demons...

This was my presentation, with the exception of being late, i think we did an ok job. Although I do wish I could have found some scientific evidence either way. But it is more of a circular argument that can't be dealt with. You are mentally ill...... well the demon possession is what caused the illness..... and it can go the other way as well. You are possessed, which is what is causing the illnesses. Something cannot be both a cause and effect.

Some of our references are:

Skeptical Inquirer, Jan 2001 v25 i1 p20
Exorcism! Driving Out the Nonsense. JOE NICKELL.

Vatican updates its rules on exorcism of demons. 1999. The Arizona Daily Star, January 27.

Renaissance Quarterly, Winter 1996 v49 n4 p738(22)
Possessed by the devil? A very public dispute in Utrecht. Benjamin J. Kaplan.

The Journal of Parapsychology, March 1995 v59 n1 p69(8)
Possession and exorcism: an essay review. Ian Stevenson

Journal of Religion and Health, April 2005 v44 i1 p13(18)
The Growing Evidence for Demonic Possession: What Should Psychiatry's Response be? Betty Stafford

The Devil, Demonology, and Witchcraft; The Development of Christian beliefs in Evil Spirits by Henry Ansgar Kelly

The Mind Possessed; A Physiology of Possession, Mysticism and Faith Healing by William Sargant

millerites...

The Millerite tradition is a diverse family of denominations and Bible study movements that have arisen since the middle of the 19th century, traceable to the Adventist movement sparked by the teachings of William Miller.
From Wikipedia...

This just seems like a group of people, with different religious beliefs. Like a cult, but they didn't really do anything bad. They just thought that Jesus would come back on a particular day, which he didn't, then the people went back to their everyday lives. There are still people who are in this faith, but call themselves something else.

Whatever, if they want to believe this, they can.

Therapeutic Touch and Faith Healers

This is all a matter of if you believe it, it will happen. Oddly enough this has been shown to happen in various cases. Not proved per se, but shown repeatedly. Positive outlook on life, believing in the therapy, can cause the person's body to spontaneously heal. These are often seen as miracles, as the overwhelming majority of cases of this type of healing do not actually work.

Essentially, it has nothing to do with the actual therapeutic modality, be it touch or faith, it has to do with random occurances of healing and people having faith.

On a side note, these people are mean, selfish people. The vast majority are taking advantage of people's faith and hope. I would hope that these people would be regulated somehow, like with a disclaimer at the begining of the show or something that says, " these people are BS, don't believe them, but if you liked the show, feel free to give a little money. "

Mediums

I think Mediums are a bunch of BS. Which was verified in the presentation. They are only 50% correct, which is the same as guessing. They use trickery to get people to believe and are generally dependent on the "believers" in order to get ideas right. I really liked that they presented experiments that were done trying to find out if these people were the real thing. I just think that the whole idea of mediums is so vague. However i do think that sometimes people from the past want to communicate with the people of the present, but i don't think the spirits can consult with a phone book to find the nearest medium to their loved ones.

Appeal to ......

More fallacies............

Appeal to authority: when you cite another person to support your argument, while this person can be a person in authority, it is often not someone qualified to be a expert in the argument. For example:
Noted psychologist Dr. Frasier Crane recommends that you buy the EZ-Rest Hot Tub. http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/aa.php

Appeal to tradition: supports an argument by appealing to traditional opinion, as if the past itself were a kind of authority. People have believed in God for thousands of years so God must exist. Why else would the belief last so long? www.ramdac.org

Appeal to the masses: everyone is doing it, you should too.

Zeitgeist

I guess this means the "spirit of the times" literally, but means "the general intellectual, moral and cultural climate of an era" www.answers.com . I think this can mean different ideas, but that it has to be a cultural idea that many people share.
I also got bands, coffee shops, galleries, and many other things named the same thing. So not really sure.

Atlantis

I think it would be really cool if this society existed, and i think it is a possibility. We do not have the time to search every square inch of the depths of the ocean, and if Pompeii was real, why can't Atlantis be real. The only thing that distinguishes the 2 is that Pompeii was a civilization killed by a natural disaster, which we know can happen. Atlantis was sunk by the greek gods, making the story a little less feasible to the modern world. Although something to think about, people said the gods were what caused things such as storms, and floods, could it be that in fact a tsunami happened on the coast of this island, effectively sinking it, and the ancient people, not understanding what caused it, blamed it on the gods?

Religion or Pseudoreligion?

I don't think there is any real way to distinguish the 2. Religion to me is a set of beliefs which affect and guide people's lives. So if people want to believe that Elvis is their god and that he is going to come back and be their messiah, that is fine with me. It is really no different than believing that Jesus is the messiah. In both aspects the people are changing their lives in order to live in accordance with thier beliefs. As long as the people are not causing harm to themselves or others, as in cults, i think anything which can give people something to believe that they are not alone in the world, and that there is a higher being looking out and protecting them, it can only do these people good. Often depression is caused when people think they are alone in the world.

Dreams

I wasn't quite sure what Nostradomus had to do with dreams. Were all his prophesies from dreams he had? It was interesting to know that we dream up to 250 dreams a night, and that kind of explains why when you wake up the dream you remember is very random and scattered. Personally I don't think that dreams can be prophetic, though this is probably because I don't think people can tell the future any way. Because this means that the future is set, and there are no variations available, which means whatever we do with our lives it is all planned out for us and there is no rea freedom of choice.

Ghosts

What did seances have to do with the basic idea of ghosts? They spent a lot of time on seances, which is interesting, but didn't really have to do with whether or not ghosts exists. I liked the pictures of "ghosts" . I actually believe there are ghosts, and one of the people in the group never actually discounted the idea, just said they are hard to prove they are there. The photos can be fake, but i still have to wonder why certain houses have similar visions, and occurrances. Sometimes the coincidences are way to great. When 2 people can describe the same apparation, it seems like there is something there, even if we can't catch it on photos.

Witches

I liked the presentation. The history was a little scattered, which made it hard to follow. But I liked the fact that they emphasized that it is not a cult, or that witches do not worship the devil. They did not go into what made them paranormal, except to say that they did spells. But do the spells work? ( and i am not talking about the ones that control the weather) Do they know that the other spells do not work? The opening of people's minds ones.