Simon Paynton

@simonpaynton yes, good call.  I have a pitchfork (legacy from my satanist rituals I developed too much sloth over) which I might use on odd looking lumps in my garden.

@simonpaynton Simon, if you think I’m riding roughshod over statistical analysis, you do not understand statistical analysis.  You as an individual do not provide sufficient variety to form a statistic.  You need to combine a lot of people to reach statistical data requirements – the more people, the more likely a statistical finding is useful.  …[Read more]

@simonpaynton Say what you mean, Simon.  What are you insinuating?  That there’s a supernatural entity affecting your life purposefully?

@simonpaynton Simon, please don’t tell me you are suspecting supernatural forces of working in your favour.  Please don’t.

@SimonPaynton yeah, I can’t explain that. 🙂 I can only imagine the large variety of explanations for it that people around the world would volunteer!

@Simonpaynton you have to be kidding me, right?  You’re using the Bible to support your theory?  So on this tiny blue dot, in a nano-moment of time, in a tiny corner of the tiny planet, a bunch of men collected the musings of another bunch of men, then selectively bound them and called them “The book” and this is your evidence?  I had to check tw…[Read more]

@Simonpaynton The whole ‘thrive’ concept smacks of Ayn Rand, looking out for yourself.  The co-operation aspect is simply more Ayn Rand looking out for others only because it benefits yourself.  If it were not so, philanthropists would make up the bulk of our populations.  Instead, we have the opposite.

Humanity will most probably join the ot…[Read more]

@simonpaynton– I’m afraid I differ with all of your points.

Evolution is a process of mutational changes that increase survival being selected by environmental conditions so that they have an advantage in reproductive success. There is no pressure to improve, raw or otherwise.  When environmental circumstances change, reproductive success is…[Read more]

@simonpaynton  Good question and the answer is yes. In my book I provide some quotes by both Gandhi and MLK, Jr. with regard to their spirituality—one rooted in Hinduism and the other in Christianity—which underlay their  belief in nonviolence. I believe that most of the leaders of nonviolent movements have had a religious basis to their work…[Read more]

@SimonPaynton Did evangelical christianity helped create New atheism?

Did they also contribute to the rise of Atheism itself?

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 bruta…

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@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.…[Read more]

@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…[Read more]

@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…[Read more]

@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…[Read more]

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…[Read more]

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…

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@SimonPaynton I don’t think you have thought this “life after death” thing through completely. Let’s say I get hit by a car and it damages my brain, so I’m semi-vegetative. Do I get my old brain back? Let’s say I have epilepsy, or perhaps another mental disorder. Is that cured? Would I even be the same person if it was? How about a small…[Read more]