Ya'll are atheist and agnostic, right? So probably quite a few of you are materialists, and/or anti-woo.


Do you date people that are into woo? Do you like it? Has it caused problems?

I know there are no stupid questions, just stupid people who don't bother asking.

I still feel a little ignorant, but what they hell is 'woo'?

In my experience 'woo' is a term that rationalist and evidence-oriented people use for beliefs which are really popular and which are either completely irrational, completely lacking in supportive evidence, or both.

From wikipedia:




Now, I'm personally into some 'alternative medicine' and a few 'new age beliefs'...but this just makes me even more frustrated when people who have similar beliefs are completely irrational about it.


This question was inspired by a woo-oriented woman that I was somewhat intimate with for a brief time.

I think I understand. Those types who claim to not believe in religion or God, but in re-connecting with the earth and wavelenghths almost in a religious feverent-type manor.

I'm into Holistic Medicine, but honestly, any system of thought that requires over-zealous attention seems like a waste of my time.

I met a lady like that once. She believed that when we dream, we communicate to others telepathically. Because I had a dream about an oscar meyer hot dog truck, did that mean I was gonna recieve a title for a new vehicle filled with hot dogs?

For a while I dated a gilr that was into some guy that claimed he could talk to the dead. All he really did was cold reading, but she was sure he was for real. Until I pointed out his show was on the Sci-fy network. That pissed her off a little.

Sure, I'll date them. I'll even get involved with them long term. But, I won't pretend to believe in their BS ideas.

Woo came into wide use due to the Amazing Randi. Apparently its short for Voodoo, or WooWoo.

:)


Me myself, I am intensely irritated at anyone in my life that does not have strong rational and critical thinking skills. This precludes magical thinking.

True; and at the same time high intelligence and skill with logic doesn't preclude magical thinking, especially for those who are completely ignorant of science and who apply their logic skills in heavily biased ways. This woman in particular was highly skilled with logic, but she applied her logical manipulations to justify her already-existing worldview.

It turns out that she has emotional issues that are far more significant than our difference in worldview, so I backed out of that one before I could explore whether I could get along with someone who was so into woo.

I'm like a magnet for this ****. Why? After that one woo-woman I dated a hard core rationalist, it was such a relief in some ways, but it was also boring. Every woman since then with whom I've had a strong mutual attraction has ended up being into woo. They are generally open minded, and willing to debate topics and concede to evidence, but it becomes tiresome.

Or maybe I'm not a magnet, maybe woo is just that dominate in bay area culture.

"Where the science women at?"

Massagetrade your goal is to find a realist. Until then you will have to remain bored! ha ha

Just joking. :)

And... it continues - I keep finding myself hanging out with woo women. And I keep telling myself that as long as she is honest and caring and otherwise intelligent and has similar values in other areas, then I shouldn't let something like that get in the way, but eventually it does. Its hard for me to have honest respect for someone who is committed to bizarre beliefs, like belief in alien visitation. The weird thing is that these women are extremely intelligent. Most recently I've been close to (not sexual or romantic, but the tension is there) another girl who has, like me, experienced sleep paralysis and hallucinations, but she thinks this is evidence of the supernatural. She was raised in an agnostic/atheist family, and is mildly anti-religious, but she thinks there 'must be more' than just atheist/agnostic worldview. She is really an amazing person, and I'm confident she would be open to dating, but I just can't get past the woo.

I have similar problems with women, and well everyone, however what always reminds me that people can turn around is my own strange beliefs from my teens to mid 20's.

What helped develop my critical thinking skills was the need to find out what that deeper meaning was, I ultimately discovered that science has revealed facets of the brain, and consciousness that better explain these phenomena. Also what makes for a good explanation?

I find most intelligent people are willing to spend a large amount of time investigating ideas, but becuase they cannot tell a good explanation from a poor one they do not make good use of this time, science training is what led me to be able to discard weak evidence and then tally up the strength of various explanations. After a while you really do get forced down a path of rational, naturalistic, scientific inquiry, and it becomes harder and harder to critique poor explanations without at least a small chip on the shoulder.

No I don't.
Here's why.
At one point, I lived near Alsea, Oregon, right around Mary's Peak. While hiking one morning, I encountered an example of a well known large hairy hominid at close range.THAT is immaterial. What is, is that when discussing this with others who had similar brief encounters, woo people would insert themselves and their BS beliefs into our discussion of trying to analyze what we'd seen by comparison the the fossil record.
They'd jump right in like they were invited, and despite never actually seen anything, assure us that the cryptid hominids in question were telepathic (they call it "mindspeak" because they never read a sci-fi book or saw an X-Men movie), can turn invisible, can become immaterial and walk thru walls, can levitate and fly, could heal with a touch, and could cross over into other dimensions. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Here we were, trying to make sense of some weird thing we saw, and these tree huggers come along shoveling their excrement
No, woo people are worse than religion people. Woo people's tales of woo change from telling to telling, while religion, equally excretory, at least has a consistent dogma.
Now, kit I true that religious people get defensive, and potentially confrontational, when you laugh at there BS, but I can deal with that, hey, I'm from Chicago. But woo people get hurt, like when you tell a child you don't believe them. Then I'm the as for at least pretending to go along with their crap.

to sum up, are you an atheist?