Eye for an Eye

Start a new thread on Capt Bob.

Maybe we should have another sub-forum just to discuss actual cases. Greg Taylor's afterlife book is something of a compilation of pretty good cases of various types (not just NDE but crisis apparitions, deathbed visions, etc.), as are other similar books by David Fontana, Archie Roy, etc. Maybe we could do something similar here. I wouldn't object to the forum being open - it would be interesting to see whether the skeptics are universally dismissive as they appear to be when the cases come up ad hoc.
 
Last edited:
The mercurial nature of your 'point' evades most people it seems. I'm not into serial nonsense compassion, or problematizing the bleedin' obvious.

It's not about compassion - it's about getting past our bias fear of the other which prevents us from really understanding/communicating with the other. This promotes conflict, delays resolution, and causes mutual suffering.
 
Although there have been a lot of useful posts made in this thread, I'm still left with the uneasy feeling that there's an underlying problem. The problem I might express as a somewhat lighter version of the excesses of policy in the former Soviet Union, where political dissidents were regarded as psychiatric cases. Clearly we're not quite into that territory here. However the requests that we should try to see things from the point of view of others, though seemingly laudable, also seems to carry with it an implicit assumption that ideas of the validity of psi are not real, but are merely a result of an aberration in mental processes, and the 'cure' for that aberration is to attempt to change one's outlook.
 
IMO there's no need for a skeptical movement like the one we have, and trying to understand its rationalizations won't negate the reality that it should be replaced.

Forget about "the skeptic movement" for a second! I'm approaching this from the other side! I'm approaching this from the point of view of Sciborg and Arouet not proponents and skeptics as groups. I'm approaching this from the vantage of the individual members of Skeptiko not the JREF.

The experiment I want to conduct is to see if we, by thinking about each other differently, can make progress where others have failed. If we are successful on the small scale our model might attract attention and start branching out and maybe it will have influence on the large scale.

However the requests that we should try to see things from the point of view of others, though seemingly laudable, also seems to carry with it an implicit assumption that ideas of the validity of psi are not real, but are merely a result of an aberration in mental processes, and the 'cure' for that aberration is to attempt to change one's outlook.

Can you clarify how suggesting that all parties try and see things from the vantage point of the other could in any way carry with it such an implicit assumption?

My methodology applies to all communication, regardless of the topic. We're applying it in the particular context of the psi debate but nothing about it changes in the slightest if the topic changes.
 
Don't pretend you don't love the back and forth, the flourish of your posts suggests otherwise. Start a new thread on Capt Bob.
Captain Bob came up in CritDis this weekend, and none of the skeptics bit. The back and forth as you describe it, is poor substitute for serious skeptical input. The most likely explanation is Cpt. Bob saw his deceased friend as a ghost (whatever one of those is) who had come to say goodbye. To propose a different explanation requires abandoning some aspect of the testimony. I welcome skeptics offering alternative viewpoints that stick to the known data.
 
Don't pretend you don't love the back and forth, the flourish of your posts suggests otherwise. Start a new thread on Capt Bob.

There is no need to start a new thread. All we asked for was your basic take on the case. What do you think happened?
 
Arouet, crikey ...mutual suffering ?? Don't you think that's a bit over the top? ( unless you're a tree hugger) ...thought you were a back ripping lawyer ?

I get how it sounds but i'm actually serious. Its something that i've been thinking a lot about since this thread started. I'll try and elaborate later.

By the way even as a lawyer my style has never been that of treating the other side like dirt and acting in stern, aggressive ways. . I know lawyers that do that and frankly it just seems to me to be a crappy way to live.
 
I get how it sounds but i'm actually serious. Its something that i've been thinking a lot about since this thread started. I'll try and elaborate later.

By the way even as a lawyer my style has never been that of treating the other side like dirt and acting in stern, aggressive ways. . I know lawyers that do that and frankly it just seems to me to be a crappy way to live.

"I know lawyers that do that and frankly it just seems to me to be a crappy way to live."

Fair enough, I agree with you.
 
Although there have been a lot of useful posts made in this thread, I'm still left with the uneasy feeling that there's an underlying problem. The problem I might express as a somewhat lighter version of the excesses of policy in the former Soviet Union, where political dissidents were regarded as psychiatric cases. Clearly we're not quite into that territory here. However the requests that we should try to see things from the point of view of others, though seemingly laudable, also seems to carry with it an implicit assumption that ideas of the validity of psi are not real, but are merely a result of an aberration in mental processes, and the 'cure' for that aberration is to attempt to change one's outlook.

Especially since the skeptical movement has no reason for being as it currently exists, given the much better alternative.

Perhaps Arouet agrees with me, or he can tell us why we shouldn't institute a licensing program for psychics, and should continue to allow frauds that exist because this licensing is not in place. Basically JREF creates its own enemy by insisting on materialism being correct, which does make a sort of sense if the Million Dollar Challenge is a con for propaganda.

Given Randi's tolerance for crimes that benefit him personally, it wouldn't surprise me. Very akin to politicians who don't want solutions because the contentious fray is what keeps them in power.
 
There is no need to start a new thread. All we asked for was your basic take on the case. What do you think happened?
I didn't particularly want to disrail a thread. I can give a list of possibles. But I haven't heard a "proponent" explanation either yet beyond:

The most likely explanation is Cpt. Bob saw his deceased friend as a ghost (whatever one of those is)

What does that mean? What can we conclude from that?
 
I didn't particularly want to disrail a thread. I can give a list of possibles. But I haven't heard a "proponent" explanation either yet beyond:



What does that mean? What can we conclude from that?

OK. I will start a new thread.
 
I can give a list of possibles. But I haven't heard a "proponent" explanation either yet beyond:
In the spirt of this thread, when I read the list, I will imagine that I am reading it as if it were posted by a proponent. :-)

Cheers,
Bill
 
I'm going to try and set out my general
Especially since the skeptical movement has no reason for being as it currently exists, given the much better alternative.

I'm not sure how many times I can state this: my thread is not geared at the skeptical movement. As I said above, it would be great if they adopted these practices and it would be a nice end game - but my purpose in this thread is to do a proof of concept experiment to see if putting such a method in place would improve things amongst the members of this forum. If it's an amazing success here we could perhaps turn our thoughts towards branching it out, pointing people to this forum to see why they should adopt it.

Given my difficulties in convincing anyone here to give up their addiction to rancor I don't foresee having much luck with the greater community.
 
I'm going to try and set out my general


I'm not sure how many times I can state this: my thread is not geared at the skeptical movement. As I said above, it would be great if they adopted these practices and it would be a nice end game - but my purpose in this thread is to do a proof of concept experiment to see if putting such a method in place would improve things amongst the members of this forum. If it's an amazing success here we could perhaps turn our thoughts towards branching it out, pointing people to this forum to see why they should adopt it.

Given my difficulties in convincing anyone here to give up their addiction to rancor I don't foresee having much luck with the greater community.

I think you're being melodramatic here, both in your aspirations and your frustrations.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tim
I think Iyace was pointing out why he didn't see the point in Arouet's exercise, as it doesn't serve a purprose to rationalize why a group doing bad things is bad..
I would say more that I don't see value to it because we're not going to glean anything useful from trying to understand hateful and closed minds. It's one thing to see things from another perspective of someone that fundamentally disagrees with your assessment, and another to try things from someones perspective who thanks God for inventing AIDS to painfully murder homosexuals.

One is a passive engagement that can be managed by the mutually respectable process of intellectual discourse. One is ' in your face and out in the public ' intolerance that has no place in these discussions.
 
I would say more that I don't see value to it because we're not going to glean anything useful from trying to understand hateful and closed minds. It's one thing to see things from another perspective of someone that fundamentally disagrees with your assessment, and another to try things from someones perspective who thanks God for inventing AIDS to painfully murder homosexuals.

One is a passive engagement that can be managed by the mutually respectable process of intellectual discourse. One is ' in your face and out in the public ' intolerance that has no place in these discussions.
You know the "mind of God" well enough to be sure that conservative Christians are wrong?
 
You know the "mind of God" well enough to be sure that conservative Christians are wrong?

I really can't believe you are persisting with this appeal to the absurd. If they are Christian then they must use Christian teaching as the source of their convictions, not their own hatred and prejudice. It is not the mind of God that is in question but the extreme interpretations of some Old Testament passages selected to justify their own hateful behaviour. Again, if they are the Christians they claim to be, they need only refer to the New Testament and what the message of the Christ is, as reported therein.

Again I ask: is it your purpose to morph what Arouet and Iyace were originally discussing into an argument to view religious fanatics as equivalent to proponents? If you really want to go that way, you might be better looking at organised skepticism through the lens of fundamentalism.
 
Malf's conflating proscriptive and descriptive claims. So the WBC claim to experience God is mushed together with their repugnant views.

It would be like someone simultaneously saying Psi is real, and that one can use Psi to sense newborn puppies are evil and should be killed off.

Seems like bad logic to me.
 
I would say more that I don't see value to it because we're not going to glean anything useful from trying to understand hateful and closed minds. It's one thing to see things from another perspective of someone that fundamentally disagrees with your assessment, and another to try things from someones perspective who thanks God for inventing AIDS to painfully murder homosexuals.

One is a passive engagement that can be managed by the mutually respectable process of intellectual discourse. One is ' in your face and out in the public ' intolerance that has no place in these discussions.

Aside from the fact that I think I showed even with the WBC there was progress that could be made remember that was just an exercise in the thought process. Again: the object is to apply it amongst ourselves, in a situation where there is back and forth communication.
 
Back
Top