Another James Randi rant

[ColoradoFB]

Once one appeals to the supernatural, then just throw away evidences altogether. Any evidence of these demons of yours being the cause? Maybe it is something else. Maybe an unknown force of nature. Maybe an invisible water-seeking donkey. Maybe the moon caused it. Who knows? Doesn't mean we should accept it without evidence, and even if we did, doesn't mean it was demons without any evidence of that either.

 

[Helen]

Dowsing is occultic. That's enough for anyone who knows what is going on.

Nor is it a matter of throwing away evidence; it is a matter of recognizing evidence of the supernatural. Science is evidently incapable of doing that, which is quite a handicap.

 

[ColoradoFB]

Originally posted by Helen:
Dowsing is occultic. That's enough for anyone who knows what is going on.

So again I ask...what is the evidence of it being demons?

 

[Helen]

Is it God?

We know it is not natural.

Take your choice.

 

[ChurchBoy]

Originally posted by ColoradoFB:
Once one appeals to the supernatural, then just throw away evidences altogether. Any evidence of these demons of yours being the cause? Maybe it is something else. Maybe an unknown force of nature. Maybe an invisible water-seeking donkey. Maybe the moon caused it. Who knows? Doesn't mean we should accept it without evidence, and even if we did, doesn't mean it was demons without any evidence of that either.

ColoradoFB,

Are you a Christian? Do you believe in the supernatural? I am just curious.

 

[ColoradoFB]

Originally posted by Helen:
Is it God?

We know it is not natural.

Take your choice.

How do you know?

 

[ColoradoFB]

Originally posted by ChurchBoy:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by ColoradoFB:
Once one appeals to the supernatural, then just throw away evidences altogether. Any evidence of these demons of yours being the cause? Maybe it is something else. Maybe an unknown force of nature. Maybe an invisible water-seeking donkey. Maybe the moon caused it. Who knows? Doesn't mean we should accept it without evidence, and even if we did, doesn't mean it was demons without any evidence of that either.

ColoradoFB,

Are you a Christian? Do you believe in the supernatural? I am just curious. </font>[/QUOTE]CB, I don't want to derail the issue, but my profile is available for you to see.

I will tell you though...Christian, yes. Supernatural events....EXTREMELY rare.

 

[Helen]

In that case, Colorado, please explain the natural event here -- inquiring minds want to know!

 

[Elena]

I didn’t say I made something real by believing in it. I did NOT believe in dowsing when I actually did it. I wasn’t hallucinating or on drugs or having a psychotic episode.

EF Doesn't matter whether you believed it to be true or not. The reality of whether dowsing works or not cannot be based on your personal experience no matter how rewarding you found it to be.

I was in the presence of a couple of my relatives who were trying to find water and had already dug 4 dry wells. I thought they were trying to pull my leg when they went about with a stick in their hands. When they handed it to me, I said, “OK, I’ll try it, but this hocus pocus stuff can’t work.” But, it did. It really shook me up at the time.

EF Why did it work? What are the physics behind it?

I guess I’m a psychopath or a liar now, eh?

EF Nowhere did I indicate either. I trust you experienced what you said you experienced. I do not trust that it holds as a general rule.

There were 4 dry wells previously dug… they didn’t want to go for 5. And whether or not there was water there really doesn’t explain what happened with the stick.

EF Did they dowse for the other 4 wells? At any rate, the point is that you will eventually hit water everywhere. If water being there does not explain what happened to the stick, then what is the point of dowsing?

THERE IS NO PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL EXPLANATION FOR WHAT HAPPENED!!!!! That’s the point!

EF Lol, then how do you know it works other than your own personal experience? Experimentally, it has shown not to be effective at a rate any better than chance.

Dowsing seems to work for only a few people, it does not work for the majority of people. The stick is not even important. Some people use metal rods. Some use an object like a pendulum and dowse over maps. The object to look for may not be water, it can be almost anything.

EF So let me get this straight. Neither the tool nor the source matter in dowsing? So how does it work?

I believe there are spiritual reasons for that… but that’s getting off the subject.

EF It's not off topic. Basically, you've discovered there is no scientific basis for dowsing. That's exactly what we say. Furthermore, the 'test' has been given to those who claim the gift and found to be no better than chance. I actually tested a colleague of mine who claimed he could locate metal objects. We hid a set of keys under one of ten plastic buckets and asked him to select which bucket hid the keys. His record? 1 right out of 11 (less than chance). He claimed that the experiment failed because there were metal wires and pipes in the floor affecting his results.

I was an atheist when I dowsed.

EF Relevant because?????

I did not believe in anything supernatural at that time and I certainly was not “projecting my desires” to accomplish some sort of psychokinetic feet even if I had wanted to or believed in such.

EF So you claim in hindsight. I suspect that alien abductees, ghost sighters, UFO sighters etc all claim the same.

I absolutely did NOT want the stick to move. I figured that, at best, there would be some sort of subconscious “twitch” of the stick making it move. But the stick BENT DOWN FORCEFULLY in my hand. I tried to keep the stick up, but could not. As I said, there was so much force bending the stick down that the bark was twisting off in my hands because I was resisting so much the downward pull. The stick BOWED OVER… it BENT… is that clear enough. There is NO naturalistic explanation for what happened that day. I was clearly shaken by the experience… but the crack in my atheistic beliefs was irreparable.

EF Why did you attribute it automatically to something spiritual? I have to admit, you're the first person led to Christ via dowsing.

It is not true because I believe in it.

EF Oh really? Based on your answers, what else could anyone conclude?

 

[ChurchBoy]

Elena,

Do you believe that Jesus Christ was physically resurrected from the dead? If yes, can you explain the biological processes that allowed Jesus to come back to life?

 

[Elena]

Originally posted by Helen:
Dowsing is occultic.

EF NOW THAT! that comment deserves an ice cream cone! I don't think I've laughed so hard in a long time. What's in the water that the demons want you to discover? I can see the movie now "The Blair Water-witching project". C'mon fess up and tell me this was a joke.

 

[ChurchBoy]

CB, I don't want to derail the issue, but my profile is available for you to see.

I will tell you though...Christian, yes. Supernatural events....EXTREMELY rare.

Oops! I should have read your profile. Are you a Gumby fan? Can you list some events that you consider to be legitimate supernatural events in history.

 

[Helen]

Elena, your profile says you are Baptist. Now I have to admit I don't know what that means to you, for I have seen Baptists on this board who do not seem to know Christ at all. But on the basis of your claimed faith, here:

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0099a.html

http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/books/dowsing/
This is Seventh Day Adventist, but nevertheless an excellent and well-researched book on line. If you are really interested in doing more than mocking me and others, you might want to take the time to read it.

 

[ILUVLIGHT]

Hi Y'all
This Randi guy seems like one who has been fooled too many times by charlitans. He is right about one thing though. This is that religion is the main cause for disagreement in the world. More people have been killed in the name of religion than anything else.

How ever true Christianity is not about forcing others to conform to your views. The Catholic Church does not represent Christianity, nor do Faith healers or the Branch dividians. These in my opinion are all false . Of coarse we know there are no false Atheist in the world. This is why he doesn't write critical mumbo jumbo about it. What was it Christ said about the board in our own eye. He can't see truth because of this board is His eye.

There is equally no hard evidence to back up atheists either. It's all base on what someone else has said about how we came to be. After all man doesn't live for ever on this old earth so there isn't anyone around to testify about evolution. But one thing science does do although not because they want to ("I'm sure"), and that is the more they study the more they prove the Bible right. How interesting that he left this important bit of truth out of his commentary.
May God Bless;
Mike

 

[Elena]

Originally posted by Helen:
Elena, your profile says you are Baptist. Now I have to admit I don't know what that means to you, for I have seen Baptists on this board who do not seem to know Christ at all.

EF What it means to me is simple. Jesus is the way to heaven. It also means that I was given a gift of intelligence and that God does not want me to check my brains at the door and accept claims of demonic dowsers, fairies, UFO's, a global flood or any one of many false idols of God presented in the name of some religion. So, I am very skeptical of all claims, scientific or otherwise. I am particularly skeptical of scientific claims inexorably and inseparably linked to a particular set of religious beliefs. I think that young earth creationism is a form of bibliolatry and I refuse to partake in bibliolatry. I don't doubt you disagree, but it's not my place to judge your heart so I won't. When I see a tangled mess of demons, pseudoscience and science discussed in the name of God, well I also tend to think that the person is very confused about what they believe. However, all I can do is point out the inconsistencies that I see and hope the person can learn from that.

 

[ChurchBoy]

Elena,

Bibliolatry? What is bibliolatry?

 

[Elena]

Originally posted by ChurchBoy:
Elena,

Bibliolatry? What is bibliolatry?

ef worshipping the bible as god

 

[ChurchBoy]

Originally posted by Elena:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by ChurchBoy:
Elena,

Bibliolatry? What is bibliolatry?

ef worshipping the bible as god </font>[/QUOTE]OK, but I don't know any Christians that worship the Bible as God. The Bible is simply God's revelation to people.

 

[Helen]

Elena, I don't worship the Bible, and I can see you did not read either of the links I posted.

You may be skeptical of quite a few things, but when you try to discount things God has said rather clearly in the Bible, I think you are worshipping your own brain instead of God. He did not give us intelligence in order to challenge His Word. The ONLY time in the Bible we are told to reason is in Isiah 1:14 -- so that we will realize how horrid our sins are and repent.

This does not mean we do not use our intelligence, only that it is not wise to do so to challenge God.

I found that I had to check my brains in at the door when accepting evolution. They were finally freed when I was able to escape that indoctrination and really start thinking for myself and looking at the evidence.

Real science does not mean you have to ignore the evidence that doesn't fit. It means you are free to really consider everything.

You seem to be using 'skepticism' to ignore or mock anything that doesn't fit in with your worldview. Unless you have the mind of God, that is probably not a wise thing to do.

 

[Elena]

Originally posted by Helen:
Real science does not mean you have to ignore the evidence that doesn't fit. It means you are free to really consider everything.

You seem to be using 'skepticism' to ignore or mock anything that doesn't fit in with your worldview. Unless you have the mind of God, that is probably not a wise thing to do.

EF Anything I've rejected is because of careful consideration of the evidence. My nature is skeptical and that includes science, pseudoscientific claims such as dowsing and religious claims made in the name of science.