It's just a coincidence!!!

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

It still is. And no it was later in an adult class when I tried to catch up on what I missed...

Oh sorry, I made an assumption based on religious education in Poland.

In Poland, religion and not religious education or secular teaching of religion is an academic and accredited subject. You have regular classes in it, often taught by a priest and, I believe, run by a local Catholic church. Like Sunday school in school. No clue what they do with the minority Jewish, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox or Muslim and other students.

It's similar in many predominantly Catholic countries. My acquaintance from Peru had religion/theology as a subject all through school, too. He got very good grades in it and ironically, he's an agnostic.

I assumed Sweden used to have the same thing. That the local Lutheran church or someone used to have the same arrangement. I know that was once the case in Norway.

 

[-Fran-]

And once when I was traveling with a friend in Canada, we were hitch-hiking near Banff and had walked quite a ways down the road from any civilization when my shoe fell apart. Not more than a few feet away sat a perfectly good pair of Puma tennis shoes that fit perfectly as well. Just on the side of the road, in the middle of the woods, right when my shoe fell apart and they fit. Now that was a really weird coincidence!

Well, it's great when coincidences works that way

And on that same trip we walked off the road after dark and put down our sleeping bags for the night. It was not where any trails were and we had no light. In the morning we found ourselves surrounded by cacti but had not stepped or sat on a single one.

Reminds me of the fact that, if I wake up in the middle of the night at nature calling, stumbling half blind through the dark, and if one of my cats have puked on the floor while I slept, it doesn't matter where it is, I WILL step in it

So coincidences happen all the time. It's just that we want to attribute meaning to some of them but it's really arbitrary.

Exactly! Coincidences happens in reality, woo just happens in our heads!

 

[EeneyMinnieMoe]

Seriously, I'm surprised I haven't seen fundemental Christian groups who fights for a change in names of the weekdays and similar things, to get rid of the evil paganry (sp?). Or have I just not looked around enough?

Me too. I supposse they are satisfied with the week because it's in the number of days God created the Earth. Guess he killed the dinosaurs on a Friday.

Speaking of which, what a funny hodgepodge our calender is:

7 days a week because of Christianity

Those 7 days named for pagan gods

12 months from Roman gods and demi-gods

Every year for Jesus

And four holidays off from school because of the Jews.

Edit: I've heard of theists rejecting other aspects of pagan tradition in our lives, though. I had a friend in high school and a teacher who refused to get with Halloween because of it's pagan origins. I humorously explained that Halloween, as secularized and Westernized as it is now, is not about pagan Days of the Dead at all- but about Manhattan homosexuals getting to wear dresses and children getting a head start on Type 2 diabetes . My friend laughed and still insisted it was a pagan holiday.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Hey, didn't people bathe in the Satur- Day countries?

Nope--they just got all gloomy and sullen once a week.

Unless, of course, they happened to live in a spa town like Bath, or Baden or Baños.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Years after I left Colorado, I ran into a friend from there at an acquaintance's house in WA State. Then years after that I ran into him again, hiking on Mt Rainier. It isn't like I've bumped into anyone else from my Colorado days.

And once when I was traveling with a friend in Canada, we were hitch-hiking near Banff and had walked quite a ways down the road from any civilization when my shoe fell apart. Not more than a few feet away sat a perfectly good pair of Puma tennis shoes that fit perfectly as well. Just on the side of the road, in the middle of the woods, right when my shoe fell apart and they fit. Now that was a really weird coincidence!

And on that same trip we walked off the road after dark and put down our sleeping bags for the night. It was not where any trails were and we had no light. In the morning we found ourselves surrounded by cacti but had not stepped or sat on a single one.

So coincidences happen all the time. It's just that we want to attribute meaning to some of them but it's really arbitrary.

I've got one like that. I live in St. Louis, and I've long been a Mark Twain fan, but I have only visited Hannibal, MO two times in my life (and have driven through it on one other occasion). The first time was when I was a small child (before my youngest brother had even been born yet, I think).

The second time I went there was in the early 1990s to see a Bob Dylan concert in their riverfront amphitheater. (I had to join the chamber of commerce to get tickets, and ended up getting exceptionally good seats, BTW.) I went with 3 friends, and there were some interesting adventures as we went up a scenic and meandering route. When I parked the car and stepped out, the first person I saw in Hannibal was my youngest brother walking down the sidewalk past my car. He just happened to go there with his fiance for a weekend visit.

And while I've repeated this story a great many times, I don't even remember how many times I went somewhere and didn't run into a relative (or anyone else) throughout the entire trip. Coincidence plus confirmation bias gives the impression of something unusual going on.

 

[-Fran-]

I assumed Sweden used to have the same thing. That the local Lutheran church or someone used to have the same arrangement. I know that was once the case in Norway.

It's possible that that used to be the case. My knowledge is sorely lacking here It would be interesting to know though, when Religion as a subject went from being about "preaching" to becoming about "yet another part of culture," in the Swedish school system. Maybe I'll do some research.

 

[FSM]

One more eerie Lincoln & Kennedy cowinkidink they may not have had room for:

Kennedy had sex with Marilyn Monroe.
Lincoln had a stove pipe hat.
Marilyn Monroe starred in "Seven Year Itch".
A stove pipe is a conductor of heat.
There are seven days in a week.
A conductor rides on a train.
Sunday begins each week.
Trains follow tracks.
Many people go to church on Sunday.
Smokey Robinson sang "Tracks of My Tears".
In church they read The Bible.
Smokey Robinson's backup group was called "The Miracles".
Many miracles occur in The Bible.
My favorite sandwich spread is mustard, with molasses a close second. But after that, if I had to choose one, it would probably have to be -- either peanut butter, or... Miracle Whip!
Whip was what owners did to runaway slaves. Slaves were freed by Lincoln. Mayonnaise tastes slightly better than Miracle Whip. As a teenager, Kennedy was diagnosed with colitis at... the Mayo Clinic.

There. Now if that don't make you believe in woo, you just ain't tryin...

I got goosebumps, blobru...EERIE...Spooky...Unspeakable. And I'm just really talking about the fact that you put molasses on your sandwiches. That's downright frightening.

(Seriously, though, blobru, ROFLMAO.)

 

[-Fran-]

I've got one like that. I live in St. Louis, and I've long been a Mark Twain fan, but I have only visited Hannibal, MO two times in my life (and have driven through it on one other occasion). The first time was when I was a small child (before my youngest brother had even been born yet, I think).

The second time I went there was in the early 1990s to see a Bob Dylan concert in their riverfront amphitheater. (I had to join the chamber of commerce to get tickets, and ended up getting exceptionally good seats, BTW.) I went with 3 friends, and there were some interesting adventures as we went up a scenic and meandering route. When I parked the car and stepped out, the first person I saw in Hannibal was my youngest brother walking down the sidewalk past my car. He just happened to go there with his fiance for a weekend visit.

And while I've repeated this story a great many times, I don't even remember how many times I went somewhere and didn't run into a relative (or anyone else) throughout the entire trip. Coincidence plus confirmation bias gives the impression of something unusual going on.

With that many siblings, I'ts weird you don't meet them everywhere

I love Mark Twain by the way. I'm not an expert in his writings, but I do enjoy it very much. I don't know how many times I read Huckleberry Finn as a kid, and then I read it as an adult too, and still loved it But he has written many other good things as well, and he said quite a few witty things (though it's always hard to know if all those great aphorisms you read are always attributed to the right person.)

Nope--they just got all gloomy and sullen once a week.

And smellier

Unless, of course, they happened to live in a spa town like Bath, or Baden or Baños.

Yeah, they didn't have much of a choice then I've always wanted to go to Bath!

 

[-Fran-]

Yep, it is.

Speaking of Christmas, another of those pre-Christian festivals around the solstice was the Roman Saturnalia. As my high school Latin teacher Sr. Karen explained it (well--to the best of my memory anyway), the persecuted Christians had to hide their festivities within the Roman holiday, and that's the reason they chose that date.

That's what I heard too. And then as soon as they weren't persecuted anymore they shoved it down the throat of the pagans It was a good thing for the early church though that there was already a festivity here as well, at that time of the year, when they came to Scandinavia. Easier, I suppose to change its meaning, than to forbid it alltogether. In Sweden only one pagan holiday has survived, and the church used to be pretty adamant in trying to make people stop celebrating Midsummer with it's phallic may-pole and all But they have looong since given that struggle up.

Once a week, whether they needed one or not!

I like the Portuguese nomenclature for the weekdays best: Monday is segunda, Tuesday is terça, Wednesday is quarta, Thursday is quinta, and Friday is sexta.

Never heard that before That's... well, genius!

An online etymology dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com/

Thanks

 

[-Fran-]

This thread has been interesting. Thanks for sharing some of your personal stories, Fran.

(And everyone else, too.) And thanks for the gratuitious mention of FSM, you will be blessed by the noodly appendage.

Never having been blessed thus before... are the noodly appendages really wet and cold and... icky?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

wow talk about coincidence. I aquired 'the stand' just last week, and will plow thru it ASAP

Some strange power must be affecting us.

The very day after I finished Haing Ngor's book, "A Cambodian Odyssey" (Now called, "Survival in the Killing Fields"), he was murdered.

 

[Warge]

I always jumps to other things, but sometime I do jump back Maybe I should try 'It'?

I think I have seen more films than read books though, when it comes to Stephen King.

Very bad idea - films almost never live up to the books, especially in the case of Stephen King...

And you really should try It - it has something, it has 'It'.

Oh sorry, I made an assumption based on religious education in Poland.

In Poland, religion and not religious education or secular teaching of religion is an academic and accredited subject. You have regular classes in it, often taught by a priest and, I believe, run by a local Catholic church. Like Sunday school in school. No clue what they do with the minority Jewish, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox or Muslim and other students.

It's similar in many predominantly Catholic countries. My acquaintance from Peru had religion/theology as a subject all through school, too. He got very good grades in it and ironically, he's an agnostic.

I assumed Sweden used to have the same thing. That the local Lutheran church or someone used to have the same arrangement. I know that was once the case in Norway.

No thankfully, we quite soon separated schools from religion - don't remember exactly when it happened though. And I have to admit, I thought that was the case in Norway too.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

And thanks for the gratuitious mention of FSM, you will be blessed by the noodly appendage.

What is the correct etiquette for receiving a pastafarian blessing?

Should I sprinkle oregano or something?

 

[athon]

A number of years ago, my grandfather died. He was in and out of hospital with liver problems (big drinker), but this looked like his last stint.

I was at home doing some work of some sort, with nobody else around, when the front door swung shut with a huge bang. I hadn't even known it was open, and the back door was closed (I was sitting near it and had closed it myself due to the chill). It was a cold day but there wasn't much of a wind, if any.

I got up and called out, thinking somebody had come in and closed it, but saw I was still alone. It was odd and I remember thinking comically 'Hey, I wonder if Pop just died'. It was a strange thing to think but I tend to often do that.

Anyway, sure enough, half an hour later I received a call letting me know that my grandfather had passed away around the time the door closed. It's stuck with me as the most weird coincidence that has ever happened to me. Of course, the old man had about 36 grandchildren...and I was never really anything special. Why would he contact me?

Hm.

Athon

 

[Cuddles]

7 days a week because of Christianity

I don't think 7 days is because of Christianity. The whole 7 days thing is from the old testament which is actually Jewish. No idea if the idea is originally Jewish or came from somewhere else first though.

Hey, didn't people bathe in the Satur- Day countries?

We still don't.

 

[ThatSoundAgain]

In Sweden only one pagan holiday has survived, and the church used to be pretty adamant in trying to make people stop celebrating Midsummer with it's phallic may-pole and all But they have looong since given that struggle up.

Interestingly, here just on the other side of Öresund, the midsummer traditions require a bonfire. With a (papier-mâché) witch on a stake in it, celebrating the witch trials I suppose. So it is possible to subvert even this most pagan of holidays.

Very bad idea - films almost never live up to the books, especially in the case of Stephen King...

And you really should try It - it has something, it has 'It'.

The movies suck because King insists on having too much control. I am of the opinion that he doesn't understand film as a medium, and thinks you can mirror any literature 1:1 with a film. Hence his numerous mini-series in XX parts. I mean, that he doesn't think much of Kubrick's the Shining says it all. Not to mention what he did to Riget.

And It struck me as the proto-King novel. The protagonist writer, the group of children being alone in the horror. It even had a decent ending, for once!

I don't think 7 days is because of Christianity. The whole 7 days thing is from the old testament which is actually Jewish. No idea if the idea is originally Jewish or came from somewhere else first though.

We still don't.

Isn't 7 days a logical subdivision if you're making a lunar calendar (based on the moon phases)? I admit I know nothing about this, so it's just a guess.

 

[fls]

Since it looks like Rodney is off in the Real World....

I don't think telling stories about interesting and unusual events and declaring that they are merely coincidences is persuasive to Rodney or any other proponent of Synchronicity. From their perspective, you are simply ignoring or missing a deeper connection - like calling mesothelioma in a dock worker a coincidence.

I think that it would be more useful to tell your story, but place it into the appropriate context in order to guess at the probability. For example, with the Lincoln/Kennedy thing, instead of trying to determine the likelihood of each connection (which is an incomplete approach), you need to point out that none of these connections were specified a priori. Instead, figure out how many pieces of information of a type and kind similar to what was listed are available on Lincoln and Kennedy. If there are 100,000 details to consider, you have about a 50% chance of selecting at least a 100 unlikely (p<0.01) connections a posteriori.

Or for Skeptigirl's story about the author of a book dying just as she finished the book....in context, any death or major event (imprisonment, prestigious award) occurring within a few days of her finishing the book (or maybe even while she was reading the book) would have been considered an equivalent coincidence. Over the course of a lifetime, there must be hundreds of opportunities for a major event to coincide with a voracious (just a guess based on Skeptigirl's output) reader's book choice. Even a one in a thousand event has a probability of about 20% if you have 200 opportunities for it to occur.

I'm just suggesting that it would be more useful to make our reasoning explicit, since that is the step that Rodney and others seem to miss.

Linda

 

[-Fran-]

I don't think 7 days is because of Christianity. The whole 7 days thing is from the old testament which is actually Jewish. No idea if the idea is originally Jewish or came from somewhere else first though.

I have no real knowledge about this, but it would not surprise me if the 7-day concept is even older. Since many stuff in the Old Testament was derived from legends and folklore already existing in those parts of the world.

We still don't.

meh, now you made me spit licorice on my screen

 

[-Fran-]

Interestingly, here just on the other side of Öresund,

Denmark?

the midsummer traditions require a bonfire. With a (papier-mâché) witch on a stake in it, celebrating the witch trials I suppose.

Really? I didn't know that! Bonfires here are lit only on easter and Walpurgis, sans the witch though

So it is possible to subvert even this most pagan of holidays.

I am sorry that they got to you

Isn't 7 days a logical subdivision if you're making a lunar calendar (based on the moon phases)? I admit I know nothing about this, so it's just a guess.

I've always thought that the actual number of days, regardless of what they ended up being called, had something to do with that too. But I have not enough knowledge in things like that either.

 

[-Fran-]

Since it looks like Rodney is off in the Real World....

I wouldn't be too sure about that

I don't think telling stories about interesting and unusual events and declaring that they are merely coincidences is persuasive to Rodney or any other proponent of Synchronicity. From their perspective, you are simply ignoring or missing a deeper connection - like calling mesothelioma in a dock worker a coincidence.

It would seem so!

I think that it would be more useful to tell your story, but place it into the appropriate context in order to guess at the probability.

[snip]

I'm just suggesting that it would be more useful to make our reasoning explicit, since that is the step that Rodney and others seem to miss.

Linda

You're right! It just frustrates me that my knowledge is so lacking in these subjects, I often find myself unable to explain things in a proper way. I think I understand it well enough when I read about it, and then I can't relate it in a good way to other people, especially not in English I am glad you have replied in this thread. I could never have explained things this correctly and well.