oriecat

Yes, you are right. Superstition wasn't really the right word for me to use in that situation. I guess they don't really have much reason to trust us and know that we really are trying to help. How can we gain that trust, with the history of abuse from past centuries?

Yellum Notnef

Did anyone catch last weeks episode of Survivor?

It rained like mad for two days and a Christian woman on the girls team was flipping out about how God was making it rain because they were worshipping false idols. And I mean REALLY flipping out!

The "false idol" in this case was a two foot tall doll they had made as a team mascott. I don`t know if she eventually talked the rest of the women into getting rid of the doll since it made me ill and I had to watch something else.:banghead:

Shadowy Man

In the Amazon?!?! That's unpossible!

Muad'Dib

Superstition may not have been the right word for me to use either, but I fully agree with you that the whole situation is tragic.

As much as I dislike the idea of cultural imperialism, I can't help thinking that it would be "better" in any sense of the term if they believed (or at least acted on the assumption) that disease is caused by microbes rather than occult forces that humans can influence supernaturally.

But how do we persuade them of this given our history together? I don't have an answer to that.

Shadowy Man

Well, there's actually two problems here.

1: They believe that someone can cast an "ebola spell".

2: They are willing to stone and beat someone to death because of that belief.

To me, the second the problem is the more horrifying one.

Muad'Dib

I think that to a certain extent, #2 follows from #1. I believe that a terrorist group released sarin (a nerve agent) in a Tokyo subway in 1995; consequently I have little problem with the members of said group being punished. Whether that should involve their death or not is a gray area for me, but I know that if they were imprisoned they would no longer be an immediate threat to the Japanese community.

On the other hand, if I thought that the terrorists had invoked the power of (e.g.) Shiva to cause the subway disaster, I would probably assume that they could do it again if they were still alive, and I would seek their deaths.

I would want to kill them in a gentler manner--the brutality of the Congolese executions really bothers me. But I would still want them dead if I thought they were a supernatural threat to me and my family.

I think the ideal solution would not be to make people in the Third World more tolerant of people who apparently pose such threats, but to persuade them to see that such people aren't really dangerous in that way. But who knows how that will happen?

Boro Nut

Too many have stones and too few have Ebola.

Ojuice5001

My self-deleted post makes the same point as this one.