The Hazards of Belief

Nodin

wench wrote: »

They'll need to hand out something stronger than just tea with this line-up...

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/06/05/body-and-soul-line-up/

'Meridian of Mediocrity'

robindch

An african priest with a very stylish goatee seems to have spent a very great deal of time suckling at the wonky, head-hurting, heaving breast of John Waters:

http://www.irishcatholic.ie/20130606/news/ireland-new-mission-frontier-african-jesuit-S34116.html

wrote:

"For such former mission territories, Ireland, as well as the rest of Europe, now represents a new mission frontier in the world Church," [...] "the irresistible tsunami of secularisation erodes the capacity of traditional Catholic culture hitherto considered as the primary transmitter of faith" [...] "The dwindling missionary capital of the Church in Ireland lies beyond doubt. The question is: Is Ireland ready to harvest the fruits of its missionary labours on its own soil or will the Church simply opt to bear the burden of diminishment with resentment and nostalgia?" [...] He said that mission does not terminate with the departure of the missionary to a "vaguely remembered homeland recently fallen prey to marauding secularising forces and a Church besmirched by sex abuse scandals". [...] "On the contrary, mission progresses to a new stage with the coming of age of mission territories and assumption of responsibility for the mission of the Church by local personnel." [...] "In practical terms, this new partnership for mission in the world Church places on the Church in the global south the duty of offering suitably qualified personnel and human resources to the Church in Ireland as well as the responsibility of learning to live in and adapt to an unfamiliar culture, just as Irish missionaries did in erstwhile foreign missions," Fr Orobator said. [...] "For several centuries successive generations of courageous women and men sailed from the shores of Ireland to various parts of the world as ambassadors of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. As we speak, the Church in Ireland urgently needs the resuscitating breath of the Church in the south in order to survive and grow."

SebBerkovich

robindch wrote: »

An african priest with a very stylish goatee seems to have spent a very great deal of time suckling at the wonky, head-hurting, heaving breast of John Waters:

http://www.irishcatholic.ie/20130606/news/ireland-new-mission-frontier-african-jesuit-S34116.html

From here on in if anyone asks me where i stand on the whole God/Church thing i shall proclaim
"I'm a proud member of the marauding secularising forces"

Note to self: possible idea for an awesome cartoon...

Sarky

Is there no end to these loony bastards?

Sulla Felix

SebBerkovich wrote: »

From here on in if anyone asks me where i stand on the whole God/Church thing i shall proclaim
"I'm a proud member of the marauding secularising forces"

Note to self: possible idea for an awesome cartoon...

Reminds me of this. Yeah, it should be in Funny, but aproppriate.




Well. Boxes 2 and 4 specifically I guess. I thought box 2 was a comic in it's own right. <<

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

An african priest with a very stylish goatee seems to have spent a very great deal of time suckling at the wonky, head-hurting, heaving breast of John Waters:

http://www.irishcatholic.ie/20130606/news/ireland-new-mission-frontier-african-jesuit-S34116.html

Sadly for him, the majority of those in Ireland still willing to listen to the 'catholic message' are oul' wans who tend to be racist as f*ck.

The Black Oil

AntiAtheismAlliance
@3Amovement
The 3A Movement (Anti Atheism Alliance) seeks to fight the onslaught of pro-atheism propaganda and preserve the USA as a Christian nation.

https://twitter.com/3Amovement

Not sure if this is real or a parody...

SebBerkovich

The Black Oil wrote: »

AntiAtheismAlliance
@3Amovement
The 3A Movement (Anti Atheism Alliance) seeks to fight the onslaught of pro-atheism propaganda and preserve the USA as a Christian nation.

https://twitter.com/3Amovement

Not sure if this is real or a parody...

Well, it's not too surprising, The USA does tend to produce the strangest collectives.
Also i think they're going to be pretty upset the day they find out that
a) It's Secularism that they should be worried about
and
b) Secularism is protected in their infallible constitution

robindch

On the down side, the decision of two NZ parents not to vaccinate their three kids nearly cost one of them his life. On the plus side, the boy has mostly recovered, the family have gone public about their decision not to vaccinate and some heart-rending pictures of the child in intensive care have gone up around the country, causing vaccination rates to increase:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/06/06/3776327.htm

Galvasean

SebBerkovich wrote: »

Well, it's not too surprising, The USA does tend to produce the strangest collectives.
Also i think they're going to be pretty upset the day they find out that
a) It's Secularism that they should be worried about
and
b) Secularism is protected in their infallible constitution

c) America was founded as a secular state and was never a Christian nation.

d) Trying to turn America into a Christian nation is distinctly unAmerican in principle!

Hotblack Desiato

robindch wrote: »

On the down side, the decision of two NZ parents not to vaccinate their three kids nearly cost one of them his life. On the plus side, the boy has mostly recovered, the family have gone public about their decision not to vaccinate and some heart-rending pictures of the child in intensive care have gone up around the country, causing vaccination rates to increase:

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/06/06/3776327.htm

Nodin

The pope has admitted the existence of a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, reports published on Tuesday said

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/reports-pope-gay-prelate-network

Closeted gay men in the Vatican. Who could have believed it, eh?

KyussBishop

Not religion, but certainly a case of an insane belief:

Living on light: woman attempts to prove humans can live without food

A 65-year-old Seattle woman is attempting to go 100 days on just water, shunning all medical advice in the process

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/14/living-on-light-without-food

kylith

KyussBishop wrote: »

Not religion, but certainly a case of an insane belief:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/14/living-on-light-without-food

Well... may she rest in peace, I suppose. I really can't see any other outcome for someone who attempts to live on air for three months.

endacl

KyussBishop wrote: »

Not religion, but certainly a case of an insane belief:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/14/living-on-light-without-food

The phrase 'terminally stupid' springs to mind. Is idiocy becoming a self-regulating problem at last?

PopePalpatine

"Darwin Awards", anyone?

Sarky

That's for removing yourself from the gene pool. She's probably a bit old to be having kids, or she's already had some.

MrPudding

Sarky wrote: »

That's for removing yourself from the gene pool. She's probably a bit old to be having kids, or she's already had some.

Apparently not. I lost interest when I found that it did not matter if they had already managed to breed.

MrP

Penn

Probably not the right place, but I finally got round to watching 'Deliver Us From Evil' last night. Even though it didn't really demonstrate anything that isn't already known or suspected about the cover-up in the church, I was mad as f*ck for the rest of the night. I suppose it's one thing to know what's happening and another thing to see pure evidence of it.

seamus

MrPudding wrote: »

Apparently not. I lost interest when I found that it did not matter if they had already managed to breed.

MrP

Are you sure? I was under the impression that it wasn't possible to win a Darwin Award if you had already bred, but there is an "honourable mentions" category for people who had already bred, or who didn't successfully remove themselves from the gene pool (just very nearly did).

"Honourable mention" on the basis that their stupidity means that they or their offspring or likely to succeed in winning an award at some later stage.

MrPudding

seamus wrote: »

Are you sure? I was under the impression that it wasn't possible to win a Darwin Award if you had already bred, but there is an "honourable mentions" category for people who had already bred, or who didn't successfully remove themselves from the gene pool (just very nearly did).

"Honourable mention" on the basis that their stupidity means that they or their offspring or likely to succeed in winning an award at some later stage.

I thought that as well, it was actually someone on this board that pointed out that it did not matter if they had had kids.

EDIT: Here it is.

MrP

robindch

Remember reading about all that religious violence recently in Burma?

Turns out that it has a solid, rational basis:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/04/969-the-strange-numerological-basis-for-burmas-religious-violence/274816/

The Atlantic wrote:

[...]

One number has become indelibly associated with these attacks - 969, a "grassroots" Buddhist nationalist movement that many claim is supported by elements within the military. While 969's unofficial leaders claim that the movement is a non-violent response to a Buddhist society under strain from "foreign" influence, its rhetoric brings to mind the kind of language associated with the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.

969 has its ideological roots in a book written in the late 1990s by U Kyaw Lwin, a functionary in the ministry of religious affairs, and its precepts are rooted in a traditional belief in numerology. Across South Asia, Muslims represent the phrase bismillah-ir-rahman-ir-rahim, or "In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful," with the number 786, and businesses display the number to indicate that they are Muslim-owned. 969's proponents see this as evidence of a Muslim plot to conquer Burma in the 21st century, based on the implausible premise that 7 plus 8 plus 6 is equal to 21. The number 969 is intended be 786's cosmological opposite, and represents the "three jewels:" the nine attributes of the Buddha, the six attributes of his teachings, and the nine attributes of the Sangha, or monastic order.

U Kyaw Lwin's ideas came to prominence in November of last year, when a religious order in Mon State - the Gana Wasaka Sangha - began to invoke them in local anti-Muslim campaigns. Since January, taxis, buses, and businesses across Rangoon have begun to proudly display its brightly colored emblem.

Despite a lack of 969 regalia on U Tun Khin's car (not his real name), a few minutes of conversation showed his stripes as a believer to the core. "The Muslims are very smart. They use their smarts to [threaten] our Buddhist society. Some Muslims are good, but there are too many who are Ali Babas (thieves)," he said. "They get money from Muslim countries, and they want to conquer us and destroy Buddhism. They are foreigners, they should feel lucky we treat them well as guests."

The figure often identified as the de-facto leader of 969 is a monk named Ashin Wirathu, who was jailed in 2003 for inciting religious conflict and released as part of a general amnesty in January 2012. The content of his sermons, distributed via DVDs he produces at his monastery in Mandalay, would not be out of place at the Nuremberg rallies.

[...]

Sarky

Jesus, run_to_da_hills has gone feral revolutionary after getting banned.

Brian Shanahan

Sarky wrote: »

Jesus, run_to_da_hills has gone feral revolutionary after getting banned.

Que?

endacl

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

Que?

You haven't had the dubious pleasure of trying to rationally engage the legendary RTDH, late of this parish?

Brian Shanahan

endacl wrote: »

You haven't had the dubious pleasure of trying to rationally engage the legendary RTDH, late of this parish?

I read his ravings once. Three days later I snapped out of a coma. I was just wondering what he managed to do after leaving the building.

recedite

KyussBishop wrote: »

Not religion, but certainly a case of an insane belief:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/14/living-on-light-without-food

Maybe it could be called a quasi religion, certainly there is some sort of spiritual element. The woman is a follower of Jasmuheen, who "is a proponent of pranic nourishment or breatharianism..."
Check out the website, it talks (and sells ) a lot of crazy $hit.

endacl

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

I read his ravings once. Three days later I snapped out of a coma. I was just wondering what he managed to do after leaving the building.

I believe he's popped back in several times. Just to say hello and check for post.

MrPudding

Things are bad when you lose a libel case to a psychic.

MrP

SebBerkovich

MrPudding wrote: »

Things are bad when you lose a libel case to a psychic.

MrP

The UK need to get their act together and fix their libel laws. It's getting more and more ridiculous.

Mark Hamill

MrPudding wrote: »

Things are bad when you lose a libel case to a psychic.

MrP

From the article:

[The "psychic"] was quoted as saying: "It was an unjustified and unfair attack and it has been a very difficult, costly and painful process to get where I am today and to rectify that wrong.

If only she had seen it coming, then maybe she could have avoided all the difficulty and pain :pac::rolleyes:

kylith

She won the defamation because they claimed she was wearing an earpiece, and since they can't prove that she was then they lose. It has nothing to do with her supposed psychic abilities, which she is well able to fake without the need for earpieces of any kind.

Brian Shanahan

SebBerkovich wrote: »

The UK need to get their act together and fix their libel laws. It's getting more and more ridiculous.

Between Tugendhat (he seems to revel in making rulings contrary to law or evidence), that bunch of Nazi sympathisers, and Ms. Morgan the only good result would have been a highly localised meteor strike on that court room.

joseph brand

kylith wrote: »

She won the defamation because they claimed she was wearing an earpiece, and since they can't prove that she was then they lose. It has nothing to do with her supposed psychic abilities, which she is well able to fake without the need for earpieces of any kind.

Every time I hear about her, I remember watching a program following her on the road, as she went from sucker-filled venue, to sucker-filled venue.

Sitting forward, driving a brand new, cream-leather-upholstered, Land Rover she turned to the camera and said something like "It's hard work, but I don't mind doing it".

From then on, I knew. This lady is a saint. Saint Sally.

Disclaimer:
Sally accepts all major credit cards and cash. Minimum purchase of £100 pounds, which is non-refundable. Customers' Facebook, email and home residence may be monitored in order to assist Sally provide a believable service. Sally is not an equal opportunities employer. Sally dislikes flash photography and tattle-tales.

PopePalpatine

Christianity and 50 Shades of Gray seem to have conceived a child in the irradiated wastelands surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, and have spawned "spanking for Jesus": link.

Heard about that ages ago. twisted version of d/s or wha

Brown Bomber

The backstory to this is interesting. A scientist by the name Sheldrake gave a TED talk in London challenging the dogmatism amongst the scientific community. As it attacked the religion of the militant atheist, materialism, this lead to some militant atheists throwing their toys out of their prams and getting the talk removed from the TED website.

The talk itself is very enlightening. Enjoy,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-HkM3T9xk

Galvasean

He was doing quite well until 3:00 in when he was rightfully laughed at by some members of the audience after making a positively bizarre claim about mainstream science. Some of the 'dogmas' he cites are certainly worthy of challenging, but others I don't think are anywhere as near as dogmatic among the scientific community as he makes them out to be.
I'll check the rest of it out later as it's interesting enough.

Although, Brown Bomber, your insistence of equating atheism with being a religion and the overuse of the word 'militant' in your opening post probably wasn't the best way to get a forum full of atheists, whom you have a habit of annoying, to check out the video sans-cynicism.

Penn

Galvasean wrote: »

He was doing quite well until 3:00 in when he was rightfully laughed at by some members of the audience after making a positively bizarre claim about mainstream science. Some of the 'dogmas' he cites are certainly worthy of challenging, but others I don't think are anywhere as near as dogmatic among the scientific community as he makes them out to be.
I'll check the rest of it out later as it's interesting enough.

Although, Brown Bomber, your insistence of equating atheism with being a religion and the overuse of the word 'militant' in your opening post probably wasn't the best way to get a forum full of atheists, whom you have a habit of annoying, to check out the video sans-cynicism.

I should point out, this was originally posted in Conspiracy Theories but I moved it here as there was no conspiracy outlined and this forum seemed a better fit for it. So his terminology wasn't directed at the posters of this forum.

robindch

Brown Bomber wrote: »

A scientist by the name Sheldrake gave a TED talk in London [...]

Mr Sheldrake stopped doing science many years ago and in recognition of that fact, that post has been moved here, to the "Hazards of Belief" thread.

Dades

Context is king.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

The backstory to this is interesting. A scientist by the name Sheldrake gave a TED talk in London challenging the dogmatism amongst the scientific community. As it attacked the religion of the militant atheist, materialism, this lead to some militant atheists throwing their toys out of their prams and getting the talk removed from the TED website.

The talk itself is very enlightening. Enjoy,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-HkM3T9xk

Brown Bomber

robindch wrote: »

Mr Sheldrake stopped doing science many years ago and in recognition of that fact, that post has been moved here, to the "Hazards of Belief" thread.

I don't understand. Could you explain this? What is the significance of it being moved to "Hazards of Belief" thread?

Brown Bomber

Can anyone explain what the purpose of this stickied thread is?

robindch

Brown Bomber wrote: »

What is the significance of it being moved to "Hazards of Belief" thread?

As Penn pointed out above, your thread was moved from Conspiracy Theories and as it didn't warrant a separate thread here, the posts were moved -- as I said above -- into this thread which is the forum's best match for Mr Sheldrake and his silly ideas.

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Can anyone explain what the purpose of this stickied thread is?

As the thread title and the OP suggest, this thread is for posts about the human tendency to elevate unevidenced beliefs over reality, and the people who do that kind of thing. Mr Sheldrake fits this description well.

endacl

When I typed 'morphic resonance' into my phone, 'morphic' was autocorrected to 'moronic'.

What does my phone know that Sheldrake doesn't?

recedite

Anyone else detect a strong morphic resonance between Dr. Shelduck and our own Minister Shatter?
I wonder if this good doctor also has an inherited habitual antipathy towards any bearded eastern types having a Ming resonance?

Bannasidhe

recedite wrote: »

Anyone else detect a strong morphic resonance between Dr. Shelduck and our own Minister Shatter?
I wonder if this good doctor also has an inherited habitual antipathy towards any bearded eastern types having a Ming resonance?

Shatter doesn't like Jebus??? :eek:

legspin

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Shatter doesn't like Jebus??? :eek:

He's jewish so probably not.

Bannasidhe

legspin wrote: »

He's jewish so probably not.

So was Jebus.

robindch

Keeping god's planes airworthy doesn't come cheap:

http://smokingsection.uproxx.com/TSS/2013/06/pastor-mark-barclay-jet-repaint-79000
http://smokingsection.uproxx.com/TSS/2013/06/new-light-church-50000-helicopter-blades