You could, indeed, say the same thing about Christianity. You’d be wrong. Here’s a handy-dandy guide to telling the difference between a religion and a scam: Religions don’t charge for making you feel better.
[Tony Robbins Impersonator]If I can make one person happy, just one person, isn’t it all worth it? Even if that person is me?[/Tony Robbins Impersonator]
Incidentally, since you’ve seen fit to call the OP and the people who agree with him “arrogant” twice in as many sentences, can I assume that you’ve given up your “I don’t talk to people who are insulting” shtick? Or is name calling still a one-way street with you?
Now, as far as I’m concerned, Christianity is false. Can you prove the truth of it? (No need to answer, we all know what the answer is.) So are you calling all Christians ignorant? Or are you Christian?
And if you are Christian, are you claiming the ignorance of Jews, Muslims, Buddhist, Hindus, etc. etc?
All belief in the supernatural, whether organized or individual, is a very personal thing, and I happen to agree that it often includes ignorance, when such belief insists on the falsity of scientifical proven truth, such as the age of the earth and the evolution of life. But I would never say that a Christian who simply believes in God and Jesus was “ignorant”. I would say they have chosen to have faith in something which cannot be proven or disproven, and so long as that faith doesn’t interfere with my life, it is not my place to question it, judge it, or insist that the world treat it as ignorance.
I feel the same way about all beliefs in the supernatural. I think that’s consistency, and anything less is selectively judgmental, based on nothing but one’s own biases.
I am the person that says just because it is comforting doesn’t make it fact. Many people probably found the idea of a firmament a comforting idea, does that make it right? Believe what you want, but it making you happy or not has no merit on the truthfulness of it.
Let me guess. You scam people for a living, that is why you are so touchy about the subject huh?
Also, my views on whether mainstream religions are ignorant or not is totally beside the point. If I or anybody else feel they are ignorant, then they have the right to say so. And others have the right to defend that belief. Saying “If it makes people happy, who the fuck are you to say it’s wrong?” implies that ignorance is OK if if gives you a warm fuzzy. Anyone who truly believes that should stop taking up precious SDMB resources and go post somewhere else, because he or she clearly has no interest in fighting ignorance.
Which is not mandatory in most religions. Also, most priests don’t claim to possess supernatural powers.
Which is not to say, of course, that mainstream religions have not had their share of charlatans and thieves. The practice of selling Indulgences has to rank up there with the all-time greatest bunko schemes of history. And let’s not even get started on faith healers. But the vast majority of Christians (and Jews, Mulims, Hindus, Buddhists, Animists, Devotees of the IPU, and so forth) are, if nothing else, at least honest about their beliefs. They do not try to “help” people by lying or intentionally misleading them. Which is more than you can say for jackals like John Edwards or Sylvia Brown.
What exactly is your point, Revtim, because I don’t get it. Should the SDMB be devoted to telling people that their spiritual beliefs are hokum? Should major news outlets run stories decrying the ignorance of religion? Or is it only particular beliefs that should be publicly trashed? Iff Person A offers Person B comfort, in whatever form, and you think it’s all a crock…what difference does it make? How is anyone hurt? What is the ** point ** of attacking it? And if there is a point, explain please how the point, whatever it is, applies to Hokum A but not Hokum B?
Well, off the top of my head I can think of the Mormon church’s top dog, who, upon election, starts having direct conversations with God. Are you advocating that we should have magazine articles and talk shows busting the Mormons for being quacks? Cuz in addition to that, the Mormon church kinda does demand 10% of your income. I don’t think they kick you out if you don’t cough it up, but they aren’t averse to hassling the shit outta ya for it.
And what harm has come to the people who believe in Edwards and Brown that you would save them from?
Stoid, the problem with your statement is that so-called “psychic” ability:
a) DOES fly in the face of scientific facts and the laws of physics as we know them, and
b) HAS been disproven, again, and again and again.
Any person who is claiming to have abilities which contradict the laws of physics is claiming something which is, by definition, FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE.
If someone claims they can do the impossible, and then refuses to prove it, I don’t think it’s “arrogant” to assume that the person is lying. If I told you that I had the ability to fly under my own power, and then declined to prove it, you would be well within bounds to say that I was fucking full of shit.
There has never, in all of human history, been a single proven example of authentic psychic ability. Not one self-proclaimed psychic has ever been able to produce under laboratory conditions.
Guys like Edward and that cat psychic lady may seem impressive on their carefully produced and edited TV shows, but believe me, they do not impress professional magicians or others who know how the tricks are done.
They ARE frauds, Stoid. ALL of them. If you disagree, I would like you to name a single one of them who has not already been debunked.
Furthermore, they are con-artists. They exploit the grief of others for personal gain. To compare this with tithing to the church is, I think, a bit of a stretch.
I’ve read a lot of your posts, Stoid. You’re not a dummy. I thought you were smarter than to lend any credence to psychics.
My point, yet again, is that false beliefs should not be accepted just because they are comforting. Whether it be a spiritual belief or not means nothing. And it applies to all beliefs, I never said nor implied anything was exempt. Nothing is sacrosanct, IMO.
You ask “what difference does it make? How is anybody hurt?” Well, those questions can be asked about any belief. Is anybody really hurt by the belief that the moon landing was a hoax? I don’t think so, but yet we still have threads on that subject. Did you post to those threads asking what difference it made, or who was hurt by those beliefs?
I was under the impression thet the Straight Dope column, books, and MB were devoted to fighting ignrance, with no exceptions. I guess you feel this subject should be an exception, but you haven’t convinced me of your point of view.
Ranting about how no one has proven anything under laboratory conditions is utterly and completely beside the point, Diogenes. * It doesn’t matter * No one has proven that God exists either, and they never will. The Mormon leader hasnt’ proven he has direct conversations with God. * It is all precisely the same thing, springing from identical human impulses. * And to attempt to differentiate between them and say that one is ok and the other is shit recalls that wonderful line I read somewhere: “Arguing about religion is the equivalent of arguing about who has the better imaginary friend.”
If you are going to dismiss one as ridiculous bullshit, you must dismiss all. And if you would not dismiss all, you can dismiss none. To do less just shows your bias.
It occurs to me that the beef against these people seems to be uncannily similar to the beef against prostitution… it’s ok if people wanna fuck each other for free, but if somebody’s charging for it, well, that’s an outrage! Hey, if one person wants to charge and the other wants to pay, it just ain’t our bidness, folks…
Did you think that because of my username I am a Reverend in the Christian Church and though it unquestionable? I’m only a Reverend in the Univeral Life Church, so nothing is sacred to me!
Then that’s fine, we have no quibble…except for the original comment that you made that I responded to:
and I would HOPE that the reason they have not is because there are people in the media who look at it the same way that I do: there is no human belief in the supernatural that is better or more deserving of respect than another. So if you are going to treat Christians and Jews and Muslims with respect when you write about them, you really have to do the same for people who believe in astrology, channeling, and John Edwards.
The difference, Stoid, is that while I cannot prove that the Grand High Poobah of Mormonism speaks directly to God, neither can I disprove it. However, I can prove, definitively, that Uri Gellar cannot read my mind, bend a spoon by thinking about it, or help Exeter win a lousy football match. This is the difference between superstition and theology. Theology answers questions that are unanswerable by any other means. Believing that God created the universe is theology; it’s as good an answer as any other to the question “Why are we here?” Believing that he did it in seven days is superstition. We can prove in a thousand different ways that the universe is trillions of years old. Psychics, magic crystals, and astrology are superstition: they all claim results that are observably not in evidence. You can’t tell the future, cure a tumor with a hunk of quartz, or correctly guess my sign based on my personality more than 8.333% of the time. If, despite all the evidence to the contrary, you continue to claim that you can do any of these, you are either a liar or an idiot, and you get the respect you deserve.
That’s the general “you” there, not you specifically, Stoid. I’ve got enough respect for you to assume that you’re arguing this on principal, not because you swallow any of this hokum.
The difference here, Stoid, is that the John Edwards of the world can and have been shown to be frauds already. There is no mystery here. We cannot disprove religion but we CAN disprove psychics. John Edward has already been thoroughly debunked. His fraudulence has been proven. Journalism should report FACTS, should it not? Well it is a FACT, not an opinion, that Edward is a phony. Why doesn’t the media do a better job of informing the public when a psychic has been debunked?
