Gray on 19/9/2019 at 06:05
Education, education, education. And find some way to make people stop taking pointless selfies and focus on things that actually matter.
Except every time you ask a seemingly normal question, it's always rhetorical and you already have the correct answer.
Tony_Tarantula on 22/9/2019 at 01:31
Quote Posted by Gray
Education, education, education. And find some way to make people stop taking pointless selfies and focus on things that actually matter.
Except every time you ask a seemingly normal question, it's always rhetorical and you already have the correct answer.
Doubt it.
There are numerous extremely "educated" people who have fallen for obvious bullshit stories because they were reported by sources that said person considered credible.
Related fact:
People who are educated with a high IQ are more likely to join cults, not less.
Cult members are almost universally more educated than the general public: (
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jssr.12246). There's a lot of reasons why, but two I've witnessed in people are that high IQ people tend to over-estimate their own cognitive superiority which makes them vulnerable to manipulation by more street smart people who make them feel like their "brilliance" has finally been recognized. I've also seen in some cases where people who were extremely intelligent are smart enough to spot where the inconsistencies are in commonly accepted current/historical/spiritual narratives but who are far too credulous when they come across plugs for those holes.
Sulphur on 22/9/2019 at 05:46
We didn't need more evidence that Tony doesn't know how to read or examine data or even understand words, but hey. As a quick Sunday morning exercise, why not.
The paper linked to 1) picks apart an earlier study that talks about the same thing, 2) re-examines it by conducting a statistical sample across NZ, Aus, England/Wales, and Canada that can only be extrapolated to the rest of the west, and 3) deals with 'alternative religions', not cults. If you scan the numbers for the actual things that people would describe as a cult like say Satanism (and Satanists will, of course, contest this), the numbers actually contradict Tony's assertion: 3.26%, 7.07%, 10%, and 12.2% of self-identified Satanists across those four nations have a BA or higher. I also did a double-take when I saw 'Yoga' considered as a religion, when it's in fact a discipline, but whatever.
Further, the paper even concludes, and I quote, 'Assuming this pattern can be generalized to other industrialized nations, the obvious conclusion here is that, to paraphrase Troeltsch (1931), mystical religion and irreligion are both “religions” of the educated classes.'
In short: the truth is always more insightful than the inane, cherry-picked dribble Tony comes up with on a per-picosecond basis.
Renzatic on 22/9/2019 at 07:23
How could anyone consider yoga a religion? It's kindasorta Buddhist, I guess, but only insofar that a lot of its practitioners extol this sortakindaish Buddhist notion of spiritual transcendence, which apparently only happens if you get really good at it.
Mostly, I consider it calisthenics with atmospherics.
Mr.Duck on 22/9/2019 at 07:25
And in case anyone's wondering, this -will- be on Monday's quiz. Class dismissed.
Sulphur on 22/9/2019 at 07:52
Quote Posted by Renzatic
How could anyone consider yoga a religion? It's kindasorta Buddhist, I guess, but only insofar that a lot of its practitioners extol this sortakindaish Buddhist notion of spiritual transcendence, which apparently only happens if you get
really good at it.
Mostly, I consider it calisthenics with atmospherics.
Yoga derives from Hinduism, and dates back to thousands of years ago. Like I said, it's more of a discipline. Buddhism shares similar notions, and at this point there's enough variants of yoga to confuse where what when and how, but it's generally practiced as something at the intersection of body/mind/spirit; or at least that's the idea behind it. Classes today mostly dispense with the spirituality, and focus on the physical benefits of each asana. Not sure if that's how it's done in the US, but in today's India lotsa folks do it for the physical fitness aspect first and foremost.
Trance on 22/9/2019 at 11:06
Quote Posted by The study
As Dawson notes, the majority of members of NRMs are “disproportionately from middle- to upper-middle-class households, the advantaged segments of the population” (2003:122). The relatively privileged position provided by their class background generally leads
to a better education, the resulting opportunities to consider spiritual alternatives (whether insideor outside of the classroom), and more freedom to experiment with these alternatives.
So the dumb sheltered kids from well-off families going to college to find weird new things to believe in. I'm shocked. Shocked I say.
Renzatic on 22/9/2019 at 19:17
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Not sure if that's how it's done in the US, but in today's India lotsa folks do it for the physical fitness aspect first and foremost.
It's about the same here, though some people do play up the mysticism for marketing purposes, or as an excuse to say namaste all the time.
Gray on 28/9/2019 at 03:04
Quote Posted by Tony_Tarantula
There are numerous extremely "educated" people who have fallen for obvious bullshit stories because they were reported by sources that said person considered credible.
You misunderstood me. I meant a
good education. That's why I said it thrice.
And yoga is not a religion. I did Ashtanga yoga for many years, and my teacher was a bit of a hippie who went to India and probably smoked quite a bit of weed, but she managed to keep her bullshit out of it, and I could just use it as a form of exercise. The popular myth is that yoga is an ancient practice, but it was really more or less invented in the 1920s, vaguely based on old practices. It's not nearly as old and mysterious as it's made out to be.