I feel nothing but sympathy for the victims of this Rapture con-man.

You know why? Because a lot of people fall for this sort of crap. Not necessarily religious, but also in political and financial contexts. For a political example, I was one of the idiots that thought Obama was some kind of miracle worker and was going to fix everything with a snap of his fingers.

Even very intelligent people like myself can delude ourselves into believing absurd things because of our own wishful thinking and tendencies towards confirmation bias.

K&R.

But I do not regret my vote for a second

it was either him or Old/Stupid 2012

I'd say he had good intentions, but was a bit naive.

He is my prez, no matter. He's accomplished more than many others.

for con men. My recent history makes me empathize with those who might not want to commit suicide, but who feel the need for a way out.

I'm okay now, but for a while I was feeling a little desperate.

That involved swindling money from old people. I think it was something like selling phony insurance plans they didn't need or some shit. At the height of their wealth, they were living in a huge, like 8,000 square foot mansion, they had amassed a few luxury vehicles, and they had a private jet. He gets caught because he donated $100K of that money to the high school for completion of the football stadium. He got out of prison a year later and got his sentence boiled down to house arrest, and well long story short - he made money off vulnerable people and became one himself. So yeah I do feel empathy for those who were caught up in this stupid fucking scheme.

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Sometimes it is necessary to acknowledge one's own weaknesses in order to have compassion for others'.

I don't know if the "guy" is a charlatan or delusional ... but I do feel for the those that needed to believe him.

And while I do think it took a degree of gullibility to fall for that "Hope" nonsense from a Wall Street-approved neoliberal like Barack Obama, I wouldn't exactly put those people in the same class as the morons who buy into Judgement Day scares. That's lunatic behavior made possible by a combination of irrational thinking and plain stupidity, and it ought to be laughed at.

BTW, I never expected much from Obama, myself-- but not because I'm particularly intelligent. He told everyone who cared to notice exactly where he stood when he announced his Cabinet and staff appointments. All the rest is pro-wrestling bullshit. Just politicians setting up thin political cover.

Some people think they are so much more reasonable and rational than others, but that's BS. All of us, at our core, are irrational fools.

Sorry, but I don't buy into ridiculous, magical bullshit of any flavor. I feel no need to play this game of Stupidity Detente that's so popular with the "spiritual" crowd of today, where people agree to pretend that everyone elses' ridiculous assertions are reasonable.

All misled people are not equally ridiculous. Sometimes it's quite reasonable to be fooled. Sometimes it isn't. It does us no good to pretend otherwise.

Most of these folks are good people that got caught up with some really bad shit, not because they are "bad" and "stupid", but because they are HUMAN.

It's easier to point a finger than to open an eye.

Only a very gullible, irrational person could believe an ancient Jewish carpenter was about to appear in the sky and whisk them off to heaven on a Saturday afternoon-- just because one guy said so. The entire thing is irrational, from top to bottom.

Some of us are more rational and don't buy into fairy tale hogwash. Yes we can be fooled and put our faith in a politician who does not come through.
But that is a far cry from believing in something that is ridiculous and preposterous from even the most cursory look.
Too equate everyone to the fools who followed Camping is just sophistry.
Not that I don't agree with the feeling some sympathy for these misguided fools.

I do think I'm more rational and reasonable than a person who believed the world was going to end yesterday, and they would be magically whisked off to Happy Land.

And I disagree with you-- we are not all irrational fools. Maybe it seems like an enlightened thing to say to you, but to me it sounds like feel-good, PC nonsense.

... and repress it, we want to think we are supremely rational, when, in fact, to quote David Hume, the intellect is the slave to one's passions. A lot of our carefully-reasoned arguments are ultimately based in non-rational "gut-feelings", as shown in studies by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio.

based on an irrational gut feeling.

Anyone can be wrong. Anyone can make a foolish misjudgment, or weight their own hopes a bit too strongly in the balance. It doesn't mean they're irrational. Falling for a Judgement Day scare is a pretty damned strong indicator, however.

It's been a long time since I was in a philosophy class, but if you're talking about the basis for morality itself, I have to say it's too ponderous and vague to be cited that way. Personally, I think the basis of morality is an issue best left to evolutionary biologists and anthropologists.

the Iraq War, and at a time when to do so was politically risky. So people like us actually had some seeming evidence upon which to hang our hopes and wishes. That those hopes and wishes were soon dashed does not surprise me much, but I have been doing some serious head-scratching, as in 'How could I have been so easily duped?" Maybe because I wanted so badly to be duped.

You're the best! :yourock:

There are those that keep all the Staves of Power and magical reagents to themselves, he doesn't have full access to that treasure chest

He seems to have the wind at his back and I happen to believe that he's gonna be the smartest guy in most every room. I'm not voting against him.

Plus, he has the one quality most important in a world leader .... cool. That's the main ingredient. Throw in reasoned and thoughtful and mindful - and I dare not ask for more.

particularly their kids who did nothing to deserve having idiots for parents.

But seriously how much common sense or critical thinking skills does it take to figure out you're being conned? It's hard for me to muster up much sympathy for these people anymore than I have any sympathy for crazed Palin supporters or the wacko Obama is a Kenyan Muslim socialist Nazi believers.

Sorry, I just can't.

There are vultures who prey on them. Before I moved here, my mom was already drawing them like flies and she's pretty sharp most of the time at 79.

as their retirement funds.

While a lot of people are laughing and cheering, I imagine there are a lot of lonely, terrified souls today--and there may be a few suicides related to this.

This was the first time I saw people reacting to a candidate (Obama), as though he was someone who would fix everything. It was mostly young, inexperienced people who did that. They were fiercely protective of Obama, and were often quite vicious toward people who expressed any doubt about him, or who supported someone else.

I worked hard for Obama after he got the nomination. But I had a hard time getting young idealists to believe that he was a moderate who would not fulfill all their desires.

My dad was still lucid during that primary and election season. I asked him if he had ever seen anything like it. He said that many of the young Kennedy supporters behaved that way. Back then, he noticed it among college kids and young Catholic families.

Now you know. Don't leave politics because of it. Just read a politician's record more closely than his words. Understand that it is not just the bad guys, but the good guys, too, who behave this way when elected office and power is at stake.

The Bush theft, 9/11, the wars, the economy. People really wanted all of that to be over. Imo, that fed into it, too.

Hope you don't mind if I re-post something I wrote earlier on a much longer thread about the 60 year old man in Times Square whose picture has shown up in a number of news stories from yesterday.



sw

All those lost souls...I wish for all of them light and a healed heart.
:hug:



Thanks for the OP Odin. We are nothing if we cannot feel compassion for our brothers & sisters.

Nobody deserves to get scammed, no matter how foolish they are. "Lost Souls" describes them perfectly. Another poster mentioned that they cannot feel sorry for them because the cult is homophobic, well that is besides the point. The homophobia is NOT because they are horrible people, it is because they are lost in a sick society and their fears are being preyed upon.

"The homophobia is NOT because they are horrible people...their fears are being preyed upon."

In order for their "fears" to be "preyed on", they'd necessarily have to be afraid of homosexuals, which makes them horrible people.

Again, if they called autistic people "an affront to God" and said that you were all going to burn in hell for all eternity because of being born the way you are, you would understand why not a single one of these assholes deserves an ounce of sympathy or compassion.

There is a story about a Tibetan guy who was tortured by Chinese authorities. The Tibetan guy said he never hated his tormentors, he said he felt sorry for them. Why did he feel sorry for them, because they were also suffering inside from their own hate.

Not one of us has lived a life completely free of foolishness.

:hug:
sw

but you and Odin2005 have said it all.

Thank you both.

scapegoating of the GLBT community, i.e. Camping's ranting that acceptance of the "gay rights movement" is an affront to god and a precursor to the end times. What a load of horseshit. If kooks want to buy a load of horseshit, fine with me UNTIL they agitate against basic human rights. They crossed that line.

These fuckwads are making huge bank off of people's deepest beliefs about the end of humanity and they're laughing all the way to the bank, I really feel sorry for that MTA worker who was duped out of his life savings by that jackass. And every other poor soul who donates thousands upon thousands of dollars to a church that's making money hand over fist and using it to buy and endorse politicians who don't have the people's best interests at hand. Religion is big business. Tax-free big business.

I have a lot of sympathy for Nazis and KKK members, whose childlike innocence has been abused.

Had these people been racists rather than homophobes, the empathy factor here would be nil. I say the damage done by those who openly espouse hate is pale compared to the damage done by those who seek to rationalize and normalize such behaviors. Did you support for Obama lead to you castigating a minority group as an affront to God?
They are reaping what they have sewn. That can not be helped. I do not see becoming a hate monger as the equal to being hooked into Amway or something.

One writer back in the 70s, Eric Toffler, called it Future Shock. They are NOT bad people, they are people living in a society that is changing too fast than their brains can handle. Some people are neurologically capable of such change, for others it takes more time and if you push them too fast it just makes them cling to their beliefs more stubbornly.

They thought they were doing great and wondrous things in the eyes of their god out of the noble goodness of their lil 'ol hearts.

Some even happily gave everything they had to horrible organizations that promoted intense hatred and persecution of innocent people, and that this dogmatized hatred was part of the reason that they gave so much to these organizations.

Seriously, how sad and pathetic is that?

That really is about as close to utterly completely pitiable as it ever gets.

So, yeah, I really do feel sorry for them, even though I'm sure that many of them would happily throw me in prison tomorrow for being LGBT if they could.

Everyone can be naive once, but the true fools are the one who don't learn and continue to get sucked in by whatever organization, conspiracy group, or naive belief over and over.

The ones in the later category I can't feel sorry for.

I was set to reject it at first, but the rest of the posts on this thread have caused me to reflect on a great truth that you've hit on.

I suppose that for most of us, a politician's promises are a bit like what the preacher says from the pulpit to people who go to church only a couple of times a year. They want to believe in something, but they know they just can't buy it all.

True believers in politics and religion are the ones who will either be the most often disappointed, or the ones who lose all touch with reality to defend their previous states of mind.

A lot of popular Marxism (not the rarefied form found in the the ivory tower) smacks of secularized Judeo-Christian eschatology.

but I do hope they learn to question things now. Blind followers are nothing but fans for the most part and refuse to question or accept that their preacher or leader can do anything other than perfect and will seek out any way to prove that what is happening is correct. The only other reasons I can think of are intellectual laziness and the need to belong to something.

When did people stop learning to question and think independently? When did we need such a crutch? Always I suppose there have been some but it sure seems pervasive these days.

is a far cry from believing some yo yo's position that he talks to God and can predict the end of the world.

You are currently aware of Obama's flaws. You do not blindly worship him and you question what he tells you and what he does. Your current skepticism comes from you actually thinking clearly about his policies and not blindly following them. That's the big difference between you and one of these fundies that literally follow their leader no matter what.

There's nothing wrong by being taken in by a sales pitch now and then. Everybody does it at some point. What separates the crazies from the rational people is that the rational people retain their independent thought.

And also, why wouldn't you think Obama would do better. When he was first elected he had the world in his palm. He had a Democratic supermajority. He had the world behind him and most of the American people too. He really was in a position to make massive reforms. Sadly, he betrayed us. But you learned from that.

Don't compare your hope that Obama would be a great president to the cult-like following these morons give their gurus. You're not even close to the same level as they are.

I feel bad for them too. I never want "People that get taken deserve what they get." to be a part of my personal philosophy.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't ever fall for a scam, but so was every person that ever fell for a scam.

Ever since my husband and I fell for the Great Alpaca Farming Scam, I have a whole new outlook on the meaning of the word "sucker." Neither one of us are stupid, and it happened to us, and we lost a great deal in the process.

when you start digging into the personal cost of this charade, it is horrible.

Did you really think "Obama was some kind of miracle worker and was going to fix everything with a snap of his fingers"?

Or would it be more accurate to say that Obama's gift of rhetoric convinced you (as it convinced me) that he would do his best to follow through on all his promises?

If Obama had told us during the 2008 campaign, "Look. I'm a miracle worker. Elect me, and I will fix everything with a snap of my fingers," then anyone who believed that promise, and voted for him based on that, would be guilty of the same levels of gullibility for which Camping's followers are guilty.

My desire to BELIEVE overwhelmed my reason, it was like a spell cast on me, I refused to see the signs that he was not the Progressive I thought he was because of that desire, no, COMPULSION, to believe.

"Charisma" comes from a Greek word meaning "touched by the gods", they thought charismatic people had some direct connection to supernatural powers that let them control people's minds, and I can see where they got that notion.

peace~

means somebody with a good judgement.

The people who believed in the Saturday's end of the world story were not intelligent.
Stupid, ignorant - yes. Intelligent - most definitely not.

I know people who are technically very competent in fields that really do require a functioning brain to do well and yet they buy the Republican bullshit memes 110%, particularly the "tax cuts on the wealthy creates jobs" despite decades of empirical evidence showing the exact opposite.

to make an educated decision on this matter.
What little I know about them tells me that taxes or tax breaks don't create jobs, demand for the products the jobs produce is what creates them.

All the tax breaks cannot bring back the shoe waxing at every corner, the same with kids selling newspapers in the morning.
On the other hand, taxing them does not make any money either.

Get the demand for products and the jobs to make those products will appear.

For example, everybody screams about the bloodsucking oil companies.
For about $30000 every house in Florida can become energy independent with solar panels. That is a whole state that will not require any or few power plants.
60 years ago the US government built a nuclear bomb. 30 years later it sent people to the Moon. I don't believe the same government cannot start a project that will mass produce solar panels, or to develop a working electric car. There are many jobs in this. Imagine how many jobs it will take just to convert all the vehicles to electric engines/batteries?

Yet the US government choses to spend gazillions of dollars blasting caves and goats in Afghanistan.
BTW, its money that they don't have.

More like seventy actually..

And yet our economy is foundering and we have a massive unemployment problem.

Empirical evidence conclusively points to "tax cuts for the wealthy creates jobs" as being unmitigated bullshit.

But it's bullshit that the M$M spouts constantly so it's believed by a lot of people who are smart enough to figure it out as bullshit for themselves but since they hear it day in and day out just think it's true.

A big lie is easier to get away with than a small one many times.

How that makes them intelligent?

:eyes:

this friday?
Did you refuse to vaccinate your kids? Have you kissed any rattlesnakes recently? Do you believe that if you are "born again" you will go to haven and play a harp forever?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, then ...
There are mistakes, that anyone can make - buy the 1% milk instead of the 2%, overcook the pork chops, etc - everybody makes those.
Letting all your life decisions to be made according to the interpretation by somebody else of what a bunch of illiterate camel herders told around campfires 3-4000 years ago is moronic.

in one form or another. I fell for that with Obama too, never again will I look to a politician. I hope the religious fundie people will have learned something from this too ... no can save you but yourself.

Second off,

If people are stupid enough to believe in any mythical creature..
give their hard earned money to church, mosque, synagogue..
and spend thousands of hours of useful time "praying"..


They pretty much deserve it

I was bamboozled into donating my time and energy to the cause of a charismatic politician, these guys were duped into doing the same for a crazy preacher.