On 10/18/2010 3:02 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Seldom have I seen a person strongly believing in one type of
>> pseudoscience
>> or supernatural phenomena, and adamantly denying the existence of
>> another,
>
> Well, other than organized religion. :-) I know lots of devout religious
> people who don't believe in any other religion's supernatural phenomena
> and who don't believe in UFOs or other conspiracy theories.
>
Uh, seriously, not really true, from what I have seen. In my experience 
you get one of two sorts - 1. All those other sorts of magic are 
deceptions. A position that is hardly any better than, "all this stuff 
is real". 2. Its all really the same stuff being done by my own magic 
spook, or his nemesis, just wearing a different hat.

Sure, they will claim they reject all other forms of woo, but when 
pressed, they will either turn out to reject it on the grounds that its 
contrary to their own religion, not because they don't think its is real 
at all, *or* it turns out that they are way less selective about just 
what sort of woo they manage to shoe horn in anyway, despite claiming 
otherwise, including, possibly, slightly different forms, under 
different names, of the same things they claim not to accept.


> Why yes, Jesus ascended into heaven after coming back from the dead.
> Golden plates? Flying horses? What bollocks!
>
Well, that may be true, in that respect, but also not surprising. Except 
for a small number of wackos that think D&D players actually worship 
Zues, or some similar BS, there is a marked difference between "still 
accepted" beliefs, and those rejected as mythology. For most of these 
people, reality really is a popularity contest. The fact that no one 
follows Apollo means it can be safely rejected. The fact that even a few 
hundred people follow god X on some island some place makes it 
*plausible* that something is going on, even if 99.9% of them insist 
that its the debil! trying to mislead a few hundred nobodies on some 
remote island. If its still believed, by any number of people at all, 
then it *exists*, and the only matter to be considered is whether it 
exists in the sense of being "God", or it exists are some plot against 
what ever it is they do believe in. Its popular, thus, on some level, 
real. Flying horses are not popular, therefor are not (which doesn't 
stop, for example, some people thinking Djinn and the like are 
responsible for possessions, in some of the more insane mini-groups in 
places where Zues would still be a popular figure too, where not for his 
geographic absence in the local mythos.

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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