Science And Religion Aren't Friends

[Guest Valk0010]

 

 

I don't get why you have a problem with someone else using the term metaphorically? Are you just wanting to pick a fight with someone? You are making an ass of yourself for no reason. There's plenty of better opportunities to argue in other threads.

Ladies and gents, fundementalist atheism. That is what it is MM.

[Deva]

Yes, science works, but I don't think its the be all and end all of all human existence either.

What do you mean?

I would guess she means, nonscientific experience, like say visions and prayer and all are just as valid as any science. Not sure I agree, but I think that is what she means.

 

Sort of, but what I was mainly thinking of is that some people probably can derive some sort of inspiration and get their imaginations all fired up over strictly what can be scientifically proven, and others cannot. Aesthetics, inspiration, imagination, the transcendent, the numinous, etc., are important in life. I am not sure I would use that word "valid". I think there are facts not confirmed by science which will one day get the level of scientific proof (or, who knows, might never).

 

Of course there are also things in nature as yet undiscovered.

 

I don't much care for the word "spirituality" but I guess it will have to do. Yes, it is a valid part of the human experience.

 

Is prayer valid? Depends on what you mean by prayer. In the sense that Christians use it in supplicating a deity, I would say probably not. As a tool in strengthening motivation or a positive aspiration, perhaps.

 

I understand the materialistic position, I just don't believe in my core that it is the whole story. I don't care if someone wants to say I'm a mystic or I'm off my rocker, or whatever.

[Phanta]

I think prayer is valid and can be effective. Even prayer to a non-existent deity can make a change in the one making the prayer. That person is putting their thoughts repeatedly and plainly on a desire, a goal, and that can contribute to self-transformation.

 

I learned about a meditation called Tonglen, where one takes in the pain and suffering of another through thought, breath, and focus.

 

Do I think the other person magically feels less pain through during process of meditation? No. But I do believe the one in practice is self-transforming into a more compassionate and help-oriented mind, better positioned to give actual aid.

 

Phanta

[Antlerman]

Spirituality to me is the bullshit belief in mystical crap. It is NOT science. It is fairies and magic pyramids and healing crystals, it is reincarnation and thinking "mother earth" is alive, it is herbs chasing away negative "energies" and a whole host of magical junk. I have nothing against studying why people have these chemical reactions in their brain. That is science.

This is all incredibly narrow and naive. Do you feel a particular motivation to not try to understand anything beyond the surface crazies? Is there some personal reason behind your willful ignorance to reinforce your vitriol? Is it because you fear you loosing control of yourself into fanciful thinking as you once did? You fear it?

 

I can see why that might be understandable, however to lump all things spiritual and those who see value in it into your pile of crap, would be to say I'm as gullible, silly and naive as you imagine everyone who sees value and truth in the spiritual. I have little concern I could handily dismantle the naivety of your arguments and leave you with them in tatters. But the true pursuit of understanding may be beside the point in your arguments to support the supremacy of your new-found faith.

 

 

BTW, one thing to mention as a moderator: Please everyone, limit quoting the whole post every time and cite only that which pertains to what you're addressing! It's a major eyesore!

[Vixentrox]

Show me the peer reviewed, hard science to back up the mystical bullshit as some sort of fact instead of wishful thinking, scam artists bilking money from the gullible, or brain defects. No hard science to back it means it is no different than Christian bullshit; belief in talking snakes, burning bushes, and staves turning into snakes and other absurdities.

[Legion]

Hard science has done a fantastic job of explaining machines and mechanisms, but not much else.

[Antlerman]

Show me the peer reviewed, hard science to back up the mystical

Why? What exactly are we examining here?

 

mystical bullshit as some sort of fact instead of wishful thinking, scam artists bilking money from the gullible, or brain defects.

Hmmm... Several have considered me to be a mystic. It's interesting how none of what you say remotely fits me. Is any of this coming from any actual research and understanding, or is it all just a pile of rhetoric that makes you feel justified to reject the world that you don't like - or fear? Please try to reconcile someone as rational as me with your notions of what this is if you can.

 

No hard science to back it means it is no different than Christian bullshit; belief in talking snakes, burning bushes, and staves turning into snakes and other absurdities.

You know Vix, honestly? No different than Christian bullshit really describes your thought processes here. I honestly hear a Christian in other clothes here. Same "I've got the truth and the Bible to back me" mentality with a different source of Authority. It once was God's Word™, now it's Hard Science™. No difference. Trade one religion for another. Take the Christian out of the city, but not the city of the Christian.

 

Your connect-the-dots logic is stunningly illogical and over-simplistic.

[Vixentrox]

Your fantasy world of mystical nonsense is nonsense like every other religion that cannot prove itself to science. It is founded in FANTASY and WISHFUL thinking and the brain acting strangely, not fact, not science. Of course, provide the science that mystical junk is legitimate and I'll change my views. Somehow I think you will no more be able to provide any real evidence just like Christians cannot. Just because someone considers you a mystic don't mean shit. Idiot Christians believe in faith healers too. It's just another form of the "mystic". So go ahead, prove to me that magic crystals work, that dream-catchers are something that blocks bad dreams, that mother earth deserves to be worshiped, that ghosts and reincarnation exists or what ever other brand of fairytale you wish to prove. I have no religion. I gave that stupid, worthless, untrue garbage up.

[Antlerman]

So go ahead, prove to me that magic crystals work, that dream-catchers are something that blocks bad dreams, that mother earth deserves to be worshiped, that ghosts and reincarnation exists or what ever other brand of fairytale you wish to prove.

First, I don't use any of those, nor does any of this define anything what I'm talking about. I've said this, yet you ignore this. And this is my very point. You attack people who have beliefs you don't understand, by falsely and inaccurately lumping them into some sort of big one pile of flakes who take all this stuff as literal facts (no different actually than a great number of Christians and Neo-Atheists who see the world in radically overly simplistic black and white terms, as you demonstrate [same basic worldview, flip-side of the same coin]). How is this any different than falsely equating Atheist beliefs with Stalinist beliefs? Your rhetoric operates the same way. Falsely equate these things on a certain level, and dismiss everything and everyone who even remotely looks like your fantasy ideas about what it is.

 

Nonetheless, if you want some scientific understanding of a few of these New Age sort of things you talk about above (which you magically somehow consider as representative all mystic traditions the world over), lets take one for example: Crystals. Do they have an effect on those who use them as some device they belief contains special powers? Sure. How does it work? By inspiring the mind to tap into the healing powers that is built into us, that modern medicine and science are beginning more and more to recognize as an important part of the body's healing process? I would say sure. The placebo effect is in fact a valid, scientifically understood phenomena.

 

Does that invalidate the crystal, or validate it? On what level are you talking? Do crystals themselves have magic in them? Or do they have "magic" when we interact with them with our beliefs? And so do they become a part of those particular practitioners means to find something that otherwise might not as easily be accessible to them?

 

You see the problem is you are a literalist. You think that because someone uses something, either consciously or subconsciously, in symbolic ways, calling that thing 'true', believing in it, that they are WRONG because you can't "prove" it. Really? Is it possible that you are wrong to dismiss things in this world you have no clues about because you are so tightly and narrowly defined in your desire for a cleanly cut, black and white world, using science as the end-all-be-all of human understanding to give you the illusion of security in a wildly undefined world our conscious minds are confronted with? If the crystal itself can't be proven under some sort of spectral analysis in a lab to have magic properties, it therefore is lie to someone like you. But you ignore its effects in conjunction with humans.

 

And this only scratches the surface into where I could take you in explaining the role of symbolism, language, religion, the sciences, knowledge, spirituality, etc, in the human evolutionary sequence. But alas and alak, you have it all figured out and everyone is believing in a bunch of crap because you say so through the tunnel-vision of your new faith on the other side of Christian fundamentalism. Once upon a time we could rely on God to tell us what is fact so we could really know what is truth, but now we know we can rely on Science instead. Right?

 

I have no religion. I gave that stupid, worthless, untrue garbage up.

Oh but you do. Replace the word Science with Jehovah, say the same things, and there is no difference. Just your source you look to for Answers and Truth with a capital T.

 

 

What would be the more productive discussion is to talk about the transference of fundamentalist thinking into any and all of these sorts of evaluations. You truly want to move beyond religious thinking, you'll need to become more rational and open beyond these narrowly defined perimeters you've established for the world.

[Legion]

I think there two domains that we all struggle to understand: the objective world and subjective world, ourselves and the world around us. In my opinion science provides the most reliable means for obtaining understanding of the objective world, but I cannot think of any outstanding means for obtaining understanding of self. Until some means demonstrates itself to be superior to all others I will try to keep an open mind about what self exploration entails.

[Antlerman]

I think there two domains that we all struggle to understand: the objective world and subjective world, ourselves and the world around us. In my opinion science provides the most reliable means for obtaining understanding of the objective world, but I cannot think of any outstanding means for obtaining understanding of self. Until some means demonstrates itself to be superior to all others I will try to keep an open mind about what self exploration entails.

Now you're getting it.

 

Actually there are 3 or 4 domains depending on how you slice it - and they are all acting with relationships to each other: Singular subjective, Plural Inter-subjective, and Objective (divided further into singular and plural objective, or component level and systems level objective), just to complicate things a little further. This is why Vix's insistence on the subjective domains being objective is completely a misplaced argument. It conflates and confuses everything into an objective domain, and most likely singular component level reductionism on top of it.

[Guest end3]

I think science and religion are friends to the degree that they both posit an orderly universe. To this extent they both share the same "faith". Where they often diverge is on the matter of the origin of this order.

 

Thank you, exactly

[Legion]

Now you're getting it.

I was trying to help you out with Vixen.

 

Thank you, exactly

You're welcome End.

[Vixentrox]

I think there two domains that we all struggle to understand: the objective world and subjective world, ourselves and the world around us. In my opinion science provides the most reliable means for obtaining understanding of the objective world, but I cannot think of any outstanding means for obtaining understanding of self. Until some means demonstrates itself to be superior to all others I will try to keep an open mind about what self exploration entails.

I exist as a collection of cells. I live, I screw, I get old, I get sick, I die, I become worm food. No big mystery to understanding that. Why do people feel the need to make up stuff? Because their weak minds can't bear to stand that they are it? People are little different than the pig wallowing in the mud destined for a dinner table. The pig lives, dies, gets butchered and maybe if lucky, becomes a memorable feast. Same with people. In a few short years, nobody will remember you after you die unless you are something truly exceptional and have done much for good or ill, or immortalized yourself with film, books, or the like. Even then your memory will fade into nothingness for most. Sure it can be fun to pretend the make believe is real. Heck I wish that magic and healings and the like was real. But it is just make believe. The most that it can do is act as a placebo. Mostly the mystical is used to screw people out of money by promising things it can't really deliver, just like religion.

[Vixentrox]

So go ahead, prove to me that magic crystals work, that dream-catchers are something that blocks bad dreams, that mother earth deserves to be worshiped, that ghosts and reincarnation exists or what ever other brand of fairytale you wish to prove.

First, I don't use any of those, nor does any of this define anything what I'm talking about. I've said this, yet you ignore this. And this is my very point. You attack people who have beliefs you don't understand, by falsely and inaccurately lumping them into some sort of big one pile of flakes who take all this stuff as literal facts (no different actually than a great number of Christians and Neo-Atheists who see the world in radically overly simplistic black and white terms, as you demonstrate [same basic worldview, flip-side of the same coin]). How is this any different than falsely equating Atheist beliefs with Stalinist beliefs? Your rhetoric operates the same way. Falsely equate these things on a certain level, and dismiss everything and everyone who even remotely looks like your fantasy ideas about what it is.

 

Nonetheless, if you want some scientific understanding of a few of these New Age sort of things you talk about above (which you magically somehow consider as representative all mystic traditions the world over), lets take one for example: Crystals. Do they have an effect on those who use them as some device they belief contains special powers? Sure. How does it work? By inspiring the mind to tap into the healing powers that is built into us, that modern medicine and science are beginning more and more to recognize as an important part of the body's healing process? I would say sure. The placebo effect is in fact a valid, scientifically understood phenomena.

 

Does that invalidate the crystal, or validate it? On what level are you talking? Do crystals themselves have magic in them? Or do they have "magic" when we interact with them with our beliefs? And so do they become a part of those particular practitioners means to find something that otherwise might not as easily be accessible to them?

 

You see the problem is you are a literalist. You think that because someone uses something, either consciously or subconsciously, in symbolic ways, calling that thing 'true', believing in it, that they are WRONG because you can't "prove" it. Really? Is it possible that you are wrong to dismiss things in this world you have no clues about because you are so tightly and narrowly defined in your desire for a cleanly cut, black and white world, using science as the end-all-be-all of human understanding to give you the illusion of security in a wildly undefined world our conscious minds are confronted with? If the crystal itself can't be proven under some sort of spectral analysis in a lab to have magic properties, it therefore is lie to someone like you. But you ignore its effects in conjunction with humans.

 

And this only scratches the surface into where I could take you in explaining the role of symbolism, language, religion, the sciences, knowledge, spirituality, etc, in the human evolutionary sequence. But alas and alak, you have it all figured out and everyone is believing in a bunch of crap because you say so through the tunnel-vision of your new faith on the other side of Christian fundamentalism. Once upon a time we could rely on God to tell us what is fact so we could really know what is truth, but now we know we can rely on Science instead. Right?

 

I have no religion. I gave that stupid, worthless, untrue garbage up.

Oh but you do. Replace the word Science with Jehovah, say the same things, and there is no difference. Just your source you look to for Answers and Truth with a capital T.

 

 

What would be the more productive discussion is to talk about the transference of fundamentalist thinking into any and all of these sorts of evaluations. You truly want to move beyond religious thinking, you'll need to become more rational and open beyond these narrowly defined perimeters you've established for the world.

I'm just guessing but I doubt that most people that buy into mystical stuff actually believe in it as firmly true as any Christian believes in thier idiot faith. And YOU sound like a Christian. What's a Christard often say, "Athesim is a religion; science is a religion." If that excuse doesn't work for a christian it damn sure won't work for you either. And you are the one, assuming you are an ex-christian, that has replaced one set of unprovable beliefs for another set.

 

You are right about the placebo effect of course. But you could get the same thing out of a pile of dog crap if someone was able to convince a weak minded person of its healing properties. "Take this magikal dog crap and smear it on you three times a day. The dog spirit infused into this pile of feces will heal your ills." Magic crystal, dog crap. No difference beyond a crystal looks cooler and doesn't stink.

[Legion]

I think Antlerman hit it Vixen. You seem to be saying in effect, "There is only the objective world." But I say if you want to examine yourself then close your eyes and breathe.

[Vixentrox]

I think Antlerman hit it Vixen. You seem to be saying in effect, "There is only the objective world." But I say if you want to examine yourself then close your eyes and breathe.

And then what? Chemical reactions happen, electrical impulses occur. It may be rather complex and amazing how everything all works together but it is NOT mystical. Mystical stuff is nothing more than a "god of the gaps" re-packaged.

[Antlerman]

I'm just guessing but I doubt that most people that buy into mystical stuff actually believe in it as firmly true as any Christian believes in thier idiot faith.

Actually it has nothing to do with the objects of their faith. The literalness that people take them at is strictly a developmental issue. As in the spectrum of human society, you have those who are fundamentally concrete thinkers, and then you have those who think in more abstract and conceptual ways, as one example. It really doesn't matter what they believe, but how they approach them.

 

Children think in mythological terms at a certain stage of development. The world is controlled and affected by powerful god-like beings: their parents. But eventually that child becomes aware that the world is affected by them as well and that how they imagined their parents as super-beings was a stage of thought when they were younger - a stage of thought necessary for the child to build upon to the next stage of perception.

 

So Vix, do you go around as an adult and point your finger at people's children who look at the world that way and say, "Idiots!"? More on this in a moment....

 

And YOU sound like a Christian. What's a Christard often say, "Athesim is a religion; science is a religion."

There is a difference in how a Christian might say that and use that as a criticism of Atheism, and what I would in calling it that. They fail to turn the spotlight equally on themselves and recognize the nature of what religion is and how they and the religious atheists (to qualify I don't mean all atheists) are actually just two manifestations of the same thing.

 

I'm going to be started a topic on What is Religion?, which will explain better than I can in a short paragraph here. Suffice to say, my criticism of you is your fundamentalist thinking, and whatever clothes you put on it, Christian, Scientism, Islamism, etc, it's the same underlying personality. No transformation. Just another mask on the same underlying dysfunction.

 

And you are the one, assuming you are an ex-christian, that has replaced one set of unprovable beliefs for another set.

Assuming I am an ex-Christian? Wow. I think a better term for me might be to say I am a post-Christian, or former Christian. I understand the nature of what that system was about, just as I came to see as an atheist following that. I see it now as correct for where I am to no longer define myself as what I'm not. I do recognize however the validity to do so, and the need to do so as part of the process of differentiation. But now that I'm free, I prefer to define what I am now. I'm formerly a Christian, and formerly atheist, just as I was formerly a student, and now I am a worker. I am on my path, as it were.

 

You are right about the placebo effect of course. But you could get the same thing out of a pile of dog crap if someone was able to convince a weak minded person of its healing properties. "Take this magikal dog crap and smear it on you three times a day. The dog spirit infused into this pile of feces will heal your ills." Magic crystal, dog crap. No difference beyond a crystal looks cooler and doesn't stink.

You fail to grasp what I say. Again what I sense in all of this is you trying desperately to hate the symbols - symbolically. You're right, it doesn't matter what the objects are, but it's about what it draws out in people. You're issue it seems is you still see the objects as the ends in and of themselves. You are still thinking of them the same way, just upside down now. This is why I say you are still a Christian in your thinking, just flipped over. Same coin, opposite side. "They're sacred!/They're crap!", never examining the world beyond those two blind variables.

 

 

I think Antlerman hit it Vixen. You seem to be saying in effect, "There is only the objective world." But I say if you want to examine yourself then close your eyes and breathe.

And then what? Chemical reactions happen, electrical impulses occur. It may be rather complex and amazing how everything all works together but it is NOT mystical. Mystical stuff is nothing more than a "god of the gaps" re-packaged.

You have no understanding of what you attack. You are attacking what is in your imagination, what they are to you, and seem incapable of seeing or considering anything beyond that.

 

Here's what I see. I mentioned differentiation. That is a process of growth that is moving from one level to the next. We begin fused with that level of thinking for example, that mode of perception, that developmental stage. The world operates like this for us. It is reality and functions as reality for us at that stage of growth.

 

Imagine the difference between a five year old and a twelve year old. As we move from one stage to the next, we may need to push against that former skin to get out. "I am not a child anymore". We begin to define ourselves as 'not a child' in order to reinforce what is beginning to emerge in us, yet what is itself not yet fully developed, not yet fully defined, not yet fully individuated. We are not yet a young teen, yet no longer fully a child.

 

This is a process of growth, and as we emerge now fully differentiated our perspectives of the past themselves take on a new light of higher understanding. Additionally our perceptions of ourselves today take a new depth and dimension, having gained that experience. We interact with the world around us now at a higher, more complex, more nuanced level. We are maturing, becoming more functional and higher and higher level in our growth. This is a normal part of development, which follow the same stages of evolution itself.

 

However, something can go awry in that process of differentiation. We can get stuck or twist off into some other form that becomes dysfunctional. Differentiation goes off into disassociation, and a pathology develops. We become neither what we were, nor what we needed to become in order to function and continue to grow. Something like that can manifest itself in them lashing out at the world around them both to the past, the present, and the future, in an act of inner anguish coming from a deep dysfunction that occurred on the way differentiating from one stage to the next.

 

For people like me, for those members here of this site who frame an understanding of their post-Christian, newly individuated selves in the world, in terms of transcendental thoughts or symbols are not doing so because we are functioning on the level of a child anymore. I see fully matured individuals who see the world in non-theistic terms in very much a positive light as well. There are many ways to look at the world. It is not an issue of this dogma or that domga - God or no-God, that defines any of this for me. They are all ways to approach the world that is about building on the sense of self we have come into, up from and out of our childhood. For me, taking that sense of self and developing it in an internal exercise has great and powerful value that manifests itself in attitudes, actions, and health.

 

What I sense in you is disassociation. Your sense of self is lost in these definitions, or rather is symbolized in these expressions of vitriol. You define yourself against them, rather than having defined yourself outside them and can now look at them safely, and in a more mature and enlightened way. I respect and support and value the need for people to be angry, to push against what they were and those who try to hold them back from their becoming. That is natural and healthy. But you wish to attack us members who embrace the higher in non-materialist ways as though we were identical to the children who believe their parents control the world itself. You seem stuck, and not in a process of differentiation.

 

Why is that?

[Phanta]

Nonetheless, if you want some scientific understanding of a few of these New Age sort of things you talk about above (which you magically somehow consider as representative all mystic traditions the world over), lets take one for example: Crystals. Do they have an effect on those who use them as some device they belief contains special powers? Sure. How does it work? By inspiring the mind to tap into the healing powers that is built into us, that modern medicine and science are beginning more and more to recognize as an important part of the body's healing process? I would say sure. The placebo effect is in fact a valid, scientifically understood phenomena.

 

Does that invalidate the crystal, or validate it? On what level are you talking? Do crystals themselves have magic in them? Or do they have "magic" when we interact with them with our beliefs? And so do they become a part of those particular practitioners means to find something that otherwise might not as easily be accessible to them?

 

This is my belief and understanding as well. Though I have not had personal experiences that were particularly deep and mystical (I'm just not wired for it), I have lesser experiences along these lines. It's obvious to me that if a placebo works only when the person believes it is doing something, this is also true for power of attraction, name it claim it, faith healing, etc. Which isn't to say that I believe that anything is possible-- but some things are more possible via blind belief than not when lacking other means or resources. It is a clearly natural coping mechanism.

 

Is it my way? No. But I don't know that I'm better for it in every situation.

 

Your hair follicles are radiating, Antlerman!

 

Phanta

[Phanta]

I'm just guessing but I doubt that most people that buy into mystical stuff actually believe in it as firmly true as any Christian believes in thier idiot faith. And YOU sound like a Christian. What's a Christard often say, "Athesim is a religion; science is a religion." If that excuse doesn't work for a christian it damn sure won't work for you either. And you are the one, assuming you are an ex-christian, that has replaced one set of unprovable beliefs for another set.

 

You are right about the placebo effect of course. But you could get the same thing out of a pile of dog crap if someone was able to convince a weak minded person of its healing properties. "Take this magikal dog crap and smear it on you three times a day. The dog spirit infused into this pile of feces will heal your ills." Magic crystal, dog crap. No difference beyond a crystal looks cooler and doesn't stink.

 

I have many New Agey friends, and they are pretty committed to their beliefs. I had one friend who was sure her hormones were being influenced by the mugwort (or some kind of herb...I can't keep track and that sounds a little Harry Potter...maybe Motherwort?) growing in her yard. Then I dated a guy who was always giving me little rocks and crystals, telling me what effect they would have on me. He didn't have a lot of money, and gifted my sister with a really expensive, huge, sparkly crystal when she and Mom were at one anothers' throats, thinking it would help. His bedroom, too, was full of crystals, and he had to move them away at one point because he felt they were effecting his sleep.

 

I could go on.

 

Phanta

[Vixentrox]

I'm just guessing but I doubt that most people that buy into mystical stuff actually believe in it as firmly true as any Christian believes in thier idiot faith. And YOU sound like a Christian. What's a Christard often say, "Athesim is a religion; science is a religion." If that excuse doesn't work for a christian it damn sure won't work for you either. And you are the one, assuming you are an ex-christian, that has replaced one set of unprovable beliefs for another set.

 

You are right about the placebo effect of course. But you could get the same thing out of a pile of dog crap if someone was able to convince a weak minded person of its healing properties. "Take this magikal dog crap and smear it on you three times a day. The dog spirit infused into this pile of feces will heal your ills." Magic crystal, dog crap. No difference beyond a crystal looks cooler and doesn't stink.

 

I have many New Agey friends, and they are pretty committed to their beliefs. I had one friend who was sure her hormones were being influenced by the mugwort (or some kind of herb...I can't keep track and that sounds a little Harry Potter...maybe Motherwort?) growing in her yard. Then I dated a guy who was always giving me little rocks and crystals, telling me what effect they would have on me. He didn't have a lot of money, and gifted my sister with a really expensive, huge, sparkly crystal when she and Mom were at one anothers' throats, thinking it would help. His bedroom, too, was full of crystals, and he had to move them away at one point because he felt they were effecting his sleep.

 

I could go on.

 

Phanta

So they do believe their magic rocks actually do something special? Idiots. Nothing special about their rocks. No scientific reason to believe they do anything. Snake oil. And there is a ton of people that make profit off the gullibility of the deluded. Just like a Christianity, selling tickets to heaven, magic cures for illness, and good fortune.

[Phanta]

I'm just guessing but I doubt that most people that buy into mystical stuff actually believe in it as firmly true as any Christian believes in thier idiot faith. And YOU sound like a Christian. What's a Christard often say, "Athesim is a religion; science is a religion." If that excuse doesn't work for a christian it damn sure won't work for you either. And you are the one, assuming you are an ex-christian, that has replaced one set of unprovable beliefs for another set.

 

You are right about the placebo effect of course. But you could get the same thing out of a pile of dog crap if someone was able to convince a weak minded person of its healing properties. "Take this magikal dog crap and smear it on you three times a day. The dog spirit infused into this pile of feces will heal your ills." Magic crystal, dog crap. No difference beyond a crystal looks cooler and doesn't stink.

 

I have many New Agey friends, and they are pretty committed to their beliefs. I had one friend who was sure her hormones were being influenced by the mugwort (or some kind of herb...I can't keep track and that sounds a little Harry Potter...maybe Motherwort?) growing in her yard. Then I dated a guy who was always giving me little rocks and crystals, telling me what effect they would have on me. He didn't have a lot of money, and gifted my sister with a really expensive, huge, sparkly crystal when she and Mom were at one anothers' throats, thinking it would help. His bedroom, too, was full of crystals, and he had to move them away at one point because he felt they were effecting his sleep.

 

I could go on.

 

Phanta

 

So they do believe their magic rocks actually do something special? Idiots. Nothing special about their rocks. No scientific reason to believe they do anything. Snake oil. And there is a ton of people that make profit off the gullibility of the deluded. Just like a Christianity, selling tickets to heaven, magic cures for illness, and good fortune.

 

They really, truly believe.

 

My friends aren't idiots.

 

Phanta

[Rev R]

I exist as a collection of cells. I live, I screw, I get old, I get sick, I die, I become worm food.

 

Agreed.

 

but...

 

Why so much fervor in telling people they are wrong, deluded, or idiots when all of it will be forgotten anyway? Why even bother presenting your views since they are nothing more than pulses of electricity and chemical fluctuations? Doesn't all of this take important time (a limited resource for us meat bags) away from eating, sleeping, screwing and shitting?

[Vixentrox]

I exist as a collection of cells. I live, I screw, I get old, I get sick, I die, I become worm food.

 

Agreed.

 

but...

 

Why so much fervor in telling people they are wrong, deluded, or idiots when all of it will be forgotten anyway? Why even bother presenting your views since they are nothing more than pulses of electricity and chemical fluctuations? Doesn't all of this take important time (a limited resource for us meat bags) away from eating, sleeping, screwing and shitting?

Because the belief in such nonsense is an enemy of rational thought. The snake oil salesmen screw people over with false hope while lining their pockets. They are no different that a priest begging for money to spread their mind virus. And that is what this thread is about. Religion and science are enemies.

[Vixentrox]

I'm just guessing but I doubt that most people that buy into mystical stuff actually believe in it as firmly true as any Christian believes in thier idiot faith. And YOU sound like a Christian. What's a Christard often say, "Athesim is a religion; science is a religion." If that excuse doesn't work for a christian it damn sure won't work for you either. And you are the one, assuming you are an ex-christian, that has replaced one set of unprovable beliefs for another set.

 

You are right about the placebo effect of course. But you could get the same thing out of a pile of dog crap if someone was able to convince a weak minded person of its healing properties. "Take this magikal dog crap and smear it on you three times a day. The dog spirit infused into this pile of feces will heal your ills." Magic crystal, dog crap. No difference beyond a crystal looks cooler and doesn't stink.

 

I have many New Agey friends, and they are pretty committed to their beliefs. I had one friend who was sure her hormones were being influenced by the mugwort (or some kind of herb...I can't keep track and that sounds a little Harry Potter...maybe Motherwort?) growing in her yard. Then I dated a guy who was always giving me little rocks and crystals, telling me what effect they would have on me. He didn't have a lot of money, and gifted my sister with a really expensive, huge, sparkly crystal when she and Mom were at one anothers' throats, thinking it would help. His bedroom, too, was full of crystals, and he had to move them away at one point because he felt they were effecting his sleep.

 

I could go on.

 

Phanta

 

So they do believe their magic rocks actually do something special? Idiots. Nothing special about their rocks. No scientific reason to believe they do anything. Snake oil. And there is a ton of people that make profit off the gullibility of the deluded. Just like a Christianity, selling tickets to heaven, magic cures for illness, and good fortune.

 

They really, truly believe.

 

My friends aren't idiots.

 

Phanta

How is belief in magic rocks any less idiotic than belief in Santa or underpants gnomes?