Desperation makes people cling to faith-healing in prison

Evidence

For three nights Dora would visit her. She would come with a cup of water. “I’ve prayed over this water. Drink it,” she would say. Rasha wondered what her mother would do, but in prison, or in any desperate moment in your life, you are going to hang on to anything, she realized. Her mother drank the water, and Dora then gave some to her and her sister. They all drank the water, and for whatever unknown reason the pain subsided. — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 127 (#expands, via linked claim)

I felt a sharp pain at the heart; it was no unconsidered word, it was the hard demand of one who could never have known what faith was. — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 194 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Desperate conditions make people receptive to faith-based remedies they might otherwise reject — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 127; Faith can become a pain rather than a source of comfort. — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 194; Trauma survivors can turn to religious devotion before retreating into silence — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 143 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Desperate conditions make people receptive to faith-based remedies they might otherwise reject #expands (0.93) — Moustafa Bayoumi, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being…, 127
• Faith can become a pain rather than a source of comfort. #complicates (0.72) — Leo Tolstoy, A Confession, 194