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aghogday
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18 Apr 2015, 1:07 am

Dantac wrote:
Acupuncture does work and this is scientifically proven...but it is not very effective or a cure-all as its traditional practitioners claim it does. Why it works is still being investigated but so far it has something to do with the way the nerves and the brain interact to release hormones, endorphins and other good stuff. It involves the immune system response too.

From what I remember reading, the needles being placed on you in certain patterns trigger certain responses which can be beneficial or harmful to you. The most common one is pain relief that comes from multiple needles triggering feel-good, pain numbing endorphin release in the brain (similar to tapping the bone behind your ear to ease car/seasickness). The nerves 'hit' by the needle take a couple of days to heal..you dont feel it but the nerves keep triggering the response until they heal up. Good for business too since the person has to return for sessions if they need further relief.

It does work but not for everything nor is it a mystical healing art. It just triggers uses the body's own responses to help in healing...which in itself is nifty and impressive.


QFT.

And additionally that internal healing power can be practiced

and improved USING GREATER PHYSICAL INTELLIGENCE

to produce what looks like real LIFE natural miracles,

UTILIZING WHATEVER METHOD WORKS.

I prove that everyday AND EVERYNOW of my life,

irrefutably so, in documented evidence;

As in every human experience IT IS a spectrum of experience and potential;

more fully realized or NOT, by THE NAYSAYERS or YAYSAYERS OF well-being..:)


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trollcatman
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18 Apr 2015, 1:58 am

Fnord wrote:
Astrology is to science as religion is to medicine.

Having successfully run the Psychic Con under a legal business license, I can honestly say that the only thing real thing about Astrology is the huge amount of money you can make from selling hand-drawn Natal Charts to anyone gullible enough to buy them.

Everyone is seeking something to believe in, and there is a seeker born every minute.


"Sell me this pen." (Wolf of Wall Street)



Fnord
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18 Apr 2015, 8:47 am

Astrology is the mass cultural delusion that the apparent position of the sun and planets relative to arbitrarily defined "star signs" at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality. Stripped of any fancier and woo-like terms, Astrology is the belief that huge balls of rocks, liquids, gases, and nuclear fusion reactions millions or billions of miles away from Earth can affect the financial, sexual, emotional, and employment situations of individual carbon-based life forms on one specific planet.

Astrology has never produced any worthwhile and conclusive predictions, in spite of having several different formulations across disparate cultures. As far as astrology produces falsifiable predictions, it has been thoroughly falsified as no better than guesswork. As all the "evidence" is only anecdotal, selectively reported, or made up, it is an excellent example of a woo explanation for something thoroughly mundane.

The scientific view, in the most candid form, is that Astrology is a load of ancient nonsense that is, these days, perpetrated by ignorant fools or those wishing to exploit others (e.g., the Profit Motive); in other words, crap.

As a demonstration of how people can easily be "tricked" into thinking a horoscope is accurate, a number of students (~30) were asked their zodiac and given what hey were told was the appropriate horoscope to read. They were then asked to grade how accurate they felt the horoscope was regarding their selves and a significant number, if not the majority, gave their horoscopes the maximum score. Later they were asked to pass along their personal horoscope to the person behind them where the "trick" was revealed -- they had all been given the same horoscope! This is a demonstration of the Forer effect and how the language used in horoscopes can be vague and widely applicable to many people yet still give the illusion of being very specific. With a careful selection of language, phrases and tone, it is almost impossible for a horoscope to not to be applicable to someone.

Here is a sample of such a Horoscope:

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

These are called "Barnum Statements", and if even one of them applies to you, then I claim total accuracy, and my methods are just as good (or bad) as any other astrologer's. Astrology is all about selling you a collection of Barnum Statements, and manipulating you into convincing yourself that each one applies only to you. The natal charts are mere props that may or may not provide an accurate depiction of planetary alignments at your birth -- most astrologers I've known use either an out-dated ephemeris, or no ephemeris at all!

"There's a sucker born every minute." -- David Hannum, in criticism of both P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid 1800s, and his customers.



Lazar_Kaganovich
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18 Apr 2015, 8:50 am

Fnord wrote:
Astrology is the mass cultural delusion that the apparent position of the sun and planets relative to arbitrarily defined "star signs" at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality. Stripped of any fancier and woo-like terms, Astrology is the belief that huge balls of rocks, liquids, gases, and nuclear fusion reactions millions or billions of miles away from Earth can affect the financial, sexual, emotional, and employment situations of individual carbon-based life forms on one specific planet.

Astrology has never produced any worthwhile and conclusive predictions, in spite of having several different formulations across disparate cultures. As far as astrology produces falsifiable predictions, it has been thoroughly falsified as no better than guesswork. As all the "evidence" is only anecdotal, selectively reported, or made up, it is an excellent example of a woo explanation for something thoroughly mundane.

The scientific view, in the most candid form, is that Astrology is a load of ancient nonsense that is, these days, perpetrated by ignorant fools or those wishing to exploit others (e.g., the Profit Motive); in other words, crap.

As a demonstration, of how people can basically be "tricked" into thinking a horoscope is accurate, a number of students were asked their zodiac and given what hey were told was the appropriate horoscope to read. They were then asked to grade how accurate they felt the horoscope was regarding their selves and a significant number, if not the majority, gave their horoscopes the maximum score. Later they were asked to pass along their personal horoscope to the person behind them where the "trick" was revealed -- they had all been given the same horoscope! This is a demonstration of the Forer effect and how the language used in horoscopes can be vague and widely applicable to many people yet still give the illusion of being very specific. With a careful selection of language, phrases and tone, it is almost impossible for a horoscope to not to be applicable to someone.

Here is a sample of such a Horoscope:

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

These are called "Barnum Statements", and if even one of them applies to you, then I claim total accuracy, and my methods are just as good (or bad) as any other astrologer's. Astrology is all about selling you a collection of Barnum Statements, and manipulating you into convincing yourself that each one applies only to you. The natal charts are mere props that may or may not provide an accurate depiction of planetary alignments at your birth -- most astrologers I've known use either an out-dated ephemeris, or no ephemeris at all!

"There's a sucker born every minute." -- David Hannum, in criticism of both P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid 1800s, and his customers.



This is coming from a guy who claims that free will is an established fact yet has not provided a shred of evidence backing up his claim...... :roll:

The evidence that favors free will is extremely weak. Whereas the evidence against free will is mounting.



Fnord
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18 Apr 2015, 8:58 am

Ad Hominem much? :roll:

I once pitched a made-up Astrology method that included 13 "houses" instead of the usual 12. I also wrote and used a computer-based astrology program to determine the positions of the sun, moon, and planets at the times of the customer's births. The Barnum Statements were chosen at random from a database of similar statements taken from 10 years of daily horoscopes printed in the local newspaper.

My customers were willing to pay twice as much for my natal horoscopes; sometimes, even more!

It all depends on the strength of your sales pitch and the weakness of your customers' minds.



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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18 Apr 2015, 9:05 am

Fnord wrote:
Astrology is the mass cultural delusion that the apparent position of the sun and planets relative to arbitrarily defined "star signs" at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality. Stripped of any fancier and woo-like terms, Astrology is the belief that huge balls of rocks, liquids, gases, and nuclear fusion reactions millions or billions of miles away from Earth can affect the financial, sexual, emotional, and employment situations of individual carbon-based life forms on one specific planet.

Astrology has never produced any worthwhile and conclusive predictions, in spite of having several different formulations across disparate cultures. As far as astrology produces falsifiable predictions, it has been thoroughly falsified as no better than guesswork. As all the "evidence" is only anecdotal, selectively reported, or made up, it is an excellent example of a woo explanation for something thoroughly mundane.

The scientific view, in the most candid form, is that Astrology is a load of ancient nonsense that is, these days, perpetrated by ignorant fools or those wishing to exploit others (e.g., the Profit Motive); in other words, crap.

As a demonstration of how people can easily be "tricked" into thinking a horoscope is accurate, a number of students (~30) were asked their zodiac and given what hey were told was the appropriate horoscope to read. They were then asked to grade how accurate they felt the horoscope was regarding their selves and a significant number, if not the majority, gave their horoscopes the maximum score. Later they were asked to pass along their personal horoscope to the person behind them where the "trick" was revealed -- they had all been given the same horoscope! This is a demonstration of the Forer effect and how the language used in horoscopes can be vague and widely applicable to many people yet still give the illusion of being very specific. With a careful selection of language, phrases and tone, it is almost impossible for a horoscope to not to be applicable to someone.

Here is a sample of such a Horoscope:

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

These are called "Barnum Statements", and if even one of them applies to you, then I claim total accuracy, and my methods are just as good (or bad) as any other astrologer's. Astrology is all about selling you a collection of Barnum Statements, and manipulating you into convincing yourself that each one applies only to you. The natal charts are mere props that may or may not provide an accurate depiction of planetary alignments at your birth -- most astrologers I've known use either an out-dated ephemeris, or no ephemeris at all!

"There's a sucker born every minute." -- David Hannum, in criticism of both P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid 1800s, and his customers.


Some people like it and it's not stomping on anyone's rights like certain other religions so what does it matter? It's not the worst thing to like. I wouldn't suggest losing all reason and spending thousands of dollars on it, but when you look at the fact people are willing to spend it on televangelism, which is worse?



0_equals_true
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18 Apr 2015, 10:33 am

Astrology get the number, the position, and periods of the constellations wrong, and is out of date by about 2,000 years.

That isn't even getting in the absurd notion that is somehow related to you personality becuase you were born in this arbitrary period.

It is nothing but cold reading. You read what you want to read into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r70HsEvNRck



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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18 Apr 2015, 10:40 am

0_equals_true wrote:
Astrology get the number, the position, and periods of the constellations wrong, and is out of date by about 2,000 years.

That isn't even getting in the absurd notion that is somehow related to you personality becuase you were born in this arbitrary period.

It is nothing but cold reading. You read what you want to read into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHw

If you go by Hindu or Vedic Astrology, you might discover you are actually the sign before yours. In Vedic, I have sun in Leo while going by tropical astrology, it's in Virgo.

Vedic is the more accurate system but it's also really depressing because one little glitch in your chart and you don't stand a chance.



Lazar_Kaganovich
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18 Apr 2015, 11:02 am

Fnord wrote:
Ad Hominem much? :roll:



Perhaps....... :wink:

But I noticed that you play cynic with other peoples claims but p**** out when someone demands that you back up your OWN claims that free with is a reality while not providing one iota of evidence. It does *wonders* for your credibility.

Quote:
I once pitched a made-up Astrology method that included 13 "houses" instead of the usual 12. I also wrote and used a computer-based astrology program to determine the positions of the sun, moon, and planets at the times of the customer's births. The Barnum Statements were chosen at random from a database of similar statements taken from 10 years of daily horoscopes printed in the local newspaper.

My customers were willing to pay twice as much for my natal horoscopes; sometimes, even more!

It all depends on the strength of your sales pitch and the weakness of your customers' minds.


Image



0_equals_true
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18 Apr 2015, 11:06 am

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
If you go by Hindu or Vedic Astrology, you might discover you are actually the sign before yours. In Vedic, I have sun in Leo while going by tropical astrology, it's in Virgo.

Vedic is the more accurate system but it's also really depressing because one little glitch in your chart and you don't stand a chance.


It is not your chart. Has nothing to do with you.

You were missing the point of what I'm saying as constellation are changing position over the millennia due to precession, in fact if the s continue the shape of them will not be the same, that they wll not longer resemble there symbols. It is also not 12.

Think about t, if you look through your bedroom window and see a magpie, eating a shrew. Is personally related to you? You might be able to relate to it, sure, but it didn't happen becuase of your and you aren't there becuase of it.

Consolations are just patterns of stars, these start aren't even related to each other, they can be tens to hundred of light years apart.

Not only do they not have much relevance to you they don't have much relevance to each other. It s just a way of mapping the the sky, which they used before then knew what they were looking at.

f they had no idea what they were observing, how could they possibly know so much about how t relates to people. t s pure speculation.

Astrology attempts to make something absolute out of something entirely relative.



0_equals_true
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18 Apr 2015, 11:09 am

Fnord wrote:
My customers were willing to pay twice as much for my natal horoscopes; sometimes, even more!

It all depends on the strength of your sales pitch and the weakness of your customers' minds.


Did you actually take their money? That is fraud.



ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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18 Apr 2015, 11:11 am

0_equals_true wrote:
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
If you go by Hindu or Vedic Astrology, you might discover you are actually the sign before yours. In Vedic, I have sun in Leo while going by tropical astrology, it's in Virgo.

Vedic is the more accurate system but it's also really depressing because one little glitch in your chart and you don't stand a chance.


It is not your chart. Has nothing to do with you.

You were missing the point of what I'm saying as constellation are changing position over the millennia due to precession, in fact if the s continue the shape of them will not be the same, that they wll not longer resemble there symbols. It is also not 12.

Think about t, if you look through your bedroom window and see a magpie, eating a shrew. Is personally related to you? You might be able to relate to it, sure, but it didn't happen becuase of your and you aren't there becuase of it.

Consolations are just patterns of stars, these start aren't even related to each other, they can be tens to hundred of light years apart.

Not only do they not have much relevance to you they don't have much relevance to each other. It s just a way of mapping the the sky, which they used before then knew what they were looking at.

f they had no idea what they were observing, how could they possibly know so much about how t relates to people. t s pure speculation.


Astrology attempts to make something absolute out of something entirely relative.


There's lots of things I think have nothing to do with me, like Bible stories that happened thousands of years ago yet people in my area, some of them, are completely obsessed with them. We choose our own obsessions. Astrology was just interesting, that's why I began reading about it.



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18 Apr 2015, 11:20 am

Lazar_Kaganovich wrote:
This is coming from a guy who claims that free will is an established fact yet has not provided a shred of evidence backing up his claim...... :roll:

The evidence that favors free will is extremely weak. Whereas the evidence against free will is mounting.


I never understood the whole argument surrounding this. Christianity for instance is deterministic (God's will) yet inexplicably people are responsible for their actions, so it is a bit of having the cake and eating too as far as free will is concerned.

I don't see how having on position on this, lend itself the the moral high ground.

Free wlll only exists in a relative sense. In mind's eye (frontal lobe). Nature is subject to chaos, but we also have development, based on genetics an nurture. This is incredibly obvious, IMO.

It is all about relativism, how as far as society is concerned you still make choices. You are are the person, your frontal lobe, and physiology projects. So in that sense you are responsible for the choices you make, as in most case you are are aware of your actions. Self awareness is part and parcel of the 'self' part of the brain. You can't divorce the two.



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18 Apr 2015, 11:21 am

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
There's lots of things I think have nothing to do with me, like Bible stories that happened thousands of years ago yet people in my area, some of them, are completely obsessed with them. We choose our own obsessions. Astrology was just interesting, that's why I began reading about it.

Try Astronomy, Astrology is a snooze-fest in comparison.



naturalplastic
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18 Apr 2015, 11:35 am

But you don't see an astrology inquisition breaking folks on the rack, nor do you see astrology suicide bombers.

Its just harmless cotten candy.

But on the other hand it is junk food.

When you were born the body of the obstetrician standing next to your mom had more gravitional pull on you, than did the planet Mars that was in your "house". And the bed next to your mom's bed had more gravitational effect on you than did the super black hole in the center of the galaxy even if you're Sagitarius! So how can Mars, or the super black hole, effect your destiny?



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18 Apr 2015, 11:43 am

naturalplastic wrote:
But you don't see an astrology inquisition breaking folks on the rack, nor do you see astrology suicide bombers. Its just harmless cotten candy. But on the other hand it is junk food. When you were born the body of the obstetrician standing next to your mom had more gravitional pull on you, than did the planet Mars that was in your "house". And the bed next to your mom's bed had more gravitational effect on you than did the super black hole in the center of the galaxy even if you're Sagitarius! So how can Mars, or the super black hole, effect your destiny?

the "gravitational" deal is a canard, the whole object of the zodiac is merely to serve as a "coming attractions" billboard in the sky for humans to use to 1]make sense out of their often mysteriously fickle affairs, and 2] time their affairs in rhythm with a heretofore unseen [and un-seeable] cosmic schedule so as to maximize harmony in life.