Christian blogger grumbles about fellow Christians believing in New-Agey stuff

[Politesse]

Oh, you mean asking the question? No, I haven't seen you ask the question to any of us. But that's ok because several of us have given the answer anyway without needing to be asked based on your statement about what you think the word means, which reflects your reaction to it rather than an idea of what it really means or how people actually use it.

So are you still defending your original statement that it's just a "pejorative catch-all term for everything they don't personally happen to believe in" and if used, the "speaker's brain has turned off"?

Perhaps I am not correct in that, though I remain exasperated at the use of such a useless and divisive term in what might otherwise be a serious conversation, however it is defined by those who inexplicably see value in it.

Kind of like making demonizing claims about how atheists are just selfish and worship themselves if they don't believe what you believe.

I have, of course, made no such claims.

 

[Angry Floof]

Kind of like making demonizing claims about how atheists are just selfish and worship themselves if they don't believe what you believe.

I have, of course, made no such claims.

You're right. It wasn't a claim, just an insinuation, your insinuation that people who don't need religion to create their own meaningful sabbat for themselves without regard to any religious belief are just worshiping the self.

A Sabbath is meant to be more than just a day off.

A Sabbath is meant to be whatever you want it to be.

If one worships the self, that makes sense.

Of course, you will twist this in some way and pretend it's not relevant, but we atheists who come from a religious background are familiar with the demonizations of non-believers that so many religious people are plied with in their religious indoctrination. I mean overwhelmingly familiar. It's so tiring to spend decades constantly exposing the same old lies and nonsense that religious people throw at us without a second thought.

My favorite is when religious people assume I was mistreated in church. Because, of course, they have to have things happen to them or someone in their in-group before it would occur to them to care about it, and they always seem a bit embarrassed at the egg on their faces when I point out that I don't need things to happen to me in order to care about them happening to others, the implication being that they do. *sigh* If I only had a dollar for every time that insinuation reared its head in conversations with the religious. I'd be rich enough to take an extended vacation from how oblivious religious people are to their fellow human beings' perspectives. It can be quite taxing.

Anyway, all that to say that the word "woo" doesn't actually hurt anyone. It just hurts egos of people who don't like their pseudoscientific beliefs being described as such, while the largest religious identity group in the US demonizes whole groups of people with all kinds of slander about their character and worth as human beings because they don't conform to the dominant group's superstitions and woo.

 

[Politesse]

You're right. It wasn't a claim, just an insinuation, your insinuation that people who don't need religion to create their own meaningful sabbat for themselves without regard to any religious belief are just worshiping the self.

Okay, so you're bringing up something unrelated from another thread...

And you're super confused about my point that one, too.

It sounds like your sabbat means more to you than just a day off, as well, so it's funny that you took offense to the original comment.

I said none of the rest, so you may feel free to formulate arguments against yourself and then refute them, but please do not misattribute those arguments to myself. Thank you.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

Both terms are used dismissively by people who can't be bothered to try and educate the ignorant but still want to show that they are superior.

 

[hyzer]

My next door neighbor and one of my sisters left evangelical Christianity and then adopted some of those new age beliefs. I suppose some people simply can't face the reality that we only have this one life and there is nothing supernatural. My neighbor believes in psychics, astrology, that inanimate objects can have bad or good energy, etc. She's somewhat agnostic about whether any gods exist. I've just told her that as long as she doesn't use her beliefs to harm anyone or if she doesn't trusts in her beliefs more than she trusts in science, it's not a problem. It just makes her feel better.

The problem with evangelicals is that they are able to literally believe in the nonsensical myths in the Bible, but anything outside of their little belief system is crazy to them. I remember as a child being told that Catholics are wrong because they believed in Saints and they prayed to the Virgin Mary. Amazing how they don't see the irony. Our crazy beliefs are true, but their crazy beliefs are false

A friend of mine liked going to Christian websites, looking for thread where they were saying things like "Can you believe what (insert any other religion) believes!" Then casually asking (provoking) them: Does Christianity promote cannibalism? They would be firm with their No answers. Then he would bring up the whole communion thing . . .

 

[Angry Floof]

Both terms are used dismissively by people who can't be bothered to try and educate the ignorant but still want to show that they are superior.

That's the ticket! There's no other use or definition for either term except make you feel bad. Jesus Christ.

 

[Angry Floof]

You're right. It wasn't a claim, just an insinuation, your insinuation that people who don't need religion to create their own meaningful sabbat for themselves without regard to any religious belief are just worshiping the self.

Okay, so you're bringing up something unrelated from another thread...

And you're super confused about my point that one, too.

It sounds like your sabbat means more to you than just a day off, as well, so it's funny that you took offense to the original comment.

I said none of the rest, so you may feel free to formulate arguments against yourself and then refute them, but please do not misattribute those arguments to myself. Thank you.

No, it's not unrelated. You would like to focus on the fact that you're bothered by words that point out the demonstrably false and/or stupid nature of certain beliefs because you feel like it's just mean to believers. Yet you and your ilk continue to so casually and mindlessly accuse non-believers of the most heinous character flaws, accusations that reflect not a disdain for the non-belief but of the human beings themselves, which has real consequences in the world we live in where a minority is the target of a self righteous so called "moral" majority of people who do not even examine their own beliefs and attitudes.

No one suggests that believers in woo are bad people or that they're evil or that they're "spiritually lost" or fundamentally flawed or worship themselves or should burn in hell or that some authority figure is right to condemn them.

So bringing up your accusations of "self worship" damn well is relevant because it is unjustified, hateful, knee jerk, prejudice with no basis except from within religiously indoctrinated us vs. them framework and has nothing to do with critically examining beliefs.

Calling someone's beliefs "woo" or "pseudoscience" merely means the beliefs are false or misleading or conveniently unfalsifiable. But, frankly, it's not at all surprising that religious and woo believers alike cannot figure out the difference.

 

[southernhybrid]

It's funny how different our perceptions are. I always thought the slang term woo woo, which eventually was shortened to woo, was kind of cute or humorous, certainly not derogatory in any harmful way. I've explained the term to my intensely woo woo neighbor and she didn't find it the least bit offensive. I just told her that woo was used as a slang term used to refer to believes that have no proof, that were related to the supernatural etc. I never have tried to change her mind, as she seems to find a lot of satisfaction in her woo. Her woo is pretty harmless, although when she uses remedies from homeopathic medicine, it's hard to be silent. But, fortunately, her remedies are harmless and she only used them to treat her pain.

Placeboes for pain actually work for a lot of people, so why not, as long as it's harmless. In fact, some people find relief from a placebo even the they know it's a placebo. Imagine that. Pain is extremely difficult to treat, especially chronic pain that is often associated with joint and cartilage degeneration, so if your woo helps your pain, I wish I had some woo to decrease my chronic pain.

Religion can be a placebo for a lot of people. If it works, for them, and they don't use it in place of science, for example substitution of prayer for medical treatment, who cares? I sure don't.

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/woo-woo

Some sentences from the link.

For all that he promoted science he seems to have spent a lot of energy on metaphysical woo-woo.’
‘Their education philosophy is full of anti-vaccine woo-woo.’
‘Those who steer clear of anything leaning toward woo-woo may be turned off by the thought of ideas as energy beings.’
‘Applying some kind of spiritual woo-woo to the mother-child bond doesn't make it correct or scientific.’
‘When it started in 1970, Earth Day was part antiwar protest, part nascent environmental worries and part hippie woo-woo.’
‘You've got your new age woo-woo even in red-state Arizona.’
‘Officials and the media have pushed him into a corner by painting his farming methodology as kooky, religious woo-woo.’
‘Their stance on homeopathy, vaccines and other such medical woo-woo is very dangerous to society.’
‘Reluctant as I am to put anyone off with my "woo-woo", I must say that meditation has been extraordinarily helpful.’

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

My next door neighbor and one of my sisters left evangelical Christianity and then adopted some of those new age beliefs. I suppose some people simply can't face the reality that we only have this one life and there is nothing supernatural. My neighbor believes in psychics, astrology, that inanimate objects can have bad or good energy, etc. She's somewhat agnostic about whether any gods exist. I've just told her that as long as she doesn't use her beliefs to harm anyone or if she doesn't trusts in her beliefs more than she trusts in science, it's not a problem. It just makes her feel better.

The problem with evangelicals is that they are able to literally believe in the nonsensical myths in the Bible, but anything outside of their little belief system is crazy to them. I remember as a child being told that Catholics are wrong because they believed in Saints and they prayed to the Virgin Mary. Amazing how they don't see the irony. Our crazy beliefs are true, but their crazy beliefs are false

A friend of mine liked going to Christian websites, looking for thread where they were saying things like "Can you believe what (insert any other religion) believes!" Then casually asking (provoking) them: Does Christianity promote cannibalism? They would be firm with their No answers. Then he would bring up the whole communion thing . . .

It's best to simply ignore what you perceive to be an insult, patronizing or posturing, to deal instead with the substance of an exchange. Some folks have never heard the expression ad hominem, they just naturally attack the source or the character of the speaker because they've never learned any other way. It's obviously okay to express emotion, but it should be another tool, not a driving force, and it should not lead to insult.

 

[Atheos]

Judging another's intellectual prowess and involvement in a conversation from little else besides their use of a particular word seems short sighted indeed. But I'll withhold judgment until I've seen such a person produce a more persuasive argument complete with a position and support for it.

Meanwhile I maintain that I've seen enough woo first hand to recognize it, no matter what form it takes. I've personally been involved in Pentecostal healings and foot-washings. I've been in rooms filled with people practicing glossolalia. I've played with Ouija boards. I've been to seances. I watched a few episodes of Crossing Over With John Edward. I've had close family members who believed in demon possession, wiccan spells, voodoo, ESP, copper socks, Shamwow and water divining. A lifetime of experience has taught me one inductive lesson: Be skeptical.

The only time skepticism is a bad thing is in the movies when the main character can't get anyone to believe there's really a vampire behind these people being attacked. In the real world skepticism works. It got us the scientific method, helping us toss out alchemy for peer-reviewed science. Without skepticism we'd be living in a world run by Shamans, trying to fight Covid 19 with blessings and amulets rather than a methodical march towards a vaccine. Without skepticism we would not be holding this conversation using sophisticated electronic equipment and technology.

Woo becomes science when it can pass critical peer review. Woo that only works if you believe it works is no different from placebos (which incidentally are also part of the scientific method).

Who said anything about skepticism being bad? I think skepticism is the hope of humanity. Skepticism, though, requires rational consideration of new ideas without prejudice and assumption that may or may not lead one to a correct conclusion.

Skepticism is the bane of woo. In my opinion unfalsifiable woo always deserves skepticism. Falsifiable woo is inevitably exposed by skeptics. I'm more than willing to listen and weigh the merits of any argument anyone wants to present about their favorite greegree but I'm likely to remain skeptical about it until such time as their argument overwhelms my skepticism.

Again, this is the entire basis of the scientific method, and the means by which all working technology is developed.

 

[Politesse]

Judging another's intellectual prowess and involvement in a conversation from little else besides their use of a particular word seems short sighted indeed. But I'll withhold judgment until I've seen such a person produce a more persuasive argument complete with a position and support for it.

Meanwhile I maintain that I've seen enough woo first hand to recognize it, no matter what form it takes. I've personally been involved in Pentecostal healings and foot-washings. I've been in rooms filled with people practicing glossolalia. I've played with Ouija boards. I've been to seances. I watched a few episodes of Crossing Over With John Edward. I've had close family members who believed in demon possession, wiccan spells, voodoo, ESP, copper socks, Shamwow and water divining. A lifetime of experience has taught me one inductive lesson: Be skeptical.

The only time skepticism is a bad thing is in the movies when the main character can't get anyone to believe there's really a vampire behind these people being attacked. In the real world skepticism works. It got us the scientific method, helping us toss out alchemy for peer-reviewed science. Without skepticism we'd be living in a world run by Shamans, trying to fight Covid 19 with blessings and amulets rather than a methodical march towards a vaccine. Without skepticism we would not be holding this conversation using sophisticated electronic equipment and technology.

Woo becomes science when it can pass critical peer review. Woo that only works if you believe it works is no different from placebos (which incidentally are also part of the scientific method).

Who said anything about skepticism being bad? I think skepticism is the hope of humanity. Skepticism, though, requires rational consideration of new ideas without prejudice and assumption that may or may not lead one to a correct conclusion.

Skepticism is the bane of woo. In my opinion unfalsifiable woo always deserves skepticism. Falsifiable woo is inevitably exposed by skeptics. I'm more than willing to listen and weigh the merits of any argument anyone wants to present about their favorite greegree but I'm likely to remain skeptical about it until such time as their argument overwhelms my skepticism.

Again, this is the entire basis of the scientific method, and the means by which all working technology is developed.

Absolutely not. The basis of the scientific method is inference based on systematic observation of the natural world. Playground insults are not needed at any stage of any genuine scientific endeavor I have ever encountered in my two decades of scientific work, amd indeed they are injurious to many endeavors, creatting unnecessary and unproductive hostility between researchers and human subjects.

For that matter, neither is skepticism, though I think skeptics tend to make good scientists. But fundamentally, science's value is vested in the fact that its methods require no subjective bias whatsoever. If an experiment is valid, conducting it will give you the same result whether you believe that the result will happen or not. If you have to have a certain kind of philosophical bias to be a scientist, science itself becomes unmerited.

You know, there's a word for things that pretend to be science and aren't.

 

[Rhea]

Whenever the word "woo" comes up in conversation, I know the speaker's brain has turned off. Rational people do not have a pejorative catch-all term for everything they don't personally happen to believe in.

You know what is super-duper funny?

The first person to use the word "woo" in this thread was you in post #14.

Perhaps you can pivot from what you believe a word means and how you disagree with what others believe, and return to the topic of "one believer grumbling about what other believers believe in." Or, rewritten, "belief is bad unless it's my belief."

 

[Politesse]

Whenever the word "woo" comes up in conversation, I know the speaker's brain has turned off. Rational people do not have a pejorative catch-all term for everything they don't personally happen to believe in.

You know what is super-duper funny?

The first person to use the word "woo" in this thread was you in post #14.

That would be very hypocritical of me. If I weren't making the same concerted argument against this kind of fuzzy thinking throughout the entirety of the thread.

 

[Angry Floof]

Whenever the word "woo" comes up in conversation, I know the speaker's brain has turned off. Rational people do not have a pejorative catch-all term for everything they don't personally happen to believe in.

You know what is super-duper funny?

The first person to use the word "woo" in this thread was you in post #14.

That would be very hypocritical of me. If I weren't making the same concerted argument against this kind of fuzzy thinking throughout the entirety of the thread.

Saying that people who use the word have their brains turned off is not only fuzzy thinking but obviously intended to be no more than an empty insult, both of which you keep claiming to oppose. The hypocrisy is almost comical.

 

[Rhea]

Whenever the word "woo" comes up in conversation, I know the speaker's brain has turned off. Rational people do not have a pejorative catch-all term for everything they don't personally happen to believe in.

You know what is super-duper funny?

The first person to use the word "woo" in this thread was you in post #14.

That would be very hypocritical of me. If I weren't making the same concerted argument against this kind of fuzzy thinking throughout the entirety of the thread.

So by the rules of time travel it wasn't hypocrisy because LATER ON you intended to not be the first person to use the word? And that even though using it first turned off your brain, you somehow turned it back on for your subsequent comments, unlike anyone else?

Wooo!

 

[lpetrich]

A friend of mine liked going to Christian websites, looking for thread where they were saying things like "Can you believe what (insert any other religion) believes!" Then casually asking (provoking) them: Does Christianity promote cannibalism? They would be firm with their No answers. Then he would bring up the whole communion thing . . .

Sort of like that OP's Xian blogger.

Do they attack other sects of Xianity in that fashion? Like attack Catholicism as saint worship.

 

[Atheos]

Whenever the word "woo" comes up in conversation, I know the speaker's brain has turned off. Rational people do not have a pejorative catch-all term for everything they don't personally happen to believe in.

Requoting this for context.

What's the difference between you and the speaker in question when you say you know the speaker's brain has turned off and summarily judge that speaker as irrational. Are you still listening to that speaker's arguments or is the word "woo" a dialog ender? Sounds like you're doing the same thing you castigate the speaker for, but justifying it based on your own arbitrary rules. Is this not the textbook definition of hypocrisy?

 

[Politesse]

Whenever the word "woo" comes up in conversation, I know the speaker's brain has turned off. Rational people do not have a pejorative catch-all term for everything they don't personally happen to believe in.

Requoting this for context.

What's the difference between you and the speaker in question when you say you know the speaker's brain has turned off and summarily judge that speaker as irrational. Are you still listening to that speaker's arguments or is the word "woo" a dialog ender? Sounds like you're doing the same thing you castigate the speaker for, but justifying it based on your own arbitrary rules. Is this not the textbook definition of hypocrisy?

Well, that should be clear enough. I didn't end a conversation, I started one. I also conceded the possibility that I was wrong, just a few posts later.

 

[Atheos]

Whenever the word "woo" comes up in conversation, I know the speaker's brain has turned off. Rational people do not have a pejorative catch-all term for everything they don't personally happen to believe in.

Requoting this for context.

What's the difference between you and the speaker in question when you say you know the speaker's brain has turned off and summarily judge that speaker as irrational. Are you still listening to that speaker's arguments or is the word "woo" a dialog ender? Sounds like you're doing the same thing you castigate the speaker for, but justifying it based on your own arbitrary rules. Is this not the textbook definition of hypocrisy?

Well, that should be clear enough. I didn't end a conversation, I started one. I also conceded the possibility that I was wrong, just a few posts later.

Fair enough, guess I didn't notice. One of the nice things about online discussion is never having to admit you're wrong. It is a rare treat indeed to encounter someone with the integrity to do so.

 

[J842P]

"Woo" exists only as a vague pejorative, and has no utility outside of proclaiming how proud the spekaer is of not being willing to think about other people's perspectives critically.

Riiiight. That's it.

But you are right, it is a pejorative.