On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:35:39 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> On 1/19/2011 8:56 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> So there again, I don't think it's necessary to be offensive to those
>> who are happy to believe that some supernatural power intervened -
>> whether that's the case or not.
>>
>> Jim
> The problem is.. It doesn't just stop at them using it to effect their
> *own* lives. 

If the outcome is agreeable to everyone, there isn't a problem with 
this.  In my case, of course it affected more than just my life, it 
affected my wife's life and my stepson's life.  And we talked about it as 
well, but they ultimately said that since I'm the one who will be 
affected the most by the change (in that what I do from day to day would 
change dramatically), that ultimately it was my decision to make.

> Failure to recognize that it is a form of applied reasoning
> (and I would argue that isn't always the case, since you need data to
> reason from, and religion tends to reject wide ranges of data and
> sources), leads people to trying to make decisions for *others* based on
> the same reasoning. 

Which is why I don't think anyone should ever, ever, ever do a tarot 
reading for someone else, because it shifts the purpose from really 
organizing one's thoughts about an issue to just being entertainment.

There's absolutely nothing mystical about it at all when done properly.

> It also leads them, invariably, to false
> equivalencies, failure to understand what they are actually advocating
> for/against, etc. 

I find for me that when I do a "reading" myself, it actually *helps* me 
understand what I'm actually advocating for/against.  Because it's a tool 
that helps me be introspective while looking at the topic from all 
angles.  That's how I use the tool, and why it's an appropriate tool for 
me.

> We spent decades in the US, far more than any other
> country in the world, being "nice" to the religious, [...]

Yeah, there are whackos out there.  There are also non-religious whackos 
out there.

> Oh, right, and it also plays in to the hands of quack psychology, quack
> pharmacology, quack gizmos, modern patent medicine gibberish, and all
> the rest of the stuff, which preys in the same inability to tell the
> difference between confirmation bias, placebo, and/or what their own
> brain is doing, versus "quantum, spiritual, all natural, suplimental,
> toothpaste", or what ever they have made up this week to sell the same
> fools.

That's a completely different topic.

Jim

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