If people stopped believing all that mystical nonsense about demons and devils and angels and gods, would anything like this still exist?
Update: If you didn’t watch until the end, I encourage you to skip to ~9:00 and see the little girl who had a nail put in her head to force her to confess to being a “witch.” Words fail to describe my disgust.
4,000 subscribers. 10,000 daily views.
laura: I wish America wasn’t so hell bent on religion.I mean the some of the brightest and... Obama Clears Low Bar at Prayer Breakfast laura: “pain is the only promise this so called savior is gonna bring ” off the... Turkish girl, 16, buried alive for talking to boys
Ronb0116: These are interesting comments that resonate with me. I was also raised deeply religious by a very... Would I Still Be an Atheist?
Mark: Watched the video of Ed from yesterday. There were no answers, just hedging and sarcasm. You know, I... Ed Young’s Lavish Lifestyle
Arie: The thing is that in the long term that particular mindset would lead to stagnation. The Middle East has... Would I Still Be an Atheist?
Jerdog: Super long life would almost certainly amplify the differences between the haves and have-nots. Not everyone will be... Don’t Grow Old Jerdog: Yes nonagenarians are notorious for much riskier behavior than teenagers. Don’t Grow Old
Twin-Skies: And Jews, and Rachel Maddow, and the Dalai Lama XD Ed Young’s Lavish Lifestyle
|
|
|
49 Comments
Can anyone who watched give a one to two-sentence synopsis? I can’t watch… no time atm
Tons of children accused of witchcraft, tortured by their family then killed or if they are lucky exiled.
A church official referred to as “The Bishop” gets rich off payment for exorcisms.
A charity that accepts the exiled children, educates them and tries to get their families to accept them back, is struggling to handle all the children that are branded as witches.
It is for this reason I’m convinced that the priest is the embodiment of everything that is evil and corrupt in our world. ;p I wonder, if we got rid of the priests, would religion itself be so wacky?
Yes, for there’d always be some idiots jockeying for power and position. If there weren’t priests, there’d still be some kind of structure that people would use to wield power over followers.
Isn’t it sad that some Christians would see this and think that “They are not doing those things in the name of Christ! They are misinterpreting Christianity!”
At first I thought that maybe missionaries shouldn’t go around spreading their superstitions, especially to those societies less developed than their own… But then I remembered all cultures that now include Christianity among their beliefs have “misinterpreted” it in their past, so the fact that these Africans may be considered less developed means nothing.
The problem remains that this religion that they have been taught is impossible to be interpreted correctly, because no one knows for sure which way “correct” is, and most that would say that the people that are misinterpreting it do so merely because their interpretation is different than their own.
That problem alone makes religion reek of absurdity to me.
I couldn’t agree with you more. Interestingly, gOd, the all powerful, in who all things are possible, couldn’t even express his own will to us in a clear and concise matter. He was probably caught on one of his bad days when he dictated his will to those bronze age goat fuckers, I mean herders.
i couldn’t get past a grown man stating that he wanted to kill a (maybe) 6 year old girl. the fear and shame in her eyes . . .
the abject fear in that poor little girls eyes made me almost throw up.
The silence of the churches appalled me up to today.
For quite some time, I’ve considered myself an Agnostic leaning toward Atheist. Between this post and the last, I’m not leaning any more.
I can not imagine any good higher power allowing these things to happen in its name.
Pretty baffling, eh? And just imagine, people of faith constantly defend heinous actions by people or people in god’s name in the Bible by saying that “we can’t judge their actions because those were different times then! The culture and mores were vastly different!”.
Obviously they can’t use that excuse for this case. The only difference with these Africans is that some could use the argument that they aren’t as “civilized” as most of the rest of the world. I addressed that point in my comment above. Nonsense.
[btw, welcome to the dark side. have you tasted your first baby yet?]
I really have no clue why these two posts right in a row hit me like they did. I’ve always been disgusted by so much evil done in the name of religion and those who make excuses for it.
Hehe I figured I’d start with a bowl of kittens before moving on to baby.
meh. Kittens have too much fur … they stick in the throat.
What a disturbing video, particularly the girl at the end. Praise Jesus?
I’m curious as to how and when these people were converted to christianity. Congratulations to the missionaries for doing god’s work.
I have to say, this is not Christianity’s fault. Uneducated tribal Africans would be doing this sort of thing with or without Bibles; Jesus is just their current excuse for ancient practices.
True, but the point Daniel made still stands…
So Christianity can be used to justify ancient practices? Hm.
What do you mean? It’s not a question of can it, the point is it is. I know you were being sarcastic (and you should know by now that I’m soundly atheist), but my point remains: The people of the Niger Delta would be doing this even without the excuse of Jesus versus the Devil.
I wasn’t being sarcastic. I agree, they might be drilling holes in people’s skulls with or without Jesus.
Another observation is that Christianity can be used to justify just about anything, including drilling holes in people’s skulls, which I think is a dire criticism.
If Christianity was the one true religion I think it would be able to overcome a culture’s previous superstitions instead of being assimilated into it.
See this is actually what made it so large a religion to begin with. If you look at the basis of Christianity they just sucked up and altered the religious views that were there before. There’s the obvious simialrities to Mithras worship as well as an adoption of many of the celtic/european holidays as holy days. This is really just par for the course.
Want to see such over-powering stupidity that will make your head hurt?
http://relijournal.com/christianity/evolution-is-a-lie-straight-from-the-pit/#comment-15561
Read the comments as well.
Unbelievable.
My eyes! The goggles, they do nothing!
My friends, I am losing faith in humanity witth the last two posts plus this link.
Funny how they can’t see that Pastor Frankie is trolling them even after he posts a link to Edward Current debunking science.
I don’t know whether to cry or laugh over such a dull-witted sampling of humanity.
Laugh until you cry.
“Nobody here is “angry” by the way, but when you are too stubborn to take God at His word, it gets frustrating talking to you,”—from that site linked
I was thinking about this yesterday, how piles of religious belief could be so obvious to someone that they are stunned at how anyone could believe in evolution. It’s not that they don’t question their beliefs, it’s that it makes the most sense to them that anything else that comes up seems ridiculous, and they get mad trying to explain it over and over to someone. Well not mad… frustrated. Kind of like trying it the other way around, so confirmed in one’s account of how this all happened, evolution is so obvious you wonder why everyone can’t see it, it’s right there. But when it comes down to it, who are you going to believe, god or some guy, huh?
“Cry until you laugh. And everyone must breath, until their dying breath.”
Well, I did my part… aside from reposting the onion article that was posed on the evidence for eucharist thread…
And now the page has gone missing. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
I don’t think the point is if christianity’s fault or not. I don’t even care the role of christianity in Africa as I can see it has been really bad, and it made things worse.
I think the point is that believing in bullshit (gods, evil, saints, witches, religion, etc) makes people abusive and criminal. I yet have to see missionaries and churches going to Africa and teach them that kids are not witches.
Yes, the world would be better place if people don’t believe in supernatural at all.
Hmmm. I wonder. People need self-justification to do many of the heinous things we as a species do, and religion makes the self-justification easier. Is it the root cause, though? Parents have been killing their children for hundreds of thousands of years for a variety of reasons. Is the underlying reason religion-or simple Malthusian economics justified after the fact by religion?
I can see a new missionary slogan:
“Don’t leave your converts unattended.”
Then there’ll be a picture of the girl with the nail wound in her head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTjpXqUjvO4
watch the prophet eat his words after being arrested
The name ‘Jesus’ is public domain so any asshole can use it to do whatever he/she wants.
Even Tom Hanks doesn’t allow his name to be thrown about willy nilly.
But the almighty Jesus (name above all names) doesnt care that his name is used to torture little children
This video clip made me want to puke… and then beat the *^$^!# out of the “bishop”. Somehow I’m still shocked at the human capacity for hate and ignorance.
Check out the link posted above you by cynic. I think you’d enjoy it.
I just now got around to watching the video. That is the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. It brought tears to my eyes. I want to scream.
I am glad that I took an antacid to quell my dyspepsia before watching this, or I would have my head in the toilet. It took me long enough just to get the tears out of my eyes just to type that much. Thanks to Cynic for the other post, it was a small relief to watch that bastard get arrested.
Some good news at least
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTjpXqUjvO4
Link to Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7C8Znyf510&feature=related
And Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE8epBkSPfo&feature=related
And Part 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYG-h1avVrc&feature=related
And Part 5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nH8ZJbJ9lY&feature=related
Part 6:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXUKF8dHf4A&feature=related
Part 7:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-9wKZMuRG0&feature=related
This film is a glimpse into our own not too distant past. Remember the Salem witch trials? I’m sure that through out man’s time on earth, because of religion, superstition, greed, or just plain ignorance, scenes like this have played out, and will continue to do so. My hope is that in the future we grow up and put aside our silly superstitions and realize that we are all that we got and now is all we’ll ever have.
this is just too sad…
Holy shit.
Yes it is.
I need to go have a cry now…….
5:35 – notice the gold watch?
2 Trackbacks
[...] Of course, the events I experienced can never be compared with these things that are happening in Africa. [...]
[...] people in Africa are maiming and killing children because they are “witches.” She is encouraging this practice through her [...]