Can we have a proper 'woo' topic?

[IndigoBarbie]

Dear MNHQ, I fully believe in freedom of speech and experiences, and as such I go out of my way to assist those who are asking more angelic/psychic etc questions, since this is my real life in a nutshell. Getting sooooo fed up of threads becoming all about others who don't believe and blatantly attacking those of us on thread who want to actively discuss and share and I think a lovely new topic of 'woo' or something you feel is an appropriate title could be provided for us to have proper sharings and discussions.

unreal your posts are aggressive and attacking. That's not a discussion.

dione you are correct...which is why for me, homeopathy etc is in a different category to belief in god.

It is possible to prove that homeopathy does nothing in excess of the placebo effect while it is not possibly to prove that God does not exist.

There is of course the complete lack of evidence to support the existence of a God that cares about human beings etc. which to people who like to weigh the possibilities rationally makes the existence of God appear highly unlikely but that is a different kettle of fish.

In some ways this problem is down to people making specific claims about what homeopathy can achieve, while they don't make specific claims about what God can achieve....

hey ho.

I mean honestly, it's bullying behaviour. So what if some people believe one thing and another group believe another. That's life. But do one group really have to class themselves of the righteous enforcers and try and stamp out another persons beliefs or religion ?

I just don't get why people that don't believe in a certain topic have to hang around in that area waiting for a topic to open. Strange.

Unreal, your post shows an ignorance regarding beliefs and believers. Beliefs are not lies. Believers are not "barefaced liars". Everyone has beliefs, regarding themselves, others and the world.

softly I would love to describe the compulsion to explain the power of the scientific method....how about:

If you knew someone who for whatever reason believed that they would get terribly ill if they didn't walk 1000 times around their bed every morning, who's life was completely controlled by this belief, and whose quality of life was reduced by it, wouldn't you want to explain to them that they could just stop and see if anything happened?

Wouldn't you want to explain that there is no correlation between bed walking and getting ill?

How would you feel about that person passing on their belief to their children and causing them to spend hours a day walking around their beds?

maryz yeah but if I were to say "homeopathy can cure cancer" I would be lying but someone else might just be ignorant of the facts.

Discuss away! That's what these boards are for. Don't believe in god, heaven ect.. But I do find topics interesting on posters take on them.

What's horrid is the sneering, calls of 'bare faced lying' thinly veiled insults, would that be said to a priest or any other belief/religion on here?

No I don't think it would. People should be able to discuss a topic they like freely with out posters jumping in and smashing the thread up.

Ok you don't believe X,Y,Z , you have said your piece, why can't people be left to discuss what they wanted to. It's serves no purpose except to see who shouts the loudest.

Why do those posters have to stay on the thread to the death, blocking any other kind of discussion and completely derailing it?

Some ones belief system is always going to vary to the next persons - cool. What's not cool is the grinding down of a thread in the hope that the aggressors will force everyone else to agree with them.

This is on site stuff, not AIBU. There was no need for this thread to turn so hostile.

Icebeing, you may wish to explain that to the bed walker and on an open Internet forum do so. However your explanation will make little to no difference to that person. So what do you do? Harangue them, insist that you are right and they are wrong? Make your point and move on? Or ask questions and listen while they explain it to you?

I think that the problem on the RPS boards is with those who continuously take the first approach, derailing threads about Philosophy, religion and spirituality and using them to vent their own frustrations.

ice someone asking on a thread, if they have seen a angel, found a feather, believe in lock ness monster is not doing any harm and very far from the scenario you have just discribed.

maryz I believe differently.

Also one poster has said that. Not everyone. Please get off the bandwagon.

You don't believe - some people do. Bit if a stale mate.

Maryz I agree I don't like using the word bullying in this kind of situation because it does trivialise the suffering some people go through but it is hard to find another word for behaviour described above as the same few [posters] that pop up on every thread with aggressive, derisive comments which are personal - either thinly veiled accusations that the poster has mental health problems, or explicit suggestions that they do

I really don't see why it is so hard to live and let live. Homeopathy appears in clinical trials to be no better than placebo, well some trials seemed to show the same about some widely used anti-depressants yet I know many people who say they have been greatly helped by both and would not dream of telling any of them that they are wrong - that is their experience. It's life, we are all different and we are all entitled to have and express different views. Some people need to just accept that rather than shouting others down

This going completely of topic BUT belief and hope can give a lot of comfort to people.

I do not believe in god, but if any of my dd were seriously ill or on deaths door I'd be praying to any thing that could hear me! God, Allah -Hell pepper pig if it worked !!

Just because you feel like that dies t mean everyone else does or people should impose their beliefs on them

dione I think I would find it very hard to let something like that go. I like to think I wouldn't rant at someone, but if they were causing their children to suffer I am not sure I could restrain myself.

I have the same problem with FGM etc. I simply can't agree to disagree if someone is chopping bits off their child in the name of religion.

I couldn't let a facebook discussion go the other day where a mother wasn't seeking medical advice for her child and was instead 'treating' with homeopathy.

I am fine with it right up until someone other than the believer is suffering and then I am not.

If the thread gets you do cross why are you going on them?

Fgm is a world away from people talking about angels ice

Not every one has had a bad experiences , not every one needs random strangers policing what they believe in.

maryz I agree, the idea that we haven't tried hard enough if bad things happen is offensive. My friend's relative and her partner were drug and alcohol abusers, their daughter has disabilities which probably result from them. The parents were "saved" and are now evangelical in their beliefs, one of which is that their daughter would be healed if only she would pray hard enough Awful, just awful.
Having said all that, faith and beliefs can give comfort and improve life for some people, even if only by changing their outlook so should we deny that because of the former.

If somebody was offering to cure autism, etc that would be a dreadful lie but I am not aware of that sort of claim ever having been made on MN and surely open and healthy discussion would be a better way to discredit that anyway. I would expect truth might work better than the aggressive and vicious approach some posters have used in the past.

Just out of interest, my experience when I did my complementary therapy diploma was that the therapists who made the grandest claims (I can cure...whatever) were often the least educated/informed. If I had shouted "No you can't, you're a charlatan" it would have been far less effective than me thinking that quietly and explaining why as a healthcare practitioner I thought they were wrong but listening to their experience. We all learned a lot from each other and nobody felt attacked

Ice, if you can't let go, then the result is a frustrated you (realistically there is nothing you can do) and someone who now feels demonised on top of having OCD and this can lead to them not seeking the actual RL help that they need. By continuing to vent, you are creating a lose lose situation.

Maryz, you cannot predict the future. You don't know what "the next step" will be. This is a site that is for adults, just like you and me. Some like discussing expensive handbags and holidays. Should we close down these discussions because of credit card debt? Of course not. All we can do is strongly advise against getting into debt or putting their faith in somebody who may exploit them and move on (if indeed the intent was to help in the first place). That is all we can do, speak to other adults as adults and leave them to it. Leaping into the critical parent role will not help and may in itself do damage.

BTW, charlatans exist in the economic and scientific worlds too. There are plenty of Get Rich Quick schemes and Stem Cell Miracle Cures out there. But we shouldn't close down financial or scientific threads.

softly I am not on them....I avoid them. Sometimes one crosses my path and I was explaining why I feel compelled to comment (in response to you asking why I feel compelled to comment).

I was giving more extreme examples because I thought you might feel about those the way I feel about the small stuff.

I find it every bit as annoying and irritating to hear people talk about angel feathers as religious arguments for FGM. For me they are connected. Once you start believing in things you have no evidence for, you are on the thin end of a wedge the thick end of which leads to mutilation of children.

dione yes I know - I wasn't suggesting otherwise. But there is only so much about ones nature that it is possible to suppress or change.

That is true Ice. However if religious/spiritual people give you the rage, why seek them out?

The problem with the PRS board is that unless you are on a "safe" thread (exclusive to one religion or a prayer thread) there is a very high chance that some angry Westboro type atheists will come to ridicule, derail and silence. They are not there to help. Some come to preach, others to project or vent their displaced anger on MN members. It makes for a poorer forum.