Take the belief in evolution. Most people who believe in evolution do so because they were told that it is scientific fact. People have a bad habit of believing what others tell them instead of searching for the truth. Be careful what others tell you. I’ll give you an example. Most psych textbooks and psych professors will talk about the placebo effect and how powerful it is. Study after study has been done on this phenomena and in most cases the placebo works just as well or better than the treatment, simply because the people involved believe they are receiving the treatment.
Most Christians will tell you that once we find Jesus/Yeshua/Jehovah/Yahweh/God it is like we had just been told we had been given a placebo all our lives. We were instantly awakened to the truth and left with a feeling of awe that we had actually been duped into believing all the things we had been indoctrinated with since kindergarten. That is just one way that I believe Jesus restores sight to the blind.
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Then I would have to ask why placebo also works on atheists?
Most Christians will tell you that once we find Jesus/Yeshua/Jehovah/Yahweh/God it is like we had just been told we had been given a placebo all our lives.
So, a person who was told and believed nothing somehow was undergoing a placebo effect, and when they then are told, and believe in, something that will do them good and has no measurable effect, they are not undergoing a placebo effect? I've seen illogic before, where people arrive at conclusions that bear no logical connection to the evidence, but this is a rarer beast, negative -logic. You've somehow gone through all the evidence and arrived at the exact inverse of the correct answer.
"People have a bad habit of believing what others tell them instead of searching for the truth. Be careful what others tell you."
As a cradle Christian who searched for the truth and ended up as an atheist, I agree completely.
That, or, I did research into the field for myself, read the evidence they have and came to the same conclusion. NEXT!
"People have a bad habit of believing what others tell them instead of searching for the truth."
You have heard of Christianity, right? Totally unsupported by evidence and, yet, people actually believe it.
Most psych textbooks and psych professors will talk about the placebo effect and how powerful it is. Study after study has been done on this phenomena and in most cases the placebo works just as well or better than the treatment
Hey, here's an idea. How about you don't lie?
There is no way a placebo can work better than an actual treatment because a placebo works by convincing people they are actually receiving the treatment. You can't give someone a treatment then convince them they're not receiving it, therefore people who are receiving the treatment believe they're receiving the treatment just as much as those who are receiving the placebo do. The difference is that, except in cases where the drug is untested (cases which rely on the placebo effect as a comparator against which to test the drug rather than setting out to prove the placebo effect), those people who are actually receiving the treatment get better quicker.
Goosey wrote: "There is no way a placebo can work better than an actual treatment because a placebo works by convincing people they are actually receiving the treatment."
Not "receiving the treatment", "receiving a treatment". If you convince them they are receiving a better treatment than the traditional cure, they may very well show more improvement.
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/055386.htm
"[P]eople who take their placebos diligently do better than those who take them only occasionally; that placebo injections work better than placebo pills; that brand name placebos relieve pain better than generic placebos; and that blue placebos are better sedatives than red ones - except for Italian men, for whom the opposite is true."
Joisey Goil, religion IS a placebo, didn't your mama ever tell you that?
Both of them operate through the power of suggestion. Neither of them actually do anything, except fool the user into believing it it does something.
I don't recall any anecdote of Jesus restoring common sense to fools. Too bad.
Let's get this straight, you are a follower of a man CONVICTED IN FEDERAL COURT OF LYING AND CHEATING and you are suggesting OTHER PEOPLE have a "bad habit of believing what others tell them instead of searching for the truth". BAHAHAHAHA! Don't tell anyone else to get the speck out of their eye, you don't have a log, you've got a whole fucking forest in your eye.
I don't understand what that is an example of. Being careful of what others tell you?
And you have a poor grasp of clinical drug trials; if it doesn't work better than a placebo, it fails as a medication (or whatever).
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan
I really can't put it more eloquently.
Most people who believe in evolution do so because they were told that it is scientific fact. People have a bad habit of believing what others tell them instead of searching for the truth.
No, they believe in evolution because they've heard the theory and the facts supporting it. If creationists search for the truth instead of believing what others tell them, why do they typically show such an appalling lack of understanding of evolution? Why do they continue to repeat ridiculous arguments like "if we're evolved from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys" or "how come a worm's DNA is equally different from a frog's and a human's" (this latter stupidity from a creationist textbook that some school boards actually tried to adopt)? How come they repeat nonsense they heard from guys like Kent Hovind while completely ignoring well-known rebuttals? Why do they repeat known frauds like the "Paluxy Man Tracks" that even creationist organizations admit are bogus? Why do they continue to believe people who believe in evolution are atheists, when there is nothing in the theory that denies God?
That is one of the biggest piles of shit I've ever seen.
The amazing thing about the internet, any flatlining bimbo can spew whatever "thought" comes to mind and people will actually read it.
Meanwhile I can't find enough readers to look over one of my 19 stories that I put thought, time, originality, imagination and research into.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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