A lot of folks I know seem to be into new age spirituality/astrology, and even though that is viewed as “not as harmful” as Christianity or the other major religions, I tend to view the direct pipelines to pseudoscience to be egregiously dangerous. Thoughts on new age spirituality/astrology?
I absolutely agree. Belief in reiki or healing crystals or The Secret or whatever is a doorway to anti-vax and other baseless bullshit.
We need to care about what we believe. We need to give a shit about whether something is actually true or we just want it to be true. As soon as you give up the former, you open yourself up completely to chance, to whichever quack comes along first to exploit your insecurities, fears or desires with what you want to hear.
And it’s not “open-minded” to believe random, unjustified shit. It’s actually close-minded. As with religion, if they can justify it in a repeatable, verifiable way, I’ll accept it. But there’s no way you can ever “disprove” these - usually poorly defined - ideas to them. There’s always some friend’s cousin’s co-worker who heard an anecdote of a tale of a story of a myth about it - not unlike the bible’s claim of 500 people seeing Jesus after his supposed crucifixion. Or “not everything can be detected by science,” even though they think they can - which is the “god is immaterial, undetectable, etc” argument you get from theists.
What’s weird is how some of them will deride religion, with specific venom at organised religion, and proudly tell you that they don’t believe in any of that stuff. You even hear these things from atheists who don’t believe in gods but believe in “energy” and “vibrations” and detoxes and conspiracy theories and Himalayan salt lamps and Deepak Chopra (literally anything he has to say) and all sorts of stuff that they can’t show to reflect reality. Meanwhile looking down their noses at the religious. I’ve said to more than one person that I don’t really care about the “organised’ part - the minutae of how they structure the mortal human
But it’s the exact same thing. It’s a faith claim - an unfalsifiable belief without good reason. For any of these spiritual/new-age defences, I bet you I can find an analogous apologetic from a Xtian. This is the problem with inconsistent skepticism and believing things based on unreliable, subjective feelings and “lived experience.” It’s no better than feeling “god n my heart.”
I’ve had a few people comment about why anti-”anti-vax” and anti-”anti-chemicals” stuff appears on an atheist page. It’s true they’re not inherently related. Where they overlap, though, is in the area of skepticism and not letting myths, fallacies and misinformation permeate and influence society. There’s a meme out there that says something like “Creationism: the belief that Kirk Cameron knows more about the nature and origin of the universe than Stephen Hawking.” And it’s the same here too. The belief that David Wolfe or Jenny McCarthy or John Edward know more about gravity and toxicology, immunology, and neuroscience and thanology than those who’ve studied it extensively. It’s an attempt corrupt how we acquire knowledge and validate ideas, for profit and other agendas. If you can be convinced of one bullshit new-age concept uncritically, then you leave yourself open the next and the next.
These need to be treated the same way as religious ideas: challenged for justification and dismissed or even ridiculed when offence is taken or immunity demanded.
What is your opinion on Eastern religion? I find religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism to be quite logical in their philosophies as well what their “gods” represent. Not to mention some of their beliefs are scientifically accurate (for example, everything is one and the same). Also, many of those who take psychedelic drugs realize truths that they didn’t even realize were ideas from Hindu philosophy. I find that very interesting. What’s your take on Eastern religion?
I don’t know how you got from multi-armed and elephant-headed creatures, reincarnation and past-lives, and the notion of a universe not just interested in but keeping tally of karmic accounting across those multiple lives… to “logical.” There’s nothing logical about the universe’s explosions, black holes and empty vacuum having some kind of opinion or record keeping about how often I’ve held the door for people or how many times I’ve flipped the bird to someone in traffic.
(You might like to watch season 3 of The Good Place, BTW.)
With something like Newton’s Third Law of Physics, which is often classically described as “equal and opposite reactions”, this is detectable and demonstrable to the point of being measurable. We have formulas that calculate this. Superstitions like karma don’t get to ride on the coat-tails of legitimate physics, claiming to represent the same thing by being cast as simple “cause and effect” while disregarding the “magic” aspect. If they’re the same, lets see their mechanisms and formulas. How do we detect how and when an event is karmically delivered, and how do we measure the attributes being re-balanced. And how can we detect when something is not karmic reaction?
These religions have claims that are as extraordinary as the Jesus-claims of Xtians, including Hinduism’s own creator (and destroyer) gods and Buddhism’s realms, ghosts and mysticism (unless you go the new-gen full-blown Marxist route), which require substantiation just like YHWH, Kite-Boy and heaven.
some of their beliefs are scientifically accurate
The bible says that Rome exists. This is accurate. Stoning someone to death will kill them. This is accurate (duh). The bible also names a number of kings and pharaohs who have been verified. That doesn’t mean that its additional claims of a magical man who took a long weekend nap to cure an invisible disease inflicted by his sky daddy’s incompetence – are also true.
The Titanic was a real ship, and the cities it was traveling from and to are real as well. That doesn’t mean Leonardo DiCaprio died on it. Washington D.C., New York, Sydney and London exist. This doesn’t mean the film Independence Day is true. Fictional stories can be set in the the real world. Or rather, a fictional version of our real world.
The bible also describes things as falling to Earth. This is scientifically accurate. It reflects a recognition of gravity. The bible also says that among the things that fall to Earth will be stars. This is scientifically ludicrous.
The Quran describes humans reaching the moon, seemingly foreshadowing what we know about the moon not being a light embossed into the moving sky. This is both scientifically and historically accurate, as we have reached the moon, even planting a reflector on it. Except that the Quran also says that Muhammad flew to the moon and cut it into two, which is possibly the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard.
Even a stopped clock gets the time right once (or twice) a day. I’m willing to bet that every religion gets at least a couple of things scientifically correct - not revealed, new knowledge, of course, but contemporary understanding for the time it was written (retelling, not revelation).
But “some” doesn’t help us at all. Why, other than convenience and comfort, would we look only at the “hits” and not also the “misses,” where Buddhism and/or Hinduism spouts something scientifically ludicrous? Ignoring all the evidence that doesn’t support your claim is called confirmation bias.
for example, everything is one and the same
This is, quite frankly, meaningless to me. What are you even saying or talking about? One what, and the same what as what? I honestly haven’t the faintest idea what this either means or proves.
I can think of a half-dozen different ways to interpret this platitude and a half-dozen scientific claims you could then mash into those interpretations, in order to come to the conclusion this vague, generic cliche predicts evolution, quantum theory, cosmology, artificial intelligence and even organ transplants.
Which specific scientific process are you likening it to? If it’s scientifically accurate, where are the formulas, mathematics, verifiable processes? Or, as with Islamic Science, is it retroactive interpretation with 20/20 hindsight?
How is Buddhism and Hinduism any different? That’s an actual question. And show your work.
many of those who take psychedelic drugs realize truths
How, exactly, did they determine they were “truths”? Again, show your work. Be specific so that others can undertake the same process and come to the same conclusion.
As best as I can even tell, “everything is one and the same” is not a truth, it’s just vague poetry masquerading as depth, designed to elicit a subjective inference from the listener – which is something that has also been studied: “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit.” It’s as generic as a psychic cold-read.
You previously described how “some of their beliefs are scientifically accurate” (emphasis by me). Do we determine “truth” by looking at only “some” of the evidence, “some” of the facts? Just the bits that say what we want them to say? Is cherry-picking as skilfully as a Xtian and conveniently disregarding the awkward, nonsensical bits how we determine “truth”?
Here’s a truth for you: You’re now one day closer to eating your next pizza. You’re also one day closer to eating your final pizza.
These are some sites where you can discover your own (randomly generated) deep, meaningful insights:
In order for a statement to be Biblical scientific foreknowledge, it must fit five criteria:
It must be correct. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it is incorrect, because the scientific method necessarily eschews incorrect data.It must be in the Bible. A statement cannot be Biblical scientific foreknowledge if it isn’t in the Bible, because the only possible source of Biblical scientific foreknowledge is the Bible.It must be unambiguous. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it is ambiguous, both because science is necessarily precise and because ambiguity allows modern science to be shoehorned into ancient religion when none is present.It must have been outside of contemporary knowledge. A statement cannot be scientific foreknowledge if it was already known, because this makes the “foreknowledge” into merely “knowledge” and makes divine intervention unnecessary.It must have been outside of contemporary technology. A statement cannot be considered scientific foreknowledge if it was knowable with the technology of the time, because this makes divine intervention unnecessary.
Can you similarly meet these criteria with Buddhist or Hindu “knowledge”?
Again, I’m going to be blunt; what I’m hearing is a bunch of flowery… stuff… that is wrapped in an expectation that it gets a free pass due to being relatively exotic to western individuals (US, UK, AU, NZ, EU); not being the classic, violent Abrahamic religions; being vague and pseudo-intellectual enough to let the listener invent their own meaning (Stone Soup-style); and being passed off as “ancient knowledge.”
None of that means anything whatsoever in terms of their obligations to substantiate its extraordinary, un- and super-natural claims.
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