A rise in New Age religions!
Offline I've met alot of people who disagree with the conventional format of religion and disregard jesus and the judeo christian view of religion. But they have equally esoteric views about the nature of the cosmos involving crystals, reptillian aliens, and other superstition. It seems that although judeo christian and abrahamic religions are falling out of favor, there are other equally ridiculous views coming out every day! I have friends who closely follow David Ike, alien abductions, and psychic readings. Whenever I ask them for evidence they point to blurry pictures or they say that I cant disprove it. AT that point I make the statement alot of stupid things ex: flying spaghetti monster, thor, etc cant be dissproven, this does not necessarily make them real or provide a reason for belief. They dont seem to make the connection between one irrational ridiculous claim and another. One minute we are laughing at the preposterous claims of christians the next minute they are telling me nibiru is coming in 2012 and that we need to raise our counciousness to the 4th dimension! My point is that people will always want something crazy to believe in, I guess they feel it makes life more fun. I think that although conventional religion will eventually fall out of favor some new paradigm for ignorance and superstition will always be around the corner!
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Welcome to the forums, and you're right. At least within the confines of our lifetime or any near future generation there's no eliminating of superstition and religion. I'd be thrilled to get it removed from governments.
when they get tax deductions, mega churches, fighting for new age religion and alien belief and refusal of life saving medicine/treatments for minors approved by judges in court cases then we need to fight them just like the christians. In the meantime we can only inform those we talk to about this, friends, relatives, etc as we come across them. I heard new age belief is rising too. I think it's just as crazy as the judeo/christian and all the other religious beliefs. Most people will always have some need to believe in something outside themselves, something or someone watching over them when times are hard and times or sorrow. Why can't they just admit it's people helping people that gets them through all the hard shit. That's what their church and fellowship is for but they give the credit to the god instead of each other helping one another.
Why can't people get together just to get together. For example animal people join a pet owners club or something like that then build on it and form friendships without needing some stupid assed belief in a fairy god parent.
I don't believe there are aliens in space watching us but there is a possibility that there could be something, some kind of life beyond our reach. There is life here on earth in places I would never have tough possible had I not seen them through microscopes on TV, books and scientific facts.
I think a lot of these TV programs have a lot to do with new age religion and belief in ghosts, UFO's and aliens. Look at all the alien abduction shows, UFO's, sightings, etc. then the psychics seeing the dead, talking to the dead, ghosts appearing, demon possessed children, adults in some third world Country, out in the middle of nowhere being possessed with the witnessing on TV of must see live exorcism performed. Even the catholic church is bringing back exorcisms which IMO is to make up for loss of donations since the child molestations became public. I wonder what they will charge LOL.
Crystals with magic powers were popular some 18 years ago and now it's a comeback huh. As my Father used to say "it's comin back in style". The general public (John and Jane Q. pubic) is stupid and gullible. Put them in front of a TV, watch enough of this shit and they become trained monkeys or rather brainwashed idiots. Yeah that's John and Jane Q Public alright.
My conscern is that there is a certain level of education required for a person to be able to even discuss irrational beliefs. They have to be aware of conscepts like circular reasoning, logical fallacy, occams razor, the scientific method, etc..in order to even begin to touch on subjects about beliefs and belief systems. I believe the friends I discuss this with are not too familiar with these conscepts and I have to do a severe level of dumming down to explain my point of view. I argue that we should require empircal evidence, they suggest they need only intuition. I state I have never seen a ghost, they tell me they have. Then the question will come up if I think they are insane? Off course I cannot say yes that would derail the whole arguement, so I end up sounding appologetic! If it where just some random person on the street trying to "save" me and let me know about jesus, I would just say hey man your crazy and walk away. But I am genuinely conscerned for the well being of my friends and I know they mean well. But they just seem to get more and more rapped up in this bullshit. Now they say they live there lives according to the book called "the secret," By Rhonda Byrne. Some crazy bitch who claims to understand quantum mechanics "just because she Wants to." They say they havent had money to pay rent and suddenly it appears to them because they wanted it to! This is almost as extreme as faith healing or voodoo dolls! They wont even listen to anyone proclaiming themselves to be atheist or a scientist, because they say they distrust science and they think atheists are brainwashed. It's gotten to the point where I think Im going to make a power point presentation with colorful pictures to illustrate evolutionary biology. But I dont know if that will hold there attention long enough!
Anyway thanks for your responses and Im glad to be here. I've been a fan of Dawkins, Dennet, and Harris for a while and there are only about 2 other free thinking people in my area that I can talk to about anything relevant. The rest of the time between school and work im stuck in a corner reading with everyone around me trying to "save" me! My aunt is a nun and there rest of my family with the exception of my Father are severely indoctrinated. Offcourse they have already established I am the anti christ hellspawn and that it was result of drug use. Peace!
I hear ya! I have family members too who are wrapped up in this shit, and yes, they too quote the documentry "the secret" and also 'what the bleep do we know'. My sister in law claims to have talked to spirits, having knowledge of peoples death before it happens, and whole host of other shit, now she is training to see peoples auras!. She says it's been happening since she was a child. How do I respond to that. I'm not going to call her crazy to her face, but she is very deluded. She says she's looked at all these things objectively, but her experience tells her its all real. How do you even go about debunking this sort of thing? People like that truely believe it all.
I actually think some new age beliefs are more irrational than christianity or Islam. Some of my family actually believe this idea that we can create our reality by thinking it. They beleive that there is a collective consciousness. So their logic goes: If I don't beleive the wall is there, I can walk straight through it. But the reason I can't is because of the collective consciousness of everyone else believing the wall is there makes it real. This is insane.
I agree with the OP completely. I am very concerned with the rise of these silly nonsensical New Age fads, they trouble me to the extent that religion does. Of course, one could say at least they are not pernicious, but they still require and openly encourage the suspension of one's intellect and reasoning faculties.
My solution is to educate people, of course. New Age nonsense makes use of extremely vague twisting of scientific language, particulary physics, particularly quantum physics...so I educate people about physics, logic as well, particularly fallacies and their recognition. I am preparing a series of lectures, eight in total, which cover issues that are relevant to the refutation of vague and meaningless supernatural beliefs in general, as well as the empirical claims they make (these eight areas are molecular biology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, logic and logical fallacy, physics, epistemology and ontology)
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
What ?, don't believe in ghosts and angels,
A B R A C A D A B R A
geezzz that's no fun
Yeah that was one thing that really pissed me off about the secret, how they twisted quantum mechanics to fit their agenda. The Author claims that "the discoveries of quantum physics … are in total harmony with the teachings of The Secret." To prove this, she explains, "I never studied science or physics at school, and yet when I read complex books on quantum physics I understood them perfectly because I wanted to understand them." WOW!! That is an insult to all the quantum physicists who spend years researching and studying to come close to understanding physics.
Anyway I would like to read your lectures when you finish them and present them to my superstitious friends. Let me know when you have finished them and where I can possibly hear or view them. I have spent alot of time researching evolutionary biology in hopes of being able to give clear and conscise answers when a creationist or otherwise deluded person sais, "it couldnt just happen by chance." I think I can hold my ground now when trying to explain evolution. I only wish I had more time to research other scientific fields so I could educate people on the nature of the universe according to science, logic, reason, and empirical evidence. I look forward to checking out your lectures in informing myself more in an effort to debunk pseudoscience and irrationality.
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But I do not understand how she should get away with that. That sort of statement can be put to the test immediately, and believe me, if you claim to understand the mathematics behind quantum mechanics, and you are lying…it will come down on you like a ton of bricks. It is very, very easy to discover fraudulence when it comes to QM. Anyone could shatter her entire career by asking some simple questions that any physicist should know the answer to, and may the no God help them if they start getting asked for equations and they don’t know the answer, there is no way to dance around something like that. The question “can you explain to me the principles of wave superpositions?” is such that even someone who knows only a small amount about superposition can at least appear to have some expertise provided they say it in a very authoritative manner. On the other hand the question “Do you know the Nernst equation?”(that is my signature) can only have two answers. It would be rather fun, I imagine, to ask this woman about things such as sum-over histories or entanglement. Surely, by now someone ought to have conducted a swift and just test of her claims of knowledge?
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
I disagree with lumping in ufo's with ghosts. The drake equation shows that it is way more likely than not that there is other intelligent life in this galaxy, even using a conservative estimate on all the variables. Considering the human species is still very young, and we are already exploring other planets with probes, it is not too much of a stretch to think others are also but with much more advanced technology. I know there is the argument of the distance, but if you chart the progress of transportation on a graph, you'll see we'll be doing it soon enough. I decided to write this up in greater detail for another thread, so please hold debates on this part of the discussion for later.
My point is that there is no math formula (at least that i know of) that describes the odds of ghosts existing, and there is no good evidence, so it's hard to give it much of a chance at reality (same with god, telepathy, etc). At least with aliens, we have a way to arrive at an opinion based on mathematical odds. I think that puts it in the category of "open minded" instead of a "belief"
I am open to the possiblity of there being alien life forms in distance galaxies. My only quarrel is with people claiming they have been abducted by aliens or have seen them and have blurry photographs. From my understanding of science to date there has been no evidence of alien visitation on earth. It's probably the case that aliens have no interest in exploring a planet where the inhabitants still use fossil fuels and dont live harmoniously with their planet. It is only my opinion but I think beings that can travel lights speed coming to visit us, is like a human trying to talk to a flea. Within our galaxy there is probably alot of bacterial life on several planets that we havent discovered, but im not sure about fully sentient lifeforms like ourselves.
We live in kind of a weird world, these new age religions that your talking about demonstrate a new change in theism, ive been looking into these kinds of things on my own since i joined the rrs at the start of the summer and its kind of a norm. Every few hundred, maybe thousand years organized society begins to go through large scale changes in its popular belief system, just look at prehistoric diety sculptures, greek and roman pagan cults, then the switch to monotheistic beliefs. Now we've got these new beliefs coming into play that may very well be the new turn thats happening in the world, who knows. It seems like the majority of humanity just isn't able to function without the safety net some all powerful force watching over them and honestly it terrifies me. Its kind of like sheep leading sheep ceaslessly in a giant circle.
[EDIT: Spelling]
We can probably all agree that superstitious belief lends one toward ignoring their reason. If there is a surge in mystic "religion", however, I would see that as a good sign. It seems to me that the mystic nonsense pre-dates monotheism. If that's true, maybe humanity is on the down slope of a religious curve. Maybe people are, in at least some part, realizing that monotheism is just too hard to rationalize.
I personally have seen nothing that leads me to believe that there is a meaningful shift away from monotheism and toward the mystic. But if that were the case I would consider it the lesser of two evils.
Space aliens? I don't get how that is hocus-pocus. We exist... why is it bizarre to think that someone else exists? Maybe we have a galactic stalker. Who knows. It's WAAAY more reasonable than any superstitious twaddle I've heard.
Not exactly. I would wager that most people aren't aware of these kind of concepts even though they may be able to recognize what is bullshit and what isn't. Even I still struggle sometimes with the multitude of logical fallacies that are out there.
It's critical thinking. And in the states there isn't too much of it, I'm afraid. It isn't taught in most schools and it should be. If people were actually educated and taught to thinnk for themselves we probably wouldn't be having this conversation about all that silliness.
If god takes life he's an indian giver
There has been TONS of evidence, not just blurry photographs, but decent quality ones. There are dozens of videos and photographs still unexplained. There is also quite a bit of physical evidence. It is obvious to me that you do not research this subject in much depth, or if you do, you are very biased against it. I am not saying the evidence makes it true, but are you seriously asserting that videos and pictures used in thousands of civil/criminal court cases are admissible evidence, but similar pictures and videos of ufo's are not evidence AT ALL, just because it's a UFO? Keep in mind, a ufo is anything unidentified in the air, not just aliens. So if someone showed you a video of something flying in the air, and you clearly see someting but can't identify it, that means there is "no evidence" anything was in the air?
I see a contradiction in those statements.
Humans can find fleas on earth, yet we still send probes to mars to find microbes. Comparing the distance to mars to find microbes to the distance between stars to find intelligent life seems in proportion (We could do the exact math if necessary), and that is in just a mathematical sense, not taking intelligent curiousity into account.
Im not sure "decent quality photographs," are acceptable as evidence. Anyone with a camera and limited knowledge of photoshop can produce decent quality photograph. I have had some laughs doing just that, throw in some 3d studio max and you have very good quality hoaxes. But you are correct I dont do research into the subject, possibly because of a biased towards it. But I'll gladly look at any compelling evidence anyone has to suggest alien visitation. Again it's the goofy abduction stories that really get to me not so much the ufo's. Off course there are things in the sky which we cant identifiy and can be categorized as ufos, but I would still question their alien origin. When I mentioned aliens I was making a refference to the images my friend shows me, which are a bunch of poorly edited cut and paste youtube videos. Theres even something about a reptillian alien lady supposedly being interviewed with all this secret information "the elite" try to keep from us.
My assumption is that this is the next direction religion will take in it's evolution. I think Dan Dennett has mentioned something about religions evolving and adjusting to new paradigms. Also I think this type of belief system falls into the category of new age mysticism rather than organized religion. Basically the sermon on the mount doesnt cut it anymore. The new generation wants a religion that features hollywood special effects, lasers, anal probes, and celebrity endorsement. Just look at the success of scientology, it's like a freestyle religion. They seem to just piece it together as they go along, it doesnt even make for good sci fi literature. Again my conscern is more so towards the harm that these type of belief systems inflict on people. Particularly my friend who is knee deep in a sea of bullshit right now. Magical thinking, alien/reptillinan/ humaniod/governmental conspiracies, ascension into the fourth dimension, planet x altering the earths magnetic poles, pseudo scientific claims, etc etc... It's getting really out of control!!!
On the subject of aliens my conclusion is that there are probably no aliens as evolved as us within the galaxy. This is based on the fact that probes sent out havent picked up any life forms and we havent reached areas outside of the milky way. I do believe there are aliens outside of our galaxy. If they are capable of beyond light speed travel they would have no interest in communicating with us, since they have probably encountered countless other similar civilizations. That is my gross, and probably incorrect summary on the subject. Not exactly my area of expertise, anyway it's been a pleasure thus far on the forums!
Ugh.. your refute is very disturbing.
Go take a photograph of an airplane with a regular household camera, then try to see if you can identify the model of the airplane (or even if it's an airplane at all). Especially at night. The quality of objects like that are always going to be low or decent quality unless you have an extremely expensive camera. I question pictures that are TOO good of quality.
I do not doubt that some hoaxers might edit pictures like that, or even set up a fake ufo and take a real picture of it. Just the same as someone might falsify criminal evidence, take pictures, then use them as evidence in a criminal investigation. That does not mean ALL people do it. Even if there are a million fake pictures, all it takes is ONE real picture to prove it. The problem is you would still deny that one as evidence.
There is tons of compelling evidence. I have seen tons of documentaries and first hand reports on them. I agree that many can be explained, but there are some that can not be explained besides simply considering it to be a very elaborate hoax. There are a lot of people that did not believe in ufo's and do not want publicity out of fear of public ridicule, but they still come forward with their story anyway. Those too can be explained out of a misperception of reality. But again, all it takes is one real one.
I saw Jurassic Park, and I know it was fake, therefore dinosaurs never existed. I need better arguments to refute than that.
I agree with that and the rest of the paragraph.
I think the most common variables filled in the drake equation estimate that there will be 4 advanced civilizations in this galaxy at any given time. As I stated before (in another thread), I believe the drake equation is missing a few variables causing an underestimation, and the variables we use now (in my opinion) are way too low. If there is another intelligent civilization, we can assume that it is probably more advanced than us. This is based on how long an intelligent civilization is expected to survive, and how long we have survived. Perhaps we are 90% the way to extinction, perhaps we are 1% the way to extinction (on a timescale). I think it's more likely we are 1% the way there, considering the only "definite end" of the earth would be billions of years from now, anything sooner is a guess. Also, in a billion years, even the definite end of the earth might not mean the definite end of humans if we have colonized other planets.
The furthest probe we have sent out (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1) is only 0.04% the way to the nearest star, that is about 0.0000% of the distance across the Milky Way. This probe is not even going toward the nearest star, and it is not even capable of detecting life. Most of the probes we sent out had no intention of finding life. To say "and we havent reached areas outside of the milky way" searching for life is a bit misleading, considering we haven't even passed mars yet. I would not consider that significant in the scale of the galaxy. I think we have plans to send one to Europa (one of Jupiters' moons), but that plan may have been shelved due to budgeting.
If you are interested, I suggest starting by getting the size of the solar system, distance between stars, size of the galaxy, and size of the universe all into proportion. Imagine that you are a microbe on a grain of sand in the desert, it may be beyond your imagination there is any other life on this planet, or even on the grain of sand beside yours.
The reason I care about this so much is because I have been studying it for years, yet other people that do not study it quickly mock people that have. I would be the first one to stand up and call bullshit on this if it was bullshit. In fact, I have searched for pictures of ufo's online, and I do consider most of them bullshit. I can pick out distinct details of pictures to quickly discredit them. I admit no picture is "proof", but to claim there is no evidence is just absurd.
I also think the bible has a lot to do with this. Christians have a hard time accepting things that conflict with their beliefs. Even if you are non-christian, it's easy to follow along with the "common sense" that aliens do not exist. I do see the skeptics point of view, there is no proof, therefore they do not exist.
I have often wondered exactly what "proof" it would take. Photos and videos are completely unacceptable on any level. The other physical evidence we have so far is inadmissable (I can't imagine any physical evidence that would prove it). Dozens of separate events with hundreds of live witnesses, including videos, is not evidence. I am not even sure if an actual landing, aliens getting out telling us they are aliens, all on video in front of a thousand people, then leaving would be acceptable evidence for a hardcore skeptic. Seriously, that can be staged or CG. Just short of an event such as depicted in Independance Day, what would "prove" it? Or would that even prove it?.. you could still claim UFO's are really secret government projects, and in that case, it's the government trying to take over the world, not aliens. My point is, at some point, you have to take what evidence you do have seriously.
I had written an elaborate response but then this happened:
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Then offcourse my whole two paragraph reponse was labeled post data and was subsequently lost. Maybe it's the ufo activity picking up over here in Miami, probably a chupacabra. Anyway to finish off with the alien thing, I do believe they exist. I dont believe there is evidence they have visited us. I think claiming there are photographs and videos is not giving them enough credit. Lets say they did come to earth, would they be so careless as to fly by every john doe with a camera? Dont you think they would have some sort of thermo optic camouflage that would render them undetectable? I think if they wanted to study us they woud do it from far and we would not be able to detect them in any way. That is IF they did visit us, which they probably havent. Actually I dont really care if they have or not thats not what I started the new post for.
Aside from all that I think we really derailed my original post. Im not conscerned with whether aliens visited us, or if ufo pictures are really alien in origin, again I dont care. Im conscerned with close friends who believe shape shifting reptillian aliens control the world under the NWO, and George Bush is their leader. I think we can safely say this is bullshit. I am conscerned for my friends lack of education and their statements about mistrusting science when they dont really know anything about it. They claim that science is controlled by "the elite," and therefore is not credible. It makes it difficult to debate with someone who claims that supernatural things are outside of our range of perception, and that only certain people can see these things. Im trying to educate myself as best I can ,within the amount of extra time i have so that I can refute these claims and perhaps change my naive friends minds. My statement to the people of this forum is where does one begin in re assembling a person with a fragmented mind? When it really seems like they have just gone completely insane and spout bullshit at every turn. How do you debate with the intellectually bankrupt?
That sucks when you type a lot then lose it.. I'll usually copy it to the clipboard before I click post, or i'll write the entire thing into a text editor to be safe.
I agree that believing in something with no science or logic behind it is bad for society in general. I just did not like lumping in ufo's along with those since they very well could be real, it just depends on the mathematical variables you use. I did not intend to sidetrack the discussion but that's how it went.
Back to the original topic. For a comparison to other religions, it depends on which one suggests against logical thinking. You will hear a lot of christians say "do not question the bible", but you will not hear [random nonsense] enthusiasts say "do not question [their random nonsense]". If someone is advocating one of these outrageous claims and tells you not to question it, that is worse than if they do get involved in the logical debate listing facts or ideas on both sides of the issue.
I prefer for people to question ufo's rather than just dismiss it as nonsense. It gives me a chance to answer the questions. question all you want. (maybe in a different thread though, i'm sure we both have a few statements/questions left).
Ok it's getting serious now. My friend who is confused out of his mind about how science works sent me these links. Please read the first one and view the second one, I'll need your help and this one, if you would be so kind.
Copy Paste: http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/92prom.html
Stupid ass video with ridiculous statement about god being fact!!!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t9QaaXAJb0
Now keep in mind my friend is obsessed with conspiracy theories so when he sees phrases like "scientific elites," and " powerful government and corporate interest," he automatically assumed that science is a system of control or enslavement. He makes it seem like there is an alternative method for studying the world that is better or more capable than science, this offcourse is all that newage bullshit coming out of David Ickes mouth. That and bunch of other crap about unlocking the "junk dna" in our cells to develope some sort of cosmic power!! I tell him he is indoctrinated into superstition and bullshit and he tells me Im indoctrinated by science (is that even possible?) Normally I would talk to him and write him a detailed response explaining what I know to be the position of science on the matter. I would also explain the flaws in his arguements with reasonable precision, although i am not Dawkins or Harris, I can usually hold my ground when defending reason and rational thinking. BUt this time I am dumb struck by the extreme ignorance contained within the links he sent me and by his statements to back up his arguement. I am actually so disturbed by this that i cant think strait. It makes me wonder how Brian Sapient was able to contain himself when talking to ray comfort and that other idiot from Growing pains! I have discovered I can never do that because I would be overcome by rage at the stupidity of their statements. Such is the nature of the current situation, although I want to help my friend out of conscern for his well being, I am awe struck by how stupid this is!! Anyway I wanna see what you guys think, particularly about the video.
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.” _Einstein
the video was standard christian fundamentalists trying to hold on to their beliefs as more and more people realize it's not true. I did not see anything about "new age religion" in it.
The attempt to link darwin to hitler is despicable. Hitler was a christian killing jews. There's not much arguing about what happened there. It's really not a good idea for christians to even bring up hitler.
I read about half the document, it seemed to be explaining common sense in great detail. Every system has corruption, even science. That does not make science bad, just the bad people that use it as a tool. Same as religion, politics, etc. I think science is quite a bit less corrupt, and most of that corruption is due to politics and religion, not science itself.
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