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You'd naturally think that those who were born into those cults and had that nonsense hammered into them since infancy, would be their most intense and offensive promoters. But often, their most vigorous and aggressive advocates, are those who "converted" to them as adults. Did you ever wonder why those who have independent religion as individuals are almost completely discounted and ignored by these types? I guess unless you need the organizations to carry you, that in itself, devalues the religious tyranny they want to put on everyone.
That is very true. In fact, it's been shown that when cults go after people to bring into their group, they specifically target those who are the most religious. In other words, if you have a healthy skepticism of religion, you would make a bad member for a cult. Those who are fanatical about their religion or beliefs can be easily turned to be just as fanatical about the belief of a cult. And then when these people are effectively converted and isolated so they're never exposed to any other opinion besides that of the cult, they're in it for life.
That is very true. In fact, it's been shown that when cults go after people to bring into their group, they specifically target those who are the most religious. In other words, if you have a healthy skepticism of religion, you would make a bad member for a cult. Those who are fanatical about their religion or beliefs can be easily turned to be just as fanatical about the belief of a cult.
Moreso even than that, look at people who leave one church... for a series of others. It seems most often to be Mormons who renounce that faith (often for well-stated reasons of oppression or abuse)... and immediately become Buddhists. Or Catholics. Or less-reputable faiths down to cults. Often in succession.
I've seen the same thing on the pseudoscience level - UFOnauts who went bonkers for crystal therapy, ghost hunters who took off after Bigfoot, JFK conspirators who started raving about black helicopters.
If you have a mind to believe mysticism and nonsense, it's an easier journey to the the next nonsensical 'truth' than to messy, hard, cold reality.
So, that's not a fact. My experience on CD is that 90% of the time when someone starts a sentence with "Fact:", it's just their opinion and some tenuous dot-connecting.
You are unaware of both the consensus & those who called the consensus if you would insinuate that my opinion had anything to do with this.
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The second part is a bit of a fallacy. Government backed science doesn't need to be completely and totally devoid of all financial/political motivation to be far more pure than the alternatives. Disbelieving NIH because PhilipMorris told you so was a fatal mistake for millions over a solid 50 year timespan. Now we have people disbelieving the NOAA because Exxon told them so.
hmm. Interesting that you invoke Big Tobacco but stopped short of connection by cognition.
Like Big Tobacco was the genesis of the quip; “Correlation does not equal causation” but stopped short of publishing snarky graphs showing how the rising rates of lung cancer were correlated with organic food sales. I suppose if the WWW had been available, our sensibilities would have been similarly insulted.
Did millions actually make a fatal mistake because they were told smoking wasn’t harmful? I thought millions made a fatal mistake because of Big Tobaccos penchant for; ‘Lawyers Epidemiology’:
-Using epidemiology to prove a negative (counter to US law), despite that the negative contradicted the vast amount of anecdotal evidence.
-Forming their own research ‘agencies’ that remained (intentionally) confounded by the ‘real’, biological process that was causing lung cancer & arguing everywhere, even in congressional hearings, under oath; that the science was settled because the epidemiology did not seem to support smoking as correlated, let alone causative.
And then more propaganda:
-Labeling any contradicting research as ‘junk science’.
-Purchasing print space in publications (magazines, newspapers) for the purpose of public ridicule of the ‘anti’s’. The prude, anal-retentive ‘anti-choice’ agenda that was impacting the bottom line of the hospitality & entertainment industries.
-Diverting money & media towards scapegoats: Twin studies (genetics). Radon. Downwind/downstream theories. Power lines. Cell phones.
-As the technology for imaging diagnostics was being improved; “Lung cancer rates aren’t really rising ... we are just better at diagnosing!”
(Luckily for them, the only thing the NIH lacked was having a former playboy bunny claim that second-hand smoke caused her kid’s asthma)
Yes, Big Tobacco propaganda was epic. It had to be; it was motivated out of desperation. Big Tobacco vs NIH was defined not by who had more to gain but rather; who had more to lose. The CDC took notes & demonstrate today that imitation is a form of flattery.
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It's possible that the people who acquired their knowledge/status through education and occupation naturally align more with the government because the government actually knows what it is talking about far more than it gets credit for. People who acquired their knowledge/status from other sources not including education and occupation should generally be ignored.
No, you are forgetting that uneducated, uncultured & illiterate people cannot be exposed to propaganda to begin with. Not only are education & occupational status requisite but those convinced of their superiority to be immune to propaganda are therefore more influenced by it.
Flat earth theory is stupid with no supporting evidence. On the other hand even our own Congress House Assassination Committee determined that Kennedy was shot by a conspiracy.
And recently higher ups in the US Government have announced and shown footage of UFO's being encountered by air force pilots, and many government documents re UFO's have been released, albeit with up to 90% of those documents redacted. (Ask yourself: why redact them if UFO's don't exist?)
So please don't lump in the JFK conspiracy and the truth about UFO's along with flat earth stupidity.
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Originally Posted by Quietude
So, the takeaway here is that if you believe it, there must be something to it; if they believe it, it's utter nonsense. Got it.
No, you haven't adjudicated these matters for yourself if you honestly believe that. When I countered your claim that Bigfoot is synonymous with flat earth & when the poster above countered your claim that JFK & UFOs were synonymous with flat earth; we did so based on knowledge of the preponderance of available evidence. The OP did something similar when he wrote post #6.
Neither movingvanmorrison or I have claimed to believe in UFOs or Bigfoot. The only thing I know for a fact; is that people who believe that Bigfoot exists & people who believe in flat earth are apples to oranges.
I personally can't claim to have seen a Bigfoot but I wouldn't go on record to state that Bigfoot could not exist because I invested a reasonable amount of time acquiring the data I needed to think it through.
-I searched through literally hundreds of archived newspapers dated from the 1600s to the 1950s (pre-hoax), using keyword searches that omitted the words 'Bigfoot' & 'Sasquatch', in favor of the phrases; 'wild man forest', 'creature seen', 'ape-like', 'saw giant', etc ...
-I familiarized myself with consistencies in proven hoaxes, alleged hoaxes & never-contested accounts.
-I studied patterns of sightings & considered each & every county in the continental US where there have been 25 or more sightings reported & cross-referenced them with satellite imagery & either 'dot-gov' or 'dot-edu' data on food sources, water availability, vegetation & potential location of remains.
-I overlayed Karst topography maps with the sightings map, cross-referenced the result with current aquifer, sinkhole & cavern data & only then, only after all of the above ... did I say that:
"There is a possibility that the Bigfoot could exist." Now; how did you come to the conclusion that Bigfoot does not exist?
I'd be curious to know how flat-Earthers believe gravity works. Do they still believe that mass causes gravity? If so, as you approach the edge of the disk wouldn't you be pulled back toward the center? Or is the force coming from somewhere far below so it's approximately vertical at all locations on the Earth-plane? What's causing it then?
I'd be curious to know how flat-Earthers believe gravity works. Do they still believe that mass causes gravity? If so, as you approach the edge of the disk wouldn't you be pulled back toward the center? Or is the force coming from somewhere far below so it's approximately vertical at all locations on the Earth-plane? What's causing it then?
1- They think that the density differences between two objects cause what we wrongly know is gravity.
2- Instead of gravity, they claim that something or somebody is pushing up the earth constantly and is constantly accelerating upwards.
If the Earth was flat though, if you were to get on a plane and fly around the world, from one country to another that is on the other side, at some point the plane would have to fly over half of the world and do a huge nose dive, over of the edge of the Earth, and then dip down the other side of the planet. Surely these flat Earth believers who flew around the world would notice something like this, not just feeling it, but also from looking at the the edge of the Earth, from out the window of the plane, no?
No; they don’t believe there is another side. They think all the continents are are on the top-side of a flat disk, with the North Pole being dead center & Antartica along the entire rim of the disk.
I'd be curious to know how flat-Earthers believe gravity works. Do they still believe that mass causes gravity? If so, as you approach the edge of the disk wouldn't you be pulled back toward the center? Or is the force coming from somewhere far below so it's approximately vertical at all locations on the Earth-plane? What's causing it then?
The claim the earth disk is constantly accelerating upward, instead of rotating.
Neither movingvanmorrison or I have claimed to believe in UFOs or Bigfoot. The only thing I know for a fact; is that people who believe that Bigfoot exists & people who believe in flat earth are apples to oranges.
No, they're not. It really is that simple.
Nothing about my saying the belief systems are equivalent means you or anyone else has to believe or not believe in them all, as some kind of package deal. But believing something that has absolutely not one shred of supporting evidence, in the face of indisputable contrary evidence, is the same no matter what the topic is.
If you want to guard some belief of yours as exceptional, fine. But nonsense, pseudoscience and mysticism are on a flat playing field even though each group just knows it holds The Truth.
The claim the earth disk is constantly accelerating upward, instead of rotating.
At 1 g acceleration you'd be close to the speed of light (0.77c) within a year. You'd think we'd have detected that by now.
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