Randi found out you can rarely talk someone out of believing in the supernatural, and he tried logic, mockery, sarcasm, facts, etc. etc.

When a post is pro-supernatural, I just pop in as the skeptic, so readers know we aren't all seekers. I don't expect to change many people's beliefs, but I just have to say I think Hubbard was a fraud.

A co-worker did a reading for a stranger today by holding
a wedding ring and telling the lady what thoughts came up.

She told her that the owner of the ring wore a blue uniform
and had killed himself because of an inferiority complex
due to being a very tiny man.
She also quoted from the suicide note.

It was true.

The Amazing Randi will give her a million bucks if she can "read minds" in a controlled situation. Or, she can win at poker and quit her job.

There are several explanations for this incident. She may have secretly known the person. She may have unconsciously recognized the woman and a memory rose within her that she interpreted as psychic, when it was just memory. She may have guessed wrong, and the "stranger" was too polite to tell her. No single incident can prove anything.

This is true, no single incident proves anything as far as concrete proof. And there is nothing wrong with being a bit sceptical. But there is a sceptic mentality that refuses to accept reasonable proof of anything.

Ultimately, belief is a matter of choice. To someone who is a dyed-in-the-wool sceptic (I have a few of those in my family) comfort is somehow derived from believing that there is no such thing beyond this life, there is no life beyond this planet, and everything that the government says is true, especially concerning 9-11, the JFK shooting, and the income tax. As for me, believing in no life beyond this one, no life beyond this planet, and buying into the official govt. party line on every controversial issue would make me feel that I was confined to a fish bowl. I derive comfort from believing that not all is known and that the universe is a pretty big place.

I suppose that it is somehow possible to strike a balance between the two extremes. As they say, "The truth is out there".

Pete

How many times do you think someone with soopa powahs would need to provide a demonstration, before they were believed?

Sorry, but it only takes one demonstration of 'abilities' to bury scepticism. And Im not talking about charlatans like John Edwards and the other fakers who spend copious amounts of time honing their 'abilities' to guess until they get a hit.





Define "reasonable proof", bet you cant. Reasonable proof is something that can be provided anytime, anywhere for anyone.



Sorry, but "belief" is based on information provided. Hence, if you are only provided the information that suits what is wanted to be 'believed', you'll believe it.

Put it this way, you know/believe your names is X because youve been told that from day one.

Ancients that were scared by the sun, used to fire arrows into the air. The Sun would eventually set, therefore, ancients believed they were at cause over the Sun.



Hubbard was nothing more than a charlatan that dabbled in the dark beliefs that have been around for eons. The very same 'darkness' that has had believers bend to anothers will.




P.S.

Charles Manson was a scientologist

I am not arguing weather or not Hubturd was a charlatan or that Manson at one time participated in Scientology. But that doesn't rule out that there really is intuition, that some people are more intuitive than others, or that there are other real examples of "something more to this world than meets the eye". However, virtually all of the incidences of "something special" tend to be anecdotal and extremely difficult to quantify at best. In otherwords, the reality of things like ESP tend to be subjective by their very nature.

Mainly, what I was commenting on was the psychology of belief. Some people are sceptical as a belief system. If an alien jumped out of a flying saucer, complete with bug eyes, a skin tight silver suit, a ray gun in some sort of electronically endowed holster, and proceeded to spit tobacco juice, the true sceptic would swear up and down that it was just another redneck. On the other hand, I have met a few people that think they have seen a UFO everytime a jet flies overhead. Somewhere in between there has to be a balance.

Pete

Just because some people are more "intuitive"/receptive than others, doesnt mean there is actually "more to this world than meets the eye".



There is where such things as "something special" et al fall on its arse.



Being "sceptical" isnt based on "belief", its more based upon objective reasoning based on what is proven to be factually based.

My closing comments above in my post, were more about the reasoning why I pushed this thread back to page one.

Manosn used what he learned from scientology and his psychopathy, to have others do his bidding for him, just like hubbard did/does

I have had a few astounding and credible psychic
experiences over the course of my lifetime.

These experiences "just happened" to me when I
wasn't looking to have a psychic experience.

I certainly couldn't replicate these experiences for Randi
as I had no control over them happening to me in the
first place.

Because I've had credible psychic experiences I believe
there are other people who also have credible psychic
experiences.

I do not believe that paying CoS four hundred
thousand dollars will improve anyone's chances
of having a psychic experience.

I believe the opposite is true because the tech shuts
down a person's intuition and creativity and turns
the person into a dull, drooling, staring into space,
angry Ronbot.

It's interesting to me that out of my huge family, I am
the only one who has had credible psychic experiences
though many of my family members have "every day
intuition" such as knowing who's calling on the phone etc.

Because it doesn't happen every day to everyone it's
easy for the majority to doubt the reality of a credible
psychic experience.

I compare it to the fact that my mother is the only family
member who has ever seen a UFO.

The rest of us go.... yeah right....
Why didn't that spacecraft come when we were around?

The amusing thing about my mother seeing a couple
of UFOs is that I'd consider her one of the least likely
types to have a UFO sighting.

She was an astronomer not an astrologer.
She was one of these "prove it to me" scientist types.

( but then again, astronomers are always looking at
the sky while most people stay indoors and watch
television)

I learned a lot from her about the "balance" RedPill
speaks of.

It's like religious faith. Totally silly to argue about
since no one can prove an afterlife or disprove an
afterlife, so why fight about it?

Especially, why kill people over it?

Azarel, human behavior is formed and influenced by vast externals. Evolution, sunlight, water, the Moon that causes tides, DNA, hormones, food, family, work, diet, finances, wars, natural disasters, etc.


Azarel, you have some strange form of solipsistic holography and magick confused. You have made your own mind the measure of all things and have egoically presumed that you yourself generate all phenomena. The truth is that you did not configure your own DNA or bring yourself into this world. You do not make your own heart beat or cause your lungs to breathe in and out. You do not digest your own food and you do not fire the synapses in your own brain. This is all being done for you by a greater accomplishing force that pervades Nature as Life. You arise in this process and are influenced by externals in every moment. For you to say that you are the center of the universe is solipsism, the error of Mind declaring itself to be God.


/////

You know Scientology is failing hard when Cracked.com is on their case. Satirical publications have often made passing innuendos or off the cuff remarks about Scientology for years, but it would appear that a lot of the fear and trepidation of calling Scientology on the carpet has evaporated in the wake of the stream of publicly humiliating footbullets. Cracked is running a "Top Ten Secret Celebrity Scientologists" article right now (http://tiny.pl/kgs4):

"Azarel, you have some strange form of solipsistic
holography and magick confused. You have made your
own mind the measure of all things and have egoically
presumed that you yourself generate all phenomena. The
truth is that you did not configure your own DNA or bring
yourself into this world. You do not make your own heart beat
or cause your lungs to breathe in and out. You do not digest
your own food and you do not fire the synapses in your own
brain. This is all being done for you by a greater accomplishing
force that pervades Nature as Life. You arise in this process
and are influenced by externals in every moment. For you to
say that you are the center of the universe is solipsism, the
error of Mind declaring itself to be God." - J Swift


Thank you.

In that case, Manson was not only a psychopath/sociopath, he was a smart one at that, observing what Hubbard did as opposed to what he told others to do. Sort of like that TV infomercial huckster, Don LaPre.
I should have been that smart. My reasoning was that all of these people attesting to various grades and their associated EP's couldn't ALL be full of beans. There was always something in the back of my mind saying "something here is not quite right", but while I was in, I missed the simplicity of it ... people WANTED to believe. Hubbard was a master at getting people to invest their faith in his BS. Because of the subjective nature of a lot of the things in Scientology, past a certain point things won't work unless you invest your faith in it, regardless of how it's pitched to the public.

I eventually learned what it was all about, but I learned the hard way, after years of misery and lots of bucks. Even still, there are certain things that I DO believe in, such as the Creator of the Universe. There are plenty of people who somehow believe that science rules out the existence of God. Not only is their reasoning faulty, they wouldn't know a miracle if it bit them in the ass.

Pete