And Now, More Children, More Pain, In Deepest Darkest Africa

Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!

Be forewarned: the video is both heart-breaking and rage-inducing. Apparently, child sacrifice is the latest trend in Uganda. And truly, what other reason besides religious ritualism could be behind it?

And as if that wasn’t enough horrific news, there happens to be a major trend in the Congo:

Crisis in DR Congo

12 year-old, Henri, which is not his real name, points at a large fresh looking scar on his midriff.

"People accused me of sorcery and my mother believed them," he says.
"Look, here on my stomach. She tried to kill me with a knife. It really hurt and I cannot understand why my mother did it."
Henri, who is now being given help by a children's charity, had been playing outside his home in Goma, eastern Congo, when the accusations began.
His eyes begin to water as he remembers pleading with his mother, telling her that the claims were completely untrue. Not that this made any difference.
"She threw me out of the house and told me to go away," he says.
Henri was then forced to live on the streets until charity workers convinced his mother that the allegations were untrue.

Apparently, nobody’s passing out condoms in this country either. Because obviously Henri’s mother isn’t fit to take care of her own child.

Growing problem
His is just one of a fast growing number of children accused of sorcery to come to the attention of Unicef's head of child protection in Congo, Alessandra Dentice.
"Children accused of witchcraft is unfortunately one of the major increasing child protection issues in the country," she says.

Well, anyone accusing anyone of witchcraft in this day and age means that the hugest issue of all is education. Because obviously, witchcraft is bullshit.

Unicef's latest available statistics show that around one hundred cases of child sorcery allegations were referred to them in 2008 in the North Kivu province of Eastern Congo alone.
That number increased nearly fivefold to 450 in the same area last year.

Hard to believe in the 21st century, isn’t it?

I can’t speak for anyone else, but this sort of horse manure makes me grim with rage. It is yet another of millions of indictments against the bastions of belief, the spuriousness of superstition, the rottenness of religion. It signifies those predators upon the weak, the witch doctor, the shaman, the priest, the minister. It shows us that shadows have far too much grip upon feeble psyches, a fear passed down from ancient dead men with heads up their asses. It instructs us that the road to reason is an uphill battle of near Sisyphean proportions. It teaches us that others overvalue the afterlife far too highly above this one, an empty valueless existence then, for there is no life other than here.

It is to clench the fists whitely, gnash the teeth in snarls, and growl in rage and disappointment – for all that any religion teaches is to increase suffering in a life already complicated with enough of it.

Till the next post, then.