Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Americans are becoming less religious, especially among women for blessed is the fruit of thy wisdom and independence, now and at the hour of your awakening, Amen.

Evangelicals make up a smaller share of US population than commonly thought.

Teachers in Texas are now free to violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment clause.

Religious violence and intolerance in Nigeria is getting worse.

In Pakistan, the National Minorities Day passed without violence by religious extremists.

Critics school Kirk Cameron after weird rant about Atheists, Drag Queens and Strippers.

World of Woo: Scientists put 100 experienced astrologers to the test.

Environment:  How close to the planet’s tipping points are we?

Survey: Goodbye Religion: The Causes and Consequences of Secularization.

The odds on an empty Cosmos and who picks up the phone if ET calls us?

If the Big Bang wasn’t the first thing ever, what caused it?

Study finds alarming connection between eating processed meat and development of dementia.

Could it be that Quantum Entanglement in your brain generates Consciousness?

Has Donald Trump broken satire?

Long Reads:  How religious is Europe?  Unpacking the right’s “50-year plot” to wreck democracy and why it might work.  Who hasn’t heard about Christian Nationalism?  How the most powerful environmental groups help greenwash Big Meat’s climate impact.  Dismantling the walls in our heads. Just how intelligent is AI?

Sunday Book Club:  There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak. (see also video below).

Some photographs taken last week.  A look at the artwork of Banksy.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos: Philomena Cunk on Jesus. Trump: God’s chosen President? Terra Incognita by Elif Shafak.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week everyone!

The difference between faith and insanity is that faith is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence whereas insanity is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence.

William Harwood (Dictionary of Contemporary Mythology, London, 1st Books, 2002).

“But Reg, I don’t get why you won’t accept that Astrology is mostly very accurate over time”.

“It’s because I am a Capricorn that I do not accept Astrology and how a constellation that is 230 trillion miles away from Earth can influence the color of the socks I should wear today”.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I find that those newspaper astrology columns say things that are generically true for everyone, that’s why people think they’re accurate.  You could read any one of the twelve signs, and think it applies to you.

However, and I don’t know why, the professional birth charts that people can draw up seem to be very accurate.  Mine has a Grand Trine in Air which means “analytical scientist”, and Saturn in Aries (I think) which means “totally deprived of their offensive forces”.  I went to college with someone who was completely unsuited to her course, and her chart says “you will do things that you are completely unsuited for”.  I have seen a number of other weirdly specific accuracies.

[UnseenParticipant]

The Trumpster thinks that all Christians are evangelical and either play golf or are obsessed with it and share his obsession with crowd size.

[UnseenParticipant]

This is as good as any place to pass along a meme I made yesterday:

• This reply was modified 3 months, 2 weeks ago by  Unseen.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

However, and I don’t know why, the professional birth charts that people can draw up seem to be very accurate.

[StregaModerator]

Thanks Reg!!!

[_Robert_Participant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Have a great week everyone! The difference between faith and insanity is that faith is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence whereas insanity is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence. William Harwood (Dictionary of Contemporary Mythology, London, 1st Books, 2002).

Best quote I have seen in a while.

 

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I would call it a truism. You would have to be mad to think otherwise 🙂

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Unseen wrote:

This is as good as any place to pass along a meme I made yesterday:

That’s a good meme.  I heard on World Service that Trump is trying to distance himself from it, maybe because it looks sinister.

The “conservative” (i.e., corrupt) commentator they had on said it was a success for them to politicise the judiciary as they have done.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

accurate.

I find Randi’s debunking unconvincing.  He’s chosen traits that everyone has or wants, and everyone wants to be Bluebeard the pirate.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Here is one of the co-authors of Project 2025 discussing the plans.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I once did Horrorscope readings for 5 different star signs. All were very keen to have it done by a professional 🙂

I made up a few generic paragraphs that sounded profound but very vague. “You are happy to work on a task on your own but also enjoy being part of a team when the task allows for your own skill sets to be called upon”.  I spoke with Dan Dennett once and told him I called it my “dung heap of deepities”

All 5 people graded their specific reading with 2 giving it 8/10 and 3 giving it 9/10.

I then asked them to pass it to the person on their left and see if they would find anything in it relevant to their own star sign. Nobody was happy with me when it was discovered that all 5 reading were identical.

I asked how was it possible that the constellation of Capricorn could influence my luck, given that it is over 230,000,000,000,000 miles away. Still waiting on that answer…..

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

I made up a few generic paragraphs that sounded profound but very vague.

Yes, but being vague and general doesn’t prove anything.  Those things apply equally to everybody.

My college friend’s chart didn’t say “analytical scientist”, and mine didn’t say “totally unsuited to your occupation”.  They are very specific.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

went to college with someone who was completely unsuited to her course, and her chart says “you will do things that you are completely unsuited for”.  I have seen a number of other weirdly specific accuracies.

J.B. Rhine was a scientist with a specialty in researching parapsychology. One of the main critiques of his research into “phenomena” like extrasensory perception was that he had a probably unconscious bias of finding ways to discard disconfirming data.

Applied to astrology, one is far more likely to remember and be fascinated by predictions that turn out to be uncannily accurate. The scam called “cold reading” functions in a similar manner.

If I ever had an astrological reading telling me that I would set aside my teenage leaning toward being an Episcopal clergyman in favor of becoming an atheist philosopher whose main interests were linguistic philosophy and the questions surrounding free will consciousness, I’d be impressed on one level, but I’d also suspect that there existed a vast multitude of others which were far less accurate or would have been had they ever been cast.

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