Photo: A skinned frog is put into a blender to make a drink popular with working-class Peruvians who believe it can cure illnesses ranging from fatigue to sexual impotency, at a market in San Juan de Lurigancho, Lima, August 16, 2006. REUTERS/Mariana BazoStupid humans! They just keep on with their superstitious beliefs even after being warned they could die from them:
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Peru's government warned people to be wary of fake medicine men offering cure-all miracle herb potions on Tuesday, after a bogus brew killed a man hoping to shake off a spell of bad luck.
Alternative medicine is popular throughout the Andean nation, where newspapers are full of colorful ads from self-proclaimed "shamans" offering to improve anything from customers' luck to their ability to attract a mate.
"Avoid consuming brews made with herbs of questionable origin or hallucinogenic plants prepared by so-called Shamans," the country's Health Ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said that genuine Shamans from the country's north sometimes consumed natural hallucinogens such as the San Pedro cactus in their rituals, but did not administer them to patients.
4 comments:
I guess one country's Prozac is another country's frog guts. Compared to that "incident" in Peru, Dr. Phil doesn't seem so bad now, does it? =)
And what makes me crazy is that Christians in America will read that story and laugh at those poor ignorant Peruvians without realizing that they are no better. There is as much evidence for the efficacy of their blended frog drink as there is for the Christian god...none.
Some of the religious beliefs and behavior found throughout the world are absolutely stunning but then when you reconsider in light of the popular religious beliefs found here in America they really are not any more absurd, they are simply unfamiliar. We view the notion that Jesus was born of a virgin as less absurd than, say, drinking a mixed drink with skinned frogs as an ingredient merely because we are so familiar with the belief. As Vjack points out, both are equally absurd. Furthermore when such delinquent religious belief is directly culpable for damage and death we must be even more vociferous in our opposition to it. When people drink mixed drinks that are poisonous because they believe it will be religiously beneficial to them this is really no more or less ignorant and dangerous as when Christian Scientist parents refuse to allow their children to visit a hospital to be treated for easily curable diseases inadvertently offering death sentences; both are deadly ignorant and must not be tolerated!
Wflooter - Dr. Phil is a fruitcake, but no he's not so bad in comparison; we aren't going to die from his advice.
There is as much evidence for the efficacy of their blended frog drink as there is for the Christian god...none.
vjack - exactly!
When people drink mixed drinks that are poisonous because they believe it will be religiously beneficial to them this is really no more or less ignorant and dangerous as when Christian Scientist parents refuse to allow their children to visit a hospital to be treated for easily curable diseases
JD - We had Jehovah Witness neighbors years ago and the wife would not allow her seriously ill husband to have a blood transfusion. He could have died, but the doctors managed to pull him through. Of course she gave Gawd the credit for his recovery.
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