6 ms·

This weekend I spoke with someone who (together with two others) prayed for a woman whose right arm was visibly shorter than her left (around 5 inches) -- so mu

by m1n1 2y ago

This weekend I spoke with someone who (together with two others) prayed for a woman whose right arm was visibly shorter than her left (around 5 inches) -- so much so that she always had to roll up her right sleeve because otherwise it'd be too long. The right arm was shorter because she broke it as a child and it healed in a way that interfered with proper growth. After the prayer the arms were the same length. So no need for x-ray arguments or any concern about any single person being susceptible or gullible since this was a group of 4 individuals. They knew the "patient" beforehand, and they continued to interact over the next several weeks. She was from Taiwan. Her chosen English nickname was Diane. And this occurred in London. The anti supernatural supposition is not a moving of the goalposts. It is actually the removal of goalposts. You can't score a field goal if the goalposts are denied entirely.

scotty79 2y ago
> You can't score a field goal if the goalposts are denied entirely. I'm sorry, but reality doesn't owe you a win in a game you made up. > The anti supernatural supposition is not a moving of the goalposts. It is actually the removal of goalposts. I'm sorry, but I'm not in this business. But if you can find a person that can demonstrate a miracle you can take them to James Randi foundation, demonstrate a miracle, recieve 1 mln dollars and split it between yourselves. Maybe it's not a lot of money but providing humanity with the first actual evidence of supernatural in history is reward in itself. You can try score your goals there. > After the prayer the arms were the same length. So no need for x-ray arguments or any concern about any single person being susceptible or gullible since this was a group of 4 individuals. I am sorry, but you haven't spoken to 4 people, you spoke to 1 who could (and probably did) make up the other 3 as well as the event itself. Sometimes you meet honest person that participated in the event staged by dishonest, but I don't suspect it's the case this time since the person you spoken to claims he knew the woman beforehand, unless it was just for a short period that was part of the setup. You have to pay more attention to your input channels. You have the same symptoms as the person I knew. Tendency to seriously underestimate propensity of people to lie, cheat and believe in lies. It's as if you can't imagine why a person would lie or cheat you assume that what they say is accurate description of their accurate perceptions. If you are really about truth seeking there's a ton of materials about how the faith healers do what they do. Maybe you'll see some examples of what you experienced or heard about, for example here: https://youtu.be/vxR5-2LginE?si=ZF4mbFlfWVsDpaRZ https://youtu.be/vxR5-2LginE?si=ZF4mbFlfWVsDpaRZ Please watch the whole thing and read top comments under the video. I know it's gonna be hard but please do try.
- m1n1 2y ago
  I watched the video. My experience didn't match any of the 4 methods shown. Not sure why he didn't include the 5th "and possibly 6th" ways that he thought of in the video. Again, I felt my leg moving against my pants while seated _fully_ on the ground and the guy only had his hands lightly touching my shins. I felt the legs moving against the pants against the floor where he couldn't have affected it. The video's 4 methods show you have to hold both feet/ankles in order to pull off the trick. Are you an athiest - and believe that existence is limited only to energy and matter?
  - scotty79 2y ago
    I haven't even watched the video, that's how little I'm interested in faith healing. None of the methods shown fitted your experience perfectly, but you can see it's a very common trick, performed under various conditions with willing or unwilling participants for myriad of reasons, some of which might be as plain as just showing off. You can recognize some elements of the trick like sitting on the floor and touching legs. You were extremely receptive to the process and your brain filled a lot of gaps in what was happening with perceptions favorable to the performer. So you have two options how to explain your expeirience. Either you experienced common trick, done in a bit unusual way (there are at least 6 flavors, why not 7?) or an actual real world miracle was performed, on you, by a random human, out of 8 billion who all are as plain as dirt. What's more likely? Do you watch a lot of magic shows? It can give you perspective of how easy brain is to fool. > Are you an athiest - and believe that existence is limited only to energy and matter? I'm as atheistic as they come. I don't believe anything that scientific consensus built on settled peer reviewed research doesn't force me to believe. Personal anecdotes, even my own, have almost no influence on my working model of the world because I know, both from research and repeated experience how terrible human memeory and perception is, how easy it is to make a mistake, to misinterpret something, to fool yourself, to be wrong, to be fooled. I also hate philosophers, including religious ones of course, because I believe they asking useless, hopeless questions and then think up some fragile reasoning about it which is usually a mixture of obvious and wrong. Nature of existence is one of such useless questions.
    - 2y ago

by m1n1 2y ago

scotty79 2y ago

> You can't score a field goal if the goalposts are denied entirely. I'm sorry, but reality doesn't owe you a win in a game you made up. > The anti supernatural supposition is not a moving of the goalposts. It is actually the removal of goalposts. I'm sorry, but I'm not in this business. But if you can find a person that can demonstrate a miracle you can take them to James Randi foundation, demonstrate a miracle, recieve 1 mln dollars and split it between yourselves. Maybe it's not a lot of money but providing humanity with the first actual evidence of supernatural in history is reward in itself. You can try score your goals there. > After the prayer the arms were the same length. So no need for x-ray arguments or any concern about any single person being susceptible or gullible since this was a group of 4 individuals. I am sorry, but you haven't spoken to 4 people, you spoke to 1 who could (and probably did) make up the other 3 as well as the event itself. Sometimes you meet honest person that participated in the event staged by dishonest, but I don't suspect it's the case this time since the person you spoken to claims he knew the woman beforehand, unless it was just for a short period that was part of the setup. You have to pay more attention to your input channels. You have the same symptoms as the person I knew. Tendency to seriously underestimate propensity of people to lie, cheat and believe in lies. It's as if you can't imagine why a person would lie or cheat you assume that what they say is accurate description of their accurate perceptions. If you are really about truth seeking there's a ton of materials about how the faith healers do what they do. Maybe you'll see some examples of what you experienced or heard about, for example here: https://youtu.be/vxR5-2LginE?si=ZF4mbFlfWVsDpaRZ https://youtu.be/vxR5-2LginE?si=ZF4mbFlfWVsDpaRZ Please watch the whole thing and read top comments under the video. I know it's gonna be hard but please do try.

m1n1 2y ago
I watched the video. My experience didn't match any of the 4 methods shown. Not sure why he didn't include the 5th "and possibly 6th" ways that he thought of in the video. Again, I felt my leg moving against my pants while seated _fully_ on the ground and the guy only had his hands lightly touching my shins. I felt the legs moving against the pants against the floor where he couldn't have affected it. The video's 4 methods show you have to hold both feet/ankles in order to pull off the trick. Are you an athiest - and believe that existence is limited only to energy and matter?
- scotty79 2y ago
  I haven't even watched the video, that's how little I'm interested in faith healing. None of the methods shown fitted your experience perfectly, but you can see it's a very common trick, performed under various conditions with willing or unwilling participants for myriad of reasons, some of which might be as plain as just showing off. You can recognize some elements of the trick like sitting on the floor and touching legs. You were extremely receptive to the process and your brain filled a lot of gaps in what was happening with perceptions favorable to the performer. So you have two options how to explain your expeirience. Either you experienced common trick, done in a bit unusual way (there are at least 6 flavors, why not 7?) or an actual real world miracle was performed, on you, by a random human, out of 8 billion who all are as plain as dirt. What's more likely? Do you watch a lot of magic shows? It can give you perspective of how easy brain is to fool. > Are you an athiest - and believe that existence is limited only to energy and matter? I'm as atheistic as they come. I don't believe anything that scientific consensus built on settled peer reviewed research doesn't force me to believe. Personal anecdotes, even my own, have almost no influence on my working model of the world because I know, both from research and repeated experience how terrible human memeory and perception is, how easy it is to make a mistake, to misinterpret something, to fool yourself, to be wrong, to be fooled. I also hate philosophers, including religious ones of course, because I believe they asking useless, hopeless questions and then think up some fragile reasoning about it which is usually a mixture of obvious and wrong. Nature of existence is one of such useless questions.
  - 2y ago