Darren Brown

[Ooberman]

Is he the apologists worst nightmare?

http://youtu.be/jYjgeayfYPI

[ElCodeMonkey]

Is he the apologists worst nightmare?

http://youtu.be/jYjgeayfYPI

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sure the "apologists" response is simply "God warned about false prophets" and "one or even many fakes don't mean all are or that God doesn't heal". Very sickening and enlightening. I shared it on facebook .

[Ooberman]

Is he the apologists worst nightmare?

http://youtu.be/jYjgeayfYPI

Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I'm sure the "apologists" response is simply "God warned about false prophets" and "one or even many fakes don't mean all are or that God doesn't heal". Very sickening and enlightening. I shared it on facebook .

He really does a great job of showing how easy these tricks would have been in Jesus's time - they don't require any modern technology, by and large.

The "leg lengthening trick" - known as "curing the lame".
The "making the blind see" - Jesus did that trick, too.
etc.

There are people who think these tricks are real TODAY! Imagine how they would have gone over to ignorant peasants in ancient Jerusalem.

And, in fact, Jesus never needed to do them, only that he could have claimed it, and the rumors of people doing it would have been enough to create the legend.

Any one of these scenarios are more plausible than God's Boy was going around doing "miracles" that can easily be faked by the average scam artist.

[Furrowed Brow]

The YouTube clip was blocked to me for some reason. However I have seen Derren Brown perform live about four times now and I have seen most of his TV shows. I am well aware of what Derren Brown can do and is about and that he is just about the best and most skilled debunker out there.

Some of the stuff he does is just so simple and then there is the stuff that just leaves you scratching your head.

I think what Derren Brown teaches - and it is a kind of tuition - is highly important and needed. It provides an immunity against woolly open mindedness and a defence against psychological manipulation. He provides the red pill for those ensnared in the matrix of mythological and spiritual thinking. So much so do I believe this that I made sure my son was introduce to Derren Brown's act and first took him to see Brown at about the age 13. Once I became aware of what Brown could do I saw it as a parental duty that my son be educated to it. If there is any worldly insight I have managed to pass on to my son as he grew up then I think Brown's deconstruction of magical thinking is the most important. (My son is now a bigger fan than me).

Last saw Brown about ten months ago in London. He finished off by performing a spiritualist act.....which still managed to be utterly spooky even knowing it is all tricks and mind games. I was particularly moved as I think the audience was when he was probing one guy out of about thirty people he had on stage with him from the audience. He talked briefly to the guy about his dead father. Then at one point Brown begins to hum a tune and it is clear the guy is very moved by this and has a real tear in his eye. It was a tune his father whistled about the house. I really don't think the guy was a stooge, but it does not matter if he was because Brown admits it is all an act...the point was that the moment was highly affective.

[ElCodeMonkey]

I agree. Such lessons are invaluable to learn. We must realize how susceptible we are to illusion. Even when knowing something is an illusion it can be hard to not to say, "No, this guy must have a pact with the devil or something. This can't be an illusion!" It gets easier with time as you learn more and more and realize just how easily you are fooled, but it can be hard to get past what you don't understand .

"How to Convert an Atheist" was quite astonishing too. I definitely agree that this guy is going to help in the fight against religious scam artists.
[youtube][/youtube]

[Ooberman]

Many magicians claim that learning magic was one of their first steps in being a skeptic. When you know the trick, and see others trying to pawn it off as "real" magic, you can see, first hand and acutely, the character of the huckster.

The huckster personality type is over-represented in religion, in the form of cult leader, miracle healer, astrologist, self-proclaimed prophet, psychic, etc. It's too easy: there are willing rubes every second.

I taught my kid magic tricks early on. Instead of showing him the "coin from behind the ear" and letting him think it was magic, I taught him how to do it and amaze his friends. Now he teaches them.

He's the next generation of skeptics, teaching others to be skeptics.

[ttruscott]

Nowhere in the Bible does it say only Christians (and Christ) can do miracles and the anti-Christian can't copy them by his own power: Ex 7:10 So Moses and Aaron went to the king as the Lord had commanded. Aaron threw his walking stick down in front of the king and his officers, and it became a snake. 11 So the king called in his wise men and his magicians, and with their tricks the Egyptian magicians were able to do the same thing. 12 They threw their walking sticks on the ground, and their sticks became snakes. But Aaron’s stick swallowed theirs.

We expect such things to happen: Matthew 24:24 For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. and do not pretend that tricks and miracles are the same thing nor come from the same place of power. It is not necessary that the deception must be to prove a false godliness as true but also it may try to prove anti-GOD.

Anyone got a rabbit? I'm ready for stew!

Peace, Ted

[Zzyzx]

and do not pretend that tricks and miracles are the same thing nor come from the same place of power.

Ted, thank you for your thoughts.

How can one distinguish between a trick / illusion and a miracle?

[Ooberman]

and do not pretend that tricks and miracles are the same thing nor come from the same place of power.

Ted, thank you for your thoughts.

How can one distinguish between a trick / illusion and a miracle?

You know, I've asked this question and there is never an answer that seems to address the crux of the problem.

I guess I'm turning into a complete reprobate, but I don't see how the religious have anything enlightening to say about the world any more.

Seriously, do you really care about their answer unless it actually ANSWERS the question?

Becuase you and I know they won't answer the question to our satisfaction. We keep hoping - clinging to Faith that the Faithful will surprise us - but they never do.

[dbohm]

Magicians and tricksters were known in 1st century Palestine. Remember Simon the Sorcerer.

Some Jews also later accused Jesus of being one.

Of course any one can choose to be skeptical and construct elaborate conspiracy theories that defy rational human behaviour for the sake of blocking the possibility that something could actually be true.