Christianity in Ghana and the Spiritual Sickness

[Fidel_Castronaut]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-33523742

The people I met during my trip were mostly devout Christians, but who had imported traditional beliefs to shape the way they explain disability. It soon dawned on me that for many people, disability was considered not a physical or mental impairment, but in fact a spiritual sickness or curse that could either be healed by prayer or by confinement, and in some cases by physical violence.

I found this belief everywhere in the two weeks that I was there.

...

People who walked or drove to the area would stop at the other vendors around us to buy fresh fruit, but almost all of them shied away from Beatrice [at her shop] when they saw her wheelchair.

"It's normal," she said quietly. "They think they will catch a disability from me."

Never mind the removal of organized religion which some theists repeatedly accuse atheists of wanting to do, just a basic amount of reason, empathy, compassion, education and logic would go a long way.