A sickness on this board.

[freethinker]

I find it fascinating that you take the viewpoint that those who believe in any of those things or many are sick, mad , deluded and don't have their sensible faculties about them.

This also implies that you think that your thinking is totally correct and sane for not believing any of it.

If you don't like conspiricy theories then don't read what's posted on them.

If you think the government has got your back 24/7, has your best interest at heart and wouldn't dream of feeding you false information then maybe you ought to take a good look at that.

I've never tried to force feed my beliefs down anyones throat. If I post something that is highly controversial, you or anyone else doesn't have to read it, but I feel I have the right to post it.

Before you go calling people sick and demented for believing things that you don't because it's just too far fetched for you, maybe you should consider this if you havn't already.

There are billions of people that believe that it rained for forty days and forty nights and the entire earth was covered with water. One man and his family survived because god told him to build a boat of certain dimensions and then gather two of every living creature, and I imagine enough food for all for many months till the water receded.

They have no proof but in general are not considered crazy.

Or that a man parted the Red Sea by raising his staff and then collapsed it on the Romans. They also made epic movies about these same events, yet there is no proof that they happened.

Or that Adam and Eve managed to populate the planet by having two sons and no daughters.

To assume that you are sane and of sound mind because you don't believe connspiracies is quite bold and unfounded.

There is a sickness on this board. It is a mental weakness that affects some of the posters here.

Some of it stems from still maintaining a Scientology world view even though they have left the cult.

The major symptom of this mental weakness is when a person believes that they know the answers to what is really going on in the world and that they are one of the few that really see it and understand it.

They know it all. They are experts on any subject they think about.

They know that the major events in the world today are brought on by conspiracies.

They know that Obama wasn’t born in the United States because they know his birth certificate is a forgery.

They know the U.S. government brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11 with controlled explosives.

They know that the “official version” is always a lie.

They know that we are living in a police state.

They know Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11 and they know that the U.S. Seals did not recently kill him.

They know that the New World Order is dropping poison chemicals on American citizens.

They know all these things and they know things that the rest of us poor mere human sheep don’t know.

Many times I’ve battled with these people on threads, mostly for fun.

At first, I thought it was just poor and silly reasoning on their parts.

But it isn’t fun anymore, because it seems apparent now that it is a mental weakness that is afflicting these people.

Skepticism is healthy. But these people are not just skeptical.

They are obsessed and fanatical that the world exists as they see it in their minds.

The kindest thing I can is that their paranoid obsession is a remnant of their time in Scientology.

But I think perhaps it is also because some of them find themselves old and alone and having to deal with the humbling fact that they were members of a cult.

Some of them through the best years of their lives.

So they display their madness here, where they will find a sympathetic audience.

They have my sympathy. It is very, very, sad situation indeed.

We all have baggage, from the cult, and from life in general.

But we are not doing them any favors humoring their insanity by labeling it as just another viewpoint.

It is time we try and help these people and try to ease them back into the real world.

I know I will be criticized for saying something out loud that many of us realize quietly.

But they won’t wake up from their nightmare if we let them sleep.

The Anabaptist Jacques

 

[Voltaire's Child]

I think there is such a thing, possibly, sometimes, as spiritual sickness. But I don't think that having incorrect (or ones people think are incorrect) beliefs qualifies.

I think constant ongoing irrational behavior could be. That's not meant as a reference to anything currently posted. I just mean that there are sick environments where you get a constant free for all. Not necessarily a Scn or ex Scn thing, it's just something that can happen. A long time ago, I worked in a place like that.

Overall, if I were to give my opinion as to whether or not ESMB has a sickness, I'd say no. Are there some situations and threads sometimes less than ideal? Sure. That's part of the human condition. But as a generality, I'd say that this board is fine.

I do not believe it is sick to profess a personal ideology others disdain. Now, if you had a lot of people saying they thought abortions should be forced, there should be freeloader debts, there should be disconnection, people should give all their money, yadda yadda, then that would be a sickness. It would be irrational and it would be, in my hypothetical, widespread throughout this board.

But there isn't anything like that. There isn't even an opposite side of the coin type thing commonly happening. There's some shit but it's relatively isolated. Thus, I can't say that there's a sickness...cuz for that to be there, it would have to be an actual phenomenon rather than some occasional or rare stuff here and there.

 

[LongTimeGone]

I find it fascinating that you take the viewpoint that those who believe in any of those things or many are sick, mad , deluded and don't have their sensible faculties about them.

This also implies that you think that your thinking is totally correct and sane for not believing any of it.

If you don't like conspiricy theories then don't read what's posted on them.

If you think the government has got your back 24/7, has your best interest at heart and wouldn't dream of feeding you false information then maybe you ought to take a good look at that.

I've never tried to force feed my beliefs down anyones throat. If I post something that is highly controversial, you or anyone else doesn't have to read it, but I feel I have the right to post it.

Before you go calling people sick and demented for believing things that you don't because it's just too far fetched for you, maybe you should consider this if you havn't already.

There are billions of people that believe that it rained for forty days and forty nights and the entire earth was covered with water. One man and his family survived because god told him to build a boat of certain dimensions and then gather two of every living creature, and I imagine enough food for all for many months till the water receded.

They have no proof but in general are not considered crazy.

Or that a man parted the Red Sea by raising his staff and then collapsed it on the Romans. They also made epic movies about these same events, yet there is no proof that they happened.

Or that Adam and Eve managed to populate the planet by having two sons and no daughters.

To assume that you are sane and of sound mind because you don't believe connspiracies is quite bold and unfounded.

Well said; this occurred to me as well.

LTG

 

[Atcause]

That is not the general idea at the start of this thread.

It was never a matter of who's information or data or viewpoint on particular matters is correct.

It is about the obsessive and fanatical belief in the rightness and superiority of what one believes.

And that fanaticism is a result of their person paradigm that they know better; that only they can correctly interpret facts.

They ignone a 1,000 facts and focus on opinions and interpretations about a few isolated facts.

It is not about getting at the truth. It is about proving they are superior to the average person. Only they know and see the truth.

It comes down to what a person thinks what his place is in the world.

They are self-appointed Ubermensch.

It keeps them from looking at the real state of their own their lives; that they are not only not smarter than everyone else, but sadly, inferior to most.

And the proof is they were cultists. They are only moderately literate. They are not smart. They were easily fooled.

Not a pleasant thing to see when one looks in the mirror.

The Anabaptist Jacques

Right TAJ, and those are the ones you ignore.

 

[Infinite]

The trick is to be able to know who the sane contributors to the message board are from the insane time wasters.

You then spend your time reading the former and ignoring the later.

Why make it personal? To say that "Source A is insane so ignore everything they say, but Source B is sane so you can invest time in their comments" is a part of the "cult think" detritus. It precludes learning from and engaging with those with whom we disagree in favour of reinforcing existing beliefs. Ask Copernicus. I think the better trick is in recognising the value of the message rather than the messenger.

 

[Petey C]

Well you may have a point here. The phenomenon I am talking about is more common among Americans and Brits, I think then Aussies. At lest here on the board.

The wilful ignorance is a perfect description of what I am talking about.

The Anabaptist Jacques

... and Roger B said ..

"Well, Petey C, having been around this world more than a few times myself, I have to agree with your observation and comments.

And your comments particularly apply to those American University Grads who think what they get as the goods of education the best by doing it here.

It is a comparative joke to see what passes for college graduation here.

Let me cite a fact to make the point.

The 2003 US Department of Education, Adult Literacy Survey found that only, repeat that word, only, 31% of College Graduates could pass its standards of literacy competence.

In essence, the standard is that the person can read the London or New York Times newspapers and understand them due to their frequent use of punctuation and sentences containing numbers of concepts and such.

A lower level of literacy competence wherein the person could grasp a simple one clause declarative statement (no commas etc.,) was achieved by another 30+% . . . and the degrees of decline in literacy went on down all the way to functional illiteracy . . . . . and this among graduates!

To get a sense of how it can be, one benefits from going and experiencing other cultures and countries who are literacy accomplished.

To be honest, the most academically or scholastically arrogant I've met anywhere are here in America. Examples abound: Stephen Gould shouting down Rupert Sheldrake on the PBS TV program "A Glorious Accident" or Robert Gallo shouting down other scientists (and stealing the discovery of HIV from Luc Montagnier) (this shit I was privy to when I was connected to the AIDS scene as board member of one of its organizations in the late 1980's).

And by shouting down, I mean arrogantly shouting down, not discussing or expressing alternative points of view of input . . . but stunningly, rudely loudly, ridullingly shouting others down! Quite astounding.

R"

There is a book by Susan Jacoby called The Age of American Unreason (go to susanjacoby.com for reviews) that was published in 2008 when I was living in the US, that goes some way to explaining the education deficits of many Americans. It's worth a read, but it ain't a fun book. Some of what is in the book has some relevance to other Anglophone countries too.

Roger, Regarding your stats about college graduates, I think that those poor literacy (and numeracy) indicators unfortunately apply across the board in Australia too. And we too have our Rush Limbaugh equivalents. So it ain't just the USA, it's just highly visible there.

Roger, I worked for a few years in the early 90s on a project to get an injecting room established in Sydney. This was a public health issue based on a large and incontrovertible evidence base gathered primarily in Manchester that safe injecting rooms and prescribing clinical grade heroin to registered users had massive effects on lowering rates of crime, therefore insurance premiums, on the social impacts of heroin (ie fewer addicts begging or nodding out on the streets) and on the health of the addicts themselves. The outcry was enormous, and the behaviour you describe regarding your AIDS work is similar to what we witnessed here. Very few people want to see evidence-based action overturn a long- and strongly held view based on emotion or religious beliefs.

You can only shake your head.

P

 

[Type4_PTS]

First of all, your implication that more people here on ESMB believe in conspiracy theories as compared to the general U.S. population is incorrect imo. Believing in various conspiracies is mainstream political reality and has been for some time. The great majority of Americans believe that at LEAST one conspiracy as likely to have occurred. Just with the JFK assassination alone only about 10 percent of Americans believed the official government story according to a CBS poll done some years ago.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/11/20/opinion/main23166.shtml

I'm not going to spend the time to find a more recent poll but back in 2006 about a third of Americans believed in a 9/11 conspiracy theory, and I'm not referring to the official story which is also a conspiracy theory.

There are other conspiracies as well which large number of citizens believe are likely.

I've also personally worked in politics for years and have spoken face-to-face with about 100,000 people about how they feel with regards to various issues. I worked in all regions of the country and conversed with people of all types, homeless people, very wealthy people, and all those in between. I've taken college level courses in political science and sociology. I feel as though I've got a pretty good read on how people feel with regards many issues including various conspiracies. But it's not even necessary for me to say that there is very high level of distrust among Americans when it comes to their government; I believe that most of us are already aware of that. And perhaps some individuals have jumped to believe false conspiracy theories due to the high level of distrust. In my opinion, much of the distrust is warranted. If you look at some of the past government conspiracies which have been exposed and documented through the Freedom of Information Act and the declassification of government files it is more understandable about why Americans would suspect that their government is guilty of some crazy stuff.

Disagreeing with me has nothing to do with it.

Constantly altering and misrepresenting what people say does (like you have just done)

So we can start with that: lying.

I may have misrepresented what you SAID. But I feel that you clearly demonstrated blind obedience to TSA authority and regardless of whether you said it you did demonstrate it imo. And I'm not the only one who felt that in that thread:

TAJ, I'm surprised to see you demonstrating such blind respect for authority (yes, you did say you didn't know either whether TSA's current procedures actually make the skies safer). It seems out of character for you.

 

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

snip

I may have misrepresented what you SAID. But I feel that you clearly demonstrated blind obedience to TSA authority and regardless of whether you said it you did demonstrate it imo. And I'm not the only one who felt that in that thread:

Well then this clears it up for me.

You do have a literacy problem.

Because I repeated over and over and over again just the opposite.

And you obvious did not undersand my original post either.

The Anabaptist Jacques

 

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

I find it fascinating that you take the viewpoint that those who believe in any of those things or many are sick, mad , deluded and don't have their sensible faculties about them.

This also implies that you think that your thinking is totally correct and sane for not believing any of it.

If you don't like conspiricy theories then don't read what's posted on them.

If you think the government has got your back 24/7, has your best interest at heart and wouldn't dream of feeding you false information then maybe you ought to take a good look at that.

I've never tried to force feed my beliefs down anyones throat. If I post something that is highly controversial, you or anyone else doesn't have to read it, but I feel I have the right to post it.

Before you go calling people sick and demented for believing things that you don't because it's just too far fetched for you, maybe you should consider this if you havn't already.

There are billions of people that believe that it rained for forty days and forty nights and the entire earth was covered with water. One man and his family survived because god told him to build a boat of certain dimensions and then gather two of every living creature, and I imagine enough food for all for many months till the water receded.

They have no proof but in general are not considered crazy.

Or that a man parted the Red Sea by raising his staff and then collapsed it on the Romans. They also made epic movies about these same events, yet there is no proof that they happened.

Or that Adam and Eve managed to populate the planet by having two sons and no daughters.

To assume that you are sane and of sound mind because you don't believe connspiracies is quite bold and unfounded.

Read what I said again. You clearly did not understand it.

The Anabaptist Jacques

 

[Type4_PTS]

And you obvious did not undersand my original post either.

You obviously don't understand the forum rules as you piss all over them. In that earlier thread you constantly dish out personal insults, ad hom's,and belittle all who disagree with you. This thread here is really just a continuation of that.

 

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

You obviously don't understand the forum rules as you piss all over them. In that earlier thread you constantly dish out personal insults, ad hom's,and belittle all who disagree with you. This thread here is really just a continuation of that.

Now that you have attempted discrediting me by talking about what was said on another thread, in my defense I invite anyone to look at that thread.

It is the TSA thread in the off-topic discussion category.

I will leave it up to others to decide for themselves rather than have you decide it for them.

The Anabaptist Jacques

 

[Type4_PTS]

"Now that you have attempted discrediting me by talking about what was said on another thread......"

I referenced the earlier thread because I believe that this current thread is at least in part a response to what you encountered in that previous thread.

I will leave it up to others to decide for themselves rather than have you decide it for them.

To decide what? Whether you were pissing all over the forum rules?

Maybe you should go back and re-read what you wrote. It's pretty clear.

You either don't understand the rules or you do understand them and just don't give a f**k.

 

[The Anabaptist Jacques]

I think everyone has made their point.

I wish a Scientologists would get arrested somewhere so we have something else to talk about.

The Anabaptist Jacques

 

[ignatz]

Theres something a little judgmental about this post. I'm new here but I can sympathize with being frustrated with no-it-alls. But everyone is on their own path. Some paths are harder to recover from. No need to call them sick because they "don't get it" And definitely no need to call someone sick if they are truly mentally ill. It sounds like you might be a little more invested in the site than is good for you.

Empathy and time is really all we can or should offer those who disagree with us imo. Ill agree that I feel some people are what i would call deluded but healthier to all to just ignore them when it gets too frustrating.

 

[Royal Prince Xenu]

The 2003 US Department of Education, Adult Literacy Survey found that only, repeat that word, only, 31% of College Graduates could pass its standards of literacy competence.

I made similar observations when I worked at a University.

1. There is a sign on the door "Both photocopiers out of order."
2. There is a chair to trip over that says "Both photocopiers out of order."
3. The machines have been turned off because people kept coming to the counter, "The photocopier takes my money but won't work."
4. There are huge signs on each photocopier, "Out of Order."

People still come up to the counter, "Why won't the photocopier accept my money?"

I'm sure that when it comes to recruiting for certain public positions, there are special literacy tests that one must fail in order to qualify for the position.

 

[Mark A. Baker]

How does one learn anything except by exposure to new ideas and concepts?
Having set ideas and conclusions is not a "sickness", it is a result of conditioned thinking and of not having been allowed to explore concepts that fall outside the agreements of a group or personal experience. ...

Most conditioning of thought is done by social groups unconnected with scientology. It usually starts with one's family and expands from there.

... Looking down on and scoffing at anyone who disagrees is a scientology concept! ...

No. It's a human one.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Mark A. Baker]

The truth is out there!!! Unfortunately we lost it...

This just in:

Jun 07, 2011 8:01am

COULD there be any better fodder for Australia's conspiracy theorists? The Department of Defence has ''lost'' its X-Files. ...

Used them to light a fire in the barbie, no doubt.


Mark A. Baker

 

[Mark A. Baker]

Well you may have a point here. The phenomenon I am talking about is more common among Americans and Brits, I think then Aussies. At lest here on the board.

The wilful ignorance is a perfect description of what I am talking about.

The Anabaptist Jacques

I know what you mean ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n38eAO3ne8M


Mark A. Baker

 

[Mark A. Baker]

... Or that a man parted the Red Sea by raising his staff and then collapsed it on the Romans. They also made epic movies about these same events, yet there is no proof that they happened. ...

Never happened. You've got your legends crossed. The Romans kicked their asses three ways from the sabbath.

Rome: The Only Nation Ever To Bring Peace To Palestine.


SPQR
Mark A. Baker

 

[La La Lou Lou]

Iv'e just solved the conspiracy thing.

9/11 was done by the conspiracy theorists to prove themselves right!

It wasn't the Jews, British Royal family, or even the CIA or Neo-cons after all!