Originally Posted by Copperfield

As an astrologer and self-described "prophet" shouldn't you be able to tell us what his sign is?

I used to be able to do that, in fact. I would have to go backwards; eliminate the least likely first, and then often I would end up correct. But here's the catch. Mr. Copperfield; I need to be in the presence of the person, in the flesh. One's sun sign is actually more reflected in one's body, and observable personality, than what and how you write on a website. I've never tried that before. I wouldn't give me high odds for success.

And in the case of vandal, I would be insulting all the other members of whichever sign I guessed.

"Prophets" foretell the future, or issue warnings about the direction society is going and prescribe cures. I do both of those things.

How about you, Copperfield? I know you just a bit better than the vandaltroll. Are you either a Leo, Virgo, Scorpio, Sagittarius, or Capricorn? If not, furnish me a picture of yourself and I might do better.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I used to be able to do that, in fact. I would have to go backwards; eliminate the least likely first, and then often I would end up correct. But here's the catch. Mr. Copperfield; I need to be in the presence of the person, in the flesh. One's sun sign is actually more reflected in one's body, and observable personality, than what and how you write on a website. I've never tried that before. I wouldn't give me high odds for success.

And in the case of vandal, I would be insulting all the other members of whichever sign I guessed.

"Prophets" foretell the future, or issue warnings about the direction society is going and prescribe cures. I do both of those things.

How about you, Copperfield? I know you just a bit better than the vandaltroll. Are you either a Leo, Virgo, Scorpio, Sagittarius, or Capricorn? If not, furnish me a picture of yourself and I might do better.

Translation: I need to do a cold reading before I can make a guess based upon stereotypes of what the 12 different signs supposedly represent.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I used to be able to do that, in fact. I would have to go backwards; eliminate the least likely first, and then often I would end up correct. But here's the catch. Mr. Copperfield; I need to be in the presence of the person, in the flesh. One's sun sign is actually more reflected in one's body, and observable personality, than what and how you write on a website. I've never tried that before. I wouldn't give me high odds for success.

And in the case of vandal, I would be insulting all the other members of whichever sign I guessed.

"Prophets" foretell the future, or issue warnings about the direction society is going and prescribe cures. I do both of those things.

How about you, Copperfield? I know you just a bit better than the vandaltroll. Are you either a Leo, Virgo, Scorpio, Sagittarius, or Capricorn? If not, furnish me a picture of yourself and I might do better.

Yes, yes, the entrails aren't aligned correctly, it's too cloudy today, we don't do tests.

I'll even do you one better. Somewhere at the rents house is my actual natal chart (ascendent, houses, you name it), drawn up by an aunt of mine the day I was born (the ladyfriend actually found it and nodded; she's into that sort of thing). I can tell you exactly what I am. Of course the important question is, can you?

Come on, best guess; birth sign and ascendent. It's the internet, no one cares. You have a 1 in 144 chance of guessing correctly.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Yes, yes, the entrails aren't aligned correctly, it's too cloudy today, we don't do tests.

I'll even do you one better. Somewhere at the rents house is my actual natal chart (ascendent, houses, you name it), drawn up by an aunt of mine the day I was born (the ladyfriend actually found it and nodded; she's into that sort of thing). I can tell you exactly what I am. Of course the important question is, can you?

Come on, best guess; birth sign and ascendent. It's the internet, no one cares. You have a 1 in 144 chance of guessing correctly.

No, first you have to tell me if any of the first five guesses for your sun sign are correct. I already claimed that's the best method that I can use. Otherwise, game off.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

I'll even do you one better. Somewhere at the rents house is my actual natal chart (ascendent, houses, you name it), drawn up by an aunt of mine the day I was born (the ladyfriend actually found it and nodded; she's into that sort of thing). I can tell you exactly what I am. Of course the important question is, can you?

Come on, best guess; birth sign and ascendent. It's the internet, no one cares. You have a 1 in 144 chance of guessing correctly.

Eric "is always right". I await with baited breath for a reply.

Now, wrt the "gun control cat fight thread...."

Boomer totem has been found , the leopard.

Boomer Leopard vs Xer honey badgers.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No, first you have to tell me if any of the first five guesses for your sun sign are correct. I already claimed that's the best method that I can use. Otherwise, game off.

Since we both appear to know how cold reading works, no dice.

No, the deal is you either make your guess or you don't. After your guess, I will disclose my birth sign and ascendant (assuming my aunt got all that stuff right of course; no reason to believe otherwise as she was quite brilliant in a number of areas).

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Yes, yes, the entrails aren't aligned correctly, it's too cloudy today, we don't do tests.

It's up to Eric to define what he's claiming to be capable of doing. It's not up to you. If he says he can't tell someone's sun sign based on how they post on a website, then he's not claiming to be able to do that and his inability to show that he can means nothing.

I believe he IS claiming to be able to do it if he meets the person in person. That being the case, the proper test of what he is actually claiming to be able to do (as opposed to a straw man that you substitute) is to see if he can, with statistically significant accuracy, tell the sun sign of someone he meets in person. It's reasonable to monitor the conversation to make sure the information is not delivered in it by non-astrological means.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

The word is a symbol of the concept and is defined.

In the case of God, the concept itself can't be defined and any word we use for it is only a hint. To define is to set limits. You can't define something that, intrinsically, is without limits.

I have no need to consult with someone who is capable of persuading themselves of anything.

If you want to use your own definition and show that, by this definition, God does not exist, without even bothering to ask what the people who believe in God consider him/her/it to be, then you are refuting a straw man.

No, I would argue that religion is used to make the harsh existance that people face more bearable.

Since religion is often followed and believed in by those whose existence is anything but harsh, this explanation does not work. If what you say here were true -- if that was the reason religion was believed in -- then we should expect only the oppressed lower classes to believe in it, and the elite to be universally atheists. That isn't the case.

It developed as a means of control.

It has certainly been used as one, but since it is believed in by people who do not benefit from the control, that explanation doesn't work, either. Why does religion WORK as a means of control? Why do those controlled by it, allow themselves to be controlled by it.

You have no explanation for this; you fall back again on the idea that it is an anodyne for a harsh life, but that doesn't comport with the actual experience of a great many religious believers.

Religion explains nothing and spirituality less than nothing.

Well, it looks like you just jettisoned one of the other stock explanations for why religion developed: as a pre-scientific way to explain the unexplained. If religion "explains nothing" then obviously that isn't the case.

Of course that's nonsense, so you may feel free to bring back that stock explanation if you like; just be aware that you can't believe both that and this simultaneously.

As for spirituality, it isn't meant to "explain" anything. It has another function altogether.

It is we who create gods in our image.

Indeed we do, but why? That's what you don't seem to understand.

I have yet to be presented with a religious or spiritual position which was not superficial and poorly conceived.

You have yet to be presented with a spiritual position at all. You cannot be presented with something that cannot be told except in metaphor.

If "god" exists he is not a spook in the sky, nor is he some invisible force, nor is he pure consciousness either.

Why not? All of those are pretty decent metaphors. But you are right; none of them is a literal description that holds water. But that's rather the point. No such literal description is possible.

I agree that creationism is balderdash (though I would use a stronger word for it). However, I would say that if his claim is that he knows god is real because he is hearing voices he has deeper problems than merely being a creationist.

Of course you would, but that's because you are as ignorant as he is, albeit regarding different subjects.

I would disagree that his "experience" was real

That's because you know nothing of what you're talking about. The evidence for this is that you immediately took "God spoke to me" to indicate that he heard the sound in his head of someone literally speaking words. As I know that's not how it works, I know he didn't, or if he did that wasn't the important part of the experience.

But there's really no point in trying to explain color to a blind person. Suffice it to say that spirituality will continue regardless of anything you have to say about it, because you don't understand where it comes from or why people feel that way, and thus you are in no position to be able to say anything relevant about it that will be in any way convincing to someone who does know these things.

In fact, it couldn't be more obvious that you don't know what the word "spiritual" even means. As such, everything you say about it might as well have been substituting a made-up word, such as "grobnyank." And "grobnyankum" for "spirituality." If we make that substitution, I'm prepared to accept that all your claims regarding grobnyank and grobnyankum are correct. Mind you, I have only the vaguest idea what you mean by these words, but whatever it is, I trust you to make a sound judgment about them based on your knowledge of whatever it is you were talking about.

It most certainly wasn't spirituality, though, whatever it was.

"As for spirituality, it isn't meant to "explain" anything. It has another function altogether."

There's something here which is extremely difficult for people immersed in either scholarly or scientific traditions to understand. In both of those traditions, that which can be known can be explained. I can put an idea such as the contributions of Shakespeare to English vocabulary or the law of conservation of energy into words or mathematical symbols or both. Someone who is able to understand the language I am using and/or follow the mathematics could hear or read these explanations, and the knowledge that I have would then be present in that person.

Spirituality involves a type of knowledge that cannot be communicated. This is not so strange as it sounds, if we step for a moment outside the scholarly and scientific traditions and consider something much more mundane: what the color green looks like to me. Light that falls into a certain region of the spectrum looks a certain way to me, and I have learned to call this appearance "green." The same wavelength of light looks a certain way to you, and you, too, have learned to call it "green." We can both demonstrate the ability to distinguish one part of the spectrum from another, and it can be shown that the part of the spectrum I call "green" is the same part that you call "green." But it can't be shown that we are experiencing this color in the same way. I could be experiencing the color "green" in the same way that you experience the color you call "purple." Or the ways we experience color could have even less than that in common. The experience of color is incommunicable. It is knowledge (of a sort) that cannot be expressed.

Spiritual experience is the same. It provides knowledge that can't be expressed. If I tried, what I said would be misunderstood, except by those who have had similar experiences, because no one else has a foundation of experience to allow them to understand what I'm saying. There are no words or symbols that I can present, which when read or heard by another person, will transfer the knowledge I have gained by spiritual experience from my brain to theirs. It can't be done.

This is in fact an indictment of religious doctrine. Religion is supposed to facilitate spiritual experience. Sometimes it does this, but at least as often it puts barriers in the way, by presenting ideas that can be expressed in words and claiming that those ideas are the truth we seek. They're not -- and I don't care what the doctrine is. Some are closer than others. None are true.

But it's also an indictment of atheism. With tongue in cheek, I once described atheism as "an overwhelming obsession with something one does not believe exists." Whether any particular conception of God is real is in the end of no importance. It's the bends in the labyrinth when we seek the center. It's the Tar Baby in the road. Slugging the Tar Baby, you just get stuck. The correct course is to step around it and move past.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

I believe he IS claiming to be able to do it if he meets the person in person. That being the case, the proper test of what he is actually claiming to be able to do (as opposed to a straw man that you substitute) is to see if he can, with statistically significant accuracy, tell the sun sign of someone he meets in person. It's reasonable to monitor the conversation to make sure the information is not delivered in it by non-astrological means.

Yep, that's called cold reading which he is already trying to attempt (fishing for birth sign data).

In any event, the choice is his to make a guess or not. As with a certain spoon here that remains unbent, I give self-described prophets every opportunity to display their powers, provided of course they use actual powers and not cheap parlor tricks. What I can be reasonably certain of is that if I were to play into the cold reading, he would probably be able to narrow it down to a close-if-not-completely-accurate solution at which time he would claim "proof" of his ability to predict the birth sign of folks online. That of course isn't an ability to predict, it's simply an ability to cold read.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

In your opinion, would it be reasonable to say that Eric has claimed to be able to
foretell Copper's future response?(possibly re-butting your strawman statement).

Under the conditions has claimed to be able to do it, yes. He claims to be able to do this if he knows Copper's birth data. He's also claimed to be able to guess someone's sun sign (and be right a statistically significant percentage of the time) provided he meets with the person in person.

This by the way is not "cold reading." That isn't a valid objection to this condition. Astrologers (including Eric) claim to be able to tell things about someone's personality from a horoscope. It should, then, be possible to do that in reverse: tell something about the horoscope from someone's personality. But in order to do that, it's necessary to actually KNOW someone's personality. Eric is saying that it's hard to tell what someone is really like from their posts on a message board. That's quite true. If he can't get reliable information on someone's personality by non-astrological means, it's unreasonable to expect him to derive the person's horoscope features from this non-information.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

What I can be reasonably certain of is that if I were to play into the cold reading, he would probably be able to narrow it down to a close-if-not-completely-accurate solution at which time he would claim "proof" of his ability to predict the birth sign of folks online.

How, exactly? The only information relevant to determining your birth sign (assuming there is no correlation between that and your personality) is your birthday. If he cannot ask questions relevant to that, then there is no way at all to do what you are describing. He can use your nonverbal communication as well as your verbal communication to find things out about your personality, but that's the point; he's not trying to use your horoscope to tell you what kind of person you are but to do the opposite. That means finding out things about your personality by mundane means isn't a trick, it's the proper procedure. He still has to somehow get from that to your sun sign.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Yes, yes, the entrails aren't aligned correctly, it's too cloudy today, we don't do tests.

I'll even do you one better. Somewhere at the rents house is my actual natal chart (ascendent, houses, you name it), drawn up by an aunt of mine the day I was born (the ladyfriend actually found it and nodded; she's into that sort of thing). I can tell you exactly what I am. Of course the important question is, can you?

Come on, best guess; birth sign and ascendent. It's the internet, no one cares. You have a 1 in 144 chance of guessing correctly.

I'll play too, though like Prince I must admit to not knowing what the hell an "ascendant" is.

Libra.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

What I'm saying is that Eric also claimed to be able to "foretell the future"
and I'm calling BS because:

A) If Eric can "foretell the future", he can foretell Copper's future response.

Eric does not claim to be able to "foretell the future" in the sense of knowing everything about what is going to happen, only in the sense of making some accurate predictions.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

In the case of God, the concept itself can't be defined and any word we use for it is only a hint. To define is to set limits. You can't define something that, intrinsically, is without limits.

A concept that cannot be defined is not really a concept.

If you want to use your own definition and show that, by this definition, God does not exist, without even bothering to ask what the people who believe in God consider him/her/it to be, then you are refuting a straw man.

Asking the superstitious to define their superstition is not entirely relevant here. There is no evidence for the gods of any religion, much less a spirit, much less consciousness itself (being that consciousness is a non-phenomenon). There is no strawman to refute because there is literally nothing to refute. Those who claim the existence of a god, have the requirement to define that god, and the burden to prove that this god, so defined, exists. All have failed in the 5000 years or recorded history.

Since religion is often followed and believed in by those whose existence is anything but harsh, this explanation does not work. If what you say here were true -- if that was the reason religion was believed in -- then we should expect only the oppressed lower classes to believe in it, and the elite to be universally atheists. That isn't the case.

A classic misunderstanding of the Religion as Opiate phenomenon in society. By your line of argument then only people who are injured or sick should ever take drugs, and yet the taking of drugs (be they prescription or illegal) is quite common.

The explanation of religiousity among the rich and powerful (which actually do have a lower incidence of religiosity than the poor and not-powerful) is found in tradition, and more often in the case of politicians more cynical reasons.

It has certainly been used as one, but since it is believed in by people who do not benefit from the control, that explanation doesn't work, either. Why does religion WORK as a means of control? Why do those controlled by it, allow themselves to be controlled by it.

You have no explanation for this; you fall back again on the idea that it is an anodyne for a harsh life, but that doesn't comport with the actual experience of a great many religious believers.

Religion is still used as a means of control. It always has been a means of controlling the masses. Among those who are both rich and powerful there are a few who practice a religion--though I doubt you'll find many fanatics among them. They exist for a reason. Those reasons are: Religion feels good (just like taking opiates feels good), the lack of a religion would make them unacceptable to voters (usually the case for politicians going to churches), a matter of tradition (this is especially true for older Christian sects).

Well, it looks like you just jettisoned one of the other stock explanations for why religion developed: as a pre-scientific way to explain the unexplained. If religion "explains nothing" then obviously that isn't the case.

Of course that's nonsense, so you may feel free to bring back that stock explanation if you like; just be aware that you can't believe both that and this simultaneously.

Actually no I didn't. In a pre-scientific era, pre-scientific methods of explaining the natural world were acceptable. We no longer live in a pre-scientific era, in fact we have not for several centuries now. So no I did not jettison one of the stock explanations why religion developed.

Since science now exists to explain the natural world pre-scientific explanations are no longer relevant. As such religion can be an explanation, however it is an explanation that explains nothing.

And Brian, yes I can hold two thoughts in my head at the same time. I regularly do when conducting an analysis--thats how dialectics work.

As for spirituality, it isn't meant to "explain" anything. It has another function altogether.

Every so-called "spiritual" person I've ever encountered has defined spirituality as religion less the control aspects. I suppose that one could call it free base religion. And it like religion explains nothing, though it may certainly feel good.

Indeed we do, but why? That's what you don't seem to understand.

The why is easy to understand: 1. Humanity has a persistent need to place blame on entities other than themselves (because it avoids guild--or a "bad" emotion). 2. Social Control, and propaganda. 3. Some weirdos just like dicking around with hokey magic (I can name names of people on this very forum Brian). 4. In pre-scientific times religion offered explanations of the world.

As I stated earlier in this post 4 is no longer relevant. So I disagree with you as to my not understanding why humans create gods in their image.

You have yet to be presented with a spiritual position at all. You cannot be presented with something that cannot be told except in metaphor.

If I cannot be presented with evidence I am under no obligation to believe anything. What makes it worse is you are here admitting that there is no evidence for spirituality (and by extension religion) in particular. To date I have yet to hear even a metaphor for spiritual arguments that were not poorly conceived and superficial.

Why not? All of those are pretty decent metaphors. But you are right; none of them is a literal description that holds water. But that's rather the point. No such literal description is possible.

Each of these metaphors are actually quite terrible. And the reason why they are terrible is because they are metaphors for things which do not exist.

And yes that includes the "pure consciousness" one. So far as humanity can know consciousness is limited to ourselves. And even that cannot be studied by science but is an acceptance that each person does have an individual subjective experience of living.

Of course you would, but that's because you are as ignorant as he is, albeit regarding different subjects.

Brian, I am ignorant on some subjects, I've made no claim have all knowledge, and should I at some point make such a claim I fully expect to lose all credibility at that point. Creationism and Christianity are not among those subjects.

That's because you know nothing of what you're talking about. The evidence for this is that you immediately took "God spoke to me" to indicate that he heard the sound in his head of someone literally speaking words. As I know that's not how it works, I know he didn't, or if he did that wasn't the important part of the experience.

Actually no. Sound is not required for one to "hear" the voice of "god". A hallucination is a perfectly acceptable substitute for such a thing, or what is more likely is he made his own thoughts and attributed them to this god. The latter is actually more common being that schizophrenia is somewhat rare.

But there's really no point in trying to explain color to a blind person.

I imagine that it is possible to explain the scientific principles behind color to a blind person. The experience of seeing color is an entirely different matter.

Suffice it to say that spirituality will continue regardless of anything you have to say about it,

Unfortunately that is correct. It will continue until such a point as humans no longer need it. That day though is fast approaching.

because you don't understand where it comes from or why people feel that way, and thus you are in no position to be able to say anything relevant about it that will be in any way convincing to someone who does know these things.

The same can be said of the spiritual and the religious Brian. After all did you not say that these matters can only be expressed in metaphor and not in proof and evidence? If such is a case then it is not possible to know the reality of either of the topics except outside of the realm of consciousness which cannot be shared completely.

So the reality of the situation is this then, if I have no right to speak because I know not what I'm talking about (though I would argue that point--its not entirely germane), the same can be said of you. We both sit here arguing about what we "know" but obviously cannot "know". Or rather I should say you are arguing about what you "know" and I dismiss as even existing without provision of evidence.

<snip pointless rhetoric>.

Your last part is not even worth responding to because it is pointless rhetoric. I need not make claims about a made up word. The lack of evidence for "spiritual" events speaks for itself. They must either be tricks of the mind, mental disease, or lies formed from some desire to have control over others by means of superstition. The pre-scientific explanation for natural phenomena is no longer relevant in the West.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

But it's also an indictment of atheism. With tongue in cheek, I once described atheism as "an overwhelming obsession with something one does not believe exists."

I have to disagree on this point Brian. Most atheists barely even think about religion or spirituality. I know that I don't outside of this thread. I have no need to convince others that there are no gods, or that the New Age is a bunch of nonsense. Besides I have more important issues to contend with.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

A concept that cannot be defined is not really a concept.

Then it is not really a concept. "Concept" is in this case, itself a metaphor, and there is no word for what it actually is.

Asking the superstitious to define their superstition is not entirely relevant here.

Sure it is, because you are claiming that it IS superstition, which implies (in part) that it is false. If you are claiming that an undefined term is false, you are not claiming anything.

When you say "there is no God," this statement has meaning only to the extent you can say what God would be if he/she/it did exist. If I say, "There is no such thing as a leprechaun," I don't mean that this will hold true regardless of what anyone means who uses the word "leprechaun." Someone could use that word to describe an Irish dwarf, and Irish dwarfs do indeed exist. I mean something quite specific by "leprechaun," and when I say there is no such thing, I mean there is no such thing as what I mean by that word and that's ALL I mean.

There is no evidence for the gods of any religion

As you are not familiar with all religions, you cannot make this claim. You can only say there is no evidence for the gods of a particular religion, and then only to the extent you understand that religion's theology, which you should not assume that you do without considerable study.

much less consciousness itself (being that consciousness is a non-phenomenon).

This brings up an interesting observation. There is indeed no evidence that consciousness exists. Nevertheless, consciousness DOES exist. We know this. It's impossible to doubt it. What does that tell us about the dependence of knowledge on evidence?

Those who claim the existence of a god, have the requirement to define that god

If they do, then the claim ceases to exist. God, intrinsically, is indefinable. A defined God is automatically not God.

By your line of argument then only people who are injured or sick should ever take drugs, and yet the taking of drugs (be they prescription or illegal) is quite common.

People who take opiates recreationally don't do so for the purpose of relieving pain. You have not asserted that religion is like a drug; you have asserted that it is like a pain-reliever, a more specific claim. If you want to make the more general claim that it is like a drug, that becomes more defensible, but then you must recognize that people use drugs for a lot of different reasons -- and one of those reasons is in fact spiritual exploration.

I might be inclined myself to say that religion is like, not an opiate, but a psychedelic. At its best, I believe it is.

Religion is still used as a means of control.

Of course it is but that's not the point. Guns are also used as a means of control. How does that work? If I point a gun at someone who has broken into my home and tell them to get the hell out, they are likely to do so, because they are afraid if they don't I will shoot them, resulting in injury and possibly death. The gun works as a means of control for a perfectly understandable reason.

Money is also used as a means of control. How does that work? If I offer someone money to persuade them to do a certain thing, they may accept this offer because the money can be used to acquire things they need or want. Again, the money works as a means of control for a perfectly understandable reason.

Why does religion work as a means of control? If I say to someone, "God wants you to do X," why would they believe me? What do they get out of doing X so as to please God? Why do they even believe there IS a God? To observe that religion has been used as a means of control doesn't answer the question of why religion exists. It can explain why someone who wants to use it as a means of control might WANT religion to exist, but not why it actually DOES exist -- why this means of control works.

The answer lies in religious experience. People believe in God (or some other metaphor) because they have religious experiences. These experiences are overwhelmingly compelling. But they are also hard to understand, and so when some Authority comes along with a canned explanation, that explanation can fill a vacuum and be accepted. If the explanation is then tied to certain levers of control, then the religion functions as a means of control. But just as money offers something real and a gun threatens something real, so religion also touches upon and plausibly offers something which is known to be real.

So no I did not jettison one of the stock explanations why religion developed.

You do if you say religion doesn't explain anything. But that's all right; as I said that statement is absurd, and the idea that religion evolved to explain things is at least plausible on the surface and non-absurd (even though it's wrong). So let's jettison instead the thing you said that's obviously wrong. If you want to bring up the other one we'll deal with that then.

Every so-called "spiritual" person I've ever encountered has defined spirituality as religion less the control aspects.

Hmm. Not too bad, but not quite. It's true that one must dispense with the control aspects of religion (and also the doctrinaire aspects which are part of that). However, you clearly don't understand what religion is apart from those control aspects, so this really didn't tell you anything.

The why is easy to understand: 1. Humanity has a persistent need to place blame on entities other than themselves (because it avoids guild--or a "bad" emotion). 2. Social Control, and propaganda. 3. Some weirdos just like dicking around with hokey magic (I can name names of people on this very forum Brian). 4. In pre-scientific times religion offered explanations of the world.

You're bouncing around all over the place here. The only one of those that has any relevance to why religion works as a means of control is #1. And that runs into the same problem as the business about an anodyne for a terrible life. Most people who hold religious belief don't do so out of guilt -- in fact, if anything the causal relation is the other way, if someone believes in a religion that uses guilt as a control mechanism.

Propaganda only works to the extent that it resonates with something one already knows or perceives. For example, during the Cold War anti-communist propaganda worked because people knew that Communist countries really existed, certain facts were available about them, and people were insecure about changes to American culture and so could in some cases be persuaded to blame these changes on Communism. If there were no such thing as a Communist country or if no anxiety-provoking changes to our culture had happened, the propaganda would not have worked, or not as well. Granted that there has been a lot of propaganda engaged in on behalf of and by religion, why does it work?

"Some weirdos just like dicking around with hokey magic" = "Some people have spiritual experiences and I don't get it so I'm going to call it names." You're not explaining things here; you're just admitting you don't have an explanation.

As for the explaining the unexplained business, that can account for a few religious doctrines but not for the existence of religion in itself. Prior to science, there were philosophers who offered explanations of things outside a religious context -- so no, that's not what religion is, even if on occasion religion has undertaken the task.

Each of these metaphors are actually quite terrible. And the reason why they are terrible is because they are metaphors for things which do not exist.

Oh, really? Tell me, then, what are they metaphors for that does not exist?

Creationism and Christianity are not among those subjects.

You're not talking about his creationism at all, and you're talking about his Christianity only tangentially. I don't share his Christianity. I do share his history of spiritual experience. I interpret it differently than he does, but I know what he meant. You do not.

A hallucination is a perfectly acceptable substitute for such a thing

For what thing? I know what is meant by "I heard the voice of God." You THINK you do, but you do not. So you're not in a position to say whether it could have been a hallucination; you have no clue really what "it" would be if it WEREN'T a hallucination.

EDIT: You are, of course, quite right that "hearing the voice of God" can be a hallucination. But it need not be; it can also be a clumsy way of describing a genuine spiritual experience. I can tell the difference from internal evidence regarding what the experience was like and what happened with the person as a result. While these words can be used to describe a hallucination, a false sensory experience typical of schizophrenia and sometimes found in other contexts such as the extremes of fatigue, sleep deprivation, and certain drugs, they cannot describe a delusion, the attribution of significance to real sensory or other information that actually has none. Suffice it to say that "hearing the voice of God" refers to a completely different experience when it is a hallucination than when it is a spiritual experience and the two cannot be confused.

I imagine that it is possible to explain the scientific principles behind color to a blind person. The experience of seeing color is an entirely different matter.

Exactly. And that is of course where the analogy fails. With color we have two different angles on the reality: the subjective experience of color vision, and other means of measuring wavelengths of light that can be compared to it. With spiritual experience, we are dealing with non-phenomena (consciousness and the universe), and so there is no other approach to it possible.

Unfortunately that is correct. It will continue until such a point as humans no longer need it. That day though is fast approaching.

That day will never arrive. It is impossible. Spiritual experience is fundamental to our own subjective reality.

The same can be said of the spiritual and the religious Brian. After all did you not say that these matters can only be expressed in metaphor and not in proof and evidence? If such is a case then it is not possible to know the reality of either of the topics

See above in regard to our ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that consciousness is real, despite a complete lack of objective evidence. When it comes to non-phenomena, evidence is both impossible and unnecessary. The rules here are different. Science is immaterial and scientific method is useless.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

I can see that Eric might be saying that he can "foretell the future" in some instances
given a set of requirements(in this case Copper's Astrologoical-signs). If that is the case,
I believe more clarification by Eric would have been productive
(ie: blanket-statements such as "I can foretell the future" are pretty BS).

Well -- yes.

I'm not really defending Eric here. I find him at least as irritating as you do. But if we want to test his claimed abilities, it's important to apply a proper test, to abilities he actually thinks he has, and not to something else conveniently substituted because they are things we KNOW he can't do.

Regardless of whether Eric can do what he thinks he can, he's still -- well -- Eric. No help for that, I'm afraid.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

How, exactly? The only information relevant to determining your birth sign (assuming there is no correlation between that and your personality) is your birthday. If he cannot ask questions relevant to that, then there is no way at all to do what you are describing. He can use your nonverbal communication as well as your verbal communication to find things out about your personality, but that's the point; he's not trying to use your horoscope to tell you what kind of person you are but to do the opposite. That means finding out things about your personality by mundane means isn't a trick, it's the proper procedure. He still has to somehow get from that to your sun sign.

"Asking questions" is not predicting, it's asking questions. This is all part of how cold reading works of course. In this instance, Eric gave a list of 5 out of 12 (40%) signs. If I say yes it is one of those signs then he is able to narrow down to 5. If I say no it is not one of those signs then he has narrowed down to 7. Again this isn't predictive, it's methodology for problem solving which are two radically different things. It's a process and takes true believers to make it work. Eric has routinely claims that astrology is a predictive force that he has used to accurately predict events on a massive scale. Are you really suggesting that someone with this level of alleged ability is unable to determine something as small as my birth sign? Are we now suggesting that it is not possible to reverse-engineer a birth sign from personality and behavior.

We aren't even getting into the wonderfully vague description part of the show yet where Eric tells me that I am tall but not very tall (one of my all-time favorite astrological descriptions).

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Then it is not really a concept. "Concept" is in this case, itself a metaphor, and there is no word for what it actually is.

One could argue that it isn't even a metaphor. The concept of what a god is, is quite clear from the definition of what the word means.

Sure it is, because you are claiming that it IS superstition, which implies (in part) that it is false. If you are claiming that an undefined term is false, you are not claiming anything.

Actually no I don't. The word god is clearly defined. Any definition other than the socally accepted definition is quite frankly wrong.

When you say "there is no God," this statement has meaning only to the extent you can say what God would be if he/she/it did exist. If I say, "There is no such thing as a leprechaun," I don't mean that this will hold true regardless of what anyone means who uses the word "leprechaun." Someone could use that word to describe an Irish dwarf, and Irish dwarfs do indeed exist. I mean something quite specific by "leprechaun," and when I say there is no such thing, I mean there is no such thing as what I mean by that word and that's ALL I mean.

Do you seriously think that this line of argumentation is going anywhere?

To say that god does not exist is quite clear. It means precisely that supernatural beings do not exist. In the case of leprechauns making the statement that they do not exist is equally valid. And by the way the word leprechaun can only apply to a specific type of mystical dwarf derived from Irish folklore.

As you are not familiar with all religions, you cannot make this claim. You can only say there is no evidence for the gods of a particular religion, and then only to the extent you understand that religion's theology, which you should not assume that you do without considerable study.

Find me a religion whose god has been proved to exist through empirical evidence. Failing that my statement stands. And that does not require study of theology btw.

This brings up an interesting observation. There is indeed no evidence that consciousness exists. Nevertheless, consciousness DOES exist. We know this. It's impossible to doubt it. What does that tell us about the dependence of knowledge on evidence?

Consciousness is a special case, much like the universe itself. Both are non-phenomena, and both can only truly be understood subjectively. However, in the case of religion one is making an objective rather than subjective claim. A subjective claim need not require evidence, objective claims certainly do require evidence.

If they do, then the claim ceases to exist. God, intrinsically, is indefinable. A defined God is automatically not God.

An undefined god likewise cannot be god either by virtue of being undefined. Theists typically make the claim that something exists. As such there must be evidence of such a thing existing and also a definition of the thing claimed to exist, since they are making an objective claim.

People who take opiates recreationally don't do so for the purpose of relieving pain. You have not asserted that religion is like a drug;

Are not the same drugs used recreationally also capable of medical use? A drug is a drug regardless of its use.

you have asserted that it is like a pain-reliever, a more specific claim. If you want to make the more general claim that it is like a drug, that becomes more defensible, but then you must recognize that people use drugs for a lot of different reasons -- and one of those reasons is in fact spiritual exploration.

The last part is a deliberate misinterpretation of my statement. Those who take drugs for "spiritual exploration" do not find any spirit, they find hallucinations. And that a drug can be used for pain relief and for recreational pleasure is not especially relevant to my claims that religion is an opiate.

Does the nature of morophine change because one takes it to relieve pain or because one wants to become high? No.

I might be inclined myself to say that religion is like, not an opiate, but a psychedelic. At its best, I believe it is.

Then that makes religion even more repugnant. You have removed what little "medical" applications it may have had (making people feel better about how shitty the world actually is) and replaced it with temporary insanity. Though if we were to use psychedelic drugs as a metaphor of what religion does then it is not only possible but likely that continuous application of religion will lead to permanent insanity.

<snip guns and money rhetoric>
Why does religion work as a means of control? If I say to someone, "God wants you to do X," why would they believe me? What do they get out of doing X so as to please God? Why do they even believe there IS a God? To observe that religion has been used as a means of control doesn't answer the question of why religion exists. It can explain why someone who wants to use it as a means of control might WANT religion to exist, but not why it actually DOES exist -- why this means of control works.

The method by which religion is used as a means of control is quite simple. There is a social concept of punishment in some form--in the case of the West "Hell". Where if one does not do what god wants them to do they will be sent for eternal torment. To those with primative minds this is quite frightening. And those who control the religion can control what god wants.

The answer lies in religious experience. People believe in God (or some other metaphor) because they have religious experiences. These experiences are overwhelmingly compelling. But they are also hard to understand, and so when some Authority comes along with a canned explanation, that explanation can fill a vacuum and be accepted. If the explanation is then tied to certain levers of control, then the religion functions as a means of control. But just as money offers something real and a gun threatens something real, so religion also touches upon and plausibly offers something which is known to be real.

I see you understand the mechanism by which religion is used as a means of control. And in such capacity were are in agreement--well mostly. Where we differ is in the "realness" of a religious "experience". I have yet to be confronted with any "religious/spiritual experience" that could not be explained away by hallucination, wishful thinking, consciousness acting strangely by means other than hallucination or misinterpretation of natural phenomena.

On the other hand, in my 33 years I've seen many instances of out right fraud, deception, and conning by would be religious and spiritual leaders, and much delusion by their followers.

You do if you say religion doesn't explain anything. But that's all right; as I said that statement is absurd, and the idea that religion evolved to explain things is at least plausible on the surface and non-absurd (even though it's wrong). So let's jettison instead the thing you said that's obviously wrong. If you want to bring up the other one we'll deal with that then.

Perhaps I should clarify. Religion does not explain anything now. We have science to turn to for explanations of phenomena. Pre-scientific explanations are no longer suitable. That said even prior to the advent of science, these pre-scientific explanations were not really explanations.

Hmm. Not too bad, but not quite. It's true that one must dispense with the control aspects of religion (and also the doctrinaire aspects which are part of that). However, you clearly don't understand what religion is apart from those control aspects, so this really didn't tell you anything.

I would posit that the removal of the control aspects of religion, actually makes it far more dangerous. Both religion and spirituality usually are forms of temporary insanity. Generally speaking it is more prudent to have these bouts of temporary insanity under the observation of one who is not insane.

You're bouncing around all over the place here.

Actually I'm not. I basically reposted the same explanation on religion I gave to you months ago. This is not the first time we've had this discussion.

Propaganda only works to the extent that it resonates with something one already knows or perceives. <snip pointless rhetoric>

Here we run into a problem. If we were to use your undefinable god, then he/she/it cannot be known. How can an individual know an unknown? They cannot, that is the nature of the unknown. At most one can know that an unknown phenomena exists (a known unknown if you will). And yet to define god as a phenomena would make him definable and therefore not god--in your own words.

Religious propaganda works only when it resonates with cultural notions. I'll use an example. Christian missionaries in order to convert (some of) the Inuit peoples had to change the nature of hell from a place of heat and fire to one of cold and ice. Why? Because the cultural and climactic conditions of the Inuit dictate a very hot place would be the opposite of torment.

"Some weirdos just like dicking around with hokey magic" = "Some people have spiritual experiences and I don't get it so I'm going to call it names." You're not explaining things here; you're just admitting you don't have an explanation.

Actually it is an explanation. The point of the new age occultism is nothing more and nothing less than a few Boomers who like to play around with hokey magic. It literally ties back into my recurring theme about the New Age being the same old occult, just repackaged for mass production and mass sales.

Believe it or not, I actually do get quite a bit of the hokey magic stuff. I used to pass myself off as a mystic for money. I made a point to study spirituality considering both of my parents are deluded with their respective doctrines.

As for the explaining the unexplained business, that can account for a few religious doctrines but not for the existence of religion in itself. Prior to science, there were philosophers who offered explanations of things outside a religious context -- so no, that's not what religion is, even if on occasion religion has undertaken the task.

Philosophers aside, the point of having a mythology--which is essentially what the defined religions are--is to explain natural phenomena.

Oh, really? Tell me, then, what are they metaphors for that does not exist?

I have no need to Brian. If your posisition is that god exists, then the burden of proof rests with you. If your position is that god is a metaphor for things which exist, then we need to be speaking of phenomena here, because no one else is interested in your consciousness playing tricks on you.

And if we are speaking of phenomena then since phenomena by their nature can be defined, then by your own definitions of this undefinable god they cannot be evidence of this god.

Now I know you are stuck in the black hole of your own spiritualism illogic, so I feel no need to help you free yourself from it unless you take the appropriate steps to free yourself. To do otherwise is a waste of my time.

You're not talking about his creationism at all, and you're talking about his Christianity only tangentially. I don't share his Christianity. I do share his history of spiritual experience. I interpret it differently than he does, but I know what he meant. You do not.

Actually I am. The concept of creationism is clearly defined, and it is also bullshit. Also, I am talking about his Christianity as well. I know Christianity very, very well, indeed considering by whom I was raised (a preacher) I would not consider it arrogant to make the claim that I've forgotten more Christian Theology than most people ever learn. So I know well of the gibberish your friend is speaking.

For what thing? I know what is meant by "I heard the voice of God." You THINK you do, but you do not. So you're not in a position to say whether it could have been a hallucination; you have no clue really what "it" would be if it WEREN'T a hallucination.

Actually, I would say it is you who does not know what is meant by "I heard the voice of God." There are only, and indeed can be only three explanations.

1. The person making such a claim hallucinated.
2. The person making such a claim heard the "voice" of his/her own consciousness and attributed it to god.
3. The person making such a claim is lying.

NOTE: I put voice in quotations because the thought process which one's consciousness under goes may manifest itself mentally as words or speech though not sound. And Yes Brian, I still maintain that the seat of consciousness is in the brain.

I see by your edit that I've chosen to not quote for brevity that you may have an inkling of my list.

Exactly. And that is of course where the analogy fails. With color we have two different angles on the reality: the subjective experience of color vision, and other means of measuring wavelengths of light that can be compared to it. With spiritual experience, we are dealing with non-phenomena (consciousness and the universe), and so there is no other approach to it possible.

I will only admit that this is a possiblity, because for me it is a known unknown. All my experience with with both non-phenomena leaves me with the distinct impression that what one is dealing with so-called spiritual experience is either self-deception, or misinterpretation of the experience or the deception of others.

That day will never arrive. It is impossible. Spiritual experience is fundamental to our own subjective reality.

In my meditative practices, which btw I practice twice daily for at least 15-20 minutes and often longer, the best description I can come up with in regards to reaching the desired state is to be in a state of emptiness. There is no enlightenment to be found because there is nothing to be enlightened about. It is a state wherein there is no tought, no feeling, no anything. It is conceivable that baring physical limitations one could reach this state of "is" and maintain it indefinitely.

Even this description is clumsy, and poorly conceived.

See above in regard to our ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that consciousness is real, despite a complete lack of objective evidence. When it comes to non-phenomena, evidence is both impossible and unnecessary. The rules here are different. Science is immaterial and scientific method is useless.

Ah but we are not agreed that "spiritual experiences" are non-phenomena. Only that consciousness and the universe are non-phenomena. When someone makes a claim that they experienced X they are making a claim of a phenomena, unless like I have done made it clear that due to the limitations of the language that there really is no way in which to describe the experience.

Your friend claimed to "hear" the voice of god. He made a statement about a supposed phenomena. As such until this supposed phenomena can be ruled a non-phenomena (as in lying and hallucination have been ruled out completely) then the rules of evidence and the method of science remain both material and useful.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Since we both appear to know how cold reading works, no dice.

No, the deal is you either make your guess or you don't. After your guess, I will disclose my birth sign and ascendant (assuming my aunt got all that stuff right of course; no reason to believe otherwise as she was quite brilliant in a number of areas).

OK, I thought about it, and I will make a guess. Of course, you know I am not claiming I can get it right. Brian explained the situation to you pretty well. I am not claiming I can "predict" your answer, just because I can make some predictions about future events in the world that seem to be somewhat more accurate than chance expectation might suggest, based largely on empirical "scientific" research, as well as on some astrological theory and maybe a little psi.

I will guess that you are a Scorpio, with Virgo rising (ascendant). That probably also means that Pluto is rising or in your first house too, and maybe Uranus btw.

Now I kept my part of the bargain; you can tell me what your Sun sign and rising sign really are.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

OK, I thought about it, and I will make a guess. Of course, you know I am not claiming I can get it right. Brian explained the situation to you pretty well. I am not claiming I can "predict" your answer, just because I can make some predictions about future events in the world that seem to be somewhat more accurate than chance expectation might suggest, based largely on empirical "scientific" research, as well as on some astrological theory and maybe a little psi.

I will guess that you are a Scorpio, with Virgo rising (ascendant). That probably also means that Pluto is rising or in your first house too, and maybe Uranus btw.

Now I kept my part of the bargain; you can tell me what your Sun sign and rising sign really are.

Nope.

I'm a Sagittarius with Taurus ascendant.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

I agree that Eric gets to make the rules i/r/t the Astrology-thingy.
What I'm saying is that Eric also claimed to be able to "foretell the future"
and I'm calling BS because:

A) If Eric can "foretell the future", he can foretell Copper's future response.
B) Because of A), that supercedes Eric's Astrological-claim(and requirements),
and calls into question your strawman-statement. That is all.

Not quite. Eric did deny he could tell me the closing price of stock prices on a date I can provide. I won't put words in Eric's mouth, but it seems that he "can't foretell everything".

Originally Posted by POC

Here is the edit:
I can see that Eric might be saying that he can "foretell the future" in some instances
given a set of requirements(in this case Copper's Astrologoical-signs). If that is the case,
I believe more clarification by Eric would have been productive
(ie: blanket-statements such as "I can foretell the future" are pretty BS).

Yes, I think the qualifier is important here. It matches how I can do things wrt future. Here goes and Vandal will get upset, but here goes again.

Rags can foretell the future in rare instances when some intuitive thought? (or who knows what) brings into being a "fact" that some event will happen. The number of said facts actually occurring , while not 100% but somewhere about 90% that these "events" are well worth heeding. Also, I do claim:
a. That I can not control when such events happen.
b. Rags is human and is thus subject to the "to err is human" thingie.
c. Rags does not use charts/astrology (I have no clue as to how to use that stuff).

IOW, I believe Eric would need to withdraw his claim to being able to "foretell the future"
before proceeding with any sort of divination of Copper's Astrological-breakdown.

If Eric has a rational qualifier, I'm cool with that.

Something like a "to err is human" qualifier.

Originally Posted by Brian

Eric does not claim to be able to "foretell the future" in the sense of knowing everything about what is going to happen, only in the sense of making some accurate predictions.

Yes, that would work as well.

Originally Posted by POC

IOW, I believe I can see what you're saying, but it's still a little "dodgy", IMO.
IOW, I'm getting pretty tired of people making "pre-dictions"!

1. Core Xer thingie, I think.
2. Yes, I do admit it can be strange or whatever for folks who've never had experience with "paranormal" "stuff". OTOH, if one has had experience voluntary (astrology) or involuntary "gut feelings" for lack of a better term, then one would be more open that such phenomena are real.
3. As far as the "spiritual realm". From what I've seen on the MB, is that it seems far too easy to get distracted from exploring the spiritual forest due to distractions of ugly trees.

Originally Posted by Copperfield

Nope.

I'm a Sagittarius with Taurus ascendant.

Makes sense though! You like freedom,and are outspoken (Sagittarius), and you are a materialist (Taurus). I am out of practice, I guess (it's been decades). I should have thought a little longer. But Sag was one of the 5 signs that I started with.

My record of predicting events in the world here, though, is impeccable. My record is here. It just takes practice and research. When I make impulsive guesses, as I did here, I usually fail.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Bulls goring each other, eh? Well, except this one is not charging.

? I though you were a Libra.