Spiritual atheist.

[StregaModerator]

@simonpaynton. You are seriously setting Davis up for what you believe will be a disaster? If I had information on how to persuade someone to do something I believed would damage them, I think I’d be keeping that to myself!

It’s not the fact that nothing is going to happen to @davis that would not have happened if he hadn’t brutalized the cards. It’s the fact that you think something awful will happen to him and you’re encouraging it, that has me flummoxed.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

My position is that disrespecting a personalised set of cards brings bad luck.

I think the only power in such things is their symbology, e.g. as in an American flag. It’s an artificial value that human beings assign to it. Only in that way (e.g. with voodoo), can such power of sentiments gain contagiousness.

[DavisModerator]

Strega wrote:

@simonpaynton. You are seriously setting Davis up for what you believe will be a disaster? If I had information on how to persuade someone to do something I believed would damage them, I think I’d be keeping that to myself!

It’s not the fact that nothing is going to happen to @davis that would not have happened if he hadn’t brutalized the cards. It’s the fact that you think something awful will happen to him and you’re encouraging it, that has me flummoxed.

Hey strega. Actually it was I who started the idea of this experiment and I who proposed to go ahead and do it. I really don’t think Simon is so secure per his belief in these Tarrot cards…since if he were…I don’t think he would be suggesting this experiment at all.

In any case…I am 99.9% sure that Tarrot cards are nothing more than paper and plastic which have rules that were randomly made up, improvised and changed per the creative whims of fraudsters, mystics and deluded colourful charming yet creepy charlatans. There is nothing special about tarrotcards, just as there is nothing special about the holy bible or a magic 8 ball. There is no conceivable mechanism per physics that would make Tarrot cards any more predictable than say, casting a whole bunch of cheerios on the table and reading the signs, or counting the amount of stairs in someone’s appartment and then predicting the future. I am convinced that cold reading is all it takes to hook people onto the delusion and that most people are taken in by it (especially if they haven’t been introduced to rigorous critical thinking, skepticism and or are aware of modern research on “why people believe crazy things”. It is not difficult to take specific sounding events in someone’s future and then later on project what happened back onto the memories of the actual tarrot card reading. All of the stock events that tarrot readers or other charatans give are likely or bound to happen to most people. They will get several people wrong and they will either stop going or wilfully ignore the mistakes and latch onto the right ones…and statistically a few readings will be very spot on and the victim will be blown away and truly believe the tarrot reader has special super amazing predictive powers.

If carrying cards around and pissing on them and ripping them up is what it will take for someone to drop the illusion…I am more than happy to oblige. Nothing will happen to me (because of the cards). If I am hit by a car…it was because I or the driver wasn’t paying attention (or perhaps Simon paid someone to take me down LOL).

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by  Davis.

[Winter LilyParticipant]

Tarot cards originally started out as a card game. Way back tarot cards were used to play an ancient game similar the modern game of Bridge.

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-surprising-origins-of-tarot-most-misunderstood-cards/

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by  Winter Lily.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@popebeanie – “It’s an artificial value that human beings assign to it.”

– are you saying that values are artificial? Values are human. We take value from physical flourishing, we value a healthy baby, for example. We don’t like to see our house go up in a fire.

So there are such things in life as fact/value crossovers. Or symbol/value.

@earthheart Winter Lily – you make a good point. Playing card games with them is something I thought could get people in trouble. That’s an interesting article. The lady I see uses the Aleister Crowley deck.

@davis – “I really don’t think Simon is so secure per his belief in these Tarrot cards…since if he were…I don’t think he would be suggesting this experiment at all.” – but I am. I keep telling you. Maybe you will prove me wrong.

[DavisModerator]

Simon…in that case…Strega is partially correct. While it’s true that it was my idea to go ahead with the experiment…if you really think it will end up in disaster…then technically you are encouraging me to do something that you are certain will do me harm.

[_Robert_Participant]

The tarot card trial…It is not a valid experiment. No control group and a multitude of subjective possible outcomes…with a sample size of one. To even bother with such an experiment the claim should at least have some sort of explanatory mechanism proposed besides ‘magic’. If I had the money, I would gladly buy every single deck of tarot cards in the world and burn them. Still not a real experiment but I would use some Ouija boards and rosary beads as kindling.

Our ability to imagine, believe and rally around fictitious concepts such as money, religion, and human rights was key to our domination of the planet; allowing us to organize and cooperate on grand scales…It’s hard for us to shake it off, but some of our fictitious beliefs are now just holding us back.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@davis – I wouldn’t do it. You must have to be mad to piss on a pack of personalised tarot cards. My very good advice is don’t do it, and give your tarot cards away to someone who wants them.

[StregaModerator]

@davis. Whatever you do, once you’ve libated the tarot cards, do nothing else that might jinx you, so as to keep the experiment clean.

If Simon is correct, what do you want on your tombstone?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I’m a Capricorn so I don’t believe in that Tarot card stuff.

[Simon MathewsParticipant]

I’ve kind of gone in the opposite direction from Simon P. I used to think horoscopes were a load of rubbish but then I saw this one that completely changed my mind. Amazed by its accuracy.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

– are you saying that values are artificial? Values are human. We take value from physical flourishing, we value a healthy baby, for example. We don’t like to see our house go up in a fire.

Some things have inherent value (at least to life on the planet), like water, food, environmental stability. So perhaps I could have found a better word. By artificial I meant more like man-made, in a social construct context, like one might say the meaning of “race” within a species depends more on local perception and discourse than on empirical discovery.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

What if (say) the tarot cards could be split up and sent to 10 of us to piss on and/or (say) burn? And include caricatures on cards of various religious prophets and leaders, while we’re at it? And advertise our feats during Halloween.

Would that complicate the experiment too much?

[DavisModerator]

Oh don’t worry. I most certainly will do my utter best to defile the cards in the scummiest way I can think of. I might even get a friend to record it and do a youtube video.

[StregaModerator]

Make sure you mock and disrespect them, the mocking is quite important, I think. (Who am I kidding its such a load of bollocks)

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by  Strega.

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