Ex Christian Spirituality: The rough treatment

[mwc]

41 minutes ago, midniterider said:

 

Josh. This is the last straw. You are toying with woo here and it pains me to see you throw your life away ($2 at a time) on something illogical. Yes, I said woo. Even worse than woo. Pure one in a zillion chance. The lottery is woo because people get false hope. First they get this 'good feeling' (shudders at that), and people start having happy talk about what they would do with the money (camaraderie, fuck that!), they wait in lottery ticket lines joking and laughing ... and then  .... reality shits on them. /s

 

I guarantee that a 'real' atheist wouldn't be wasting their time on games of random chance with the odds stacked against them. /s

 

Hey, congrats on the $4.

 

     Do you understand what an atheist is?  Or statistics?  Or any of these things?

 

     Playing the lottery isn't an issue.  Understanding that the outcome is determined by statistics and that I cannot someone sway the outcome by performing some action(s) or by way of some magic thinking should not be hard to comprehend.  Understanding that the odds, especially in a billion+ dollar, lottery aren't in my favor (by a long shot) is just something to be taken into account if I choose to lay down my money.

 

     You make it sound like atheists are some sort of robots, or Vulcans, that aren't allowed emotions or aren't allowed to have fun or vices.  This is your misrepresentation.  It just means we don't believe in a god.  And I'm guessing for the sake of this discussion, as I said, it means we don't think that we can control the outcome of events such as the lottery (or other such contests).

 

     My wife enters contests all the time.  And when I say all the time I mean that quite literally.  She's a habitual sweeper.  She enters daily for lots of stuff and has for years.  She's won lots of stuff.  If we could control the outcome of the contests we sure would but unfortunately we don't.  The losses versus wins is plain to see but when spotlighting the wins, especially the "big" wins it seems like something is up.  It even causes her to think, like gamblers, to see "streaks" when it's just how statistical payouts work.  It's easy to overlook when you're not winning but when you are it seems like something different.  That's not the case though.  The losses easily outweigh the wins.  The small wins outweigh the big ones.  And the big wins are few.  This is exactly how it should be.

 

     Anyhow, I don't tend to gamble because I know it's throwing good money after bad.  I also don't get much of a "rush" from it.  I did toss a few bucks towards that billion dollars but I expected to see maybe $3 back (I got nothing in case you're wondering).  If I thought the game could be "fixed" by means of "magic(k)" I certainly would not have played it at all.  I think it would even be illegal to run a game where you couldn't actually statistically compute the odds and magic(k) sort of creates that situation.

 

          mwc

 

[TruthSeeker0]

Off topic, but any time I feel like playing the lottery, I remind myself I have more chance of getting hit and killed on the road by an idiot texting and driving, and that soundly takes care of the urge to buy a ticket.

[midniterider]

57 minutes ago, mwc said:

     Do you understand what an atheist is?  Or statistics?  Or any of these things?

 

     Playing the lottery isn't an issue.  Understanding that the outcome is determined by statistics and that I cannot someone sway the outcome by performing some action(s) or by way of some magic thinking should not be hard to comprehend.  Understanding that the odds, especially in a billion+ dollar, lottery aren't in my favor (by a long shot) is just something to be taken into account if I choose to lay down my money.

 

     You make it sound like atheists are some sort of robots, or Vulcans, that aren't allowed emotions or aren't allowed to have fun or vices.  This is your misrepresentation.  It just means we don't believe in a god.  And I'm guessing for the sake of this discussion, as I said, it means we don't think that we can control the outcome of events such as the lottery (or other such contests).

 

     My wife enters contests all the time.  And when I say all the time I mean that quite literally.  She's a habitual sweeper.  She enters daily for lots of stuff and has for years.  She's won lots of stuff.  If we could control the outcome of the contests we sure would but unfortunately we don't.  The losses versus wins is plain to see but when spotlighting the wins, especially the "big" wins it seems like something is up.  It even causes her to think, like gamblers, to see "streaks" when it's just how statistical payouts work.  It's easy to overlook when you're not winning but when you are it seems like something different.  That's not the case though.  The losses easily outweigh the wins.  The small wins outweigh the big ones.  And the big wins are few.  This is exactly how it should be.

 

     Anyhow, I don't tend to gamble because I know it's throwing good money after bad.  I also don't get much of a "rush" from it.  I did toss a few bucks towards that billion dollars but I expected to see maybe $3 back (I got nothing in case you're wondering).  If I thought the game could be "fixed" by means of "magic(k)" I certainly would not have played it at all.  I think it would even be illegal to run a game where you couldn't actually statistically compute the odds and magic(k) sort of creates that situation.

 

          mwc

 

 

Rawr!

 

I was too lazy to stand in line for this one.

[mwc]

11 minutes ago, TruthSeeker0 said:

Off topic, but any time I feel like playing the lottery, I remind myself I have more chance of getting hit and killed on the road by an idiot texting and driving, and that soundly takes care of the urge to buy a ticket.

     Yeah, I know this too.  I just like the outcome of winning the lottery better.

 

     I know I wouldn't play if these two things were connected (ie. I either won the lotto or got hit by a car).

 

          mwc

 

[florduh]

3 hours ago, midniterider said:

I do woo and logic together.

 

And I do Veganism and Carnivorism together! 

[LogicalFallacy]

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

Josh. This is the last straw. You are toying with woo here and it pains me to see you throw your life away ($2 at a time) on something illogical. Yes, I said woo. Even worse than woo. Pure one in a zillion chance. The lottery is woo because people get false hope. First they get this 'good feeling' (shudders at that), and people start having happy talk about what they would do with the money (camaraderie, fuck that!), they wait in lottery ticket lines joking and laughing ... and then  .... reality shits on them. /s

 

Midnite… are you not understanding, strawmanning, or just teasing? You know lottery is just statistical chance right? The odds are hugely against you, but once in a while someone (and often enough to make people play lottery) hits the jackpot... big enough to be the equivalent of growing fingers back IF prayer actually worked (Or woo for that matter)!

4 hours ago, midniterider said:

I guarantee that a 'real' atheist wouldn't be wasting their time on games of random chance with the odds stacked against them. /s

 

I am part of a lotto syndicate. Odds are against us, but I do it just for fun, a bit of social activity, not because I really think that next week I'm gonna be a millionaire. The difference between lotto and woo is that people actually win in lotto, win big, and often enough to actually calculate your statistical chances of winning any particular amount. For example your chances here of winning $15 or under at some points is pretty much guaranteed. Winning the powerball ranges between 1 in 3.8 million and 1 in 38 million depending on how many lines you play.

 

3 hours ago, midniterider said:

I guess one difference between us is objective testing. You may need to apply testing to more, or possibly different things, than I do. Christian claims might raise a few more hackles on your neck than it does on mine. I realized that for a while I was going overboard identifying Christian posts on facebok, then ranting about them to my wife and feeling anger at these 'idiots' who merely clicked 'share.' I was actually wasting energy hating Christians/Christianity. lol I don't think that's logical. There's video games that need to be played! You know, useful shit.

 

So... basically I need evidence for claims that fall outside normal reality. (That term could be fraught with difficulties but bear with me). If you say you have a dog in your backyard, I'm like cool, and I just accept that. I know dogs exist, I know people keep dogs in their back yard. If you say you have an elephant in your back yard I'll be more sceptical. I know elephants exist, but normal Joe do not keep them in back yards. I might require photographic proof or something. Tell me you have a fire breathing dragon in your backyard and I'll laugh at you. We've never seen anything like the mythical dragon and you are really going to have to provide a lot of evidence to back up this claim.

 

I don't rant about Christian stuff much. I'll still have the odd debate on youtube, or if a Christian pops up here, but the conversations are generally the same.

 

3 hours ago, midniterider said:

Regarding finger regrow (extreme expectations)

 

Does something need to be all powerful to be useful? VC's friend uses homeopathy to heal her sinuses ... or maybe the placebo effect. Is that useful? Is that good or bad?

 

No. It would depend on the specific claim thought. Again good or bad depends on situational context. There are plenty of stories of religious people not taking kids to hospital for what we know are treatable health conditions. In that case I'd say the belief is outright harmful.

 

3 hours ago, midniterider said:

Neither of us are arguing in favor of Christianity (which claims omnipotence), nor do witchy people claim their magic can do 'anything', so should we retire the regrowing fingers argument in favor of some new point of contention?

 

I wasn't arguing that woo can regrow fingers. I was drawing comparisons of claims vs results. If you aren't claiming spells do anything then no problem. I am personally not interested in that stuff but if you are all power to you. However there seems to be claims floating around here that indicate people here actually do think woo does something, and its at that point, well ok, can you demonstrate this?

 

3 hours ago, midniterider said:

Artificial limbs as well as everything else that science has given us, is awesome. There is no denying it. I use science created stuff all day. Science is great for some things. Materialism is great for living.

 

Is materialism what I 'should exclusively believe? Why?

Is woo something I 'should not' believe? Why not?

 

I would say the intellectually honest thing to do is withhold judgement on things not demonstrated, and accept those that are. This is regardless of the 'whats'. I have  big 'box' of stuff which I place into a don't know, no evidence for this category. I don't believe that these things do not exist, but haven't seen any convincing reason to believe they do. You get what I mean?

 

3 hours ago, midniterider said:

I've yet to give you a convincing argument to accept woo. My argument is not strong enough to overcome your bias and your preference.

 

I'd say you simply haven't demonstrated woo exists. That's all.

 

3 hours ago, midniterider said:

You've yet to give me a convincing argument why woo is harmful. I was raised by agnostic atheists to use logic and I think so far that what I've heard about why woo is harmful is pretty much just bias and fluff.

 

I haven't convinced you yet because I'm not even making the argument woo is harmful. I have at times indicated in specific circumstances woo could be harmful, but that's not the same as arguing that woo is harmful per se. I largely think woo is harmless. But believing is Jesus who heals you is also largely harmless. I simply try not to believe things for which there is no good reason to believe.

 

 

3 hours ago, midniterider said:

I 'do' use logic where needed but at the same time I put a little woo spin on it for fun. I do woo and logic together.

 

Yes, I get that.

[Joshpantera]

*Cut*

 

One thing that's been running on here that doesn't seem to address the issue head on, is that the self help, law of attraction business is about "attracting" things around yourself. In a, "what goes around comes around," type of sense. It's not about anything that would entail regrowing limbs, rigging a lottery with metaphysics, or the general direction that some of these post have been going in. It's not about willing something out of thin air like a rabbit out of hat. Or forcing someone to do something outside of their own will. 

 

I've looked at the magick and I suppose some of it could be about willing something out of thin air, but the sigil thing is nothing more than the attraction idea. Between the sub conscious and the network of external reality, "out there." Doing the pink roller skates is not making some one wear pink roller skates, the way LF laid that out earlier. We have to get down to what the actual claims are. The claim would be that your sub conscious mind would just attract an already existing situation towards you. 

 

What goes around (your thoughts and feelings), comes around (like people, situations and circumstances that match your thoughts and feelings) 

 

With the lottery, if you watched the video and paid attention to how the methods described come from Florduh's source, Goddard (The Magic of Believing), it's about mustering up the 'feelings' of being a winner. Trying to 'live out the experience' and have those feelings informing your sub conscious mind through that process. So that your sub conscious mind then puts out this - what do we call it - let's say metaphysical signal out into the ether which then draws in the like corresponding circumstances. 

 

How these law of attraction and / or magick sources think that the process works is the next issue.

 

They all seemed to believe that the universe represents something in the way of super consciousness. So your conscious mind can inform your sub conscious mind through feelings, mainly, which is then in communication with the greater mind, I'll look at the claim as something of the mind of nature itself. This is why they are focused on intentionally feeding things into your sub conscious prior to going to bed. Thinking that over night your sub conscious mind will communicate such and such to the super conscious mind of the universe or nature. 

 

Now, obviously, I've not removed the woo woo from this scenario with the above explanation. 

 

But it does better clarify what exactly we're talking about and what the claims are, instead of going on and on about some other thing that no one's actually talking about. 

 

Harsh treatment of woo woo. 

 

Take two! 

 

 

 

 

*we're rolling*

 

 

[Joshpantera]

So I happened across Dean Radin and his new book, "Real Magic" 

 

Here's a big interview with Radin about the book. I'll likely add it to my shelf and see what it's about: 

 

 

 

This is about trying to understand these issue through science, and then incorporate them into our existing body of science. Radin is essentially trying to make the merger. He explains a lot of this in the interview. 

 

Around 11:25 discussion of achieving six sigma results

 

12:30 The experiments that are getting sigma results

 

So one type of telepathy experiment qualifies. Repeated thousands of times. Pre-sentiment / precognition. Random number generators, up to 7 sigma in some cases. It goes on. 

 

I think the times of James Randi's little circus show of pseudoskepticism may be coming to an end at the hand of science and discovery. I can at least see why MR has this alternative view of science. And rejects the notion that some of these esoteric issues are completely unproven, or untested to high degrees of probability as described in the book and interview by Dr Radin. This opens up a can of worms where science is concerned, because, it appears that science is becoming more and more concerned with it now. 

[VerbosityCat]

On 10/24/2018 at 9:04 PM, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Very quickly (I haven't had time to do your previous post justice in a reply.) Again this is a strawman, funny sure, but when actually discussing about prayer with fingers its because of the specific claims that God can heal, that he is all powerful, and can do anything. Great, so why doesn't he grow back fingers? Apparently he can create universes and raise the dead. However fingers growing back are an objective thing to test. There's no "I prayed and I feel better" Your finger either grows back or it doesn't. Science makes no claim it can grow back fingers. However it can give you artificial limbs so its already way ahead of the "consistency" curve than woo of any sort. (Midnite I want to talk with you about this... I had some thoughts a midnight (haha) but didn't write them down sadly)

 

Extrapolating this to woo, there is the claim that woo does stuff. For example saying a spell should have an effect on reality like making a person wear pink roller skates etc. Now if you can do that you should be able to do other things with spells/magic and it should be at least testable even if we are at a loss to explain the mechanism.

 

WHOA. Hold the phone a moment. Not all of us believe in "all powerful intervening gods". I do NOT believe my gods are "all powerful". They are merely the next rung up in soul development and I don't actually believe they do a lot of "overt interfering". As for "Big G"... the "one true god", that is the god of "everything" and as such doesn't make the same judgments of good and evil that we do. What is good for us or evil for us is just part of the natural order working itself out, so I do not think Big G interferes in shit PERIOD. Whether said being can or not is immaterial. I don't think that's how it works at all.

 

But prayer/magic is not ALWAYS defined in the "all powerful god to can magically fix anything" ways. That is an idea largely confined to monotheism. It is a pretty rare thought pattern in polytheism.

 

Also, the regrowing fingers thing was something an atheist in this thread mentioned if I'm not mistaken. So it can't be a straw man if someone in this thread on the other side of this debate actually brought it up to begin with.

 

But yeah, it's funny.

 

I've never made any claim that magic/prayer/the gods/whatever can regrow fingers so this "straw man" works on both sides. I don't know a single practitioner of magic who believes in this sort of harry potteresque magic you seem to think they do. Though I'm a Heathen and while there is a magical tradition within heathenry for most our spirituality is not about "magic". we really are a self-reliant sort that believes in getting our hands dirty and fixing our own shit. We don't sit around and chant all day.

 

 

[VerbosityCat]

8 hours ago, midniterider said:

 

So are you saying that if someone's woo-ish thought process has a positive physical healing effect that you should not rob them of that by insisting their belief is crap?

Conversely, are you saying that by insisting someone's belief about their successful woo-based healing treatment is baloney that you may be harming them?

 

 

 

 

 

Give the gentleman a stuffed pony. Exactly. The materialist view seems to hold "objective truth" as the highest moral value even though they can never KNOW objective truth because they are subjective creatures having a subjective experience just like the rest of us. My value system is ordered differently. For me freedom is the highest moral value. And secondly truth (in the sense of integrity, not "knowing everything")

[florduh]

Am I the only one who remembers that magic/woo/spells/telepathy/telekinesis/prophecy and so forth have been around since Day One? The claims of psychics have been tested thoroughly over many decades by actual scientists, as have spiritual healing practices, ghosts and NDEs. It seems there should come a time, after a clear record of failure, some things can rightfully have the case closed on them. For how long does something have to be shown as ineffective or false before we can say, "Oh, that doesn't work!"

[VerbosityCat]

4 hours ago, florduh said:

 

And I do Veganism and Carnivorism together! 

 

Actually, not to get totally pedantic... but why should I hold myself back on a site like this... woo and logic absolutely can coexist (unlike veganism and carnivores) because LOGIC is not necessarily something that leads to empirical objective truth that all people agree to. Logic is a type of reasoning. LOTS of things that turn out to be untrue or that you don't believe in or that I don't believe in have an internal logic. Something can be internally consistent and also useful but not be something someone else has to agree is true. I absolutely believe midniterider uses logic. My entire spiritual system is LOGICAL. It has an inherent internal logic and is not self contradictory. Seriously... fucking quiz me. I go to great pains to not be a giant fucking hypocrite about how I think. So logic and woo can co-exist, as much as it may pain you.

[VerbosityCat]

2 minutes ago, florduh said:

Am I the only one who remembers that magic/woo/spells/telepathy/telekinesis/prophecy and so forth have been around since Day One? The claims of psychics have been tested thoroughly over many decades by actual scientists, as have spiritual healing practices, ghosts and NDEs. It seems there should come a time, after a clear record of failure, some things can rightfully have the case closed on them. For how long does something have to be shown as ineffective or false before we can say, "Oh, that doesn't work!"

 

It's funny how two people can look at the same material (I'm assuming in good faith that you've actually looked at REAL legitimate NDE research, reincarnation research, etc and simply don't accept the conclusions), and come to different conclusions. Human brains are wacky that way. We just fundamentally disagree on this shit. My husband had an NDE. He is NOT a theist. Or even a spiritual person, but he admits nonlocal consciousness is a thing because of his experience. He's a very credible witness to me. Now that's anecdata to you, but I trust him.

[VerbosityCat]

3 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

*Cut*

 

One thing that's been running on

 

Take two! 

 

 

 

 

*we're rolling*

 

 

 

 

This is why it's a pointless argument to have. They are INSISTENT on painting us in a caricature so that they can easily discredit us as silly. I mean it really is too easy when the material they had to attack before was magic apples and talking snakes. Christians really do make it easy. But most of us with spiritual beliefs have fairly sophisticated ideas that are not "crazy". We simply see the world in a different mythopoetic way. But because they are so FUCKING autistically literal about everything, you just can't get them to understand ANY of this. It's impossible to even have an argument about what is or isn't real if they refuse to accept our definitions of what we're even talking about, and if they simply can't FATHOM that way of seeing anything. This really is a "totally different brains" thing. We will never see eye to eye. They will continue to think they know everything and that we are just silly fools.

[Joshpantera]

1 hour ago, florduh said:

Am I the only one who remembers that magic/woo/spells/telepathy/telekinesis/prophecy and so forth have been around since Day One? The claims of psychics have been tested thoroughly over many decades by actual scientists, as have spiritual healing practices, ghosts and NDEs. It seems there should come a time, after a clear record of failure, some things can rightfully have the case closed on them. For how long does something have to be shown as ineffective or false before we can say, "Oh, that doesn't work!"

 

The record of failure you're claiming doesn't correspond to the actual repeated experiments Radin is describing. Why would someone say "oh, that doesn't work," if the tests show that some of it IS working? To six sigma standards? And repeated results over 40 and 50 year time ranges. That would mean positive results, repeated in experiments, since you were around 20-30 years old. He describes all of these experiments that they've been doing that I've never heard of. And they're interesting experiments. It's interesting to see how they even think up the experiments and then look for ways to test against certain possibilities. The precognition experiments are freaking wild. He's goes in that just past the sections I outlined in my post about it. 

 

There's something off here. And I'm going to have to keep reading about it until I figure out who's wrong about the tests and results and consistency. 

 

[VerbosityCat]

6 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

 

The record of failure you're claiming doesn't correspond to the actual repeated experiments Radin is describing. Why would someone say "oh, that doesn't work," if the tests show that some of it IS working? To six sigma standards? There's something off here. And I'm going to have read about it try and figure out who's wrong. 

 

 

My assumption is that there is a confirmation bias here at work. Most skeptics look at the LEAST credible studies and most totally off pie-in-the-sky easily discredited woo out there. They look at the MOST new-age, weird, extreme, fringe thing and pretend or convince themselves they are reading the "mainstream" of thought. They listen to folks like James Randi and convince themselves that if this "woo" was real, then surely someone would have immediately claimed that prize (even when people have explained to them repeatedly that folks like Randi are extremely dishonest and lack any kind of integrity and just want to make fools out of people) but there is no penetrating this bubble. Some people do NOT want to believe this stuff. They will always look at the least credible study by the biggest charlatan and claim victory. Let them.

 

Also folks like Randi want to insist on REALLY EXTREME SHIT that NOBODY is claiming is real. It's like the "if you can't regrow a finger..." argument. It's just so dishonest. (Folks like Randi, not people on this board)

[VerbosityCat]

13 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

 

The record of failure you're claiming doesn't correspond to the actual repeated experiments Radin is describing. Why would someone say "oh, that doesn't work," if the tests show that some of it IS working? To six sigma standards? There's something off here. And I'm going to have read about it try and figure out who's wrong. 

 

 

And a lot of my irritation about a lot of this is... this shit is actually holding back science. There are SO many things we could be studying and looking into if people would stop saying everything they don't like is pseudoscience. It's just so fucking childish.  I mean in quantum physics we have people postulating all sorts of multiverse theory and string theory and shit that they CANNOT PROVE in any empirical way. The math works, sure, but you can make math make a LOT of things look possible that nevertheless aren't real. So I guess our woo people just need to learn more math. Because it seems like there is a different standard. People can have bubble theory and string theory and holographic universes and multiverses and parallel universes and dimensions and all sorts of TOTALLY unprovable woo in quantum physics... but... let someone say "I think consciousness might be nonlocal and I would like to try to prove that' and they will lose their motherfucking minds over it. HERETIC... PSEUDOSCIENCE. It's just absurd. And it's getting to the point where I have a hard time respecting science as an institution anymore because they obviously are not the bastions of integrity and SINGLE STANDARDS for everything that they claim to be. 

 

And then also, if I were to talk about things like dimensions and layers and levels to reality and etc in a mythopoetic way that's "woo" and "you can't prove that!" But that's the SAME FUCKING SHIT the quantum physicist just got finished saying... except I said it with poetic language and he said it with math. He's a fucking genius and I'm a weirdo. I can't imagine why this would annoy me.

[midniterider]

 

VC: For me freedom is the highest moral value.

.....

 

That's kind of where I'm at. I was in a restrictive mental environment for a decade and I never will be again. Most of my daily life deals with reality so living the truth is not a big deal. It's a given. I want to be able to consider alternate ideas without stopping myself and saying, "Oh wait, no, my world view does not allow me to consider that possibility." I had enough of the bible telling me it was a sin to lust after women or say, "Goddammit." I don't need to lock my mind down to materialism. To me, it's just trading one 'rigid thought structure' for another. But I am sure that materialism works just fine for some. And Christianity works just fine for some Christians.

 

When I initially heard of the term Free Thinker, I thought hey, that's what I am!!! Then I discovered that it really kind of means 'free from religion' or 'thought based on reason.'  That's not free, imo. But of course my pastor used to say belief in Jesus would set me free.

 

 

[Joshpantera]

24 minutes ago, VerbosityCat said:

Most skeptics

 

I need to hold you right there. I posted a link to pseudo skepticism and I'm going to quote it below: 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism

 

[snipped from wiki link]

 

Quote

Pseudoskepticism (or pseudoscepticism) is a philosophical or scientific position which appears to be that of skepticism or scientific skepticism but which in reality fails to be so.

Truzzi attributed the following characteristics to pseudoskeptics:^[5]

1. Denying, when only doubt has been established
2. Double standards in the application of criticism
3. The tendency to discredit rather than investigate
4. Presenting insufficient evidence or proof
5. Assuming criticism requires no burden of proof
6. Making unsubstantiated counter-claims
7. Counter-claims based on plausibility rather than empirical evidence
8. Suggesting that unconvincing evidence provides grounds for completely dismissing a claim

He characterized true skepticism as:^[5]

1. Acceptance of doubt when neither assertion nor denial has been established
2. No burden of proof to take an agnostic position
3. Agreement that the corpus of established knowledge must be based on what is proved, but recognising its incompleteness
4. Even-handedness in requirement for proofs, whatever their implication
5. Accepting that a failure of a proof in itself proves nothing
6. Continuing examination of the results of experiments even when flaws are found

I think we need to pay as close attention to falling into pseudo skepticism in these discussion as we do with falling into pseudo science. Because I detect a good deal of pseudo skepticism arising as of lately, across the boards, in many different discussions. Where does healthy skepticism began to cross a line into the area in bold? We can at least refer back to these lists as skepticism is expressed and check it for content as either true or pseudo. 

[VerbosityCat]

3 minutes ago, midniterider said:

 

VC: For me freedom is the highest moral value.

.....

 

That's kind of where I'm at. I was in a restrictive mental environment for a decade and I never will be again. Most of my daily life deals with reality so living the truth is not a big deal. It's a given. I want to be able to consider alternate ideas without stopping myself and saying, "Oh wait, no, my world view does not allow me to consider that possibility." I had enough of the bible telling me it was a sin to lust after women or say, "Goddammit." I don't need to lock my mind down to materialism. To me, it's just trading one 'rigid thought structure' for another. But I am sure that materialism works just fine for some. And Christianity works just fine for some Christians.

 

When I initially heard of the term Free Thinker, I thought hey, that's what I am!!! Then I discovered that it really kind of means 'free from religion' or 'thought based on reason.'  That's not free, imo. But of course my pastor used to say belief in Jesus would set me free.

 

 

 

Yep, I share many of your thought patterns here. I guess everybody has a different definition of what "free" means. I have some friends who are Christian. Hilariously, my closest Christian friends may follow the bible but I really find their values more "heathen" in nature. They are basically following a set of values that Jesus pretty much preaches against but that they think are right so they have basically just decided this is what Jesus "really meant" Like somehow turn the other cheek DOESN'T mean you can't defend yourself. And sell all your shit and give it to the poor somehow DOESN'T  mean you shouldn't take care of your family. And Leave your family and follow me obviously doesn't really m ean that so yeah... my Christian friends have  Heathen value structure similar to mine. So even though we don't believe the same things about reality we have a lot of things in common. I don't believe they are Christians because they are "stupid, superstitious, mind-controlled slaves". I believe they are Christians because they  never had the same struggle and issue with Christianity that I had and it never felt so "foreign" like it did to me and they are very loyal people. I'm a very loyal person. We have that in common. I'm not going to try to "deconvert them" from Christianity and "set them free" just because it enslaved me.

 

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.

[VerbosityCat]

1 minute ago, Joshpantera said:

 

I need to hold you right there. I posted a link to pseudo skepticism and I'm going to quote it below: 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoskepticism

 

 

 

 

I agree with what you're saying here. I should be more careful with my choice of wording. I should have said "most people calling themselves skeptics". I'm not sure I would have gone straight to "pseudo-skeptics" because while I do feel they fit that profile often, I don't want to ascribe motivations that I don't know are there. Like I don't want to imply I know someone's intention and my impression of pseudo-skeptics is that they "know what they're doing" but they just fucking do it anyway.

[midniterider]

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.

[VerbosityCat]

11 minutes ago, 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.

 

So eerily similar to the way Christians argue, huh?

[VerbosityCat]

12 minutes ago, 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.

 

And they wonder why people on Ex-C wanted their own subform where this kind of endless circle wank of dumbfuckery isn't allowed.

[midniterider]

5 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

 

Midnite… are you not understanding, strawmanning, or just teasing? You know lottery is just statistical chance right? The odds are hugely against you, but once in a while someone (and often enough to make people play lottery) hits the jackpot... big enough to be the equivalent of growing fingers back IF prayer actually worked (Or woo for that matter)!

 

I am part of a lotto syndicate. Odds are against us, but I do it just for fun, a bit of social activity, not because I really think that next week I'm gonna be a millionaire. The difference between lotto and woo is that people actually win in lotto, win big, and often enough to actually calculate your statistical chances of winning any particular amount. For example your chances here of winning $15 or under at some points is pretty much guaranteed. Winning the powerball ranges between 1 in 3.8 million and 1 in 38 million depending on how many lines you play.

 

 

So... basically I need evidence for claims that fall outside normal reality. (That term could be fraught with difficulties but bear with me). If you say you have a dog in your backyard, I'm like cool, and I just accept that. I know dogs exist, I know people keep dogs in their back yard. If you say you have an elephant in your back yard I'll be more sceptical. I know elephants exist, but normal Joe do not keep them in back yards. I might require photographic proof or something. Tell me you have a fire breathing dragon in your backyard and I'll laugh at you. We've never seen anything like the mythical dragon and you are really going to have to provide a lot of evidence to back up this claim.

 

I don't rant about Christian stuff much. I'll still have the odd debate on youtube, or if a Christian pops up here, but the conversations are generally the same.

 

 

No. It would depend on the specific claim thought. Again good or bad depends on situational context. There are plenty of stories of religious people not taking kids to hospital for what we know are treatable health conditions. In that case I'd say the belief is outright harmful.

 

 

I wasn't arguing that woo can regrow fingers. I was drawing comparisons of claims vs results. If you aren't claiming spells do anything then no problem. I am personally not interested in that stuff but if you are all power to you. However there seems to be claims floating around here that indicate people here actually do think woo does something, and its at that point, well ok, can you demonstrate this?

 

 

I would say the intellectually honest thing to do is withhold judgement on things not demonstrated, and accept those that are. This is regardless of the 'whats'. I have  big 'box' of stuff which I place into a don't know, no evidence for this category. I don't believe that these things do not exist, but haven't seen any convincing reason to believe they do. You get what I mean?

 

 

I'd say you simply haven't demonstrated woo exists. That's all.

 

 

I haven't convinced you yet because I'm not even making the argument woo is harmful. I have at times indicated in specific circumstances woo could be harmful, but that's not the same as arguing that woo is harmful per se. I largely think woo is harmless. But believing is Jesus who heals you is also largely harmless. I simply try not to believe things for which there is no good reason to believe.

 

 

 

Yes, I get that.

 

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.