Home | Community | Message Board
You are not signed in.
Sign In New Account
Forum Index Search Posts Trusted Vendors Highlights Galleries FAQ User List Chat Store Random Growery


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Jump to first unread post Pages: | 1 | 2  [ show all ]
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: lowbrow]
    #20531987 -

What article ?


--------------------
L'intérêt à croire une chose n'est pas une preuve de l'existence de cette chose.
Voltaire ; Remarques sur les pensées de Pascal (1728)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: lowbrow]
    #20532925 -

lowbrow said:
  I take it you didn't read the article.



--------------------
Amanita86 said:
Sui is trying to mod right now.  Kinda like a newborn calf tryin ta stand fer the first time ain’t it..

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: easyskunkin]
    #20532949 -

Is this a reincarnated Abbott and Costello routine?


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: OrgoneConclusion]
    #20533051 -

I don't know why do you ask me ?


--------------------
L'intérêt à croire une chose n'est pas une preuve de l'existence de cette chose.
Voltaire ; Remarques sur les pensées de Pascal (1728)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: easyskunkin]
    #20536621 -

There is this great bitterness and cynicism surrounding many skeptics and skeptics societies that made it seem to me to be quite psychologically unhealthy not to believe in miracles, regardless if they exist or not.


--------------------
Omnicyclion.org
personal empowerment for the world

:nyan: LGBT - Love God Before Tradition :nyan:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Asante]
    #20536629 -



--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Asante]
    #20536641 -

Asante said:
There is this great bitterness and cynicism surrounding many skeptics and skeptics societies that made it seem to me to be quite psychologically unhealthy not to believe in miracles, regardless if they exist or not.


Is gullibility psychologically healthy ?


--------------------
L'intérêt à croire une chose n'est pas une preuve de l'existence de cette chose.
Voltaire ; Remarques sur les pensées de Pascal (1728)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: easyskunkin]
    #20536682 -

Openmindedness is healthy. Not as much the believing in something, as the not rock-solid believing in anything.

Believing that it is possible that we all are completely wrong isnt gullibility, its having an open mind.


--------------------
Omnicyclion.org
personal empowerment for the world

:nyan: LGBT - Love God Before Tradition :nyan:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Asante]
    #20536720 -

Believing that it is possible that we all are completely wrong isnt gullibility, its having an open mind.

I completely agree with you on the open-minded part. That's why I never say never and often use the phrase "almost-certainly". But that said, in my experience it's believers who usually have absolute certainty as that is the foundation of religious faith.

Again in my experience, skeptics usually question everything, including their own beliefs and the science on which they base those beliefs, because... well... that's how science works. Doubt is the foundation of science. Doubt about everything, from the most tentative out-there theories to the "fact" that the Earth is round. The scientific method obligates doubt of all knowledge so it may be repeatedly tested and the pool of knowledge can shed crap and converge on the truth in so far as that is possible.

Of course, there will always be what I call faithful skeptics who have an affirmative (dis)belief in things they don't buy into, but I find that group to be a tiny minority and in any case, they are more like religious believers than intellectually honest skeptics.

As for me, I don't disbelieve ANYTHING, but I do have some strong suspicions based on the available evidence (or lack thereof).

it seem to me to be quite psychologically unhealthy not to believe in miracles

In the same way it's psychologically unhealthy to not believe in the Tooth Fairy? For there is as much reason to believe she exists as there is to believe in miracles. :ohwell:


--------------------
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.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Asante]
    #20536724 -

As ante said:
Open mindedness is healthy. Not as much the believing in something, as the not rock-solid believing in anything.

Believing that it is possible that we all are completely wrong is nt gullibility, its having an open mind.


Sure. I am not going to repeat for the millionth time the well-known quote about the brain hazard resulting from excessive "open-mindedness".
There is of course the remote possibility that "we are all completely wrong" and that our perception of the physical universe and the observations made by modern science are in fact an illusion.
However, basing one's world view on such a possibility is not what I would qualify as "healthy", however blissful the upholders of such views might appear, and however pessimistic, "bitter" or "cynic" rationalists might appear in the eyes of believers.


--------------------
L'intérêt à croire une chose n'est pas une preuve de l'existence de cette chose.
Voltaire ; Remarques sur les pensées de Pascal (1728)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Diploid]
    #20536771 -

Diploid said:
it seem to me to be quite psychologically unhealthy not to believe in miracles

In the same way it's psychologically unhealthy to not believe in the Tooth Fairy? For there is as much reason to believe she exists as there is to believe in miracles. :ohwell:



It entirely depends on how you define miracles.

If you mean things happening that completely turn our understanding of the world upside down and defy all explanation of things we have yet ammassed like I do when I say the word, yes, expect miracles.

Its pretty damn likely something observed or proven to be true within the next 100,000 years will turn current understanding of science completely upside down.



--------------------
Omnicyclion.org
personal empowerment for the world

:nyan: LGBT - Love God Before Tradition :nyan:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Asante]
    #20536820 -

If you mean things happening that completely turn our understanding of the world upside down and defy all explanation of things we have yet ammassed like I do when I say the word, yes, expect miracles.

Nope. The phrase is not "miracle" but "scientific revolution". It happens from time to time: Newton did it, Einstein, Maxwell, Darwin...

Its pretty damn likely something observed or proven to be true within the next 100,000 years will turn current understanding of science completely upside down.

I completely agree. If it's observed it has a chance of overturning everything. What I don't agree with is that miracles are observed. To my knowledge, there has never been an observation in a proper setting that guards against frauds, cheats, and self-deception of anything that would conventionally be called a miracle. No one has ever observed faith healing, for example. In fact, the neutral studies I'm aware of show praying for miracles for the sick has ZERO efficacy. No one has ever levitated. No one has ever demonstrated telepathy. No one has ever demonstrated telekinesis. No one has ever demonstrated [fill in the blank with your favorite woo].

Miracles, ironically, is exactly what the James Randi prize was established to LOOK FOR, not to debunk.

And anyone who claims (as is often the case) that those things have not been demonstrated because scientists are closed-minded about paradigm-changing things is clueless to the fact that any scientist who discovers miracles or any other paradigm-changing thing will become rich and famous beyond imagining. Again, Newton did it, Einstein, Maxwell, Darwin and all the rest whose discoveries (like time dilation) seemed like pure magic at the time, but unlike magic, they came backed by evidence. Something completely absent in claimed miracles that can only be "demonstrated" by hearsay and charlatans.


--------------------
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.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Asante]
    #20536992 -

Asante said:
There is this great bitterness and cynicism surrounding many skeptics and skeptics societies that made it seem to me to be quite psychologically unhealthy not to believe in miracles, regardless if they exist or not.


Where do you think that bitterness comes from?

I think it comes from being lied to by people you trusted or were dependent on.


--------------------
"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

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Icelander]
    #20548431 -

Did anybody bother to read the links that were posted in the first post?


--------------------
Amanita86 said:
Sui is trying to mod right now.  Kinda like a newborn calf tryin ta stand fer the first time ain’t it..

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: lowbrow]
    #20549238 -

lowbrow said:
Did anybody bother to read the links that were posted in the first post?


That's what I was wondering myself.  :lol:


--------------------
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: James Randi’s “Evidence” Against ESP Turns Out to Be Fabricated? [Re: Diploid]
    #20549846 -

I didn't read it because ...

Diploid said:
Randi is not relevant



--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: | 1 | 2  [ show all ]

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* james randi spudamore 1,131 8 11/17/04 11:12 PM
by oceansize
* Amazing Randi's Letter to Psi Researcher Swami 1,057 2 06/23/03 03:03 PM
by Sclorch
* The Randi Paranormal Challenge HypnoToad 1,281 10 05/19/04 06:50 AM
by Bodhi
* When a skeptic becomes an evidence and logic dodger!
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 all )		 Ego Death 10,419 112 02/07/05 05:51 PM
by Ego Death
* Randi's 1 Million Bullshit raytrace 800 6 11/08/02 08:04 AM
by the_Landotter
* Plant ESP ekomstop 1,053 11 11/27/04 02:34 PM
by EgoTripping
* Sometimes there's evidence only if you want it Mixomatosis 757 11 12/03/03 02:52 PM
by sirreal
* Amazing Randi on CNN Swami 761 5 06/01/04 06:43 AM
by GazzBut

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Middleman, DividedQuantum
1,976 topic views. 1 members, 36 guests and 13 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2026 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.028 seconds spending 0.006 seconds on 15 queries.