I saw a snippet of the show Medium last night. I didn’t watch much of it because the only snippets of it I’ve seen were repellent*, but I did keep the TV on for about 2 minutes. In the scene I saw, the woman I take to be the name character and her husband whether he should take a job that would require their family to move; she reminded him that she too has a job, and he seemed to take that seriously.
Now, I’m sure that, just as vampires are real in the Buffyverse, clairvoyance is real in the Mediumverse; in context their discussion wasn’t ridiculous. But it brought a question to my mind I would like to ask the skeptics** here. In the real world (where ESP is a load of hooey but nonetheless is believed in by many), would you be willing to date & marry someone who genuinely believed herself or himself to be psychic, and who made money by giving readings, “assisting” in missing-persons invesstigationsor so forth? Assume, for the sake of argument, that you are single and free to engage in a relationship, and that the prospective mate is otherwise highly attractive to you.
*Not because of the fantasy nature of the show, but because, for some odd reason, every other time I’ve seen it, there’s been someone getting raped onscreen.
**By which I mean disbelievers in psychic phenomena. Christians and other types are as welcome to respond as atheists and agnostics.
No. I agree, in Mediumverse, things are different, but in the real world, I’d just feel sorry for them if they actually believed it. Sure, they’re not trying to take advantage of the weak minded, but they kind of are anyway.
No. The same way I wouldn’t be able to date or marry someone who genuinely believed they were talking to God or anything similar. I used to think I was more open-minded, but had that illusion knocked out of me when confronted with the possibility that my SO wasn’t an atheist (turns out he was just fooling).
I’d be friends with someone like that, though, just for the stories.
Maybe, but probably not. Unless they actually produce consistently verifiable results from their professional readings (which would give me enough pause to wonder what the hell is going on), it would just annoy me that they believe so stridently in something so non-sensical.
Well. f you are asking if I would date such a person, the answer is no. Same with a real mouth-breathing fundamentalist, or conspiracy-theorist, or ardent alt-med advocate – I’d never be willing to date someone whose worldview I have such contempt for.
The harder question is: if my husband converted to one of the above lunacies, would I stay with him? Now, that’s tough. Because I like my husband quite a lot; we have 2 kids together and 23 years of history… Would my profound distaste for the above crapola overwhelm my love & respect for him? I just don’t know.
Hells no. My partner needs to agree with me about fundamental beliefs.
Bird Man and I have a friend who is a genuinely kind, warm, wonderful and loving person. A funny guy, great to hang out with. Also, he believes he is psychic and will perform rituals of cleansing on peoples’ homes, among other services.
We have never been able to take the friendship past the most basic levels because of our fundamental disagreements about how the world works. We respect each other as people, but just can not respect each others’ beliefs and world views. Even if that man was smoking hot and perfect for me in every other way, there is no way I could share my life with him.
OTOH, just a fling could be a blast, I bet the psychics know the best places to score weed.
As long as they didn’t talk about it incessantly or try to make me believe it? Sure! I mean, it’s no more annoying a hobby than collecting vintage computers, and no more delusional than being a Chicago Cubs fan.
Of course, if they extended the belief to, say, denying the efficacy of modern medical treatments? Not so much. But so long as it’s a belief–like, say, doing horoscopes or something–then sure. I’m game.
No, i’d have a problem marrying someone even slightly religious. Not because it would be a complete deal breaker to me but mostly because theres just no way i could keep myself from being snarky about it.
SkeptiJess’ question is interesting; for myself, I can’t imagine my husband – an addict of the Skeptics’ Podcast–suddenly becoming a New Age believer. But weirder things have happened.
It’s also personally relevant for me at this time, since a friend of ours has, in the past several months, started attending a different church. You wouldn’t think that would be such a huge deal, and even given the exact circumstances it ought to be completely survivable, but she’s doing her best to turn it into a marriage-wrecking, children-devastating trainwreck. I’m currently hoping that she’ll wake up before she destroys her family for no good reason whatsoever, but it’s looking like she won’t figure it out until it’s too late.
I have had experience with a couple of friends who do, and IME the stars are ridiculously important to them. They cancel appointments, change interviews, reschedule your day out, because the “stars” or what-the-fuck-ever told them it was bad. One of them wouldn’t come to my house because the stars told her not to cross the bridge. :rolleyes:
I can imagine it would only be worse in a relationship. Now do we start judging finances and stuff by the psychic woo-woo bullshit he is spewing? Predictability and reliability are very important to me.
But all that having been said, I don’t think I ever met a man who was heavily into the whole psychic scene (well, that wasn’t also a stoner, I guess, another deal-breaker). The quivalant I get from guys is “Do you love Jesus?” and then “Why not?” and they break off the burgeoning friendship themselves.
No. I don’t even think I could date anybody who thought they were magic.
I can tell you, I’d be no picnic for them either. It’s not something I could ever let go. I’d be pathologically driven to make them see that they were wrong.
No, I couldn’t. I’ve mentioned this in another thread or two, but over the past decade or so, my mom has gradually transformed from “normal secular Christian” into “New Age wacko,” complete with claims of talking to God and some psychic-like ability (only when she’s meditating, though). She doesn’t sell her services as a psychic, but she does sell some New Age merchandise and workshops. I still love her, but it’s very painful for me to see what she’s become.
If my mom is any indicator, then “psychic ability,” genuinely believed in, is likely to come as one small piece of a much larger package of craziness. There’s no way I could cope with that in my husband as well as my mother. If my atheist boyfriend somehow landed on my mother’s path to nutsville, it would certainly mean a very painful breakup.
