Thousands of people heard that the sea water at a beach had turned sweet, and they swarmed the shore to bottle it and drink it.
One catch:
But this is not a healthy place. The sandy beach marks the point at which the Mithi River, an unofficial dump for the untreated sewage and industrial waste of Bombay, flows out of India's financial and entertainment capital into the Arabian sea.
Don't you suspect that the officials who warned the people of this problem were accused of being close-minded and lacking in faith in the supernatural?
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This reminds me of one of the scenes from Satyajit Ray's great _Apu Trilogy_. Apu's father is a great believer in the powers of the waters of the Ganges. The first time you observe him visit the river, after they reach the city, is quite touching. But eventually he falls sick, probably from his regular bathing in the waters, and rather than see a physician, demands his son take him to the river again, where he dies. I think it could be safely said that Ray was a little cynical about some of his national traditions.
Reminds me of this story from a few days ago.
That is a good one Jason...
Don't worry! Madonna knows how to make shit-water sweeter than jewish wine! After all, she's found the solution to radioactive contamination...
"MADONNA and her husband, Guy Ritchie, have been lobbying the British Government and nuclear industry over a magic cleaning solution.
The couple, both followers of the Jewish spiritual movement Kabbalah, approached Downing Street, Whitehall and British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) promoting a scheme to clean up radioactive waste using a "mystical" liquid tested in a Russian lake..."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20192378-29677,00.ht…
Reminds me of this story from a few days ago.
Posted by: Jason Spaceman
" "I pray it's from God," Garza said. "And nothing will be false here. How can water go up a tree?"
The faith that Garza and other visitors displayed is an essential component of the human condition, said Oswald John Nira, an instructor of religious studies at Our Lady of the Lake University."
Jesus effing christ... "How can water go up a tree?"
Ignorance and gullibility is an essential component of the human condition?
Feh.
"Closed minded."
Madonna sounds a little bit like Katherine Harris and her promotion of 'Celestial Drops' to cure citrus canker.
How can water go up a tree? Evaporation....capillary action....jeeze, these people need some science courses immediately!
Since PZ's thread has been hijacked by magical pissing trees... Jason, I visited that link (having seen the original story last week or whenever) and I even went to leave a comment there, but after reading all the stupid, stupid remarks people have responded with, I had to get away before any more brain cells melted. Nothing any of us could say would make any difference. It's truly sad. I think I'll go indulge in some magical sea water to drown my sorrow. Sigh.
Seriously, "how can water go up a tree"? That's not just mere ordinary stupidity, that's hyper-cosmic existential magic meta-stupidity, which encompasses and explains the ordinary stupidity of seeing water come out of a tree and going straight to the conclusion that it's holy water.
These people don't just need science courses, they need to have their mental hard-drives completely reformatted. The whole goddamn point of a tree's root system is to draw water and nutrients from the ground and siphon them up to the leaves and branches. I can't even comprehend what it's like not to know that. It's not just unsurprising that a tree might start to hemmorhage if it taps into a high-volume water source, it's expected.
If you chant the names of the stupid people, it'll make them saner. (Hey, it's more likely to work with intentional objects like people than it is with things like pools of nuclear waste...)
The terrorists have already won. Perhaps that was the plan all along.
Gee, and it was just the other day that Atheist Ethicist posted about how faith-based beliefs leave you unable to tell the difference between a glass of water and a glass of poison.
I think he thought he was being metaphorical...
Try the all-new Mahim beach seawater! Naturally sweetened with lead acetate.
It's amazing what faith can do. I've seen trees ooze water from their bark during times of prolonged rainfall, and I've never attributed it to a miracle. You sciency guys - is this the same as guttation or is there a different name for it?
James Cheshire: Beat me to it. Though I suppose it could be another similar compound ...
This would be a good opportunity to welcome fellow Science Blogger The Scientific Indian.
Oh my god, I am horrified.
Proper sanitation isn't that hard. It costs a bit of money but it's far better than giardiasis, cryptosporidiosis, and dysentery.
Maybe we can simply regard this as an environment in which skepticism provides a selective advantage.
My brother ran into something similar: he was doing graduate work (in biology) in and near a monastery in Russia. He noticed that the septic tank had a crack in it, and was leaking into the countryside, in particular next to a holy spring by the monastery. He told the nuns that they should really fix the crack, and until they did, no one should drink from the spring. They refused to do so, on the ground that since it was a holy spring, its water was pure, and no one could get sick from it.
So when the deaths and/or birth defects start showing up will the poor sots who drank the water be denounced as cursed?
Actually, it is entirely possible that the water did taste sweet with the right combination of chemicals in ( I am thinking organophosphates, but I could be completely wrong). Anyone with more chemistry have any suggestions?
bigring55t: Dunno about organophosphates, but James Cheshire mentioned (and I would have, if he hadn't) lead acetate, which is called "sugar of lead" for a reason ...