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Comment by shrikant | Hacker News Reader

If you look at the series of videos on YouTube, then you'll see this (the outdoor, night-time bit, at least) actually happens.

The rationalist chap gets cheesed off at being groped and pawed at, and finally agrees to a night-time outdoor ritual. which the channel airs as well. Predictable results, except this time the 'guru' signs off saying the effects of his actions manifest themselves 'gradually'.

[Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/rationalists - check out the videos that say Tantra Challenge - they're all in Hindi though..]

Just as an FYI, I used to be a moderately religious Hindu, and I recognise most of his 'mantras' as really benign, simple stuff that are:

   a) Used by children to appease the gods and goddesses of education/knowledge/wisdom
   b) Recited during wedding ceremonies

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'Gradually' as in over the course of 20-40 years?

And the effectiveness increases as the victim increases in age.

It's not benign to teach children to believe in superstition. You know gods and goddesses do not exist.

Man, you must be the life of a party.

You just managed to offend a guy gratuitously. Plenty of people are able to be rational and yet hold religious beliefs. And all you do is to dismiss everything as superstition.

I, for one, can't say for sure that I "know that gods and goddesses don't exist". And you are trying to shove down your disbelief down my throat. Fundamentalist atheism is still fundamentalism. Please stop.

I had no intention to offend and I am sorry if I did. It was not, however, gratuitous. Religion is something you must seek and imposing a religion upon kids (or merely teaching it as if it were the truth - or worse yet: that there is a truth) may damage them for life.

Is "not doing any sports" a sport?

There is a big difference between not believing in any god, and actively fighting/repressing those who do.

If you don't want to do any sports, it's fine. If you want to stop other people that fancy playing sports, then you just got yourself a sport.

They are able to be rational about everything except their religious beliefs.

Belief in gods and goddesses does not jive very well with Occam's razor or the complete lack of empirical evidence.

I can't say for sure that gods and goddesses don't exist, but I also can't say for sure that there isn't a giant invisible elephant following me around.

But if I claimed there was a giant invisible elephant following me, I'd likely be committed or medicated.

I don't intend to shove anything down your throat, but please...

"You know gods and goddesses do not exist."

Do not exist as physically-independent entities, yes. That means you define "existence" as in "this rock exists."

They might be quite real (and even somewhat powerful) as entities populating one's subconscious mind. That is the position adopted, by the way, by some buddhist schools. In that sense, the gods might "exist" very well.

The programs running on your computer "exist" on the same level as the subconscious gods anyway.

By your definition everything exists for the mere thought of it influences your future state, therefore it exists. This a corruption of language and serves no use but to confuse people and lend credence to charlatans.

Careful with fundamentalist materialism (as with any fundamentalism in general). At the end of that road lie all sorts of aberrations such as "computer programs do not exist" and so on. Really? There's a whole industry built on the opposite idea. :)

EDIT: Are you also saying that the subconscious does not exist?

It's pretty funny having this sort of conversations with compsci people. They tend to be pretty hardcore and either-black-or-white on issues that do not lend themselves to this sort of treatment at all.

I don't see how you can say a computer program doesn't exist? It exists as a state in a computers memory.

I have no opinion on the subconscious -- in fact I don't really know what it is. It may refer to certain mental processes and then I'd say it exists, but in my opinion it is a very general term. I think that psychology is still too early to say for sure what does and does not exist.

If I had an irrational fear of 1000 legged toad and it affected my behavior it doesn't mean that it exists. Now of course we get into all sorts of epistemological problems that aren't solved about our knowledge of reality, etc...

What you say is that the fantasy that god X exists is real and has measurable effects. Like software, it's not the software that makes the computer run, but its manifestation in electrical charges their representation creates in the processor's data lines.

Benign as in it wasn't some overly mystical, witchcrafty black magic voodoo - any Hindu worth his prayer beads would recognise his 'chants' off the bat.

Not benign in the "what could possibly go wrong" sense :)

Either way.

It's not benign in the sense it makes children, who will, hopefully, become adults one day, believe in magical things. Prayer solves no problem and believing some mystical entity is to blame for bad things that happen removes responsibility from the people to correct and or prevent it.

No. It's simply bad.

If, someday, we find out gods and goddesses really exist, it will be (I hope) a nice surprise. In the meantime, it only makes sense to educate kids that humans are in charge.

I see what your trying to say; and I do sympathise. Really there are two situations though (and I think youir mixing the two together and making a general statement).

Firstly parents teaching a child about their own religious views. Now I personally think that the correct way to do this is to present those views and allow the child to make a choice; but I don't think I can turn round and tell a parent instilling their views on a child that what they are doing is wrong. They are trying to teach the child things they believe to be correct and are doing so in good faith and with love. I am hopeful that our society now is modern enough to give the child their own choice later in life.

On the other hand we have people teaching religion to children generally. For example here in the UK primary schools are supposed to have so many hours "worship" each week. I find that kind of thing just sickeningly horrible (partly because I consider organised religions pretty evil (or non-benign) entities). Unfortunately it doesn't worry most parents (who may not have beliefs - but just shrug their shoulders at the "brainwashing" and say it's not having an effect). Removal of choice is something I despise.

With all that said this is not really a topic worthy of a forum like this. :)

> With all that said this is not really a topic worthy of a forum like this. :)

Unless we find a way to hack religion to suit our purposes ;-)

We should start a Scientology clone.

Idea: Call it Grahamism, get pg and jgrahamc to chip in, expand, and profit.

It also makes sense to educate kids to respect other peoples' religious views.

I used to hold that view, but why single out religious views? Why not teach people to respect everyone else's views no matter how vile?

Respect the racist's views, it makes them feel better -- who cares it if may cause them do evil.

Respect the scam artist's views, he feels that what he does is right.

etc..

Just because most people claim to believe in magic and fairy dust doesn't mean it's true, and if they are offended because you:

1. Don't believe in the same fairy dust they do 2. Point out errors and inconsistencies in their views 3. Behave in a way inconsistent with their views, that poses them no harm

Then maybe they aren't as firm in their beliefs as they thought.

...Why?

There's a fine difference between respecting a person, and respecting a person's religious views.

Exactly, just the One....

That one doesn't exist either.

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