Yes, we get to hear the same sermon which Barry has delivered 2000 times before.
The self appointed anti cult czar. This is what constitutes "content" for Barry. ---In [email protected], <anartaxius@...> wrote : At least Doug is inspiring interesting replies, which partially accounts for FFL having at least 3 times the number of posts as The Peak since about May 17. The contrast of viewpoints is the driver of inspiration in some and displeasure in others. In scientific discussions, people argue and eventually some headway is made. In spiritual circles, people argue and little headway is ever made because the arguments are over imaginary things instead of real things. If spirituality ever really adopted evidence for its claims, progress could be made in settling many points of dispute. There is a certain lack of honesty that permeates spiritual discourse. A note (published in 1794) by Thomas Paine, one of the instigators of the American Revolution, regarding religious thinking (Paine was something of a Deist by the way, not an atheist): 'All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.' 'It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. He takes up the trade of a priest for the sake of gain, and, in order to qualify himself for that trade, he begins with a perjury. Can we conceive anything more destructive to morality than this?' From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2015 1:26 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: For those who don't believe in conspiracies What Doug fails to understand -- yet again -- is that you don't protect people from conspiracy theories by "moderating" (Buck's word for "banning") those claims. You protect people by raising their awareness of how to think without falling into the traps that conspiracy theorists prey on, and by teaching them how to analyze ANY claim to see if it holds up when compared to science, logic, and Occam's Razor. To really do this, and protect people, this kind of education needs to start in elementary school and then be carried forward throughout the remainder of one's education. Students need to be taught how to analyze claims made by religion, by cults, by politicians, and by those with an agenda who want them to buy into their conspiracy theories/agenda. Why I'm bothering to write this is that in reality the person who has been most consistent in trying to sell conspiracy theories to people on FFL is *Doug himself*. *He* is the one claims that there is a conspiracy of evil-intentioned people to drive away the "real" spiritual people by creating an atmosphere in which claims can actually BE examined in the way I suggest above. *He* is the one trying to ban people like me and Sal and Michael, who are in fact trying to present to those who tend to fall for claims without analyzing them thoroughly ways in which they really could and should analyze such claims. Buck wants a world in which *He* gets to decide what's "appropriate" to be said and what isn't. None of the people he wants to ban from FFL want that. We want, in fact,the opposite. We would like to see a forum in which everyone is free to challenge and analyze ANY claim, whether it is made by TB TMers or people who don't like TM and the TMO very much. Sal and Michael and I have been advocating the very thing that Buck *claims* to support here, but that his actual behavior has clearly shown that he hates, and is trying to prevent. He'd like to "moderate away" the people who actually subject claims to analysis. We would like to see more such analysis. From: "dhamiltony2k5@... [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> Yep, conspiracy theorizing is sort of like nicotine to an addiction to harder things that become perniciously asocial like, “The most unbalanced members of a society, when exposed to these ideas, can be driven to commit terrible acts, including assault and mass murder”. Conspiracy theorizing should be moderated by everyone for everyone's protection. A strong protection against conspiracy theorists is in a vital and strong free public education for all citizens, at the least, that starts early and is sustained in to adulthood providing the critical skill-sets to have a more widely informed citizenry. -JaiGuruYou! ---In [email protected], <turquoiseb@...> wrote : Re: Conspiracy theories as addiction, here's an article on the very subject. Interestingly enough, the article -- sane and surprisingly sanely written until you get to the last section -- appears on a class-A conspiracy site. Go figure. That said, doesn't this quote sound familiar? How many times have we heard the word "sheeple" used by conspiracy theory addicts here on FFL? The obsession with conspiracy theories has been compared to an addiction. Once one has delved deeply into this mindset, recovery—a return to balanced, sound thinking—is rare. What motivates a person to immerse himself in them in the first place? Conspiracy theories are a powerful source of pride and a wellspring of intellectual vanity. The theorist comes to see himself as thinking on a higher plane than the ignorant masses around him. He walks the fringes of society, watching his surroundings with suspicion. No one realizes what’s going on, he thinks. If speaking his mind on conspiracies causes others to recoil, he simply dismisses them as “dumb sheep” who cannot see what he sees. Every episode like this further reaffirms how special this inside information makes him. Why Conspiracy Theories? http://realtruth.org/articles/110203-001-society.html http://realtruth.org/articles/110203-001-society.html Why Conspiracy Theories? http://realtruth.org/articles/110203-001-society.html A Magazine Restoring Plain Understanding View on realtruth.org http://realtruth.org/articles/110203-001-society.html Preview by Yahoo From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2015 9:48 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: For those who don't believe in conspiracies From: salyavin808 <[email protected]> ---In [email protected], <noozguru@...> wrote : One big one announced today. You and I do this we go to jail. The banksters get a light fine. Their CEOs should be in prison and banks broken up. There isn't anyone who doesn't believe there are conspiracies. If you were to tell me this was a plot by a secret shadow government to help their reptilian overlords gain more power in the world then I would say you were speculating beyond what is required for a satisfactory explanation. That would be a conspiracy theory. Though not a very good one as it involves things we don't know anything about and have no knowledge of, like reptilian aliens and a government competent enough to pull off complex projects. Exactly. Conspiracies that stand the test of Occam's Razor have a chance of having happened, because one does not have to invent irrational and unprovable things to believe in them. Conspiracy theories require the person who believes in them to invest in things that cannot meet the Occam's Razor test (because there are simpler and more likely explanations) and require the believer to invest in the existence of complex "add-ons" to reality that cannot be proven to exist. The worst part about conspiracy theories IMO is that they are addictive. There have been many studies showing that the moment someone suspends belief in the rational and invests in one conspiracy theories, they are much more likely to believe the next conspiracy theory presented to them. Preferring irrational beliefs that cannot pass the Occam's Razor test becomes a habit, so what you wind up with is the people who flock to radio and TV shows that basically present nothing *but* conspiracy theories. And the audiences, having now put on the mindset of "believing the unbelievable" and "turning off their discrimination," tune in every day to find out the next unlikely thing they're supposed to feel all "elite" and "special" for "knowing." In other words, conspiracy theories are a drug, those who believe in them are junkies, and those who promote them are pushers.
