To me it seems that many of these people are sad cases of neglected mental ilness, compounded by social media addiction and substance abuse/self medication.
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Mex3 =mememe, Wed 14 Feb 2024, 21:50,
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The mental illness thing is a bit chicken and egg imo.
I expect everyone is susceptible to a sufficiently well-crafted paranoid conspiracy theory. There are definitely ill people who are drawn to PCT, and PCT can certainly give people health problems (directly via stress, and also by affecting your healthcare choices). It's a lot like religion.
This family member isn't a substance abuser AFAIK (just drinks and vapes). He has various health problems and mainly seeks alternative nonsense to remedy it. Social media is largely to blame, for sure.
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brb pussy in bio, Wed 14 Feb 2024, 22:40,
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Religion is a conspiracy theory.
Belief is the heart of the problem - the crux of the biscuit.
If you're prepared to believe things with no evidence, then you're open to accepting conspiracy theories.
Science is about putting aside any belief, and looking at factual evidence.
Religion shits on science.
I treat Christians the same as Flat Earthers - they have exactly the same amount of evidence for their extraordinary claims, ie zero.
Religion is evil.
(, Thu 15 Feb 2024, 7:41, Share, Reply)
I'm with reductive idiot ^
Religion is a mental health issue
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simbosan liked your link on, Thu 15 Feb 2024, 10:36,
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Not quite the same thing.
You can actually provide evidence of a round Earth.
But you can't provide evidence that a hypothetical intangible DOESN'T exist, however flaky the argument might be that it DOES exist.
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joefish It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks, Thu 15 Feb 2024, 16:15,
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There's no need to provide evidence to refute a claim made without evidence.
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brb pussy in bio, Thu 15 Feb 2024, 16:51,
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That was not the point of that argument.
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joefish It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks, Fri 16 Feb 2024, 18:46,
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I got it.
I’ll make the tea shall I? I know I have a teapot somewhere…
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jonbob loves you, Fri 16 Feb 2024, 19:20,
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I agree with much of your sentiment but not so much with your arguments.
Most (if not all?) conspiracy theories rely on evidence, but the evidence they present is incomplete, misleading, or fabricated. Advance an idea, cherry pick evidence that supports the idea, and discredit evidence that falsifies the idea (often introducing supplementary conspiracies, some of which rely on the acceptance of other tangentially related conspiracy theories). It's a similar business model to the cross promotion within franchise fiction.
Most religions offer some form of evidence, even if it's obviously faked, merely anecdotal, and/or entirely unfalsifiable. Bad quality evidence is still evidence.
Religion is obviously the ultimate conspiracy theory, but many proponents claim that it's perfectly compatible with science and reason. Lots of religious people have won Nobel prizes in the sciences.
Science is not the narrow field you define it as, IMHO. There's a lot of science that goes on without any direct quantifiable evidence (several fields with the prefix astro, lots of pure mathematics, several fields with the prefix quantum, most social sciences, etc.)... Facts, like proofs, are subject to interpretation and change with new evidence, and that is the gift of science!
I'm fairly certain that all religions are false as their claims are arbitrary and parochial compared to the greater majesty of the universe revealed through science.
I'm fairly certain that the concept of evil belongs in fiction and theology but has no serious scientific application. It's a label given to things people would like you to stop thinking about, or just a value judgement suggesting something is irredeemably bad.
There are harmless forms of religion after all. Not all false beliefs have negative consequences.
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brb pussy in bio, Thu 15 Feb 2024, 16:47,
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