The Reverend Bob
Fart Machine and Beastmaster
It's like a damn hobby for the Fey in the folklore to drown kidsDrowning innocent little children is absolutely in line with fairy folklore.
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It's like a damn hobby for the Fey in the folklore to drown kidsDrowning innocent little children is absolutely in line with fairy folklore.
Well, dang. Live and learn. After reading your post, I did a little digging. Gees. Among other stuff, I came across this...
Fairy Scapegoats: A History of the Persecution of Changeling Children
Writing in 1960, the Dutch scholar Jacoba Hooykaas found child-stealing fairy or elf types were feared in Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Moravia, Greece, Lithuania, Bohemia and Hungary, with a modern-day variant in Bali. In Celtic territories, fairies stole babies and children — especially boys, and especially those with blue eyes and fair hair — leaving fairy substitutes in their place. Having identified such a switch, people did everything they could to make the fairies reverse it. To the end of the nineteenth century, and probably later, such children were ritually abused by their own parents to this end. Immersed in rivers or placed at the margin of coastal tides, stood on hot coals or hung over fires, exposed in freezing weather, bathed in poisonous foxglove essence, beaten, threatened and subjected to forms of exorcism, these babies and children sometimes survived, sometimes not.
Truly frightening. I guess my concepts of Faries came from the likes of Disney and the Cottingley Faries.
Thanks for the info.
What is it about this "study" that impressed you?
Was it this...(my emphases)
In other words, the more rational something sounds, the more religious individuals need to reject it.“It suggests that religious individuals may cling to certain beliefs, especially those which seem at odds with analytic reasoning, because those beliefs resonate with their moral sentiments,” said PhD student Jared Friedman, a co-author of the study.
Did you notice this part?
What? No atheists?!? That's one heck of a good study.
The majority of participants in the study identified as Christian or non-religious; Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim participants also took part.
Do you have something else you would like to dazzle us with?
I am not projecting anything. Young people tend to look up to others. When a young person discovers atheism they often look to famous and outspoken for guidance and confirmation of their newfound atheism. It is a well known human practice that even atheists are not magically immune from. Hero worship. There is a strong psychological need to have role models, heroes and idols to look up to. Where you get the idea that atheists young and old have somehow been vaccinated from this need is beyond me.I think that you may eventually find out that you are projecting.
For all the attempt at making "New Atheism" a thing, there is really hardly any leadership among atheists. Because there is no need for any.
Once you consider how many of us exist, that is remarkable and hints at interesting things.
OK useful but can you please be a bit more specific?
I am not projecting anything. Young people tend to look up to others. When a young person discovers atheism they often look to famous and outspoken for guidance and confirmation of their newfound atheism. It is a well known human practice that even atheists are not magically immune from. Hero worship. There is a strong psychological need to have role models, heroes and idols to look up to. Where you get the idea that atheists young and old have somehow been vaccinated from this need is beyond me.
Projecting what? The radiant light of the truth?Then you are projecting.
If by "comforting fictions" you mean beliefs in non-existent gods, yes, all atheists believe that.
I find it strange that you would refer to religious beliefs as "comforting fictions". Was that a Freudian slip?
Some characteristics that I'm not fond of which may be present among my fellow irreligionists:
hat's a really nonsensical statement - on many levels.
What's "their, and our species"? Are you saying that atheists and theists are different species? Is that your level of understanding of nature?
Ignoring that, we are still left with your assertion that many of us have "an excessive faith in ... our species', ability to be consistently rational."
That's obviously not true. We would have some "faith ... in our species', ability to be consistently rational" if 90+% of people were atheists.
The only one here who fanboys Dawkins is you. You made an entire thread to discuss him yesterday.Their fanboy adulation of the Fearless Leaders such as Dawkins
Then you are projecting.
I don't want to generalise all atheists here since atheism itself isn't the reason I'd have an issue with somebody. If we're talking pet peeves though, there are a couple of things that make me wince.
Sometimes a person will find a particular criticism of Abrahamic Monotheism and think they've found an all-purpose foil to theism and/or religion in general. I suspect this is cultural as if you've grown up in the Bible Belt or somewhere similar, it's very likely you haven't had much experience beyond the dominant religion of that area. That's understandable but it becomes an issue if that view is maintained in the face of contrary information.
The comforting fictions thing that @Augustus mentioned is also irritating. It's doubly irritating when that same person possesses a starry-eyed wonder at just how gosh darned great humans are.
Finally it's the jokes. George Carlin's invisible man in the sky routine was funny at the time but that joke has since been pounded into the dirt by repetition. It's the Knights Who Say Ni effect. Also, when somebody compares deities to fairies in an attempt to be derisive, it makes me sincerely wish that more people would do some bloody research. It's not necessarily an unfair comparison to make but when somebody does it with sparkly ballerinas in mind they really are showing their ignorance.
Again, this isn't a criticism of atheists as a whole nor is it a criticism of atheism itself. These are just behaviours from some people that I find irritating.
In what way is it showing ignorance?
On the other hand, comparing gods to fairies is really not fair to the reputation of faries. Faries are kind to children and bring them joy, or money for their unneeded teeth.
Faries never horrifically drowned all the innocent little children and wooly lambs.
Very true.
Okay so I'm going to have to cite Poe's law here because I'm genuinely not sure if you're being facetious!
Drowning innocent little children is absolutely in line with fairy folklore.
It really isn't.
You should read some fairy stories.
Fairy folk are rarely portraid as good
Well, dang. Live and learn. After reading your post, I did a little digging. Gees. Among other stuff, I came across this...
Fairy Scapegoats: A History of the Persecution of Changeling Children
Writing in 1960, the Dutch scholar Jacoba Hooykaas found child-stealing fairy or elf types were feared in Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Moravia, Greece, Lithuania, Bohemia and Hungary, with a modern-day variant in Bali. In Celtic territories, fairies stole babies and children — especially boys, and especially those with blue eyes and fair hair — leaving fairy substitutes in their place. Having identified such a switch, people did everything they could to make the fairies reverse it. To the end of the nineteenth century, and probably later, such children were ritually abused by their own parents to this end. Immersed in rivers or placed at the margin of coastal tides, stood on hot coals or hung over fires, exposed in freezing weather, bathed in poisonous foxglove essence, beaten, threatened and subjected to forms of exorcism, these babies and children sometimes survived, sometimes not.
Truly frightening. I guess my concepts of Faries came from the likes of Disney and the Cottingley Faries.
Thanks for the info.
Still, Faries never horrifically drowned all the innocent little children and wooly lambs.
It's like a damn hobby for the Fey in the folklore to drown kids
My pleasure
You're certainly not alone in how you perceived fairies by the way. Disney has a hell of a lot to answer for in trampling over some fascinating (and often gruesome) folklore and history.
You consider it glib when someone compares one set of entities that were created by man's imaginings with another set of entities that were created by man's imaginings. I don't see that glib.The above is a good example of certain behaviors some atheists display that I dislike. I hate the facetious and glib attitudes they tend to take when discussing religion.
No.Do you believe God is eternal?
No.Do you believe God is omniscient?
No.Do you believe God is omnipotent?
No.Do you believe the Genesis story to be factual, especially the Adam, Eve, Tree part?
I wouldn't disparage the Fey folk if I were you. Where I come from we talk about them in hushed tonesThis thread needs more...
You consider it glib when someone compares one set of entities that were created by man's imaginings with another set of entities that were created by man's imaginings. I don't see that glib.
But, OK. Let's have a serious discussion.
A couple of quick questions before we begin.
yesDo you believe God is eternal?
yesDo you believe God is omniscient?
yesDo you believe God is omnipotent?
noDo you believe the Genesis story to be factual, especially the Adam, Eve, Tree part?
I wouldn't want to make you jealous.Perhaps you could ask Harris or Pinker out on a date instead
I agree that I could have phrased it a bit less ambiguous to make clear what I mean, so again: "what bothers me is that they can't see the psychological benefits of having a religion like those effects which it clearly has on me and which it also seems to have on many other people".If you want to be correct instead of ixxxxxxxxy axxxxxxt, you would have said: "what bothers me is that they can't see the psychological benefits of having a religion like I do".
I quote from your linked article and you accuse me of cowardly microaggressions. Not just microaggressions but cowardly microaggressions.Also cowardly microaggressions also tend to be annoying