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EternalCowabunga
Being of Great Significance



Registered: 04/04/05
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Is James Randi an asshole? 5
#19082847 - 11/03/13 09:46 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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James Randi is this fella whose ego is all wrapped up in debunking people. He is offering a billion dollars to anyone that can prove certain things like telepathy, UFOs, Bigfoot, etc
Question is, why is this guy so intent on being a party pooper? If someone's life is so boring they need to convince themselves that gnomes are stealing their underwear, why would you stomp on their dreams? These people don't have much going for them and he just pisses all over them.
So is he an asshole? Should he mind his own business?
I say FUCK James Randi, self satisfied turd nugget.
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hTx
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-------------------- zen by age ten times six hundred lifetimes Light up the darkness.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
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Quote:
EternalCowabunga said: James Randi is this fella whose ego is all wrapped up in debunking people. He is offering a billion dollars to anyone that can prove certain things like telepathy, UFOs, Bigfoot, etc
Question is, why is this guy so intent on being a party pooper? If someone's life is so boring they need to convince themselves that gnomes are stealing their underwear, why would you stomp on their dreams? These people don't have much going for them and he just pisses all over them.
So is he an asshole? Should he mind his own business?
I say FUCK James Randi, self satisfied turd nugget.
A billion dollars. 
I don't think he's anymore ego wrapped in what he does than the turd nuggets here trying to convince us of their imaginary powers. Both are doing just what humans always do.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Cyclohexylamine
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out



Registered: 09/08/10
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Re: Is James Randi an asshole? [Re: Icelander] 1
#19084276 - 11/04/13 06:18 AM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said:
Quote:
EternalCowabunga said: James Randi is this fella whose ego is all wrapped up in debunking people. He is offering a billion dollars to anyone that can prove certain things like telepathy, UFOs, Bigfoot, etc
Question is, why is this guy so intent on being a party pooper? If someone's life is so boring they need to convince themselves that gnomes are stealing their underwear, why would you stomp on their dreams? These people don't have much going for them and he just pisses all over them.
So is he an asshole? Should he mind his own business?
I say FUCK James Randi, self satisfied turd nugget.
A billion dollars. 
I don't think he's anymore ego wrapped in what he does than the turd nuggets here trying to convince us of their imaginary powers. Both are doing just what humans always do.

And if anything he is doing society a favor - sure people don't have imaginary things to believe in but the hope is that it promotes more rational thinking.
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You are not special
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MarkostheGnostic
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I grew up watching The Amazing Randi on NYC TV's 'Wonderama' on Saturday or Sunday mornings. Frankly, I think James Randi is (btw, it's a million dollar reward) following in the footsteps of the magician Harry Houdini, who began to expose psychic charlatans after he himself was duped. Houdini was excessively attached to his mother, and when she died, he consulted with psychics and seances, but soon realized they were fakes. This angered him and he began a crusade against them.
Oddly, modern day occultists probably still gather at Houdini's grave in NY on Halloween night. It was on All Saints Day, the day after Halloween in 1974 that my then college professor Bob Brier met Carlos Casteneda at Houdini's grave. Bob told me the next day "There IS no Don Juan." I believed him, and was disappointed, since like many others, I had been influenced by The Teachings of Don Juan and A Separate Reality, the first two of his eventual 15 books that were available in '74.
Randi is solidly materialistic from what I can tell. I find it difficult to believe that a man of his age hasn't noticed things like 'telephone telepathy,' a common phenomenon, when you think of a person and the phone rings, and it IS the person who came to mind before the phone rang. I've had this happen numerous times since childhood, and this is only one variety (see Rupert Sheldrake). We cannot control these events so they are not subject to the scientific method of controlled experiments. But just because we cannot control or predict according to this methodology doesn't mean that such phenomena do not exist, or are meaningless coincidences based on probability alone.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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OrgoneConclusion
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Of course 'telephone telepathy' is testable. Declaring it not to be so is an fabricated escape clause for the believer. This 'phenomenon' is obviously a result of confirmation bias, pattern recognition (certain people call at certain times) and selective memory.
Here is an easy test. We get a dozen of your friends in the next room. One by one they call you on the same phone without speaking and you determine who it is by gut-feel.
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Icelander
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Don't rain on his parade
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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MarkostheGnostic
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Not the same thing IMO. (I don't even have a dozen friends. ) Telephone Telepathy was only one variation of psychic reality that corresponds with physical reality. I've had startling telepathic experiences that I've posted here, but I do not want to revisit them now. Besides, I have no desire to convince you or anyone else. It is what is called the "sheep-goat effect" in parapsychological research. There are believers and unbelievers.
I remember someone mentioning the husband of a first cousin, both of whom lived in Ohio and we were in NJ. The husband was a bully in high school, and I didn't like him, but I hadn't seen either of them in years. I bad-mouthed the guy, and before I had finished my sentence he and my cousin walked around the corner of the house to appear in my parents' backyard where we were! It was another startling coincidence for my brother and myself. We had not heard of, or unconsciously overheard anything about them because even our folks didn't know they were in town visiting my cousin's parents. Rupert Sheldrake and others, David Bohm along related lines, speaks to psychic-physical interactions. Psychic reality exerts an influence on psychic reality, but not necessarily on physical reality. Thoughts are psychic realities that clearly correspond to physical processes, but are not necessarily the result of physical processes. I am not a materialistic reductionist as you know by now. Sometimes, I have just become aware of things mentally before I registered their presence sensorily. This goes for telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition (usually by way of dreams).
But I have never experienced anything of psychokinetics/telekinetics, with the exception of two explosive jettisons of kitchen sink porcelain that occurred during an argument with a neighbor in my apartment during grad school. The apartment was not new, the sink, unremarkable in appearance, and during the argument, which was about some philosophically related thing (the other guy, a PhD candidate in computers and a fundamentalist Christian) there was a sharp report followed by the sound of particulate matter pinging off cabinets. Then it happened again. On investigation, two thumb-nail sized pieces of sink porcelain had shot off the sink and into the cabinets opposite in the small kitchen area. The other guy responded with a physical 'how,' of temperature change, and contraction. Perhaps. But why? And why during a heated argument, especially since that sink had probably been in place for a couple of decades at least? Physics accounts for 'hows,' not 'whys.' Psychic variables may well supply the 'whys.'
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Icelander
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I had explosive diarrhea once. I don't think I was arguing at the time though.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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OrgoneConclusion
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Quote:
Besides, I have no desire to convince you or anyone else. It is what is called the "sheep-goat effect" in parapsychological research.
And it seems, neither do the researchers. Truth appears to be of minimal value to many, so what is the point?
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Icelander
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And if he has no desire to convince then why post elaborate stories?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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OrgoneConclusion
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Quote:
I don't even have a dozen friends
So let's say you have three friends and you can tell who is likely calling you 1/3rd of the time. As if that is somehow impressive.
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Edited by OrgoneConclusion (11/05/13 02:39 AM)
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OrgoneConclusion
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Re: Is James Randi an asshole? [Re: Icelander]
#19085675 - 11/04/13 02:27 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Icelander said: And if he has no desire to convince then why post elaborate stories?
Because he has a desire to convince except when the audience is not convinced then the motivation magically shifts. How many times have we witnessed this tactic?
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falcon



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Quote:
Question is, why is this guy so intent on being a party pooper? If someone's life is so boring they need to convince themselves that gnomes are stealing their underwear, why would you stomp on their dreams? These people don't have much going for them and he just pisses all over them.
So is he an asshole? Should he mind his own business?
It's his schtick, he's mildly amusing as a cranky materialist the first time you see him, as are his followers who think that his million dollar challenge would interest anyone with 'paranormal' abilities and that they would trade their anonymity for it. His angry persona is annoying though, and just not entertaining enough to watch more than once. He's an unimaginative fool, running a medicine show for frustrated wanna be social engineers.
Edited by falcon (11/04/13 03:49 PM)
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Diploid
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I have no desire to convince you or anyone else.
...followed by a long, rambling exposé with seemingly little purpose other than to convince us.
If believers would put as much energy into winning the JREF prize (or any of the dozen others around the world) as they put into convincing people here with empty words, they would either become rich or realize that they're in denial.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Repertoire89
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Registered: 11/15/12
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Quote:
EternalCowabunga said:
Question is, why is this guy so intent on being a party pooper? If someone's life is so boring they need to convince themselves that gnomes are stealing their underwear, why would you stomp on their dreams? These people don't have much going for them and he just pisses all over them.
So is he an asshole? Should he mind his own business?
You're absolutely right, we should all just abandon trying to cultivate rational thinking and allow the world to continue mucking about in delusion. What does it matter all the horrible things religion brings us like inquisitions and prohibitions? At least they're mildly entertained while they shit on every aspect of our lives
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MarkostheGnostic
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:
I don't even have a dozen friends
So let's say you have three fiends and you can tell who is likely calling you 1/3rd of the time. As if that is somehow impressive.
"Fiends" I can find, it's friends who are scarce. Seriously though, even with Zener decks, the statistics with alleged psychics are just not that impressive. Unless there are really cool findings by the CIA and the KGB obtained in research during the cold war, but are still classified, there is no reason to believe that anyone has any control over these functions. This is why people who have not experienced Psi events remain skeptics. I'm skeptical of ghosts until I see one. I understand some of the occult hypotheses about ghosts, but I have never experienced one with any sensory modality. I cannot say with authority that ghosts exist or do not exist, and even if I were to see a ghost, I would want to feel it's 'ectoplasm' on my skin, to verify 'cold spots' or reports by others. And even if two or more sensory modalities registered something, it's origin would still remain a mystery. Spontaneous human combustion, if it exists, would not be something one would want to happen to oneself, or another, by experimental design, but I for one would like to know if such a thing exists. I am convinced that some Tibetan yogis can produce Tummo - psychic heat sufficient to melt snow and dry wet sheets on their bodies, but whether that process can incinerate a person or whether it's something else, or whether spontaneous human combustion is a hoax is beyond my ken also.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
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Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:
Icelander said: And if he has no desire to convince then why post elaborate stories?
Because he has a desire to convince except when the audience is not convinced then the motivation magically shifts. How many times have we witnessed this tactic?
Describing an experience is not the same as wanting to convince. I will describe if only to 'speak from experience,' and as I can be wordy, words are what you will get. I will continue to represent my experiences, they have given rise to my stance. But you or James Randi will have to be convinced by experiences of your own, just as Buddha has suggested.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Is James Randi an asshole? [Re: Icelander]
#19087771 - 11/04/13 10:33 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: And if he has no desire to convince then why post elaborate stories?
Too much time on my hands and not accustomed to it. Talking to certain people is like what my mother used to tell me to do when I complained about being bored as a child ->  I feel better already, and now I can go on and discuss these things with similar minds.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Memories



Registered: 05/09/12
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: Not the same thing IMO. (I don't even have a dozen friends. ) Telephone Telepathy was only one variation of psychic reality that corresponds with physical reality. I've had startling telepathic experiences that I've posted here, but I do not want to revisit them now. Besides, I have no desire to convince you or anyone else. It is what is called the "sheep-goat effect" in parapsychological research. There are believers and unbelievers.
I remember someone mentioning the husband of a first cousin, both of whom lived in Ohio and we were in NJ. The husband was a bully in high school, and I didn't like him, but I hadn't seen either of them in years. I bad-mouthed the guy, and before I had finished my sentence he and my cousin walked around the corner of the house to appear in my parents' backyard where we were! It was another startling coincidence for my brother and myself. We had not heard of, or unconsciously overheard anything about them because even our folks didn't know they were in town visiting my cousin's parents. Rupert Sheldrake and others, David Bohm along related lines, speaks to psychic-physical interactions. Psychic reality exerts an influence on psychic reality, but not necessarily on physical reality. Thoughts are psychic realities that clearly correspond to physical processes, but are not necessarily the result of physical processes. I am not a materialistic reductionist as you know by now. Sometimes, I have just become aware of things mentally before I registered their presence sensorily. This goes for telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition (usually by way of dreams).
But I have never experienced anything of psychokinetics/telekinetics, with the exception of two explosive jettisons of kitchen sink porcelain that occurred during an argument with a neighbor in my apartment during grad school. The apartment was not new, the sink, unremarkable in appearance, and during the argument, which was about some philosophically related thing (the other guy, a PhD candidate in computers and a fundamentalist Christian) there was a sharp report followed by the sound of particulate matter pinging off cabinets. Then it happened again. On investigation, two thumb-nail sized pieces of sink porcelain had shot off the sink and into the cabinets opposite in the small kitchen area. The other guy responded with a physical 'how,' of temperature change, and contraction. Perhaps. But why? And why during a heated argument, especially since that sink had probably been in place for a couple of decades at least? Physics accounts for 'hows,' not 'whys.' Psychic variables may well supply the 'whys.'
Your stories remind me of when my Mom tried to prove God's existence with an anecdote about how she had locked her keys in the car, prayed to God for help, and then found a clothes hanger in a tree that she could use to open it.
Edited by Memories (11/04/13 10:47 PM)
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NetDiver
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Re: Is James Randi an asshole? [Re: Icelander] 1
#19088006 - 11/04/13 11:33 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: And if he has no desire to convince then why post elaborate stories?
Not to mention, elaborate stories which don't actually prove anything and are nothing more than a "cool story, bro."
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OrgoneConclusion
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Quote:
and now I can go on and discuss these things with similar minds
And there is the rub. Truth does not need require similar beliefs. It requires evidence and demonstration, not 'yes' men. This is the same reason people huddle together in the church of their choice - for comfort and out of fear their beliefs will not hold up under rigid scrutiny.
The real truth-seekers put their ideas before the whole world to uncover the flaws, if any, not searching for a group with which to find agreement.
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Icelander
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:
Quote:
OrgoneConclusion said:
Quote:
Icelander said: And if he has no desire to convince then why post elaborate stories?
Because he has a desire to convince except when the audience is not convinced then the motivation magically shifts. How many times have we witnessed this tactic?
Describing an experience is not the same as wanting to convince. I will describe if only to 'speak from experience,' and as I can be wordy, words are what you will get. I will continue to represent my experiences, they have given rise to my stance. But you or James Randi will have to be convinced by experiences of your own, just as Buddha has suggested. 
You are aware this is a debate forum. You are aware that the function of this forum (unlike others here) is to show evidence and convince. So I'm going to say that I'm not convinced by your claims that you do not hope to convince.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: Is James Randi an asshole? [Re: Icelander]
#19095706 - 11/06/13 02:36 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said:
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: Describing an experience is not the same as wanting to convince. I will describe if only to 'speak from experience,' and as I can be wordy, words are what you will get. I will continue to represent my experiences, they have given rise to my stance. But you or James Randi will have to be convinced by experiences of your own, just as Buddha has suggested. 
You are aware this is a debate forum. You are aware that the function of this forum (unlike others here) is to show evidence and convince. So I'm going to say that I'm not convinced by your claims that you do not hope to convince. 
Good. Keep that mind open. I'm done conversing with individuals who do not evidence an ability to shift their 'assemblage points.'
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Icelander
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Aw somebody seems butthurt and needs a little pout.  I'm done conversing with individuals who do not evidence an ability to shift their 'assemblage points.
Is that a promise cause you'll for sure be posting to me again in no time.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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