--- In [email protected], "Richard J. Williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > TurquoiseB wrote: > > > It's just levitating, or flying through the air. > > > Shemp wrote: > > Angel, Lenz, Baba: all fakers. Yet when you believe > > it, like Barry does, it has a value, especially when, > > a decade or so later, you still believe the fakery. > > > So, you're saying that Angel, Lenz, and Baba are all > fakers and that Barry believes in their fakery, even > after a decade or more. > > So that makes Barry a True Believer (TB) because he > believes that Freddy levitated and then flew through > the air, but the Marshy's Yogic Flyers are just "bum > hopping"? >
I suppose that makes Barry a TBer. He is convinced that he saw a human being -- on numerous occasions -- defy the laws of gravity and fly through the air. He's 100% convinced of this. And there's no convincing him otherwise. Perhaps the moniker "cultist" is more appropriate. Here's the definition of "cult" from Wikipedia: "In religion and sociology, a cult is a term designating a cohesive group of people (generally, but not exclusively a relatively small and recently founded religious movement[1]) devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be outside the mainstream. Its status may come about either due to its novel belief system, its idiosyncratic practices, its perceived harmful effects on members, or because its perceived opposition to the interests of the mainstream culture. Non-religious groups may also display cult-like characteristics." 1) Barry's belief in levitation and swearing to have actually seen it qualifies as being devoted to "beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be outside the mainstream." 2) certainly, no one can argue that levitation is a "novel belief system". 3) I don't know much about Lenz's group, but I assume it constituted a "cohesive group of people"? So, Barry is not only a TBer, he is a cultist.
