The Salem Witch Trials: a favorite target of Atheist

An honest look at the history of the Salem Witch Trials.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Salem
• Witch
• Trials
• Athiest
• Puritans
• Christians
• Cotton Mather
• Light
• Glory

[sykeo123]

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion"

and that sums it up.

To why people were seeing things there is many guesses.... one being ergot had grew on the rye, but does it matter?

It took relgion for good people to do bad things.

[VeryImagesozo]

@sykeo123 The rye theory is interesting. I never thought of that one. The bottom line is that when you study the life and words of Jesus Christ, these actions are clearly condemned by his words and his manner of life.

[matthewtaylorbrown]

"Witchcraft and Demonology" also includes the history of historical witch trials in Europe and America.

Only a 'certain amount of superstition?'

There were no supernatural happenings, these were superstitious people; mania, fear, and hate. We're talking about Puritans.

This video is a great example of why someone might consider religion dangerous. Witches and magic are not real. At least you take responsibility for your own actions.

[Gnomefro]

It is coherent with deism though, and that's the only force that could have the power to do a thing about the trials. The important thing though, is not what kind of worldview those people had, but that a rough version of methodological naturalism, and not supernatural Christianity, was eventually settled on as the standard of evidence.

[Gnomefro]

The fact that these trials were stopped is ridiculous to credit to Christianity though, because Christianity does in fact back up that these events actually could have happened. What actually stopped the moral panic was not really "Christians" either, but rather a methodological change in the courts, making spectral evidence inadmissible, which prevented new cases from arising. This is not coherent with a bible that claims supernatural events do in fact occur.

[Gnomefro]

All moral panics have a focus triggering them and there is no reason what so ever to think that anything similar would have necessarily occurred if the superstitious people around the 1700 did not have preachers and a holy texts telling them that witches were real and that a huge battle for souls was being waged between Satan and God.

[Gnomefro]

I really wonder how come you rule out that the stories are simply made up, and try to pin it on mental illness. That isn't really a credible explanation for why entire communities would claim to see all sorts of manifestations of Satan is it?

Anyway, the lesson drawn from the Salem Witch Trials us primarily one of the effects of moral panics. These can also be secular, but I think you're far too quick to whitewash Christianity here.