More Child abuse from Nigeria

[LoneMateria]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-af-nigeria-child-witches,0,5276725.story

For those of you who don't know for years now children in Nigeria and the surrounding areas are being accused of witchcraft and tortured and killed because of it in the name of exorcisms.  Nigeria is a very religious region of the world in which several conflictive religions coexist.  But guess which one is performing exorcisms by pouring acid on children, trying to saw of their heads and put nails in their heads?  You guessed it Christianity, but not just any old type of Christianity.  Pentecostal Evangelical Christianity.  That's right introduce stupidity to superstition and this is what you get.  But why kids?  Because they can't defend themselves.  Seeing this article makes me want to punch every religious person that exists.

Atheists need to make a stand against this type of barbarism and ignorance.  What can we do though?  How can we stop this from spreading?  Any suggestions?

[Reginus]

Atheists need to make a stand against this type of barbarism and ignorance.  What can we do though?  How can we stop this from spreading?  Any suggestions?

Nuke 'em  

Jk, anyway, I'm a believer in the power-under approach, as opposed to the power-over approach. In my opinion, the best thing we can do is provide a home and therapy for the victims, and poverty-lifting education for those in the area. Demonifying the pastors and trying to put them in prison, etc. will not solve the problem, but will only further brew hatred.

[LoneMateria]

Meanwhile poor children get abused and murdered because some asshat wants to make money ... Sitting idly by is just watching them do it.

[AlP]

Nuke 'em  

Joke understood.

Jk, anyway, I'm a believer in the power-under approach, as opposed to the power-over approach. In my opinion, the best thing we can do is provide a home and therapy for the victims, and poverty-lifting education for those in the area. Demonifying the pastors and trying to put them in prison, etc. will not solve the problem, but will only further brew hatred.

Can you provide links for the power-under versus power-over approaches? It seems to me that the thing to do is to prevent the abuse of children. And who is demonifying the pastors? I'm not demonifying any pastors. It's not demonification. It's the deepest contempt I can think of. I'm crying right now. I cannot find words to express my moral outrage.

Have you ever been raped? This kind of torture seems similar to what I've been through. Should we just give rape victims therapists? How much of a person can a therapist fix do you think? Do you even have any idea? Should we just let these rapists and abusers get away with it? Again, have you ever ever been raped? Has anything even remotely bad ever happened to you? If so you are lucky.

[Reginus]

Can you provide links for the power-under versus power-over approaches?

A book I recently read called "Three Cups of Tea" comes to mind. It is essentially about this guy who created a foundation operated in Afghanistan which builds schools for children, as an alternative for kids that would normally join the Taliban. It has been overwhelmingly effective at countering terrorism in the area compared to US military strikes, so much that the Pentagon recently offered several million to the foundation.

All in all, my philosophy is that fire cannot stop the spread of fire. Only love can do that.

Also, it would be helpful to know if these pastors are doing this purely for the money, or if they at least partly believe they are doing the right thing.

[AlP]

You said this:

Jk, anyway, I'm a believer in the power-under approach, as opposed to the power-over approach. In my opinion, the best thing we can do is provide a home and therapy for the victims, and poverty-lifting education for those in the area. Demonifying the pastors and trying to put them in prison, etc. will not solve the problem, but will only further brew hatred.

You've been getting away with this for a long time. I'm going to press you. Defend your statements. Do it now or fuck off.

[SSY]

Unnecessarily aggressive?

[AlP]

Unnecessarily aggressive?

No. Reginus must defend his idea that all we need to do is provide a home, therapy and education for the victims of torture.

[SSY]

He said that his view is X, The provided a reference to the material he read, which lead him to think that way, seems at least somewhat reasonable to me, certainly not in need of swearing. Reginus is one of the more reasonable theists we have had here, I think it would be interesting to hold onto him.

Also, to be a pedant, he did not say it was all that was needed, only that, in his opinion it was the best approach. Delving further, I believe he was advocating that it was not the victims of torture who needed education etc, but by educating the entire populace, one could lower the instances of exorcisms and the like, from what I read there was no implication that helping people in this manner after they have been tortured would solve the problem. My perception of the situation is you have gotten the wrong end of the stick a bit.

I realise I am in danger of speaking for him now, so will leave him to defend himself in the thread, should he see fit.

As for my views on the subject, terrible if you ask me, I think the pastors should be prosecuted to the full extent of murder/torture laws as they exist in Nigeria, no special treatment for the religious motivation.

[AlP]

Well I'm not reading Reginas' post that way. What I will say in retrospect is that the "fuck you" was unnecessary. This hit a sore spot for me. I apologize Reginas. And I agree that Reginas is a reasonable theist and I would like for him to remain on the forum. But I still want my post actually answered.

[John09]

I just read an article about this stuff. To think that religious beliefs can persuade people to do such horrific things, especially to children, makes me sick.
Why is it that children always suffer the most?

[LoneMateria]

Children suffer the most because they cannot defend themselves.  And why would the people hurting them care?  They get as many free passes as they want because Jesus loves them.

[Kylyssa]

People need to really look, I mean really look at what is in their "Holy" book.  It's full of inhumane and ignorant concepts.  If they give it to uneducated people and impress upon them the idea that it is the word of God and must be followed they are going to follow it - and the results will be such things as this.

[Ultima22689]

I wish I would find a lamp, a magical one, with a Genie inside, infact I want it to be the genie from the disney movie Aladdin, there is nothing like a singing, all powerful, immortal, cosmic being that turns out to be Robin Williams. I'd ask for a wish, I would wish to be an all powerful genie, then I would wish for my freedom and his. Then I would use my cosmic power to just wipe religion off the face of the planet and then I'd go all around the world uprooting the idiots who run these countries and allow this sort of thing to happen and then i'd update the entire world's infrastructure to the 21st century then I would create a golden bible  and it would pretty much tell people not to believe in invisible men who never show themselves but are all powerful and created the universe just because they told you so and then I would put P.S, i'm just an ordinary guy  who by some freak accident got cosmic powers and that i'm no better than any other person.

[LoneMateria]

People need to really look, I mean really look at what is in their "Holy" book.  It's full of inhumane and ignorant concepts.  If they give it to uneducated people and impress upon them the idea that it is the word of God and must be followed they are going to follow it - and the results will be such things as this.

The problem is that children are taught from an early age that the actions of the biblical characters (god included) are all good unless otherwise noted and it isn't to be questioned.  My friend Marcus is this way.  I got him to admit in the story of 2Kings 2 when God sent a bear down to kill 40 kids was a good thing and that it was just.  Thats how embedded and rooted that system of thought is.  They put their faith and their belief on a pedestal that cannot be touched and warp evidence to the contrary in a way so that it aligns with their preconceived beliefs.