QuotecultreporterSo in your opinion Kath it is better to have free access to medical options that make a person sick and cause thousands of deaths per year (and please consider that these statistics come from a country with a relatively small population) than it is to have access to medical options that might not work but are certainly not hurting anybody? in life you can have both/and options
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Quotekath Hi the whole text of the encyclopedia is here:- by the way, Kath, I did know where to find the encyclopedia (otherwise I couldn't have read from it). the part I don't feel justified in doing has to do with annotating his entries to show inaccuracy. (I would also want to give the Skeptic's Dictionary the same treatment.)
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotekathRandi writes - 'As with all of my books, I dropped in a few jokes. I had a hard time getting these jokes accepted by St. Martin's Press, the original publishers. However, now that it's on the Internet, I not only can make sure that the full force of my wit is felt, but I can add new ones in response to my latest whims. Seriously, if you find errors here, I urge you to noti
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Randi does not have a good track record as far as his nonfiction writing. I had a look over the same work that the ISKCON entry comes from and checked out his entry on Crowley. as I expected it shows a superficial understanding of Crowley seemingly derived from secondary sources. he seems to have about as thorough an understanding of Crowley as I did at the age of 15. today I contemplated p
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoterrmoderatorJames Randi is highly respected and once won a MacArthur Foundation "genius award" for his accomplishements. See The award included $500,00. This was some years ago in 1986 and Randi might have chosen to simply retire and live a comfortable life. He didn't. Instead he chose to spend much of the money defending himself against frivolous litigation fil
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotekathQuoteAcid Reindeer Randi appears not to have actually read the Bhagavad-Gita But not every human being needs to you know. :) Why would he? No-one has limitless time on their hands and Randi's not religious or a mystic so why would he 'waste his time' reading a religion's holy book? because other people take his statements seriously. if he had said that ISK
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteThe actual Krishna philosophy, as outlined in the Bhagavad-Gita, calls for an end to wars and for universal love and food for all. Randi appears not to have actually read the Bhagavad-Gita, either. as far as I understand it, the text advocates a life of service and undertaking any action for its own sake. that includes waging war. the whole text comes from Krishna's instruction to the
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteLaura MarbleQuoteAcid ReindeerOn a regular basis, more for myself than for audience, I keep a nonfiction online journal, I have some consciousness of those challenges, by the way. I hope I didn't sound insulting when I pointed out the need for essays to be focused. That's not how I meant it. don't worry, I didn't take it that way.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Laura, the challenge of keeping an autobiographical essay down to eight hundred words does not excuse irresponsible journalism. on a regular basis, more for myself than for audience, I keep a nonfiction online journal, I have some consciousness of those challenges, by the way. your column does come across like an ad. I lost sympathy with you when you showed awareness of the nature of L
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I didn't mean to imply conscious deception.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

given the way the name Landmark got mentioned so often or even that it got mentioned at all versus, "a personal self-development seminar I won't name", or the equivalent and based on that none of the implied criticisms implied in the posts here appear in the column itself so did read to me like an ad.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

guys, remember that full frontal attacks tend to have an alienating effect.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteThe Anticult Do you have the links to the Creationist Challenge? Kent Hovind offered it. I can't link to the page where he talks about it so he seems to have retracted his offer.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteThe AnticultThe Randi Challenge is very tough. But I knew a guy who said he could "move a pencil with his mind". So I tried to set it up, and of course, he backed out. plenty of things can't work under laboratory conditions. I can make an audience give me a standing ovation. I can give my sexual partner an orgasm. how would you prove those statements?
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteThe AnticultBut let me tell you something. If anyone thinks they can pass James Randi's Million Dollar Challenge, I will help them do it. I am serious. Its not fixed, its legit. just like when those creationists go, I'll pay you X number of dollars if you can prove evolution. I always thought Randi should accept their challenge, win, and add the prize to his million dollar kit
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotecultreporterWhen you say - most people who have well functioning reality testing mental apparatus, will immediately see that David Icke is..well...nuts - is just skeptic shorthand. It is no different to when Bhaktivedanta Swami (founder of the Hare Krishnas) or any of his offspring gurus stand there and go "Oh the less intelligent people don't believe in God, they criticise us beca
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Anticult, blame rests with CSICOP and James Randi for the semantic drift that the word skeptic has undergone. they appropriated the term for their ends. the open-minded approach you mentioned sounds more like the Fortean approach. if you don't know about that movement than I say check it out.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

technically, a cynic means a person who suspects ulterior motives on the part of a person or organization that protrays themselves as having altruistic goals.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteRama Das (slave name)I think these reactions/actions are based on the most superficial interaction with his work, usually just based on hearing that he talks about reptilian humanoid creatures. not a minor factor. if he can believe that last part, he can pretty much believe anything. oh, and, you wrongly called me "he".
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuotezeligDOUBLETHINK KNIHTELBOUD Cognitive Dissonance Inattentional Blindness Honest Falsehood Confabulation you forgot negative hallucination... you know, when your brain censors out information that it perceives. cognitive dissonance happens when you do notice a discrepancy so it doesn't really belong there.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteRama Das (slave name)Acid, zelig, too, You guys just rush in to rip it down, you rip down Credo Mutwa (Acid) based on nothing but your little idea that indigenous peoples are deluded. I didn't say that. I do think that operating purely on the level of mythic consciousness can lead to cognitive errors when applied too globally. QuoteThe real reason ALL of you need to tear this stuff
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

in his world, each Halloween hospital emergency rooms fill up with victims of spiked apples put out there by Satanists. practioners of Wicca (a word he never uses, but, in context, he clearly means Wiccans) have direct contact with diabolic forces, rather than following a religion quite possibly originated in the last hundred years. he also takes for granted that real witches did indeed die
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteRama Das (slave name)After the book "the Biggest Secret" came out, David Icke was contacted by a man from Africa named Credo Mutwa who is a Zulu Sanusi, an initiate into the shamanistic knowledge of the Zulu people. so? tribal initiation doesn't make you infallible. a few years ago I heard a woman intitiated into an amerindian tradition explain in all seriousness durin
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteJack Oskar LarmExcuse the cliche, but the proof is in the pudding. I agree that Icke cannot be taken seriously with regard to his research abilities. When I mention someone like Barbara Walker and her book (above), she includes 13 pages of bibliography from a very wide range of sources - a testimony to her research abilities (IMO). you can do a lot of research and you can even research a l
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

est/the Forum/Landmark has/had a course specifically for clergy, as well. cost free? I don't remember. I don't remember much about this.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

does anyone have any more particular information on this investigation? names, etc.? we can try to get the word out by Craigslist to contact ex-volunteers to try to contact the people doing the investigation and provide some testimonies. it would help in that effort, though, to know who to contact.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

as an outsider who likes to speculate, I had thought if recruitment dipped below a certain level that the forum leaders lose their jobs and, I imagine, a major source of joy and pride for them. I do know that to even get considered for a leadership position, you have to had recruited a certain number of people. LEC works on social Darwinist principles that way and it makes total sense for an
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

how did you find out that bit of information?
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

let me summarize the situation, so no one has any false expectations. two separate speakers of Swedish contacted me to offer their services. one I have not gotten back to and as for the other, I explained (possibly over too much detail) about the idea. he has yet to back to me. perhaps he has yet to make up his mind, perhaps he doesn't want to do it. in the mean time, I strongly urg
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I put an ad asking for a translator and got a response. (perhaps I will get others, later, but for now I have just one.) could anyone upload a copy to savefile.com or similar? then she (the possible translator) can download the documentary without having to use bittorrent. given that she will donate her time in order to translate the documentary it would seem unfair that she also have to
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"