Meeting more crystal crunchers these days

[mark clemson]

1 hour ago, jspice said:

We should respect people’s beliefs, unless those beliefs use crystals ... because I think they’re nutty and those girls are  only good for a role in the gay anyway  Catholic people use a rosary. Guess that’s ok. 
A crucifix is perfectly acceptable to ward  off “bad stuff”. 
Jewish people wear a Star of David. Again, perfectly fine.

 

Not to pick on you, jspice, but from what I understand, religious incompatibility is a major issue in many relationships. Common enough to be cliche. I think there are many people out there who, e.g. might date or "fling" a jewish or catholic person but wouldn't marry them either. For basically those same reasons - their beliefs are incompatible.

It's really nothing new or outside the norm, nor something OP should be condemned for. He probably wouldn't marry a voodoo practitioner either, nor should he (and that catholic person probably wouldn't either). Plenty of people won't accept a partner based on belief systems; some would consider an atheist "date only" material as well. Some folks are more flexible than others about differences in belief systems, etc. That's just how people are.

[sothereiwas]

14 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

You can't tell (natural) lightning when to strike either. You can make it more likely to strike a specific object and (since it is a non-supernatural phenomena) predict when it will probably strike. But you can't actually make it strike in vivo.

It is, however, possible to quantify the effect the lightning rod has on the likelihood of a strike within statistically computable parameters, based on experimentation. As previously mentioned, when the prayer recipients were unaware whether they were being prayed for or not, apparently no statistically significant effect was observed. I'm taking the word of our fellow poster on this but I have no reason to dispute this completely unsurprising assertion. 

As for acupuncture and other stuff like it, including typical faith healing, factors can absolutely apply, including the placebo effect, nerve stimulation triggering the release of neurochemicals, and a host of other rationally defensible possible mechanisms that can then be falsified or not. Suggestion can be a powerful thing, but to assert that the magic crystal only works if the victim is aware of the magic is a bit of a dead giveaway as to the source of any effect that might be observed. 

 

[basil67]

It's not actually the different beliefs which can undermine a relationship - rather it's disrespect, mockery (as we've amply seen on this thread) or pushing of beliefs either way which kill a relationship.  

I'm athiest and my ex-h believed in God.  About the only concern is that both of us would had emotional trouble respecting each other's wishes for organ donation.  (I am a donor and he needed to have his body kept whole) .  Ultimately we would have respected each other's wishes, but it wouldn't have sat well. 

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by basil67

[sothereiwas]

Just now, basil67 said:

It's not actually the different beliefs which can undermine a relationship - rather it's disrespect, mockery (as we've amply seen on this thread) or pushing of beliefs either way which kill a relationship.  

I'd agree to a point, in that those would be potentially some visible symptoms of the personality mismatch.

Fundamentally I think the issue is the incompatibility between a person who has a worldview that's based on rationality and one who lives in an irrational fantasyland. The willingness to look at fact rationally and use that evidence to modify belief is a core personality attribute, and a coupling where one has it and one does not is likely to result in some difficult to resolve friction. A dear friend of the family believes in lots of woo. She's a nice lady and I'm glad to play a little pinochle with her, but I couldn't couple up with someone whose thought processes are so irrational. 

 

[basil67]

1 minute ago, sothereiwas said:

Fundamentally I think the issue is the incompatibility between a person who has a worldview that's based on rationality and one who lives in an irrational fantasyland. 

Where you and I differ is that while I don't understand religious beliefs, I would not disrespect those beliefs by calling them irrational.  They simply have different beliefs to me.   And I have nothing more to say about that.

[sothereiwas]

Pascal had a very rational view on religion, for whatever it might be worth. My father basically repeated Pascal's wager to me without ever knowing who Pascal was or having heard the wager. It's an intuitive argument that's not completely terrible and doesn't impose a lot on others. 

[jspice]

26 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

 

Not to pick on you, jspice, but from what I understand, religious incompatibility is a major issue in many relationships. Common enough to be cliche. I think there are many people out there who, e.g. might date or "fling" a jewish or catholic person but wouldn't marry them either. For basically those same reasons - their beliefs are incompatible.

It's really nothing new or outside the norm, nor something OP should be condemned for. He probably wouldn't marry a voodoo practitioner either, nor should he (and that catholic person probably wouldn't either). Plenty of people won't accept a partner based on belief systems; some would consider an atheist "date only" material as well. Some folks are more flexible than others about differences in belief systems, etc. That's just how people are.

I absolutely agree with you and understand your point about religious differences. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. 
 

You’re right. 
 

My tone of ( seeming ) condemnation has more to do with the OP’s constant criticism of others. He’s not trying to overcome a religious difference in his relationship. He’s criticising a woman for believing in something he doesn’t understand or care about. Surely it’s her right? She’s not forcing him to chant with crystals, right? 

 

[mark clemson]

14 hours ago, jspice said:

My tone of ( seeming ) condemnation has more to do with the OP’s constant criticism of others

Fair enough, jspice...

[mark clemson]

15 hours ago, sothereiwas said:

It is, however, possible to quantify the effect the lightning rod has on the likelihood of a strike within statistically computable parameters, based on experimentation. As previously mentioned, when the prayer recipients were unaware whether they were being prayed for or not, apparently no statistically significant effect was observed. I'm taking the word of our fellow poster on this but I have no reason to dispute this completely unsurprising assertion. 

As for acupuncture and other stuff like it, including typical faith healing, factors can absolutely apply, including the placebo effect, nerve stimulation triggering the release of neurochemicals, and a host of other rationally defensible possible mechanisms that can then be falsified or not.

Fair enough. I guess one issue is that (if we hypothesize that miracles come from a supernatural source) we wouldn't necessarily expect them to be quantifiable. They happen IAW the will of whatever higher being(s) make them happen. Of course, that's exactly the problem from a scientific testing perspective. One could postulate that some significant percent of spontaneous remissions are exactly that, whether recognized as "miracles" or not by the recipient/larger community. But of course testing that to "prove" it would be another matter.

With acupuncture and similar, I think Chi, IF it turns out to be some sort of real phenomenon (beyond a currently known and recognized cause), would/should indeed then become quantifiable and a "new" discovery.

[Trail Blazer]

On 8/11/2020 at 9:59 AM, basil67 said:

Where you and I differ is that while I don't understand religious beliefs, I would not disrespect those beliefs by calling them irrational.  They simply have different beliefs to me.   And I have nothing more to say about that.

I would go one step further by saying that holding onto an unwavering belief of any doctrine, despite zero evidence for any of its claims, is not just irrational but downright delusional.

You say you're an atheist.  Whatever you believe cannot be compared to what a relgious person believes.  Sharing different beliefs is something that, say, Christians and Muslim would have in common.  Atheism and faith two completely different concepts and cannot be defined as different beleif systems.

If someone asks me, "Do you believe in God?", then my short answer is "no".  However, that's only because I cannot quantify my official stance on a premise that's so patently absurd by simply answering 'yes' or 'no'.

It's my view that belief in an almighty creator is no less delusional than belief in the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas or the Tooth Fairy.  You wouldn't ask any sane, rational adult if they believed in any of these fictional characters.  Society already accepts that they were created by adults, for a particular purpose; that being the benefit of children.  

When it comes to religion, why is it any less delusional than holding any other belief which requires zero evidence?  In order to be a believer, one as to have total faith.  Faith and rational thought are mutually exclusive.  Ergo, religion is irrational.

 

[basil67]

@Trail Blazer given that I wrote that I do not judge other people’s faith, I have no idea why chose to denigrate other people’s faith in response to me. If I wrote anything which led you to believe that I would be remotely interested in hearing your rationale for sitting in judgment of other people’s faith, I wish to make it clear that it was not my intention to do so.   

Edited August 18, 2020 by basil67