1. Comment #434107 by Nunbeliever on November 23, 2009 at 12:05 pm

Well, it is quite interesting how religious convertions NEVER seem to eradicate old superstition. It is just a new wrapping.

This is why religion is NEVER the cure. Secular education is the only thing that can eradicate superstition.

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2. Comment #434108 by beeline on November 23, 2009 at 12:06 pm

Child rights legislation came into force making it illegal to brand children as witches...

Good stuff. Now, if we can just extend that to all other supernatural affiliations and protect children from all sides...

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3. Comment #434112 by rod-the-farmer on November 23, 2009 at 12:24 pm

Funny how religions always target the vulnerable - homosexuals, children, and women. Hardly ever is it adult men who could fight back. Oooh, that might cause a schism. And it is mostly men making the accusations. Room for someone to do a thesis here, I think. Or with funding, a university department could undertake such a study. Perhaps RDFRS could look into this ?

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4. Comment #434127 by serendipity1 on November 23, 2009 at 1:25 pm

Child rights legislation came into force making it illegal to brand children as witches...

We will have progressed somewhat when we can read the same quote absent the final two words.....

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5. Comment #434141 by keddaw on November 23, 2009 at 2:23 pm

What's wrong with branding children? How are you supposed to say which ones are yours and which are a neighbour's?

Hang on, I'm thinking of cattle.

Perhaps making light of such a serious subject is in poor taste, but everyone coming to this site already knows how horrific and evil this situation is. Even the Christians.

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6. Comment #434154 by black wolf on November 23, 2009 at 3:12 pm

Good thing the pope went to Africa and made this unambiguous statement about how witchcraft is real and his Holy Book Of Truth About Everything said witchcraft is a thing of evil and witches must be killed but please don't kill witches so much anymore mmmkay.
I'm against censorship, but I still find myself wishing that asshole in Rome could be gagged and his evil book be locked away.

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7. Comment #434169 by Sandra S on November 23, 2009 at 3:53 pm

It is just astounding what greed can make people do, and how easily it can be justified with a holy book. Greed has reached extraordinary levels when you find yourself denouncing kids as witches to get their families to cough up some money. Especially when it usually ends in the kid dying. Do these people not feel the tiniest of inkling of regret? I guess it was overpowered by the love for a new Mercedes.


Here's a good article on the subject, it's old and I'm not sure if it has been linked to from here before.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver

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8. Comment #434182 by godless moai on November 23, 2009 at 5:22 pm

comment #3 by Rod the Farmer:

Funny how religions always target the vulnerable - homosexuals, children, and women. Hardly ever is it adult men who could fight back. Oooh, that might cause a schism. And it is mostly men making the accusations.Room for someone to do a thesis here, I think. Or with funding, a university department could undertake such a study. Perhaps RDFRS could look into this ?

there is a question I would like to have an authorised answer for: do we know in humanity history of a women actually starting a religion?
In the same vein, do we know of a woman commanding an army invading another country?
I don't know any name answering these questions, but would welcome a more informed answer.

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9. Comment #434186 by Ophelia Benson on November 23, 2009 at 5:35 pm

More good articles -

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php£num=438

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php£num=428

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php£num=426

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php£num=427

All by Leo Igwe, a Nigerian Humanist who is working to end witch hunts in Nigeria.

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10. Comment #434188 by hungarianelephant on November 23, 2009 at 5:43 pm

8. Comment #434182 by godless moai

there is a question I would like to have an authorised answer for: do we know in humanity history of a women actually starting a religion?
In the same vein, do we know of a woman commanding an army invading another country?
I don't know any name answering these questions, but would welcome a more informed answer.

Last one first: Golda Meir. In fairness, she didn't start it, although I'm sure that a certain Hellenic poster will be able to provide you with an ... er ... alternative viewpoint on that.

You could also argue for Margaret Thatcher's part in Gulf I - she was gone by the time the invasion started but British involvement was part planned under her watch. Elizabeth I got involved in an Anglo-Moroccan plot to invade Spain, but eventually refused to go through with it, which I guess makes your point.

Religion? Hmm. Quite a lot of the Catholic sub-cults kicked off with women or girls having visions, but I guess that's not really the same thing.

Now, what do I win?

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11. Comment #434190 by smoo100 on November 23, 2009 at 5:46 pm

I believe Wicca would claim to be started by women, although I suspect that it was a Victorian construct started by a man - especially the dancing about in the nude bits...

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12. Comment #434192 by xsjadolateralus on November 23, 2009 at 5:49 pm

A part of me is anticipating the show, another, larger part of me is dreading it.

Come on, we make vehicles that break the sound barrier, rockets to the outer reaches of our solar system, TVs that bend, augmented reality, the LHC, along with a zillion other fantastic human achievements, yet some people have to endure the most archaic and simple fates of torture and death.

Some people want to make it seem as if we have no choice, "there will always be some evil people and some good people". They rationalize a certain amount of suffering away with ignorance and naivety. Reducing it to "human nature", or some equally silly notion. When we grow up and take responsibility for solving these problems, we will find out just how important it really was, all this time.

Who cares about flexible OLED TVs when you can save a life, or change a mind?

Consumerism keeps us occupied and entertained, just enough to not give a shit about people far away. It's high time that changed.

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13. Comment #434193 by Sandra S on November 23, 2009 at 5:53 pm

8. Comment #434182 by godless moai

Not that I'm any authority on the subject, but it's quite obvious that even if any woman has done anything of the above, the number who have would be incredibly pale in comparison to the number of men who have. This doesn't mean that women are inherently more peaceful, however.

The reason for the lack of women having invaded other nations or starting religions is more likely because women were very rarely afforded the same respect as men. There are exceptions, of course, such as Joan of Arc and Eleanor of Aquitaine, but they both had to prove themselves in the face of ridicule by men. Even more demonstrative is the fact that both of them got the majority of their power granted to them through men. Joan of Arc had to claim that God (whom most at the time would surely consider male) had spoken to her, otherwise she would never have gotten the chance to prove herself. Eleanor got most of her power through marriage with powerful kings of Europe.

EDIT: I should say that women probably are inherently more peaceful, though. Looking at the number of women who commit violent crimes compared to men, I think one could reasonably say that women are less violent in nature.

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14. Comment #434201 by hungarianelephant on November 23, 2009 at 6:19 pm

13. Comment #434193 by Sandra S

Eleanor got most of her power through marriage with powerful kings of Europe.

She was even more exceptional than that. The reason she was such a great catch was that she was the owner of the biggest Duchy in France. She was possibly more useful to Louis VII than he was to her. He only discarded her when she failed to produce a son. Whose fault was that? After that, she married Henry II, with whom she had five sons. She brought the duchy with her; at one point, this meant the English controlled more French territory than the King of France.

The Aquitaine situation eventually led to Edward III inheriting the French crown. The French weren't going to have any of this, obviously, so they made up a rule that you could not inherit through the female line and stuck the most malleable toff they could find (Capet) on the throne. This was outright cheating - the salient (or Salic) point being that this was the high water mark of discrimination against women. It doesn't have anything like the long and undistinguished history that certain traditionalists would have you believe.

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15. Comment #434211 by glenister_m on November 23, 2009 at 6:40 pm

RE:In the same vein, do we know of a woman commanding an army invading another country£
I don't know any name answering these questions, but would welcome a more informed answer.

I had to laugh when I read this. In the 1980's a comedian (sorry forget his name) did a routine in which he talked about how much better the world would be if women were in charge, since no woman leader had (started£ been in a£) a war. Someone in the audience then pointed out Margaret Thatcher. Another Indira Ghandi. Another Evita Peron. At which point the comedian admitted, "Oh yeah, they all have..."

It's a joke. (Besides Kim Campbell was PM of Canada (briefly) back then and we didn't go to war.)

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16. Comment #434221 by Corylus on November 23, 2009 at 7:11 pm

Helen Clark managed to stay chilled while in office I believe.

Reads up on her ...

OK. Overall, nothing bellicose or blokish* at all. (Non-combative troops only in Iraq it appears).

*_{Well there was an incident involving speeding in order to watch a rugby match, but we can gloss over that.}

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17. Comment #434253 by Corylus on November 23, 2009 at 8:00 pm

Ophelia’s links aren’t clicking for some reason. They are important so I am reposting.

Link 1.
Link 2.
Link 3.
Link 4.

Incidentally, the vile creature that is Helen Ukpabio is the subject of an international petition here.

I obviously don’t agree with the ‘false prophet’ skew on it - it seems to have been drafted by Christians. However, anyone signing can make clear any niggles in the comments. No point in moaning about believers not calling out their co-religionists on immoral actions if you don't support them when they do.

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18. Comment #434311 by Steven Mading on November 23, 2009 at 9:32 pm

On the question of a religion started by a woman (do any exist): what about Christian Science? (oooooh how it makes me feel icky to call it that - one of the most dishonest names for any group that is.)

I believe it was founded by a woman by the name of Mary Baker Eddy in 1866.

But then there's the question of whether or not starting a new subcult of an existing mainstream religion counts as starting a new religion.

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19. Comment #434319 by Steven Mading on November 23, 2009 at 9:41 pm

Some people want to make it seem as if we have no choice, "there will always be some evil people and some good people". They rationalize a certain amount of suffering away with ignorance and naivety. Reducing it to "human nature", or some equally silly notion. When we grow up and take responsibility for solving these problems, we will find out just how important it really was, all this time.

Yes, I hate that one too. To me the "Even if you were right that religion is evil, evil would still exist without religion so don't bother trying to find a way to combat religion" trope is about as vacuous as saying "There are other sorts of health problems besides (name of disease here) , therefore don't bother trying to find the cure for (name of disease here)."

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20. Comment #434364 by InYourFaceNewYorker on November 24, 2009 at 12:13 am

::clears throat::
THESE PEOPLE AND THEIR STUPIDITY!

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21. Comment #434442 by Fyre13 on November 24, 2009 at 9:07 am

When I saw last year's report I thought that it was simply not possible. A little bit has changed but it is still going on. And this woman is still walking free and harming innocent children?

Where are all the other christian church leaders in the world condemming her, her church and all the other preachers? They are, after all, pentecostals.

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22. Comment #434539 by godless moai on November 24, 2009 at 4:40 pm

thanks for the answers to my questions. As Sandra says, there are examples, but very few.
OK, one reason for this is certainly that women have not been in charge of countries as much as men, so the question should be a comparison of percentage between men and women who invaded another country while being leader of theirs... the difference in size of sample on each side might make this a bit difficult to get a representative figure.
I read in a recent interview Martin Amis calling himself a pro-gynocratie. I didn't know the word, but the idea was one I quite like. Men have made the proof over the last few millenia of their incompetence and incapacity at ruling or governing without resorting to violence and/or superstition to solve big problems, and therefore not solving any big problem durably. it might be difficult to imagine how a whoel world governed by women would be, but I think it certainly would be worth a try...

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