Derren Brown Messiah / How to convert an Atheist into a Christian by touch a must watch for all ATS

reply to post by bogomil

It's certainly possible for this sort of thing to happen, but often it requires a much greater psychological investment in the process at hand - a room full of atheists will not be under very much in the way of psychological pressure to conform to expectations, especially if it's not known what those expectations are. In a religious setting where there's a room full of believers it'd be much more likely.

In other words, I appreciate that Derren Brown is trying to make a point with this demonstration, and it's a valuable point. But is the demonstration itself real? He's a magician, first and foremost. His job is to make his audience believe what he wants them to believe, and he's very good at it. I think it would be a mistake to take him at his word.

reply to post by enleve


Thanks for your answer. And it's not as if we really disagree seriously about anything important.

It's kind of chinese-box like, what Brown does. At one level the conjuring functions, at another level he tells people, it's conjuring, at a third level he will thus be drawing attention to common human gullible'ness (is this a real noun?).

I seem to recall, that Djin sometimes uses the word 'majic' describing conjurer religion. I find this very precise.

reply to post by bogomil
[mor

A while back I was invited to my daughters school ( a supposedly secular school) for an award ceremony much to my utter disgust on each chair was placed a christian hymn and prayer sheet which sent me off on one for quite some time.

Another father was sat next to me (his kids and mine are friends) and we chatted but I didn't mention my anger or the cause. At the start the head (principal) was introduced and asked everyone to stand and join in in prayer which they did some like automatons and some with confused hesitation.
Man that pissed me off I was the only person out of a couple of hundred still seated and quite a few glances were headed my way including that of my ex wife 2 rows behind.

I was bemused by the reaction of the guy next to me he was momentarily John Cleese , up, glance at me, back down, up , quick glance then half back down then up again to stand there moving his lips like a dyslexic signer.

At some point this nonsense went into several hymns and another prayer to the baby jesus what an absolute waste of human potential, how quickly we give over minds to fear of being ridiculed.

This is magik alright, it turns out that the guy sat next to me hasn't got the time of day for christianity and was equally as pissed off at having it shoved down our throats. Nevertheless he still succumbed to centuries of conditioning handing over his mind to the court magicians although only temporarily, for fear of the other monkeys.

If we adults need to be on our guard then we would be very wise to keep a close eye on our children, if there is one thing that Derren Brown does well it is remind us to be vigilant and for those that are unaware open their minds to possibilities.

reply to post by The Djin


Great story. I've been the one person in a room who didn't comply with the mass ritual being performed and it's a bit creepy at first, but I got used to the looks. I wonder how many I have seen who really felt the way your friend did.

I can't watch the videos now, but look forward to seeing them when I can.

reply to post by The Djin


HAHAHAH You talk about gullible and deluded people YET you don't have the sophistication required to embed a youtube video on ATS.

reply to post by HunkaHunka


In defence of Djin and other members who don't know
how to embed videos
Did it occur to you to help less computer savvy members
out?Probably not!
I just learned to copy and paste in the last 6-8 months and
my IQ is above room temperature!

reply to post by The Djin


Hi Djin,

nice to see you back. I was for a while worried, that the Opus Dei guys had gotten to you. These days I always lock my door at night.

Did you ever read R.A.Wilson's 'Illuminatus trilogy'? There's a passage, where one of the definite anarchistic main-characters demonstrates something he calls: 'The bavarian firedrill'. Making everybody in a public place react like a zombi. It's deeply rooted in us.

E.g. I would rather listen to endless evangelism, than to take out my private parts in public. I'm a bit impressed about people being able to do such.

i wonder how many people responded to the " advertisement." and how was it worded
and then i would like to have seen the process in picking who got to to participate in the
conversion. you know after all it is a show on how someone could influence someone into believing
something they normally wouldn't, and you couldn't put people in front of the camera that wouldn't give you response you wanted, that wouldn't be good tv.

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by The Djin

 

HAHAHAH You talk about gullible and deluded people YET you don't have the sophistication required to embed a youtube video on ATS.

Unusual for me I agree with Mamabeth.

I will even go a bit further and pretend I'm slightly offended. You see, I'm almost imbecile, when it comes to computers, though I can understand the implications of quantum mechanics and can repair a car. With help I can even boil an egg.

So is THAT your measure-tape for human qualities. Isn't it in your lingo called a 'nerd'?

reply to post by The Djin


In high school I went to a weekend retreat with a high school religous group. I was not particularly religous but it was sold to me as easy going and just fun.

It was a weekend of conditioning "us" to accept Jesus as the way, mixed with some fun stuff, to get you in the right frame of mind. The last hours of the weekend were an intensive session of preaching, then everyone was continually asked to stand when the Lord had come inside you, or something like that. It really annoyed me, and slowly over a period of the last half hour all the teens slowly stoody some crying etc. I could not believe it? Total brainwashing or hypnosis or NLP.

There was a lot of pressure to stand also, I was tempted to myself, just to not be the fool in the room. But, I had already been preached to previously that weekend, by the cabin leader, how we're all bad people and only god would make us good, and that made me mad.

I believe in things bigger than myself, but this was just trickery to me.

Originally posted by mamabeth
reply to post by HunkaHunka

 

In defence of Djin and other members who don't know
how to embed videos

Did it occur to you to help less computer savvy members
out?Probably not!
I just learned to copy and paste in the last 6-8 months and
my IQ is above room temperature!

When those folks who appear to need help don't try to paint humanity and religion with such a wide brush, using pejoratives which denigrate the adherents mental capacity, then yes I assist them. However in such a case as this where the OP hails the stupidity of religious adherents but fails to have the ability to perform such a simple task, I tend to find a great deal of humor in that.

Originally posted by bogomil

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by The Djin

 

HAHAHAH You talk about gullible and deluded people YET you don't have the sophistication required to embed a youtube video on ATS.

Unusual for me I agree with Mamabeth.

I will even go a bit further and pretend I'm slightly offended. You see, I'm almost imbecile, when it comes to computers, though I can understand the implications of quantum mechanics and can repair a car. With help I can even boil an egg.

So is THAT your measure-tape for human qualities. Isn't it in your lingo called a 'nerd'?

My measuring tape is how much one doth protest. For example, in the case of the OP he/she claims the stupidity of one group while showing their own stupidity at the same time. In this case, they cancel each other out and become uniquely hilarious.

reply to post by The Djin

You stated,
"""Here, the amazing Derren Brown completely debunking Christianity, Alien abduction powers, Psychic Mediums, Remote Viewing etc.""""

It is impossible to completely debunk Christianity, as first you must know everything to prove that God does not exist,

Secondly historically it has been shown that most of the sites were there, which does not allow for complete debunking.

This is just a atheist prophet to those who wish to be willingly ignorant.

God bless.

reply to post by wheelz123


Part of how he is doing that is "self selection." Those people had to answer an ad to even show up there. And then a bunch left, further winnowing the group down to "atheists who want to believe."

The trick is not "how do I make people believe in something" the trick is "how do I tailor my message to appeal to what these people want to believe?" Many people who think they are "atheists" or even pagans are actually reverse Christians. They are disenfranchised Christians. Like the second "converted" guy. He was upset by the idea that a good loving God could allow suffering, which is a very different thing than just not believing in Gods at all. The first girl, comes from a very religious family. In both, the belief or desire to believe is there, there is just some block. Brown just finds away for them to justify letting go of the block, so they can believe.

Originally posted by hounddoghowlie
i wonder how many people responded to the " advertisement." and how was it worded
and then i would like to have seen the process in picking who got to to participate in the
conversion. you know after all it is a show on how someone could influence someone into believing
something they normally wouldn't, and you couldn't put people in front of the camera that wouldn't give you response you wanted, that wouldn't be good tv.

edit on 1-3-2011 by hounddoghowlie because: (no reason given)

Nominally more than half of mankind belongs to some club, where invisible and un-demonstrable higher powers are involved.

Now if these clubs had been uniform in doctrine and experiences, it could have been an indication of something 'real' (it still CAN be 'real' in some cases; but obviously not ALL, though).

So half of mankind would qualify according to the criteria you put up: People who want to believe in something.

(I'm not trying to juggle with numbers. A lot of the above mentioned club-members are so passive, that they hardly know anything about their own club. A more correct number would be around an estimated 30% of mankind being professing religionists).

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by The Djin

 

HAHAHAH You talk about gullible and deluded people YET you don't have the sophistication required to embed a youtube video on ATS.

Ha ha ha you are so funny, if you had the sophistication to read you would have noted that embedding was problem due to 4OD not moi.

Oh Ha ha Ha if you had any sophistication you would have noticed that I have embedded quite a few videos here on ATS.

Indeed Ha ha ha after all the unsophisticated idiotic deluded nonsense you have posted when you've attempted to make yourself appear to be a credible in debates such as these, you still make yourself look like a complete twat. ha ha ha ha.

ha ha ha if your going to join the discussion at least try and find something remotely close to the topic ha ha ha and not embarrass your fellow christians with your childlike ad hominem attempts at derailing the thread.



Now that we've got that out of the way do you have anything civil to add to the discussion or was that your bit for the christian corner kick my shins poke out your tongue and run away ?

Nothing new to see here move along

reply to post by ACTS 2:38

It is impossible to completely debunk Christianity, as first you must know everything to prove that God does not exist,

You know how it is, grabbing headlines and all that, but there again the burden of proof is always upon those that make the claim. So the claim is being made by xtianity about the character jesus (the one in that appears in the bibles not of the other jesii) brown is debunking an element of xtianity so we can agree to disagree without being overly pedantic about things.

Originally posted by HunkaHunka

Originally posted by bogomil

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by The Djin

 

HAHAHAH You talk about gullible and deluded people YET you don't have the sophistication required to embed a youtube video on ATS.

Unusual for me I agree with Mamabeth.

I will even go a bit further and pretend I'm slightly offended. You see, I'm almost imbecile, when it comes to computers, though I can understand the implications of quantum mechanics and can repair a car. With help I can even boil an egg.

So is THAT your measure-tape for human qualities. Isn't it in your lingo called a 'nerd'?

My measuring tape is how much one doth protest. For example, in the case of the OP he/she claims the stupidity of one group while showing their own stupidity at the same time. In this case, they cancel each other out and become uniquely hilarious.

I don't play tuba either. Does that make me 'stupid'?

Does 45 years of intensive and active interest in existential questions on my part de-stupidify me? Or is computer-handling or tuba-playing an intrinsic 'MUST. The OP relates directly to the parameters of the situation, without any detours into the ability to grow potatoes.

(I know many excellent non-potato-growers, who are quite intelligent).

You want semantic gymnastics? You'll get it.

Originally posted by bogomil

Originally posted by hounddoghowlie
i wonder how many people responded to the " advertisement." and how was it worded
and then i would like to have seen the process in picking who got to to participate in the
conversion. you know after all it is a show on how someone could influence someone into believing
something they normally wouldn't, and you couldn't put people in front of the camera that wouldn't give you response you wanted, that wouldn't be good tv.

edit on 1-3-2011 by hounddoghowlie because: (no reason given)

Nominally more than half of mankind belongs to some club, where invisible and un-demonstrable higher powers are involved.

Now if these clubs had been uniform in doctrine and experiences, it could have been an indication of something 'real' (it still CAN be 'real' in some cases; but obviously not ALL, though).

So half of mankind would qualify according to the criteria you put up: People who want to believe in something.

(I'm not trying to juggle with numbers. A lot of the above mentioned club-members are so passive, that they hardly know anything about their own club. A more correct number would be around an estimated 30% of mankind being professing religionists).

that may be so, that's not my point, point is if he want's us to believe what he is saying, he should be above board on all thing that have to do with the demonstration. for all we know he could stacked the deck. he showed none of the process of the setting up of the filming of this show

all we have to go by is his word. after all if i'm not mistaken he is a well known illusionist in the uk.
and he doesn't want to hurt his bread and butter now does he. theirs not to many illusionist that give away their secrects.

Originally posted by bogomil

Originally posted by HunkaHunka

Originally posted by bogomil

Originally posted by HunkaHunka
reply to post by The Djin

 

HAHAHAH You talk about gullible and deluded people YET you don't have the sophistication required to embed a youtube video on ATS.

Unusual for me I agree with Mamabeth.

I will even go a bit further and pretend I'm slightly offended. You see, I'm almost imbecile, when it comes to computers, though I can understand the implications of quantum mechanics and can repair a car. With help I can even boil an egg.

So is THAT your measure-tape for human qualities. Isn't it in your lingo called a 'nerd'?

My measuring tape is how much one doth protest. For example, in the case of the OP he/she claims the stupidity of one group while showing their own stupidity at the same time. In this case, they cancel each other out and become uniquely hilarious.

I don't play tuba either. Does that make me 'stupid'?

It would if you hated on folks who couldn't play an instrument.

Does 45 years of intensive and active interest in existential questions on my part de-stupidify me? Or is computer-handling or tuba-playing an intrinsic 'MUST. The OP relates directly to the parameters of the situation, without any detours into the ability to grow potatoes.

Anytime we show our own stupidity while at the same time hailing the stupidity of others, then we are by definition hilarious.