Everybody get out your patented Gullibility Boots, you’ll want them buckled up to about mid-thigh for this one: “Every cell in my body tingled with pure joy,” that is a common statement made by anyone who just entered “The Zone” state of consciousness. The euphoria reflects the fact that anti-aging and stress hormones are surging …
Category Archive: Gullibility
Jan 09 2013
Trust vs trust
As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I think it’s also worth mentioning that their are two kinds of trust. Our friend murk seems to think that only believers acknowledge that their beliefs are based on trust, and that skeptics are mistakenly assuming they don’t need to trust. He seems to think that this is because …
Jan 08 2013
It’s all about who you trust
For a while now I’ve been having a rather hit-or miss conversation with a Christian commenter who goes by “murk” and who wants me to put my trust in “the only one who can uphold these things.” Unfortunately, no such person shows up in the real world, so murk’s invitation is actually urging me, in …
Nov 06 2012
The cost of religion
Sometimes people will ask, “What’s so bad about believing in God? Even if it’s just a myth, it still gives people hope and a sense of purpose. What harm does that do?” If it were simply a matter of motivating people to live good lives and hope for the best, we might say it does …
Oct 12 2012
Our Father, who art a dickhead
I happened to catch a bit of Christian talk radio on my commute home the other day, and heard an exchange that was either funny or heartbreaking or possibly both. The guest was an author who had written a book about “God’s Purpose in Suffering,” or some such, and the point he was making was …
Aug 18 2012
Prayers for sale–but not for long
Freedom of religion notwithstanding, it seems that certain types of supernatural products and services are downright unworkable, for entirely commercial reasons. Just ask EBay. Beginning Aug.30, the online auction site will ban the sale of curses, spells, hexes, magic, prayers, blessing services, magic potions, healing sessions and more… “EBay regularly reviews categories and updates our …
Aug 02 2012
Magic Story Syndrome
Back in the good old days, I once watched an episode of Candid Camera in which Alan Funt gathered a bunch of people with a sub-par sense of humor, told them a joke, and then recorded them trying to re-tell the joke to other people. The bit was pretty comical, because the people tended to …
Jul 12 2012
Primitive Creationism
One thing I think Ken Ham and Kent Hovind do rather well is to remind us how primitive young-earth creationism really is. They know, even without looking at any evidence, that the primitive God of Genesis 1 and 2 hasn’t got a chance of coming up with anything as advanced as our modern, scientific understanding …
Jun 18 2012
3rd degree gullibility
There are three degrees of gullibility. First degree gullibility is when you believe something because you don’t know any better, like a very young child believing in Santa. Second degree gullibility is when you become aware of conflicts and inconsistencies in what you believe, but you do not admit that they are genuine conflicts and …
Jun 12 2012
The next Harold Camping
I’ve actually picked up a couple new commenters at Evangelical Realism recently. One of them is tokyotodd, whose philosophical arguments I touched on yesterday. The other is Mike Gantt, who reminds me a lot of Harold Camping (without the end-of-the-world fixation). Speaking of his views on hell, he writes: I came to it by reading …
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