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That is actually one of C.S. Lewis' examples of how humans have not evolved morally. He claims that the difference is people not believing their child was sick
by jecel 6y ago
That is actually one of C.S. Lewis' examples of how humans have not evolved morally. He claims that the difference is people not believing their child was sick and might die because the weird old lady at the end of the street is a witch. If they were convinced of that then many would almost certainly support burning people.
He was sadly proved right in 2014 when someone posted on social media that a 33 year old women was kidnapping babies to use in satanic rituals. Her neighbors beat her to death (news in Portuguese):
http://g1.globo.com/sp/santos-regiao/noticia/2014/05/mulher-espancada-apos-boatos-em-rede-social-morre-em-guaruja-sp.html http://g1.globo.com/sp/santos-regiao/noticia/2014/05/mulher-...
- aksss 6y agoHe talks about this in “Mere Christianity” and it strikes me as correct: “But surely the reason we do not execute witches is that we do not believe there are such things. If we did—if we really thought that there were people going about who had sold themselves to the devil and received supernatural powers from him in return and were using these powers to kill their neighbours or drive them mad or bring bad weather—surely we would all agree that if anyone deserved the death penalty, then these filthy quislings did? There is no difference of moral principle here: the difference is simply about matter of fact. It may be a great advance in knowledge not to believe in witches: there is no moral advance in not executing them when you do not think they are there. You would not call a man humane for ceasing to set mousetraps if he did so because he believed there were no mice in the house.”
- wrp 6y agoWe could speculate on how modern society would react if it was established that some people really could harm telekinetically, were doing so, and incarceration couldn't stop them.