Thai boy dies from drinking 18 litres of 'holy water'

[wirat69]

I hope Mr Kanchana will be convicted for premeditated murder.

Ummm... please do not be sexist.... the article clearly refers to Ms Kanchana :-)

[pacovl46]

Superstition needs to be eliminated ASAP! All that ghost end evil spirit stories are simply bullshit!

[seniorbro]

Religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide.

More secular bigotry. Check your facts.

http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/

[Soutpeel]

Superstition needs to be eliminated ASAP! All that ghost end evil spirit stories are simply bullshit!

Organised religon needs to be elminated ASAP

[Soutpeel]

Religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide.

More secular bigotry. Check your facts.

http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/

I think what "Tatsujin" is getting at....religions for the most part preach, tolerance, brotherly love, turn the other cheek etc, yet over the ages organised religons have been resposible for many thousands/hundreds of thousands, possibily millions of deaths in the names of those organised religions..and this carries onto this day

kinda sad that so many people have died because of fairy stories...

[JulesMad]

I am not surprised at this story.

My neighbor said he was being attacked by ghosts in his house at night. His family decided to take him to the local witch doctor who specializes in performing magic clearing out the ghosts and evil spirits from the body. Her other specialty is giving out lottery numbers. Being a curious type of guy I wanted to see this. Five people held this poor old man down on the floor while the witch doctor continually poured buckets of water in his face. He almost drowned. I though he did. They revived him. She declared he is free of ghosts and evil spirits. They took him in the house where he changed all his clothes then they burned the ones he had on during the ceremony while the witch doctor chanted. He came back home and three local monks arrived. They encompassed the entire outside of the house with white strings. Ghosts don't like white strings. The monks asked for candles, water and some kind of food. They stayed up all night expellng all the ghosts from the house. The next morning they declared the house would be free of ghose for five years.

Just curious... How much had your neighbor to pay for this "service"? Only for a 5 year guarantee? Did it come with a receipt and warranty?

'Religion' is very good business

[wealth]

any kind of water when you drink it at once and this huge amount can lead to death. I'd say 70% chance.

[newermonkey]

RIP poor little bugger.

But on a lighter note... as the forum thread seems to be heading:

1. They will probably sue the holly water suppler for supplying fake holy water, were there clear instructions on the label?

2. Perhaps they can find a foreigner to blame?

3. The police should be trying to hunt down the tiger spirit as it might attack again!

And back to the seriousness again: I think religions should be banned, and education should try to debunk superstition, unfortunately it seems to be part af the Asian Psyche.

[manxninja]

Ghosts and spirits are very real, stupidity with rituals is the disease.

hope this lady doesnt see outside a prison again.

[Tatsujin]

Religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide.

More secular bigotry. Check your facts.

http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/

Ah, that "bigotry" word again. Nice.

To put you straight, I don't give a cr@p whether anyone else is religious or not, and as long as it doesn't affect me, they can do whatever the hell they want. I personally am not religious (as you might have guessed) but I am not "intolerant" of others views, I just happen to hold different ones.

Perhaps it was an exaggeration to say religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide, but if it's not #1, it's right on up there if you look back over world history and tot up all the deaths caused directly or indirectly by religion.

[JJttttt1]

Religion should be against the law.

only if atheism will be against the law too.

religious can't prove the god exists, and atheists can't prove he doesn't, so what is the difference?

and if we compare, there were much more murders in the name of atheism than in the name of god...

[Tatsujin]

Religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide.

More secular bigotry. Check your facts.

http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/

I think what "Tatsujin" is getting at....religions for the most part preach, tolerance, brotherly love, turn the other cheek etc, yet over the ages organised religons have been resposible for many thousands/hundreds of thousands, possibily millions of deaths in the names of those organised religions..and this carries onto this day

kinda sad that so many people have died because of fairy stories...

Thanks Soutpeel, that's kind of what I was getting at

[TonyBkk]

86% of samples of holy water checked in Austrian churches contained fecal matter and other bacteria, does this suggest more about the cleanliness of those who frequent such places?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/18/us-austria-water-idUSBRE98H0AG20130918

[teatree]

Religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide.

More secular bigotry. Check your facts.

http://who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs310/en/

Ah, that "bigotry" word again. Nice.

To put you straight, I don't give a cr@p whether anyone else is religious or not, and as long as it doesn't affect me, they can do whatever the hell they want. I personally am not religious (as you might have guessed) but I am not "intolerant" of others views, I just happen to hold different ones.

Perhaps it was an exaggeration to say religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide, but if it's not #1, it's right on up there if you look back over world history and tot up all the deaths caused directly or indirectly by religion.

The number one cause of INTENTIONAL deaths in the last century was government. Stalin, Mao Hitler.....

[whybother]

Religion should be against the law.

only if atheism will be against the law too.

religious can't prove the god exists, and atheists can't prove he doesn't, so what is the difference?

and if we compare, there were much more murders in the name of atheism than in the name of god...

Murders In the name of atheism?

Please point me to a single reported murder "in the name of atheism".

As far as proving whether gods exist, I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No one has proven to me that he doesn't exist, therefore he must exist.

[Suradit69]

Religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide. Ban it. And lock the parents up for a long time for killing their son and being idiots.

And replace it with the beliefs of people who spout unsubstantiated nonsense that they try to pass off as truth (like "Religion is the number one cause of deaths worldwide")?

People use religion to conceal their very worldly intentions and their ignorance, but you can kill people with self serving ideological positions that have nothing to do with actual religions ... Stalin, Hitler, the Kims of North Korea, Bokassa, Idi Amin, Bush ... the (generally false) appeal to nationalism has killed far more than religion.

Edited October 9, 2013 by Suradit69

[teatree]

Religion should be against the law.

only if atheism will be against the law too.

religious can't prove the god exists, and atheists can't prove he doesn't, so what is the difference?

and if we compare, there were much more murders in the name of atheism than in the name of god...

Murders In the name of atheism?

Please point me to a single reported murder "in the name of atheism".

As far as proving whether gods exist, I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No one has proven to me that he doesn't exist, therefore he must exist.

It's not about proving something wrong, it's about proving what you do believe in.

An atheist believes that the universe was created out of nothing by random luck, chemical chance, a happy coincidence.

This is a belief. It cannot be proven. It is faith.

Theism is the faith that God exists, Atheism is the faith that God does not exist.

[mrfill]

Horrible. A simple Google search can teach you that consuming an excessive quantity of water can be lethal. RIP.

Indeed. Check the case of Leah Betts from the UK. She had taken some ecstacy and collapsed at a party. Her parents, who were both involved in drug prevention, fed her a huge amount of water, as their education and expert opinion had taught them this was the correct thing to do. This caused her death (which, of course was attributed to the ecstacy) as excessive water causes the brain to swell until it can cope no more. Needless to say, her parents were not charged with manslaughter.

[Charlie1]

Sounds like the poor kid was an undiagnosed epileptic,

and the seizures he occasionally had were labeled evil spirits,

and he had stress induced seizures during the water torture part of the exorcism.

The second caused him to drown. Very sad and ignorant.

No, The seizures are a direct consequence of the hyponatriamia, caused by the imbalance between water and electrolytes in the Body.

My son unluckily has a disease, called SIADH (please Google), but anyone suffering a sudden hyponatriamia due to the excessive drinking of water will get a severe seizure (Grand mal). The rebuilding of the electrolytes should go very slowly after such a seizure (2 to 3 days)

[whybother]

Religion should be against the law.

only if atheism will be against the law too.

religious can't prove the god exists, and atheists can't prove he doesn't, so what is the difference?

and if we compare, there were much more murders in the name of atheism than in the name of god...

Murders In the name of atheism?

Please point me to a single reported murder "in the name of atheism".

As far as proving whether gods exist, I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No one has proven to me that he doesn't exist, therefore he must exist.

It's not about proving something wrong, it's about proving what you do believe in.

An atheist believes that the universe was created out of nothing by random luck, chemical chance, a happy coincidence.

This is a belief. It cannot be proven. It is faith.

Theism is the faith that God exists, Atheism is the faith that God does not exist.

... and a theist believes that God created the universe out of nothing. If God can do it, why can't it happen by itself?

[circusman]

I hope Mr Kanchana will be convicted for premeditated murder.

Read it again sir. Mr. ?

[JJttttt1]

Murders In the name of atheism?

Please point me to a single reported murder "in the name of atheism".

As far as proving whether gods exist, I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No one has proven to me that he doesn't exist, therefore he must exist.

Yes, sure! for example, in the communist Russia there was a war against religion (slogan: "Religion is the opium of the people" by K. Marx), priests was send to concentration camps and many was executed without a trail, there were a fa few cases of crucifiction (!!!) of priests. Same happened in China, North Korea, Cambodia and many other countries.

Edited October 9, 2013 by JJttttt1

[nami]

I am not surprised at this story.

My neighbor said he was being attacked by ghosts in his house at night. His family decided to take him to the local witch doctor who specializes in performing magic clearing out the ghosts and evil spirits from the body. Her other specialty is giving out lottery numbers. Being a curious type of guy I wanted to see this. Five people held this poor old man down on the floor while the witch doctor continually poured buckets of water in his face. He almost drowned. I though he did. They revived him. She declared he is free of ghosts and evil spirits. They took him in the house where he changed all his clothes then they burned the ones he had on during the ceremony while the witch doctor chanted. He came back home and three local monks arrived. They encompassed the entire outside of the house with white strings. Ghosts don't like white strings. The monks asked for candles, water and some kind of food. They stayed up all night expellng all the ghosts from the house. The next morning they declared the house would be free of ghose for five years.

Amazing. Some years ago I was dating a girl who was originally from a village in Trang province, and one day we went there to visit the family and so on. W meet some of her friends and then I was told we needed to go see some man who had news about this friend's brother, who they didn't have heard about for several weeks and were worried; I was told the brother didn't live in the town... So we arrived at the village's blacksmith house and, after a short chat, the man closed the eyes and entered in a (fake) mystic state: The man was some kind of a medium, and this friend's brother had been death for several years and the sisters would come every week to see the show and would pay this man some 200 baht each time.

I really felt like I should give the man a severe beating for playing with people's feelings and money, what a #$#@! Anyway, the brother would not contact to often now because he had found a nice woman and moved together to another village, so maybe this man stopped scamming money from them without the need of a beating :-P

Amazing stuff indeed.

[nami]

Religion should be against the law.

only if atheism will be against the law too.

religious can't prove the god exists, and atheists can't prove he doesn't, so what is the difference?

and if we compare, there were much more murders in the name of atheism than in the name of god...

The main difference is the religious people try to impose their views and morality to others: Of course they must be right, it's God word after all.

Another thing to think about is how many deaths in history have been murders by religious people because of religious ideas, and how many from atheists or seculars because of their non-religious ideas? (ie I kill you because you believe in God and you shouldn't, or I kill you because you say the earth's is flat and is the center of the universe).

Religious should be more than grateful to be respected nowadays after all the inhumane things they have done (and still doing)

[Andre0720]

Did Mrs Karnchana drink 18 litres of water as well to lead by example??

He might have had plenty of time to turn the water into wine.....

[SDH]

horrible story....

Unbelievably sickening, not one will be charged either, amazing.....

[tarika]

Hey, the death of this poor boy is not the fault of buddism or any other religion. It`s the fault of those people stupidity.. In fact, in Buddhas teaching it is clearly said that no ritual can`t clean your soul (there is no soul in buddhism.. but who cares?)

Till stupidy and greed are there, there will always be some victims. Doesn`t matter if religion is there or not.

[animatic]

Sounds like the poor kid was an undiagnosed epileptic,

and the seizures he occasionally had were labeled evil spirits,

and he had stress induced seizures during the water torture part of the exorcism.

The second caused him to drown. Very sad and ignorant.

No, The seizures are a direct consequence of the hyponatriamia, caused by the imbalance between water and electrolytes in the Body.

My son unluckily has a disease, called SIADH (please Google), but anyone suffering a sudden hyponatriamia due to the excessive drinking of water will get a severe seizure (Grand mal). The rebuilding of the electrolytes should go very slowly after such a seizure (2 to 3 days)

I would say could be not "are",

his twin brother did not have the same reaction to the same water does.

Sorry to hear your son has SIADH.

My thoughts on this are;

What caused the need for the exorcism in the first place?

Why was there a significantly different response between twin brothers?

Epilepsy has long been a source of witch raft accusations

in more earlier, or more primitive cultures. Including within

my wife's hill tribe family where the death of an infant brother's

description to me decades later indicated some of the same bad spirits / illness conjunction..

Grand Mal seizures are not well understood, by most people, and those in cultures

where a local witch doctor is considered a viable source of info it, is even less comprehended.

Bother brothers got the same size water barrel, but only one had 2 sets of seizures,

one fatal, ate the same meals and same amount of fasting, and this indicates a

probable underlying disorder of some sort in one twin.

Since epilepsy can be caused, by head blows from accidents, and not strictly

via genetic transmission, this lends it as a strong possibility.

I am not poo pooing your hypothesis, just explain further my reasoning,

both medical,cultural and historical.

Also this is not caused by Buddhism, but by an even older layer of Animism

that Buddhism has never completely eradicated. Much like Christianity co-opted

many pagan festivals, concepts and entities to prosper, so has this regions Buddhism

also locally incorporated long held Animist beliefs, by not removing them they become

part of the whole, rather than actively adopting them.

Edited October 9, 2013 by animatic

[kurnell]

...and I thought it was the poor education system the caused our hosts to fall behind the rest of the world in use of grey matter. Now I realize that there isn't much grey matter there to begin with.

[humble bee]

"Millions of Thais of Chinese descent......"

Very Interesting and true observation of one of the so many practices, habits, values etc etc (many are not nice if not obnoxious) that chinese immigrants / refugees brought with them when they moved to Thailand.

The buddhism now practises here has certainly changed over the decades, centuries. Taoism is just one of the many influences.....