Parents sacrifice 4-yr-old girl to become rich

The couple, identified as Srikrishna and Ramdevi, were told by a “tantrik” (exorcist)that they would become rich if they sacrificed their daughter, according to police sources here.

Acting on the advice of a “tantrik”, a “havana kund”(a pit in which the fire is lit and yajna is performed), was prepared in the courtyard of the couple for the rituals late on Monday night.

The parents then put their daughter Kanni into the pit amid chanting of “mantra” and lit the fire. The girl, who was also mercillessely beaten, was half buried in the pit.

The parents had stuffed a piece of cloth in the mouth of the little girl so that her cries could not be heard by any one in the village, sources said.

No words.

(via)

Priest drowns baby during baptism:

Police are investigating Father Valentin for accidential homicide after witnesses at the ceremony said the priest did not cover the baby’s mouth during the ritual, The Sun newspaper reports.

Father Valentin had denied being responsible for the baby’s death during the baptism in Moldova.

The six-week-old baby died on the way to hospital and an autopsy found he had drowned, the baby’s dad Dumitru Gaidau told Romania’s Publica TV.

Mr Gaidau, 36, said his son was clearly in distress during the ceremony.

“He couldn’t inhale, his face turned blue and he was foaming at the mouth. He [the priest] said we should not interrupt this their ritual,” he said.

“We couldn’t believe it that he just put his hand over his belly and over the head and submerged him three times in the water.”

Water was found in the baby’s lungs.

Very sad — death by superstition.

I think the very extreme end of this spectrum are visible in parts of Africa. Graeme Wood at The Atlantic has the story, which he gave the punny title of Hex Appeal:

By some estimates, about 40 percent of the cases in the Central African court system are witchcraft prosecutions. (Drug offenses in the U.S., by contrast, account for just 12 percent of arrests.) In Mbaiki—where Pygmies, who are known for bewitching each other, make up about a tenth of the population—witchcraft prosecutions exceed 50 percent of the case load, meaning that most alleged criminals there are suspected of doing things that Westerners generally regard as impossible.

[...]

The classic study of witchcraft in Africa occurred among the Azande, who inhabit the eastern edge of the Central African Republic. The anthropologist Edward E. Evans-Pritchard found that the Azande attributed a staggering range of misfortunes—infected toes, collapsed granary roofs, even bad weather—to meddling by witches. Nothing happened by chance, only as an effect of spell-casting by a wicked interloper. That sentiment remains widespread among Central Africans, who demand that the law reflect the influence of witchcraft as they understand it.

[...]

I asked how one determined guilt in cases where the alleged witches denied the charges. “The judge will look at them and see if they act like witches,” [Bartolomé] Goroth said, specifying that “acting like a witch” entailed behaving “strangely” or “nervously” in court. His principal advice to clients, he said, was to act normally and refrain from casting any spells in the courtroom.

And then there are the religious nutballs, who think that sewer stains on a wall is Jesus revealing himself.

Why does this happen? David McRaney explains:

Carl Sagan was one of the first scientists to suggest the reason for seeing faces where they aren’t is a survival mechanism.

In an environment like a jungle or a forest, you need only a few details of the face to fill in the rest and see another human being.

When people experience pareidolia in which they believe they can see a religious figure, it’s called simulacra.

It happens fairly often, and sometimes leads to fervor, like the water stain under a bridge in Chicago which has become a beloved shrine.

Recent advances in brain imagery have made it possible to explore why this happens.

When people see faces, it takes far less time (as in milliseconds) for the ventral fusiform cortex to register it recognizes something meaningful.

When people are shown objects which sort-of  look like faces, that same part of the brain indicates recognition at almost the same speed.

It doesn’t take much to create a face either. It can sometimes just be a little punctuation. ; )

Read the whole thing and you’ll get to experience a grotesque upside-down picture of George W Bush.

When the “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell recently predicted the departure of the contestant Jermaine Sellers, the young singer shook his head in disagreement. “I know God,’’ he replied, pointing upward.

Two days later, when Mr. Sellers failed to make the cut, he still had faith. “What God has for me is for me,’’ he said. “In God there is no failure.’’

Mr. Sellers is not alone in his belief that God pays attention to reality television contests. New research shows that most Americans believe God is directly involved in their personal affairs, and that the good or bad things that happen are “part of God’s plan,’’ according to a report in the March issue of the journal Sociology of Religion.

I wonder if the day will ever come when most Americans will not believe a god is involved in their personal affairs? I think it will. Do you?

DOES SATAN EXIST?
Yes. He interacts with his Disciples and followers. Many of us have seen him, we have witnessed the so-called supernatural, and we have been given abilities way beyond that of the average person. When we ask, we get answers. Unlike other religions, where followers have to go searching for their gods, Satan/Lucifer comes to us. He lets us know of his presence.

Demons, as opposed to all of the Christian lies, are friends of humanity. Demons, who are the Original Gods, give us much individual attention and protection, once a strong and trusted relationship is established. When we are close to, and under the protection of Satan, he gives us good Demons to work with. Their Sigils contain very important designs of alchemical symbols related to the opening of the soul.

Satan is not “evil,” nor is Satan responsible for the multitude of illnesses, diseases, or anything else that afflicts humanity. These afflictions are due to the removal and destruction of ancient knowledge that was replaced with the Christianity programs.

Satanism stands for the balance of spirituality with technology. Without this balance, civilizations eventually collapse.

Mmmm hmm, sure. What kind of abilities “way beyond the average person”? How does Satan interact? Anything on video? Can they show any of these things in an environment where trickery would be exposed?

Many Christians would eat this up, pointing to it as evidence of Satan’s existence. “See,” they’d say, “we know Satan exists because those people talk with him! They say so!”

But it’s just like any other religion where people say they talk to their deities or saints. They fool themselves or someone tricks them. It’s kinda sad, really.

Until they present some evidence of their communion with the Dark Lord, then it’s the same old bag of unsupportable claims. There’s nothing to see here; move along.

Of course as a Christian I have to grapple with asking exactly what a NDE [Near Death Experience] is. It seems irrefutable that many people, when gravely injured and often when clinically dead, do experience something. The accounts are too common and too consistent to ignore entirely. So we see that such experiences do appear to exist and that they seem to lead directly away from what the Bible teaches us. What recourse do we have, then, but to state with some confidence that these experiences are somehow a trick of Satan? And would it not be just like the Enemy to use such an experience to convince people of their own divinity–to lead people as far from what is true as is possible? I am persuaded that NDEs do exist but that they exist to deceive, to provide false comfort, to provide false hope, to enslave, to trap, to destroy.

I think Amazon already knows this. Evidence of the Afterlife is filed under Books > Religion & Spirituality > Occult. Well done.

Verdict: Read it if you want to see how Satan continues to ensnare and enslave.

To me the two key sentences are:

So we see that such experiences do appear to exist and that they seem to lead directly away from what the Bible teaches us. What recourse do we have, then, but to state with some confidence that these experiences are somehow a trick of Satan? [my emphasis]

In other words, the Bible can’t be wrong, so it must be a demonic trick. That last sentence sums up one of my main problem with religion — instead of even considering they could be wrong, they explain the problem away through an evil spirit or some superstition. Some Christians do this with the fossil record (“Satan put the fossils there to confuse us!”) as well as other areas when they are confronted with facts that disagree with their interpretation of their holy book.

Their evidence for all this consistent Satan trickery? Well, since they don’t have evidence for the existence of God much less Satan, it would be amusing to see them try to build a case. The only evidence for the existence of Satan is that some ancient authors, who were later included in the Bible, assumed he existed. And as for NDEs being a “trick” of a being they cannot prove exists… well… let’s just say I’m not holding my breath for anything substantial.

What’s nice about being non-religious is that I don’t have to explain these things away with evil scary creatures. It’s clear that people do have near death experiences — but that isn’t evidence for an afterlife or any specific kind of afterlife. It’s just evidence that people have near death experiences. We don’t know enough about it — yet — but science will march on and we’ll understand more about why the brain reacts the way it does in some of these situations.

In the meantime, I think we should state with some confidence that NDEs are a ploy of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to trick people into believing in an afterlife without pasta. But keep the faith, brethren and sistren, for we KNOW there will be pasta forever and ever! AMEN!?!

That’s what one friend said to another about giving their children swine flu vaccinations. An otherwise boring dinner party suddenly got more interesting.

“Ah, so you’re an anti-vaxer. Why?” I asked.

I figured he would be against vaccinations because he thought it was linked to autism or some reason like that. Boy was I wrong.

He replied, “They’re using the vaccines to introduce microchips into the population — these chips are the mark of the beast. They’ll use them to track us and eventually we won’t be able to buy or sell without these chips, just like the Bible says. Don’t get the vaccines!”

I was trying to measure out whether he was joking or not. After weighing his words and manners, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that he was not.

Now I’m a guy who hears a lot of crazy things fundies believe. I blog about some of them. But this was about a month ago, and I hadn’t heard this one. I was a little in awe of that — a friend of mine believes in something so fucking crazy I hadn’t even been sent a link about it. I felt like I had discovered a new species of insanity in my own backyard.

Being who I am, I couldn’t let it go at that. I told him it was something easily proven or disproven by scanning the person after they had the injection to see if they had a microchip. “Ah,” he said, unknowingly channeling every conspiracy theorist who ever lived, “but they’re too small to be detected and neither can the transmissions.”

The only thing missing was a tin foil hat.

“Where in the world are you getting this from?” I asked.

“The web.”

Yes, the web, the blessing and curse of instant information. Mostly blessing I think — or at least I hope. My curiosity got the better of me and where else would I find someone talking about this but World Nut Daily:

A Florida-based company that boasts selling the world’s first and only federally approved radio microchip for implanting in humans is now turning its development branch toward “emergency preparedness,” hoping to produce an implant that can automatically detect in its host’s bloodstream the presence of swine flu or other viruses deemed a “bio-threat.”

VeriChip Corporation currently sells a small, under-the-skin Radio Frequency Identification capsule, or RFID, that patients can opt to have implanted, containing a number computer-linked to their medical records, enabling doctors with a special reader to access the information even if the patient is unconscious or unidentified. The company boasts its microchip, roughly the size of a grain of rice, is the only such implant approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

But VeriChip has also turned its attention to other uses for the technology, including microchips that be used to tag and log human remains after a disaster and implants the company hopes will be able to warn if their host is infected with the H1N1 swine flu virus, the H5N1 bird flu virus or other pandemic agents deemed to be a “bio-threat.”

So it seems this “mark of the beast” paranoia is based on information that a company is hoping to produce an implant to detect swine flu in the bloodstream. It’s amazing how something like this can morph from “they might” to “they have” to “they are,” especially among those who want to believe.

What concerns me most is that based on this, my friend was commanding someone to not vaccinate their children — the very ones who have the highest mortality rate with the swine flu. His advice would increase their chances of death.

Ultimately, it comes down to superstition and paranoia. These people want to believe and they’ll believe anything as long as it is presented somewhat credibly and supports what they believe is true.

If I really wanted to make him concerned, perhaps I should have told him the government is watching him right now. They know where he is at all times. And guess what — they know it because of something in his hand… just like the Bible predicted!

That is, instead of being paranoid about some microchip that doesn’t exist, maybe he could focus his paranoia on the GPS chip in his cell phone.

After all, big brother is watching you.

(via)

Why are dirty underwear, mutant clover, and amputated mammal appendages associated with good fortune?  How did humans develop our “lucky” rituals? And why are they usually gross when you think about them? I hope to address two of these three questions, read on to find out which.

A lucky charm I made in college: card laminated with a 4-leaf clover

Tonight I will be watching my beloved Baltimore Ravens playing the Cleveland Browns on Monday Night Football.  It should be an easy game but I don’t want to leave anything to chance (my fantasy team also needs a strong showing from the Baltimore defense).  I’ll be doing everything in my power to help my team win: that is, nothing in particular.

I am on the record publicly disbelieving in luck.  But I am fascinated by the power the belief in luck has over us.  Even very rational and scientific people have rituals and “lucky’ charms.  As Neils Bohr is credited with saying, “I don’t believe in luck, but I hear it works even if you don’t believe.”

Why are we so beholden to the belief in luck?

Superstitious Pigeons

The famous psychologist BF Skinner once did an experiment on hungry pigeons. In one test, he conditioned them to react to the word “peck” or “turn” and rewarded the correct behavior by giving them food. Interestingly, they would perform the action more if the reward happened at a variable rate – not every time the bird pecked, but every three times or ten times. Their behavior was used to learn about the human capacity for conditioning – slot machines are so addictive because they operate on the same principle.

What was more interesting was another experiment in which the researchers rewarded the pigeons at intervals that had no connection to what the birds were doing. The pigeons instinctively try to repeat whatever action they did which caused the food to come. Superstitions arose:

One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a ‘tossing’ response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return.

How cool is that?

Superstitious Humans

She’s either doing the Gangsta Lean or trying to make her ball move

Are we better than the pigeons? Well, yes, in various ways, but not when it comes to the superstition.  Our brains evolved with the strong urge to see causation and pattern.  It’s how we learn about the world.

But we get a lot of false positives.  Even for things out of our control, there’s still the impulse to do what you can to affect the world.  A classic example is in bowling.  It’s extremely common for people to lean one way or the other in a desperate attempt to make their ball stay out of the gutter.  Why do they do it?  No doubt in the past the ball curved while someone was leaning that way and they unconsciously made a connection.  I’ve caught myself doing it, and it… feels right.  I feel like I’m affecting the ball even though I rationally know I’m not.  The urge to find causation is that strong.

Bowling is a particular case in which the actions taken after the ball is thrown have nothing to do with the result. Other rituals might genuinely have an effect – but on the person’s confidence, not on external reality. An athlete wearing the same dirty underwear before playing in a baseball series might be more relaxed and confident, leading to better performance. The connection between the underwear and the win is reinforced, and forms an upward spiral.

Perhaps a hiker found a clover with four leaves instead of the normal three and picked it up for the novelty, only to have good fortune later in the day. A faulty connection is made and a superstition is born.

Don’t ask me about the rabbit’s foot; I have no idea where that sick idea came from.

Religious Implications

Daniel Dennett makes the point in Breaking the Spell that this tendency could explain many religious rituals.  If a society doesn’t understand what caused the rain to come, elaborate rain dances will follow. As time goes on and the illusion of causation is semi-reinforced by random events, the rituals get more and more elaborate.

How many times have you heard someone say “I prayed for my brother to get better and his fever went away! Explain THAT!” If the human mind is frantically figuring out possible ways to understand and affect the world, faulty connections like this are very likely. We just have to foster better understanding and internalization of probability, the scientific method, and psychology.

What superstitions did you used to (or still do) practice?

Here’s a test I’m trying tonight: every time I take a drink of beer, I expect the Ravens to have a good play. It’s for science!

The cooing of pigeons brought memory into the procession. Dessie remembered how her father had said, sitting at the head of the table, “I told Rabbit I was going to raise some pigeons and—do you know?—he said, ‘No white pigeons.’ ‘Why not white?’ I asked him, and he said, ‘They’re the rare worst of bad luck. You take a flight of white pigeons and they’ll bring sadness and death. Get gray ones.’ ‘I like white ones.’ ‘Get gray ones,’ he told me. And as the sky covers me, I’ll get white ones.”

And [his wife] Liza said patiently, “Why do you be forever testing, Samuel? Gray ones taste just as good and they’re bigger.”

“I’ll let no flimsy fairy tale push me,” Samuel said.

And Liza said with her dreadful simplicity, “You’re already pushed by your own contentiousness. You’re a mule of contention, a very mule!”

“Someone’s got to do these things,” he said sullenly. “Else Fate would not ever get nose-thumbed and mankind would still be clinging to the top branches of a tree.”

And of course he got white pigeons and waited truculently for sadness and death until he’d proved his point.

And yet, as Dessie realizes, “Sadness and death… you just have to wait around long enough and it will come” — white pigeons or gray ones.