being.

??

Merely because it happened in the past does not mean I'm going to swallow the shallow and false description of education you posted earlier. That is why I says to myself, I says. "thing, dis guy don't know wat edjicashun is awl about, he don't!" But, as always, you respond to tell me that what you wrote is not what you meant. So be it.

Ok, maybe somebody else can articulate better what Slimething is saying here. I'm happy to admit it might be me... but I seriously have no idea what his/her point is.

To have education imposed in a social group which lacks the basic infrastructure to make use of it has been shown to fail in the past for a number of reasons. This is neither a shocking nor a complicated statement. How you can possibly take it personally is mind boggling. What definition of education are you having a problem with?

Athon, you go ahead and worry about the what the water buffalo is thinking. The statement in the JREF was that people who label kids as witches are ignorant fools and I fully back it. It matters not whether they're poor or rich. If you and dann want to say it's OK for adults to do this to kids because they're starving, that's your prerogative. Don't expect me to agree with you. And don't expect me to be apologetic about it either.

Please show where I have said that it is ok for adults to do this to children.

End of discussion. Go join your friend who likes to argue via smilies.

Discussion? I must have missed that part. Usually I'm presented with some form of material to discuss, but you seem to enjoy creating a straw man to get upset over more than discussing any real points.

Athon

[articulett]

It is well known that much of these unwanted children are born of rape--moreover, religion has made birth control and abortion nearly impossible to get. Moreover, it's religion that has blocked concerted efforts to raise awareness about aids and condom usage in this country--another factor that contributes to orphaned children and poverty.

It's nice that Catholic charities is taking in these kids, but it's the ignorance they spread that is directly implicated in the problem. The quickest way for any group of people to get out of poverty is by spreading knowledge and access to birth control. I do not agree with the OP--I do not think poverty is a major cause for child abandonment...it's superstitious thinking that is the cause for these children's abandonment--and unwanted children allowed to proliferate due to such thinking promoted by the religions who offer "charity" to these people.

If those missionaries wanted to stop child abandonment, then they ought to provide information and access to condoms. Moreover, they ought to teach those kids that faith based notions are superstitious notions, and there's no such thing as demons, devils, possession, or eternal souls that can suffer damnation. But I guess that would be against their "religion".

I side with Randi on this point.

[athon]

If it makes you sleep better at night knowing that it is a simple case of good and evil, of blame and effect, then I guess it serves a purpose. Mind you, trying to unweave the issue and see it for what it is in an effort to better address it might actually have better results.

Sure, in my view the act is morally incomprehendable. I couldn't imagine what it would take to abandon my child. But when all is said and done, I'd feel better considering some way of changing the situation, instead of sitting back and feeling good about myself that I am better than they are.

I ask you which would have a better chance of changing the situation -- smugly labelling them as evil, or seeing how poverty and superstition are linked and discussing ways that superstition could be removed from such a community?

In my opinion, some skeptics do need to decide whether they are proactive and want change, or are merely satisfied with being moral judges of society.

Athon

[dann]

I do not think poverty is a major cause for child abandonment...it's superstitious thinking that is the cause for these children's abandonment-You do indeed think so, but please read the article and think again: How children get stigmatized
Many of the children at the center are like Frida Tshama. Orphaned at the age of 1, taken in by her grandmother and later, an aunt, Frida is a typical 13-year-old: bubbly, rambunctious, talkative. But when asked why she was thrown out of her house, two months ago, she gets teary and quiet.
"I was staying with my aunt, and one day I was cleaning the house, and a glass that was on the table fell and broke," she says. "My aunt asked me to get out of the house. If I stay, she will poison me."
For months, Frida survived by selling oranges in the Matete market, but came to the center a few weeks ago. An attempted reunification with Frida's family failed. Frida's grandmother said that Frida had stolen from her aunt. Her son-in-law said that if she took Frida back, the entire family would reject both Frida and the grandmother. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1130/p12s01-woaf.html

I could be wrong, but I don't see any signs of superstition in this excerpt from the article in the CSM. The aunt threatened to poison her niece because she accidentally broke a glass. No witchcraft, no superstitious excuses.
-and unwanted children allowed to proliferate due to such thinking promoted by the religions who offer "charity" to these people.

If those missionaries wanted to stop child abandonment, then they ought to provide information and access to condoms. Moreover, they ought to teach those kids that faith based notions are superstitious notions, and there's no such thing as demons, devils, possession, or eternal souls that can suffer damnation. But I guess that would be against their "religion". You are probably right about "those" Catholic missionaries in general and their attitude to condoms, but what does it have to do with the problem described in the article? Apart from the fact that you want your notions to be the solution.
I side with Randi on this point. He usually makes more of an effort than you do, however.

[dann]

End of discussion. Go join your friend who likes to argue via smilies. :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
You are a better man than I am, Athon! At least you are much more patient ...

[athon]

I should probably just add one small thing here, that just occured to me.

I can't vouch for certain for what their version of 'witch' might translate into exactly, yet I do know that the mix of missionary teaching and traditional belief in some Pacific island communities results in a situation where any time something ill strikes the community, they believe that a vindictive ancestor has returned to punish their family. Typically the family is shunned by the community until they make good with their ancestor and appease them with blessings and food.

From what I know of the situation in Africa, a witch is somebody who communes with evil spirits. Hence any misfortune facing the family or community is blamed on a witch. There was a case in the UK a couple of years ago where an African immigrant family accused their child of being a witch, and beat her.

Same superstition is being used to justify bad things happening, and in each case the superstition arises in a strict collective community. However, the action taken on each case seems to vary. I speculate that the more severe the conditions faced by the community, the more severe the action will be following the superstitious belief.

Athon

[dann]

This is a much better analysis:
Rehabilitation of a witch
(...)
As expected during times of stress – particularly wartime – the public was turning to the supernatural for information, and so, apparently, were authorities who should have known better.http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/121506russell.html#i10

But this time it is about England 60 years ago, and it does not explain Tony Blair :), nor does it have a condescending title like Time to grow up.

[articulett]

You do indeed think so, but please read the article and think again: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1130/p12s01-woaf.html

I could be wrong, but I don't see any signs of superstition in this excerpt from the article in the CSM. The aunt threatened to poison her niece because she accidentally broke a glass. No witchcraft, no superstitious excuses.
You are probably right about "those" Catholic missionaries in general and their attitude to condoms, but what does it have to do with the problem described in the article? Apart from the fact that you want your notions to be the solution.
He usually makes more of an effort than you do, however.

This is the last sentence of the article: "Ifaka hears these stories and shakes his head. "Yesterday, the African family would fight to keep their children," he says. "Now, they are throwing them away."

So throwing kids away due to them being seen as witches is a new thing even though poverty is a very old thing. I think that the Christian Science Monitor may believe that poverty is the problem--but poor people in most cultures seem to make their children work when they are impoverished--not accuse them of being witches. Of course the bible says you can turn out witches and it was used as an excuse to kill many a woman for over 1500 years... but the bible is a book of superstition. Moreover, it is the Christianization of these people that makes them have children they cannot afford--because the missionaries teach abstinence not birth control. I think they owe it to the people to take in surplus children when their doctrine is part of the problem.

And even if poverty was the problem (which you've provided no evidence for and lots of cultures have been very poor) -- the quickest way to make a group of people more prosperous is to facilitate family planning and birth control. As population growth decreases, prosperity of nations increases. You are finding confirmation for what you want to believe, not for the facts presented.

[dann]

You are finding confirmation for what you want to believe, not for the facts presented. Apparently you are.
Let us start with your beginning:
This is the last sentence of the article: "Ifaka hears these stories and shakes his head. "Yesterday, the African family would fight to keep their children," he says. "Now, they are throwing them away."

So throwing kids away due to them being seen as witches is a new thing even though poverty is a very old thing. No, believing in witches is a very old thing, this extent of poverty isn’t! Where do you get your “so” from?
CSM: Peace has brought its own challenges, as refugee families flow into the capital, Kinshasa, and find they cannot feed themselves. Out of survival, many are using witchcraft as an excuse to expel their most vulnerable members: children.
"Witchcraft has been there for a while, but it was never used against children in the past. Families that have old people used to accuse that old person of being a witch, when they were no longer productive," says Javier Aguilar, a child protection officer for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Kinshasa. I don’t get it! Is this quotation so hard to understand? Don’t you see it at all? Or do you deliberately choose to overlook it? Don’t you read the whole article? Do you just read the last sentence?
And what about this?CSM: Congo's desperation
Only desperation could force families to cast children into the streets, and, as a nation, Congo is one of the most desperate places in the world. With 80 percent of the population earning less than $1 a day, Congo has one of the poorest populations on the continent. Only desperation, it says, and I tend to agree! So much, actually, that I suspect the CSM of being responsible for the stupid title that the journalist probably would not come up with. I don’t have any hard evidence to back up my suspicion, however.
You continue: I think that the Christian Science Monitor may believe that poverty is the problem-The CSM appears to know that this is indeed the case, but it prefers to believe that witchcraft and superstition is the problem, which is why it comes up with the stupid title: CSM: In Congo, superstitions breed homeless children -but poor people in most cultures seem to make their children work when they are impoverished--not accuse them of being witches. That is true – to some extent: In some cultures, i.e. the very poor ones, people sell their children to work in factories or even as sex slaves. That depends on the kind of buyers they find and on the kind of money they may bring. Sometimes working, begging, stealing or doing ‘campaign work’ - CSM: In every marketplace, children are busy, sweeping up stalls, carrying water and soda for sale, shining shoes. They are also prime recruits for gangs engaged in theft, and during the recent election campaign that ended Oct. 29, street gangs were used by political parties to cause civil unrest, pelting cars with stones and burning tires. - hardly brings in enough to even support the ‘working’ children themselves – let alone leave a rest to provide for the other members of the family, and having them work in the house or in the fields is an option that depends on the usefulness of that sort of work. If you don’t have any fields or if you yourself don’t have a job and an income, there are a very limited number of dishes you can have your children do.
But you would rather talk about superstition, wouldn’t you?
Of course the bible says you can turn out witches and it was used as an excuse to kill many a woman for over 1500 years... but the bible is a book of superstition. Moreover, it is the Christianization of these people that makes them have children they cannot afford--because the missionaries teach abstinence not birth control. I think they owe it to the people to take in surplus children when their doctrine is part of the problem. I am not sure that I understand your but, but you are, of course, right when you say that the Bible is superstition. You seem to be very sure, however, that the problem you have in the USA with teenage pregnancies and Christian fundies teaching abstinence is exactly the same problem they have in Africa. In that case, of course, you would be right about the Catholics being part of the problem and thus owing it to the children with children to take care of them. I, however, would not be happy to see these children left in the care of that kind of people, i.e. to give the Christians this extra opportunity to teach them their superstitious gospel …
And have you considered that if you haven’t got enough to eat, you probably don’t have enough money to buy a condom to protect yourself from both AIDS and teenage pregnancies, i.e. that poverty, and not superstition, could be the problem again? The article in CSM only tells us that teenage pregnancies seem to be a problem among the children living in the streets:CSM: The government responded to the violence by rounding up street children in the hundreds. The move provoked an outcry from child advocacy groups - among those arrested were 87 young women with babies of their own - And another one: CSM: Sometimes he (one of the homeless children. dann) thinks of joining an older sister, who, like him, was thrown out onto the street by their grandparents. But she now has children of her own, fathered by another street teen. But let’s get back to your own words:
And even if poverty was the problem (which you've provided no evidence for and lots of cultures have been very poor) -- the quickest way to make a group of people more prosperous is to facilitate family planning and birth control. I base my argument primarily on what the article itself tells us! You don’t, so where is your evidence? Why do you think that facilitating ”family planning and birth control” is ”the quickest way to make a group of people more prosperous”, and not the other way around: that prosperity tends to facilitate family planning? (Unless you happen to be a very rich church, that is.) I would very much like to see your evidence! But I think that what is happening here is simply that You are finding confirmation for what you want to believe, not for the facts presented. And that is not the skeptical way of doing things, is it, articulett?! Or is it the Darwinist, Dawkinsist and Randi-ist way after all???

[hammegk]

ROFL.

Maslow's Hierarchy needs a new level above Self-Actualization. We can call it Skeptical Atheism. :)

[Checkmite]

Well, you can all try to end the homelessness problem in the Congo by teaching the Congolese that there's no such thing as witchcraft. Assuming this works (which, of course, it won't but let's play make-believe), I suppose it's supposed to follow that without the excuse of witchcraft, none of these kids will be "put out" (again, we're pretending here - keep up), so the families will stay together and happy while they split their monthly pound of grain five ways instead of four, and they all become even more emaciated and susceptible to illness than they would've been, and they all end up dying sooner.

Or, we could try to feed these people, and make families healthy and self-sustaining to the point where they don't need any excuse - witchcraft or otherwise - to throw anybody out just to keep themselves alive.

Something tells me that this - not moral high ground, or anti-skepticism, or being a superstition-lover - was dann's original point, way back then.

[dann]

Was and still is, Joshua. Thank you!

ROFL.

Maslow's Hierarchy needs a new level above Self-Actualization. We can call it Skeptical Atheism. :) The "Darwinist, Dawkinsist and Randi-ist" way refers to articulett's profile. I would probably be more of a Stephen Jay Gouldist, Richard Lewontinist and Marxist myself, i.e. I don't want to put down the essence of Darwinism or Atheism. It's just that sometimes people of this persuasion appear to be more than a little right-wing biased, unable to see that conditions for poor people don't necessarily improve if they succeed in persuading them to become Social-Darwinists like themselves - and not because the poor people are inferior to the elitist skeptics in a Darwinian sense of the word.
And that is a pity since the poor people are the only relevant victims of religious superstition and thus addressees of educational work about this theme. Who cares which delusions Blair, Bush and their rich friends might suffer from in private? Who cares if the FBI have a machine which does not help them discover refugees hidden in a container or another one that cannot tell them who is lying or not?
Well, I know who does, but I don't ...

[Gurdur]

Was and still is, Joshua. Thank you!
It was also bloody obvious, right from the OP.
I am amazed by some of the personal attacks and the evasions in this thread; the whole point was so easily gained, and that is immense poverty breeds self-serving justificatory "superstitions"; i.e., beliefs meant to legitimize practical actions. Therefore, in such situations, poverty is the problem rather than "superstition". Maybe some skeptics really do need to grow up, if they can't easily grasp such a simple point.
I would probably be more of a Stephen Jay Gouldist, Richard Lewontinist and Marxist myself,
Tsk, but I forgive you. It IS possible to be in the middle.

[Checkmite]

The mistake was made when people weren't reading the OP in depth, and assumed that this was just another thread whining about how intolerant "skeptics" are. Some people, including skeptics, don't like to be accused of being intolerant. They'll admit to being so, and (often rightly) justify their intolerance by insisting that whatever it is they don't tolerate is harmful or dangerous; nevertheless, "intolerance" is a negative buzzword that nobody likes associated with them.

Of course, the OP had nothing to do with intolerance, it was about setting priorities straight - and it was correct, in my opinion.

[dann]

It IS possible to be in the middle.And what kind of -ist would that be? :)

[Gurdur]

And what kind of -ist would that be? :)
A sensible-ist? :)

Seriously, there are big big problems with the Rose/Lewontin school, just as the Dawkins/Dennett school has its own different problems. Both can be heavily influenced by ideology, though the Rose/Lewontin is noticable for its heavyhanded overt (and often maladroit) ideologising, while Dawkins/Dennett is more a question of unconscious biases and (also sometimes maladroit) lack of thought at times.

I'm none too fond of set positions or toeing the party line anyway; while I try to be as active as possible, I steer clear of identifying myself too much with one flag or the other.

[Gurdur]

...Some people, including skeptics, don't like to be accused of being intolerant. They'll admit to being so, and (often rightly) justify their intolerance .....
Apart from that, in a parallel example, I've noticed a growing trend to
(Self-)Righteous Intolerance among some atheists elsewhere; an overt crusade of intolerance, justifying itself with much cant and sermonising.

And before anyone tries getting on my case, I'm an atheist.

[Polaris]

(btw, just what IS the illusion of happiness? How is it different than REAL happiness?)

It's a No True Scotsman fallacy. "Well they might think they're happy living a life of sin, but they don't know real happiness without the love of Christ in their lives."

[dann]

It's a No True Scotsman fallacy. "Well they might think they're happy living a life of sin, but they don't know real happiness without the love of Christ in their lives."Did you take a look at this?
This is the link to the programme on CNN (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2006/happiness) Go down to: Web Extras --> The Power of Laughter.
But see for yourself/-selves: Do they seem happy to you?
By the way, there are some Indians and Americans, but no Scotsmen, I think! :)

[dann]

And if you doubt my level of expertise, go to Web extras --> Maps: Happiness levels of countries (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2006/happiness/)
:) Apparently :) I :) live :) in :) the :) happiest :) country :) in :) the :) world! :) (It's probably just the inhabitants who are miserable!)

[TheChadd]

Who cares which delusions Blair, Bush and their rich friends might suffer from in private? Who cares if the FBI have a machine which does not help them discover refugees hidden in a container or another one that cannot tell them who is lying or not?
Well, I know who does, but I don't ...

Why don't you care, or is it just relatively you care fairly little? I can't imagine why you wouldn't be concerned as to which fantasies the most powerful people in the world indulge in.

Well, you can all try to end the homelessness problem in the Congo by teaching the Congolese that there's no such thing as witchcraft.

Well if you're applying this to me, this is a big straw man. I have never advocated that if they didn't believe in witchcraft there would be no homelessness in their country.

I suppose it's supposed to follow that without the excuse of witchcraft, none of these kids will be "put out" (again, we're pretending here - keep up)

It doesn't need to follow from before... but yes, that under different circumstances they would not have had the excuse and the kids would have been slightly better off.

so the families will stay together and happy while they split their monthly pound of grain five ways instead of four, and they all become even more emaciated and susceptible to illness than they would've been, and they all end up dying sooner.

Yes it would put more pressure on them in an already difficult situation, however we don't know that what food they had in no way could support their lives as well as the lives of that extra child.

Or, we could try to feed these people, and make families healthy and self-sustaining to the point where they don't need any excuse - witchcraft or otherwise - to throw anybody out just to keep themselves alive.

But my point isn't that they used witchcraft to justify what they wanted to do, it's that while they didn't want to have to look after the kids - They would have - until they came to the conclusion they're witches.

Of course it's important to remember their circumstances.
Of course it's important to note their poverty.
Of course we'd all like to eliminate such poverty.

However, I do think commenting on the role of superstition in this case is a worthwhile endevour for skeptics. I agree that the title was quite rude, but I can't find too much fault with the main proposition - That if they didn't believe such things, their situation (while still being terrible) would be practically better.

[articulett]

We know that people in Africa and all over the world have been poor for many centuries. We hear from the Christian Science Monitor that this is the first time that they are turning the children out as witches. So, in the past, the poverty did not make people turn out their children--they may have believed in witches but apparently they didn't think their kids could be witches. Now the kids are accused of being witches. I think that shows that the problem is superstitious thinking more than it is poverty. If increasing poverty anywhere had the result of parents claiming their children were witches then I'm sure we would have heard. We know a lot about poverty...we know a lot about humans handle poverty...Claiming that your own children are witches is pretty rare--and you have to live in a very superstitious community for this to become the case, correct. It's pretty much unheard of--even amongst the poorest of the poor--the priest even says that it's unprecedented.

So I think it's just plain nuts to excuse the belief system for the problem. It reminds me of people who don't see religion as being implicated in the 9-11 attacks or people who don't think religious teachings had anything to do with Andrea Yates killing her kids to ensure their salvation. This blind respect for gods and religions where people can't seem to imagine that it is to blame for anything even when people vocally say exactly that (e.g."I'm getting rid of my kid because they are a witch"). I am aghast at this blindness and the way people have learned to excuse faith based atrocities or see it as having another cause.

Where else in the world is increasing poverty associated with families accusing their children of being witches? Why not blame the reason given for turning these kids out--they're families think they are witches--why? because they've been lead to believe their kids could be witches.

How you and the priest manage to blame poverty is beyond me. I think telling the folks that there is no such thing as witches might be a good start--of course a priest would never do that.

[athon]

We know that people in Africa and all over the world have been poor for many centuries. We hear from the Christian Science Monitor that this is the first time that they are turning the children out as witches.

This doesn't really cut it as an argument. They've also believed in witches and the paranormal for many centuries. Seems like drawing a long bow that this is a novel advancement that kids could be considered witches now, but couldn't before.

What new influences have created this situation? Well, I'd like to know for sure, although I might hazard a guess that we're not seeing the entire picture here. Perhaps in the past there have been greater connections between community members, assisting in child raising. Perhaps the region is suffering from new conditions that it hasn't encountered before. Who knows?

If increasing poverty anywhere had the result of parents claiming their children were witches then I'm sure we would have heard. We know a lot about poverty...we know a lot about humans handle poverty...Claiming that your own children are witches is pretty rare--and you have to live in a very superstitious community for this to become the case, correct. It's pretty much unheard of--even amongst the poorest of the poor--the priest even says that it's unprecedented.

Bit of a straw man argument, I'm afraid.

We do know that superstition is linked with collectivist groups. We know that collectivist groups tend to be amongst the poorest of communities. The link is not necessarily causal, but there is a relationship. To claim that this specific situation is novel (which it isn't -- similar situations occur in regions in Papua New Guinea, where it has been claimed that children have been cannibalised in superstitious rituals) has nothing to do with the greater argument that it's never a simple case of just combatting superstition -- you also have to combat the circumstances in which it flourishes.

So I think it's just plain nuts to excuse the belief system for the problem. It reminds me of people who don't see religion as being implicated in the 9-11 attacks or people who don't think religious teachings had anything to do with Andrea Yates killing her kids to ensure their salvation. This blind respect for gods and religions where people can't seem to imagine that it is to blame for anything even when people vocally say exactly that (e.g."I'm getting rid of my kid because they are a witch"). I am aghast at this blindness and the way people have learned to excuse faith based atrocities or see it as having another cause.

Why the need to simplify it to direct cause and effect? This blame mentality is useless, as it creates a security blanket which you can hold to make yourself feel better that there is a simple solution.

Of course religion plays a role. It is a system of shared beliefs that joins you to a larger cause, allowing you to short circuit rational arguments in order to carry out selfish behaviours. Would 9-11 have happened without it? Perhaps not, but 9-11 wouldn't have happened without a lot of other things as well.

Where else in the world is increasing poverty associated with families accusing their children of being witches? Why not blame the reason given for turning these kids out--they're families think they are witches--why? because they've been lead to believe their kids could be witches.

Well, let's analyse that last statement.

This is a community where interpersonal relationships are valued. African communities aren't known for being cold, impersonal places. One can assume that children aren't normally rejected heartlessly without cause. One can assume that a child is seen with at least a modicum of love and affection.

A witch is seen as a figure who is brings bad events to a community. Normally they are figures who are already disliked by the community for some reason, as was the case in the infamous western witch hunts. Hence it's not a random roll of the dice as to who is nominated as a witch.

Why would a child be nominated a witch, then? Of course they believe that bad things are the result of a witch, and in these communities superstition is a way of life, supported by the fact that they are a collectivist community where dissent is as good as being ostracised. Perhaps the advent of bad times came when a child was born?

For whatever reason, the situation of poverty both inspires action on superstitious explanations for the situation, and it further encourages those who are critical to not speak against the situation for fear of being rejected by the community.

Hence simply excising superstition from the situation is far from a simple matter.

How you and the priest manage to blame poverty is beyond me. I think telling the folks that there is no such thing as witches might be a good start--of course a priest would never do that.

Blame offers such simple answers. I'm glad you feel good about knowing what to do. Mind you, those of us who deal with reality know it's never such a simple solution.

Athon

[joelblanchette]

I've seen a lot of "read the quote" comments here, and would suggest that everybody do so again. In particular, note the following (emphasis mine):

"...many of these children were living with step-parents or extended family members who no longer wanted to have to support them..."

I'm not going to deny that poverty and starvation plague much of Africa, because they do. However, this statement doesn't claim that these children couldn't be supported, but rather that those who should be supporting them do not want to.

That claim may not be correct. Remember, this is a reader's opinion of an article in the Christian Science Monitor. I think that Randi was agreeing to the last sentence: "We certainly don't need to force people to be sensible, but neither should we remain quiet when we see truth and logic being assaulted." I fully agree with that statement as well, but I suspect that the accusations of witchcraft are made in good faith, so to speak. The accusers honestly believe their claims to be true, in other words. A destitute, poorly-educated population steeped in superstition and targetted by agressive evangelicism (probably Christian in the case of the Congo) for centuries can hardly be expected to respond to a crisis like mass starvation in a rational manner.

Whether starvation or a belief in witchcraft is the real problem here, that's really a "chicken VS egg" dilemma. If these people were well-fed, the number of children accused of witchcraft would be zero. If these people didn't believe in witchcraft, the number of children accused of witchcraft would be zero. The difference is that in the first case, if things take a turn for the worse, there is almost no chance of the problem being solved.

If witchcraft is blamed for mass starvation, then people have created a whole different problem. Starvation becomes a symptom, witchcraft becomes the "real" problem, and the proposed solution will be to get rid of the witches. Obviously, this isn't likely to make things better. Eventually enough people will die that starvation will not be a problem (even in the worst case, with a 100% die-off, the problem is still technically solved). If people are being rational, however, they at least have the opportunity to identify the real source(s) of the problem, and they might be able to implement some solutions that don't require everybody dieing.

Belief in woo may not be the cause of starvation in Kinshasa, but it makes a real solution almost impossible.

[dann]

Who cares which delusions Blair, Bush and their rich friends might suffer from in private? Who cares if the FBI have a machine which does not help them discover refugees hidden in a container or another one that cannot tell them who is lying or not?
Well, I know who does, but I don't ... Why don't you care, or is it just relatively you care fairly little? I can't imagine why you wouldn't be concerned as to which fantasies the most powerful people in the world indulge in. Your thinking is that of a subject of a powerful ruler: 'Since I depend on his behaviour, I have to be concerned about the expenditures, whether or not he is behaving rationally etc.', which, by the way, is the reason why we have the kind of media coverage we do: Only because people actually care about this, do we have newspapers following every little move of politicians and other ‘celebrities’, the slightest sneeze from Bush, what happened to Paris Hilton's dog or Britney's panties. They are the ones who count, we are not.
YES, we all have reason to be concerned when the decider makes a new decision, be it based on the ordinary calculating cynicism or on whatever "fantasies the most powerful people in the world indulge in". This is what is wrong with the world, this is what ought to be changed! I don't like Bush no matter what! I don't like him when he is following the advice of his geo-strategic advisers, and I don't like him when he's preaching about God. I didn't like Reagan either, no matter which experts advised him: the scientists in his Star Wars project, the sci-fi authors Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven or his wife's astrologer, and I have no reason to believe that the advice he got from the astrologer was any worse for the rest of the world than the things he heard from the others.
I say - again: Sc** the most powerful people in the world and the fantasies they indulge in. My concern is how to change that way of running the world and the subjects' way of thinking that enables the deciders to make these decisions. I know a lot of people who are very proud of their democracies - most Danes, for example - but somehow they tend to forget that their elected leaders through the election are liberated from the concerns of the people who empower them. I live in a country where it was hardly even debated whether or not it should go to war in Iraq (Afghanistan, the Balkans ...). The local decider decided to side with Bush, and that was all that was required.
You honestly think that I ought to waste my time considering whether or not he also goes to church or if he prefers to performs satanical rituals in his back yard?
Well ...... I don't, but I don’t really think that you’ll get it. Like most of your compatriots you appear to have other concerns ( http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/patriotism.html) - and I don't mean to imply that the ones found among the subjects over here are any better ....

[dann]

"...many of these children were living with step-parents or extended family members who no longer wanted to have to support them..."

I'm not going to deny that poverty and starvation plague much of Africa, because they do. However, this statement doesn't claim that these children couldn't be supported, ...
How about this one, then? "This country is a disaster," Mr. Ifaka says. "Parents are abandoning children, and the reasons involve money and food. When we get in touch with the family, they say, 'Look, I already have children here to take care of, and you want me to take that one, too.' "
"A witch! A witch! Burn her, burn her!"
"How do you know she's a witch?"
"She looks like one!"
"Burn her, burn her!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g)

[TheChadd]

You honestly think that I ought to waste my time considering whether or not he also goes to church or if he prefers to performs satanical rituals in his back yard?

It's important to look at not only his actions that have a direct and obvious effect, but actions which could be a precurser to future actions. If George Bush believes that a war against the middle east is necessary to begin armeggedon etc then I want to know.

Well ...... I don't, but I don’t really think that you’ll get it. Like most of your compatriots you appear to have other concerns - and I don't mean to imply that the ones found among the subjects over here are any better ....

You mean Australians, or people of similar political ideologies as me or what? I don't quite understand your point.

[dann]

You mean Australians, or people of similar political ideologies as me or what? I don't quite understand your point.Sorry, my bad! I just assume that everybody here is American, which, of course, we aren't!
It's important to look at not only his actions that have a direct and obvious effect, but actions which could be a precurser to future actions. If George Bush believes that a war against the middle east is necessary to begin armeggedon etc then I want to know.I don't really know if it makes much of a difference to people in the Middle East or elsewhere, but it is a good example of the way that we tend to look at politicians: as if we were talking about a kind of weather report! What can we expect in the next couple of weeks? What will we be exposed to from the powers that be, so we can take our precautions?
(And it's not as if he's in dire need of excuses to invade countries in the Middle East and other parts of the world: WMDs etc.)
When we think in this manner, our attitude to the rulers is not very different from that of our ancestors to nature when they were trying to prophesy natural phenomena: 'They are beyond our control, so we have to try to at least foretell what will happen so we can secure our belongings or try to get away in time.'
'Which way is he going to blow,' becomes our concern, instead of the question: If mankind is now able to control nature, if not completely, at least in the way that you can make buildings that protect you from the next hurricane or earthquake, then it should not be a problem to take control of politics, i.e. to make politics serve your purposes instead of your having to be the object and tool of those in power.
That is the only way of removing the need to look through the keyhole to get a glimpse of the superior a**hole on the other side to get an idea of what he'll come up with next, modern subservience (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/psych/0-contents.html).

[Gurdur]

We know that people in Africa and all over the world have been poor for many centuries. We hear from the Christian Science Monitor that this is the first time that they are turning the children out as witches. So, in the past, the poverty did not make people turn out their children--they may have believed in witches but apparently they didn't think their kids could be witches.
You would be far better off with anthropological research than with the CSM. Such poverty-caused legitimizational beliefs are very common the world over in history.
For example:
In London's East End (London, Britain), in 1912, it was commonly believed that the ear was a third excretory organ, owing to the huge and pandemic number of chronic middle-ear infections among the East Enders with consequent excretion of pus. The rate of chronic ear infections was owing to extreme urban poverty, with consequent over-crowding and lack of hygiene, leading to such a woo belief.

Or to take anotehr example, the Maasai of East Africa used to believe twins were a sign of withcraft and would therefore kill the twins -- the actual reason was again poverty and the resultant inability of a woman to be able to breastfeed twins.
I think that shows that the problem is superstitious thinking more than it is poverty.
Your argument does not follow.
If increasing poverty anywhere had the result of parents claiming their children were witches then I'm sure we would have heard.
If you studied the anthropological literature on this, you would have heard.
... This blind respect for gods and religions where people can't seem to imagine that it is to blame for anything
This is a massive strawman; you seem to be wanting to twist things to your own crusade. No-one is saying superstition is OK; so don't pretend otherwise.
Where else in the world is increasing poverty associated with families accusing their children of being witches?
Children have been the victims of beliefs used to legitimize coping with abject poverty to my knowledge in the UK (see above example), China, the Polynesian islands, Australasia, India, and other places --- just the places I can think off-hand with examples. I am sure if you did a proper search of the anthropological literature you would find many more examples, again world-wide.
I think telling the folks that there is no such thing as witches might be a good start--of course a priest would never do that.
Quite apart from you being dead wrong about that, the problem is it is largely irrelevant to the actual situation. It is no accident that malignant superstitions are very often most marked in areas of continual abject poverty.

[dann]

Great, Gurdur!

We know that people in Africa and all over the world have been poor for many centuries. We hear from the Christian Science Monitor that this is the first time that they are turning the children out as witches. So, in the past, the poverty did not make people turn out their children- No, as long as they were dealing with the ordinary extent of poverty, it ‘just’ made them get rid of old people!
-they may have believed in witches but apparently they didn't think their kids could be witches. Now the kids are accused of being witches. I think that shows that the problem is superstitious thinking more than it is poverty. What is it in the following quotation, already posted above, that you don’t understand?
CSM: Peace has brought its own challenges, as refugee families flow into the capital, Kinshasa, and find they cannot feed themselves. Out of survival, many are using witchcraft as an excuse to expel their most vulnerable members: children.
"Witchcraft has been there for a while, but it was never used against children in the past. Families that have old people used to accuse that old person of being a witch, when they were no longer productive," says Javier Aguilar, a child protection officer for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Kinshasa. You are actually accusing the church of focussing on poverty as the explanation, instead of on superstition? Wouldn’t it be much more in line with the way of thinking of the church Exorcism Inc. to come up with superstitious explanations, i.e. that parents and/or children have been possessed by evil spirits?

Please, articulett, read Steve Kowit's article about the Xhosa mass-suicide (http://www.amazon.com/mass-suicide-Xhosa-collective-self-deception/dp/B00082UWYY/sr=11-1/qid=1166489351/ref=sr_11_1/102-9360498-6692929) before you post again!

[Slimething]

Great, Gurdur!

Please, articulett, read Steve Kowit's article about the Xhosa mass-suicide (http://www.amazon.com/mass-suicide-Xhosa-collective-self-deception/dp/B00082UWYY/sr=11-1/qid=1166489351/ref=sr_11_1/102-9360498-6692929) before you post again!

Articulett, you must know that reductionism is not allowed in this thread. Buy a magazine article and all will be revealed!!!

How dare you disagree with dann? If these people were not poor, then the fact that they are human/right handed/slow-footed/grumpy/affable/dormant/etc would be to blame for the witchcraft crap.

Did I get that right, dann?
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[Gurdur]

Articulett, you must know that reductionism is not allowed in this thread.
What's with the stupid strawmen?
You also seem to have a very wrong idea about what reductionism actually is -- I suggest you actually use reductionism instead of silly snideness and strawmen
If these people were not poor, then the fact that they are human/right handed/slow-footed/grumpy/affable/dormant/etc would be to blame for the witchcraft crap.
Now you are simply being ridiculous. Wassup? Can't make a decent argument?

[athon]

Articulett, you must know that reductionism is not allowed in this thread. Buy a magazine article and all will be revealed!!!

How dare you disagree with dann? If these people were not poor, then the fact that they are human/right handed/slow-footed/grumpy/affable/dormant/etc would be to blame for the witchcraft crap.

Did I get that right, dann?
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

Wow. You seriously have some issues. I've seen no real argument from you at all, but a lot of emotion on this topic. Try taking a walk and clearing your head before sitting and responding in the future.

The same error keeps getting repeated by people in this thread; it is one where a single blame is required, and that being witchcraft. Remove the blame (as if it in itself is a simple thing to do), and the problem is solved.

It's ridiculous notion that carries no water. And your constant reference to reductionism is a red herring that demonstrates you have no idea what's going on.

Either offer something to discuss or go find a hobby that doesn't boil your blood so much.

Athon

[articulett]

Great, Gurdur!

No, as long as they were dealing with the ordinary extent of poverty, it ‘just’ made them get rid of old people!
What is it in the following quotation, already posted above, that you don’t understand?
You are actually accusing the church of focussing on poverty as the explanation, instead of on superstition? Wouldn’t it be much more in line with the way of thinking of the church Exorcism Inc. to come up with superstitious explanations, i.e. that parents and/or children have been possessed by evil spirits?

Please, articulett, read Steve Kowit's article about the Xhosa mass-suicide (http://www.amazon.com/mass-suicide-Xhosa-collective-self-deception/dp/B00082UWYY/sr=11-1/qid=1166489351/ref=sr_11_1/102-9360498-6692929) before you post again!

Well, you sure are self important. You know nothing of me or what I do. I do live in the real world. I know quite a bit about groupthink and mass suicide--I was alive during Jim Jones in Guyana. I have fairly well versed in "When Prophesy Fails" as well as groupthink as illustrated by Ron Jones and his "wave" and the Zimbardo studies. And you are still wrong.

You are blaming poverty--I'm not saying it's not a factor--but it's not the cause. If increasing poverty made any other group of people in history turn accuse their kids of being witches, you might have a case. What we know about witch burnings is that the bible tells you to kill witches and accusing people of being witches was fairly common until the 1600s--because of a single biblical passage. Accusing people of being witches is a religious thing. You have to believe in witches.

I'm not blaming anyone--I am just pointing out the obvious. You can give these people all the money in the world, and if they believe their kids can be witches, they'll be turning out the witches. In the United States children have been beaten and killed because they were thought to be possessed. And these are not necessarily children of poverty. I think that charities that go in and teach Christianity in exchange for their help ought to take in orphans that are related to their teachings--and related to their preaching against condoms and birth control. We know that education and birth control are a major help in getting people out of poverty. We also know that education mitigates the power of superstition. You can feel free to give religion a pass or pretend that poverty spawned people to suddenly think of their children as witches (though it's never been a reaction to poverty at any time in human history!)--people may have made their kids work or sold them as slaves--but they didn't accuse them of being witches because they were too poor to raise them! If we had a historical precedent where people kicked out their kids via superstitious accusations when times got tough, then you would have an argument. There is no such precedent. There is, however, a precedent of witch accusations--it came directly from the bible. Maybe this priest in enlightened and doesn't think that kids can be witches...maybe he doesn't even believe in witches. But the doctrine he stands behind does. They teach that people can be possessed too.

Do you actually think that if people delivered food and services to family member who booted out their kids, they'll suddenly take them back in? Are you saying that no humans have ever been this poor and because they are so poor they've found a convenient way of lessening the burden? The person who needs to grow up is you. The direct cause of this child abandonment is superstitious belief. How more clear can it be--they were accused of being WITCHES. Were all the people who were part of histories witch hunts just victims of poverty and control of populations? If the problem is having children people cannot afford to raise, wouldn't access to contraception and education be the answer. Money does not cure superstition. God, apparently does give people more than they can handle. I think the missionaries are as much a cause of the problem as a solution. I resent that my own country spends millions in Africa on abstinence only education. If the goal is to prevent child abandonment, then the answer is family planning and education. We didn't stop burning witches in Europe or the USA because of a sudden financial windfall--it was an evolution of thought that stopped this barbarism. It is not poverty that is at the heart of "witch hunts"--but rather, it's groupthink--superstitious fearmongering and groupthink.

You read a little before you call others immature or wrongheaded. You have only provided evidence which convinces those who already think like you--people who have been taught to ignore the obvious, give extra deference to religion, and never ever blame it for any harm. You used the priests quote that poverty was the cause while ignoring the fact that, despite tons of poverty, this is the first time that people are calling their kids witches! The priests own words. You miss the direct cause as stated by the kids themselves--they WERE accused of being witches! You've shown NO actual link between poverty and accusing children of being witches except for the priests words. Not very scholarly. You've also shown no connection between amelioration of poverty leading to the amelioration of superstitions. Whereas we can say with utter certainty that people who don't believe in witches, won't ever accuse their kids of being witches. People who don't believe in demon possession will never presume their kid is possessed.

Your pompousness fools no-one but you. And saying it over and over doesn't make it so. You are blinded by your own arrogance in this particular case.

[articulett]

Wow. You seriously have some issues. I've seen no real argument from you at all, but a lot of emotion on this topic. Try taking a walk and clearing your head before sitting and responding in the future.

The same error keeps getting repeated by people in this thread; it is one where a single blame is required, and that being witchcraft. Remove the blame (as if it in itself is a simple thing to do), and the problem is solved.

It's ridiculous notion that carries no water. And your constant reference to reductionism is a red herring that demonstrates you have no idea what's going on.

Either offer something to discuss or go find a hobby that doesn't boil your blood so much.

Athon

Actually, no one is saying that a single blame is required except the people blaming poverty. It seems like you are ignoring the actual cause and extrapolating an abstract cause because of what the priest said.

Facts: Poverty has always been part of humanity.

Poverty has never been associated with accusing children of being witches except for this once.

People have accused people of being witches before.

People have killed their children because they thought they were possessed.

Neither of these historical events are tied to poverty.

Both are tied to religious superstition.

The Jonestown mass suicide where people fed their kids poison kool-aid was also related to superstion.

The kids say they were turned out because they were thought to be witches.

People who don't believe in witches never accuse their kids of being witches.

People who don't believe in possession are never afraid that their kids will be possessed.

Money doesn't fix superstition.

Education played in an important role in ending witch accusations in European and American history--not financial aid.

And if poverty is a factor, then the best way to approach it from that angle is to help people get out of poverty by giving them access to family planning.

Your insulting of people is ironic given your failure to understand these basic facts while imagining your reasoning to be superior to everyone else.

What--you think that sending would fix something in the equation? Has money ever stopped people from accusing others of being witches? I'm sure the Catholic Priest will share your argument--and I'm sure the churches will keep supporting their missions. But I give my support to humanist groups that actually educate others.

You've assumed superiority on a subject where no one seems to find you particularly authoritative except Dann. And from where I sit your judgment would be better aimed at your own flailing argument. Whoever made you feel like you knew something ought to be flogged for your hubris. You aren't more mature than Randi or anyone else on this forum--you just THINK you are.
And you are wrong.

[dann]

Did I get that right, dann?
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)I thought you always got it right! Do you really need to ask?

[articulett]

Was and still is, Joshua. Thank you!

The "Darwinist, Dawkinsist and Randi-ist" way refers to articulett's profile. I would probably be more of a Stephen Jay Gouldist, Richard Lewontinist and Marxist myself, i.e. I don't want to put down the essence of Darwinism or Atheism. It's just that sometimes people of this persuasion appear to be more than a little right-wing biased, unable to see that conditions for poor people don't necessarily improve if they succeed in persuading them to become Social-Darwinists like themselves - and not because the poor people are inferior to the elitist skeptics in a Darwinian sense of the word.
And that is a pity since the poor people are the only relevant victims of religious superstition and thus addressees of educational work about this theme. Who cares which delusions Blair, Bush and their rich friends might suffer from in private? Who cares if the FBI have a machine which does not help them discover refugees hidden in a container or another one that cannot tell them who is lying or not?
Well, I know who does, but I don't ...

I'm hardly an elitist or right wing--you just seem to jump straight to all sorts of conclusions. In fact, I bet I have worked much more closely with the poverty stricken than you. And I suspect Randi has given much more to the world than your egotistical self. I think Chadd and slimething sound more logical than you and much more like someone others would like to know...

Yes, this is a skeptics forum--and we get a lot of people here telling us how wrong we are not to believe all sorts of claims--including the claim that poverty causes people to accuse their kids of being witches! No one is saying it's not a factor--but you seem to ignore the obvious because you want to feel morally superior. You've cast a wide net of judgment on everyone but failed to even look at yourself. What are your credentials that make you such a scholar of "that which makes parents accuse their kids of being witches". Why is it the most arrogant people calling others arrogant or immature or wrongheaded. What is it that you can see the sliver in everyone else's eye while missing the giant log in yours.

You have misjudged Randi, me, Chadd, multiple people on this forum and, on top of that, you've elevated yourself to a position that not many other people seem to agree with. You've misjudged your own maturity, dialogue skills, expertise, ability to assess the facts and who knows what else. You haven't educated or enlightened anyone or solved the problem on any front while building yourself up to be the holier than thou. Tell me the secret of your bravado and ego. Randi wasn't missing anything. He is a strong supporter of human rights. And he pointed out an important truth. The first and foremost cause for these kids being kicked out is belief in witches. It is a requirement for "witchhunts". Poverty, never has been. Shame on you and your pseudo piety. Frankly, I think you sound self important and ignorant like both Blair and Bush--you just have too much hubris to notice the similarities. You can't learn anything new because you are so sure you already know all.

[articulett]

It was also bloody obvious, right from the OP.
I am amazed by some of the personal attacks and the evasions in this thread; the whole point was so easily gained, and that is immense poverty breeds self-serving justificatory "superstitions"; i.e., beliefs meant to legitimize practical actions. Therefore, in such situations, poverty is the problem rather than "superstition". Maybe some skeptics really do need to grow up, if they can't easily grasp such a simple point.

Tsk, but I forgive you. It IS possible to be in the middle.

Although you are congratulating yourselves on your moral superiority--you are still wrong. Although there may well be a correlation between poverty and superstition, one does not cause the other. The correlation is due to the lesser education of both groups. And maybe the self important need to grow up if they do not know the difference between correlation and causation. Do you really think that you know all and have nothing to learn. You think you are more mature than Randi and everyone who disagrees with you. Now THAT is immature. And jumping to conclusions. And you are still not helping anybody in any way--just practicing self aggrandizement while insulting others. Perhaps you ought to brush up on your social skills if you hope to influence others or actually add to the world more than your asinine, poorly thought out conclusions. In addition to reading the basics regarding correlation and causation; I recommend Cialdini's, Influence and Daniel Goleman's Social Intelligence--but I realize you already believe yourselves to know everything and you think us skeptics just need a good hammering of your notions. How is that different than the Christian who comes here to tell us how wrong we are not to believe in Jesus--or the local woo woo having a tantrum because we're not grateful for that which they came to "teach" us?

Oh--and Randi is not "right-wing" either. Is this weeks commentary the only one you've read?? You are doing worse than Sylvia Brown on your divining of political leanings. Moreover, you are incredibly divisive and offensive from my perspective. Oh--and you are still wrong. Lots of wrongs added up together now! Will you be apologizing for misjudging so many people? I hope this arrogance is just due to youth.

[articulett]

The mistake was made when people weren't reading the OP in depth, and assumed that this was just another thread whining about how intolerant "skeptics" are. Some people, including skeptics, don't like to be accused of being intolerant. They'll admit to being so, and (often rightly) justify their intolerance by insisting that whatever it is they don't tolerate is harmful or dangerous; nevertheless, "intolerance" is a negative buzzword that nobody likes associated with them.

Of course, the OP had nothing to do with intolerance, it was about setting priorities straight - and it was correct, in my opinion.


I disagree. The OP was about intolerance--the poster was intolerant and doesn't seem to be aware of it. And, although I'm sure everybody thinks their priorities are straight--this IS a skeptics forum. And so evidence trumps comeuppances and scoldings and unsupported claims and self important do-nothing pompousness. Getting your friends together to say "look how smart and mature and politically correct we are" doesn't educate anyone--and thinking you already know everything there is to know on the topic and then designating yourself the preacher and judge of others doesn't facilitate understanding. How is that better or different than the politicians they lambaste? To me, they have the same deaf ear to others and over-confidence in their rightness. --Hardly someone to act as a role model for "maturity" or "priority designation".

[dann]

Well, you sure are self important. You know nothing of me or what I do. I do live in the real world. I know quite a bit about groupthink and mass suicide--I was alive during Jim Jones in Guyana. I have fairly well versed in "When Prophesy Fails" as well as groupthink as illustrated by Ron Jones and his "wave" and the Zimbardo studies. And you are still wrong. Yes, I've read some of your posts in other threads, and you have a tendency to ignore economy, also, for instance, in the question of condoms.
So you are old enough to have been alive when the members of the Jones cult killed themselves or were killed?! I don't think that anybody has claimed that you weren't. And you are well versed and I am still wrong ... and I don't see the relevance.
You are blaming poverty--I'm not saying it's not a factor--but it's not the cause.Well, if you say so ... Let's look at your arguments:
If increasing poverty made any other group of people in history turn accuse their kids of being witches, you might have a case. What we know about witch burnings is that the bible tells you to kill witches and accusing people of being witches was fairly common until the 1600s--because of a single biblical passage. Accusing people of being witches is a religious thing. You have to believe in witches. So we should expect a wave of people in the USA right now accusing their children and other people of being witches, right?
It is true that in general you have to believe in witches in order to persuade yourself that somebody is one. What you apparently don't get is that this accusation is not really necessary to abandon your children.
I'm not blaming anyone--I am just pointing out the obvious. You can give these people all the money in the world, Please do!
and if they believe their kids can be witches, they'll be turning out the witches.What I and others have been trying to make you understand is that if they cannot feed the children, they cannot feed the children! And apparently they are able to come up with other excuses to throw them out of the house and into the streets.
In the United States children have been beaten and killed because they were thought to be possessed. In the USA children have been beaten and killed and still are for a number of reasons and with a number of excuses. In a very small minority of these cases witches are mentioned as the excuse. And since you point out that you "do live in the real world", I suspect you of being aware of this already.
And these are not necessarily children of poverty.No, not necessarily, but they very often are.
I think that charities that go in and teach Christianity in exchange for their help ought to take in orphans that are related to their teachings--and related to their preaching against condoms and birth control. We know that education and birth control are a major help in getting people out of poverty. And you actually think that this is what the Catholic orphanages are going to teach the children when they "take in orphans that are related to their teachings"? By the way, who are We, and why do We know so little about how people get out of poverty and start using condoms that We seem to think that people who cannot afford food can afford condoms?
We also know that education mitigates the power of superstition. You can feel free to give religion a pass or pretend that poverty spawned people to suddenly think of their children as witches (though it's never been a reaction to poverty at any time in human history!)-Thank you for your kind teaching of human history! Apparently you don't find it hard to think that religion spawned people to suddenly think of their children as witches! Why so suddenly? Or had they been thinking that their children were witches the whole time?
-people may have made their kids work or sold them as slaves-However, that requires either access to the means of production (like we Marxists would say), e.g. fields, or buyers of slaves.
-but they didn't accuse them of being witches because they were too poor to raise them! Thank you, articulett, your exclamation mark totally persuaded me that you are right!
If we had a historical precedent where people kicked out their kids via superstitious accusations when times got tough, then you would have an argument. There is no such precedent. Okay, if you say so! There is no such precedent. There is no such precedent. Even if you were right, your argument is wrong. Nobody hijacked planes and flew them into the Twin Towers on 9/11 since there is no precedent.
There is, however, a precedent of witch accusations-Several precedents, actually.
-it came directly from the bible. Christianity, and thus the Bible, didn't patent the concept, I think.
Maybe this priest in enlightened and doesn't think that kids can be witches... maybe he doesn't even believe in witches. How could that be possible with a Bible thumper like that? But the doctrine he stands behind does. They teach that people can be possessed too. Yes, they do, don't they? And they are the ones that you want to take care of the orphans... I'm sorry, but I don't see your point.
Do you actually think that if people delivered food and services to family member who booted out their kids, they'll suddenly take them back in? Yes, and, don't tell me, let me guess! ..... You don't?! Are you saying that no humans have ever been this poor and because they are so poor they've found a convenient way of lessening the burden? No, I'm not saying that! If I wanted to, I could provide you with the number of children and adults starving to death every hour. And I don't even think that this way of "lessening the burden" is very "convenient".The person who needs to grow up is you. Don't forget all the primitive Africans!
The direct cause of this child abandonment is superstitious belief. Even when the family does not call them witches and tells you that they cannot feed them?How more clear can it be--they were accused of being WITCHES.Yes, some of them are. Some of them are accused of BREAKING A GLASS!Were all the people who were part of histories witch hunts just victims of poverty and control of populations? Probably not! Why do you ask? Is it because you think that if some of them weren't, then nobody was?!
If the problem is having children people cannot afford to raise, wouldn't access to contraception and education be the answer. Yes, of course, if the children hadn't been born in the first place, they couldn't be accused of being witches! But I thought that the problem was thinking that their children were witches?! Now it has suddenly become procreation?
Money does not cure superstition.No, it just makes it easier to get food, if you've got it, and if you haven't got it, the price tag excludes you from eating! That's market economy lesson number one. If you have enough money, however, you probably won't dream of getting pie in the sky when you die.
God, apparently does give people more than they can handle. I think the missionaries are as much a cause of the problem as a solution.Make up your mind! Do you want them to take care of the orphans or not?
I resent that my own country spends millions in Africa on abstinence only education. So do I, so do I! :)
If the goal is to prevent child abandonment, then the answer is family planning and education. We didn't stop burning witches in Europe or the USA because of a sudden financial windfall-No, but we stopped leaving children to die in the woods.
-it was an evolution of thought that stopped this barbarism. It is not poverty that is at the heart of "witch hunts"--but rather, it's groupthink--superstitious fearmongering and groupthink.Only it doesn't appear to be a witch hunt, no children appear to be burned at the stake. They are left to fend for themselves because their families cannot feed them.
You read a little before you call others immature or wrongheaded. You have only provided evidence which convinces those who already think like you--people who have been taught to ignore the obvious, give extra deference to religion, and never ever blame it for any harm.And that is indeed what Athon, Gurdur, Joshua and I have been doing the whole time: We have given deference to religion!
You used the priests quote that poverty was the cause while ignoring the fact that, despite tons of poverty, this is the first time that people are calling their kids witches!Tons of poverty??! The first time??! I don't know about that, I just know that an extreme aggravation of poverty in the area appears to have led people to seek extreme 'solutions' to their problems. You appear to think that despite 'tons of superstition' (and tons of bibles, probably), for some weird reason this is the first time that people are calling their kids witches: Superstition suddenly reached critical mass resulting in this sudden reaction.
The priests own words. You miss the direct cause as stated by the kids themselves--they WERE accused of being witches!And they WERE accused of breaking glasses! By the way, why do you suddenly believe "the priests own words"?
You've shown NO actual link between poverty and accusing children of being witches except for the priests words.My point has been to show the actual link between poverty and abandoning children. The excuses for doing so are fairly uninteresting to anybody but skeptics and Christians. How many times do I have to post this for you to get the point?
Not very scholarly. You've also shown no connection between amelioration of poverty leading to the amelioration of superstitions. Whereas we can say with utter certainty that people who don't believe in witches, won't ever accuse their kids of being witches. People who don't believe in demon possession will never presume their kid is possessed.No, even your "utter certainty" is wrong! Sometimes people make up excuses that they don't believe in themselves. You've never seen it in the real world, have you??! I think it's called .... let me see .... hypocrisy! Psychopaths and politicians, for instance, do it habitually. I guess, you are probably one of the very few people who either think that the goblins impregnated the girl or that the statutory rapist actually believed that they did ....
But in general, people who don't believe in witches and demon possession not only don't but cannot think that their children are witches or possessed. In general, however, children don't starve because people think that they are witches.
Your pompousness fools no-one but you. And saying it over and over doesn't make it so. You are blinded by your own arrogance in this particular case. Apparently your pompous arrogance fools you. A pity.

[dann]

I'm hardly an elitist or right wing--you just seem to jump straight to all sorts of conclusions. In fact, I bet I have worked much more closely with the poverty stricken than you. And I suspect Randi has given much more to the world than your egotistical self. And, of course, my business all along has been to claim that I have given much more to the world than Randi, right?
I think Chadd and slimething sound more logical than you and much more like someone others would like to know.... Yes, let's turn this into a I-am-much-more-logical-than-you-are comptition. That would be the mature thing to do.
Yes, this is a skeptics forum--and we get a lot of people here telling us how wrong we are not to believe all sorts of claims--including the claim that poverty causes people to accuse their kids of being witches! No one is saying it's not a factor--but you seem to ignore the obvious because you want to feel morally superior. Yes, that is my only hobby and my only argument: I am better than you are! Right!? :)
You've cast a wide net of judgment on everyone but failed to even look at yourself. What are your credentials that make you such a scholar of "that which makes parents accuse their kids of being witches". Why is it the most arrogant people calling others arrogant or immature or wrongheaded. What is it that you can see the sliver in everyone else's eye while missing the giant log in yours. Whereas you are starting with the man in the mirror ...
This was a discussion about poverty, superstition and abandoned children in Africa, not about me. I look at myself in other contexts. My credentials are my arguments, that's all I need! Why are credentials suddenly so important? Did I ask you for yours?
You have misjudged Randi, me, Chadd, multiple people on this forum and, on top of that, you've elevated yourself to a position that not many other people seem to agree with. I've become a minority now? I actually thought that you were all commies and I came here to make friends! You've misjudged your own maturity, dialogue skills, expertise, ability to assess the facts and who knows what else. ... You do??! (It's just a qualified guess.)
You haven't educated or enlightened anyone or solved the problem on any front while building yourself up to be the holier than thou. Tell me the secret of your bravado and ego. I thought that you already revealed all my secret shortcomings and defects of character ...
Randi wasn't missing anything. He is a strong supporter of human rights.I'm not! Mainly because the right to get enough to eat doesn't seem to be high on the list of human rights.
And he pointed out an important truth.Well, I humbly bow to your reference to authority. If he not only said so, but also pointed it out[/i,] then it must be the truth! (I don't even think that Randi would appreciate this kind of reverence!)
The first and foremost cause for these kids being kicked out is belief in witches.And we all know that breaking glasses or asking for something to eat are sure signs of witchcraft in superstitious societies. It is a requirement for "witchhunts". Poverty, never has been. .No, that's just a requirement for having nothing to eat.Shame on you and your pseudo piety. Frankly, I think you sound self important and ignorant like both Blair and Bush--you just have too much hubris to notice the similarities. You can't learn anything new because you are so sure you already know all.Shame, shame, shame ...
(By the way, isn't that a very [i]Christian virtue?)

[dann]

I recommend Cialdini's, Influence and Daniel Goleman's Social Intelligence-Alternative IQ? No Alternative!
www.skeptica.dk/2002/simonsen5.htm#Alternativ%20IQ The English translation soon to appear at www.skepticreport.com, I hope. :)

[dann]

Oh--and Randi is not "right-wing" either. Is this weeks commentary the only one you've read??No. I also read last week's commentary and this one (http://www.randi.org/jr/051002.html) about a demystified object.
Oh--and you are still wrong. Lots of wrongs added up together now! Wrong ad infinitum. Once again I bow my head in shame.
Will you be apologizing for misjudging so many people?For the rest of my life!I hope this arrogance is just due to youth. Flattery won't get you anywhere, but thank you. Are you sure that you didn't notice my grey hair (http://www.feichtinger.dk/salsaskole/billeder-kka-fest/B-kka-dec-00/original/image24.jpg) at TAM2?
Come on, articulett! Cheer up! This is a discussion! I already know that you are much more creative than me when it comes to ad hominems, so let us see an argument, a piece of serious analysis from your hand.
So far I don't think that a single person has declared that the solution to the problem of abandoned, starving children is either unprotected sex, abstinence or more prayer meetings. And the only one who seems to think that it would be a good idea to let the church take care of the starving orphans is you! But I see nothing wrong with feeding them.

[dann]

Getting your friends together to say "look how smart and mature and politically correct we are" ...Do you mean to imply that I knew Athon, Joshua and Gurdur all along, before this discussion began? And that they are all Marxists?

[Gurdur]

Although you are congratulating yourselves on your moral superiority
Funny. :D You're projecting -- you assert your moral superiority but you refuse to give any rational argument to back it up.
--you are still wrong. Although there may well be a correlation between poverty and superstition, one does not cause the other.
Got any evidence for your claim? Or do you simply issue the diktat ex cathedra? :p You'll forgive me if I am skeptical. ;)
The correlation is due to the lesser education of both groups. And maybe the self important need to grow up if they do not know the difference between correlation and causation. Do you really think that you know all and have nothing to learn.
You are rapidly becoming incoherent here, and all you are doing is huffing out unsubstantiated assertions. Got any rational argument to make?
You think you are more mature than Randi
Got any evidence for that claim? Or are you simply continuing your silly rudeness because you actually have no rational argument to make?
Perhaps you ought to brush up on your social skills
*snicker*
I'll follow your example. :D Lead on!
In addition to reading the basics regarding correlation and causation; I recommend
I recommend you do what I did, which was advanced biostatistics and medical statistics at uni, epidemology, as well as all the advanced postgrad stuff on psych, meaningful correlation, etc..
Just trying to be helpful. :)
How is that different than the Christian who comes here to tell us how wrong
How is that different to your conduct, where you arebeing petulantly rude andmaking unsubstantiated assertions, and expecting them to be accepted merely because you say them?
Oh--and Randi is not "right-wing" either.
Who said he was? Since you addressed this post to me, you can now try actually making sense. Where have I ever said Randi was "right-wing"? Or are you simply making things up again? :D
Is this weeks commentary the only one you've read??
OK, you're simply making things up again. Very silly of you.
Oh--and you are still wrong.
*snicker*
Do you really think your silly repetition substitutes for a rational argument?
Will you be apologizing for misjudging so many people?
*snicker*
I'll follow your example. :D Lead on! You have plenty of apologies to make.

[Gurdur]

... Getting your friends together to say "look how smart and mature and politically correct we are" ....
Now your claims are getting bizarre and well-worthy of the CT forum. Listen up: I don't know a single person active on this thread, and have never interacted in any way whatsoever with dann or Athon beforehand. So put away your silly paranoid notions about some sort of conspiracy.
this IS a skeptics forum
D'oh. So start making some rational arguments instead of your puerile abuse and unsubstantiated assertions. Be prepared to be treated skeptically and stop taking personal offence simply because you're asked to back your claims up.
.... Moreover, you are incredibly divisive...from my perspective.
Oh dear! I am incredibly sorry that I have so deeply offended you by transgressing The Official Party Line and broken Party Discipline by being "divisive" by disobeying Supreme Soviet dictates you have issued ex cathedra.

Well, no, actually, I'm not sorry at all. :p

[Beth]

Why is it the most arrogant people calling others arrogant or immature or wrongheaded. What is it that you can see the sliver in everyone else's eye while missing the giant log in yours.


Good question. But I think you are the most qualified person to answer it on this thread.

[Gurdur]

....my grey hair (http://www.feichtinger.dk/salsaskole/billeder-kka-fest/B-kka-dec-00/original/image24.jpg) .....
You too, huh? I got a bit of greying around the temples and of course in facial hair, nowhere near as much as you, but hey, leastaways I'm not balding quickly.

Strange thread. Now we get onto male neuroses about greying hair and hair loss. Self-support group time. ;)

[dann]

I was alive during Jim Jones in Guyana.

Well, you'll probably not like these:
”Jim Jones decided to move his flock to Ukiah California to set up a commune that he said would be the “perfect society”. Most who followed were poor people of color.” (http://www.caledoniawakeupcall.com/updates/061206mohawk.html)

“If anyone wonders why so many Americans were willing to move to Guyana, the events of the past weeks have shown why. The real-life issues of race, poverty, creeping fascism, war-for-profit, corporate environmental irresponsibility, and religious extremism (Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Hindu) are as real today as they were in the late-sixties and early-seventies when so many of us joined Peoples Temple.” (http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JonestownReport/Volume7/katrina-carter1.htm)

“Many of the cult followers were struggling with the social injustice and racial discrimination in the 60s and 70s.” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0762111/usercomments)

This one's also good, but it's not about Jonestown:
"Counts addresses the unrelenting poverty of the Kaliai people who live in northwest New Britain. The Kaliai are a horticultural people who grow coconuts to produce copra, a coconut byproduct, which they have begun selling as a cash crop in the market since the colonization of their land. With the arrival of the British people and their way of government, the Kaliai have begun experiencing serious levels of poverty. In response to the lack of help from the government, some of the Kaliai have joined a cargo cult, which tells an inspirational story. The Story says that cargo, or valuable objects, will appear in plenty in New Britain after a snowfall." (http://www.publicanthropology.org/Archive/HO1972.htm)

You’ll probably enjoy this one, articulett:

"Superstition: a root cause of poverty" (http://www.spirituality.com/tte/article_display.jhtml?ElementId=/repositories/shcomarticle/Jan2006/1138633524.xml)

And this one is a practical example of how some Christians hope that they can use poverty to make people superstitious, which, by the way, is what Jones did before he had them kill/killed:
"Reasons for such poverty include the rapid shrinking of Australia’s middle class, underemployment, changes in the workforce, and the high cost of housing. As a result, many people find themselves in dire straits when unforeseen challenges come along. Reduced working hours, job layoffs, illness, or family breakdown can strip away assets and opportunity, leaving people impoverished through no fault of their own." (http://www.spirituality.com/tte/article_display.jhtml?ElementId=/repositories/shcomarticle/Jan2006/1137116257.xml)

[dann]

You too, huh? I got a bit of greying around the temples and of course in facial hair, nowhere near as much as you, but hey, leastaways I'm not balding quickly.Sorry, Gurdur, but I lied! It's a combination of make-up and a wig! And I have much more hair (http://www.feichtinger.dk/salsaskole/billeder-kka-fest/B-kka-dec-00/original/image22.jpg) than that (from the same party, two hours later), but I'm 10 years older than Claus Larsen!
(And although I was at TAM2, the photo is from Denmark, not Las Vegas!)

[dann]

Since you [articulett] addressed this post to me, ... Sorry that I answered that post, Gurdur, I didn't mean to intrude. It's just that it was so easy to recognize myself in her description of you:
Oh--and you are still wrong. The number of times I've heard those words ... they bring back sweet memories!

[Gurdur]

Sorry, Gurdur, but I lied! It's a combination of make-up and a wig! And I have much more hair (http://www.feichtinger.dk/salsaskole/billeder-kka-fest/B-kka-dec-00/original/image22.jpg) than that
Oh god. Now you're really going to feed the Conspiracy Theory affecting us.
but I'm 10 years older than Claus Larsen!
Oh god. Now that you've brought his name into it, we will probably have an anti_Claus flamewar heaped upon us as well.
Denmark
Yet another Dane? I'm quite astonished at the number of vocal Danes on this board --- you, Claus, Danish Dynamite and someone else I can't remember. I wish I could build up such a Danish contingent for my own board.

[dann]

Oh god. Now that you've brought his name into it, we will probably have an anti_Claus flamewar heaped upon us as well.Anti-dann, please! Claus has had more than his share.
Yet another Dane? I'm quite astonished at the number of vocal Danes on this board --- you, Claus, Danish Dynamite and someone else I can't remember. I wish I could build up such a Danish contingent for my own board.Hans, Mogens, Kerberos (I think), Steen, plindboe ....
Your board looks interesting. Problem is, we aren't all heathens, and we tend to be in total disagreement (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=51894), except when we are talking about Karen (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=18335).

[dann]

By the way, if any of the Danes are reading this thread:
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=70852

[articulett]

I think people stopped reading this thread when they saw that you presumed yourself more mature than James Randi and everyone else who disagrees with you. If not then, then when you villianized others who disagreed by presuming to know their politics and presuming you knew "the truth" and thus were not capable of learning a thing. I'm sure once they realized that you are as convinced of your rightness as Kurious Cathy is of hers,they recognized that you weren't really capable of dialogue on this topic. I also suspect many people have placed you on ignore. Your awareness raising capabilities seem to be on par with hers.

So let me recap to be sure I understand you. You started this thread because you somehow believed it would raise awareness and help poor people stop calling their children witches? You presumed that most of the people on this forum and Randi had mixed up priorities while yours are "more mature"? Do you know anything about how people change their viewpoints? Randi does. And here's a clue--it's not by presuming you are more mature than everybody else and presuming all who don't agree with you are bad guys (or even WITCHES) or eager to have your "truth" shoved in their heads. You assert your moral superiority without giving anyone an inkling of what makes you likable much less moral. I don't think anyone would look to you as a role model for what their priorities should be, and I think it's hysterical that you would start a thread with that presumption.

Don't you realize that EVERYONE agrees with this statement "people who think like me are more moral than others"? That's why facts are important. And why people need to understand CONFIRMATION BIAS. Your "poverty causes witch-hunts" conclusion is not as clear cut as you've convinced yourselves it is. How in the world did you come to the conclusion that we should respect your opinions while showing no respect for anyone else's opinions?

I want you to know that I teach a freshman college class and they spotted the flaw in Dann's reasoning instantly (confusing correlation with causation), and I thank Randi and his videos for that. Moreover, they understand that this thinking is at the root of all superstitions. So you have raised awareness, but not in the way you had hoped. Also your blindness to your own bias while accusing others of all sorts of biases not warranted by what they said was also noted by a prescient 20 year old. For example, no one said superstition was the only cause (including Randi), and no one brought up politics before you cast your prejudice eye upon the group. You are the one's denying the more direct cause. You are the one's pretending to be open-minded while closing your mind to any who might show you that you are not as right as you think you are and your self congratulatory conclusions are not warranted by the facts.

This could have been a discussion about what plays the greater role and what solutions one could offer, but your own hubris negated that possibility. You are already convinced of your rightness and more mature viewpoint so reasoning with you becomes identical to reasoning with George Bush or Kurious Kathy.

To reiterate, I don't think any of the self congratulating people on this forum are morally superior to me, Randi, or any of the the vast number of people they've lumped together and prejudged (again and again mind you). I find the irony amusing--you accused others of being like George Bush--a man known to think he is always right--a man who doesn't listen to others--a man who is completely unaware of his arrogance coupled with profound scientific ignorance--a man whose actions don't accomplish his goals. And to me, that sounds Dann--but at least, some people find Bush likable and that appears to be a major role in influencing people (social clue for Dann). You also lump people together, prejudge them and dismiss the lot of them exactly like George Bush does. You put false spin on the words of others too. In fact, the more I think about it, the more ironic it seems. I hope others get a chance to appreciate the irony.

Remember: this forum is hosted by the James Randi Education Forum--you too can use it to educate yourselves. James Randi actually accomplishes his goals at educating others. Somehow, I don't think you ego rants on forums helps anyone--certainly not children accused of being witches--even as you pat yourselves on the back for your fine reasoning ability.

Oh, here's some more evidence that you can use your confirmation bias to negate: You do realize that stepchildren are often mistreated, don't you--even in wealthy families? Your proposed solution (if you offered one) might make some families less likely to toss their kids out, but as soon as times got rough, they'd be doing it again--you haven't given them the tool of reason and thus have not provided an actual solution to the problem at all. If your goal is to assure that fewer children are accused of witches, you are free to donate to the priest in the article and pretend your rant makes a difference. I already consider my maturity, morality, and priorities superior to yours. Moreover, I imagine that everyone you have insulted is probably more charitable than you. Randi certainly is.

[Gurdur]

I think people stopped reading this thread
Wrong again. Other responses show that people have kept on reading.
you
I don't know which "you" you mean, but it doesn't matter. You are simply being rude and not addressing the points.
I want you to know that I teach a freshman college class
Underachiever. Try harder, get ahead.
This could have been a discussion about what plays the greater role and what solutions one could offer, but your own hubris negated that possibility.
No, and this is what really bugs me. We could have had a good wide-ranging discussion on strategies for tackling poverty and superstition, but instead you descend to loooooooong rants where you simply try using empty rhetorical abuse. That bugs me, because I personally would have liked a good discussion on the actual subject, but it's impossible if you merely rant away on a personal level.
presumed yourself more mature than .... everyone else who disagrees with you.
I already consider my maturity, morality, and priorities superior to yours.
I suppose you are completely unaware of the huge unintentional irony here.
;)
It's quite funny.

[athon]

Actually, no one is saying that a single blame is required except the people blaming poverty. It seems like you are ignoring the actual cause and extrapolating an abstract cause because of what the priest said.

Actually, I've not made a single reference to the priest's claim, and make my claim based on my own experiences distinct from anything he has to say.

Perhaps you could clear this then up by clearly answering the following;

Do you think poverty and superstition are intrinsically linked?

Do you think removing superstition from an impoverished, collectivist community is a simple matter of educating them to the contrary?

Do you think that the children would have been accused of witchcraft and subsequently sent away if the community had have developed in an individualist, post-industrial nation?

I'm sure you can easily figure my stance on the above points; superstition is not an isolated factor, hence to address it, the entire picture must be taken into account.

No matter how many times you insinuate that I am trying to 'blame' poverty, it just won't match what I've actually said. So go ahead, burn that straw man. I'll bring the marshmellows.


Facts: Poverty has always been part of humanity.

Poverty has never been associated with accusing children of being witches except for this once.

You know this how?

People have accused people of being witches before.

People have killed their children because they thought they were possessed.

Neither of these historical events are tied to poverty.

Again, how do you know this?

Sure, there have been exorcisms and abuses which have occured in relatively affluent societies, yet accusations of witchcraft and the active belief in superstitious blame (such as evil spirits etc.) is more prevalent in third world, collectivist communities than in the west. This is just something you can't run from; I'd sooner find somebody who claim my cold was caused by a bad spirit in an Aboriginal community than I would in a major city, that's for sure.

Let me reiterate one thing here; poverty does not necessarily directly cause superstition. I never said it did. The link is in the nature of the culture in impoverished communities who tend to rely more on social thinking than on critical thinking. I have no opinion on Dann's own point concerning whether the children were kicked out as a direct result of being poor (although I tend to think that it was a rather powerful influence). However, the accusations of witchcraft were supported by a culture that was collectivist, and further encouraged into action by poverty.

Did these people accuse their kids of being witches because they were poor? I don't think so. Did people accuse their kids of being witches because they were superstitious? Yes. So far, in agreement...

Are these people superstitious because it assists them in their culture? Yes. Is their culture superstitious because critical voices are not tolerated? Very much so. Is this lack of tolerance due to a collectivist set of values? Yes. Is this collectivist set of values selected for due to poverty? Unfortunately so.

To address the superstition, values must change. And changing the values demands that new values must take their place, lest they lose their culture (which is what has happened in many indigenous cultures all over the world), leading to massive social problems.

Walking in and suggesting they not be superstitious any more is laughable to anybody who has had to deal with such a situation.

And if poverty is a factor, then the best way to approach it from that angle is to help people get out of poverty by giving them access to family planning.

Certainly. And if the community defers to superstitious beliefs instead of your logic?

Your insulting of people is ironic given your failure to understand these basic facts while imagining your reasoning to be superior to everyone else.

What--you think that sending would fix something in the equation? Has money ever stopped people from accusing others of being witches? I'm sure the Catholic Priest will share your argument--and I'm sure the churches will keep supporting their missions. But I give my support to humanist groups that actually educate others.

Point out where superstition has been educated out of collectivist, third world community? I'll eat my words if you can show me where a community has remained poor and collectivist and yet is educated to be non superstitious.

Whoever made you feel like you knew something ought to be flogged for your hubris. You aren't more mature than Randi or anyone else on this forum--you just THINK you are.

Wow. Seriously, you and Slimething must be congratulated on creating such a nice little fantasy realm. Going to add unicorns at some stage?

I tell you what, recount for us the last time you had anything to do with superstition in a pre-industrial community and how you dealt with it.

As for Randi and maturity, I have never suggested that I was more mature. I might have more experience with education, and with education in third world communities, and Randi is one person who would enjoy discussing such matters with somebody more experienced in such matters, I assure you of that.

And you are wrong.

Oh, thanks. I didn't quite grasp that from your ranting. :rolleyes:

Athon

[athon]

No, and this is what really bugs me. We could have had a good wide-ranging discussion on strategies for tackling poverty and superstition, but instead you descend to loooooooong rants where you simply try using empty rhetorical abuse. That bugs me, because I personally would have liked a good discussion on the actual subject, but it's impossible if you merely rant away on a personal level.

Gurdur, I couldn't agree more.

Skepticism is about removing the emotional sentiments tying somebody to a belief, and analysing how it all works together to produce a phenomenum. When it becomes a game of accusation and dishonest misrepresentation of the argument, it's no longer an educational process where you can actually come to any useful conclusion.

It's not about maturity. It's not about blame. It's not about moral grounds. It's about considering a problem and the issues that created it in the first place in light of what could be done feasibly to prevent it from happening again in the future.

I suppose you are completely unaware of the huge unintentional irony here.
;)
It's quite funny.

Made me laugh.

Athon

[Slimething]

The same error keeps getting repeated by people in this thread; it is one where a single blame is required, and that being witchcraft. Remove the blame (as if it in itself is a simple thing to do), and the problem is solved.

It's ridiculous notion that carries no water. And your constant reference to reductionism is a red herring that demonstrates you have no idea what's going on.

Athon, the last time I wrote you, you decided to reply by pretending not to understand a word I wrote. Now you claim to understand me with crystal clarity.

Let me reiterate my position, which has been so ably seconded by articulett. The original discussion that dann so bitterly critiqued concerned the labeling of children as witches in The Congo. Nothing else. No mention was made of, and no discussion was attempted of, underlying social issues or the socioeconomic environment that would lead to said practice. Later, dann decides that it's unfair to criticize these people because they are poor and poverty is to blame. Well, that's his/her/its opinion and has nothing to do with the original discussion.

Monthy Python once had a skit about people stopping their normal work to worry about a water buffalo somewhere that was completely irrelevant to their lives. Seems pretty much like you, dann and chums.

What really slays me is how you and your clique have decided that this is your forum and other people must agree or go read stuff or be charged with creating straw men, etc. Grow up.

[Gurdur]

... you and your clique....
Oh look, it's another conspiracy theorist.
:boggled: :rolleyes:
Grow up.
Yet another big unintentional irony. :p

[Slimething]

You also seem to have a very wrong idea about what reductionism actually is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism

Read up, gurdur! It's good for you! :D

[hammegk]

I want you to know that I teach a freshman college class ....
I want you to know that's one of the scariest things I can think of.

What school? If I know someone there I'll try to get them to switch to an institution of higher learning in lieu of a pablum dispenser.

[athon]

Let me reiterate my position, which has been so ably seconded by articulett. The original discussion that dann so bitterly critiqued concerned the labeling of children as witches in The Congo. Nothing else. No mention was made of, and no discussion was attempted of, underlying social issues or the socioeconomic environment that would lead to said practice.

To me “this type of situation” seems to be the ultimate consequence of poverty, not of “tolerance of dangerous nonsense”. (Not that it isn’t nonsense and thus dangerous!) And I find it truly amazing that skeptics seem to think that the victims of this calamity are not simply the starving children, but primarily the sentiments of skeptics who cannot stand to ”see truth and logic being assaulted.” Is that really all that skeptics have to offer? A much more rational way of starving?

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? Or do they really believe that these children would be so much happier if they were starving without the added insult of being called witches?

Taken from his opening post. Highlighting the relevant parts in case you continue to follow this argument further.

Later, dann decides that it's unfair to criticize these people because they are poor and poverty is to blame. Well, that's his/her/its opinion and has nothing to do with the original discussion.

I can't find that he did, but if so, I personally don't follow it's a case of fairness or unfairness, blame or fault... it's about finding the threads of the influence dictating why these conditions exist and the measures that can be taken to prevent them happening again.

You've got quite upset about some supposed injustice against skeptics, yet while the argument has been presented to you, you refuse to engage in it. This thread was started in addressing the fact skeptics get rather emotional over the perceived injustice of reason being under attack, while often it's more complicated, and the real injustice is against the children.

What really slays me is how you and your clique have decided that this is your forum and other people must agree or go read stuff or be charged with creating straw men, etc. Grow up.

My clique? So, any time people agree, they have a clique? lol

I have no problem with you disagreeing. In fact I prefer it when people do. I learn something. But you've not disagreed. You've not anything, except gotten upset, ranted, accused people of taking the moral high ground, and told us to grow up. Oh, and yes, created a few nice looking scarecrows, too.

Go ahead, get as angry as you want. Post it all here. I couldn't care; in some ways it only further validates Dann's opening post. Wake me when you have something actually important to say.

Athon

[dann]

Monthy Python once had a skit about people stopping their normal work to worry about a water buffalo somewhere that was completely irrelevant to their lives. Seems pretty much like you, dann and chums.
you, dann and chums (http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B000068D1Y001003/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_003/102-9360498-6692929)
Thank you for sharing, Slimething. It all makes sense to me now. :)

[dann]

Oh, here's some more evidence that you can use your confirmation bias to negate:Some more? On top of all the other evidence you have provided us with so far? You cannot be serious!
You do realize that stepchildren are often mistreated, don't you--even in wealthy families?Is it just me or ....? Where exactly is the evidence? Do you realize that children in general are mistreated and abused much too often? And that it doesn't help anybody to spread the myth about the evil stepparents? Do you realize that even the evil stepmothers that you read about in the brothers Grimm's fairytales are the result of a revision of the original text?
"The first expurgation was actually made by Wilhelm Grimm, who, when he realized that the fairytales were read to children, deleted the most direct sexual innuendos - as for instance incest committed by fathers - and also changed evil mothers into evil stepmothers in the name of the holy motherhood. He rewrote the fairytales so they, as Wilhelm put it, appeared as good for bringing up children.
And it was exactly because of the raised fingers that parents readily accepted the fairy tales: Keep your promises! Don't talk to strangers! Don't be lazy! Obey your parents!"
(Weekendavisen, 1. Dec. 2006) (http://www.weekendavisen.dk/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061201/BOGER/112010145&SearchID=73266533796185)
My translation of the Danish text, but I feel certain that one of the other Danes on this board can confirm it if you'd want him to.
Your proposed solution (if you offered one) might make some families less likely to toss their kids out,How do you know if I don't offer any?
but as soon as times got rough, they'd be doing it again-Yes, that is true. When you starve, you starve ... can't argue with that!
-you haven't given them the tool of reason And you have??! :)
and thus have not provided an actual solution to the problem at all. It is true! I have given them absolutely nothing, nichts, nada, whereas you offer them the tool of reason, as if it were something edible. Did I say that I had given them anything? The only thing I've offered anybody is arguments! (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html)
If your goal is to assure that fewer children are accused of witches, you are free to donate to the priest in the article Now I'm confused. Aren't you the one that wanted to put him in charge of the orphanages?
and pretend your rant makes a difference. I already consider my maturity, morality, and priorities superior to yours.Thank you for clarifying that point. Until now I was under the impression that you looked up to me as a beacon of morality and enlightenment. How could I be so wrong? :)
Moreover, I imagine that everyone you have insulted is probably more charitable than you.You bet!
"The virtues of the poor may be readily admitted, and are much to be regretted. We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." Oscar Wilde (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/wilde_soul.html)
Randi certainly is.I'm absolutely certain that he is! Did I claim otherwise? However, I don't really think that you do him justice. He would probably take offence at the guru worship you exhibit here.
I want you to know that I teach a freshman college class and they spotted the flaw in Dann's reasoning instantly (confusing correlation with causation), Which correlation? Between poverty and superstition, or between poverty and abandoned children? Or between starvation and the 'tool of reason'?
and I thank Randi and his videos for that. Moreover, they understand that this thinking is at the root of all superstitions. So you have raised awareness, but not in the way you had hoped.You do indeed seem to have learned a lot from the way woowoos think and argue. Your argument in this case, for instance, is exactly the same way the Danish business astrologer argues: I talked to one of my clients today, and she confirmed me in my view that you skeptics are dead wrong!'I just cannot believe that you have actually shown this thread to your students.
But I would love to see them here!

[dann]

PS
It's important to look at not only his actions that have a direct and obvious effect, but actions which could be a precursor to future actions. If George Bush believes that a war against the middle east is necessary to begin armeggedon etc then I want to know. This attitude is not unlike the one that you find in children of psychopathic parents, I think, and sometimes in battered wives: 'I have to study his (or her) every move and mood in order to know what he is going to do next. Since I'm completely in his/her power, I need to know this in order to protect myself, in order to take precautions.' The reasonable thing to do would be to liberate yourself from depending on somebody who is not to be trusted, but very often this task seems to be insurmountable, so you acquiesce.

It would be relevant in this context, i.e. the world of politics, to ask adults, not helpless children, if it isn't about time to grow up, to stop being subservient, to take the control away from leaders like that - and not just in order to hand it over to one of his better-looking colleagues. Isn't it high time to take control of our lives and living conditions, instead of delegating the power, which we would otherwise have, to so-called 'representatives', the deciders?
And isn't it time skeptics in particular to grow up and move beyond smug complacency when dealing with superstition? If it is true that the superstitious not only want to, but actually need to believe, like James Randi always says, isn't it about time to move beyond this realization to the question: Why do they need to believe?
So far most skeptics seem to be quite content expressing their despair at the childishness of the masses who just won't listen to them and grow up.

The abject poverty, the best guarantee that the uneducated, superstitious masses remain superstitious, just doesn't seem to concern the Shermers of this world. And why should it? They seem to not only want to, but to actually need to despair at the woowoos that just won’t listen to the brights, which is why they don’t appear to find it very hard to tolerate poverty and hunger, but won’t tolerate dangerous nonsense. (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11) Remember, we are not merely talking about abandoned, starving children (and starving adults, for that matter), it is much, much worse than that: They are actually being denied ”the tool of reason”, and if there is one thing we can’t stand it’s when “we see truth and logic being assaulted”

Somehow it’s all very logical (http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/g-logic.htm), isn’t it?

[TheChadd]

PS
This attitude is not unlike the one that you find in children of psychopathic parents, I think, and sometimes in battered wives: 'I have to study his (or her) every move and mood in order to know what he is going to do next. Since I'm completely in his/her power, I need to know this in order to protect myself, in order to take precautions.' The reasonable thing to do would be to liberate yourself from depending on somebody who is not to be trusted, but very often this task seems to be insurmountable, so you acquiesce.

Oh but I don't want to 'liberate myself' from such people. I do believe in your / our democratic systems and while I may be unhappy with the current person in charge, I don't want to go about 'liberating' myself. The reason being that 1) I wouldn't want those who disagree with my fairly elected official to 'liberate' themselves from them, 2) Such undiplomatic (in the sense that it's done as a compromise cannot be reached) rebelion leads to a situation where 'might is right' is further accentuated, and 3) I don't think we benefit in the short or long run.

Isn't it high time to take control of our lives and living conditions, instead of delegating the power, which we would otherwise have, to so-called 'representatives', the deciders?

You don't think such 'deciders' would emerge in a society ripped of the former? .

And isn't it time skeptics in particular to grow up and move beyond smug complacency when dealing with superstition? If it is true that the superstitious not only want to, but actually need to believe, like James Randi always says, isn't it about time to move beyond this realization to the question: Why do they need to believe?

I do think we should look into why some people are so reliant on superstition, do you think you've got the answer in poverty?

The abject poverty, the best guarantee that the uneducated, superstitious masses remain superstitious, just doesn't seem to concern the Shermers of this world.

So you don't think there's superstitious masses in the US/GB/Aus/ etc ? While I think poverty is a factor, do you imagine that giving these people food for 200 years they'd abandon their superstitions?

And why should it? [i]They seem to not only want to, but to actually need to despair at the woowoos that just won’t listen to the brights, which is why they don’t appear to find it very hard to tolerate poverty and hunger, but won’t tolerate dangerous nonsense. (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11) Remember, we are not merely talking about abandoned, starving children (and starving adults, for that matter), it is much, much worse than that: They are actually being denied ”the tool of reason”, and if there is one thing we can’t stand it’s when “we see truth and logic being assaulted”

Yep they'd definately have a better chance with some education etc. Are you simply asking for skeptics to push for this more?

[dann]

Oh but I don't want to 'liberate myself' from such people. I do believe in your / our democratic systems and while I may be unhappy with the current person in charge, I don't want to go about 'liberating' myself. The reason being that 1) I wouldn't want those who disagree with my fairly elected official to 'liberate' themselves from them,I would, fairly elected or not. If you mean fairly elected in the sense that all democratic procedures were followed, then, yes, our prime minister was fairly elected. And so was Bush, undisputed the second time, I think. The weird thing about democracy (or rule by the people as the translation of the Danish word folkestyre would be) is that it liberates the elected leaders to take any considerations to the wishes of the people, whether or not they elected them, and are able to declare war on another country without having to ask anybody but their own conscience, so whether you voted for the present government or not, you've left it up to them to decide. People are being ruled. I would definitely want those who disagree with that politic to put a stop to it - whether they voted for the guy in charge or not, but any opposition to aggressive politics is met with: You voted for the guy and now he's in charge of the decisions, and for the next four years you are free to express yourself as long as you remain aware that what you express is only an opinion. And if you didn't vote, well, you are to blame anyway, and for the next four years you have left it to the deciders to decide, and in the meantime you may consider voting for somebody else the next time.
2) Such undiplomatic (in the sense that it's done as a compromise cannot be reached) rebellion leads to a situation where 'might is right' is further accentuated,When you talk about 'might is right' being further accentuated, it seems to imply your awareness of the fact that might is indeed already right, i.e. that democracy is a way of liberating the might from being influenced by the will of the people. By voting they give up any claim to the might they would have if they were willing to use it: democratic procedures: elections, legislature, government (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/state/toc.html)
and 3) I don't think we benefit in the short or long run.That would be my argument against the present state of affairs! (Depending on who "you" are, of course!)
You don't think such 'deciders' would emerge in a society ripped of the former? [Insert Animal Farm reference]. Well, Orwell’s pastiche of Stalinism did not exactly describe a society ripped of deciders, on the contrary: One had been replaced by another, the farmer by the pigs, the zar by Lenin, Stalin, etc. etc.
I do think we should look into why some people are so reliant on superstition, do you think you've got the answer in poverty? In poverty and in the lack of control of their own lives! The accents have changed, but 'mankind' still hasn't liberated itself from the ups and downs of life. In the past we were completely dependent on the changeableness of nature, a situation, which does not really agree with intelligence and therefore gives rise to superstition: When you are utterly and completely dependent on the weather, sufficient prey etc., you make up lies to yourself and others in order to at least imagine that you are in control of things. You may not control the weather, but by performing the right rituals, you may be able to appease the powers that do. If you make a sacrifice to the god(dess) of deer, you may be able to put him/her in a favourable mood and send more prey your way. This is not simply a question of education. A stone-age man wouldn't be able to do much (or anything) with all the knowledge of modern meteorology, would he?
Expose people of today to similar situations, and they will behave in similar ways. Otherwise bright high-school students suddenly come to depend on lucky charms at their exams, and even relatively settled and rich people in changeable jobs like acting, sports or the stock exchange seek advice from astrologers, but still: you don't usually see horoscopes in the magazines catering to stock-exchange magnates, but in poor people's reading material they abound. More here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=46293)
So you don't think there's superstitious masses in the US/GB/Aus/ etc ? I don't???
While I think poverty is a factor, do you imagine that giving these people food for 200 years they'd abandon their superstitions?Making sure that they had a decent living and were in control of at least the vital necessities, yes, I think it would, actually. In our countries it takes a little more than food to live, by the way, and giving anybody anything is not exactly the rule. Well, very poor people may receive a food basket from the Salvation Army for Christmas, but I don't think that's enough to make people feel that their existence has been secured. (And I guess the Salvation Army would not be very disappointed if their charity work resulted in people giving up religion, but that's beside the point ...)
Yep they'd definitely have a better chance with some education etc."etc." might be more important than education. Why do you think that superstition abounds in times of distress? Because the level of education suddenly drops? This is a point that Randi already referred to in this week's newsletter: "As expected during times of stress (...) the public was turning to to the supernatural for information, ..." (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/121506russell.html#i10)
I know that nobody listens to me, I'm just a nobody with a few arguments, but why don't they at least listen to Randi in this case, for the Skeptics' Heaven's sake? Why is it expected in times of stress? Because the levels of education suddenly drop by 30 percent? Or because stressful circumstances make people try to persuade themselves that they somehow have the situation well in hand, if not in reality, at least in their imagination? Apparently skeptics do indeed have this knowledge of the ways of the world, they just tend to ignore it - in particular when they are talking about the childish, uneducated primitives who won't grow up, and not about a noble people like the white Britons in dire times of distress!
(Come on, James Randi, why don't you correct yourself on this one?! Is it still so hard to understand why there aren't more poor and/or black people in the skeptics' movement? I think that was one of the unanswered questions at TAM2 a few years ago.)
Cuba is the only third-world country I've been to, but I've been there several times since 1998. It is my impression that religious superstition exploded in this former atheist state when the living conditions deteriorated considerably in the 1990s. And this is an important case because we are not talking about an uneducated people. They didn't lack education back then, and they don't now, but nowadays families sometimes have a hard time trying to persuade their sons and daughters to stay in school instead of seeking their thrills in la calle because the children there, like in the ghettos of the norte americanos, cannot see the point of school. And Santeria is growing fast ...
Do you think that the return of prostitution in Cuba coincided with the return of superstition for any other reason than the return of poverty? I don't!
Are you simply asking for skeptics to push for this more? I think that this question has been answered above!

[dann]

And why should it? They seem to not only want to, but to actually need to despair at the woowoos that just won’t listen to the brights, which is why they don’t appear to find it very hard to tolerate poverty and hunger, but won’t tolerate dangerous nonsense. (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11) Remember, we are not merely talking about abandoned, starving children (and starving adults, for that matter), it is much, much worse than that: They are actually being denied ”the tool of reason”, and if there is one thing we can’t stand it’s when “we see truth and logic being assaulted”
Yep they'd definitely have a better chance with some education etc. Are you simply asking for skeptics to push for this more?
Should I have made it more obvious that I was being sarcastic???

[Slimething]

I know that nobody listens to me, I'm just a nobody with a few arguments, but why don't they at least listen to Randi in this case, for the Skeptics' Heaven's sake?

No one listens to you because you have a very simplistic view of the world. Poverty does not cause superstition. Ignorance does. The upper classes that administered the dicta of the Maleus Mallificarum in the Middle Ages were not poor, merely ignorant.

Apparently skeptics do indeed have this knowledge of the ways of the world, they just tend to ignore it - in particular when they are talking about the childish, uneducated primitives who won't grow up, and not about a noble people like the white Britons in dire times of distress!

Where the hell did this come from? You sure read a lot into the statements in the newsletter. Kindly quote evidence for this condemnation.

Come on, James Randi, why don't you correct yourself on this one?!

Maybe because he never said anything like what you're railing on about? Would that be an acceptable explanation to you?

Cuba is the only third-world country I've been to,...

So you get on your high horse because you've been to one poor country? :jaw-dropp You really do need a reality enema, dann! I've been to at least ten times as many as you have. As a matter of fact, I've lived in the poorest country in the Wester Hemisphere. (I betcha you can't even name it!) The people there are not superstitious because they're poor. They are uneducated (ignorant).

To my recollection, neither Randi nor the person who wrote to him about the current practice of labeling kids witches condemned these people. They condemned the practice. You, on the other hand, condemn skeptics because they don't say "Hey, wait a minute! It's not fair to condemn this practice because these people are poor!" And, this, after visiting ONE third-world country!

Simple things for simple people, I guess. Keep up your martyrdom, dann. Followed to its normal endpoint, it will rid us of your tiresome point of view.
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[articulett]

Let's explore the claims made in the OP.

Claims:

Skeptics ignore obvious truths when looking at reality.

Poverty is the root cause of these children's homelessness, not superstition

Skeptics don't get upset with the problem until they hear of the superstition.

Skeptics need to grow up.

Dann goes on to say:

I am not quite sure, but it appears to me that skeptics sometimes tend to ignore quite obvious truths when looking at reality, something they appear to have in common with Christian Scientists in this case and with many others: ”superstitions (!) breed homeless people”

If we look at cause and effect as it is described at the beginning of this quotation, however, poverty seems to be the real problem: Very poor families, extended or not, and parents, step- or not, can no longer support their children. Destitution drives them to get rid of these children, and to justify this they come up with an excuse which happens to be black magic. And this, of course (?), is when skeptics start to get upset!


The quote which Dann finds particularly egregious and indicative of his claim that skeptics need to grow up is this quote which Randi agreed with:
"Anyone who hide behind the excuse that pseudo-science can be tolerated out of respect to the beliefs and feelings of others, should realize that this type of situation is the ultimate consequence of tolerance of dangerous nonsense.”


This is not an example of someone getting upset only upon hearing the superstitious part of the equation. This is an example of someone noting the endless deference given to religious beliefs and the harm it can cause others. Just like the OP, people seem to not see the suffering caused by superstitious beliefs themselves. Not speaking up against superstition, encourages the spread of these beliefs to innocent children.

Dann goes on to pontificate:

To me “this type of situation” seems to be the ultimate consequence of poverty, not of “tolerance of dangerous nonsense”. (Not that it isn’t nonsense and thus dangerous!) And I find it truly amazing that skeptics seem to think that the victims of this calamity are not simply the starving children, but primarily the sentiments of skeptics who cannot stand to ”see truth and logic being assaulted.” Is that really all that skeptics have to offer? A much more rational way of starving?

Here the claim made in between the scoldings is this: " skeptics seem to think that the victims of this calamity are not simply the starving children, but primarily the sentiments of skeptics who cannot stand to ”see truth and logic being assaulted.”

That is a strawman. Nobody has said anything about skeptics being the victim. Neither Randi's statement nor anyone elses' ever implied that. No one said that poverty is not a factor in the problem either. Nobody claimed to be "offering a more rational way to die". Those are all Dann's hyperbolic conclusions drawn from his heartfelt but unsupported belief that poverty is the cause of kids being accused of being witches and skeptics need to "grow up" and address the poverty. These are literally lies Dann's brain told him to confirm the correctness of his belief--they are not based on what was said. It is a fantastic example of confirmation bias. The only claim that skeptics seem to be making on this topic is that people very often ignore the obvious when superstition is at the heart of a cruelty. For example, many people believe the 9-11 hijackings had nothing to do with religion--they blame it all sorts of things...but never religion. This is probably because we've been taught never to question religion--and/or we don't want people poking their nose into our beliefs...or maybe because we've been told that poverty is the true reason.

Dann keeps ranting:

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? Or do they really believe that these children would be so much happier if they were starving without the added insult of being called witches?

Again...you are making up what "many skeptics" think and you are presuming they don't notice a correlation between poverty and superstition. I assure you, many of us do notice it. However, we understand that it's not a simple cause and effect as it seems to be in your head. Your conclusions are due to the same thing superstitions are based on--confusing correlation with causation. The basis of learning is associating two events; however, this leads to errors. Skepticism helps us be aware of these errors. If you arrived at a village at the time a tornado set down and wiped out their crops and homes--you could be seen as the "cause" of the tornado. If they had never had a tornado before and you had not visited before, that belief would be reinforced. If they killed you and they never had a tornado again, the belief would be further reinforced (confirmation bias)--even though the very premise is wrong in the first place. Even animals have this sort of learning mechanism and pigeons will do this...when you give them reward pellets randomly, they do "reward dances" to recreate whatever steps they think might have brought the reward the last time--they believe that something they did caused the reward. Because this sort of learning is hardwired, the only way to mitigate it's effects is through education (as you could readily see if you were the one being killed for a tornado.)

Dann closes his missive with this:

The writer Steve Kowit already pointed out the truth about the relationship between poverty and superstition in his article in Skeptic, Vol. 11, Number 1, 2004, The Mass Suicide of the Xhosa. A Study in Collective Self-Deception.
Scandinavians can read a translation of the article here:
Xhosaernes masseselvmord. Et studie I kollektivt selvbedrag

Merry Christmas!

The Merry Christmas just sounds insincere; it certainly was not meant as a greeting of cheer. Clearly Dann was hoping to provoke--but the motivations seem unclear. Could he actually have thought such a post would make others see the errors of their thinking and then send money to the Catholic charity in the article? Or was he truly just asserting his own alleged superiority over the "many skeptics" he chastised?

Moreover, the link to the article wouldn't open for me, but I readily found an article on the Xhosa suicide in a Christian magazine, and the last quote in that article was this:

"He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." Proverbs 28:19

That quote clearly implies the opposite of the original poster--instead of poverty leading to superstition, this proverb says superstition can lead to poverty. I read other studies that reached that same conclusion. The point is, if you read articles with your mind already made up, your brain resorts to confirmation bias exactly as Dann's has done. You notice and give credence to that which supports your view and negates that which does not...and you invent motives and arguments in the statements of others.

At very best the articles can lead to the conclusion alreadysummed up by Chadd--poverty can make people look for excuses to make their lives less burdensome, and so they'll invoke the notion that their kids are witches (subconsciously) and kick them out as a way of relieving the burdon. But in that case, poverty is still not the direct cause of the accusations--only a catalyst to search for ready reasons.

But neither article Dann quotes supports the notion that poverty leads to superstition unless you have already come to that assumption and readily ignore easy to recognize facts.

Lots of people have ignored or neglected children due to superstitions (exorcisms, threatening kids with hell, not letting a child have a blood transfusion, praying instead of giving medicine, accusing the kid of being a witch or demon, Jonestown, etc.). We can readily call to mind such abuse in middle class families. Although, there may be more superstition in poorer families, a third factor would need to be involved because the correlation is not direct--that is one doesn't cause the other. Very rich people believe in hell in America and threaten other people with it. This is evidence that directly negates the notion that poverty is the cause of superstition. If poverty was the cause...then money would be the solution...or obesity (if you defined poverty by an inability to main a healthy weight due to lack of food.) Obese people can be very superstitious too (did you see "god's warrior" on trading spouses?)

We also know that all people who abuse or neglect children due to superstitious beliefs have one very salient feature in common--they believe in the supernatural.

We also know that many people abandon children--girls leave babies in trash cans, kids are kicked out because of drug use, or the step parent doesn't like them, etc. In many cases when people can't afford to raise children, they send them to orphanages (like Moochie's grandmother) or they make them work or sell them to others who will make them work. And of course, there's foster care. There may well be a correlation between poverty and the likelihood that one will abandon children. But we also know that is not a direct relationship because people in all sorts of income brackets abandon their kids. We also know that most people who give up their kids for financial reasons, don't claim that their reason for doing so is because their children are witches. This, too, negates the notion that poverty is the cause of people accusing their children of being witches.

We also have a history of witch accusations that we can look at readily where people (usually women) of all ages were accused of being witches. We know that poverty was not even a factor in these witchhunts. This is yet another compelling fact which suggests that a third factor is at play when parents accuse their kids of being witches. What is that third factor? It's the thing all witch accusers have in common--a belief in witches. What is the best way to overcome superstitious thinking? Education! Superstition is the default position (even rich sports stars wear their lucky sucks or whatever it is they can link to their best game). Education is the only known remedy. Therefore, what is the best way to inoculate future generations from calling their kids witches? Education. Nobody is saying we should not feed the kids. What we are saying is that Dann's solution is not a very good solution. The problem seems to have to do with the fact that the people giving the aid are also passing on their superstitions (including the idea that contraception is bad...and "god doesn't give more than one can handle"--The priest giving aid...whom these people trust...believes in a devil...and a bible that seems to think witches are a possibility.). Humanist charities and individuals give without strings of "belief" attached. But that is irrelevant unless you want to get in a pissing contest of which skeptics give more to whom.

All the claims have been refuted. Randi was merely saying that "the obvious" continually gets a pass if it's religion...that staying silent encourages this deference which can lead to suffering. And Dann's criticism of "many skeptics" might be more usefully applied to him. His ad hominen attacks and attack of dissenters and refusal to engage in dialgoue and political diversions were clearly protective of the belief he wants to preserve. Clearly he thought he knew something that we did not and that we were supposed to thank him for enlightening us. And so I do thank him. Because he has given me many great examples for the two most common errors in thinking. Too bad my students are on holiday break.

Note how Dann went on to assume many things about others when they disagreed, showed him where he was mistaken, or just pointed out that he was making claims not supported by the facts and extrapolating meaning not evident in the words themselves. The nice thing about the facts is that they are the same for everyone. You don't need to bully or shame people into believing something and if someone does so, chances are they are lying to you and/or themselves.

And I suspect that self congratulatory cliques rarely lead to any actually learning or understanding; they encourage eachother's biases--in fact, given what has gone on in the US executive branch, It seems like it just makes people feel "better" than others while being clueless about their own ignorance or the offputting nature of their communications.

P.S.--thanks and welcome Chadd and slimething. There really are some great people on this forum. And then there are those who just seem to think they are great and that we should be eager for their "wisdom"-- In my experience these types are few and far between...if nothing else, their irony will amuse.

[articulett]

It's a digression, but Dann will digress...anything to avoid the fact that he confused correlation with causation.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_n8_v106/ai_20147994

Above, you'll find some quick data on step parenting. It takes all your concerns into account, but I'm sure you'll conclude that there is no data that step parents are many times more likely to harm step children, because that would account for the "step parent" accusations in the article.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_n8_v106/ai_20147994

But try to stay on topic and quit with the ad homs. You are transparent. I put your main claims on the post above--right at the beginning. You can support those or deny them or whatever--but enough with your political views, self importance, digressions, flogging of skeptics telling them they need to grow up, confirmation bias, lame interpretation of statements, judgment of others, etc. You started the ugliness in your thread title thread and nurtured it; now be a big man and stop it. You have not proven that poverty causes superstition much less that "many skeptics" "need to grow up". You need to grow up; you are clearly not a spokesman for skeptics in general. You insulted a group of people with a baseless claim and continued to insult when people attempted to show you where your thinking was off. You clearly refuse to consider any view except the self important claims you started with. If you think "many skeptics need to grow up" then perhaps you should join or start a forum with the skeptics who are as grown up as you think you are...skeptics who firmly believe that poverty is THE CAUSE of superstition.

We recognize your little tantrum for the ego protecting distraction that it is.
No need to manipulate people and rant--facts convey the truth just fine. Facts...like in the article above...not prejudged confirmation biased info. as you seem to use in support of your claims.

[joelblanchette]

How about this one, then?
"A witch! A witch! Burn her, burn her!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g)
"How do you know she's a witch?"
"She looks like one!"
"Burn her, burn her!" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g)

Ok, that makes a bit more sense now. I guess the problem was that Randi quoted the entire commentary from one reader about the article and his only comment was that he agreed whole-heartedly. I believe he endorsed only the last sentence.

[athon]

Skeptics ignore obvious truths when looking at reality.

Skeptics tend to generally limit the problem to a case of ignorance on behalf of the believer, depicting the solution as a simple case of proper education.

Poverty is the root cause of these children's homelessness, not superstition

I personally don't think it's the sole cause, and superstition is intrinsically linked with the impoverished situation. But in this case, superstition may not have been acted upon were the community not impoverished.

Skeptics don't get upset with the problem until they hear of the superstition.

Well, this I can't agree with. Of course they do, if they're half human. However, limiting the focus of a discussion to simplify it to a single cause-and-effect situation is pointless.

Skeptics need to grow up.

They do if they think superstition is purely born of ignorance and it can be fought by simply educating a population.

P.S.--thanks and welcome Chadd and slimething. There really are some great people on this forum. And then there are those who just seem to think they are great and that we should be eager for their "wisdom"-- In my experience these types are few and far between...if nothing else, their irony will amuse.

:rolleyes:

How do you get through life without taking offence so easily? Slimething has also done little but get his knickers all bunched up, without really addressing the key points one bit.

Here, dry your tears and try answering these, like I asked (I've further detailed them to explain what I mean). I know they're probably a bit more complicated than what you'd like, but at least then we can have a proper discussion, rather than one full of angst and misery.

Do you think poverty and superstition are intrinsically linked, where superstition can result or be acted upon due to the social conditions that arise when a community is impoverished?

Do you think removing superstition from an impoverished, collectivist community is a simple matter of educating them to the contrary, without first readdressing the values the community holds in esteem of superstition? Do you think poverty must be addressed in order to accomplish this?

Do you think that the children would have been accused of witchcraft and subsequently sent away if the community had have developed in an individualist, post-industrial nation?

Athon

[articulett]

Ok, that makes a bit more sense now. I guess the problem was that Randi quoted the entire commentary from one reader about the article and his only comment was that he agreed whole-heartedly. I believe he endorsed only the last sentence.

No, he endorsed the whole thing. Like Sam Harris, he doesn't really think religious superstitions should be given any more respect than other superstitions. It's not that people refuse to recognize the role that poverty plays; that is a role that anyone can see. What is ironic is that so many people don't even seem to notice the more direct role that superstition plays in the article quoted. Even the priest did not seem to be aware that religious teachings play a factor in these kinds of beliefs--they always have. And if you give quiet respect for seemingly harmless beliefs, then you haven't got a leg to stand on when people do more abhorrent things for their beliefs like genital mutilation or suicide bombing.

Everybody knows that poverty plays a role, but the utter inability for people to recognize the role superstition plays is odd. It seems religious based superstitions get a free ride, and if we wanted to stop people from neglecting or abusing children based on religious memes--then education must be part of the solution. Because many charities are based on religious organizations, they don't provide a remedy for superstitious thinking, and may in fact promote it.

That is all that can be implied from the article. It says nothing about superstition being the sole cause of poverty nor does it proffer education as the only solution. It merely points out that peoples' deference to religion can seemingly blind them to the negative effects of such beliefs.
It's similar to how all praise god for all that is good and blame humans when things go wrong.

There are some very good examples of common mistakes in reasoning people make on this thread.

For instance, Dann writes: "So we should expect a wave of people in the USA right now accusing their children and other people of being witches, right?"

This takes the statement "All people who accuse their kids of being witches, have a belief in witches" and presumes the opposite is true: "All people who believe in witches, accuse their kids of being witches." Both statements have the same words, but the latter is a false conclusion from the former. In the same way "most violent people are men" does not mean "most men are violent people." This is a common error in logic. Dann seems to make these errors and other misleading conclusions from peoples' statements.

The original poster saw a correlation between poverty and witch accusations and then presumed that poverty CAUSED people to accuse their children of witchcraft. Other studies and the quote from the bible make the claim that superstitious beliefs are a cause of poverty. (The reverse of the OP's claim). Dann was angry because he thought skeptics were minimizing the poverty aspect because they mentioned the superstitious aspect and noted that others seem to easily ignore the role that superstition plays in the problem--even the original poster didn't find it relevant even though it was the most direct cause of "child abandonment via witchcraft accusation" (which is the only story the original post was about...and it was the only story used to reach the conclusion that "many skeptics need to grow up".)

Although feeding people might make them less likely to grab at reasons for child abandonment, it doesn't stop people from accusing children of being witches. It's more of a band aid solution. Step parents are known to be more abusive to step children (link above) across all income levels--and they would still have that ready excuse available to them. As long as people believe in witches, witch hunts will be a way of weeding out burdensome individuals.

Nobody is arguing as to whether the poverty is a factor in what is happening in the story. The only argument is just "what is the most direct cause" and "what would be the best solution"...and of course, whether or not "many skeptics need to grow up".

I'm actually giddily delighted that Randi has been a factor in my understanding of logical fallacies. I would love the African children to have a chance to learn that as well. I have no doubts that he supports the entire quotation in the newsletter, but I think it's a confusion about what was said and what was meant that made the original poster think the quote was "immature", or "missing the obvious", etc. I don't think anything was missing; I think Dann's posts show very clearly how readily people ignore or give deference to certain types of superstitions (usually religious based) almost as if they've deliberately taught themselves to refuse to notice them. It's similar to Dennetts concept of "belief in belief".

Many people are coming to the conclusion that it's harmful to continue giving deference to belief...people ignore the fallacies in thinking it generates and make ready excuses when anyone attempts to point the blame at belief. That is not to say there aren't other causes; nor does it say that such people only give to charities or causes that focus on education. Nor is it an indication that "many skeptics need to grow up". It's only a statement that being silent on the obvious harms of belief results in a world that is hard to penetrate with reason. Being silent on the subject allows harms caused by beliefs to continue.

[dann]

Poverty does not cause superstition. Ignorance does. The upper classes that administered the dicta of the Maleus Mallificarum in the Middle Ages were not poor, merely ignorant. No, they weren't poor, but they certainly weren't uneducated either. The pope isn't poor either, nor is Bush, nor is Blair, nor were the Reagans. Never denied it. And in the case of the rich or even the very rich, who, unlike the poor, actually benefit from religion, you should consider the many popes who fathered children and tended to have a very extravagant lifestyle! I wouldn't say that they didn't have religion, though, only that this is a very different religion from the kind where you have given up on finding a solution to your problems in this world and therefore only look for the meaning of life beyond reality.
Apparently skeptics do indeed have this knowledge of the ways of the world, they just tend to ignore it - in particular when they are talking about the childish, uneducated primitives who won't grow up, and not about a noble people like the white Britons in dire times of distress!
Where the hell did this come from? You sure read a lot into the statements in the newsletter. Kindly quote evidence for this condemnation.There is no reason to wonder where it "came from". The context makes it very clear: In the article Time to grow up (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11), where two very different kinds of religious superstition (not exactly on oxymoron, I know) are bundled together, although, as far I can see, the only criterion for doing so is that they are both from Africa, the title says it all. The article about superstition in London Rehabilitation of a witch (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/121506russell.html#i10), however, points out that this is the kind of behaviour that can be expected in times of stress. Why not emphasize this point when you are dealing with starving Africans? It was even mentioned in the article in the CSM that the conditions at least to some extent were caused by war.
Come on, James Randi, why don't you correct yourself on this one?!
Maybe because he never said anything like what you're railing on about? Would that be an acceptable explanation to you?No!
So you get on your high horse because you've been to one poor country? :jaw-dropp You really do need a reality enema, dann! I've been to at least ten times as many as you have.Wow! That is certainly convincing! Then that means, give me time to draw the conclusion .... that everything you say must be true! Did I at least get this one right? Or is this simply another competition: I've been to more poor countries that you, niah, niah!!
As a matter of fact, I've lived in the poorest country in the Wester Hemisphere. (I betcha you can't even name it!)OK, it is a competition, then! How many guesses do I get? :)
The people there are not superstitious because they're poor. They are uneducated (ignorant).This is actually your whole argument??? OK, you have totally convinced me. If you say so, that must be the case: They are ignorant and uneducated and therefore superstitious. They just happen to live in the poorest country in the hemisphere! Well, the Cubans aren't uneducated and ignorant, but still superstitious.
To my recollection, neither Randi nor the person who wrote to him about the current practice of labeling kids witches condemned these people. I don't think I said anything about condemnation, did I?
They condemned the practice. You, on the other hand, condemn skeptics because they don't say "Hey, wait a minute! It's not fair to condemn this practice because these people are poor!"I also condemn skeptics?
And, this, after visiting ONE third-world country!OK, I acknowledge defeat!!! Whenever I disagree with you from now on, it is self-evident that I am wrong and you are right. I am inferior to you, the master, who has visited at least ten times as many, including the poorest country in the hemisphere!
Simple things for simple people, I guess. Keep up your martyrdom, dann. Followed to its normal endpoint, it will rid us of your tiresome point of view.Now I'm also simple and a martyr? Or at least posing as one? Interesting conclusion ....
What exactly is it and its endpoint? Oh, I see! People leave the board because of your tireless and not at all tiresome effort for science and reason.
Well, yes, sooner or later it becomes time to consider: Is it really worth spending more time on somebody who doesn't even realize how ridiculous he is being? And you are probably right! I sometimes spend a little extra time to give every visitor to a thread the chance to see my opponent either betray his lack of arguments or prove his point, and in the case of you and articulett I don't expect to see anything worth bothering about.
Well, in your case it was actually clear from the beginning which is why it wasn't necessary to answer your contributions with more than :) :) :) .

[dann]

Well, at least you are being somewhat coherent now!

There are some very good examples of common mistakes in reasoning people make on this thread.

For instance, Dann writes: "So we should expect a wave of people in the USA right now accusing their children and other people of being witches, right?"

This takes the statement "All people who accuse their kids of being witches, have a belief in witches" and presumes the opposite is true: "All people who believe in witches, accuse their kids of being witches." Both statements have the same words, but the latter is a false conclusion from the former. In the same way "most violent people are men" does not mean "most men are violent people." This is a common error in logic. Dann seems to make these errors and other misleading conclusions from peoples' statements.
Let us look at this in context, right?
If increasing poverty made any other group of people in history turn accuse their kids of being witches, you might have a case. What we know about witch burnings is that the bible tells you to kill witches and accusing people of being witches was fairly common until the 1600s--because of a single biblical passage. Accusing people of being witches is a religious thing. You have to believe in witches.So we should expect a wave of people in the USA right now accusing their children and other people of being witches, right?
It is true that in general you have to believe in witches in order to persuade yourself that somebody is one. What you apparently don't get is that this accusation is not really necessary to abandon your children. For logic's sake, why don't you at least quote the whole argument? Is it because you, like John Cleese's professional logician (http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/g-logic.htm), aren't interested at all, but only want to present yourself as somebody who is superior to the rest of the world ... but actually just doesn't get it?
Let me try to make it clear to you:
a)
1) In Congo a huge number of people abandon their children.
2) A lot of them claim that the children are witches.
3) Others don't. They may be upset merely because a child breaks a glass, and they may even threaten to put a knife in the child's eye when it asks for something to eat.
4) People in this country are destitute and starving.
5) When people starve they become desperate to the point where they may even sell their children or abandon them.
6) People know that this isn't right, it's something that they do not like to do, so they come up with a lot of stupid excuses.
7) This does not mean that they don't believe in their own excuses.
8) It just means that there is a difference between a reason and an excuse for doing something.
9) It isn't necessary to believe in witches in order to abandon your child.
10) It most likely is necessary to believe in witches when you come up with the excuse that you abandon your children because they are witches.
Conclusion: Superstition is the cause of the excuse. Poverty is the cause of the abandonment.
b)
1) A man has sex with a minor.
2) The man impregnates her.
3) Having sex with a minor is not only wrong, it is also illegal, so the man on trial.
4) People accused of crimes invent excuses, sometimes very silly ones.
5) In this case the man puts the blame on the goblins, for goblin's sake.
Conclusion: Being accused of a crime is the cause the excuse. It is not the cause of the crime, statutory rape.

My point: Bundling these two very different stories together under the title Time to grow up is stupid. Pretending that superstition is in any way the cause of the wretched business in any of the two cases, starvation leading to abandoned children and statutory rape, is stupid. Superstition is immaterial (pun not intended!) in both of these cases.
Treating it as if it isn't, is wrong, and it really does not make it any better to say that skeptics are always preoccupied with superstition. That is just a poor excuse because they ought to know better.

I'm actually giddily delighted that Randi has been a factor in my understanding of logical fallacies. I would love the African children to have a chance to learn that as well. I have no doubts that he supports the entire quotation in the newsletter, but I think it's a confusion about what was said and what was meant that made the original poster think the quote was "immature", or "missing the obvious", etc. I don't think anything was missing; I think Dann's posts show very clearly how readily people ignore or give deference to certain types of superstitions (usually religious based) almost as if they've deliberately taught themselves to refuse to notice them. It's similar to Dennetts concept of "belief in belief".I don't want to spoil your giddy delight, although it may have been the reason for your earlier, rather incoherent contributions to this discussion, but I don't think that anybody, at least not here, wouldn't want the starving African children to learn about logical fallacies.
And won't you please tell me exactly where I, or anybody else, for that matter, "very clearly" and "readily" "ignore or give deference" to any kind of superstition or religion and even "refuse to notice them"? We have been expecting you to deliver this piece of evidence for a very long time now, and repeating your allegation does not really help.
Being silent on the subject [of harmful superstition and religion. dann] allows harms caused by beliefs to continue. Strawman, strawman, strawman! Who the hell is being silent about anything here? Or is that not the point of your "Many people ....." conclusion?

[dann]

Oh god. Now you're really going to feed the Conspiracy Theory affecting us.Look, who's talking! You're Masklin (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=46293), aren't you? Sorry, I didn't recognize you with your new ...... name! Have you been to a numerologist in the meantime? :)

[articulett]

Dann,
Your original premise is wrong. You presumed from the outset that the newsletter's mention of the role superstition plays in children being accused of witches, meant that the writer and Randi were not aware of poverty playing a role. Those who agree with you, seem to have come to the same conclusion. Those whom you continually slander, have merely tried to point out that such a conclusion is wrong. Nobody said that poverty didn't play a role. The comment was merely a reflection of the fact that people never seem to even see that superstitious thinking (faith, etc.) plays a role as well--even a more direct role. That may be a statement worth debating, but not a statement that makes "many skeptics" immature. It presumes something that is false at the outset.

The point of the article is only this--the writer of the article and many people fail to see the prominent role that irrational thought plays in tragedies. I am not saying this is a conspiracy theory, nor is Randi, nor the letter writer quoted in the newsletter. I am actually interested in why people don't seem to even "notice" the role faith based beliefs play. I want to know why you think it's not even worth commenting on--and that to do so implies that "many skeptics need to grow up".

I saw the same thing with the Andrea Yates case. Yes she was psychotic, but her actions makes sense if you believe traditional christian teachings (the purpose of life is to get to heaven and children who die before a certain age are automatically shoe in candidates for a blissful eternity). It's the belief system itself that plays a major role in those kids' death, yet the media never mentioned it.

I don't think it's a conspiracy, though I noticed the ridiculous allegations that others myself and others who tried to show you why your original conclusion about the article was a misperception were accused of this. I think it's because we humans have all been raised from childhood to think faith is good--to never question faith.

I just think you are finding disagreements on false topics to avoid the main premise on which most people agree. Yes, poverty can make children burdensome, and so family members are more likely to find reasons for getting rid of such burdens. Nobody is disagreeing with that. The article itself that lead you to believe that skeptics need to grow up is not denying that fact. It is only pointing out that beliefs themselves play a role. That's it. You can argue about what role they play or what solutions are best or rather the article means that the writers are immaturely ignoring the obvious. But your continual ad hominens on a post that started as an ad hominen and your false conclusions drawn from peoples' statements including your false conclusion drawn from the newsletter quote has spawned numerous attacks from you.

So try and stick with the topic.

Do you still believe the quote reflects an immaturity? Do you still believe that the author was unaware of the role poverty plays in accusing kids of being witches? Do you understand that belief also plays a role? Do you understand that belief was mentioned in the article because James Randi himself believes that education and critical thinking are a way of addressing the belief component of the problem? Do you agree that, generally speaking, people are reluctant to blame "beliefs" for any of the problems--even when people say such beliefs are the reason for committing whatever tragic act was committed?

You can debate whether the main cause is poverty or superstition for the kids mentioned in the article, but the answer, no matter which side you are on, is only an opinion--not a sign that someone or other needs to "grow up". You've turned a thread meant to provoke into an attack on everyone who disagrees with you--and it all rests on a mistaken premise in the first place.

You believe the James Randi quote following the letter writers quote means that "many skeptics need to grow up" because you think the letter shows ignorance to the role poverty plays in the equation. The letter does not reflect that at all. It only shows that belief plays a role and few people even seem to realize it.

Your original premise is wrong. All the attacks upon others have been made with the idea that that premise is valid. It's as invalid as the superstitious conclusions drawn by people who mistake seizures (or whatever) for signs of someone being a witch. And because your original conclusion is wrong--all the claims you've made based on that premise are also wrong. Changing the topic and insulting others doesn't make it right and doesn't add awareness on the topic because nobody was unaware of the role poverty plays--except in your head. Rather, people seem to be unaware of the role that belief plays--and that is ALL the newsletter commentary that lead you to somehow conclude "many skeptics need to grow up" is saying.

Whatever your goals were in starting this thread, I think that you are much more likely to accomplish them and/or educate others by staying on topic and sticking to your original claims which are:

1. Many skeptics need to grow up.
2. The letter quoted in the newsletters reflects that skeptics are clueless as to the role poverty plays in people accusing their child of being witches.
3. The letter quoted reflects egotistical aims rather than concern for the children.
4. poverty is the primary cause of people concluding that their kids are witches.
5. All who disagree need to grow up, are part of the religious right, are CTs, are illogical, don't consider economics, don't live in the real world, have no clue about poverty, etc. These are claims you've actually made. People are just telling you that you reached a wrong conclusion about the quote and that you are mistaking correlation between poverty and superstition with causation -- you have reached the conclusion that poverty is the direct cause of people abandoning kids for being witches.

Moreover, whatever your goal was in starting this thread, you are probably not accomplishing with your continued insults of others and self righteous posturing. However, it is a great thread for seeing how arguments get started and develop and how people lose track of what they are even arguing for. It also shows how misinterpretations lead to problems--exactly what the newletter points out. If you believe in witches--then any abnormal behavior by your child can be seen as a sign that the child is a witch.

By the way, I recognize your insults for what they are. You are protecting your ego rather than admit you drew the wrong conclusion from what was written in the newsletter and you used that conclusion to admonish all those who disagree with you while placing yourself above such people and telling yourself that you were raising peoples' consciousness to the true problem.

[articulett]

You’ll probably enjoy this one, articulett:

"Superstition: a root cause of poverty" (http://www.spirituality.com/tte/article_display.jhtml?ElementId=/repositories/shcomarticle/Jan2006/1138633524.xml)

And this one is a practical example of how some Christians hope that they can use poverty to make people superstitious, which, by the way, is what Jones did before he had them kill/killed:
"Reasons for such poverty include the rapid shrinking of Australia’s middle class, underemployment, changes in the workforce, and the high cost of housing. As a result, many people find themselves in dire straits when unforeseen challenges come along. Reduced working hours, job layoffs, illness, or family breakdown can strip away assets and opportunity, leaving people impoverished through no fault of their own." (http://www.spirituality.com/tte/article_display.jhtml?ElementId=/repositories/shcomarticle/Jan2006/1137116257.xml)

I hope others appreciate the irony. Your claim is that poverty causes superstition (the people are poor that is why they are accusing their kids of being witches.). This article is claiming the opposite. It's claiming that superstition leads to poverty. My claim is merely that when you reach a conclusion, you seem to see what you want to in others writings. The original article was only noting that belief was a factor in children being accused of being witches. Belief in witches was clearly the most direct cause. It's not the only cause...it's not saying poverty didn't play a role...it's not saying that superstition causes poverty as in the quote above. It's merely noting that belief is a factor. And so addressing superstitions and critical thinking ought to be part of the solution.

Anyhow, I'm sure anyone could find evidence for the claim "superstition causes poverty" or "poverty causes superstition" in the Jim Jones case--but there is not a direct correlation between either. Notice, the two are not the same statements though Dann often confuses such similarly worded claims leading to false conclusions and false arguments based on those false conclusions. The only direct correlation between people who abuse or neglect kids based on superstitious teachings is belief in superstitions. That is not to say that all superstitious people abuse or neglect their kids-- only that all people who neglect or abuse their kids for superstitious reasons (including religion) are people who are in need of critical thinking skills. That is not to say that they don't need other things or other things aren't part of the problem--only that their beliefs are a factor in the abuse they inflict upon their children.

[dann]

This is getting extremely boring, articulett: I am wrong, what I say is invalid, I make ad hominems etc. No matter how many times I and others point out the mistakes in your reasoning, it does not seem to help, but let's go again, and let me start with your questions:
Do you still believe the quote reflects an immaturity? Yes.
Do you still believe that the author was unaware of the role/i poverty plays in accusing kids of being witches? No, I never claimed that she was. She must at least have read the article in the CSM. I claimed that, like you, I suppose, she knew about the role poverty plays, but chooses to ignore it. These are the first words of my argument:
I am not quite sure, but it appears to me that skeptics sometimes tend to ignore quite obvious truths when looking at reality, something they appear to have in common with Christian Scientists in this case and with many others: ”superstitions (!) breed homeless people” (A question for you: Is it a coincidence that you use almost the same words and expressions as Sandra L. Hubscher? Is there a particular reason why you are so adamant that Joelblanchette is wrong when he writes that James Randi “endorsed only the last sentence” and not Hubscher’s “entire commentary”?)
Do you understand that belief also plays a role? Never denied it. Why do you pretend that I did? Please read my latest post today Dec. 21, 11.00 a.m. where I explain the role it plays: Do you understand my explanation? Or would you prefer to go on pretending that I deny that belief plays a role? Do you think that anybody believes this if only you repeat it often enough?
The interesting thing is not that religion plays a role, but which role it plays.
Do you understand that belief was mentioned in the article because James Randi himself believes that education and critical thinking are a way of addressing the belief component of the problem? Well, belief was a little more than mentioned in the article, wasn't it? Do you understand that the title Time to grow up is not exactly identical with the proposition that "education and critical thinking are a way of adressing the belief component of the problem"? (the belief component of the problem, indeed!)
Do you agree that, generally speaking, people are reluctant to blame "beliefs" for any of the problems--even when people say such beliefs are the reason for committing whatever tragic act was committed?Which people are reluctant? Which "beliefs" (and why the quotation marks?)? Which problems? And which tragic act was committed?
Could you be a little more specific? Your "generally speaking" doesn't really help. If you want to say (there is no reason to think that your questions are meant to be serious questions) that it may have occurred at one time or another that beliefs were the motive for committing tragic acts and that some people (of the same faith?) were reluctant to blame these beliefs, then, yes, happens all the time!
Are you happy now?
However, as a very firm unbeliever and a citizen of Denmark I experienced a case earlier this year when a bunch of @$$***** went out of their way to provoke the religious sentiments of a minority group for the sole purpose of forcing them to stand up and be counted either as firm believers in the Danish way of doing things or as potential terrorists. Remember the Cartoon Controversy? From the outset it was meant as an insult, as an affront against the Danish Muslim minority, but for some reason or other a lot of people here celebrated it as a major blow to religion, which it wasn't: The newspaper Jyllands Posten carefully avoided any insult to members of the established church of Denmark.
So my question to you is: Do you think that sometimes some people are far too eager to point to religion as the cause of conflicts that aren't actually religious in nature?
Did you ever consider that the conflict between the two opponents in the civil war in Northern Ireland wasn't really a question of religion, but rather a question of nationalism and distribution of wealth although religion was very often blamed? (And do you remember seeing a cartoon of Jesus with a bomb back then? I don't!)
In other words: Don't try to reduce things to being a simple question of religion: pro & contra.

Let me try to empathize with you, even though you don't make it easy: You are a biology teacher in a country where knowledge, the scientific truth about life, is ravaged by armies of religious fundamentalists, whereas I sometimes have the opposite problem: students who find evolution so obvious that they often don't even seriously consider how evolution occurs. I have sometimes had to play the devil's advocate to make them realize how ignorant they often are. I've used the Creationist argument that the eye is too complicated to be explained by means of evolutionary theory. At first they tend to say something along the lines of: 'Well, eyes are a very useful thing, so since we need it and it gives seeing creatures an advantage over blind ones, somehow nature comes up with the eye.' - as if the usefulness of a thing would create it. When I insist that they tell me how and use just a few of the Creationist arguments against them ('half an eye cannot be an advantage' etc.), I often succeed in persuading them that, no, the eye cannot be the result of evolution. (And I can assure you that it is not the last lesson of the season, but only my way of making them realize that so far they only imagine that they know about evolution.)
Similarly my students don’t have a problem with condoms. You can buy them everywhere in Denmark, they all know how to use them, and even though a few fundamentalists are probably offended by this, they don’t have a leg to stand on. The only problem with teenage sex in Denmark probably is that in the heat of passion they sometimes forget what they know, but I don’t think that Denmark has as many teenage pregnancies as you do in the USA. (Well, it's probably not the only problem. Not getting it enough used to be the biggest problem, if I remember correctly, but my students don’t confide their troubles in this respect to me, and I wouldn’t want them to!)
But back to my point: I can easily see why you have become so preoccupied with the questions of religious superstition and birth control, the same way I’m preoccupied with …. (See my sig-line!).
However, you should consider that even though knowledge of condoms and how to use them to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STDs is extremely important, it is not a panacea for all the problems in the world. And even (or particularly) in very poor countries poverty plays a decisive role in this question as well: If you have to choose between food or condoms, the choice is rather obvious, isn’t it? (The priests probably won’t distribute them liberally among the orphans! And they don't want to understand that the choice between abstinence and condoms is just as obvious!)
You can debate whether the main cause is poverty or superstition for the kids mentioned in the article, but the answer, no matter which side you are on, is only an opinion--not a sign that someone or other needs to "grow up". So you, too, object to the title of the article Time to grow up??!
You've turned a thread meant to provoke into an attack on everyone who disagrees with you--and it all rests on a mistaken premise in the first place.There’s a big difference between “everyone”. Go back and read your first entry again and see how the rest of them evolve from there. You appear to be very p***ed off, and in a very didactic manner you insist that it is all a question of family planning and condoms, a theme that seems to preoccupy you in other threads as well. It is very hard to accept as a serious objection to anything written by me or others.
You believe the James Randi quote following the letter writers quote means that "many skeptics need to grow up" because you think the letter shows ignorance to the role poverty plays in the equation. The letter does not reflect that at all. It only shows that belief plays a role and few people even seem to realize it. I think you should go back and read the letter again. If it had simply claimed that belief plays a (!) role, I would not have objected to it. I have already several times explained the role it plays!
a)
1) In Congo a huge number of people abandon their children.
2) A lot of them claim that the children are witches.
3) Others don't. They may be upset merely because a child breaks a glass, and they may even threaten to put a knife in the child's eye when it asks for something to eat.
4) People in this country are destitute and starving.
5) When people starve they become desperate to the point where they may even sell their children or abandon them.
6) People know that this isn't right, it's something that they do not like to do, so they come up with a lot of stupid excuses.
7) This does not mean that they don't believe in their own excuses.
8) It just means that there is a difference between a reason and an excuse for doing something.
9) It isn't necessary to believe in witches in order to abandon your child.
10) It most likely is necessary to believe in witches when you come up with the excuse that you abandon your children because they are witches.
Conclusion: Superstition is the cause of the excuse. Poverty is the cause of the abandonment.
b)
1) A man has sex with a minor.
2) The man impregnates her.
3) Having sex with a minor is not only wrong, it is also illegal, so the man on trial.
4) People accused of crimes invent excuses, sometimes very silly ones.
5) In this case the man puts the blame on the goblins, for goblin's sake.
Conclusion: Being accused of a crime is the cause the excuse. It is not the cause of the crime, statutory rape.

[hammegk]

dann: See below for a more fruitful method in 'answering' articulett posts ... ;)

I hope ... I'm sure ...
ROTFLMGDFAO!

[dann]

I hope others appreciate the irony. Your claim is that poverty causes superstition (the people are poor that is why they are accusing their kids of being witches.). Not exactly. You could reduce it to that, but the religious individual has to make an effort on his or her own.
[/QUOTE]This article is claiming the opposite. It's claiming that superstition leads to poverty. My claim is merely that when you reach a conclusion, you seem to see what you want to in others writings. The original article was only noting that belief was a factor in children being accused of being witches.[/QUOTE] I would love to read that article: Belief is a factor in children being accused of being witches. However, the real calamity, as I've already pointed out several times, is that children are being abandoned. Many of these children are also accused of being witches.
Belief in witches was clearly the most direct cause. It wasn't and isn't! (By the way, what happened to the "factor"?
It's not the only cause...Again cause, not factor?
it's not saying poverty didn't play a role...Now role, however, sound much more like a mere factor.
it's not saying that superstition causes poverty as in the quote above. It's merely noting that belief is a factor.No, it isn't.
And so addressing superstitions and critical thinking ought to be part of the solution.You are describing a non-existent, imaginary article: 'In Africa children are starving and being kicked out of their homes so they have to live in the streets. A factor in this is superstition, and therefore it part of a solution to the problem will be to address these superstitions!'
I don't think that you believes this yourself. Could you see this fictitious article with a title like Time to grow up??? I cannot!

Anyhow, I'm sure anyone could find evidence for the claim "superstition causes poverty" or "poverty causes superstition" in the Jim Jones case--but there is not a direct correlation between either. Notice, the two are not the same statements though Dann often confuses such similarly worded claims leading to false conclusions and false arguments based on those false conclusions.Don't go back to outright lying! I often (!) confuse the claim "poverty causes superstition" with "superstition causes poverty"??! Could you show us where this happens?!
The only direct correlation between people who abuse or neglect kids based on superstitious teachings is belief in superstitions.You do know that this doesn't make sense, don't you?! What is this sentence supposed to mean?
That is not to say that all superstitious people abuse or neglect their kids-- only that all people who neglect or abuse their kids for superstitious reasons (including religion) are people who are in need of critical thinking skills.Well, now it makes (a little) sense, but it is still nonsensical, in spite of your attempts at applying formal logic to your line of reasoning: What you are saying is that if religion is the problem, i.e. people "abuse their kids for superstious reasons", then the solution to the problem is to education. You might as well say that if the problem is that they are hungry, then the solution is to eat! Your point, however, is to prove to us in the first place that they "neglect or abuse their kids for superstitious reasons", not how you might go about overcoming the problem if superstition actually were the cause of the problem. 'If you do something wrong for a certain reason, then you can stop it by getting rid of this reason. Who can deny it?
That is not to say that they don't need other things or other things aren't part of the problem--only that their beliefs are a factor in the abuse they inflict upon their children.Do you actually teach this kind of thinking??! Now it has suddenly become one of many factors again.
Go back to the drawing board, articulett ...

[dann]

dann: See below for a more fruitful method in 'answering' articulett posts ... ;)

ROTFLMGDFAO!I don't think so. articulett is trying, and I think she's on the verge of realizing what is the point of this discussion. Unlike Slimething, who hasn't once tried to establish a serious argument.
Well, it's late over here. Good night!

[Thinktoomuch]

Originally Posted by articulett http://forums.randi.org/helloworld/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2190148#post2190148)
I want you to know that I teach a freshman college class ....
I want you to know that's one of the scariest things I can think of.

What school? If I know someone there I'll try to get them to switch to an institution of higher learning in lieu of a pablum dispenser.


My sentiments entirely. Let's be fair, though, he recognises in Bush the results of such an effective education system.

For my education: could you please tell me what ROTFLMGDFAO stands for?

[Slimething]

Unlike Slimething, who hasn't once tried to establish a serious argument.

You responded to the first posts I put up with:

My comments are in context, Slimething. Let that sink in a minute ....

and

Strawman, Slimething!...And another one!

I reply in kind. But it don't matter no more, dannie. I've seen this argument before and it's banal beyond reason. Seen it before and I'll see it again and again and again. And it still doesn't get any better than the first time it fell flat on its face.

Oh, and let's not forget one of your better arguments. It went something like this:
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

At least when you pretend to be the martyr (No one listens to me, yada, yada, yada), you get within spitting distance of the truth.

[articulett]

Dann,
Your whole argument is that many skeptics need to grow up because apparently they don't recognize the role poverty plays in people accusing their kids of being witches--you deduced this because the newsletter didn't mention poverty--do you really conclude that the people are too dumb to realize the poverty factor because it wasn't mentioned? That Randi, the letter writer, and everyone who thought the comment made sense needs to "grow up" because they are focused on the wrong thing? The thing that never seems to get mentioned is the belief aspect. I'm not the author of the letter if that is what you are implying, and I think that Randi clearly intended to endorse the quote with his agreement noted. He did not say, "I agree with the last line." Plus, I've heard him speak in person on a number of occasions and so his position is clear to me. I presume it was clear to everyone else who didn't have a problem with it. It has nothing to do with not recognizing poverty...it has everything to do with peoples' seeming unwillingness to even admit that belief plays a role in the problem. He's very easy to talk to, and I'm sure you can call him and ask him personally what his position is. Or, if you are going to TAM, ask him there.

If you want to debate whether belief or poverty plays a more important role (factor, influence, or whatever word you want) or whether poverty is the direct cause and not a mere correlation and/or what solutions are best, then that is a different type of conversation. It involves the exchange of information--not someone accusing others of "needing to grow up" because they comment on how beliefs underlie tragedies--not attacks upon peoples' character because they disagree with you.

(And I am so flattered that you oppose me, Hammy; that puts me in excellent company apparently from what I've gathered of your posts. Have you ever actually engaged in a dialogue in any of your postings?--or is it all winks and eye rolls and childish acronyms to let everyone know how much cleverer you think you are than everyone else (you and your "intelligent designer") I will be sure and ask my students what they think regarding your assessment of my teaching abilities, but frankly, I'd fail a student with reasoning as poor as yours.).

And yes, correlation is different than causation, but a person would have to recognize that he made a false presumption because of what was NOT mentioned in an article before he would be able to understand the difference, I suspect. Just as not mentioning poverty does not mean a person is unaware of poverty (or needs to "grow up"); so too is it a logical fallacy to presume one thing caused another merely because there is a correlation. People who wear bathing suits a lot are more likely to get skin cancer, but that doesn't mean bathing suits cause skin cancer.

Poverty may be a reason (or cause, factor, etc.) for people getting rid of their kids. This in turn might make them reach for ready excuses. (I'm sure we agree up to this point). In the Congo, witchcraft is one of the excuses they are seeing more frequently as poverty increases. (I bet we agree on this as well.) But that does not mean that poverty causes people to accuse their kids of being witches--at least not directly. They have to have a belief or culture that supports such notions in the first place. (I'm sure you might even agree with this). So the only point in contention with others whom you have slandered repeatedly is the word "cause". And your only actual issue with the original article is that it didn't mention poverty which you believe to be the cause of people accusing kids of being witches...you think this failure to mention poverty means that people need to "grow up"--because somehow they're not realizing that poverty is part of the problem. The poverty part is obvious to me, Randi, and everyone else who bothered to read the article; the poverty in Africa is well known by anyone mildly up on current events--it's the belief aspect that people seem to repeatedly overlook, and Randi aims to make people more aware of this oversight. In fact, I'd say that is one of the major components of JREF.

And the endless ad homs and self aggrandizing just makes your argument look week. So does continually changing the topic or playing semantic games. (So does having Hammy in your corner, but that's besides the point.) Stick to one claim at a time.

Do you agree with this statement: Randi's comment in the newsletter indicates (to you) that neither he nor the letter writer have considered the role of poverty in the equation. This failure to mention poverty is indicative of an immaturity (to you)--because you believe that poverty is the "main reason" that people are accusing kids of being witches and that supernatural beliefs play a superfluous role in the problem. So the essence of your argument is that Randi and the letter writer and all the skeptics who need to "grow up" are emphasizing beliefs (which you believe to be superfluous) instead of mentioning poverty which you believe is the cause of the problem.

Right? See how simple that is? Is there anything you disagree with there? I think everyone understands that part...even if we don't all agree with you on your conclusions--so there is no need to beat that dead horse. Just stick with the "to you" aspects; the rest appears to have been understood from the beginning.

[hammegk]

I don't think so.
Live and learn, as they say ... ;)

...articulett is trying,
Actually, very trying.

[hammegk]

... Usual useless blather excised ...

... Hammy ... Have you ever actually engaged in a dialogue in any of your postings?

... ditto ...
Only with people who appear to have at least two(2) brain cells to rub together. :)

[dann]

I will be sure and ask my students what they think regarding your [= hammegk's. dann] assessment of my teaching abilities, but frankly, I'd fail a student with reasoning as poor as yours.). That is exactly the reason why you should never ask your students if they agree or disagree with you - and expect an honest answer. And if they appear to agree with ýou, you should never use this agreement as an argument for your point of view. Teachers are authorities, furnished with the power and even obligation to grade - and sometimes fail - their students. To ask a student to agree with you as a teacher is one of the accepted kinds of blackmail in our societies ...
Do you agree with this statement: Randi's comment in the newsletter indicates (to you) that neither he nor the letter writer have considered the role of poverty in the equation. This failure to mention poverty is indicative of an immaturity (to you)--because you believe that poverty is the "main reason" that people are accusing kids of being witches and that supernatural beliefs play a superfluous role in the problem. So the essence of your argument is that Randi and the letter writer and all the skeptics who need to "grow up" are emphasizing beliefs (which you believe to be superfluous) instead of mentioning poverty which you believe is the cause of the problem. Do you agree with these statements? Poverty is the main reason why people abandon their children in the third world and elsewhere. If you feel forced to do something very bad to somebody, you may often make up the excuse that he or she, your victim, is to blame for your actions. Thus people on trial also tend to come up with (sometimes even very silly) excuses. During times of stress people are more likely to turn to the supernatural for information, consolation or excuses. It would be ridiculous to tell James Randi that having you, articulett, in his corner makes his arguments look weak.
Can you agree with these statements, articulett?
And the endless ad homs and self aggrandizing just makes your argument look week. So does continually changing the topic or playing semantic games. (So does having Hammy in your corner, but that's besides the point.) (...)
Right? See how simple that is?

[dann]

You responded to the first posts I put up with:
My comments are in context, Slimething. Let that sink in a minute ....
(...)
I reply in kind. But it don't matter no more, dannie.
No, Slimething, I replied in kind. You never do. Remember your own post, to which my Let that sink in was an answer?
This is a forum for exchanges among skeptics. As such, the topic at hand is the dangerous reasoning that many families in this tragic situation are using to dump their children. Let that sink in a minute.By the way, what is the code? Am I now supposed to call you Slimie or what?

[dann]

PS I still think that the water buffalo (http://www.amazon.com/gp/music/wma-pop-up/B000068D1Y001003/ref=mu_sam_wma_001_003/102-9360498-6692929) was your best argument so far!
Monthy Python once had a skit about people stopping their normal work to worry about a water buffalo somewhere that was completely irrelevant to their lives.

[Gurdur]

Well, I'm extremely busy at the moment so I don't have much time to spare for these goings-ons, but a little I shall add anyway.
This is a forum for exchanges among skeptics. As such, the topic at hand
Doesn't follow. Can't see how the forum's nature determines the topic. The OP was determined quite correctly by a response to one of Randi's reply to a reader. I would have thought the OP thus determines the topic, and is in the right forum; it's kind of very odd of you to tell the OP author just what the topic is allowed to be in the middle of the thread and what his allowed comments are.
is the dangerous reasoning that many families in this tragic situation are using to dump their children. Let that sink in a minute.
You're telling this to the OP author? Bit silly, eh? Let that sink in for a moment.
Skeptics are human beings and express different feelings at different times and in different ways. This discussion group is not a discussion group about world hunger or poverty.
Pardon me; are you a JREF admin? Or even a mod of this forum? If not, this stuff is only your opinion and nothing more. Let that sink in for a moment too. Since poverty and hunger are extremely pertinent issues to the topic at hand, then they are despite your opinion very relevant to the discussion, whether you like it or not.
The topic at hand is the unthinkable justifications being used to oust these children.
And it thus involves just why those children are being ousted, which means discussiing the role of poverty and hunger in the legitimizational belief structures, whether you like it or not.

You don't like discussing suchlike? Then don't read the thread.
Keep your comments in context or don't make them at all.
Maybe you should take your own advice. Well and truly.

[Slimething]

No, Slimething, I replied in kind. You never do. Remember your own post, to which my Let that sink in was an answer?

I'm not going to be drawn to your level, dannie. "No, you started it!" Whatta buncha crap.

I challenged your credentials to draw the type of conclusions that you evidently have made and you answered like a college sophomore: "Is this some type of competition?" Bush league answer. You've drawn a major conclusion from one data point.

I challenged your basic premise with the Mother of all Witchhunts, the Malleus Malificarum, and you tried to dodge the issue by equating "educated" and "not ignorant". They're not the same thing, dannie. You could be the most educated person in the world but still be ignorant. As a matter of fact, no one can escape being ignorant of one thing or another, right dannie?

So, for someone who has not responded substantively, I've pretty well blown two holes in your hypothesis that you have not yet explained. All I've seen is a bunch of hand-waving. In science, we would reject this hypothesis and send you home to think about it some more, dannie. Why don't you?

By the way, what is the code? Am I now supposed to call you Slimie or what?

Kinda losing it, aren't you? :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[Slimething]

Ah, my good friend gurdur makes a return appearance since being sent away to read up on the definition of "reductionism". What did you learn, gurdur?

Doesn't follow. Can't see how the forum's nature determines the topic. The OP was determined quite correctly by a response to one of Randi's reply to a reader. I would have thought the OP thus determines the topic, and is in the right forum; it's kind of very odd of you to tell the OP author just what the topic is allowed to be in the middle of the thread and what his allowed comments are.

Could you resend this in English or at least some form of logic that someone could follow? How is an OP determined? I also think that you may not know the difference between a forum and a thread. Back to the library with you, then.

And it thus involves just why those children are being ousted, which means discussiing the role of poverty and hunger in the legitimizational belief structures, whether you like it or not.

Another water buffalo! Now we have to discuss hunger, not only poverty! This is one heck of a ride! Can I have chips with that? :D

[articulett]

Excellent. I will take the ad homs as a sign that I have boiled down the gist of the argument: Randi's comment in the newsletter indicates (to you) that neither he nor the letter writer have considered the role of poverty in the equation. This failure to mention poverty is indicative of an immaturity (to you)--because you believe that poverty is the "main reason" that people are accusing kids of being witches and that supernatural beliefs play a superfluous role in the problem. So the essence of your argument is that Randi and the letter writer and all the skeptics who need to "grow up" are emphasizing beliefs (which you believe to be superfluous) instead of mentioning poverty which you believe is the cause of the problem.

There, we are all on the same page.

And, remember Dann, you started the ad homs--they are the tool of those who have weak arguments and big egos to protect. Your supporters seem to only support with ad homs --no substance; that makes you look like you're on the side of the actual people who "need to grow up". Now, I try not to start with ad homs, but I'm glad to join in to a rousing game of "you're mother wears army boots", and I am known to go for the jugular. (This always makes me feel a little guilty, because generally I like the members of this forum; besides I'd probably even agree with you on most things other than what the original article implied and who the skeptics are that "need to grow up" And, of course, I also noted that you confused correlation with causation. That's a common error, but you shouldn't have compounded it by acting as if you believed yourself to be more "grown up" than others--including Randi (!?). Humility can be more influential than hubris.) And though I wasn't the original letter writer, I am flattered that you thought I was. If I spoke like her, it might be because I had just gone back to read the quote that got you so worked up that you needed to start a thread about skeptics needing to grow up.

When people alter their views it's rarely by someone who attacks. People are more likely to change their views when someone they likes points out commonalities they share and then defines the actual area of disagreement. Then questions can be utilized to prod people towards your position, but you also have to show a willingness to be prodded toward theirs. Attacking people just makes them think you are a jerk and no one learns a thing. (I'm not saying that flame-wars can't be fun, but that's a game where I don't play nice.) Just think of viewpoints where you changed your mind (if that has ever happened)...Have you ever had an "evolution of thought"?--Did the thinking start with someone's assertion that you needed to grow up and be more like them? Did sarcasm and ad homs prod your thinking along. They don't do it for anyone else either. So it's important to consider your goal prior to posting.

Now, I'm guessing that despite their ability to communicate effectively, your increasingly fewer supporters buy the basic premise that skeptics who point out the suffering caused by belief are pointing out something inconsequential as opposed the more pressing matter (to you) of poverty. But from my point of view that just shows how people are almost blinded to the role belief plays in tragedies. It makes Randi and the letter writer's statement all the more significant--and your missing the point and presuming moral superiority all the more ironic. If you want to claim that poverty is the true cause of kids being called witches and/or that belief has little to do with the issue, then I suggest that you bone up on the difference between correlation and causation. Before determining that Randi, and the letter write, and all those who agree with the letter writer and all those willing to stand up to your self important post need to "grow up"--you might want to get your definitions down first. And you might want to consider the fact that you took peoples failure to mention poverty as an indication that they were unaware of the role it played. Moreover, you took their mentioning of belief as something that they mentioned for superfluous reasons. The reasons aren't superfluous. Your own post shows how people are "programmed" to overlook the damage it causes.

[athon]

And, remember Dann, you started the ad homs--they are the tool of those who have weak arguments and big egos to protect.

Ad hom's are always a weak means of addressing an issue. And while I don't excuse dann from using them, at least he has attempted to offer some form of argument in his posts, unlike others in this thread who continue to post without substance.

Your supporters seem to only support with ad homs --no substance; that makes you look like you're on the side of the actual people who "need to grow up".

I'm really wondering what this means. I've offered an argument on the matter which has been ignored, for reasons I can only assume that it doesn't
present as interesting debate as one that polarises the issue.

I realise it must seem jolly good fun to throw ad-hom's and childish tantrums back and forth, but as I've said from the beginning, oversimplifying the issue in an attempt to remove certain matters like poverty from the argument are useless in the face of speculating ways to address solutions.

A magic wand approach would be great, if not for the fact it is unacheivable. In the real world, while it would be great to remove superstition with a wish and a prayer, it is so tied up in social customs and socioeconomic situations that all the name calling and moral posturing in the world won't do a darn thing to address it.

Sure makes you feel good, though, I'm sure.

Now, I try not to start with ad homs, but I'm glad to join in to a rousing game of "you're mother wears army boots", and I am known to go for the jugular. (This always makes me feel a little guilty, because generally I like the members of this forum; besides I'd probably even agree with you on most things other than what the original article implied and who the skeptics are that "need to grow up" And, of course, I also noted that you confused correlation with causation. That's a common error, but you shouldn't have compounded it by acting as if you believed yourself to be more "grown up" than others--including Randi (!?). Humility can be more influential than hubris.)

I agree that dann has poorly argued his case, and has used language that has clearly upset some people, but I would have though some people would indeed be mature enough to not take affront at such a stupid thing. I consider myself a skeptic, and sure, being told to grow up is never good. But there is an argument beneath it, and in that case I tend to ignore the way it is presented and look solely at the facts. Getting emotional over it is, well, a waste of time.

I personally think it was a pointless thing to say in reference to this entire situation; for Randi to insinuate that those in the community should 'grow up' is a meaningless suggestion, insinuating that the true reason behind the abhorrent actions of these villagers is one of immaturity and ignorance, and as such, offers no real solution and inspires no real discussion on how one should tackle the matter.

Now, I'm guessing that despite their ability to communicate effectively, your increasingly fewer supporters buy the basic premise that skeptics who point out the suffering caused by belief are pointing out something inconsequential as opposed the more pressing matter (to you) of poverty.

Again, if by 'supporters' you are referring to the arguments that I have put forward, then do yourself a favour and go back and address them, rather than mistate them in an effort to make it look as if you have somehow offered a suitable response.

Athon

[dann]

I'm not going to be drawn to your level, dannie. "No, you started it!" Whatta buncha crap.

I challenged your credentials to draw the type of conclusions that you evidently have made and you answered like a college sophomore: "Is this some type of competition?" Bush league answer. You've drawn a major conclusion from one data point.No, you're right. Apparently you'll never reach my "level", by means of arguments or by being dragged.
Your so-called challenging my credentials consisted in telling me that you had been to more third world countries than I had, but you tend to forget that this was never my argument (and it would have been a very childish one if I had): 'I've been to more third-world countries than Randi, Slimething and articulett, and therefore I'm right and they're wrong!' That is your kind of argument, not mine:
And for the education of others, who are not as argumentatively challenged as you appear to be, let us take a look at the way you create your strawman:
Originally Posted by dann
Cuba is the only third-world country I've been to,...
Originally Posted by Slimething
So you get on your high horse because you've been to one poor country? You really do need a reality enema, dann! I've been to at least ten times as many as you have. As a matter of fact, I've lived in the poorest country in the Wester Hemisphere. (I betcha you can't even name it!) The people there are not superstitious because they're poor. They are uneducated (ignorant).I mention Cuba as an example of a poor country with educated inhabitants but growing superstition. You 1) only quote me for saying that I've been to Cuba, 2) ignore the rest, 3) pretend that I have assumed a position of superiority based on this, and 4) try top this by telling us that you have not only been to more poor countries, but even to the poorest one of them all, which 5) you seem to think makes you win the superiority competition, which you 6) even conclude with a guessing game!
I cannot see how it can get more childish than that!
I challenged your basic premise with the Mother of all Witchhunts, the Malleus Malificarum, and you tried to dodge the issue by equating "educated" and "not ignorant". They're not the same thing, dannie. You could be the most educated person in the world but still be ignorant. As a matter of fact, no one can escape being ignorant of one thing or another, right dannie?Yes, you may even have been to ten poor countries, including the poorest in the western hemisphere, and still be ignorant. Like you say: No one can excape being ignorant of one thing or another, right Slimething? You mentioned the Malleus Maleficarum ( http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/), and I replied that the people behind it were extremely educated, because so far that is what has been mentioned as the panacea for curing all superstition by you and articulett. However, it is a little ironic that you, of all people, seem to think that mentioning an example of persecution of heretics -

"By questioning any part of Catholic belief, one could be branded a heretic. Scientists were branded heretics by virtue of repudiating certain tenets of Christian belief (most notably Galileo, whose theories on the nature of planets and gravitational fields was initially branded heretical). Writers who challenged the Church were arrested for heresy (sometimes formerly accepted writers whose works had become unpopular). Anyone who questioned the validity of any part of Catholic belief did so at their own risk."

- will somehow benefit your cause! This is the way that fundamentalists of all persuasions, religious, political or .... skeptical, tend to behave, be they religious, political ..... or skeptical, apparently. Fundamentalism can't do without exaggeration, without hyperbole, and unfortunately this is something that even the article about the witch hunts of the middle ages does not quite escape when it says that
"It [the Malleus Maleficarum] set into the general Christian consciousness, for all time, a belief in the existence of witches as a real and valid threat to the Christian world. It is a belief which is held to this day."
Personally I don't know a single Christian who believes "in the existence of witches as a real and valid threat", but of course I also live in a country where rather few people have reason to think that their very existence is threatened. Destitution is limited which means that the preachers of hell and damnation do not have an audience. I do know that the belief in the existence of witches exists in certain corners of the Christian world, but I also know that you don't need a document from the middle ages in order to create a witchhunt: The human mind is a very creative thing, and in times of stress people are able to make up the kind of witches they need entirely on their own. Pointing your fingers at scapegoats is not a practice that depends on access to old religious myths, here or in Africa.
So, for someone who has not responded substantively, I've pretty well blown two holes in your hypothesis that you have not yet explained. All I've seen is a bunch of hand-waving. Yes, you are indeed "someone who has not responded substantively" :), which is why you've only managed to shoot yourself in the foot. [I can't believe it's come to this!]
In science, we would reject this hypothesis and send you home to think about it some more, dannie. Why don't you?In science this would be called outright lying and misrepresentation, and people doing so would probably lose their jobs.[/QUOTE]
Kinda losing it, aren't you? :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) You lost it from the very beginning. Pretending that it isn't so may make you look like a winner in your own eyes, the tough, in-your-face, stick-to-the-facts, don't-take-no-crap-from-nobody kinda guyWhatta buncha crap.the John Wayne of Skepticism, in other words,
so keep it up and give us more examples of rational, critical thinking to hold up to the world of superstitious ignorants as an example of all that's best in rationality, science, skepticism and the tool of reason! :)

[articulett]

Athon,
Yes,you have, by far, been his most intelligent supporter. But you, like he, seem to think that the beliefs have nothing to do with kids being accused of being witches. Moreover, the newsletter in no way suggested that the people were accusing kids of being witches due to "immaturity" or ignorance. You extrapolated that.

The comment was about beliefs--and how they result in damage--and yet people seem blissfully unaware that they are even part of the problem. Certainly the priest in the quoted article didn't even question the belief system. Dann and you seem to think it's trivial. Do you think that the role faith played in the 9-11 hijackers' actions was trivial? Do you think there was a more direct "cause" than their honest belief that they were doing Allah's will and would be rewarded for it? I often think about what might have happened if someone had even asked those men how they knew souls were real. Do you think Andrea Yates belief that she was sending her kids to their eternal bliss before they could risk hell is insignificant in her actions? Nobody is talking about immaturity or ignorance--they are talking about the way beliefs cause harm. The way deference to faith causes harm. To the ways people seem oddly blinded to the role faith plays in tragedy.

Religious missions go into Africa and preach against birth control, and that the people need to accept Christ as their savior to live happily and that demons tempt people, etc. Muslim sects are also big in Africa.

Yes, religious charities feed people, but they do so in exchange for adherence to their teachings. If poor families in your country were accusing their kids of being witches and abandoning them on the street, do you really think that feeding those kids and the families they come from would be the only solution? It doesn't even address the direct cause --people see behavior they don't understand in others and attribute it to supernatural things--gods, demons, witches, evil forces, or whatever it is they have been taught via their culture. If you give them money and food, it doesn't make them suddenly think the kids they abandoned aren't witches. It doesn't make the kids called witches feel better about themselves. It doesn't keep the problem from happening again when poverty comes around again. It doesn't guide them as to the best means of handling children they can't afford nor does it help them plan their families so they're not having children they can't afford.

In order to stop witch hunts in recent history, we had to become aware of what was actually happening--And we keep learning. Remember the Preschool teachers undone my false memories implanted by psychologists? A modern day witch hunt. And nobody really is to blame are they--we didn't know about false memories before. I'm sure the psychologists who elicited these memories from kids had no idea they were leading the witnesses.

People are blind to the damage caused by the very notion that faith is good or that we should give deference to peoples' beliefs in the supernatural. And from a semantic viewpoint the belief is the most direct cause of people accusing their kids of being witches. Remember, correlation is NOT causation. Poverty may be correlated with witch accusations, but it is not the cause. If those families were refusing to give their kids blood transfusions because they believed they couldn't get into heaven without them--you'd agree that faith was a problem. If these people were poor and couldn't really afford blood transfusions and the death of a child made others have a better chance of surviving--you wouldn't be railing against people who point out that belief is the more direct cause of the childrens' deaths. You might be all for donating medical aid, but you wouldn't have solved the problem if the fear was still there.

That is ALL that is being said. Belief is a huge part of the tragedy in the article (kids being accused of witches). To call the belief factor superfluous or presume that it's a judgment upon the victims is mistaken. Moreover, it dismisses the most direct cause of the problem.

To comment on the dangers of beliefs or faith filled notions is hardly passing judgment on people. Why would you think it is? Has Randi ever appeared judgmental to you? We know that humans are, by nature, trusting and readily confuse correlation with causation resulting in confirmation bias for any beliefs they've been indoctrinated with. We know that even mature and educated people fall prey to such beliefs--because of this unspoken idea that faith is something good--or something one shouldn't question or prod. All people seem to think they are immune to being fooled. It is not blaming the victim or anyone else--just voicing the obvious. Beliefs can be dangerous. Anyone can be victims. The tools of critical thinking as Randi well knows are tools that everyone can use--tools that can be used to stop tragedies caused (in part or in whole) by faith. The beliefs ARE a major component of the tragedy in question-- just like you have to believe that people can be possessed before determining that someone is possessed--you have to believe in witches to determine somebody is a witch. How many people have been demonised because of such beliefs? It's a recipe for disaster even if the poverty is addressed--because people can still have seizures, mental illness, odd behavior, attacks of rage--and exhibit many other qualities one might expect to find in a witch. Step parents will still have primal feelings that make them overly sensitive to time, money, and effort spent on children who don't carry their genes--and for such parents, accusing a child of being a witch, will still be a ready remedy.

Lots of people are addressing the poverty. The religious group in the article was--and it was in a Christian Magazine--so the poverty angle is being covered. You are free to give whatever you want to the charities of your choice or to give directly to groups that help. I give to groups that help educate and provide family planning services without forcing superstitious beliefs in return. And I teach. Because I think critical thinking skills have been immensely valuable to me--I want everyone to have them.

I think you and others misinterpreted what was said in the original newsletter and extrapolated meaning that wasn't there. Moreover, I think you've underestimated the role that beliefs played in the tragedy--and you thought that by mentioning beliefs the original letter writer was belittling the victims or unaware of the poverty aspect of the problem. If the letter writer was like me or Randi--that is not the case. And I hope you re-read it with this information in mind.

[articulett]

Athon,
As I think about it, your complaint stems not so much that you believe that the belief factor is unimportant--but more that you felt that mentioning it (in the newsletter) seemed (to you) like blaming the victims or calling them ignorant. But re-read it and see if you still see it that way. Because the words don't say that at all, and that is not the message I got when reading it. You feel like you are defending the victims--maybe like I feel I'm defending Randi, and the letter write, and the "many skeptics" who need to "grow up".
But the victims were never attacked--just the notion that beliefs the invisible factor in this tragedy.

[dann]

And, remember Dann, you started the ad homs--they are the tool of those who have weak arguments and big egos to protect. Your supporters seem to only support with ad homs --no substance; that makes you look like you're on the side of the actual people who "need to grow up". Now, I try not to start with ad homs, but I'm glad to join in to a rousing game of "you're mother wears army boots", and I am known to go for the jugular. (This always makes me feel a little guilty, because generally I like the members of this forum; besides I'd probably even agree with you on most things other than what the original article implied and who the skeptics are that "need to grow up" And, of course, I also noted that you confused correlation with causation. That's a common error, but you shouldn't have compounded it by acting as if you believed yourself to be more "grown up" than others--including Randi (!?). Humility can be more influential than hubris.) And though I wasn't the original letter writer, I am flattered that you thought I was. If I spoke like her, it might be because I had just gone back to read the quote that got you so worked up that you needed to start a thread about skeptics needing to grow up. No, articulett, the ad hominems, and in particular the one that gets you so upset that you have to resort to using them yourself all the time, started here, in James Randi’s weekly newsletter ( http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11). You have complained a number of times that I tell skeptics to grow up, and you have pretended that I was the one who started this condescending way of talking to and about others, and at the same time you have referred to James Randi as if he were a saint, the embodiment of immaculate truth. Well ….. he isn’t. (And he would probably be the first to deny it, I think. Like I have said before, I don’t hold your arguments against him.)
In other words: I have taken the condescending, childish title from a piece written by a person admired by most sceptics, and you in particular, and turned it against the skeptics. A rather obvious thing to do, I think: If they are so fond of the phrase, let’s see how they react when I apply it to them!
And what a reaction! If there is one thing that brights don’t seem to be, it’s bright!

When people alter their views it's rarely by someone who attacks. People are more likely to change their views when someone they likes points out commonalities they share and then defines the actual area of disagreement. Then questions can be utilized to prod people towards your position, but you also have to show a willingness to be prodded toward theirs. Attacking people just makes them think you are a jerk and no one learns a thing. (I'm not saying that flame-wars can't be fun, but that's a game where I don't play nice.) Just think of viewpoints where you changed your mind (if that has ever happened)...Have you ever had an "evolution of thought"?- No, I was born this way, all my concepts and ideas were fully formed and I never had to change a single one of them. Will you pleas get to the point!?
-Did the thinking start with someone's assertion that you needed to grow up and be more like them? Did sarcasm and ad homs prod your thinking along. Well, actually, more or less. When you are confronted with people who present themselves as superior, it is very often necessary to confront them with their own arrogance. This is what I did in this case, and I’m quite happy with the way things worked out!
But notice that this is not my recommendation for how to persuade people of something, this is not my idea of how to present an argument in general. I could have chosen a much more humble attitude, and then you would not have been as offended on behalf of Randi, scepticism and the tool of reason! As it was, however, you were, but that was your choice.
They don't do it for anyone else either. It is actually very annoying when you behave like a school teacher and pretend that because you have asked a question that even the most stupid (but very well-behaved (which I’m not)) child would know the required answer to, then it automatically follows that that is the answer you’ll get. I’m sorry, but you have to realize that I’m not one of your students and you can’t expect me to behave as if you had the power to grade and fail me. You don’t!
So it's important to consider your goal prior to posting. Yes, it is, isn’t it?! :)
Now, I'm guessing that despite their ability to communicate effectively, your increasingly fewer supporters buy the basic premise that skeptics who point out the suffering caused by belief are pointing out something inconsequential as opposed the more pressing matter (to you) of poverty. You’re not guessing, you’re pretending that you don’t know that Gurdur and Athon aren’t and never were my supporters, but just happened to agree with my objections to the article Time to grow up. That they also happened to disagree with you is no coincidence, but it is also no reason to think that it is a question of supporting me, dann, – and not simply those of my arguments that they tend to agree with! They also aren’t getting ”increasingly fewer”, as far as I can see, but many of the people who disagree with you and agree with my arguments against you do not share my view on politics in general. This is another reason why I want you to consider your words about them.
They don’t support me or even all of my arguments presented in this thread. Pretending that they do, does not make it so.
They also don’t ”buy the basic premise that skeptics who point out the suffering caused by belief are pointing out something inconsequential”. No matter how many times you repeat it, that never was the basic premise. Randi did not ‘point out’ the suffering suffering caused by belief. He and Sarah L. Hubscher, with whom he agreed “enthusiastically”, actually succeeded in misrepresenting an article from the CSM when they said:
“The article implies that many of these children were living with step-parents or extended family members who no longer wanted to have to support them and so, voila, an easily-explained incident such as a broken glass or a still-born child becomes an excuse to turn them out of home as practitioners of black magic.”
Nothing in the article implies that Frida Tshama, who ”was forced to live on the street after her aunt kicked her out of the house” with the excuse that she had broken a glass, was one of the children accused of being ”practitioners of black magic.”
"I was staying with my aunt, and one day I was cleaning the house, and a glass that was on the table fell and broke," she says. "My aunt asked me to get out of the house. If I stay, she will poison me."

So let us take another look at this sentence again:
“The article implies that many of these children were living with step-parents or extended family members”
Correct!
”who no longer wanted to have to support them”
Well, I would have phrased it differently: who no longer could support them and therefore didn’t want to. The article does not make a secret of that!
”and so, voila, an easily-explained incident such as a broken glass or a still-born child becomes an excuse to turn them out of home”
Yes!!! A fairly innocent incident is used as an excuse to kick them out.
”as practitioners of black magic.”
No! Sometimes witchcraft is used as an excuse, sometimes it isn’t! The broken glass in itself or simply asking for something to eat becomes the excuse!!! The belief in black magic is immaterial for this outcome. It contributes nothing essential to the practice of getting rid of the children that you can’t feed, which is why I chose to call it merely an ”added insult”.
The CSM article here (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1130/p12s01-woaf.html)
The article in James Randi’s newsletter here (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11)
But from my point of view that just shows how people are almost blinded to the role belief plays in tragedies. No surprise there! From mine it just shows how some sceptics are so blinded by their preoccupation with superstition and religion that they attribute a very exaggerated importance to it in cases where the calamity isn’t really a religious or superstitious one, but just happens to take place among religious/suspicious people which, of course, adds a certain flavour to the whole thing.
It makes Randi and the letter writer's statement all the more significant--and your missing the point and presuming moral superiority all the more ironic. Repeating it still does not make it so!
If you want to claim that poverty is the true cause of kids being called witches and/or that belief has little to do with the issue, then I suggest that you bone up on the difference between correlation and causation. I’m beginning to get a little desperate now! Could somebody help me explain to articulett that she hasn’t once even indicated that she understands what I’ve been saying the whole time. Let me repeat it again: Belief has very much to do with kids being called witches, and very little to do with kids being left in the street to fend for themselves! Correlation and causation, my ….!
Before determining that Randi, and the letter write, and all those who agree with the letter writer and all those willing to stand up to your self important post need to "grow up"—No, those are words that are inadmissible about repspectful people, right?
Starving Africans, need to grow up! Skeptics don't!
you might want to get your definitions down first. I have, you haven’t! Your ad hominems are all you have.
And you might want to consider the fact that you took peoples failure to mention poverty as an indication that they were unaware of the role it played.No, I mightn’t since I didn’t. "... the fact ..." (!)
Moreover, you took their mentioning of belief as something that they mentioned for superfluous reasons. No, I didn’t.
The reasons aren't superfluous. They aren’t even reasons, they are excuses. At least Randi and Hubscher were aware of that.
Your own post shows how people are "programmed" to overlook the damage it causes. Yes, Mam, if you say so, Mam, I’ll go and stand in the corner.

[dann]

Athon, you have been most forthcoming to articulett, and this is your reward:
Athon,
Yes,you have, by far, been his most intelligent supporter. But you, like he, seem to think that the beliefs have nothing to do with kids being accused of being witches. Moreover, the newsletter in no way suggested that the people were accusing kids of being witches due to "immaturity" or ignorance. You extrapolated that.Yes, Athon! Can't you see it? Read it very carefully and let the teacher guide you through the text again. Then you will notice that the title of the piece, Time to grow up, did not mean to imply any kind of "immaturity" in the Africans who abandon their children and sometimes call them witches.
Repeat it to yourself a couple of times, Athon: "The title Time to grow up, did not mean to imply any kind of "immaturity"!"
Say it again out loud: "The title Time to grow up, did not mean to imply any kind of "immaturity"!"
Don't be shy, Athon: "The title Time to grow up, did not mean to imply any kind of "immaturity"!"
Can you see it now? Good boy!

Do you see it, Athon? You may not understand the simplest of things, but at least you have now in articulett's eyes become by far the most intelligent of my disciples!
Praise the Lord!

[dann]

I agree that dann has poorly argued his case, and has used language that has clearly upset some people, but I would have thought some people would indeed be mature enough to not take affront at such a stupid thing. I consider myself a skeptic, and sure, being told to grow up is never good. But there is an argument beneath it, and in that case I tend to ignore the way it is presented and look solely at the facts. Getting emotional over it is, well, a waste of time.OK, maybe we could get this discussion back on track (= away from Slimething and articulett's attempts at derailing) if you made it clear where you think I argued my case poorly. And when you say that I have used language that has upset some people, are you referring to my headline of this thread, Time for skeptics to grow up?, or something else?
I am well aware that articulett will welcome any kind of disagreement between us with enthusiasm, but that should not concern us. Clarification, however, should!
By the way, I wouldn't consider having to confess one's faith a necessity in a community of skeptics! I thought that something like that was only required in a congregation of believers, who tend to become anxious when they suspect someone of wandering away from the flock! (I'm referring to: "I consider myself a skeptic")

[athon]

Athon,
As I think about it, your complaint stems not so much that you believe that the belief factor is unimportant--but more that you felt that mentioning it (in the newsletter) seemed (to you) like blaming the victims or calling them ignorant. But re-read it and see if you still see it that way. Because the words don't say that at all, and that is not the message I got when reading it. You feel like you are defending the victims--maybe like I feel I'm defending Randi, and the letter write, and the "many skeptics" who need to "grow up".
But the victims were never attacked--just the notion that beliefs the invisible factor in this tragedy.

Perhaps.

I guess for many years I also directed my aggression and emotion at people who followed superstition with such terrible results, feeling honestly that they were indeed ignorant or stupid. I've found myself in recent years to be in a number of diverse situations where I seriously felt that critical thinking would benefit the people, yet could see no direct way of conveying it.

Maybe it's more accurate if I say that I often feel that the accusations of skeptics -- while technically correct -- are meaningless in a practical way. Looking at the structure in which superstitious thinking sits and understanding how the structure must change in order to accomdate more productive thinking skills gives a better chance of changing things.

I'll endeavour to respond to your other post when I get the time next week.

Athon

[dann]

I guess for many years I also directed my aggression and emotion at people who followed superstition with such terrible results, feeling honestly that they were indeed ignorant or stupid. Since the word stupid in particular seems to upset many people, I would like to clarify what I mean when I use the word. Unlike ignorance, which means that there are things that we do not know – and everybody is ignorant about something in most fields of knowledge: too much knowledge and too many fields to be a know-it-all today – and also unlike learning disabilities which may be as diverse as dyslexia, which does not impair our understanding of a thought, but merely debilitates (slows down) our reading of the words that convey it, or Down’s syndrome, which definitely prevents you from understanding complex ideas, stupidity in my definition of the word (and in Wiki’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupidity) too, apparently) usually (but not always) demands an effort on our side: we interpret the facts the wrong way, come up with false explanations, because we want the facts explained in a certain way, i.e. we let our interests dictate our thinking in spite of what reality would tell us if only we looked at it in an unbiased way.
Sometimes, of course, we may have false notions of things because we haven’t given much thought to them and just accepted somebody else’s wrong explanation. (Like when my rather uneducated mother explained gravity to me: because the Earth spins so fast, it holds us down! When I couldn’t make sense of it, since I had experienced the opposite effect on merry-go-rounds, she insisted that merry-go-rounds just didn’t go fast enough! I wondered about that one for a couple of years. I was probably just being stupid asking her in the first place.)
The problem with the term probably is that we, like wiki, tend to define stupidity as: “stupid, or lacking intelligence”, and intelligence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence) not simply as wrong explanations, but as the ability or capacity to understand and explain at all: “a property of mind that encompasses many related mental abilities, such as the capacities to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn.”, which is why stupid has turned into an insult: ‘It’s not that you won’t, it’s that you can’t!’ And for the same reason the word stupid usually ends the debate.
I like these explanations, but unfortunately they are in German only: Denken (http://www.contradictio.de/denken.html), Dummheit (http://www.contradictio.de/dummheit.html), Gefühl & Verstand (http://www.contradictio.de/gefuehlverstand.html), Wahrheit (http://www.contradictio.de/subjektivewahrheit.html).
I've found myself in recent years to be in a number of diverse situations where I seriously felt that critical thinking would benefit the people, yet could see no direct way of conveying it. A feature of the conveyance of any kind of thinking, thought or thinking skills is that it depends 100 % on the person you address. If somebody doesn’t understand or agree with what you are saying, there is no conveying of anything. In my next post I’ll give you an example (from the same edition of Skeptic (http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol11n01.html) in which the article about the mass suicide of the Xhosas appeared) of a situation where critical thinking probably will not help people unless the situation changes, which is the one thing the skeptical author leaves out of his list of things that need to be done to eradicate superstition, in spite of the fact that he has mentioned it as one of the ingredients of the source of superstition!
Maybe it's more accurate if I say that I often feel that the accusations of skeptics -- while technically correct -- are meaningless in a practical way. Looking at the structure in which superstitious thinking sits and understanding how the structure must change in order to accommodate more productive thinking skills gives a better chance of changing things. I couldn’t agree more, but I think that it would help if you were more specific, i.e. if you described in more detail at least one of the diverse situations you are talking about and gave us an example of a structure that ”must change in order to accommodate more productive thinking skills”.

[dann]

I already mentioned Skeptic, Vol. 11. Number 1 (http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol11n01.html), because of Steve Kowit’s article The Mass Suicide of the Xhosa – a Study in Collective Self-Deception (http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-36844_ITM). In the meantime it has actually been made available on the internet in English! Something to read for the Christmas holidays!
This is so cool!!! I’ve been wanting to be able to link to this text in English ever since it appeared in Skeptic (http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/archives/vol11n01.html). You will miss the illustrations, of course, but you can find those in the Danish version (http://www.skeptica.dk/2005/kowit.htm) of the text.

In the same volume I can recommend another article, A Skeptical Look at African Witchcraft and Religion (http://www.amazon.com/skeptical-look-African-witchcraft-religion/dp/B00082UWZS), by Leo Igwe, who has probably been to more poor countries than Slimething.
I do not recommend the article because I find it very well-researched and convincing, on the contrary. On the last page of the short article he describes The Source of African Witchcraft and mentions the following ”ingredients”: Fear, Ignorance, Poverty and Religion.

Poverty is described like this:
“Witchcraft accusations are rampant among indigent Africans both in rural and urban areas. Due to poverty, many sick people in Africa cannot afford to go to hospital for medical treatment so they resort to consulting witchdoctors and fortunetellers.”
And in the paragraph about fear it also becomes apparent that poverty and lack of proper health care plays a role since people are sometimes frightened by “high infant mortality”. Who wouldn’t be?
The article is interesting for a number of reasons, one of them being that it mentions that the belief in witchcraft was always present in Africa, but has only been reinforced by the arrival of Islam and Christianity. Leo Igwe also writes how a ”Nigerian witchdoctor recently boasted that Ifa (a Yoruba oracle) can cure AIDS!”, which is horrible, of course.
The weird thing, however, is how the article ends, the paragraph about Eradicating Witchcraft in Africa:
“The African continent must rid itself of the irrational belief in witchcraft and sorcery if it is to join the developed world. First governments need to pass legislation banning the practice of witchcraft, including witchcraft accusation, witch doctoring, and witch killing.
Such legislation should be backed by campaigns to educate the people about the dangers of irrationalism, occultism, and superstition. Courses in scientific skepticism and critical thinking should be introduced in all African schools, colleges, and universities, including and especially theological schools, Christian seminaries and Islamic institutions.
African scientists need to play a more active role in fostering scientific attitudes, and in combating religious fanaticism and obscurantism.
Finally, we need to establish more sceptical groups across the continent in order to counter false claims. For it is only sceptical associations that can put up a principled fight against witchcraft, pseudoscience, and fringe science.”I quote the proposal in its entirety.
Do you notice what is missing? How does any of this help the poor Africans who can’t afford to go see a real doctor? By giving them to tools of reason to acquiesce, to come to terms in a rational way with the fact that they can’t do anything about their disease, except wait and hope that it will somehow either wear off on its own or get worse and kill them? Maybe they will even be able to enjoy the critical thinking skills that makes this so obvious to them, thus distinguishing them from their neighbours who still believe in superstition ....
Does it really matter much to them (or us) that they don’t know what kills them if this knowledge is not one that can be used to prevent premature death? Is it so important to skeptics that they would rather see these people deprived of the comfort they get from visiting the Yoruba Ifa? And will their aversion to listening to clever skeptics be due to stupidity, ignorance or the actual knowledge that in the situation they find themselves in it won't do them any good?

And, no, this is not another woowoo attempt at praising the comforting aspects of religion. Personally I prefer to do without, thank you, and I don’t fancy having to use a lot of energy on maintaining a delusion. But I mainly object to religion because it helps people acquiesce, accept conditions that they had better do away with. This is something that all religions have in common, be it Christianity or Yoruba: They try to make meaning of their lives, something which the way that reality is arranged very often prevents them from doing in the real world, which is why they look beyond reality to find meaning in the never-never land.

I also find the same problem in civilized, well-educated Denmark where cancer patients are sometimes put on standby for weeks or months before they can have their much needed operations, chemo og radiation therapy: What is the point of telling these unfortunate people, who very often turn to woowoo remedies in despair, that they had better put their fate in the hands of modern science instead of turning to quacks and witchcraft? They already did! But the government’s cutbacks in expenditures means that science can’t deliver. (We already know that quacks can't deliver either, but what's the point if there is no alternative? These people don’t go to quacks because they are stupid. They don’t go to quacks because they are ignorant. They go to quacks because they have been let down, have no other practical solution, and – of course – because they are poor! The rich patients go to a private hospital – in Denmark or abroad.

Any volunteers to teach these people the skills of critical thinking or the tools of reason? I would prefer to teach them about The National Health Service in a market economy – but preferably before it’s too late!

Merry Christmas! :)

[articulett]

Perhaps.

I guess for many years I also directed my aggression and emotion at people who followed superstition with such terrible results, feeling honestly that they were indeed ignorant or stupid. I've found myself in recent years to be in a number of diverse situations where I seriously felt that critical thinking would benefit the people, yet could see no direct way of conveying it.

Maybe it's more accurate if I say that I often feel that the accusations of skeptics -- while technically correct -- are meaningless in a practical way. Looking at the structure in which superstitious thinking sits and understanding how the structure must change in order to accomdate more productive thinking skills gives a better chance of changing things.

I'll endeavour to respond to your other post when I get the time next week.

Athon

My feelings towards the credulous (who are more often women like me) is more one of sympathy--I feel like their trust is so readily abused. And children too. And it has nothing at all to do with stupidity. I took me a long time to even question what I was told (and there was that whole "biting from the tree of knowledge thing" that heightened the fear--). One of the things I really like about Randi--is that he lets people be fooled and then he shows them how they fooled themselves. I have one of his tapes I've used for classes--with Uri Geller and Peter Popoff and the college class where the students get a personalized astrological chart--

I had believed in Gellers talents--he seems so sincere...so the kids watching believe in him too (they were like I was)--and then they see how he backpedals and blames when the Tonight Show foils his trickery. And we talk about what the world would really be like if Uri could do as he indicated. If you are an honest person, it doesn't even occur to you that someone who seems so nice and humble--could be a con artist. And Peter Popoff is really awful. You can see these old ladies believing he's healed them--and then the video plays the stuff Randi picked up on a wireless microphone from Popoff's wife. (This videos are all over youtube and I think Randi has links to the downloads...)

In the astrology section Randi does some of his magic, but he also has each students' astrology charts done--and he passes them back and people are really impressed--they all are amazed and give their chart 4 or 5 out of 5 stars. And then he tells each perston to pass their chart to the person behind them--and as they start reading the other person's chart they begin to realize they are reading the exact same thing that was in their own chart. All the supposedly "specific" charts are the same! It's a great moment-- you can see the look on his students face as they get it...and I can see the look on my students face as they get it--and I remember when I "got it". And there isn't a single person on that video you'd call stupid. You watch it and you identify with the deceived--which is the beauty of it, I think. Though villainised by assorted believers, Randi is one of the most respectful people I can imagine.

Randi says that the easiest people to fool are people who are overconfident--they don't think they can be fooled. I am an intelligent person-- I was indoctrinated with religion when I was young--and when I couldn't get that to make sense, I segued into "new age" woo, because it "resonated" with me. I didn't have a clue how to figure out what was a belief and what was the truth.

If you haven't been fooled or if you've never broken free from some strict religious paradigm, then it might be hard to see how insidious and destructive faith can be. There's no one to blame. Who do you blame when a Jehovah Witness kid doesn't get a needed blood transfusion--the parents are worried about the kids salvation...the clergyman believes he has the truth...faith is supposed to be noble--

I don't know if mentioning it does anything--but I am surprised at how often the faith factor is overlooked--never mentioned. The Priest in the article didn't seem to have a clue. I'm kind of in the Sam Harris and Dan Dennett camp on this issue--I think it's time we started talking about the elephant in the room. Because as long as "faith" is good or necessary for salvation--then extreme faith is better, right?--and blind faith best. And nobody has a choice as to which faith they are going to be indoctrinated with or who they are told their enemies are.

Yes, the poverty is horrible in Africa. But as I mentioned above, the abandonment of children is hardly the worst problem in Africa right now.
The kidnapping of children for holy wars is pretty awful. The missionaries preaching abstinence and no contraceptive use are a factor in the spread of AIDS and the birth of yet more children that their families can't support. And there is a faith factor in all of this. I hardly think any act of charity would make the situation worse--and I would not send money to any organization that had faith based string attached.

[articulett]

OK, maybe we could get this discussion back on track (= away from Slimething and articulett's attempts at derailing) if you made it clear where you think I argued my case poorly. And when you say that I have used language that has upset some people, are you referring to my headline of this thread, Time for skeptics to grow up?, or something else?
I am well aware that articulett will welcome any kind of disagreement between us with enthusiasm, but that should not concern us. Clarification, however, should!

By the way, I wouldn't consider having to confess one's faith a necessity in a community of skeptics! I thought that something like that was only required in a congregation of believers, who tend to become anxious when they suspect someone of wandering away from the flock! (I'm referring to: "I consider myself a skeptic")

This isn't a war. Quit attacking people. Almost every single one of your posts has a nastiness about it. I know my returned nastiness didn't help, but I felt like you attacked Randi, the letter writer, myself, and others who read the newsletter with the interpretation I had. But it dawned on me via Athon's post--he (and maybe you) felt defensive for the poor people--as though they were being called ignorant. Which makes him (and maybe you) less offensive in my eyes. I know I pissed you off--but read back--the nastiness came from you first--in your opening post even--and it never stopped. You said things about others that you wouldn't take kindly to if they had been said about you--and some of the stuff you said actually applies more to you than those you insulted.

So calm down and quit taking this so seriously.

To know Randi, is to know that he never calls anyone ignorant. He's more than aware that anyone can be fooled--especially those who think they can't--and the trusting. He's fooled scientists. There is no blame in this tragedy--what good does blame do? And the beliefs are actually in fact the most direct cause of children being accused of being witches. It's just a semantic point. But it's also something that should not be overlooked. Do you expect a group of skeptics to pretend that belief has no role in children being accused of being witches?

And it's far from the only tragedy going on in Africa, so fighting about what is the best way to help and what the true "cause" is--is pointless. As awful as being accused of being a witch is, it pales in comparison to child kidnappings in Uganda where children as young as 8 are methodically kidnapped from their homes by the Lord's Resistance Army. The children, many of whom are tortured, live a life of terror: girls as young as 12 are used as sex slaves, while the boys are forced to sometimes even kill family members. Once they have completed this terrible task, they are considered tough enough to be used in raids by the rebel army.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/stories/2006/1711083.htm

And then there is the horrifying specter of AIDS--and the many homeless children because of AIDS.

I am not unaware--nor is Randi.

There is no need to blame, put down anyone, or play "us" vs. "them"--and there are many ways people can help--there is certainly no shortage of tragedy in Africa right now. And any and all attention to the problem can be used. Why the shame and blame game? And I didn't derail--you were all over the place--I was just trying to boil your argument down without responding to all your digressions, attacks, circular reasoning, and smug barbs. You derailed this thread yourself when you started divining what peoples' political persuasions were.

I'm so not in the mood to play. If you and Gurdur et. al. want to talk about how more grown up you are and how it's immature to mention the role of belief--be my guest. I think I've had my fill of this thread. I will leave you and your playmates in peace.

[articulett]

Dann, It's "belief in witches" that was being referred to in "it's time to grow up"--it's considered childish to believe in witches. I can see how it set you off--but I don't believe that it was a slight to anyone. I hadn't even noticed it before--and I read the newsletter, so clearly it didn't have a jarring effect on me. "Time for skeptics to grow up" did. But I shan't derail your special thread again.

[dann]

I'll ignore the repetitions:
You said things about others that you wouldn't take kindly to if they had been said about you--and some of the stuff you said actually applies more to you than those you insulted. I guess I have proved one of my points then: Skeptics do not appreciate being told to grow up, even if it is in the form of a question. However, they do not seem to have anything against James Randi telling superstitious Africans to grow up. I turned James Randi's title against the skeptics, and ever since you have not stopped telling me that I was the one who started it!
As awful as being accused of being a witch is, it pales in comparison to child kidnappings in Uganda where children as young as 8 are methodically kidnapped from their homes by the Lord's Resistance Army. I agree! And with the "specter of AIDS" too!
I'm so not in the mood to play. If you and Gurdur et. al. want to talk about how more grown up you are and how it's immature to mention the role of belief--be my guest. I think I've had my fill of this thread. I will leave you and your playmates in peace. It is very hard to stop being patronizing and telling people that they are childish, isn't it?! But, of course, you are entitled to do so since you are a skeptic and I have offended you, right?!
Dann, It's "belief in witches" that was being referred to in "it's time to grow up"--it's considered childish to believe in witches. I can see how it set you off--but I don't believe that it was a slight to anyone. I hadn't even noticed it before--and I read the newsletter, so clearly it didn't have a jarring effect on me.I'm sure that you hadn't even noticed it. Too few people did, apparently. If you notice it from now on, I guess I have accomplished something!
Merry Christmas to you too - and I mean that in a strictly heathen sense: Glædelig jul!

[Gurdur]

..... If you and Gurdur et. al. want to talk about how more grown up you are and how it's immature to mention the role of belief--be my guest. I think I've had my fill of this thread. I will leave you and your playmates in peace...But I shan't derail your special thread again.
Well, thank god for small mercies. :rolleyes: I'm sick of the bitter whining and personal attacks which you and slimething use in place of a rational argument. Now maybe we can actually get a proper, substantiated discussion going here.

[dann]

Well, thank god for small mercies. :rolleyes:
That's more like the spirit of Christmas, Gurdur! :) Now maybe we can actually get a proper, substantiated discussion going here. Did you read Steve Kowit's Xhosa article (http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-36844_ITM), Gurdur? Or Leo Igwe's about African witchcraft?

[Gurdur]

That's more like the spirit of Christmas, Gurdur! :)
Since they're so bloodymindedly militant and without empathy, they probably despise Xmas.

Oddly enough, I just got through wishing all my own board's members a Happy Season, and they're all nontheists, but appreciate it.
Did you read Steve Kowit's Xhosa article (http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-36844_ITM), Gurdur? Or Leo Igwe's about African witchcraft?
Read those and far more. One of my rather mixed academic discipline specialities was what the Germans call Afrikanistik, IOW mixed anthropology, linguistics and history of the whole region.

IOW, you have stumbled in on a grandmother/eggs/don't_advise situation. :p
Happy Season and all the very best!

[athon]

Right, maybe Xmas afternoon (after many Jack Daniels and a lot of seafood) isn't the best time to be considering this, but I really can't be bothered sitting and watching bad Xmas television right now.

But you, like he, seem to think that the beliefs have nothing to do with kids being accused of being witches.

Not at all. The superstition is relevant in that it is a way for the members of this community to address issues in their environment. The events around them which they feel are negative need a rationalisation, and their supertition provides them with one. Typically, in other communities, such a blame falls on members of the group who are pariahs already (the elderly is a good example in Pacific islander and New Guinea communities, for example). It's curious that children are seen as witches in African communities.

Why this is the case, I can only speculate. It's of course not a common thing for a family to banish their children, as having numerous offspring is seen as a way of ensuring a good retirement for those in many African cultures. However, it's not out of the question that again poverty may play a role in this.

I'm not for a second saying that superstition plays no role. I've said since the beginning that it is not a case of supertition playing an isolated role in a situation of direct cause and effect. There are other factors that need to be considered in order for the problem to be fully addressed.

Moreover, the newsletter in no way suggested that the people were accusing kids of being witches due to "immaturity" or ignorance. You extrapolated that.

The title suggesting that those who are supertitious should 'grow up' insinuated immaturity. It was not as much a case of necessarily sympathasising or being an apologist for those committing atrocities, but rather my opposition stemmed from the fact that such a suggestion contributes nothing to forming ideas that could lead to a solution.

The comment was about beliefs--and how they result in damage--and yet people seem blissfully unaware that they are even part of the problem. Certainly the priest in the quoted article didn't even question the belief system. Dann and you seem to think it's trivial. Do you think that the role faith played in the 9-11 hijackers' actions was trivial? Do you think there was a more direct "cause" than their honest belief that they were doing Allah's will and would be rewarded for it?

Belief is far from trivial, and again I think you've misread (or not read at all) my arguments.

Belief cannot be isolated from the culture it is developed in. For instance, while it lay behind the 9/11 attacks, how many people in the world share similar beliefs without ever committing such deeds?

The attacks would never have gone ahead if not for an additional respect for martyrdom and a sense of injustice these people felt (for right or wrong). The absolute regard for suicide in the name of glory played just as big a role, something that is less religious belief and more a sense of social glorification (reward in Heaven plays only a part of the incentive to becoming a martyr).

Claiming it is a simple matter of just 'faith', IMO, is trivialising something that is a much more complicated issue involving more than just a religious belief.

Yes, religious charities feed people, but they do so in exchange for adherence to their teachings. If poor families in your country were accusing their kids of being witches and abandoning them on the street, do you really think that feeding those kids and the families they come from would be the only solution? It doesn't even address the direct cause --people see behavior they don't understand in others and attribute it to supernatural things--gods, demons, witches, evil forces, or whatever it is they have been taught via their culture. If you give them money and food, it doesn't make them suddenly think the kids they abandoned aren't witches. It doesn't make the kids called witches feel better about themselves. It doesn't keep the problem from happening again when poverty comes around again. It doesn't guide them as to the best means of handling children they can't afford nor does it help them plan their families so they're not having children they can't afford. *snip*

Why the need to see it so simple? Changing the way a society functions is not a one-step program. I don't believe that removing poverty will remove superstition, and I challenge you to show me precisely where I suggested that.

I've already explained the links between poverty, social interaction and collectivist beliefs and superstition. If you have a need to critically analyse what I've said, start there, and not with another straw man argument, as most of the remainder of your post follows.

To comment on the dangers of beliefs or faith filled notions is hardly passing judgment on people. Why would you think it is? Has Randi ever appeared judgmental to you?

Judgemental? Not as such. However, I do think some comments he makes from time to time are less than effective in producing solutions. Clearly he is somebody with a wealth of experience and has suffered from the challenges a man in his position faces regularly. Patience thins, and understandably he readily feels inclined to regard most believers in superstition as ignorant and foolish. Frustration is a part of the game here, although it is a useless emotion to have.

I'd love to feel the same, and with many people in our society, I do. However, there are experiences I've had where the same way of thinking about religion and superstition won't produce effective measures.

Athon

[dann]

Read those and far more. One of my rather mixed academic discipline specialities was what the Germans call Afrikanistik, IOW mixed anthropology, linguistics and history of the whole region.

IOW, you have stumbled in on a grandmother/eggs/don't_advise situation. :p
Happy Season and all the very best!No advice intended, not even checking up on you to see if you've done your homework. :) I was just wondering, what do you think of the articles? Your extensive knowledge of Africa would make it even more interesting to hear what you have to say about the two articles, Steve Kowit’s and Leo Igwe’s. I have never been to Africa myself. I suppose you have as part of your studies. Do you actually speak any African languages?
I have gained intimate knowledge of the Yoruba religion, but only in the Afro-Cuban version which to me appears to contain a lot of making-it-up-as-you-go-along elements after it was more or less reinvented in the 1990s when poverty struck hard. The CNN had a news item early in the morning of Dec. 25 about Christmas celebration in Cuba, which included Santeria, the combination of Catholicism and Yoruba, showing Cubans worshipping Babalú Ayé/San Lazaro (http://www.guije.com/templos/rincon/index.htm), but I haven’t been able to access it on-line.

Another article by Leo Igwe (http://www.csicop.org/sb/2004-06/nigeria.html) mentioning the role poverty plays in ritual killings in Nigeria. Not for the faint-hearted.

[Slimething]

As I've written previously, simple things for simple minds:

Your so-called challenging my credentials consisted in telling me that you had been to more third world countries than I had, but you tend to forget that this was never my argument (and it would have been a very childish one if I had): 'I've been to more third-world countries than Randi, Slimething and articulett, and therefore I'm right and they're wrong!' That is your kind of argument, not mine:

Again you misunderstand plainly written English. Either you are really dense or you are merely pretending to misunderstand because your thesis has fizzled.

And for the education of others, who are not as argumentatively challenged as you appear to be, let us take a look at the way you create your strawman:
I mention Cuba as an example of a poor country with educated inhabitants but growing superstition.

That's just the point, dann, you can't use Cuba as an example when you've only been to one third-world country, that being Cuba! Got it yet? Cuba is not the Congo. It's not Brazil. It's not Mexico. It's like saying that France and England are the same because they're both first-world countries. You're not a simpleton, are you? Ah, never mind!

You 1) only quote me for saying that I've been to Cuba, 2) ignore the rest,

OK. The rest was just filler anyway. Verbosity does not count for much with me, as you have noticed.

3) pretend that I have assumed a position of superiority based on this

You did, dann. You big boss you jus' tellin' the peons to grow up 'cuz witch hunts originate with poverty so we shouldn't criticize poor people for accusing kids of bein' witches. Remember that, boss?

and 4) try top this by telling us that you have not only been to more poor countries, but even to the poorest one of them all, which 5) you seem to think makes you win the superiority competition,

It does give my credentials a certain luster which yours lack, I would say. Or haven't you noticed? Suppose you and I both entered a Dept of State and started offering observations of socioeconomic conditions in the third world. Who's word do you think they would find authoritative? A person who had been to one and thought that all third world nations were the same or the other guy who's been to more and can elucidate on their differences and how they are different? Go ahead. There's another guessing game for you.

which you 6) even conclude with a guessing game!

Life does seem to be a guessing game for you, dann.

I cannot see how it can get more childish than that!

How about me going on line and telling a group of people to grow up because of an infantile, baseless opinion on my part? How about that?

You mentioned the Malleus Maleficarum (http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/), and I replied that the people behind it were extremely educated,

That's all you need to say, dann. Your posit that witch hunts or even superstition as a whole arises from poverty is gone. Dust. Nothing remains. But you must prattle...

because so far that is what has been mentioned as the panacea for curing all superstition by you and articulett. However, it is a little ironic that you, of all people, seem to think that mentioning an example of persecution of heretics -

Heretics as in witches, yes?

"By questioning any part of Catholic belief, one could be branded a heretic. Scientists were branded heretics by virtue of repudiating certain tenets of Christian belief (most notably Galileo, whose theories on the nature of planets and gravitational fields was initially branded heretical). Writers who challenged the Church were arrested for heresy (sometimes formerly accepted writers whose works had become unpopular). Anyone who questioned the validity of any part of Catholic belief did so at their own risk."

I thought even you were bright enough not to quote without attribution, dann. My mistake.

This is the way that fundamentalists of all persuasions, religious, political or .... skeptical, tend to behave, be they religious, political ..... or skeptical, apparently.

I just love it. First, a rigid accusation that all fundamentalists behave in a certain way that dann has ordained and then "apparently". Everyone who disagrees with your simplistic point of view is now a "fundamentalist", dann? So nice to be able to pidgeonhole everyone who disagrees. Perhaps you are right: someone needs to grow up.

Fundamentalism can't do without exaggeration, without hyperbole,

Dann, I was not the simpleton telling everyone in a group to which I did not belong to "grow up". You did. It takes a lot of brazen hubris to do that. To date, I have not met anyone who paints with a broad brush who turned out to be right.

Personally I don't know a single Christian who believes "in the existence of witches as a real and valid threat"

Dann, you don't get around much. We've already established that.

Destitution is limited which means that the preachers of hell and damnation do not have an audience. I do know that the belief in the existence of witches exists in certain corners of the Christian world, but I also know that you don't need a document from the middle ages in order to create a witchhunt:

In your mind, all that is needed is poverty. Not so. Case close. Mind closed as well, I see.

The human mind is a very creative thing

Writing from experience, I see.

Yes, you are indeed "someone who has not responded substantively" :), which is why you've only managed to shoot yourself in the foot. [I can't believe it's come to this!]

Why are you responding, then? I know why. You only started responding when you trotted out the "slimething won't partake in intelligent exchange" or some such crap. So then I just reminded your buddies about your idiotic replies after I first answered. Now, you feel you have to.

So, how did I shoot myself in the foot? Here you are jumping at another baseless conclusion. You think you're avoiding the Maleus Maleficarum issue? Not by a long shot.

In science this would be called outright lying and misrepresentation, and people doing so would probably lose their jobs.

Let me guess. You've visited one lab?

Worse yet. Liars in my field go to jail. But, you have to substantiate. Where have I lied? You only said I shot myself in the foot. But I didn't. You still have not reconciled the larget witch hunt in history with your loser hypothesis. Do that, and I go away.

You lost it from the very beginning. Pretending that it isn't so may make you look like a winner in your own eyes, the tough, in-your-face, stick-to-the-facts, don't-take-no-crap-from-nobody kinda guythe John Wayne of Skepticism, in other words,
so keep it up and give us more examples of rational, critical thinking to hold up to the world of superstitious ignorants as an example of all that's best in rationality, science, skepticism and the tool of reason! :)

My goodness, dann, you sure are full of resentments, aren't you? John Wayne, of all people! He wasn't even a skeptic or a scientist. He was one of your camp, dann.

Stop making idiotic blanket statements about people and your life will improve, dann. I'm new here and perhaps the skeptics who have been here longer know to ignore you but I"m having a lot of fun with this. It's not often I meet someone with little sense and, in polite society, I'm not allowed to make them appear more foolish than they are but this is a luxury the web affords me.

[dann]

My goodness, dann, you sure are full of resentments, aren't you? John Wayne, of all people! He wasn't even a skeptic or a scientist. He was one of your camp, dann.

Stop making idiotic blanket statements about people and your life will improve, dann. I'm new here and perhaps the skeptics who have been here longer know to ignore you but I"m having a lot of fun with this. It's not often I meet someone with little sense and, in polite society, I'm not allowed to make them appear more foolish than they are but this is a luxury the web affords me.The holidays have done you a lot of good, Slimething. This is priceless!!! I thought that your first third-world competion was inimitable, but you actually managed to improve upon it, and you even heard that John Wayne was neither a scientist nor a skeptic! Hilarious. Not even John Cleese could make something like this up if he tried. I welcome John Wayne to my corner:
I'm not going to be drawn to your level, dannie. "No, you started it!" Whatta buncha crap.
Kinda losing it, aren't you? :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[articulett]

Dann, to me and others communicating via pm--you seem to be the one decompensating.

You falsified your own claim multiple times and don't even seem to be aware of it. You misinterpreted the newsletter itself and assumed that because someone rightly noted that "superstition breeds homelessness" (evidenced in the article)--that people were blaming the believers rather than the beliefs themselves. You also presumed that these people overlooked poverty and that you could judge them because of this perceived judgment they passed on others! You thought they were judgmental, so you passed judgment upon them. THAT IS IRONY.

Bravo, Slimething--and rest assured, there are very smart people on this forum however none of them start threads about their superiority--nor do they attack all of those who disagree. Rest assured (and I've heard from back channels) that many people feel as you do. If nothing else, the irony of almost every statement from Dann or Gurdur's mouth provides unending amusement. Plus you gotta love the flailing and mud slinging and drama etc. they go through to keep their silly claims afloat and each others' egos afloat.
They are asking for it--and I haven't got the patience. But I do appreciate your tenacity and all the tantruming that ensues.

Really boys--you'd be so much more respectable if you actually took the time to ask "could this statement apply to me?" before you make another inane claim in print. Or at least try not to contradict yourself or get lost in semantic games and ad homs.

[dann]

A few days of rest didn't do you any good, apparently. So not only your students allegedly agree with with you, but now "others communicating via pm" do too? Very convincing! No others "start threads about their superiority", which I allegedly do? And every "statement from Dann or Gurdur's mouth" (we've actually got two, you know!) only amuse you, which is why you appear to be so very amused! :)

Go back and read Athon's latest post:
I've already explained the links between poverty, social interaction and collectivist beliefs and superstition. If you [= articulett] have a need to critically analyse what I've said, start there, and not with another straw man argument, as most of the remainder of your post follows.
New readers who would like to know where the condescending arrogance begins can start here: Time to grow up (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11), articulett.

I guess I shouldn't ask you, but speaking of poverty, social interaction and collectivist beliefs and superstition: Did you read The Mass Suicide of the Xhosa: A Study in Collective Self-Deception (http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-36844_ITM)?

[Checkmite]

I think this discussion is beside the point without realizing it. I don't think being poor is causing the families to think their kids are witches. I think that being poor is causing the families to realize that they cannot continue to sustain themselves as long as the child is there; they therefore get rid of the kid, and subsequently claim 'witchcraft' so that other people won't look at them so badly for kicking out the kid. The tone of the article (written, presumably, by someone who's actually there and thus would know) suggested this from the outset; at least, that's the way I read it. Witch scares are certainly real, and have existed in the past; yet, there isn't some vast, organized movement amongst religious leaders in that country to investigate and root out this "witchery" that, according to some here, those people so heavily believe is plaguing them. The likely reason for this is that nobody says anything when the kid is kicked out initially, and when later asked, the family makes something up on the spot. "We threw him out...because....he was a witch. Yeah, that's it."

[Gurdur]

I think this discussion is beside the point without realizing it. I don't think being poor is causing the families to think their kids are witches. I think that being poor is causing the families to realize that they cannot continue to sustain themselves as long as the child is there; they therefore get rid of the kid, and subsequently claim 'witchcraft' so that other people won't look at them so badly for kicking out the kid.
Without wanting to get involved in a long argument on exactly what constitutes causation, I would say you summed up what the entire first point of the OP was, the other points being that it is non-productive (by virtue of being totally irrelevant) to try telling people in such situations to grow up.

In the common real-life way one describes complex causational probability chains, it suffices to say that:
the situation is what gives rise to the accusations of witchcraft, and not that the accusations of witchcraft give rise to the situation.

Oh, and BTW, telling people who are desperately on the edge of famine and utter destitution to just grow up may well do wonders for the ego and for getting one's rocks off, but it's also terribly irrelevant and misguided.

So, you know, I would kind of disagree completely with you that the discussion is beside the point, the point including just what you have described in your own words.

[Slimething]

The holidays have done you a lot of good, Slimething. This is priceless!!! I thought that your first third-world competion was inimitable, but you actually managed to improve upon it, and you even heard that John Wayne was neither a scientist nor a skeptic! Hilarious. Not even John Cleese could make something like this up if he tried. I welcome John Wayne to my corner:

This is a rebuttal? Are you conceding or can you not defend your position any longer?

[Slimething]

A few days of rest didn't do you any good, apparently. So not only your students allegedly agree with with you, but now "others communicating via pm" do too? Very convincing!

Dann, you're the one who's playing the popularity side of things. You exhort others who have taken your side and then wavered to disallow any such doubts of your position.

No others "start threads about their superiority", which I allegedly do?

Yes. How condescending is telling a group of people to grow up? You even repeat your amazingly ignorant arrogance by insisting that those who believe you are wrong read some magazine article that will magically prove you right. I do agree that life should be more like the movies, TV and magazines but they're not.

And every "statement from Dann or Gurdur's mouth" (we've actually got two, you know!) only amuse you, which is why you appear to be so very amused! :)

They sure amuse me but none can hold a candle to you, dann. Gurdur means well but isn't too bright. Athon can't remember which facade to use on any given day. And you, boy, you are just a classic charicature of a pompous sophist. Like I told you before, I am enjoying your meltdown.

[Slimething]

Bravo, Slimething--and rest assured, there are very smart people on this forum however none of them start threads about their superiority--nor do they attack all of those who disagree. Rest assured (and I've heard from back channels) that many people feel as you do. If nothing else, the irony of almost every statement from Dann or Gurdur's mouth provides unending amusement. Plus you gotta love the flailing and mud slinging and drama etc. they go through to keep their silly claims afloat and each others' egos afloat.
They are asking for it--and I haven't got the patience. But I do appreciate your tenacity and all the tantruming that ensues.

Thanks for your support, articulett! This is a labor of love. It's not often that I find a pompous fool setting himself up just so.

Just think about what dann and his ilk are up to: Dann doesn't like what Randi wrote or what a contributor to the newsletter wrote so, instead of taking Randi head on like a responsible, educated human, he decides to post some drivvel about poverty and tell all of us skeptics to grow up. For one, I would have loved to see what Randi would have done with him.

But, anyway, this bozo attacks all of us in toto and then has the temerity to complain about ad hominem attacks!!! Then he finds these other two to back him up no matter that how absurd his responses get. This really is too enjoyable.

[dann]

How condescending is telling a group of people to grow up? It took you a very long time, Slimething, but I never gave up hope that you would get my point eventually! It is very condscending! (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11)
You still seem to have a few other problems, though:
But, anyway, this bozo attacks all of us in toto and then has the temerity to complain about ad hominem attacks!!! Why would it be a "temerity" to criticize all two of you "in toto" or even skeptics in general if they happen to be wrong? You and articulett appear to think that I should make a careful distinction between two groups of people: skeptics and the rest of humanity. It is temerarious to criticize skeptics, but it is OK to call others bozos, and if they complain about ad hominem attacks, it ought to be clear to everybody that they are just plain wrong! Something which skeptics cannot be! You just don't criticize the (imaginary) elite! And on their own board! The horror!!!
For the past 2½ weeks I have attacked mainly two alleged skeptics, articulett and you, and not the skeptics in toto. When I asked my questions in the opening post (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=70329), I actually feared that most skeptics would react like you and articulett:

“I am not quite sure, but it appears to me that skeptics sometimes tend to ignore quite obvious truths when looking at reality, something they appear to have in common with Christian Scientists in this case and with many others: ”superstitions (!) breed homeless people””

I feared how people on this board would answer my questions:

”Is that really all that skeptics have to offer? A much more rational way of starving?
Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? Or do they really believe that these children would be so much happier if they were starving without the added insult of being called witches?”

I was actually surprised to discover that I am not more or less alone on this one and that you and articulett are as isolated as you are. You are an embarrassment to the skeptical movement, Slimething.

[dann]

yet, there isn't some vast, organized movement amongst religious leaders in that country to investigate and root out this "witchery" that, according to some here, those people so heavily believe is plaguing them. The likely reason for this is that nobody says anything when the kid is kicked out initially, and when later asked, the family makes something up on the spot. "We threw him out...because....he was a witch. Yeah, that's it."
I think that we agree, Joshua, except for a minor detail: I don't think that the parents or other members of the family just make "something up on the spot." Remember that they are people, basically like us. And they have to do a very horrible thing: abandon their children! This is not something that they haven't thought about until somebody asks them. They are ashamed about doing what they do and therefore find it necessary to come up with an excuse for their own behaviour to assure themselves that they are not bad people. And the easiest thing to do is to blame the victims. They, the children, are possessed, they are witches, creatures that are part of their system of belief in this community.

There are many other examples of the connection between poverty and superstition and other calamities:

”If they are not yours and you cannot feed them, they are possessed.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4727745.stm)

Superstition, Poverty & Witch-Hunts (http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2211/stories/20050603002504100.htm)

Poverty, Superstion & Bird Flu (http://tahilla.typepad.com/birdflu/2005/11/poverty_and_sup.html)

Poverty, Superstition & Bird Flu (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/03/international/asia/03bird.html?ex=1288674000&en=d4532895897ec3d1&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)

Superstition, Poverty & AIDS (http://www.aegis.com/news/Lt/1990/LT900512.html)

Poverty, Ignorance, Foreskins & HIV (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/youropinions.php?opinionid=7519)

Poverty, Superstition & School (http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/nov14/i3.asp)

[Gurdur]

...I was actually surprised to discover that I am not more or less alone on this one and that you and articulett are as isolated as you are. You are an embarrassment to the skeptical movement, Slimething.
A small suggestion: there is a great deal of substance here to work through, including all the questions you put to me, which I will be answering soon, and some very interesting avenues of thought to explore.

That being so, and this discussion very long from over, then I would comment that since slimething and articulett seem to have totally given up any form of substance and are now only trolling, then it would be a very good idea not to respond to the trolling flames, but to stay on track. Anyone with a modicum of sense of irony is well able to follow the thread and the positions are very clear, so I suggest we simply stay on track.

[Gurdur]

Oh, and BTW, Dann, I may have easily missed something, but if I haven't missed anything (if), then I am amazed you have not brought up the parallel between the Xhosa and the Ghost Dance episodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance) (including Wounded Knee) of the Lakota Indians; I would have thought the parallel was more than striking.

Fritz Fanon in his The Wretched Of The Earth also commented at length on how oppressed groups will become very violent and turn that violence on each other inside the group; worthy of being looked into in this context.

[Slimething]

It took you a very long time, Slimething, but I never gave up hope that you would get my point eventually! It is very condscending! (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11)

Not so fast, dann. Your point was that Randi should not have criticized these people's superstitions because they were poor and poverty caused the superstitious behavior. I understand that you are quickly distancing yourself from that idiotic posit because it's so stupid but you did put it out there.

You still seem to have a few other problems, though:
Why would it be a "temerity" to criticize all two of you "in toto" or even skeptics in general if they happen to be wrong?

The only person you've prooved wrong is yourself, dann. I have shown you several times that your operating hypothesis is fallacious. Case in point: you have yet to link the Maleus Malificarum witch hunts to poverty.

It is temerarious to criticize skeptics, but it is OK to call others bozos, and if they complain about ad hominem attacks, it ought to be clear to everybody that they are just plain wrong! Something which skeptics cannot be! You just don't criticize the (imaginary) elite! And on their own board! The horror!!!

Nice try, dann. I'm not going to let you generalize this. Your post is obviously aimed at all skeptics, not merely articulett and me. And, I am not part of, nor do I have any knowldedge of, any elite. This is just you and me. I called you a pretentious, pompous bozo. No one else, just you. Prove me wrong.

Now, let's get back to the Maleus Maleficarum, shall we? Please show the linkage between poverty and superstition there, please.

For the past 2½ weeks I have attacked mainly two alleged skeptics, articulett and you, and not the skeptics in toto. When I asked my questions in the opening post (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=70329), I actually feared that most skeptics would react like you and articulett:

Now, you are admitting attacks. You really are a very poor debater, dann. You attack and then you fear reactions. Very intelligent...NOT!

I feared how people on this board would answer my questions:

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner?

See? There you go contradicting yourself again. I emboldened the operative language for you just in case you forgot. You did seem to forget because, at the beginning of your reply, you said your main point was that Randi told these idiots to grow up. So, which is it?

I was actually surprised to discover that I am not more or less alone on this one and that you and articulett are as isolated as you are.

Like I wrote earlier, I am fairly new here. Most of the more experienced skeptics here probably know to ignore you but I did not. Nevertheless, I am challenging you and you are evading. Moreover, the quality of your support is not daunting.

But, nevertheless, what were you saying about this thread becoming a popularity contest? That you didn't care? So, you slip up again! Big deal, I'm used to it by now.

You are an embarrassment to the skeptical movement, Slimething.

Oh, well! I am what I am. Thanks for letting me know because no one from that camp has said so. :D

Now, shall we talk about the Maleus Maleficarum persecutions and how they were caused by poverty?

[Slimething]

That being so, and this discussion very long from over, then I would comment that since slimething and articulett seem to have totally given up any form of substance and are now only trolling, then it would be a very good idea not to respond to the trolling flames, but to stay on track. Anyone with a modicum of sense of irony is well able to follow the thread and the positions are very clear, so I suggest we simply stay on track.

Gurdur, you really are amusing. First, you accused me of not knowing the definition of "reductionism" and I sent you to WP so you could educate yourself. Now, you accuse me and my fellow skeptic of trolling a skeptical forum.

How many words do you have in your vocabulary that you actually know the defintions of?

[dann]

I am amazed you have not brought up the parallel between the Xhosa and the Ghost Dance episodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Dance) (including Wounded Knee) of the Lakota Indians; I would have thought the parallel was more than striking. You are right, the Ghost Dance is a very obvious parallel, but not one that I know much about. I was hoping that one of the chapters in Steve Kowit’s book The Seductions of Belief (http://www.skeptica.dk/2005/kowit.htm) (the Xhosa article (http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/summary_0199-36844_ITM) is a chapter from this book) would be about this theme, but it hasn’t been published yet.
Fritz Fanon in his The Wretched Of The Earth also commented at length on how oppressed groups will become very violent and turn that violence on each other inside the group; worthy of being looked into in this context. I never heard about The Wretched of the Earth (http://www.amazon.com/Wretched-Earth-Frantz-Fanon/dp/0802141323/sr=1-3/qid=1167467983/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-9360498-6692929?ie=UTF8&s=books), but it sounds very interesting. Nor did I ever hear about Frantz (!) Fanon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantz_Fanon)
His other books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Skin%2C_White_Masks), Black Skin, White Masks (http://www.amazon.com/Black-White-Masks-Frantz-Fanon/dp/0802150845/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/102-9360498-6692929), A Dying Colonialism (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802150276/ref=pd_luc_0210108021413230802150276/102-9360498-6692929) and his collection of essays Toward the African Revolution (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802130909/ref=pd_luc_10210208021413230802130909/102-9360498-6692929) also sound interesting. I have ordered them from Amazon. I’m glad that you mentioned Frantz Fanon in this context. He sounds a little like a black Che Guevara. I have to admit that I’m not too crazy about his distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nationalism (http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/national-culture.htm), though. This is where most third-world revolutionaries tended to go wrong, I think. (And the modern first-world protesters (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/anti-global.html) against globalization and its impact aren't very different.)

A small suggestion: there is a great deal of substance here to work through, including all the questions you put to me, which I will be answering soon, and some very interesting avenues of thought to explore. As mentioned above, I have a lot of reading to do, too.
That being so, and this discussion very long from over, then I would comment that since slimething and articulett seem to have totally given up any form of substance and are now only trolling, then it would be a very good idea not to respond to the trolling flames, but to stay on track. Anyone with a modicum of sense of irony is well able to follow the thread and the positions are very clear, so I suggest we simply stay on track. Slimething and articulett trolling???! You cannot be serious!!! :)

[Gurdur]

Frantz (!) Fanon
Fine, fine, you pwned me. Comes with me relying on memory at an antique age of millions of texts read decades ago.

OK, I really ain't that old; I plead too much whatever has destroyed my brain.

[Gurdur]

..... I have to admit that I’m not too crazy about his distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ nationalism (http://www.marxists.org/subject/africa/fanon/national-culture.htm), though. However, some form of distinction is vital.
Witness: the Hutu militias in Rwanda.
This is where most third-world revolutionaries tended to go wrong, I think.
The fact that almost all first-world, second-world and third-world revolutionaries go badly wrong somewhere is not however a proof of the wrongness of their initial premises, that something needed radical change.

And the whole revolutionary cast of mind is especially pertinent here; since skeptics see themselves as a revolutionary minority in many ways, struggling in non-violent ways against a society gone wrong with woo, they are prone to all the mistakes that can be made in that frame of mind. Rather .... relevant.

[articulett]

And, I am not part of, nor do I have any knowledge of, any elite. This is just you and me. I called you a pretentious, pompous bozo. No one else, just you. Prove me wrong.



Well, actually, I may have called him a pompous bozo too-- not necessarily in those terms ...

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2215637#post2215637

How was I to know he'd take it personally?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I have not read this entire thread, but I would haughtily admonish everyone to watch out for cause and effect.


Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner?
How do you know that this is the cause and effect situation?

~~ Paul

[dann]

I have not read this entire thread, but I would haughtily admonish everyone to watch out for cause and effect. That is indeed haughty of you without reading the arguments in the thread. Or is this something that you just do? Drop by and tell people in threads you haven't read to watch out for cause and effect?
How do you know that this is the cause and effect situation? Read the thread, Paul!

[dann]

Frantz (!) Fanon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantz_Fanon) Fine, fine, you pwned me. Well, it's just that I thought: 'Fritz Fanon? He must be German!' So instead of missing the things that might have been lost in translation, I decided to buy the original German version at www.amazon.de where they did not seem to have heard about this particular Fritz.

[dann]

However, some form of distinction is vital.
Witness: the Hutu militias in Rwanda.I know very little about that particular conflict, but wasn't it based on the repercussions of the racism introduced by the former colonial power, discrimination based on alleged racial traits?
The fact that almost all first-world, second-world and third-world revolutionaries go badly wrong somewhere is not however a proof of the wrongness of their initial premises, that something needed radical change. No, I can agree with those initial premises.
And the whole revolutionary cast of mind is especially pertinent here; since skeptics see themselves as a revolutionary minority in many ways, struggling in non-violent ways against a society gone wrong with woo, they are prone to all the mistakes that can be made in that frame of mind. Rather .... relevant. Like a persecuted and at the same time superior minority? Interesting idea ...

[Gurdur]

I know very little about that particular conflict, but wasn't it based on the repercussions of the racism introduced by the former colonial power, discrimination based on alleged racial traits?
No.
While that is often mooted, it is crap; witness how the first victims of the Hutu militias were moderate Hutus, and after that anyone who was remotely better off than their neighbours was accused of being Tutu.

Additionally, apart from the Tutsi, the Hutu militias also wiped out (90% genocide) another minority tribe, one who had never ever been favoured by the former colonialists, so the idea that it was all because the Tutsi had formerly been favoured is quite obviously incorrect.
Like a persecuted and at the same time superior minority? Interesting idea ...
To be much more precise, needfully, a minority who feel persecuted albeit superior, but are not in actual fact persecuted in any meaningful way at all.

[athon]

I have not read this entire thread, but I would haughtily admonish everyone to watch out for cause and effect.


How do you know that this is the cause and effect situation?

~~ Paul

Haughtily? Hehe. I might make a t-shirt that says 'haughty but nice'.

I agree that 'cause and effect' is one of those messy things that can destroy an argument. Unfortunately this debate has so many straw men and a forest of ad hom's and tantrums, I'm feeling more like I'm Dorothy in Oz than anything.

As I keep saying, it's not a simple cause and effect situation. Poverty might not directly breed superstition, but it's fairly good fertiliser to make sure it grows bloody well. And it's important to recognize that when addressing a situation such as this.

Athon

[Slimething]

Or is this something that you just do? Drop by and tell people in threads you haven't read to watch out for cause and effect?

All this sidestepping must keep you in great shape, dann. Answer the question, for once. Do you still maintain that poverty breeds superstition? Time to take off the greasepaint.

[dann]

Yes, poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner.

[articulett]

Yes, poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner.

So why don't you?

[dann]

So why don't you?I do.

[dann]

No.
While that is often mooted, it is crap; witness how the first victims of the Hutu militias were moderate Hutus, and after that anyone who was remotely better off than their neighbours was accused of being Tutu.
Additionally, apart from the Tutsi, the Hutu militias also wiped out (90% genocide) another minority tribe, one who had never ever been favoured by the former colonialists, so the idea that it was all because the Tutsi had formerly been favoured is quite obviously incorrect.Then what was the point? Tribal chauvinism? Envy? (Well, maybe for another thread or is it relevant in the discussion about poverty and superstition?)
To be much more precise, needfully, a minority who feel persecuted albeit superior, but are not in actual fact persecuted in any meaningful way at all. That sounds almost like Mensa! :) (Or at least it reminds me of some of the people from the Danish chapter of Mensa that I have quarrelled with ....)

[Gurdur]

Then what was the point? Tribal chauvinism? Envy? (Well, maybe for another thread or is it relevant in the discussion about poverty and superstition?)
Over-population plus a kind of proto-fascist mindset among the Hutu militias.
That sounds almost like Mensa! :) (Or at least it reminds me of some of the people from the Danish chapter of Mensa that I have quarrelled with ....)
* crosses Mensa meetings off the list of good places to hang out *

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That is indeed haughty of you without reading the arguments in the thread. Or is this something that you just do? Drop by and tell people in threads you haven't read to watch out for cause and effect?
Yup, that's my job here. Didn't you know? Sheesh.

So I've read the thread. People don't appear convinced that you've supported your contention that poverty is the cause of superstition. I'm not convinced either. Could you summarize your evidence for this claim for poor future readers who can't see the trees among the forest of this thread?

~~ Paul

[dann]

Yup, that's my job here. Didn't you know? Sheesh.No, I didn't. Why the "Sheesh."?
So I've read the thread. People don't appear convinced that you've supported your contention that poverty is the cause of superstition. I think I know the "people" you refer to.
I'm not convinced either. What are your objections to my arguments?
Could you summarize your evidence for this claim? Yes, I could. As a matter of fact, I think I've done so a couple of times already. If you want me to do so again, it won't be today, however. New Years Eve is approaching fast over here.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No, I didn't. Why the "Sheesh."?
Because you could have simply suggested that I read the thread, but no, you had to make this crack: "Or is this something that you just do? Drop by and tell people in threads you haven't read to watch out for cause and effect?"


What are your objections to my arguments?
I don't know what your argument is, man. It all seems like a just-so statement, as in "Yes, poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition ...". I can't find a summary of your insight.


Yes, I could. As a matter of fact, I think I've done so a couple of times already.
Thank you. You can just point me to an existing summary.

~~ Paul

[hammegk]

Hereeere's a Summary...

Someone dropped into an african zoo un-announced, and mentioned the vet in charge seemed to concentrate on giving out bandaids rather than feeding starving animals, and the only well fed group -- a cage of monkeys --started flinging poo.

[Gurdur]

...So I've read the thread. People don't appear convinced that you've supported your contention that poverty is the cause of superstition.
Really? You get two things wrong here; one is that Dann used the construction that poverty breeds superstition, which is to say that conditions of poverty greatly encourage the growth of superstition; the other thing you get wrong is when you claim "people don't appear convinced". That's not true; there are two other posters here who accept the main thrust of the point, and two who don't. Seems odd you ignore the positives. Especially since Dann gave supporting evidence and you haven't even discussed it.
I'm not convinced either. Could you summarize your evidence for this claim for poor future readers who can't see the trees among the forest of this thread?
Since Dann provided a good deal of evidence throughout the thread; I cannot see why you are asking him to summarize it. Your own lack of conviction is your thing; yet you don't seem to have paid any attention to the evidence already given at all.

[Slimething]

Yes, poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner.

Oh, finally! So, dann, in your world, if I gave a witch hunter a million euros, said witch hunter would no longer be superstitious. This is established, of course, because none of us have ever seen supersitious, wealthy people. No Winchester House exists, for example.

Really a stupid, simplistic worldview, dann. Poverty and misery contribute to a great many things. For your rant against skeptics to hold water, you have to establish causality. Of course, you would have been right if you could have established that but you can't.

So, admit you were wrong. Apologize like a mature human would. Then you can go away and grow up a little.

[Slimething]

Really? You get two things wrong here; one is that Dann used the construction that poverty breeds superstition, which is to say that conditions of poverty greatly encourage the growth of superstition; the other thing you get wrong is when you claim "people don't appear convinced". That's not true;

Absolutely true, gurdur, if only you had even an adequate command of English. In your and dann's minds (such as they are), because people are poor, their foibles should not be criticized. I guess we should give them money then criticize their superstitious claptrap. That is nonsense of high order. Why don't you rail against your own justice system for imprisoning poor people for theft, as privation breeds envy?

And, the second thing: the term "people" includes all humans, gurdur. Again, I ask you to consult a worthy dictionary. Yes, there are two vocal dissidents and two vocal proponents but, if you check the thread stats, you'll see that many people view this thread but don't write in. So, how do you know how many people agree and how many disagree?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You get two things wrong here; one is that Dann used the construction that poverty breeds superstition, which is to say that conditions of poverty greatly encourage the growth of superstition; ...
I got that wrong? You mean he's not saying that poverty breeds superstition?

If Dann is saying that poverty contributes to the growth of already-established superstitions among the poor, due to superstition's handy ability to provide excuses for various problems, then I suspect he is correct to one degree or another. However, what he said was:

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner?
I read from this that poverty is the only source of superstition. Otherwise how could fighting poverty possibly "do away with it"? Perhaps he has softened his position since the OP, or perhaps the OP was an exaggeration, which is why I asked him to summarize his current thoughts.


Seems odd you ignore the positives. Especially since Dann gave supporting evidence and you haven't even discussed it.
I'm not ignoring those who agree with him. In fact, you could summarize his current thoughts if you'd like.

~~ Paul

[Checkmite]

So, you know, I would kind of disagree completely with you that the discussion is beside the point, the point including just what you have described in your own words.

I say "beside the point", because by and large, it seems that most people here who disagree with the OP are taking the position that these peoples' being poor is causing them, through some mechanism, to become so superstitious that when something "weird" happens, they think their kids may be witches, and so throw them out.

When I stated earlier in this thread that the solution to this problem lies not in teaching the people that "witches don't exist", but rather eliminating the need to throw a kid out, I meant exactly that. You can go an teach those people that witches aren't real, and get them to believe it to a man - and you'll still face the same problem. The "excuse" for throwing the kid out will change, sure, but that's all. Because it was never about superstition or witchcraft, at all. It was about food, the whole time - and as long as that's the problem, there will ALWAYS be alleged "witches" - or "thieves", or "unnatural", or "too-dangerous-to-keep-at-home" kids - running the streets.

It is the arguing about how this situation is all the fault of belief in witches that I'm insisting is beside the point.

[Skeptic Ginger]

This is not a case at all of skeptics not being skeptical enough. And it is an oversimplification to say the accusations of witchcraft are merely fabricated to evict an orphan who is now an unwanted social obligation. This is a complex interaction which takes some degree of familiarity with cultural psychology and sociology to see the broader picture.

What you have here are the consequences of disruption of normal societal rules. Put another way, these societies evolved their social interactions over thousands of years when the unwritten rule was, widowed spouses and orphans are taken in by surviving siblings of the deceased parent. These rules are followed because of the emotional satisfaction one gets, but also because of the social stigma of not following them. They evolved because they benefit the group as a social safety net. The unspoken tribal rules amount to society's welfare system. You have no government welfare system.

Then comes disruption of the society with population growth, poverty, war, and so on and so on. Now the mechanism which served the group well for thousands of years is maladaptive. To this social expectation you add the disease of HIV-AIDS which kills a disproportionate number of wage earners/providers.

Surviving family members are now overburdened with orphaned relatives. The belief in witchcraft was already present in the society. It may even have been an established norm in the society to use an accusation of witchcraft for any number of things such as jealousy, rivalry and so on. The belief is real. The motive for making the accusation may or may not be something the accuser is aware of. It's no surprise to see something like this pop up in these circumstances.

On to the claim skeptics aren't skeptical enough about these matters.

Of course they aren't skeptical enough. The beliefs in witchcraft are real. The rest of what is happening is part of a very complex social dynamic. It merely takes an education in the psycho-social/cultural dynamics to form an awareness of the complexities involved. Educate the skeptic in the complex dynamics of these particular belief systems and you find immediate acceptance of the premises. There may be room to debate the finer points, but you don't have skeptics denying there are multiple factors involved in superstitious beliefs.

Such dynamics are involved in all belief systems.

Religion has all sorts of inherent motives in its promoters and believers. That doesn't mean believers are all merely deceitful and don't really believe. Nor do people believe in their religion completely separate from external factors. Churches target lonely people for recruitment. That doesn't mean church members are all deviously searching out vulnerable victims. Past success recruiting vulnerable people makes it logical to seek them out for recruitment. Vulnerable people may take up religious beliefs as a relief from loneliness. The dynamic of loneliness is involved but the belief is real. Do we argue skeptics aren't skeptical enough if they don't analyze all the reasons behind religious beliefs?

I don't think its a coincidence a number of very vocal gay bashers have turned out to be closet gays. There is a psychological mechanism behind having been taught to hate your homosexuality (hating your sexuality has resulting consequences as well). As you hate your inner self some people project that out and voila', you get a gay basher. Do they believe their religion? I would think so. It probably makes them hate themselves even more. Should I bring this dynamic up every time I discuss irrational religious beliefs?

In this case the psycho-social issues are more obvious so the superstition appears perhaps fabricated because we are on the outside looking in. From the inside, it looks similar to other false belief systems. There are similar psycho-social aspects but those are not so obvious.

[Skeptic Ginger]

As to the effects of poverty on superstitious beliefs, there all sorts of dynamics involved in irrational beliefs. Poverty and the resulting lack of education has a profound effect.

That doesn't explain the right wing evangelical movement which has a number of highly educated and well off members in it.

[articulett]

I do.

Excellent.

So now that you've divined the most efficient way of dealing with superstition in the Congo, we've got got that problem solved. Glad to know you and Gurdur are on it.

So whats the most efficient ways to deal with the AIDS crisis there and the child soldiers and female genital mutilation and the continual raping of females from toddler-hood to old age?

[articulett]

Hereeere's a Summary...

Someone dropped into an african zoo un-announced, and mentioned the vet in charge seemed to concentrate on giving out bandaids rather than feeding starving animals, and the only well fed group -- a cage of monkeys --started flinging poo.

Oopsy...you forgot to mention that the animals were bleeding, and that while you...er..."the monkeys" were "flinging poo"--the un-announced visitors thanked the vet, noting that it's a good thing he was keeping the animals from bleeding to death before feeding them hard as it was with Dann...er "the monkeys" flinging poo and all. (!)

But those silly gur...er.."monkeys"--they are dense...and they only understand big things, you know-- like "macroevoltuion" --they can't help that they haven't the brain for the finer details of language and the like. They are just too busy flinging poo at images of themselves in the mirror and trying to get the attention of zookeepers so they can complain about those other awful monkeys in the looking glass. tsk.

(next time read between the lines.)

[hammegk]

My Dear Articulett: I didn't realize you had a reading comprehension problem. Maybe I should cut you a bit more slack. :)

BTW, that last bit of monkey poo you tossed ... was it fresh?

[Checkmite]

Surviving family members are now overburdened with orphaned relatives. The belief in witchcraft was already present in the society. It may even have been an established norm in the society to use an accusation of witchcraft for any number of things such as jealousy, rivalry and so on. The belief is real. The motive for making the accusation may or may not be something the accuser is aware of. It's no surprise to see something like this pop up in these circumstances.


If these people genuinely believed their kids were witches, considering the number of them being kicked out for that reason, it logically follows that there would be an antecedent, in the form of some action being taken to deal with the problem of all these witches running around - and there isn't We're not talking about a couple-dozen throw aways that the community chooses to ignore. We're talking about a WHOLE LOT of kids.

Conversely, the very fact that not accepting an orphaned child places such a social stigma on a family simply supplies motive for inventing an excuse to boot them out.

[articulett]

If these people genuinely believed their kids were witches, considering the number of them being kicked out for that reason, it logically follows that there would be an antecedent, in the form of some action being taken to deal with the problem of all these witches running around - and there isn't We're not talking about a couple-dozen throw aways that the community chooses to ignore. We're talking about a WHOLE LOT of kids.

Conversely, the very fact that not accepting an orphaned child places such a social stigma on a family simply supplies motive for inventing an excuse to boot them out.

Really? How many are there. What is a "whole lot"? What are your sources? And you've concluded that none of them actually believe in witches, eh? They just want to get rid of the kids and then when someone asks them why?--they say..."uh--witchcraft...the kid was acting nutso, I swear." Interesting theory you have there. And such confidence! So you've logically concluded that there would be some sort of "antecedent" with all these witches running around--but since there is no antecedent (that you know of anyhow)...then there really must not be a whole lot of witches, right? Oh but you said there was a WHOLE LOT of witches... oh... I get it... because there is no "antecedent" (that you know of)...you have brilliantly deduced that the only people claiming that their kids were witches are the kids interviewed after the fact. Wait...Er... you read some other article and determined they interviewed kid-abandoning adults and asked them why they abandoned their kids and they said (desperately searching for a reason)"the kid was a witch!" And how big was this poll? Don't you think we ought to know a little more before we go sending off our dollars and food baskets to the Catholic orphanage?

Natch.

Is Gurdur your mentor by chance? Or is that Dann's fine reasoning we see on display with a dash of Hammegk's ontological epiphenomenal nothingness?

(Kellyb's article was amazing. The most incompetent ARE, indeed, the most confident. http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf so much wisdom we can get from the clueless! Wow--the pompous boobs don't even know that THEY are the pompous boobs--)

Darn...did I derail this thread again? Oopsy--back to your deep conversation boys...nice to see ya'll clubbin' together. Later. Try not to miss me. Kisses.
ut.[/QUOTE]

[articulett]

My Dear Articulett: I didn't realize you had a reading comprehension problem. Maybe I should cut you a bit more slack. :)

BTW, that last bit of monkey poo you tossed ... was it fresh?

Why? ya' hungry?

[Skeptic Ginger]

If these people genuinely believed their kids were witches, considering the number of them being kicked out for that reason, it logically follows that there would be an antecedent, in the form of some action being taken to deal with the problem of all these witches running around - and there isn't We're not talking about a couple-dozen throw aways that the community chooses to ignore. We're talking about a WHOLE LOT of kids.

Conversely, the very fact that not accepting an orphaned child places such a social stigma on a family simply supplies motive for inventing an excuse to boot them out.There is social stigma, which by the way has a self inflicted component. It isn't just that your neighbors will snub you, you may have your own guilt feelings. The expectation a sibling takes in orphaned nieces and nephews may run deep.

There is often resentment, perhaps mixed with grief. I would be sad if my brothers died.

There is the overwhelming burden of poverty and common mythical beliefs are longstanding.

What my point is, the dynamic involved here is not simple. It is very complex. Just because an outsider can see the relationship between accusations of witchcraft and the burden of an unwanted obligation to one's sibling's orphaned children doesn't mean it is some simple conscious lie to accuse the children of being witches.

There is still ignorance involved. There is still a belief in witches. I think it's best here to broaden one's perspective. Look at the wider view of multiple factors at play here besides just a belief in the supernatural.

[dann]

Time to start summarizing, but before I begin working on that, I’d like to know a few things:
You get two things wrong here; one is that Dann used the construction that poverty breeds superstition, which is to say that conditions of poverty greatly encourage the growth of superstition; ...
I got that wrong? You mean he's not saying that poverty breeds superstition? That is what I have been saying the whole time! Poverty breeds superstition!!!
If Dann is saying that poverty contributes to the growth of already-established superstitions among the poor, due to superstition's handy ability to provide excuses for various problems, then I suspect he is correct to one degree or another. However, what he said was: Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner?
I read from this that poverty is the only source of superstition. Otherwise how could fighting poverty possibly "do away with it"? Perhaps he has softened his position since the OP, or perhaps the OP was an exaggeration, which is why I asked him to summarize his current thoughts.
So, no, I haven’t softened my position since my opening post. Those were actually the words from my opening post: Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? Your way of twisting the meaning of my words, however, is a little bizarre. If, for instance, I had claimed that certain kinds of pollution breed (or in that context I would probably have used the word: cause) cancer and that this fact would make it very obvious how to go about fighting cancer if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner, instead of looking for new ways to treat people once they have got it, then I cannot see how this would imply that I neglected the existence of all other kinds of cancer-inducing agents. Can you, Paul? And I find it extremely difficult to understand how you come to your conclusion after your alleged reading of the whole thread where I said a number of times that I think that for instance Bush and Blair could not possibly be superstitious because they are poor since they definitely aren’t. OK?

Let me post a few examples which you (and not just you) seem to have missed somehow:

They start as early as this:

#15: “Yes, and you can even be rich, in good health, extremely well educated, have a beautiful wife and well-behaved, successful children .... and still believe in astrology!”

#48: ” But this time it is about England 60 years ago, and it does not explain Tony Blair :), nor does it have a condescending title like Time to grow up.”

#53: ”Who cares which delusions Blair, Bush and their rich friends might suffer from in private?”

#109: ” Expose people of today to similar situations, and they will behave in similar ways. Otherwise bright high-school students suddenly come to depend on lucky charms at their exams, and even relatively settled and rich people in changeable jobs like acting, sports or the stock exchange seek advice from astrologers, but still: you don't usually see horoscopes in the magazines catering to stock-exchange magnates, but in poor people's reading material they abound.” (You will have to go to post 109 to see what the words “similar situations” mean.

(By the way, who do you think wrote this just a few posts later?
#112: ”Superstition is the default position (even rich sports stars wear their lucky sucks or whatever it is they can link to their best game). Education is the only known remedy.” (It’s quite funny, actually, but a millionaire friend of mine majored in physics (his dissertation was about black holes). Still, he believes in Sai Baba’s alleged ability to teleport himself instantly from India to the USA. The last time I talked to him (our friendship has cooled a little), he had enrolled for a course teaching how to be physically in two different places at the same time. (He has a problem with being mentally present in one place at a time, I think.) So in this case neither poverty nor the lack of a scientific education is the problem. I think I know what is, but that is another story …
"Education is the only known remedy.")

#117: ”The pope isn't poor either, nor is Bush, nor is Blair, nor were the Reagans. Never denied it. And in the case of the rich or even the very rich, who, unlike the poor, actually benefit from religion, you should consider the many popes who fathered children and tended to have a very extravagant lifestyle! I wouldn't say that they didn't have religion, though, only that this is a very different religion from the kind where you have given up on finding a solution to your problems in this world and therefore only look for the meaning of life beyond reality.”

#147: ”I also find the same problem in civilized, well-educated Denmark where cancer patients are sometimes put on standby for weeks or months before they can have their much needed operations, chemo og radiation therapy: What is the point of telling these unfortunate people, who very often turn to woowoo remedies in despair, that they had better put their fate in the hands of modern science instead of turning to quacks and witchcraft? They already did! But the government’s cutbacks in expenditures means that science can’t deliver. (We already know that quacks can't deliver either, but what's the point if there is no alternative? These people don’t go to quacks because they are stupid. They don’t go to quacks because they are ignorant. They go to quacks because they have been let down, have no other practical solution, and – of course – because they are poor! The rich patients go to a private hospital – in Denmark or abroad.” A very important point, in my opinion. Maybe I should have ‘softened’ it for your stomachs and mentioned that some rich patients probably also go to quacks, but not because they cannot afford proper medical care like the poor. Very few people look forward to dying, so even millionaires may consider paying someone to tell them that their terminal cancer can be cured with a combination of green tea and feta cheese …
(And I probably wouldn’t even tell them that it was time to grow up either!)
Seems odd you ignore the positives. Especially since Dann gave supporting evidence and you haven't even discussed it.
I'm not ignoring those who agree with him. In fact, you could summarize his current thoughts if you'd like. Well, you certainly didn’t mention those who agree with my arguments when you referred to “people” as the reason for your intervention: “ People don't appear convinced …” Not just “some people”, including yourself? Or for that matter: "People who count ..,"? To me your statement does seem to ignore the positives ….

But back to my main problem with your intervention, Paul. Would you please explain to me again how you come to the conclusion that I think that "poverty is the only source of superstition"?
And won't you please compare it with articulett's "Education is the only (!) known remedy."? (my (!), dann)

[dann]

It is very complex. I am right when I assume that you would find it too simple to tell people in a situation like this that it is time to grow up?

[dann]

Oh, finally! Finally???! I have been saying the same thing over and over since my opening post. If you had read it, you probably would not feel so relieved that you have ‘finally’ made me admit (?) it again, would you?
So, dann, in your world, if I gave a witch hunter a million euros, said witch hunter would no longer be superstitious.I think you ought to try, Slimething, but it probably depends: Which witch hunter are you talking about? If I say that asbestos causes cancer, I don’t think that I imply that I can cure a patient suffering from asbestos-induced lung cancer by eliminating asbestos from the workplace (which he no longer has), do I?
This is established, of course, because none of us have ever seen supersitious, wealthy people. We haven’t? I’ve seen plenty, and I even happen to know a few personally. See post above!
No Winchester House exists, for example. I think I am the one who has mentioned Bush and Blair a couple of times on this thread. Do you really think that Winchester is a much better argument?
Really a stupid, simplistic worldview, dann. Poverty and misery contribute to a great many things. For your rant against skeptics to hold water, you have to establish causality. Of course, you would have been right if you could have established that but you can't.No, you are right, Slimething, I haven’t been to as many poor countries as you, so I cannot.
So, admit you were wrong. Apologize like a mature human would. Then you can go away and grow up a little. Apologize to you for what? All of your ad homs?

[hammegk]

Why? ya' hungry?
An attempt to share. Isn't that cute.

But, no, no! Bad! That's not what humans eat.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That is what I have been saying the whole time! Poverty breeds superstition!!!
Sorry, just giving Gurdur trouble about the wording of his sentence "You get two things wrong here; one is that Dann used the construction that poverty breeds superstition, ..." I should have used a smiley.


So, no, I haven’t softened my position since my opening post. Those were actually the words from my opening post:

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner?
So you're really saying that poverty is the only cause of superstition?


Your way of twisting the meaning of my words, however, is a little bizarre. If, for instance, I had claimed that certain kinds of pollution breed (or in that context I would probably have used the word: cause) cancer and that this fact would make it very obvious how to go about fighting cancer if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner, instead of looking for new ways to treat people once they have got it, then I cannot see how this would imply that I neglected the existence of all other kinds of cancer-inducing agents. Can you, Paul?
The words "do away with it" mean that you can eliminate it completely, which implies that the cause you mentioned is the only cause. I guess you mean to say that you can do away with that amount of superstition that is caused by poverty. Of course, I still have no idea how you would do that.


And I find it extremely difficult to understand how you come to your conclusion after your alleged reading of the whole thread where I said a number of times that I think that for instance Bush and Blair could not possibly be superstitious because they are poor since they definitely aren’t. OK?
I saw that, but it seemed to contradict your OP. Now I realize that your OP sounded much more black and white than you meant.


Well, you certainly didn’t mention those who agree with my arguments when you referred to “people” as the reason for your intervention: “ People don't appear convinced …” Not just “some people”, including yourself?
Sorry, I did not mean for "people" to imply "everyone."


But back to my main problem with your intervention, Paul. Would you please explain to me again how you come to the conclusion that I think that "poverty is the only source of superstition"?
It was your wording "... if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner?" I'm sorry my analysis of your position was superficial.

~~ Paul

[Roboramma]

I don't get it. There seems to be very little disagreement here. The only point of contention seems to be whether or not Randi was wrong to title his commentary "Time to Grow Up". Aside from that it seems that most agree to the main issues - yes, poverty can and does influence the tendancy toward superstition, yes there can be superstition and irrational beleif without poverty, yes alleviating poverty in africa would be a good thing. We are left with disagreement about degree - Is it better to focus on education or poverty if we care about aleviating suffering in Africa?
But if that's the question that we're trying to answer here, you could have fooled me, as no one seems to have offered anything substantial as means of answering it.
Taking out the egos from the thread, there seems to be very little left. Then again maybe I'm missing something...

What I, anyway, see remaining is posts like skeptigirl's post #197 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2218203&postcount=197). And I have to ask, does anyone on either side disagree with what she said there? If not, the current argument seems moot.

[Roboramma]

The words "do away with it" mean that you can eliminate it completely, which implies that the cause you mentioned is the only cause. I guess you mean to say that you can do away with that amount of superstition that is caused by poverty. Of course, I still have no idea how you would do that.

I think he's saying that while superstition may have many causes, the most obvious and the cause most easy to do something about is poverty. So if we intend to "do away with" superstition, the first course of action is to focus on poverty. This doesn't mean that there can or should be no other courses of action, just that he feels this is the most useful one, and that focusing on other things is putting the cart before the horse.

I'm not sure I agree, and I think that this point is one of the ones that should be debated with civility in this thread because we could actually come to some meaningful answers, but I don't think the point is necessarily foolish.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think he's saying that while superstition may have many causes, the most obvious and the cause most easy to do something about is poverty. So if we intend to "do away with" superstition, the first course of action is to focus on poverty.
I'm way more pessimistic about eradicating poverty than you are, I guess. I'd focus on education.

~~ Paul

[Gurdur]

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? So you're really saying that poverty is the only cause of superstition?
Weird.
Dann says poverty breeds superstition. IOW, plain English, superstition will be far more present with poverty than without it.

You, Paul, then say "you're really saying that poverty is the only cause of superstition?".
How stunningly illogical.

Tell me, Paul, how is Dann supposed to be claiming that poverty is the only cause of superstition, when he says poverty breeds superstition?

I do trust you can see the difference (just to remind you of actual cause and effect) between:

X -> often Y
and
if Y, then X

I mean, trying to get from even "X -> Y (let alone X -> often Y)" to then "if Y then X" is a very obvious logical fallacy, Affirmation of the consequent (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html#consequent).
The words "do away with it" mean that you can eliminate it completely, which implies that the cause you mentioned is the only cause.
A massive strawman.
I guess you mean to say that you can do away with that amount of superstition that is caused by poverty.
I would say that was fairly obvious to most.
Sorry, I did not mean for "people" to imply "everyone."
uh huh.

[dann]

How stunningly illogical. Let's leave it at that, Gurdur. I think it is clear to (almost) everybody that if, for instance, you said that poverty breeds discontent and that the way to stop discontent would therefore be to put a stop to poverty, nobody would assume that you can't get p***** off when Sylvia Browne appears on TV.
I think that Paul was misled by "people".

[dann]

So you're really saying that poverty is the only cause of superstition?No, but I think it is the major one.
The words "do away with it" mean that you can eliminate it completely, which implies that the cause you mentioned is the only cause. I guess you mean to say that you can do away with that amount of superstition that is caused by poverty. I don't think that you can talk about a certain "amount" caused by poverty: 85% poverty, 10% ignorance and 5% defective genes. But I will try to explain that again in detail within a couple of days. (See my sig line about the "condition which needs illusions.")
It was your wording "... if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner?" I'm sorry my analysis of your position was superficial.
~~ Paul I'm sorry if I did not make myself clear enough from the beginning.

[Checkmite]

Really? How many are there. What is a "whole lot"? What are your sources? And you've concluded that none of them actually believe in witches, eh? They just want to get rid of the kids and then when someone asks them why?--they say..."uh--witchcraft...the kid was acting nutso, I swear." Interesting theory you have there. And such confidence! So you've logically concluded that there would be some sort of "antecedent" with all these witches running around--but since there is no antecedent (that you know of anyhow)...then there really must not be a whole lot of witches, right? Oh but you said there was a WHOLE LOT of witches... oh... I get it... because there is no "antecedent" (that you know of)...you have brilliantly deduced that the only people claiming that their kids were witches are the kids interviewed after the fact. Wait...Er... you read some other article and determined they interviewed kid-abandoning adults and asked them why they abandoned their kids and they said (desperately searching for a reason)"the kid was a witch!" And how big was this poll? Don't you think we ought to know a little more before we go sending off our dollars and food baskets to the Catholic orphanage?

Calm down.

70% of 20,000 is a whole lot of street kids. Still, perhaps my motivation in my particular line of reasoning is pointing out the fact that people read this article and are so absolutely certain that the answer to this social ill is teaching the people to be skeptical of witchcraft, while I, on the other hand, choose to be skeptical that these people really believe in witchcraft. Lying to make oneself look not-as-bad is a trait far more common in the human family than a real belief in witches. Your mock exasperation and quipping about Catholicism have nothing to do with anything I've been saying.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner?

Weird.
Dann says poverty breeds superstition. IOW, plain English, superstition will be far more present with poverty than without it.

You, Paul, then say "you're really saying that poverty is the only cause of superstition?".
How stunningly illogical.
I guessed you missed the "do away with it" part.


Tell me, Paul, how is Dann supposed to be claiming that poverty is the only cause of superstition, when he says poverty breeds superstition?
Is there something about the definition of breeds that includes the fact that the breeder can't be the sole cause?


I do trust you can see the difference (just to remind you of actual cause and effect) between:

X -> often Y
and
if Y, then X
I can't find the word often in what Dann said.


I mean, trying to get from even "X -> Y (let alone X -> often Y)" to then "if Y then X" is a very obvious logical fallacy, Affirmation of the consequent.
I did not know that the word breeds really means implies.


A massive strawman.
Apparently it was, although I did not realize it until Dann clarified what he meant.


I would say that was fairly obvious to most.
Possibly, yes.

~~ Paul

[Slimething]

Finally???! I have been saying the same thing over and over since my opening post. If you had read it, you probably would not feel so relieved that you have ‘finally’ made me admit (?) it again, would you?

No, not really. Just one response to me ago, you said that your point was that Randi should not have titled his item in the way he did. You can argue that with Randi. Also, when questioned, you've hidden behind your magazine clippings so that it was difficult to root out exactly what you were saying without wasting time reading the links.

I think you ought to try

Nah, it's your point, dann. You do it.

Which witch hunter are you talking about?

Irrelevant, dann. Is this the best you can do?

If I say that asbestos causes cancer, I don’t think that I imply that I can cure a patient suffering from asbestos-induced lung cancer by eliminating asbestos from the workplace (which he no longer has), do I?

Specious argument, dann. You are trying to equate the belief in witchcraft with an organic malady. You are trying to muddle the argument with a secondary effect while I have been careful to keep the focus of the debate on the primary. Nice try.

We haven’t? I’ve seen plenty, and I even happen to know a few personally. See post above!
I think I am the one who has mentioned Bush and Blair a couple of times on this thread. Do you really think that Winchester is a much better argument?

I should had placed an irony warning around that text. Do you remember when articulett told you that you had falsified your own argument many times in the thread. What do you think that meant?

Apologize to you for what? All of your ad homs?

No, your high-handed accusation that all skeptics have to grow up and are unconcerned with the plight of their fellow human.

Of course, I don't expect you to apologize to me for calling me a liar. That would take real cojones which I'm fairly sure you lack. Grow up.

[dann]

Of course, I don't expect you to apologize to me for calling me a liar.That's good, Slimething.

[articulett]

Oh...so now "breeds" means "implies"? Ah yes...
So why was Dann so upset (with exclamation points even) that Randi agreed with the statement that in the case of the article: "superstitions (!) breed homeless people" Dann's words actually comes from the article itself:

In this week’s newsletter there is an interesting quotation from a reader, Sandra L. Hubscher, who has read an article in The Christian Science Monitor, Nov. 30, with the title, “In Congo, superstitions breed homeless children”.

Which makes DANN so Irate that he claims:

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? Or do they really believe that these children would be so much happier if they were starving without the added insult of being called witches?

So, the article we are talking about got it wrong...Randi and the writer got it wrong...But Dann, the ever noble poverty fighter, got it right. The rest of us clearly wanted to let the kiddies starve just so long as they weren't being called witches.

Dann...take a deep breath and let a bit of air out of your ego. You mispoke, right? You can print that off and ask people what they think of the person who wrote it (don't tell them it was you), and you will be angry at what they say. But you will learn something you can use.

Everyone has already acknowledged that poverty plays a role in the situation.
But it is NOT "THE CAUSE" as you have repeated claimed (though sometimes you slip and say "superstition causes poverty" and start linking items that you think "prove" that claim--which is the opposite of your original opinion.

You brought this lesson upon yourself. At least use it. Humility makes people a lot more likable, you know--and you can make things better once you become aware that you have something to work on. And you do. Everyone does. Nobody needs you to tell them to "grow up".

[Slimething]

Alas, that is what you really are best at, dann. Again, I openly challenge you to point out any lie from me.

If I made a list of all the issues I've brought up that you have selectively refused to address, it would fill up too many pages of this thread. However, anyone who flips back through this thread and takes stock of these issues will conclude that, what you lack in perspicacity, you make up for with self-righteousness, arrogance and banality.

[athon]

There is social stigma, which by the way has a self inflicted component. It isn't just that your neighbors will snub you, you may have your own guilt feelings. The expectation a sibling takes in orphaned nieces and nephews may run deep.

There is often resentment, perhaps mixed with grief. I would be sad if my brothers died.

There is the overwhelming burden of poverty and common mythical beliefs are longstanding.

What my point is, the dynamic involved here is not simple. It is very complex. Just because an outsider can see the relationship between accusations of witchcraft and the burden of an unwanted obligation to one's sibling's orphaned children doesn't mean it is some simple conscious lie to accuse the children of being witches.

There is still ignorance involved. There is still a belief in witches. I think it's best here to broaden one's perspective. Look at the wider view of multiple factors at play here besides just a belief in the supernatural.

Thank you for pointing this out Skeptigirl. My point from the beginning has been to say that 'cause and effect' here are complicated beyond simplicities.

Critical thinking in socieities such as these is actually socially destructive, espcially without replacement values. It's not a clear case of 'my child is a witch, cast it out', nor a case of 'I can't afford my child, so I'll accuse it of being a witch to make myself feel better'. Sociology is never so simple.

This is why I don't feel that basic judgements such as 'immaturity' and a simple lack of education being responsible for the actions are neither helpful or entirely correct.

Athon

[athon]

I'm way more pessimistic about eradicating poverty than you are, I guess. I'd focus on education.

~~ Paul


This is where my pessimism kicks in, then. Education of a standard that would build a firm foundation for scientific literacy is very difficult to implement in an impoverished society, especially when the education aims to promote critical thinking.

Athon

[articulett]

Calm down.

70% of 20,000 is a whole lot of street kids. Still, perhaps my motivation in my particular line of reasoning is pointing out the fact that people read this article and are so absolutely certain that the answer to this social ill is teaching the people to be skeptical of witchcraft, while I, on the other hand, choose to be skeptical that these people really believe in witchcraft. Lying to make oneself look not-as-bad is a trait far more common in the human family than a real belief in witches. Your mock exasperation and quipping about Catholicism have nothing to do with anything I've been saying.

I am calm. It's your own shiftiness you are noticing. The article Dann is talking about from the Christian Science Monitor mentioned itself that Superstition Breeds Homelessness. It claims the very thing that DANN refuses to acknowledge.

I never said that I'm certain about rightness nor did I say that "teaching people to be skeptical is the answer to all social ills". It's interesting how you and DANN and Gurdur seem to see things that people are NOT saying (like Dann's line about how skeptics don't care if the kids starve--just so long as they are not called witches)--and then you guys take personal offense from these incorrect observations and attack. After that, you step back and engage in what looks like a mutual masturbatory game of "look how great and smart and noble and clever we are!--we done told those ignoramuses off."

You have called people simple when it was you who was being a simpleton. Moreover commenting on the harm of peoples' opinions, beliefs, or statements IS NOT THE SAME as attacking those people. I know that you think it is, and you react accordingly--it's what this thread is about. No one ever insulted the poor people--nothing in the newsletter or anywhere else was a slam to the poor people in the article.

Now read your quote above and see for yourself how it sounds. To me it sounds like "I'm skeptical of the skeptics...I'm just a victim here, and articulett et. al. are over-reacting...I'm clever and noble because I'm not calling the people stupid; I'm just calling them liars." No one else called them stupid either--or liars. It was only in your head. And Dann's head. And you others who know who you are.

And that pretty much sums up Dann's opening post too, doesn't it? It seems like others agree (--not that this is a popularity contest--though Dann and his buddies have tried to make it one...and he is the one bringing up numbers of people on assorted sides.) If you don't get that, then maybe you are the "stupid" one. Dann revealed himself to be the fool when he went and posted his foolishness on the skeptoid thread --he was just so sure that everyone was going to see it his way.

There are some people on this thread whose hypocrisy is blinding to everyone else--and playing the victim when people point out that you're dumbasses, is particularly offensive. (I just learned they don't *** bleep** that word. :) ) And those of you getting mad while reading this need to hear this (though I doubt you read much of anything): You sound patronizing and snide in 85% or more of the posts you write. You are reading only to find the truth you've already arrived at in your head--or maybe just to see who is "with you" or "who is against you". You expect people to read your words carefully (and they are hard to slog through sometimes), but you don't return the favor. You are not likable, nor fun, nor humble, nor anywhere near as smart as you pretend. You are Polonius's. And if these words are making you mad--then I mean you. The rest of us don't take an ego dive from verbal attacks; we learn and advance our social skills. We use the ignore button. We turn your own words against you. It doesn't take an ever growing cascade of warnings before we clue in.

Look at Paul's writing--ever patient...never the first to strike...trying to please everyone (impossible of course)...he's even humble on occasion--and funny!. And smart. He doesn't take offense easily and he apologizes...sends out olive branches. You could learn something. People get a kick out of talking to such people. I love reading most of the people on this forum. People here seem to enjoy eccentricities and oddballs and skeptics of all sorts. They learn to converse, write, throw teasing barbs, joke, argue, sulk, and debate; they get--as well as give--to this forum community. They get along like a scrappy but lovable community. They want new members that are similar to feel welcome. So we wish you pricks would humble yourselves just a tad--this isn't your frat party.

And it wasn't mock exasperation. I'm just giving a shout out to my fellow skeptics in cyberland who are tired of this crap from the "skeptoids". Go back and read all the gentle warnings in this thread if you can stand to be bored--or give it to someone more socially adept than you (since the incompetent can't recognize competence), and find out for yourself who started the ad homs and never stopped. Look who took offense at a persons statement as though it was a personal attack while completely being oblivious to their own prior much more egregious statements. Look who put themselves above others while accusing everyone who disagreed of doing the same.

Not a single person (except for DANN) claimed to have all the answers nor did anyone deny that poverty was involved in children being labeled witches. We just pointed out that it was the belief that was the MOST DIRECT cause. Again and again and again. And not one of you hypocrites heard what anyone else was saying as you wove your little merry world of "look how superior we are to those skeptics over there...". You pretend your motives are noble, but this was a thread to say, "look how noble Dann and his ilk are". Everyone who commented otherwise, was attacked. I don't want potential forum members to think I am like that --because I'd rather have them around than the loud, unyielding, self important, and forever obnoxious. Remember Interesting Ian? You guys are morphing into him. Stop.

You are backtracking now--but you are transparent. Now you're getting a taste of your own medicine and it doesn't taste good, does it? So maybe, just maybe, you will learn something about giving and taking and humility from people on this thread or on this forum who are clearly more skilled than you. And, rest assured, I'm not saying it's me. I do not feel superior to anyone except for a "skeptoid" here and there. (and I sure as hell take offense at them telling me and others what our priorities should be.)

The lessons are free, guys--you just have to become aware that you need them.

(The thing is--you guys could have said nothing--and no-one but me and slimething would have known what self-important dolts you were....(except for Hammegk...everyone already knew about him.) The more you say, the worse it gets. Give your ranting a break. We will all be happier. Or let it die out. Or (gasp), apologize--without sarcasm; it's so simple. And the people here are really a pretty nice crowd.

[articulett]

An attempt to share. Isn't that cute.

But, no, no! Bad! That's not what humans eat.

Yes, but since it's what you skeptoids dish out, I thought you might like some in return.

Don't start a flame war with me, Hammegk; I've been itching to hand you your a$$ on a platter, and I suspect I will have a swell of rising support on that one.
;)

[articulett]

tsk tsk.

Dann...Education is the only known remedy for superstition..

Get it? When you give the example that pollution causes cancer--that is the direct cause. Maybe we are having language problems. But poverty is not the direct cause of superstition. How do we know? Because rich people can be very superstitious--i.e.--money doesn't cure superstitious behavior.

Your statement that poverty breeds superstition is like saying "bathing suits breed skin cancers"-- Does it? No, it's a correlation, not a causation. The are both related to a third thing...exposing one's skin to the sun. In the same way, poverty does not cause people to boot out their kids because they are witches. That last part is important. It may make people eager to get rid of their kids...it may make them vulnerable to noticing things that irk them...the article mentioned step parents, we know that and parents, in general, abuse step children at 100 times the parental rate (per article I cited already.)

Are you following. Because if not. You CAN'T get it. It's not because others are mean or stupid or wrong or heartless--it's actually because you have a bit of those traits, and you are stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it.

Calling kids witches presumes that such people need a behavior change along with the food, etc. Feeding people or giving them money doesn't "cure" superstition. How do we know? Because rich people and fat people are still superstitious. What's the missing ingredient? Education. Not as a substitute for feeding or care or medical help--but because it is the most necessary ingredient in getting people to stop booting their kids because they are demonic. (Of course, educating them away from religious beliefs so that they could learn and utilize family planning services would be very good as well.)

You are just wrong from a semantic perspective and a legal perspective. You did what humans do--confused correlation with causation--just as the parents who see their burdensome kid doing something freaky are doing when they label that child a witch.

You are just wrong. It's not that anyone else is right. It's just that poverty does not CAUSE people to label their kids witches. It might be a factor or increase the odds, but it sure as hell isn't the cause. The more you talk, the worse it gets for you. You just look like someone protecting their ego who is losing the opportunity to learn. You misinterpreted the article and used it to slam a group of people who are probably a lot more educated on the subject than yourself--and you used it to make yourself look like some noble warrior.

[articulett]

Let's leave it at that, Gurdur. I think it is clear to (almost) everybody that if, for instance, you said that poverty breeds discontent and that the way to stop discontent would therefore be to put a stop to poverty, nobody would assume that you can't get p***** off when Sylvia Browne appears on TV.
I think that Paul was misled by "people".

I'm the "people". And I'm not the one manipulating and dodging and grandstanding. Neither is slimething. Gurder is not a good sidekick for you either. Paul is being as nice as he can. How much louder do the voices need to get before you hear it. Your opening post sounded like an attack and a self important claim about the "real reason" for parents calling their kids witches.

And why would you ask that Paul would dredge through this whole thread? He has a life you know--and you and your buddies do not make for very stimulating reading. You are all over the place with your claims and argument. It seems like you felt that people were attacking the Congolese people. But no one ever did. So you decided to defend them (whatever that means) and slay all those darn skeptics who would dare insult the Congolese (no-one did...though Hammegk made a snide remark involving "starving animals".)

The more people tried to tell you that you misread the article--and that as a matter of the English language--the direct cause of people calling their kids witches was belief in witches. That is the ONLY direct cause. People who don't believe that their kids (or step kids) can be witches...or who don't believe in witches...or who don't live in a culture where many people believe in witches--don't boot their kids out for "being witches". Lots of people boot their kids out. For the poor, the kids are a bigger burden, and so they may be subconsciously or consciously looking for a reason. But that means it's a "catalyst" for people accusing their kids of being witches--not THE CAUSE.

And we've been so blinded by giving deference and respect to religious type beliefs (and other superstitions) that most people (including the Priest in the article) miss this FACT. Randi doesn't. The writer of the letter didn't. The poverty part of the equation is the simple part that everyone gets just fine. But just as giving blood transfusions can save lives, all the blood transfusions in the world won't work if your parent forbids it because they think it will cause you to suffer eternally after you die. Nor will money.

That is all that any of the horrible "people" are saying. It's not a battle or an "us" vs. "them" game. It's just a drama in your head and a little bit of a bruised ego. You'll get over it and be as good as new as soon as you decide to stop these posts. You (and Gurdur) really did start it--and you were like little tattletales too. Neither Paul, nor I, nor slimething, (nor Chadd who gave up long ago) are being manipulative. You are doing it to yourself--just like Randi says--you are letting your ego stand in the way of admitting that you can be fooled.

Yes, you can be wrong sometimes too. Welcome to planet earth.
We earthlings will welcome you back when you get your heads out of your a$$es.

[dann]

Oh...so now (...) to tell them to "grow up".


Alas, that is (...) with self-righteousness, arrogance and banality.


I am calm. (...) nice crowd.


Yes, but (...) on that one. ;)


tsk tsk. (...) some noble warrior.

I'm the "people". I never doubted that you, the "people", were behind this. Paul made the mistake of trusting your judgment. I guess that he won’t make that mistake again.

(...) And I'm not the one (...) heads out of your a$$es.

[dann]

Oopsy... (...) They are just too busy flinging poo at images of themselves in the mirror and trying to get the attention of zookeepers so they can complain about those other awful monkeys in the looking glass. tsk. What is it called in psychoanalytical terms? Projection? Who's complaining?

[hammegk]

Yes, but since it's what you skeptoids dish out, I thought you might like some in return.

Don't start a flame war with me, Hammegk; I've been itching to hand you your a$$ on a platter, and I suspect I will have a swell of rising support on that one.
;)
:rub:

and TTFN.

<plonk>

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This is where my pessimism kicks in, then. Education of a standard that would build a firm foundation for scientific literacy is very difficult to implement in an impoverished society, especially when the education aims to promote critical thinking.
Oh, I'm pessimistic along with you. The problem is that you can't just "eliminate poverty." I'm sure you agree that such a simplistic recipe is naive through and through. One way to help with poverty is to get people working, and that requires education.

~~ Paul

[CFLarsen]

tsk tsk.

Dann...Education is the only known remedy for superstition..

tsk tsk.

No, it isn't. Education is not a guarantee that superstition will disappear. You also need people to want to give up their superstition. They need to realize that the world they can know is better than the world they want to believe in.

Randi often says about the Superstitious: "They want it to be true, they need it to be true". He's very right.

Education is one of the remedies for superstition. But uneducated people are not necessarily superstitious.

[dann]

Oh, I'm pessimistic along with you. The problem is that you can't just "eliminate poverty." I'm sure you agree that such a simplistic recipe is naive through and through. One way to help with poverty is to get people working, and that requires education.So the complex recipe, the one that isn't naive through and through, is to tell the poor and (?) the superstitious to get an education, grow up and get a job? :)
And that also goes for the people in Congo who cannot feed their children?

[articulett]

tsk tsk.

No, it isn't. Education is not a guarantee that superstition will disappear. You also need people to want to give up their superstition. They need to realize that the world they can know is better than the world they want to believe in.

Randi often says about the Superstitious: "They want it to be true, they need it to be true". He's very right.

Education is one of the remedies for superstition. But uneducated people are not necessarily superstitious.

Yes. I didn't say that they were. Saying education is the remedy for superstition is not saying that uneducated people are superstitious. If the remedy for lice is getting one's head shaved, then that does not mean that all those with shaved heads must have had lice.

And are you in Mensa? Because if so, you were insulted a few pages back, I think. If not, it might be because you posted before reading and made a slight error in logic.

We have explored all the possibilities here, Claus. We know that rich people can be superstitious as can well fed people--therefore, we know that poverty (of food or cash) does not cause superstition. (Which is what Dann has been trying to claim). In order for something to be a cause of something else--you'd have to be able to complete this sentence--If not for ______, than ____________ would not have happened.

We know that there is a history of people going on witch hunts and calling people witches and punishing them. This had no association with income. So we know that poverty does not cause people to call their kids witches.

We know that there have been many poor people throughout history, but very few who accuse their kids of being witches. They may give their child to foster care or adoption or make them work or sell them--but labeling them a witch is rare.

We know that parents can kick out their kids due to drugs, mental illness, burdensome behavior, poverty, etc. But parents kicking out kids does not seem to be correlated to labeling your kid a witch.

What does cause people to label their kid a witch--belief in witches!..having a culture that believes in witches... Not every person who believes in witches labels their kid a witch, but every parent who thinks their kid is a witch believes in witches.

What is the only known remedy for curing a superstitious belief? Education.
I agree with you--people want to be fooled. Randi educates by showing people that they can be fooled. I'm not saying education works every time. I'm saying that it is how people stop being superstitious. How did we come to stop accusing people from being witches?

In fact most civil rights have been won via education and elimination of superstition, confirmation bias, and other types of fear mongering.

But you missed what this thread was about. Or perhaps you know of a way to ameliorate superstition other than education? This thread is about poor people who have kicked their kids out for being "witches". Although poverty is a likely factor in this situation, I'm sure you'll agree it's not the cause. The direct cause is "superstition"--as Randi said, and the article said, and Dann is tantruming about.

(And Dann--go ahead and ignore me (in fact, put me on "ignore")--it's pretty clear what you do and don't read, and I think most people stopped reading your tripe long ago...You think you have a lot to teach and nothing at all to learn.)

And tsk to you.
(and one for you too, CFLarson--tsk)

[articulett]

So the complex recipe, the one that isn't naive through and through, is to tell the poor and (?) the superstitious to get an education, grow up and get a job? :)
And that also goes for the people in Congo who cannot feed their children?

It's fascinating how you mischaracterize everyone's statement. Did anyone say that it was a good idea to tell poor people to grow up and get a job? No. They said that poverty may be correlated with superstition--but it does not cause it.
Any remedy would need to address the problem, and not pretend it doesn't exist while funneling kids off to Catholic charities where they'll learn more superstitions including the book responsible for witch hunting horrors of the middle ages. Moreover, they'll learn dogma that teaches against birth control and family planning...a sure fire method for greatly reducing poverty.

Even the rich and well fed Jehovah Witness kid can't get a blood transfusion. Education might not always work--but it's the best thing we have in our arsenal at this time.

Quit pretending that pointing this out means that we would criticize anyone--also, it doesn't mean we don't understand the poverty question. We do. But it's only a part of the problem. You act as if you can shower money and food on these people and then the parents will be dashing off to the orphanages to retrieve their witchly child.

[dann]

Randi often says about the Superstitious: "They want it to be true, they need it to be true". He's very right. The Amazing is very right, but only up to a point, I think. When he explains how people deceive themselves, he is excellent. But when he leaves his field of expertise and starts telling people to grow up, he isn't. He is right when he says that people not only want to, but actually need to believe. When we go a little further than that, he and many other skeptics seem to prefer to pass moral judgment on the believers instead of analyzing: Why do people need to believe? Where does this need come from? Well, let's leave it at that and simply dismiss them with Time to grow up (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11).
And when you point this out to them (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=70329), their reaction is very hard to distinguish from what you would expect to find in a bunch of guru worshippers who, as we all know, need to believe.
And no matter how many ”I am not quite sure, but it appears to me that”, “they appear to”, “poverty seems to be”, “To me “this type of situation” seems to be”, “skeptics seem to think” are being just, no matter how many things you phrase in the form of questions, the mere fact that somebody obviously questions their judgment seems to be enough to enrage these “people”.

[dann]

... while funneling kids off to Catholic charities where they'll learn more superstitions including the book responsible for witch hunting horrors of the middle ages. So far articulett is the only one who has proposed to leave it to the Catholic charities (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2181715#post2181715) to deal with the problem!
Moreover, it is the Christianization of these people that makes them have children they cannot afford--because the missionaries teach abstinence not birth control. I think they owe it to the people to take in surplus children when their doctrine is part of the problem.
But who cares, right, articulett?
"The incompetent are the least likely to know it, and the ones who feel most confident in their abilities. It's true! :)"

[CFLarsen]

Yes. I didn't say that they were. Saying education is the remedy for superstition is not saying that uneducated people are superstitious. If the remedy for lice is getting one's head shaved, then that does not mean that all those with shaved heads must have had lice.

And are you in Mensa? Because if so, you were insulted a few pages back, I think. If not, it might be because you posted before reading and made a slight error in logic.

We have explored all the possibilities here, Claus. We know that rich people can be superstitious as can well fed people--therefore, we know that poverty (of food or cash) does not cause superstition. (Which is what Dann has been trying to claim). In order for something to be a cause of something else--you'd have to be able to complete this sentence--If not for ______, than ____________ would not have happened.

We know that there is a history of people going on witch hunts and calling people witches and punishing them. This had no association with income. So we know that poverty does not cause people to call their kids witches.

We know that there have been many poor people throughout history, but very few who accuse their kids of being witches. They may give their child to foster care or adoption or make them work or sell them--but labeling them a witch is rare.

We know that parents can kick out their kids due to drugs, mental illness, burdensome behavior, poverty, etc. But parents kicking out kids does not seem to be correlated to labeling your kid a witch.

What does cause people to label their kid a witch--belief in witches!..having a culture that believes in witches... Not every person who believes in witches labels their kid a witch, but every parent who thinks their kid is a witch believes in witches.

What is the only known remedy for curing a superstitious belief? Education.
I agree with you--people want to be fooled. Randi educates by showing people that they can be fooled. I'm not saying education works every time. I'm saying that it is how people stop being superstitious. How did we come to stop accusing people from being witches?

In fact most civil rights have been won via education and elimination of superstition, confirmation bias, and other types of fear mongering.

But you missed what this thread was about. Or perhaps you know of a way to ameliorate superstition other than education? This thread is about poor people who have kicked their kids out for being "witches". Although poverty is a likely factor in this situation, I'm sure you'll agree it's not the cause. The direct cause is "superstition"--as Randi said, and the article said, and Dann is tantruming about.

(And Dann--go ahead and ignore me (in fact, put me on "ignore")--it's pretty clear what you do and don't read, and I think most people stopped reading your tripe long ago...You think you have a lot to teach and nothing at all to learn.)

And tsk to you.
(and one for you too, CFLarson--tsk)

Aren't you a bit condescending at times?

[Checkmite]

I am calm. It's your own shiftiness you are noticing. The article Dann is talking about from the Christian Science Monitor mentioned itself that Superstition Breeds Homelessness. It claims the very thing that DANN refuses to acknowledge.

I never said that I'm certain about rightness nor did I say that "teaching people to be skeptical is the answer to all social ills". It's interesting how you and DANN and Gurdur seem to see things that people are NOT saying (like Dann's line about how skeptics don't care if the kids starve--just so long as they are not called witches)--and then you guys take personal offense from these incorrect observations and attack. After that, you step back and engage in what looks like a mutual masturbatory game of "look how great and smart and noble and clever we are!--we done told those ignoramuses off."

You have called people simple when it was you who was being a simpleton. Moreover commenting on the harm of peoples' opinions, beliefs, or statements IS NOT THE SAME as attacking those people. I know that you think it is, and you react accordingly--it's what this thread is about. No one ever insulted the poor people--nothing in the newsletter or anywhere else was a slam to the poor people in the article.

Now read your quote above and see for yourself how it sounds. To me it sounds like "I'm skeptical of the skeptics...I'm just a victim here, and articulett et. al. are over-reacting...I'm clever and noble because I'm not calling the people stupid; I'm just calling them liars." No one else called them stupid either--or liars. It was only in your head. And Dann's head. And you others who know who you are.

And that pretty much sums up Dann's opening post too, doesn't it? It seems like others agree (--not that this is a popularity contest--though Dann and his buddies have tried to make it one...and he is the one bringing up numbers of people on assorted sides.) If you don't get that, then maybe you are the "stupid" one. Dann revealed himself to be the fool when he went and posted his foolishness on the skeptoid thread --he was just so sure that everyone was going to see it his way.

There are some people on this thread whose hypocrisy is blinding to everyone else--and playing the victim when people point out that you're dumbasses, is particularly offensive. (I just learned they don't *** bleep** that word. :) ) And those of you getting mad while reading this need to hear this (though I doubt you read much of anything): You sound patronizing and snide in 85% or more of the posts you write. You are reading only to find the truth you've already arrived at in your head--or maybe just to see who is "with you" or "who is against you". You expect people to read your words carefully (and they are hard to slog through sometimes), but you don't return the favor. You are not likable, nor fun, nor humble, nor anywhere near as smart as you pretend. You are Polonius's. And if these words are making you mad--then I mean you. The rest of us don't take an ego dive from verbal attacks; we learn and advance our social skills. We use the ignore button. We turn your own words against you. It doesn't take an ever growing cascade of warnings before we clue in.

Look at Paul's writing--ever patient...never the first to strike...trying to please everyone (impossible of course)...he's even humble on occasion--and funny!. And smart. He doesn't take offense easily and he apologizes...sends out olive branches. You could learn something. People get a kick out of talking to such people. I love reading most of the people on this forum. People here seem to enjoy eccentricities and oddballs and skeptics of all sorts. They learn to converse, write, throw teasing barbs, joke, argue, sulk, and debate; they get--as well as give--to this forum community. They get along like a scrappy but lovable community. They want new members that are similar to feel welcome. So we wish you pricks would humble yourselves just a tad--this isn't your frat party.

And it wasn't mock exasperation. I'm just giving a shout out to my fellow skeptics in cyberland who are tired of this crap from the "skeptoids". Go back and read all the gentle warnings in this thread if you can stand to be bored--or give it to someone more socially adept than you (since the incompetent can't recognize competence), and find out for yourself who started the ad homs and never stopped. Look who took offense at a persons statement as though it was a personal attack while completely being oblivious to their own prior much more egregious statements. Look who put themselves above others while accusing everyone who disagreed of doing the same.

Not a single person (except for DANN) claimed to have all the answers nor did anyone deny that poverty was involved in children being labeled witches. We just pointed out that it was the belief that was the MOST DIRECT cause. Again and again and again. And not one of you hypocrites heard what anyone else was saying as you wove your little merry world of "look how superior we are to those skeptics over there...". You pretend your motives are noble, but this was a thread to say, "look how noble Dann and his ilk are". Everyone who commented otherwise, was attacked. I don't want potential forum members to think I am like that --because I'd rather have them around than the loud, unyielding, self important, and forever obnoxious. Remember Interesting Ian? You guys are morphing into him. Stop.

You are backtracking now--but you are transparent. Now you're getting a taste of your own medicine and it doesn't taste good, does it? So maybe, just maybe, you will learn something about giving and taking and humility from people on this thread or on this forum who are clearly more skilled than you. And, rest assured, I'm not saying it's me. I do not feel superior to anyone except for a "skeptoid" here and there. (and I sure as hell take offense at them telling me and others what our priorities should be.)

The lessons are free, guys--you just have to become aware that you need them.

(The thing is--you guys could have said nothing--and no-one but me and slimething would have known what self-important dolts you were....(except for Hammegk...everyone already knew about him.) The more you say, the worse it gets. Give your ranting a break. We will all be happier. Or let it die out. Or (gasp), apologize--without sarcasm; it's so simple. And the people here are really a pretty nice crowd.

You're wasting an awful lot of time arguing against a seemingly invisible post.

Nobody here has called anyone stupid. Nobody here yet seems to have taken offense at anything. We're calmly discussing this issue; because I take a less-than-common viewpoint, you seem to be ascribing motivations to me that don't follow. It would be almost comical for me to be upset that these people are being "insulted" by being called stupid (which I'm not, because nobody's done that yet), while I turn around and call them liars and pretend that's better somehow.

And you certainly can't accuse me of ranting with my 2-3 paragraph posts, as long as you keep responding with screeds of epic length.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So the complex recipe, the one that isn't naive through and through, is to tell the poor and (?) the superstitious to get an education, grow up and get a job?
And that also goes for the people in Congo who cannot feed their children?
I didn't make it sound so sarcastic or condescending, did I?

What's the simple recipe? It's certainly not "just give everybody money." So what would it be?

~~ Paul

[dann]

You're wasting an awful lot of time arguing against a seemingly invisible post.

Nobody here has called anyone stupid. Nobody here yet seems to have taken offense at anything. We're calmly discussing this issue; because I take a less-than-common viewpoint, you seem to be ascribing motivations to me that don't follow. It would be almost comical for me to be upset that these people are being "insulted" by being called stupid (which I'm not, because nobody's done that yet), while I turn around and call them liars and pretend that's better somehow.

I think you are, right, Joshua. But certain kinds of behaviour have been described with word several times:

#33 dann: Satanism is stupid enough as it is, and their particular brand of it is not any better than the rest, but it does not include raping children.

#40 dann: But they aren't witches, so it is stupid (and still not natural).
#40 dann: Simply telling them to grow up is cynical, arrogant and thus stupid.

#50 dann: Only desperation, it says, and I tend to agree! So much, actually, that I suspect the CSM of being responsible for the stupid title that the journalist probably would not come up with.

# 73 Gurdur: What's with the stupid strawmen?

#118 dann: People know that this isn't right, it's something that they do not like to do, so they come up with a lot of stupid excuses.
#118 dann: My point: Bundling these two very different stories together under the title Time to grow up is stupid. Pretending that superstition is in any way the cause of the wretched business in any of the two cases, starvation leading to abandoned children and statutory rape, is stupid.

#138 Athon: I agree that dann has poorly argued his case, and has used language that has clearly upset some people, but I would have thought some people would indeed be mature enough to not take affront at such a stupid thing.

#142 dann: It is actually very annoying when you behave like a school teacher and pretend that because you have asked a question that even the most stupid (but very well-behaved (which I’m not)) child would know the required answer to, then it automatically follows that that is the answer you’ll get.

#145 Athon: I guess for many years I also directed my aggression and emotion at people who followed superstition with such terrible results, feeling honestly that they were indeed ignorant or stupid.

#146 A WHOLE POST WITH MY, DANN’S, DEFINITION OF “STUPID”.

#147 dann: And will their aversion to listening to clever skeptics be due to stupidity, ignorance or the actual knowledge that in the situation they find themselves in it won't do them any good?
#147 dann: These people don’t go to quacks because they are stupid.

#148 articulett: My feelings towards the credulous (who are more often women like me) is more one of sympathy--I feel like their trust is so readily abused. And children too. And it has nothing at all to do with stupidity.
#148 articulett: And there isn't a single person on that video you'd call stupid.

#170 Slimething: I understand that you are quickly distancing yourself from that idiotic posit because it's so stupid but you did put it out there.

#193 Slimething: Really a stupid, simplistic worldview, dann.

#225 articulett: To me it sounds like "I'm skeptical of the skeptics...I'm just a victim here, and articulett et. al. are over-reacting...I'm clever and noble because I'm not calling the people stupid; I'm just calling them liars." No one else called them stupid either--or liars.
#225 articulett: If you don't get that, then maybe you are the "stupid" one.

#227 articulett: Are you following. Because if not. You CAN'T get it. It's not because others are mean or stupid or wrong or heartless--it's actually because you have a bit of those traits, and you are stubbornly refusing to acknowledge it.

That seems to be all the cases of the words stupid and stupidity in this thread. And even when articulett calls you a “simpleton”, she says that you are ”being” on, and not that you are one. About me, however, she doesn’t seem to be very squamish: Dann revealed himself to be the fool when he went and posted his foolishness on the skeptoid thread Go flame yourself, articulett!

I would like to add that when I say that "These people (the terminally ill who are let down by the health care system) don’t go to quacks because they are stupid", I would still call it stupid to go to a quack, i.e. the behaviour. The behaviour of politicians who save on health care, thus making cancer patients resort to quacks, is much worse than stupid.

[dann]

I have not read this entire thread, but I would haughtily admonish everyone to watch out for cause and effect.

How do you know that this is the cause and effect situation? Just for my clarification, Paul: Would the following quote be an example of the kind of ”simplistic recipe” that you think ”is naive through and through”? And would you feel the need to admonish the poster for not watching "out for cause and effect"?
This thread is about poor people who have kicked their kids out for being "witches". Although poverty is a likely factor in this situation, I'm sure you'll agree it's not the cause. The direct cause is "superstition"--as Randi said, and the article said, and Dann is tantruming about. (And how can articulett be so sure that people will agree with her? – and so upset when they aren’t?)

[dann]

I didn't make it sound so sarcastic or condescending, did I?I don't know, Paul. You used the words, "I'm sure you agree that such a simplistic recipe is naive through and through."
It is possible that they sound more sarcastic and condescending when I reuse them and say: "So the complex recipe, the one that isn't naive through and through, is to tell the poor and (?) the superstitious to get an education, grow up and get a job?"

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Just for my clarification, Paul: Would the following quote be an example of the kind of ”simplistic recipe” that you think ”is naive through and through”? And would you feel the need to admonish the poster for not watching "out for cause and effect"?

This thread is about poor people who have kicked their kids out for being "witches". Although poverty is a likely factor in this situation, I'm sure you'll agree it's not the cause. The direct cause is "superstition"--as Randi said, and the article said, and Dann is tantruming about.
Remember, I was saying that the cure "eliminate poverty" was naive, not that the cause "poverty" was naive. That said, any hypothesis of a single-point cause is surely oversimplified, as I think you agree.


I don't know, Paul. You used the words, "I'm sure you agree that such a simplistic recipe is naive through and through."
It is possible that they sound more sarcastic and condescending when I reuse them and say: "So the complex recipe, the one that isn't naive through and through, is to tell the poor and (?) the superstitious to get an education, grow up and get a job?"
I was not saying that your statement was condescending to me. I was saying that it sounded sarcastic and condescending with respect to the poor and superstitious, whereas my statement "One way to help with poverty is to get people working, and that requires education." was not so sarcastic. I didn't say "grow up" or "get a job."

Be that as it may, I simply don't understand how you propose to eliminate poverty. Surely you agree that you don't just "give the poor people money."

~~ Paul

[dann]

Remember, I was saying that the cure "eliminate poverty" was naive, not that the cause "poverty" was naive. That said, any hypothesis of a single-point cause is surely oversimplified, as I think you agree.I agree. Like I have said several times, I agree with James Randi when he says that believers need to believe, i.e. they need to believe in never-never land, in something beyond reality, a delusion that enables them to live with the real world without recognizing it as such. This need is by no means natural. The need to feel comfortable and secure probably is, but trying to achieve this state by manipulating your mind, by changing your notions of reality, instead of changing reality itself, isn’t.

Whatever may induce you to want (or need) to achieve this state of imaginary harmony with the world, instead of real harmony (to the extent that it can be achieved), is what breeds superstition: fear of dying, yearning for something unattainable (unrequited love?), the loss of a loved one (the need to be with them does not die with their death) or ….. poverty, insecure living conditions etc.
Of those the mourning of a loved one and the pain of unrequited love are usually temporary – and if they aren’t, there’s nothing to do about it anyway. Death sucks, and there is definitely nothing to do about that (ultimately) either, but even the fear of dying is worsened if life sucks and makes you long for a condition that would compensate you for the terrible ordeal that life is for some people: Pie in the sky!

This is the reason why you cannot expect to do eradicate or even reduce superstition to any significant degree without stamping out poverty. To attempt to do so is similar to telling a dying believer that death is final, that there is no chance in hell of postponing it and that there is no afterlife. Why would they want to listen? What would they gain from this knowledge?
I’ll get back to this point in another post.
I was not saying that your statement was condescending to me. I was saying that it sounded sarcastic and condescending with respect to the poor and superstitious, whereas my statement "One way to help with poverty is to get people working, and that requires education." was not so sarcastic. I didn't say "grow up" or "get a job."No, you are right. That was my addition to the sarcastic paraphrasing. Sorry.
Be that as it may, I simply don't understand how you propose to eliminate poverty. I haven't proposed anything yet, but the first step, of course, would be to find out what causes poverty (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html).
Surely you agree that you don't just "give the poor people money." I haven’t got the money to give, so that kind of eliminates that idea anyway, and I have already tried to convince articulett, who has involved herself in an imaginary competition about moral superiority, that I am not here to point at myself as a paragon of virtue, but she doesn’t seem to get that:
I already consider my maturity, morality, and priorities superior to yours. Moreover, I imagine that everyone you have insulted is probably more charitable than you. You bet!
"The virtues of the poor may be readily admitted, and are much to be regretted. We are often told that the poor are grateful for charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented, disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so. Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table? They should be seated at the board, and are beginning to know it. As for being discontented, a man who would not be discontented with such surroundings and such a low mode of life would be a perfect brute. Disobedience, in the eyes of any one who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." Oscar Wilde (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/wilde_soul.html)
Randi certainly is. I'm absolutely certain that he is! Did I claim otherwise? However, I don't really think that you do him justice. He would probably take offence at the guru worship you exhibit here.

[Slimething]

Like I have said several times, I agree with James Randi when he says that believers need to believe, i.e. they need to believe in never-never land, in something beyond reality, a delusion that enables them to live with the real world without recognizing it as such. This need is by no means natural. The need to feel comfortable and secure probably is, but trying to achieve this state by manipulating your mind, by changing your notions of reality, instead of changing reality itself, isn’t.

Making stuff up to explain phenomena one doesn't understand is perfectly natural. Every human being synthesizes a conceptual model of reality. That is, a human constructs a working understanding of their environment based on their perception of reality. Every human does it. You did once as well. Just because you say it doesn't happen doesn't mean it didn't.

Whatever may induce you to want (or need) to achieve this state of imaginary harmony with the world, instead of real harmony (to the extent that it can be achieved), is what breeds superstition: fear of dying, yearning for something unattainable (unrequited love?), the loss of a loved one (the need to be with them does not die with their death) or ….. poverty, insecure living conditions etc.
Of those the mourning of a loved one and the pain of unrequited love are usually temporary – and if they aren’t, there’s nothing to do about it anyway. Death sucks, and there is definitely nothing to do about that (ultimately) either, but even the fear of dying is worsened if life sucks and makes you long for a condition that would compensate you for the terrible ordeal that life is for some people: Pie in the sky!

WTF? You must be paid by the word!

This is the reason why you cannot expect to do eradicate or even reduce superstition to any significant degree without stamping out poverty.

Perhaps your ramblings would make more sense if you defined poverty. FYI, poverty will always be around because it is defined as a quartile of the income spread of a community. Remember, Gaussian distributions, dann? Probably not but trust me, they exist.

So, again you are arguing a causal relationship between poverty and superstition, something I and a few others challenge you on and then you softened it to "poverty implies superstition". So, again I ask you to be straightforward: does poverty cause superstition? If not, how do you feel about usurping a moralistic viewpoint condeming skeptics as uncaring monsters for criticizing a horrific expression of ignorance?

To attempt to do so is similar to telling a dying believer that death is final, that there is no chance in hell of postponing it and that there is no afterlife. Why would they want to listen? What would they gain from this knowledge?
I’ll get back to this point in another post.

Don't bother. You're melting.

I haven't proposed anything yet, but the first step, of course, would be to find out what causes poverty (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html).

Define "poverty" and we'll all help you out. You seem to think that "poverty" as you describe it is the root of all ills. If that is so, then what can't you blame on poverty?

...and I have already tried to convince articulett, who has involved herself in an imaginary competition about moral superiority, that I am not here to point at myself as a paragon of virtue, but she doesn’t seem to get that:

Quite the contrary. Anyone who wants unquestionable evidence that you set yourself up as a judgemental pinhead merely has to reread your original post. Therein, you lambaste all skeptics because they dare to criticize the ostracism of kids based on their allegedly being witches. As I wrote before, you are doing a quick shuffle and trying to distance yourself from that post but it won't wash.

A few examples:

Post 1: I am not quite sure, but it appears to me that skeptics sometimes tend to ignore quite obvious truths when looking at reality, something they appear to have in common with Christian Scientists in this case and with many others: ”superstitions (!) breed homeless people”
If we look at cause and effect as it is described at the beginning of this quotation, however, poverty seems to be the real problem: Very poor families, extended or not, and parents, step- or not, can no longer support their children. Destitution drives them to get rid of these children, and to justify this they come up with an excuse which happens to be black magic. And this, of course (?), is when skeptics start to get upset!
“Any who hide behind the excuse that pseudo-science can be tolerated out of respect to the beliefs and feelings of others, should realize that this type of situation is the ultimate consequence of tolerance of dangerous nonsense.”

To me “this type of situation” seems to be the ultimate consequence of poverty, not of “tolerance of dangerous nonsense”. (Not that it isn’t nonsense and thus dangerous!) And I find it truly amazing that skeptics seem to think that the victims of this calamity are not simply the starving children, but primarily the sentiments of skeptics who cannot stand to ”see truth and logic being assaulted.” Is that really all that skeptics have to offer? A much more rational way of starving?

Why is it so hard for many skeptics to notice that poverty and misery breed superstition, an insight which makes it very obvious how to go about fighting superstition if you actually want to do away with it in an efficient manner? Or do they really believe that these children would be so much happier if they were starving without the added insult of being called witches?

Post 81: My point has been to show the actual link between poverty and abandoning children. The excuses for doing so are fairly uninteresting to anybody but skeptics and Christians. How many times do I have to post this for you to get the point?

Post 107: And isn't it time skeptics in particular to grow up and move beyond smug complacency when dealing with superstition? If it is true that the superstitious not only want to, but actually need to believe, like James Randi always says, isn't it about time to move beyond this realization to the question: Why do they need to believe?
So far most skeptics seem to be quite content expressing their despair at the childishness of the masses who just won't listen to them and grow up.

The abject poverty, the best guarantee that the uneducated, superstitious masses remain superstitious, just doesn't seem to concern the Shermers of this world. And why should it? They seem to not only want to, but to actually need to despair at the woowoos that just won’t listen to the brights, which is why they don’t appear to find it very hard to tolerate poverty and hunger, but won’t tolerate dangerous nonsense. (http://www.randi.org/jr/2006-12/120806landmark.html#i11) Remember, we are not merely talking about abandoned, starving children (and starving adults, for that matter), it is much, much worse than that: They are actually being denied ”the tool of reason”, and if there is one thing we can’t stand it’s when “we see truth and logic being assaulted”

Somehow it’s all very logical (http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/g-logic.htm), isn’t it?

[athon]

Oh, I'm pessimistic along with you. The problem is that you can't just "eliminate poverty." I'm sure you agree that such a simplistic recipe is naive through and through. One way to help with poverty is to get people working, and that requires education.

~~ Paul

Oh it's definitely one of those catch 22 situations, where empowerment requires resources, resources require work, work requires education requires funding, funding requires resources...

The point I've been making all along is in many nations such as Africa, rural Indigenous Australia, Pacific Island etc., the social structure impedes education of a critical kind. Poverty reinforces this form of social interaction further, as anti-critical behaviour is useful in this environment.

As to the overall statement 'superstition is to blame for antisocial actions', I think it's far too simplistic to comment on as a blanket comment. There is a whole lot more to the decisions made in impoverished societies than superstition or poverty alone can account for.

Athon

[articulett]

Oh it's definitely one of those catch 22 situations, where empowerment requires resources, resources require work, work requires education requires funding, funding requires resources...

The point I've been making all along is in many nations such as Africa, rural Indigenous Australia, Pacific Island etc., the social structure impedes education of a critical kind. Poverty reinforces this form of social interaction further, as anti-critical behaviour is useful in this environment.

As to the overall statement 'superstition is to blame for antisocial actions', I think it's far too simplistic to comment on as a blanket comment. There is a whole lot more to the decisions made in impoverished societies than superstition or poverty alone can account for.

Athon

Nobody said "superstition is to blame for antisocial actions." Here is what James Randi said in the newsletter that made DANN go berserk.

"We certainly don't need to force people to be sensible, but neither should we remain quiet when we see truth and logic being assaulted."

I agree enthusiastically, Sandra. Another example from Africa:

In Zimbabwe, John Munkombwe, 29, has been charged with having sex three times with an under-age girl, and impregnating her. He offered the court the explanation that the girl had in fact slept with goblins. Munkombwe has denied the charge of statutory rape. He told the court":

"I have been tried before in the chief's court but I have maintained my innocence, and I still deny the charges. I have heard it said that she was impregnated by goblins. I certainly don't know her."

What makes this of interest to us, is that Zimbabwe is a country steeped in supernatural beliefs. As evidence, consider that the country just recently changed their old colonial law to now recognize the existence of witchcraft. Folks, this is no way to join the community of international nations. This is not only standing still, it’s moving backward – rapidly.


The country is moving backwards--they have help from multiple religious institutions according the the Christian Science Article. The just changed their colonial laws to "now recognize the institution of witchcraft". Get it? That's going backwards instead of going forward ("growing up")-- not the people...but the system.

I don't know why you'd rephrase what people have said--but the claim was that superstition is to blame for the accusations of witchcraft. Antisocial behavior and "witchcraft" are not the same. It's not that poverty doesn't play a role...it's not that skeptics don't care about the people...it's just that the system needs and overhaul... the religious charities are a band aid at best. I suspect they do more harm than good in the long run. Not only is the bible responsible for many witch accusations...but religions have much to learn in the way of fostering critical thinking, and family planning options.

[dann]

Perhaps your ramblings would make more sense if you defined poverty. FYI, poverty will always be around because it is defined as a quartile of the income spread of a community. Remember, Gaussian distributions, dann? Probably not but trust me, they exist.
Poverty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty)
Extreme poverty ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty)
Starvation ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starvation)
Social exclusion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_exclusion)
Pauperism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauperism)
Poverty Threshold ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold)
Poverty in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_line_in_the_United_States)
Causes of poverty in the USA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_line_in_the_United_States#Causes_of_povert y)
Poverty in the UK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_Kingdom)

I guess Slimething must be thinking in terms of Income inequality metrics ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_metrics#Criticisms_of_income_ine quality_metrics) in order to need his Gaussian distribution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_distribution), which does not really explain poverty at all – or even define it.
This one (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/poverty.html) does, however, but these (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/argentina.html) definitely (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/UK-social-reforms.html) aren’t (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/wto.html) bad (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/globalization.html) either (http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/workandwealth/0-contents.html).