People accepting a concept such as witchcraft without requiring any real proof that it exists, directly leads to them being able to accept that someone is a practitioner of witchcraft without requiring any real proof that they are. And that’s why we need to fight superstition.

The whole thing is just a big scam playing on the stupidity of a mentally challenged section of the population. I’d feel sorry for them if they weren’t the ones trying to force their crackpot beliefs on the rest of us.

Wait, wait, wait… are you implying religion is inherited?

This is Skepticland, buddy. I’m gonna need a cite.

It’s a meme, not a gene. Hey, there’s a bumper sticker there somewhere.

“Give a citiation or receive one”

Just a thought.

… the standard holy water font that you would find in a catholic church is a relatively disgusting cesspool of bacteria…

Hence the “burning, intense heat, sweating, skin irritations, rashes, itchiness, vomiting, bloodshot and watery eyes, pale skin color and oral irritations.”

I wonder how that happened???

As an avowed agnostic/mystic/Deadhead sinner of massive repute, I volunteer to be the first to shower under the so-called holy water, just to see if anything advertised happens. If nothing happens, does that mean I am the second coming???
(,,,or something like that,,,)

Gary 7

Since there is a labelled warning to sinners, I would think that would count as a medicinal claim that should interest whoever looks into such claims.

And, IIRC, doesn’t the Bible say we’re all sinners, and that even though accepting jeebus as your saviour gets your sin forgiven on the judgement day, you’re still a sinner. Therefore shouldn’t everyone explode or whatever when they drink it?

Holy water has as much effect as prayer (although studies show that prayer can actually be bad for you!)

Apart from the lack of “anal leakage”, that’s pretty much how I reacted to potato chips with Olestra.

>> my relative commented about it when she told me about the thing in
>> the first place. That’s the serious part. My not-so-serious (and hopefully
>> never-comes-true) comment to that warning is this: Sounds like
>> symptoms of tainting or poisoning. Does the FDA need to investigate this?

Now *there’s* a separation of church and state test case if I ever saw one.

How’s that democracy experiment going, George?

It isn’t just science that’s under assault. It’s basic human rights at every level. I used to tolerate religion at one time. Maybe that was a mistake- tolerating too much BS. Same with politicians. We tolerated too many shenanigans, and now the term “public servant” is merely a novelty to our new aristocratic class.

As for the sales of holy water, maybe we can combine it with homeopathy and increase stocks with high dilution. Would that work, or would it make baby Jesus cry?

Well, I’m off to draw a cartoon of Mohammad.

The bottles contain normal, purified water. But they have all been blessed by members of the Catholic and Anglican clergy.

The company hopes to expand the blessing to other faiths, as well.

1. Other faiths? Like maybe Muslims? No wait, they mean denominations.

2. Aren’t Catholics, Anglicans, and Eastern Orthodox the only denominations that believe in holy water? For many Protestants, their only experience with holy water is via vampire movies.

From the website:

“The initial idea behind this product is to provide people with a daily reminder that they can and should do good in life and that they may not be as bad of a person as they think.”

This warning was designed to protect the product during consumption due to the many known perceptions about Holy Water. It is also designed to market the product towards the younger generation. We mean no disrespect towards any religion in regards to this disclaimer.

Protect the product during consumption? How? From what? Being thrown onto vampires?

It looks like they’re going for reverse psychology. “Hey, I drink the water and don’t burst into flames, I can’t be that bad.” Now we just need to let Charles Manson try some to test the disclaimer.

It took me a few moments to realize that you were talking about the Republican candidates rather than the Indian villagers. The same could be said of both.

And in both cases, I don’t think it excuses the respective actions/attitudes. If anything, the wannabe-Presidents are more culpable for their ignorance (or for their cynical pandering to the evangelical constituency), since in this country they at least have the *chance* to be exposed to rational thinking; the same may not be true of the villagers.

Actually, I think this ‘holy water’ is being marketed nationwide in America. I don’t know if it’s being sold abroad, nor even if any other country would find it marketable in the first place.
I don’t find marketing certain foods certain ways objectionable, though I suppose ultimately I believe it is a bit silly; it really wouldn’t make a difference to anyone who doesn’t practice religion. (In other words, is it edible? Reasonably healthy? Non-lethal? These are standards applicable to all humans everywhere, regardless of any belief system.)
However, marketing a food as Kosher (for one example) in order for people who truly have religious guidelines to follow is different than marketing a food (drink, in this case) as a religious gimmick in order to gain sales by appealing to people’s strange/incorrect/wrong sense of what a religion (Christianity, in this case) is about.
My concern (and apparently the cashier’s, though I wasn’t there to ask her) about this is that it’s yet another way ‘Christianity’ is being worked into every aspect of daily life in America. That’s what I meant by “crammed down her throat”, not that anyone was forcing her to buy and/or drink that particular product. But the worst part is that it’s a symptom of a politicized and/or marketized version of Christianity. I think if many self-proclaimed American Christians actually stepped back and saw what’s being done to and in the name of their religion, they may think long and hard about whether it’s what they truly believe. (Or at the very least, may fight to keep their religion from being perverted or misused.)

Sean said “There’s a line — and even a particularly fine one — between opposing crazy religious nutbars who want everyone to believe like them, and opposing innocuous religious displays that don’t affect you in the slightest.” and that’s actually a very good point whose logic I can’t dismiss. But what may seem innocuos may be symptomatic of a graeter underlying problem. Allow me to elaborate…
Ulitmately, you’re right in that the water display doesn’t affect me directly. I won’t buy it, and I suspect that once the initial flurry has worn off, it will go away, after someone’s gotten incredibly rich off of it.
But I don’t believe it’s a very honest thing to do, not an honest way to use religion, and that is what can ultimately affect all of us. And it’s part of a growing trend in America to force ‘Christianity’ into everyone’s life. I’m not going to bash Republicans here, but the recent Republican presidential candidate ‘debate’ is a very public example (and just one example; this isn’t solely a Republican thing, but more of an American thing) of how some potentially powerful people want to bring religion to the fore in daily life and in politics. Dangerous, that. (Isn’t prayer, for example, supposed to be a private communion between an individual and God? Why then, National Day of Prayer, or prayers around the flagpole and the like? And why invoke God/Christianity in the name of warfare, while criticizing other countries for doing the same with their god/religion?)

And before anyone else asks the obvious, yes, I do know all religion has been, and shall continue to be misused. And one could even argue, as I myself have elsewhere, that religion itself is a misuse of our ability to make ourselves better as both individuals and as a species. But I think I’m dragging this thread off topic a bit, so I’m not going to get into that here. Or perhaps it isn’t off-topic: Quoting Phil’s blog entry: “We are all savage animals, and thinking clearly is hard, very hard. But not thinking clearly comes with a very dear price. Let’s hope soon that everyone gets tired of paying it.”

I did think of a more relevant example relating to this topic, though… Phil also said in this blog entry “…I know a lot of Americans will read that [the story of the black magic executions] and think, “stupid bumpkins” or some such derogatory term…” regarding people in other countries commiting some act in the name of their religious beliefs. I wonder what other countries think of Americans who attend revivals where snake handling and speaking in tongues is a standard practice.
To me, here or abroad, weird practices are simply that: weird. When they harm people, they are wrong.

Or was that town full of Democrats and atheists?