(In response to a news story about a Vermont town repealing a law banning fortune telling)
Apparently the local government has decided that individuals should practice discernment - since the governmental authority can't. What's next - remove all stop signs and let individuals decide the need to stop?
47 comments
Non sequitur. I'm too lazy to type anything else.
Oh, yeah, and people who give money to fortune tellers deserve to go broke.
Yes...fortune telling, if made legal, can cause frequent car accidents throughout the town. Not everything needs to be regulated, you know...
Oh, boohoo. Fortune telling. And as for the stop signs, I'm currently going to school in Burlington, Vermont, but I'm from Buffalo, New York. If kids in Buffalo crossed streets the way kids in Burlington do, there'd be a lot more car related deaths, to the stop sign things....well....
What's next - remove all stop signs and let individuals decide the need to stop?
Actually: cities in the Netherlands and Germany have removed all forms of signs and traffic lights and the amount of accidents fell. So why not to the non sequitur.
For once, I agree with this person. "Fortune tellers" of all sorts are FRAUDS, pure and simple, and it is reprehensible that they are allowed to operate for money under any pretense. And that goes double for all that time that there was a law in Vermont against them operating, and nobody bothered to enforce it.
Well, the fundies quote biblical "prophesies" and "prophets" all the time. Tell me the difference between a fortune teller, a "prophet" and a preacher, please. They all want the same thing, your money.
No, because that would risk harming other people, whereas fortune telling will only cause idiots to lose money of their own will, rather than one person totalling another person's car and ruining them.
Note the difference:
Running a stop sign can hurt OTHER PEOPLE.
Spending all your money on a fortune teller can only hurt you and your immediate family, so it's your own fault for being stupid.
well stop signs are only set up in the USA because for some reason they don't understand the right before left rule and it's FUCKING EASY.
Edit: For fairness sake, only on intersections
It's interesting that a month or two ago in the UK a law was passed to say that mediums, astrologers, fortune-tellers, tarot card readers and their like can't claim to have psychic powers. As no-one can prove those powers exist they now have to advertise themselves as 'entertainers'.
"What's next - remove all stop signs and let individuals decide the need to stop?"
Actually that worked quite well in a town in the Netherlands. They removed all road signs, road markings and removed the footpath so it was just another lane on the road. Forced everyone to be more careful and road accidents decreased dramatically.
Actually, here in Bucharest we have a sort of Mini-Busses which go on a pre-established route and if someone wants to get out, they tell the driver when to stop.
Similarly, when a person wants to get on the bus, they have to wait until one comes by and wave to them.
Fortune tellers have as much evidence for their 'beliefs' as do Christian pastors. None.
That Vermont town is quite correct to repeal the law banning them, until it is also ready to ban churches, temples, chapels, mosques, synagogues etc.
A ban on hocus pocus must be a blanket one.
Hoodwinking the public for cash is not a good thing, but if you're going to ban one practitioner, surely you've got to ban them all?
fergus
Or we could pass a law forbidding false religions, since people people lack the discernment to tell true from false.
Too bad your religion is one of the false ones.
Yeah? What if they decided to be "discerning" about churches, perhaps starting with the ones where "miraculous healings" take place?
I'm glad the town repealed the law. As I've said before, I've spent $20 getting readings, and it felt good. Even a week's tithe at a church is more than that, and the fundie churches go out of their way to make you feel bad.
Poor Madam Trelawney! *sigh*
Gosh, if people are dumb enough to pay for fortune telling, let them. Nobody cares about people maxing out there credit cards on big screen TVs and stuff ...
Once upon a time, all lights went out in NYC and instantly EVERY driver in the city became preternaturally conscientious.
If people would rather talk to a fortune teller or a priest than a shrink, let them. It serves the same purpose.
Do I believe fortunetellers (i.e., tarot readers, palm readers, etc.) actually predict the future? Heck, no.
Do I think that such practices stimulate our subconscious to kick up answers we haven't acknowledged consciously? Yeah, I think that can happen. There's a lot going on in our heads that we aren't necessarily aware of consciously. A tarot reading (for example), when done without the need for prediction, can be very helpful in dragging information we aren't consciously aware of out into the open where we can put it to good use. I know it seems stupid, but the subconscious works in images and associations (see Carl Jung's work) just like tarot.
Besides, a lot of the art in tarot is kinda cool. I purchased the tarot deck produced as a play aid for White Wolf's Mage: The Ascension roleplaying game (clearly labeled as "designed for use as a play aid ONLY"). The images were fascinating - my personal favorite was The Wheel of Fortune. This deck showed it as looking straight-on into the barrel of a gun, where the cylinder forms the wheel. Very kewl ...
Now check out this thread about bike helmets:
http://www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=59318
and how they're complaining about "Nanny Government".
Do these people care at ALL about consistency, or do they just like to find arbitrary reasons to bitch, moan, and complain about crap?
"Apparently the local government has decided that individuals should practice discernment - since the governmental authority can't"
Let's get big government out of our lives, and into our neighbors' lives where it belongs!
@soozeDo these people care at ALL about consistency, or do they just like to find arbitrary reasons to bitch, moan, and complain about crap?
@hmcook87: Maybe they should pass a law that states that all fortune-tellers and prophets should have that disclaimer.
Look, going to a fortune-teller hurts no one if you do it only once. Granted you waste money, but I don't see that as a huge problem if it's a one-time thing. Do it constantly, and it's your own damn fault for getting yourself into debt. Let's see how long it takes for the dumb spenders to get weeded out (and what do you bet that at least one of them will actually be Christian?)
Actually, I wouldn't mind if fortune telling were still illegal in that town. But they should've gone further and got rid of all forms of superstition and mumbojumbo while they were at it. Like, you know, homeopathy and religion.
The difference, lady, is that if a person goes to a fortune teller, it affects him/her ALONE. The traffic signs are for EVERBODY'S wellfare.
And the law was probably repealed due to it not applying to end-timer churchs or Rapture based Christianity and therefor biased.
This is from Rapture Ready, an endtimer religious belief that is constantly predicting (wrongly) the future. They just don't like competition or free-enterprise
I really want to know who lobbied against that law.
And every time a fundie tells us we are going to hell, or the world will end on such a date, isn't that really fortune telling?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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