She Gives Norwegian Princesses a Bad Name

Princess Maertha Louise of Norway just opened a school. Which sounds nice until you hear what it’s for (Emphases mine):

Maertha Louise, who claims she is clairvoyant, says the Astarte school will offer students the chance to get in contact with their angels, described as “forces that surround us and who are a resource and help in all the aspects of our lives.”

And since it’s all pseudoscience, you can bet there’s money involved:

The tuition fees amount to 12,000 kroner per semester (approximately 1,500 euros, 2,100 dollars) and the programme, which involves alternative therapies such as hands-on treatment and healing, lasts for three years.

There is an upside to this. Look at how the Norwegian people react:

Many Norwegians consider the idea wacky, according to media reports.

Newspaper Bergens Tidende has called for Maertha Louise, the daughter of King Harald, to renounce her title, while Swedish author and columnist Jan Guillou urged her to “seek treatment”.

Good to know that there are Norwegians with a sense of sanity.

That’s far better than America, where 75% of the country believes in angels. And it’s better than the 66% of our country that believes God created us in our present form (i.e. screw evolution) within the past 10,000 years.

And when our president “talks to God,” we elect him to a second term.

The princess is fourth in line to the throne, though the article states “she already renounced most of her official duties and title of ‘her royal highness’ after she married Ari Behn, a commoner, in 2002.”

(via The Freethinker)

[tags]atheist, atheism, Princess Maertha Louise, Norway, Astarte, angel, Bergens Tidende, King Harald, Jan Guillou, creationism, evolution, God, Ari Behn[/tags]

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olvlzl, no ism, no ist

Well, looks like the hard line against religion is really paying off, big time.

What’s that they say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? It’s tragic that Americans seem to feel they’ve been given a choice between believing in religion or accepting science especially since it’s entirely unnecessary. Will the jerks who have grabbed the microphone representing themselves as the voice of evolution figure out that they’re part of the problem?

About the princess, as long as the payments are voluntary and no one is getting abused I don’t see any harm in it. It’s cheaper than psychotherapy and it looks like this might not go on for decades. So much of this is all in how you chose to look at it and I figure grown ups get to decide these things for themselves. Does it impinge on you?
PrimateIR

I saw this. Somewhere I read that while the royal family had “no official opinion” on the matter they could not help people interested in additional information in finding the school.

Odd that.
Jen

Yes, it is awesome to let people who may have mental illnesses or who are desperate for heavenly contact be indulged in silly ways that involve taking their money. That’s why its ok to sell fake cures to the terminally ill.

The reason there are no angels is that Darwin fed them to the monkeys.
Maria

geesh, that princess has issues………….
Teri

Well here is the thing, why is it that so many people think “insane” when you talk about religion? You don’t have to believe it and you certainly don’t have to support it. We are all able to decide what we believe to be the truth. Do you call the people who believe in evolution insane? It is so unjust that in todays society religion is looked upon as a weakness or mental issue. As for the fees involved, have you ever been to a school that didn’t charge tuition? I know I haven’t. It is only right that there is a charge for this education. Why don’t all those whom take offense to this just deal in your own world where there is no God or Angels instead of smearing someones name and mental capabilities.
olvlzl, no ism, no ist

Jen, do you know that anyone with mental illness or who are terminally ill have participated in her school? I haven’t heard that or read it anywhere.

There was an article in the Boston Globe last week about a relatively new phenomenon in New England, the opening of “prayer rooms” where people are encouraged to take the medicines and treatments prescribed by their real doctors. Why set up an either it’s all this or all that situation when it doesn’t need to exist.

Science classrooms in a public schools and people publishing real science have to exclude non-scientific speculations from their work (would that the evolutionary psychologists and other determinists followed that rule) but people in their private lives can choose what they want to in addition outside the strictures necessary for science. As we see, when Americans are forced to make a choice, they’ll choose to ignore the science if they can’t have both.

I don’t know if you remember the period before materialist fundamentalism organized and started getting pushy in the late 70s but I’ve got a feeling a lot more Americans accepted evolution back before them.
Jen

No, but who is going to want to contact the angels? I see the classes being big with people with mental illnesses, people who are or are family to the very sick, and the terminally clueless. Similiar, in my mind, to the people who go to Lourdes for miracles or Benny Hinn. And they will get taken to the cleaners, too, because this won’t work any more than BH is going to cure your cancer.

I agree, people can choose to ignore science. But often that is going to have some negetive consequences.
olvlzl, no ism, no ist

Jen, what if they are full of rather eccentric people who can afford to be entertained in that way and who will still get conventional medical care. I’m not familiar with Benny Hinn, though the name if familiar. Lourdes, while I’m sure there are people who did get cheated around that I’m sure there were plenty who weren’t. If problems of being cheated or swindled being or encouraged to not seek real medical care is found I’d have no problem with doing something about it, afterall, I’m in favor of stricter regulation of the medical and pharmaceutical industries, which have records that are less than pristine too.

By the way, by psychotherapy I meant the Freudian-type nonsense instead of just plain “talk therapy”. Freudian therapy might as well be considered along with other pseudo-scientific therapies, it’s pretty science free. Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a place at the table of science, though, not with that establishment and financial basis.
HappyNat

Well here is the thing, why is it that so many people think “insane” when you talk about religion?

Chill out. This is an atheist blog and a school where you can “find your own angel” sounds pretty wacky to me. So we poke fun.
olvlzl, no ism, no ist

“find your own angel” sounds pretty wacky to me.

I wish I could find the review of “Exuberance” by Paul Kurtz which likened it to a Shirley MacLaine book.