Funny that you mention those things but not that Catholics (1.4 billion people) supposedly believe that transubstantiation literally turns bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Do we just accept that they don't really believe what they say they believe? Do the Reiki people really believe it?
My heuristics for telling what people really believe are observing what they laugh at and observing what they get offended by. Nobody laugh or get offended by something they consider to be nonsense. Nobody would get offended if you disputed their belief in gravity. Nobody would laugh if you joked about something imaginary with no basis in reality. But I do believe if you made the right joke about transubstantiation then people would laugh, because they don't really believe it. Same for spoon bending or crystals etc.
> Funny that you mention those things but not that Catholics (1.4 billion people) supposedly believe that transubstantiation literally turns bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
Does it need mentioning? Were you not aware of this? Or do you think that maybe I left it out because offending people because of their religion is counterproductive in discussions like these?
I was curious why you would pick such trivial little targets that I assume are popular right now when there are huge mainstream examples of the phenomenon. I wonder if it's just too obvious that people don't believe what they say they believe in the case of transubstantiation. Also not sure why offending people because of religion is not productive but apparently reiki or crystals is fair game.
That's because reiki and crystals are not official religions and the other ones are. Never mind that to me they are similar, to the people that practice them they are not.
My heuristics for telling what people really believe are observing what they laugh at and observing what they get offended by. Nobody laugh or get offended by something they consider to be nonsense. Nobody would get offended if you disputed their belief in gravity. Nobody would laugh if you joked about something imaginary with no basis in reality. But I do believe if you made the right joke about transubstantiation then people would laugh, because they don't really believe it. Same for spoon bending or crystals etc.