So self-styled witch hunter and evangelical Christian preacher Helen Ukpabio is trying to censor her critics by suing them for the ridiculous sum of £500M.
Let's make no mistake, Ukpabio is at the forefront of the disgusting trend we see in Africa of what I call "occult entrepreneurship". There are a growing number of shamans, preachers and "witch hunters" who "problem solve" for people down on their luck, by calling out the most vulnerable members of society as witches or as possessed by evil spirits, and as being responsible for all the ills. If someone has marital problems, a bad harvest etc. then those witchy-woos must be to blame. Those with no means to stand up to the occultists are targeted - children and the elderly are their most common victims. The occult entrepreneurs will charge to "identify the culprit" and then encourage the community to push these poor people away, and it often goes way further than that.
Such people have become sickeningly rich at the expense of many other poor people who have been displaced, banished with nothing, injured or even killed by their horrific tactics. They are opportunistic bullies and parasites on the back of an often uneducated and all-too-gullible populace. With this ludicrous lawsuit, their behaviour is becoming as outrageous and audacious, as it is despicable and dangerous to society's most vulnerable.
This is not just a "western" perspective, in case you're tempted into cultural relativism here. Leo Igwe (a brilliant skeptic, rationalist and human rights campaigner from Nigeria) gave a wonderful interview to the Reasonable Doubts podcast, in which he describes this awful problem in some detail from an African perspective.
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Headscarves
This is an interesting and quite moving story of a female Muslim journalist working at the BBC and how she has reconciled some degree of independence, with her religion. It's a good example of how anyone still entrenched in belief can make small changes to fight against what is, at its most basic level, an entirely arbitrary dogma.
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Trolleys
In this very thought-provoking (and extremely funny) podcast, Tracie Harris from The Atheist Experience puts across her views on the ethical dilemma of the trolley problem. This is what I was talking about when I previously discussed it on the blog. I really can't blame someone for choosing either option and insisting that the utilitarian approach (flick the switch and kill the one person instead of five) must be correct, is a vast oversimplification. Tracie is the expert at explaining her point of view very effectively using analogies, and again does an impressive job here.
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Last but not least...the wonderful Prof. Alice Roberts
I saw her at the BHA earlier in the year. So charismatic and such an intellect. Very nice, and a very effective public speaker too. Can Alice Roberts get any more awesome? Maybe if she had more public presence and the ability to influence people in power! Get on that BHA!
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