Joe Coleman and the virgin Mary

[IrishMauddib]

I think it very important to use this story as a chance to urge people to be socially aware of the dangers that may be involved medically in cases like this.

The worrying thing about religion in this fashion is that it glorifies and condones acting on things that are not there.

It is quite possible Coleman is a charlatan who is lying through his teeth. It is however also quite possible that he really is seeing things in his head and acting on them and he genuinely believes what he is saying.

Our hospitals and mental asylums are often visited by people with voices, images, noises and smells in their heads that are not there. Sometimes they act on these impulses, and sometimes they do so with detrimental effects to themselves or others.

That Coleman is possibly one of these is evidenced by the articles showing he underwent a medical trauma and may have even been medically dead for some time.

When people are seeing things, it is often a sign of cerebral damage. Anyone seeing or hearing things should be urged instantly to see professional advice on the matter. This is the morally ethical and socially safe thing to do, as they may be a danger to themselves or others.

However these religions urge people not only to not seek help, but to grant both credence and authority to the visions! Not only therefore are they not saying “seek help this might be dangerous” they are saying “This could be god, listen to him and carry out the will of this being of authority!!!”

This is abhorrent and unsafe to the victim or the potential victims of the victim. Even in the Bible we see the story of Abraham hearing voices in his head urging him to murder his own son. The story has a relieving, if not entirely happy, ending where the voices in his head about face…

… would that all the people who hear such voices ended the same way, but our criminal records are full of stories of people who upon hearing voices actually did carry out the murders in their name.

I do not care what anyone claims their faith is… you can believe what you want… but if someone to your knowledge is hearing voices or seeing things and you do not put them on the path to health then you are guilty of criminal negligence and the blood of the victims of such a person is on YOUR hands as much if not more than the would be medical patient in question. Or if they keel over and die with a brain tumour that was diagnosed too late that could have been operated on if found earlier… remember it was YOU who had the chance to take action and ensure it would have been.

[IrishMauddib]

A user on another forum today posted that he had attended this gathering and while looking at the sun he saw something he never saw before, that he could not identify, but that he would not be moved to consider as supernatural exactly. I am not sure what he considers it as.

He then went on to say that when Coleman appeared there was a mass stampede over to him, almost like a sudden flocking.

I feel the response I wrote there would serve some use here so I repeat it here now. I broke it up into certain headings for ease of reading. Small edits to the text are made to make it more relevant to this forum but the original is here:

www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=62804517&postcount=12

GET YOUR EYES CHECKED

The first thing I would urge anyone who attended to do is, even if you feel fine now, go to an optician to check on your eyes. That long spent looking directly, or near directly, at the sun is intensely dangerous to the eyes and can cause damage with both immediate and postponed effect. Even if you feel no ill effects from the exercise now, it is best to be safe than sorry and get yourself checked before giving any ill effects time to settle in. If you know anyone else who was there then for their sake urge them the same way.

BE CAREFUL IN FUTURE EVERYONE[/b]

The second thing I would urge all of you is to NOT engage in this practise at all. Looking and even staring at the sun is intensely dangerous to your sight. If anyone does attend the next Coleman worship evening you might then for the sake of those around you urge them the same way.

If a man urged others to step off a cliff or into on coming traffic the person in question would be penalised within the law. That this man is encouraging a potentially damaging act to hundreds of people that could essentially lead to a handicap and getting away with it is a mockery of our justice system.

“OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN!”[/b]

The third thing I would call attention to here is claims of seeing "something above and beyond that of a normal autumn sky" as it was put on the other forum. The explanation for this is not to be found within the pages of the Bible or any other such scriptures.

You can find the explanation for it merely by going to your local video store and watching “Dead Poets Society”. Remember the scene where he made everyone stand on a desk and look at the class room from a new angle?

Essentially most humans do not notice the ordinary. They do not stop to look at the sky or the hills or the houses. When they do, they tend to do it the same way every time. It takes an outside influence to make people look at these things and then to look at them in a different way.

What the man has done is to make people look at something they often would not, and while doing it to make them change the way they look at it. Often when you look at something in a new way you are surprised by what you see there that you never saw before ( I often point to this as a sample of what I mean: www.youtube.com/watch?v=H77muTz0_II). All Coleman is doing is cashing in on this surprise.

PEOPLE WORSHIP FIRST THE IDEA THEN THE MAN[/b]

Finally I would call stark attention to what 091Brian described in terms of the mass hysteria directed towards Coleman himself. To me this is essentially the first steps in how religions like Mormonism, Scientology and others form. It may be arguable that Jesus acquired his fame the same way. It is the perfect formula for personal success and it seems no matter how often it is practised it continues to work.

Essentially you latch on to a superstition that is already established and make wild claims on its basis. Even if, as we see with Coleman, you fail perfectly to deliver on your claims, hysteria still builds up around you. At some point this switches from being AROUND you to being TOWARDS you and you get elevated beyond your station.

Given that no one has offered me any evidence for the existence of a god, I am in no doubt that the works of Jesus occurred in the same way. Like Coleman he likely made claims he could not deliver on, but for which there were always a number of people willing to claim he had (faith healers work on the same principle, as does Coleman). This first causes a sensationalist reaction to occur AROUND the person, and then finally TOWARDS the person.

Observe closely what Coleman has done and does next and how people react to it and honestly ask yourself if a man in bronze aged times surrounded by mostly illiterate and superstitious people would have had to do anything different to achieve the same effects. Ask yourself then if you can understand why Atheists on this forum reject your claims about this man in the same way, and for the exact same reasons, that you reject the claims of Coleman or Sathya Sai Baba. The worship of a mere man who gets a few things spot on right is something our species does all too easily.