VerbosityCat Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 3 minutes ago, midniterider said: If I cast a spell for something and it comes to pass, have I demonstrated it? Things I've cast have come to pass. How do I know it isn't just random chance? How do you know it 'is' random chance? There is no visible string I can take a picture of connecting my thought to an outcome. Thoughts and outcomes are abstractions. The more you do something, the better you get at it. But there's also people that never get good at something. If someone continually performs magic and continually is successful, should that person keep doing what they are doing? Or no? Sometimes spells work, sometimes not. I'm moderately successful I guess. I try to understand that magic has limitations and not ask for the impossible which is helpful. Sometimes I plant a flower. They usually die though because I'm not a green thumb. There are many things I will never get better at and have no talent with. It's just how things are. I'm not trying to use lack of talent as a fallback for lack of success, either. You have a lot of good points. MWC has a lot of good points. Flowers are pseudoscience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TruthSeeker0 Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 28 minutes ago, VerbosityCat said: We should all be so lucky to be able to determine for ourselves the way we want to live our lives, what value systems we will embrace, and how we will view the nature of reality. I agree. I prefer to have an open mind and freedom. And I think freedom is likely high on the value scale for me too. Being logical and rational are important to me, but they are not the things that are up there at the very tip of the pyramid at the end of the day, for me. Or if they are, at the very least they share space with other values. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VerbosityCat Posted October 26, 2018 Share Posted October 26, 2018 8 minutes ago, TruthSeeker0 said: I agree. I prefer to have an open mind and freedom. And I think freedom is likely high on the value scale for me too. Being logical and rational are important to me, but they are not the things that are up there at the very tip of the pyramid at the end of the day, for me. Or if they are, at the very least they share space with other values. Same. I value logic but I'm not all spock-like about it. I think there is a balance that is preferable to being totally skewed in one direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted October 26, 2018 Super Moderator Share Posted October 26, 2018 https://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/03/how_do_you_prov.html 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 16 hours ago, florduh said: https://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/03/how_do_you_prov.html So, the takeaway from this article is .... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator LogicalFallacy Posted October 27, 2018 Moderator Share Posted October 27, 2018 On 10/26/2018 at 3:53 PM, midniterider said: The rinse and repeat of Ex-C.net: 1. Hard atheist says, "There is absolutely no evidence of woo." 2. Woo-ist shows evidence. 3. Hard atheist summarily dismisses evidence, claims woo had been debunked (the word 'debunked' has an air of authority about it), moves goalposts (well, maybe it's real, but it's useless!!!), evidence is called poor (with an air of authority). 4. Wait six months. Go back to 1. The word 'disingenuous' comes to mind. I feel ya - same thing happens with me. Rinse and repeat of creationism: 1. Atheist says, "There is no evidence of creation." 2. Creationist shows evidence. 3. Atheist summarily dismisses evidence, claims creationism had been debunked (the word 'debunked' has an air of authority about it), shows creationist claims to be inconsistent with known data. 4. Creationist tells atheist that they are close minded and hate god. 5. Wait six months. Go back to 1. The word 'disingenuous' comes to mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwc Posted October 27, 2018 Share Posted October 27, 2018 Has actual evidence been presented? I must have missed it. Was it the Dean Radin video? I mean it's nice that he claims that but he's just kind of misrepresenting things. This is about his book Supernormal. If I were to say I took a thousand tests and only got 100% when I ran an analysis over all those tests but it turned out I tossed out all the tests where I didn't actually get 100%, well, it's kind of easy to see how I stacked the deck. Is that really evidence of anything at that point? Should you even listen to me after that? Especially if I don't even make an effort to clean up my act but I just keep pushing out this same level of shoddy work? mwc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted January 13, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted January 13, 2019 Here's a link to Dean Radin's list of peer-reviewed journals for PSI phenomenon. All peer-reviewed articles are hot linked for anyone wishing to read through them: http://deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm If correct, obviously none of the this means the bible or christianity are true. I wouldn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about that just because this content challenges the accepted status quo of mainstream science. Christianity gains no leg up because of any of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orbit Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 i think something that gets lost in this conversation is the value of phenomenology (the study of subjective experience and meaning). Humans like things that are, in the words of anthropologist Marvin Harris, "good to think". this is, what makes us feel good. These things may not be logical, nor demonstrable, but they feel good nonetheless. The atheist idea that there is harm in this is I think unfounded. Humans gonna human. Call it "woo" if you like, but emotional experience is a valid human experience. Doing things because they feel good, like ritual, or meditation, is perfectly valid. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 7 minutes ago, Orbit said: i think something that gets lost in this conversation is the value of phenomenology (the study of subjective experience and meaning). Humans like things that are, in the words of anthropologist Marvin Harris, "good to think". this is, what makes us feel good. These things may not be logical, nor demonstrable, but they feel good nonetheless. The atheist idea that there is harm in this is I think unfounded. Humans gonna human. Call it "woo" if you like, but emotional experience is a valid human experience. Doing things because they feel good, like ritual, or meditation, is perfectly valid. I think the woo fear is that ritual, ceremony, meditation, (half-assed) beliefs will suck an Ex-Christian back into a toxic psychological religious nightmare. So instead of that they get into heated forum battles over Star Wars movies. lol. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TruthSeeker0 Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 1 hour ago, midniterider said: I think the woo fear is that ritual, ceremony, meditation, (half-assed) beliefs will suck an Ex-Christian back into a toxic psychological religious nightmare. So instead of that they get into heated forum battles over Star Wars movies. lol. I think some people just do not live a lot in an emotional landscape per se and could even have this distrust of it. The ones that do, focus more on doing stuff that makes them feel good. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 11 hours ago, TruthSeeker0 said: I think some people just do not live a lot in an emotional landscape per se and could even have this distrust of it. That could very well be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted January 15, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted January 15, 2019 Doing things that make you feel good is not the same as believing falsehoods. I have known a few Pagans of various stripe who "worshiped" gods they knew were made up. Rituals aren't necessarily about woo or false belief anymore than dancing at the club, having a Mummers Parade or meditatively folding laundry. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TruthSeeker0 Posted January 15, 2019 Share Posted January 15, 2019 53 minutes ago, florduh said: Doing things that make you feel good is not the same as believing falsehoods. I have known a few Pagans of various stripe who "worshiped" gods they knew were made up. Rituals aren't necessarily about woo or false belief anymore than dancing at the club, having a Mummers Parade or meditatively folding laundry. I'd like to meet someone who meditatively folds laundry and feels good about it. -signed, the queen of laundry procrastination Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted January 15, 2019 Super Moderator Share Posted January 15, 2019 35 minutes ago, TruthSeeker0 said: I'd like to meet someone who meditatively folds laundry and feels good about it. -signed, the queen of laundry procrastination Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator Joshpantera Posted January 15, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted January 15, 2019 You just get right in to it. Start folding and chant: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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