Bloody spelling, that’s Posted rather then Posed in the first line, cursed frozen Canadian fingers.
Crunchy Frog wrote:
And no matter how good a job they do, it won’t make any difference. That’s why I’m here in The Pit, blowing off steam rather than pulling my hair out over another one of these debates. But you seem to be trying to turn this thread into a serious debate in itself.
When, where and how it’s appropriate to make fun of people’s beliefs is a good issue, one that probably deserves a thread in Great Debates. This is not that debate.
However, you may take issue with how caustic I have been. You’d be right there, though I felt like I was well within the propriety of the BBQ Pit. If you’d like to see me chide religion more friendly like, you can read my comments in this thread: If Witchcraft Works…
Johnny - no worries, as you have clarified you were laughing at one specific statement made by one specific poster and not the belief as a whole, I have no further quarrel with you.
Wanna team up against Upham now?
(just kidding)
I’ll pass on the other thread you link to. I really don’t want to get wrapped up in another heated discussion.
Doesn’t a belief sorta gain legitimacy over time? Which is why Christianity isn’t greeted with outright public mockery after a couple of millenia (although it was at one time)?
It seems that another criteria is how blatant the money-making scheme is, and how many people have bought into it.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon is slowly gaining legitimacy over time, even though his racket raking in almost as much as the Catholic church’s.
Anyway, according to the Great Cecil, who has no qualms with calling people like you “addle-brained”, Upham, crystal healing powers is recent New Age pseudoscience based on an incomprehension of basic physical properties. This has made a lot of money, but resulted in precious little evidence of healing.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_078.html
(this column was linked to in the thread that started this pit bash)
addle-brained! addle-brained! addle-brained! Woo! Love the sound of that.
I get so freakin tired of respecting everyone’s beliefs no matter how illogical their premise.
addle-brained! mmm. Most cathartic.
::::::Upham braces him self for a brutal double teaming::::::
Nahhhh, this thread is long enough.
Johnny, it’s good to see you’re not some jabbering, misinformed make-fun-a-it-cause-it’s-cool-to jackass, you had me worried.
I’m pretty sure this is the first time we’ve ever been in the same thread, i hope in the future it’ll be a little less, well, whatever this was.
I really thought you were just being a dumb fuck, and it really pisses me off when i see people being ignorant and taking their ingorance out on others. I still dnot totally agreee with your motives for posting, but fuck there’s better things to fight over.
Please excuse any and all spelling and syntax errors, i think i may be dying.
(just the flu, no worries, the ticker’s tickin’ well)
I’m sorry. I’ve already admitted in several threads that I am an asshole. The derisive laughter is just a conditioned response. I have tried reason, but the target has usually been so warped by pseudoscientific crystal babble or homeopathic tripe, that I am the one that gets the concerned witnessing. I’m not only an asshole, I’m an impatient asshole.
I’ve tried suggesting good-ol’ Western Medicine. The “well, you might want to see a doctor, in addition to waving crystals around and drinking diluted goat-felch” has actually got the response “TX, don’t you know that Western Medicine is full of shit? It’s just a tool of the BIG DRUG COMPANIES to sell dangerous chemicals and make a lot of money.” Sorry. If you are going to believe shit like that, and try to convince sick people of it, than hopefully Darwin and his mighty Stick of Natural Selection will pop you upside the head before you KILL again.
I back up your sentiment about Darwinism at work here. If you’ve tried reason and they scoff, they deserve what they get.
Personally, I get pissed at these morons who won’t take their deathly ill child to a doctor and rely on prayer and prayer alone. I guess the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves” never got uttered to those zealots. I mean, I believe in God and Christ, but I’ve never personally witnessed a miracle, so I’m sure as hell not going to bet my life on the idea that I’m worthy of a miracle being performed just for me.
My uncle had a similar experience to the one I had a little while ago, when his lover got into New Age stuff and apparently seriously believed that you should burn a green candle to make money. He couldn’t stop laughing when he heard this, and I can see why. It’s beyond just disagreeing with someone – it’s a sudden flash if sublime absurdity, motes of madness pooling in another person’s eyes. What do you do but laugh?
Sometimes we need faith in something. If Christians can have their Book, NuAgeists can have their crystals. Who cares?
Esprix
Much Madness is divinest Sense-
To a discerning Eye-
Much Sense-the starkest Madness-
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail-
Assent-and you are sane-
Demur-you’re straightway dangerous-
And handled with a Chain-
- Emily Dickinson, “Much Madness is divinest Sense”
Johnny
Well said!
Bravo!
You clearly are a person of good intellect. Although good points (and silly) have been made about respecting the rights of people to their beliefs, I agree on the whole with what you have said.
You’ve done it well, concisely, humorously, and, for the most part, light-heartedly.
Yay!
Damn, matt_mcl and Esprix. Do you two guys always follow each other around to different threads like that? I see you two popping up together quite a bit. Makes me wonder if grienspace wasn’t on to something, with that paranoid shit about Pit Bullies[sup]TM[/sup] conspiring by e-mail and chat.
Esprix, if it were just faith, I’d leave it alone. But, I live in Austin, where it seems that every nut job slinging coffee in a diner has at least a Bachelor’s degree in something. We have the most educated bunch of food service employees anywhere in the country (this being the pit, I’m not going to go tramping off to find a cite, but trust me, it’s true). The result of all this education is that a lot of people don’t take things on faith, they demand reason. The big problem is that the bullshit detector on some of these people is calibrated WAY too high. Check out the movie Slacker. There’s a few good examples in there (it’s also a good pseudodoc of the way things were in Austin about 10-15 years ago, at least down by campus).
We have a lot of left-wing conspiracy nuts here (with a lot of right-wing conspiracy nuts on the periphery of town). They think that just about everything out there is just a ruse by BIG BUSINESS to steal money from the SHEEPLE (i.e. the mindless masses). The only rational solution they see is to eschew anything that takes more than a few people organized to make (i.e. cars, agribusiness products, western medicine, high-tech gadgets, etc.), because to do otherwise would be feeding the evil beast (i.e. those corporate bastards). The result is a lot of crystal waving, homeopathic medicine, organic gardening, bicycle riding, bitching about the users of laptops and cell phones, etc.
I wouldn’t normally have a problem with this. Deep down inside, I’m a live and let live kind of guy. But I reserve the right to give a big ass belly laugh when some patchouli-smellin’, no-bath-takin’, bicycle-ridin’, manure-soaked-sprout-eatin’, so-skinny-he-looks-like-he’s-gonna-get-blown-away-by-a-10-knot-wind, crystal-wavin’, goat-squick-drinkin’ mutha-fucka tries to tell me that the cure to all my ills is to follow his example. “All you need to do is wear this pretty rock. Oh, and drink this diluted jism sucked from the ass of a syphilitic goat. The more diluted it is, the more HEALING POWER it has.” Especially when it is justified by some kind of claim to authority, like: “I know what I’m talking about, 'cause I’ve got a MA in Sociology. And that’s a science.”
Not to fuel any flames, but:
Y’know, Cecils columns are why these boards exist, and what drew us here in the first place.
Cecils columns often, along with the staffers colomns, debunk incorrect beliefs.
I don’t know about crystals, etc, and am not slighting these beliefs.
These columns often do so with a certain amount of derision/lack of respect, often about the same amount that J expressed in the OP.
Just thought I’d point that out.
J- I only have two religious jokes. I try to be tactful as to who I tell them to, but this is the pit. They seem like they might be relevant to this thread. I hope you enjoy them.
To any others, these are not in the spirit of impugning anyones beliefs, but humor.
They are chestnuts, so I hope I am not repeating something you’ve already heard…
History tells us many things about the man Mohandas Ghandi-
We know, for example, that he was a great spiritual leader of his people. We also know he was a fairly slight man, and that his beliefs dictated his diet, which, in turn, kept him small and somewhat frail, and cursed him with extremely bad breath. He also mostly eschewed mechanical means of travel, preferring to walk. This led to his feet being toughened in the extreme.
Knowing these things, what conclusions can we then draw about this man?
Well, one thing we can say is that he was a
super calloused fragile mystic, plagued with halitosis…
Jesus was up on the cross, and it was horrible. He was moaning pitiously, incoherently.
At this point in events, the locals were, for several reasons, hostile to Jesus and his followers.
Peter was standing on the edge of the crowd, wrapped in a cowl, so that no one would recognize him. He was in agony.
Well, after a bit, Jesus started moaning Peters name, over and over. It was absolutely pitiful, and horrendous to Peter to hear it. But he stood still.
It kept on, and after a while, Peter couldn’t stand it.
He cried out, “My lord, my lord!”, and began to move towards the cross.
As soon as he had spoken, the crowd recognised him and as he began moving toward Jesus they started assaulting him. Hitting him, tearing at his cloak and the like. Finally, they knock him down and begin kicking him. He thinks to himself “The hell with this! Jesus, I love you with all my heart, but I can’t deal with this!” and he begins to crawl away.
Again, Jesus starts pitiously moaning Peters name, calling him. After a few very difficult moments fo indecision, Peter turns around and again begins making his way to the cross. The assualts take a turn for the worse, the crowd begins stoning him, still, he continues.
He makes it to the foot of the cross, and as a final insult, a centurion jabs him in the ribs with the butt of his spear.
He recovers and says to Jesus- “Oh, my lord, that they have done this thing to you. Oh, Jesus, I am so sorry. I would do anything you require of me, anything. Please, tell me what you want, why you are calling my name!”
Jesus looks down and whispers “Peter, Peter…”
Peter looks up and cries “My lord, my lord, anything for you, only tell me what you want!”
Jesus looks down and whispers “Peter, Peter…”
Peter looks up and cries “My lord, oh my lord…!”
Jesus looks down, and with a wicked little smile, says “Peter, I can see your house from here…”
::no doubt bound for hell…::
This is the Pit, but keep in mind that not anything goes here. Even this place has its rules and guidelines to follow.
That said:
I’ve never heard this joke before and that line brightened up a long and boring day of work. 
Just thought I’d point out that there’s a difference 'tween harmless beliefs and harmful beliefs.
A harmful belief would be taking the crystals and ignoring everything else that is KNOWN to cure what ails ya.
A harmless belief would be wearing your crystal AND sticking with your medicine/surgery/excercise/whatever it is you need.
Let’s try to stick with debunking the former. The latter is helpful in it’s own right.
Uhhhhh… yeah. :rolleyes:
And there are a lot of very, very intelligent, educated, well-spoken Christians out there, and I find their beliefs to be just as ridiculous. So who cares? Yeah, they shouldn’t be telling you what to do, so tell 'em to fuck off and leave you alone. This hurts you, how, exactly?
Esprix
Bah! This whole thread has just been a big misunderstanding. Johnny was obviously laughing at Jomo Mojo’s poor grasp of crystal/chi mechanics. You see, amethyst crystals don’t emanate or contain chi energy. Amethyst merely refracts or focuses chi that is channeled through it. Only diamonds and emeralds can contain chi energy (and only by being charged by a living being); and only emeralds leak, or “emanate” chi. In fact, Jomo Mojo gives the impression that he believes that crystals GENERATE chi energy. That is simply preposterous; only living beings “generate” chi energy. You shouldn’t just believe in “the power of crystals” without even a fundamental understanding of crystal/chi mechanics. Duh :rolleyes:.
Oh great, Max, now the amethyst people will be pissed at the diamond/emerald people, which may cause a political rift.
Then again, the two sides may crystalize… 
Um, at just about the point where someone making these crystals tries to take other people’s money and tells them that these crystals will cure their cancer and other ills, I think it’s incumbent on us to care. I assume you would speak out against snake-oil salesmen and televangelists; in what way does this differ?