Spiritual atheist.

[SteveInCOParticipant]

It seems to have worked.

I’d scratch my head, but that probably contributes to hair loss, and I’ve had enough of that. 😛

[PopeBeanieModerator]

I think the Preview area (below where we write our posts when we’re writing them) may confuse people. E.g. what happens if one tries to select not only the Preview text for copy, but the whole Preview box, plus the “Notify me of follow-up replies via email” control? I’ll bet that’s what we saw, but I’m afraid to test that theory here and now.

[P.S. Thanks for the magical post number, #2000, oh spirit of AZ.]

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by  PopeBeanie. Reason: [P.S.]

[StregaModerator]

Pope and everyone, if you need to delete one of your own posts, let us know, we will do it for you. PM is fine for that.

[Simon MathewsParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

@davis – it’s just a strong pattern that I notice, and that people remark upon. People who disrespect Tarot cards always seem to have something terrible happen to them soon after. Why, I don’t know. The cards seem to have some kind of dark forces associated with them.

My friend had a Tarot reading from the same lady I go to, and I heard the recording (about 1 hour). He told her virtually nothing, she told him all about his life as it is now and as she saw the future. We were sitting there laughing about it. Interestingly, the astrology parts and numerology parts seemed pretty random or “true for everybody” which is nearer the mark I think. The Tarot however was highly specific about his life. Of course, I’m not free to talk about it, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

@simonpaynton – Simon, are you a subscriber to the idea of holy water and its special properties?

I ask because your ideas about Tarot cards seem very similar. I’m not going to try and dissuade you from believing in Tarot – we’ve already had that discussion. However, assuming for the sake of argument that Tarot cards work, I’m interested in how you view the mechanics of it all. After all, Tarot cards appear to be just paper and yet they must be imbued with another special property if they are to be associated with dark forces. Do you see this property as coming about because of the ink patterns on the cards (as opposed to, say, playing cards) or due to the person that lays their hands on them?

I’m interested because I’m assuming you do not believe in holy water (correct me if I’m wrong). Is it your own experiences that make the difference?

[DavisModerator]

Sorry @simonpaynton but, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen you give a Dr. Bob answer. My question is…what kind of mechanism do you think lies behind the cards revealing information. They are, after all, pre-fabricated pieces of plastic/paper with ink. Do the cards take on extra properties? Does it have to do with quantum entanglement? Is there a fourth dimension in which connections are formed between events and tanglible objects such as tarrot cards?

I ask because…I simply cannot possibly imagine any mechanism that would explain this (besides pretty standard trickery and cold reading) which isn’t pure speculation or completely unfalsifiable.

As simon pointed out…this really does border on the magic (like holy water or prayers beamed up from your mind to God).

[SteveInCOParticipant]

Davis wrote:

As simon pointed out…this really does border on the magic (like holy water or prayers beamed up from your mind to God).

By “Simon” here I assume you mean Mr. Matthews!

Who’da thunk we’d have two people with an uncommon name like Simon in the same place at the same time?

And yes, I’d like to see Simon (Paynton’s) answer to your question, as well.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@simonm wrote: “I’m interested in how you view the mechanics of it all.”

So am I. How can I ever really know? But I have a kind of hypothesis. Each of us, at any one time and place, sits at the centre of a web of cause and effect – of events linked by causal relations – stretching out in all directions in spacetime. When we shuffle the pack of tarot cards, we are imparting causes to the cards, and each card is distinguished from the others only by the powerful psychological symbols upon it. Therefore the pack of cards enters our web of cause and effect at that moment in spacetime. So the effect of our shuffling is that it produces a tarot reading, a picture of our local web of cause and effect, that can be interpreted by an experienced reader. That’s certainly how it appears.

[Simon MathewsParticipant]

@simonpaynton – That is a good answer as it contains no woo and is straightforward. I agree with the part that the act of shuffling the cards will result in a different configuration for each person, which could be said to be a reflection of their part in the grand cause and effect scheme of things. I can even understand that if the symbols on the cards have a subliminal psychological effect it could cause different people to shuffle them in different ways that reflect their response to particular symbols. For example, if a symbol was of Death someone might subconsciously shuffle that away from them.

The bit I find hard to buy is that this complex web of cause and effect going on at the shuffler’s hand/brain/card configuration level could ever be interpreted to indicate life events such as which romantic partner they would have or whether or not they may travel abroad, for example. There is not enough physical information in the configuration of the cards (however much this configuration is dependent on the psychology of the shuffler) to predict things that have massively complex antecedents.

For me, it’s much more likely that the “experienced reader” is an experienced reader of people and no more needs the cards to make the statements they do than Dumbo needs his feather to fly.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

When the person shuffles the cards, they are face down, so you don’t know what you’re going to get. The reader just pulls them off one at a time and puts them face up.

The reader can’t tell you which romantic partner you would have, but she can tell you that you’re going to have a romantic partner, and some things about the relationship. Broad details about people, but not exactly which people they are.

[StregaModerator]

@simonpaynton as far as I recall, you think horoscopes work too. These sorts of beliefs might stem from a need to place order and predictability on what would otherwise be perceived as a chaotic and random existence. It seems to give reassurance that there’s a big master plan out there that humans can tap into.

Honestly Simon, if you took one set of tarot cards and did hideous disrespectful things to them, and took a duplicate pack that had had some kind of opposite attention, I don’t know, a spiritual blessing I imagine, do you honestly think anyone, and I do mean ANYONE could tell them apart? (Providing no damage occurred to the decks to differentiate them).

[SteveInCOParticipant]

Strega wrote:

Honestly Simon, if you took one set of tarot cards and did hideous disrespectful things to them

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the time PZ Meyers desecrated a communion wafer (the person who obtained it had already received threats from outraged Catholics). Interestingly, half of the outraged comments regarding the descration were actually accusations of *fraud* because they didn’t imagine someone could do such a thing and not be struck dead. PZ still breathed, therefore he couldn’t have hurt the cracker and must have been lying about doing so. It’s interesting how one’s worldview can affect the chain of inference.

(A satiric site once got it right…someone who didn’t realize the site was a satire tried to cite orbiting astronauts seeing the earth was round as evidence that it wasn’t flat, and the (fake) flat earther’s response was perfect; he claimed the astronauts couldn’t possibly have actually gone up or they’d have seen he was right.)

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by  SteveInCO. Reason: added a clarifying phrase

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@strega – I don’t believe in horoscopes any more. It’s not so much that they’re vague, as that they’re true for everyone.

“Honestly Simon, if you took one set of tarot cards and did hideous disrespectful things to them, and took a duplicate pack that had had some kind of opposite attention, I don’t know, a spiritual blessing I imagine, do you honestly think anyone, and I do mean ANYONE could tell them apart? (Providing no damage occurred to the decks to differentiate them).”

– that’s not my position. My position is that disrespecting a personalised set of cards brings bad luck. @davis is testing that out. We shall see if I have to eat my words.

[Simon MathewsParticipant]

SteveInCO wrote:

…the (fake) flat earther’s response was perfect; he claimed the astronauts couldn’t possibly have actually gone up or they’d have seen he was right.

Ha… love this. Even though the site was satirical I’ve heard people give similar sorts of responses in arguments. You have to admire the sheer bullishness of it.

[StregaModerator]

@simonpaynton. Exactly how do you propose to evidence the absence of bad luck? It’s rather tricky to prove the absence of something, as you know from trying to evidence atheism as the position of reason.

If @davis runs out of toothpaste the day after he ate garlic, is that bad luck? If he doesn’t get a promotion he was hoping for, is that bad luck? How would you define bad luck in a way that we can use as evidence for Davis’s experiment?

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@strega – something terrible happening is what I had in mind. Car crash, getting burgled, falsely arrested, that kind of thing.

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