Big Les
25th January 2007, 01:37 AM
Quite an interesting snippet here, (http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=34585&in_page_id=34&in_a_source=) referring to a Newsnight (respected UK investigative news show) story about the child abuse implications of outdated religious beliefs and good old fashioned credulous superstition. After the whole Satanic abuse hoaxes (http://www.religioustolerance.org/sra.htm), I tend to be extra wary of reports like this, and it seems the police have turned up nothing incriminating. The implication by the campaigners is that it's largely restricted to verbal and psychological abuse.
I wonder to what extent is this overspill of Christianity, 18th century style, really affecting children in Britain and other "western" countries? If it wasn't being reported by parents themselves, I'd be tempted to suspect another "African killer bees" bit of prejudiced paranoia. I don't think that's it though. But could there be an element of the Cleveland or Nottingham child abuse hysteria to this? The problem seems to be a reliance upon anecdotal evidence; the danger is that social worker types might start to unconciously act as facilitators as they did in those cases in the '80s.
I wonder to what extent is this overspill of Christianity, 18th century style, really affecting children in Britain and other "western" countries? If it wasn't being reported by parents themselves, I'd be tempted to suspect another "African killer bees" bit of prejudiced paranoia. I don't think that's it though. But could there be an element of the Cleveland or Nottingham child abuse hysteria to this? The problem seems to be a reliance upon anecdotal evidence; the danger is that social worker types might start to unconciously act as facilitators as they did in those cases in the '80s.