Breitbart cherry picks a few quotes from a New Yorker piece to highlight a phenom.
Marianne Williamson is my favorite Democrat running for president. I take her seriously.
In fact, I downloaded one of her books to see what she has to offer. Having heard her described as a walking dead hippie, crystal rubbing new ager, and having struggled to comprehend a few of those, once, in my own labors as a spiritual seeker, I was expecting the usual excesses of the genre, maybe even some elephant jokes. The book I perused, however, was remarkably sober and basically mainstream. Ms. Williamson stuck to the same classical themes which had inspired generations of British and American orientalists before her: The consequences of separation of the lover and the beloved, removing assumptions that derail the journey toward truth, healing as a function of teaching, learning as a function of humility, and so on.
She’s a smart lady, and a gifted writer. As a presidential candidate Ms. Williamson is probably doomed, but it wouldn’t worry me overmuch if she were to replace Donald Trump as president. In any case, she’s certainly right about one thing: If the DNC puts forth another political inside-game player as its nominee, the Democrat will lose.
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
She’s no dummy, but Breitbart?
Did Infowars go out of business??
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What’s wrong with Breitbart?
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There is nothing wrong with Breitbart that cannot be described by what is Right with Breitbart.
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Okay, but here’s her take on Hurricane Dorian: “The Bahamas, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolina’s, may all be in our prayers now. Millions of us seeing Dorian turn away from land is not a wacky idea; it is a creative use of the power of the mind.”
This is no different from Pat Robertson’s “I prayed away the hurricane” nonsense.
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RE: “This is no different from Pat Robertson’s ‘I prayed away the hurricane’ nonsense.”
That it is, but, technically, whether it is nonsense or not is an open question.
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An open question? Hardly. There has never been ANY evidence EVER for ANY amount of prayer to affect the physical world in any measurable way. The quote from Williamson provided by rssdavidson1 is definitive proof that she is a complete whack job that is – at best – on some sort of ego trip or – at worst – another Russian asset in the manner of Jill Stein.
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She may be a whack job but appreciate some of what she said in the “debates.” As for being a so-called “Russian asset,” that is as ridiculous an accusation as it is against Jill Stien. Oddly, nobody calls any candidate an Israeli, Saudi or or that matter corporate asset. Most of them are the latter.
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Ridiculous? Without her doomed to fail candidacy we would not be “enjoying” the Presidency of Donald Trump. Maybe it was just an ego trip but the possibility of Russian involvement is not “ridiculous.”
https://thinkprogress.org/russia-jill-stein-2016-election-interference-48dff3966227/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/30/politics/jill-stein-russia-documents-senate-request/index.html
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RE: “There has never been ANY evidence EVER for ANY amount of prayer to affect the physical world in any measurable way”
That’s what I call (hat tip to Scott Adams) an “absurd absolute.”
That it is an absolute is obvious (“never,” “ANY,” “EVER”). That it is absurd can be shown in a number of interesting ways.
One is that Wikipedia has an article on the Efficacy of Prayer. The question has been studied for more than 100 years, with greater and lesser scientific rigor all the while. Wikipedia mentions a few recent studies which appear to show causative, material efficacy of prayer on health outcomes beyond subjective factors. As a result, it is just factually wrong to say there is no evidence for the hypothesis that prayer can affect the physical world.
Another consideration is that our own military thought the hypothesis that mind power can affect the physical world worth investigating. A famous book, “The Men Who Stared at Goats,” documented some of the research.
A last consideration is the fact we now have technology which can read our minds and transcribe our thoughts, accurately. Obviously, the power of the human mind to affect the physical system of a non-human sensor has been demonstrated.
Personally, I’m agnostic about the potential for praying a hurricane into moving farther away. But, given the current state of relevant human knowledge, agnosticism is the smart place to be. Denial is the dumb one.
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Not quite, but almost, completely unlike tea. — Douglas Adams.
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Very silly rubbish.
And by the way, the fact that some silly people believe something to be true is not evidence. And, forming a hypothesis to be tested is not evidence. In spite of that 100 years of trying, NO peer-reviewed reproducible evidence has been found to support the hypothesis that prayer or human thoughts can move matter.
You make it appear that the ability to believe impossible things is a job requirement for the Trump enthusiast.
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RE: “Very silly rubbish.”
Right. Three areas of consideration, one science, one engineering, one a proof of concept, are all rubbish.
You make it obvious that denial, irrelevant personal attack and obsessive preocuption set powerful limits on the minds of never-Trumpers.
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People who deliberately promote silly ideas are silly people.
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“If the DNC puts forth another political inside-game player as its nominee, the Democrat will lose.”
I think you and (gulp) Breitfart are absolutely correct here.
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They could put up Ronald… or Bozo and it would be a dead heat.
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Clown v. Clown? Scary. It would be like Pennyworth from IT running against Pennyworth from IT 2.
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