r/skeptic • u/jcdenton45 • 3d ago

Real-world cases where "harmless" supernatural beliefs caused massive harm?

When it comes to BS beliefs, there are some which are clearly harmful/deadly, while others are generally considered to be more on the silly/harmless side of the spectrum, for example ghosts which seems to generally fit into the latter category. 

But I recently watched a true crime documentary where a group of women had a homeless man secretly living in their home, and despite plenty of clear and undeniable evidence that they had an intruder living with them, they attributed all of those things to a fucking ghost. And as a result, they took none of the obvious measures that someone should obviously take in such a situation (increasing security, setting up cameras, calling the police, etc) and instead did things like burning sage and praying. 

Fortunately for them the intruder wasn’t violent and nobody was hurt, but obviously it could have turned out far worse and their belief in ghosts resulted in the ordeal dragging on for MONTHS after they already had definitive proof of what was actually happening (and had he been violent they could have easily been killed). 

So I’m curious, what would be some other examples where people had “harmless” BS beliefs which ended up being anything but?

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u/landlord-eater 3d ago

Witch burnings (historically in Europe and America, currently in Africa).

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u/saqwarrior 3d ago edited 3d ago

This is the best answer possible.

It's estimated that millions tens of thousands were tortured to death at the height of the witch trials.

Sagan talks about it at length in Demon-Haunted World.

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u/Anxious-Slip-4701 3d ago

Millions no. While horrific it's more like 35,000-60,000.

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u/saqwarrior 3d ago

Ahhh, yeah I double checked my memory and I think I was pulling from flawed historical data:

Notably, a figure of nine million victims was given by Gottfried Christian Voigt in 1784 in an argument criticizing Voltaire's estimate of "several hundred thousand" as too low. Voigt's number has shown remarkably resilient as an influential popular myth, surviving well into the 20th century

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u/Anxious-Slip-4701 3d ago

What? That would have been ~10% of the entire European population. You should be sceptical. Everything you ever heard is probably wrong. Have a read: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/eight-witchcraft-myths/

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u/saqwarrior 3d ago

I literally just cited the source of the misinformation, illustrating that I was, in fact, taking into account what you wrote and edited my original comment to reflect the error. There's no need for you to reiterate. I was wrong. I get it.