Proof of Life After Death!!

[pakeha]

Anyway, back to JE.

I “like” JE’s THE FIVE scheme/scam. You pay US$75 to buy a ticket in a draw to become one of THE (lucky) FIVE. If you’re not lucky enough to become one of THE FIVE your US$75 goes in to JE’s pocket for nothing (easy money). So rather than just discount his costs for five lucky people he runs a raffle that I imagine earns him more money than he losses in the discounted readings (if he does them). It’s totally at his word that he actually picks five winners and gives five readings so there’ no guarantee that his raffle is any more honest than his readings (and why would it be?).

Wonder why JE puts a $ before raffle ticket price of $75 on his site but not before his reading price of $800 (he just puts 800). Does he leave the $ out to make it seem like people aren't paying him actual money?

I'm glad I wasn't the only one to admire the brazenness of the Five scheme.

...Regrads

What does this have to do with the thread's topic, jbasfilh?

 

[ynot]

"Death has no terrors for the righteous man, because, with faith, he has the certainty fantasy delusion of a future life;

Fixed that for you.

hope leads him to expect an existence happier than his present one;

Yep - It's all merely fantasy hope and delusionary expectation (glad we agree)

and charity, which has been the law of his action, gives him the assurance that, in the world which he is about to enter, he will meet with no one whose recognition he will have reason to dread."

La la la la la . . .

 

[jiggeryqua]

You should be spelling it "practice" but I suppose Homer would do that too.

Actually, I should either have put the original "best practise" in double quotes (""best practise"") or to be less cumbersome just added '[sic]'. But I prefer not to draw attention to commonplace spelling mistakes, because if you can correct them then you must have understood the intent, which meant the communication was adequate. As is yours.

 

[dafydd]

The carnally-minded man, more attracted by corporeal life than by the life of the spirit, knows only the pains and pleasures of terrestrial existence. His only happiness is in the fugitive satisfaction of his earthly desires; his mind, constantly occupied with the vicissitude, of the present life, and painfully affected by them, is tortured with perpetual anxiety. The thought of death terrifies him, because he has doubts about his future, and because he has to leave all his affections and all his hopes behind him he leaves the earth. The spiritually-minded man, who has raised himself above the factitious wants created by the passions, has, even in this lower life, enjoyments unknown to the carnally-minded. The moderation of his desires gives calmness and serenity to his spirit. Happy in the good he does, life has no disappointments for him, and its vexations pass lightly over his consciousness, without leaving upon it any painful impress.

Nonsense.Non-spiritual people can lead fulfilling lives without believing in fairy tales. Some of the biggest douche bags in history were religious nuts.

 

[John Jones]

It's times like this I remember the immortal words of The Grass Roots:

Let's Live For Today.

We were never meant to worry the way that people do
And I don't need to hurry as long as I'm with you
We'll take it nice and easy and use my simple plan
You'll be my lovin' woman, I'll be your lovin' man
We'll take the most from living, have pleasure while we can (2-3-4)
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today
And don't worry 'bout tomorrow, hey, hey, hey
Sha-la-la-la-la-la, live for today

 

[ynot]

The spiritually-minded man, who has raised himself above the factitious wants created by the passions,

Factitious wants created by the passions are exactly what beliefs in gods, spirits and an afterlife are. To be spiritually-minded is to wallowing in factitious wants, not to rise above them.

 

[Marcus]

This is how these "I have proof/evidence!" threads always go (there have been many of them) . . .

(1) - An enthusiastic believer starts a thread claiming to have proof/evidence of a paranormal phenomenon.

(2) - Instead of providing actual proof/evidence however they merely provide anecdotal evidence, argument from incredulity, and the strength of their own belief.

(3) - Sceptical forum members point out that this isn’t actual proof/evidence and ask for the same.

(4) - The enthusiastic believer insists this IS actual proof/evidence (they begin to use all caps).

(5) - Sceptical forum members explain why it isn’t actual proof/evidence and give examples of what might be.

(6) - The enthusiastic believer begins to insult the sceptical forum members by calling them “CLOSED MINDED!” (and much worse). They continuously repeat their anecdotal evidence, argument from incredulity, and the strength of their own belief claiming it REALLY IS actual proof/evidence (text size can increase and colour change to red)

(7) - The above sequence repeats many times until the enthusiastic believer leaves the thread offering nothing but insults while claiming superiority and victory.

(8) - Actual proof/evidence of any paranormal phenomenon is never provided.

This is giving me UFO deja vu...

Time for (Stray Cat?) to provide the equivalent of a Gay Rodeo Blimp to entertain us during the pauses.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

Is it premature to say this thread has roundly debunked John Edward for the con artist he is?

 

[ynot]

Is it premature to say this thread has roundly debunked John Edward for the con artist he is?

JE has been debunked many times and years before this thread started. Sadly debunking does nothing to dent the faith of the true believers. Let’s hope that at least there may have been some potential JE believers lurking that have been influenced enough by this thread to stop them “Crossing Over” to the deluded side.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

JE has been debunked many times and years before this thread started. Sadly debunking does nothing to dent the faith of the true believers. Let’s hope that at least there may have been some potential JE believers lurking that have been influenced enough by this thread to stop them “Crossing Over” to the deluded side.

I should clarify, as it pertains to the OP's claim and explaining in almost every detailed the reading she got.

You however are absolutely correct.

 

[elipse]

I never saw anyone do that trick but I know some guys and dolls who did.

You win an internet! I'm afraid it is no longer shiny and new. Lots of unsavoury people have been using it for awful, unspeakable things. But I gave it a good brushing- off for you. Enjoy!

 

[elipse]

I don't believe I did. I recall responding to you and to one other poster in the same post, but I'm fairly certain I correctly attributed the various quoted portions. Of course, if I had made a mistake I wouldn't be the first poster to have done so, nor are mistakes only made by people you disagree with. However, you merely make the claim without linking to the post (or as we might say, 'evidence'), so I can't be sure. You can bet I'm not that bothered about looking back.

I have a real, honest question for you. Which do you think is more likely, that
A. You screwed up the quote function by mistake

Or

B. I had a very specific memory lapse that allowed me to remember half of what I wrote, but be utterly unfamiliar with the other half

Or

C. I snipped out a bunch of text not because it was too long and irrelevent (since it wasn't addressing anything I had said) but because I wanted to (with malice aforethought) frame you for the crime of mixing up the quote function

?

I am really curious as to which you consider most likely, because your response seems to indicate either b or c.

I think you're wilfully misunderstanding me, for which I take no blame at all. Would you like some evidence of that?

I don't willfully misunderstand people. Sometimes I genuinely don't understand them, though.

There you go.

I don't get it. After a whole bunch of strawman statements about how people who participate in this thread think, and right before the next pp in this post, where you do the same kind of strawmanning, I'm supposed to realize that calling you out on your "no true skeptic" fallacy and your strawmanning is evidence of my willfully misunderstanding you?

I do, as I believe you're alluding to, take issue with blind, binary 'skepticism' that involves little more than loudly proclaiming that one doesn't believe in the list of things 'proper' skeptics don't believe in. The sort that, for example, doesn't feel the need to produce evidence in exchanges that are transparently only about insulting another poster, the better to entrench its binarism

after that rant, you have the balls, or maybe just the lack of self-awareness, to post this:

Must you really drag this down to personal remarks? It tends to suggest a paucity of actual arguments, to go with the absence of actual evidence.

That's priceless.

As I said above, you haven't linked to the post nor even helpfully quoted the post number,

You quoted it! Along with a bunch of other stuff you attributed to me! Is it too much to ask you to follow the conversation? Seriously, am I supposed to quote the entireity of everything either of us has said? That gets very long. Fine. I will post the whole thing this time, so you won't be burdened with having to remember any of it. Hey, look how long and unwieldy it is!

A. No evidence

...of the apparently disputed claim that you mixed up the quote function. I am really curious as to your answer about that, BTW. No sarcasm.

B. Personal insults

I made one admittedly snarky comment on the way in which you present yourself. It BARELY, BARELY rises to the level of an insult.

C. An apparant conflict betwen 'authenticity' and 'existence'.

uh, yes, those words don't mean the same thing. The shroud of turin exists, but that doesn't mean it is authentic.

I feel no great no need to respond at length to your baseless claims. Even if that risks me making a post that portrays me as "unlikeable".

wait, what does this refer to? Which baseless claim?

As for the unlikable thing, you've made it more than clear how much contempt you have for everyone in the thread. I just thought, maybe, you know, you didn't realize how disdainful and dismissive you sounded. Couple of people called me out for that once. I hadn't realized how utterly like an ******* I sounded, so I apologized. From what I can see from this thread, you have one of the most off-putting and arrogant posting styles on the forum. Since I'm obviously not to be trusted about that, you could ask someone you do trust for an objective opinion, if you wanted.

Here, I'll say it again and next time you can come right out and call me a liar, rather than couch it as "You say..."

I am a performer. Bloody good one too.

Again, I am 100% sincere in this question and I am not being sarcastic. Do you really, truly believe that when I said "you say...I said" that the purpose of that was to sneakily attempt to cast doubt on your statement?

Indeed, which is why I'm interested in learning more. I want to find out if he is doing anything unusual, but I'm happy to accept (provisionally) that the instances are unusual.

1. Why do you even accept that the instances exist?
2. Why do you think it is more reasonable to accept not only their existence, but their unusualness?

Partly because gathering anecdotal evidence, initially, would be considerably easier that way than by kneejerk abusive responses to anyone not parroting your creed.

See, that right there is what makes you sound so awful. I haven't given any "kneejerk responses to anyone not parroting [my] creed." Besides, several others have asked robin for more information regarding her experiences, with varying degrees of civility, and not once has she said "i won't tell you, you meanie head!" She's more than willing to tell her version of events. What she hasn't provided, to either the polite or impolite, is transcripts or any other evidence that the uuu statements even existed, let alone are an unusual form of trickery.

Let's say I grew up behind one. One a lot better than Hoaxini. Let's say I was reading Randi 40 years before I found this forum. I only suggest that because it's true, and so makes for a better example than your uninformed hypothetical.

1. I'm not sure whether the "authority" in this little appeal to it is supposed to be the name dropping of Randi, or if it is supposed to be you 'cause you're older than I am.
2. It isn't a better example at all, unless you misunderstood my analogy completely. I wouldn't compare Randi to J E. It's not an apt comparison.

Yup, that's what I'm interested in.

Sigh. My point, which you seem hell bent on missing every time, is that you've gone out and bought the cider before it is warrented. That's pretty much all. Except, as evidenced below, you also seem to see the gallon of cider sitting unused in your basement as a virtue that makes you better than me.

I won't get that evidence from skeptics here (well, very few of them, to be sure, since most are just kneejerk creeders, thinking they 'do their bit' by insulting outsiders). I might get it from the likes of Robin, one way or another, but certainly not by swallowing anything she says whole. But neither will I get it by sticking my fingers in my ears and chanting "that's not possible!"

Repeating an ill-natured strawman will not make it any better a representation of my perspective.

But you can say with certainty that my interest is damnable gullibility, but your interest is likeable skepticism?

Adding a jaw dropping emoticon to a strawman will not make it any better a representation of my perspective.

 

[tsig]

You win an internet! I'm afraid it is no longer shiny and new. Lots of unsavoury people have been using it for awful, unspeakable things. But I gave it a good brushing- off for you. Enjoy!

My very own internet, I will like it and play with it and call it George.

 

[Slowvehicle]

My very own internet, I will like it and play with it and call it George.

...tell me about the lolbunnies...

 

[Sherman Bay]

I strongly suggest that you watch the videos of John of God in the youtube. He has been healing people for over 50 years. The point here is: how can he perform such surgeries without sterilizing the equipment and anesthetizing the patient and not causing any king of infections?

Only the gullible would think that he is really doing surgery. He has been scamming people for 50 years and the principles are well known by magicians.

Here's how it's done by a magician. In case you don't know, there is no incision (duh). It looks like the magician's hand is inserted in the body because he bends his fingers and makes a fold of skin on the victim's abdomen, and the blood and gory parts are from dead chickens.

You might want to research "magician's thumb," a way of concealing small items under a false thumb that passes a cursory examination.

It's all tricks, my friend. Don't fall for anyone who tells you otherwise.

 

[Garrette]

Only the gullible would think that he is really doing surgery. He has been scamming people for 50 years and the principles are well known by magicians.

Here's how it's done by a magician. In case you don't know, there is no incision (duh). It looks like the magician's hand is inserted in the body because he bends his fingers and makes a fold of skin on the victim's abdomen, and the blood and gory parts are from dead chickens.

You might want to research "magician's thumb," a way of concealing small items under a false thumb that passes a cursory examination.

It's all tricks, my friend. Don't fall for anyone who tells you otherwise.

The ever elusive proof that believers present in different forms seems always to be proof only of the fact that people can be fooled. The presenters invariably agree with that conclusion but also invariably fail to include themselves in that group of foolable people.

 

[GeeMack]

The ever elusive proof that believers present in different forms seems always to be proof only of the fact that people can be fooled. The presenters invariably agree with that conclusion but also invariably fail to include themselves in that group of foolable people.

[Bolding mine.] Which speaks directly to the opening salvo in this thread.

Norman Bates voice: "Well, I'm not a fool. And I'm not capable of being fooled! Not even by a woman John Edward."

 

[Elizabeth I]

I have another reflex meaning for POS ...

It can also mean "point of sale," which, considering the amount of money thrown at these "psychic" jerks, would also work.

...I strongly suggest that you watch the videos of John of God in the youtube. He has been healing people for over 50 years. The point here is: how can he perform such surgeries without sterilizing the equipment and anesthetizing the patient and not causing any king of infections?

Only the gullible would think that he is really doing surgery. He has been scamming people for 50 years and the principles are well known by magicians.

Here's how it's done by a magician. In case you don't know, there is no incision (duh). It looks like the magician's hand is inserted in the body because he bends his fingers and makes a fold of skin on the victim's abdomen, and the blood and gory parts are from dead chickens.

You might want to research "magician's thumb," a way of concealing small items under a false thumb that passes a cursory examination.

It's all tricks, my friend. Don't fall for anyone who tells you otherwise.

Yep, I've seen "psychic surgery" performed by a magician who explained how it's done. Seen from the small distance between the "surgeon" and the audience, it does look impressive, even when you know what's happening. Unfortunately, the illusion was spoiled in one case when the subject turned out to be ticklish.

People like John of God are especially despicable because, with all the preparation that needs to be done to pull off their tricks, there's no way they can be honestly deluded about their so-called talents. They have to know they're collecting their love-offerings for doing absolutely nothing at all to help people.

Regrads

It's always so sad when someone attempts to flounce out of the room, pushes on the door, and it turns out to open inward instead.

 

[Robin1]

FYI....the news site I originally posted my blogs on, patch.com, has recently changed it's entire focus and format. The over 500 comments after my blog, which I always request that people read, are no longer showing up.

And the few comments that actually do show up are a confused mess.

Among other things.

I will try to get it all straightened out.

 

[Nay_Sayer]

FYI....the news site I originally posted my blogs on, patch.com, has recently changed it's entire focus and format. The over 500 comments after my blog,which I always request that people read, are no longer showing up.

Among other things.

I will try to get it all straightened out.

Welcome back.