Hobbs

My thoughts? I think that Darwin must have "seen the light" on his deathbed.

Tigermilk

Erm....did you just get a load of free cash to fly to an island, Bob?

Starboy

Something else.

I could make up a story that points out that there is no point to life, or better yet I could tell you to read "Sirens of Titan" or "Cats Cradle". Even then at least it would be understood that the story is a work of fiction. What you are doing is allowing the reader to draw conclusions from a story that you do not have the honesty to admit is a fabrication.

Starboy

Proctors_Gambit

A question.
If this story is meant to prove the existance of an all powerful God who makes the impossible possible...
If Bob had gotten to the airport, walked up to the desk, no irrate man, no free ticket, he gets turned away...
Would this prove the non-existance of God, or would you rationalise it by saying that poor old Bob was confused and obviously not really under the call from God.

If Bob was a Muslim and the same experience had happened to him would that prove the existance of Allah?

-Gambit

Arrowman

Oh - er, David - now that you're back, you might like to come back to this thread:
<a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=001295&p=2" target="_blank">http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=001295&p=2</a>
and acknowledge the information everyone gave you?

Bible Humper

This is a damn hard nut to crack, the only thing I can imagine is a mind trick similar to the ones where if you get someone to do multiple math calculations which all equal six, then ask for a random vegetable, over 90% say carrot.

So the reason it wasn't done at all of your shows is that occasionally someone didn't pick the right number and suit, even after you prepared them to do so unawares, so you had to pretend the object of the trick was something else all along and move on? Long shot, but what the hell.

lunatic.retired

...a serious opinion!, I'll do my best.
Is this supposed to be a miracle? I mean, we used to get stuff like virgin birth, parting of sea, walking on water. Now this is the best god can do? This is proof of the existance of a god? Are you serious?

I f it is not a miracle and you are claiming it is just god having a positive impact in someones life, there is something you need to ponder. What you are saying is that god interferes in peoples lives wether they are believers or not. Your god would have had to do many things in many peoples lives to make your 'miracle' happen. Things like; controlling traffic flow to ensure that whatsisname got to the airport at exactly the right time to get in the queue at exactly the right time. Setting up the circumstances to ensure that the man in front of him would be angry, maybe hijackers were going to grab that plane and crash into the nearest building, god must have stopped this as well.

What an amazing god.

Vibr8gKiwi

You're essentially correct, but it's even simpler than you thought. I don't even need to prepare people (actually that would just detract from the trick when it works).

At some point I look at the top card of the deck, the bottom card of the deck, and maybe I reverse a card in the middle somewhere. After I hand someone the deck and ask them to name a card, I have a 3/52 chance of them naming one of my set cards (actually better odds than that because I'd use 3 cards that are commonly named). If they chose one of the set cards, I'd go into a David Blane knock-your-socks-off-impossible-miracle mode because I could just dramatically tell them to turn over the top card, turn over the deck and look at the bottom card, or search through the deck for a single reversed card. If they didn't name a set card I'd just tell them to go through the deck and find the card they named and do some other trick with it like that's all I wanted all along. Sometimes I could even try the same thing again later in the show if it failed the first time.

Often it wouldn't work, but it didn't matter because nobody knew. When it did work, it was incredible, impossible to explain and something everyone would remember. If you pull off a few illusions like that, people start asking if you're really magic.

This is just like the theist "miracles" too. The misses are ignored and the hits are paraded. And just like the theist "miracles" it can't be repeated right away (because it's really only an abuse of chance). Selection can be a powerful tool (evolution uses it too).

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Vibr8gKiwi ]</p>

Bible Humper

Great stuff, Vibr8gKiwi!

Shadowy Man

I was watching a TV show (I think it was "Ed") a few weeks ago. I missed part of it where they explained what was going on, but here's the jist:

A person was leaving messages on one of the character's car windows telling him who will win an upcoming football match. This happens several weeks in a row and the messages are correct *every* time. The last message says that if he wants the winner of the upcoming week to send some amount of money to some address. He does so, and loses. A lawsuit ensues.

The deal was that the guy was putting many messages on people's windshields, and kept track of the ones that turned out to be correct. From his point of view, with a fifty-fifty chance at calling the game, he'd have an extremely good chance of calling them correct several weeks in a row if he put out enough messages. So, he just keeps track of which one proves to be correct and then cons that person.

Clever, eh?