Who is James Randi?

James Randi is a stage magician, illusionist and well known skeptic of the paranormal. He has spent over 30 years of his life debunking paranormal and supernatural claims, that mystics often hold-up as real phenomena within physical reality. They claim to have powers such as Crystal Healing, Mind Reading, The ability to move and bend objects, water divining, spiritual healing, Tarot Card reading, talking to the dead (Michael Shermer, of Skeptics Magazine, made the humorous comment that: "Talking to the dead is easy, getting them to talk back, is the hard part"). ...The list of paranormal and supernatural claims goes on and on.

The James Randi institute, has held up a cash prize for many years, to anyone who can prove supernatural or paranormal phenomena, and at the moment, it stands at One Million US dollars (The $1 million challenge). As James Randi has said himself, once these individuals attempt to prove their claim for special powers, under scientific testing, 'the phenomena strangely disappears'.

Randi started out as a stage magician and illusionist and did some rather remarkable magic stunts, his career really took off, after showing two policeman, that he could break out of their handcuffs... utterly amazed, they gave him a dare, to try and break out of a prison cell, he did, he became a media sensation and his career took off. His daring escapades, led to comparisons with Harry Houdini (Randi wrote Houdini's biography). One of Randi's earlier stunts was an escape from a straight jacket, while suspended over Niagara Falls.

Randi drew his biggest media attention though, in his confrontation with Uri Geller, in the 1970's. Exposing him as a fraud. Geller sued Randi for $15000,000 dollars, Geller's suit was thrown out in 1995 and he was forced to pay $120,000 for filing a 'trivial' lawsuit.

Geller made a name for himself, through the apparently paranormal ability to effect objects. For example, Through his spoon bending trickery and other magical shenanigans, such as stopping watches, moving compass needles and mind reading... that still to this day, Geller claim are real paranormal phenomena and that he really does have special powers, to effect objects.

Geller was set to appear on America's, NBC, Johnny Carson Tonight Show. Carson had been a magician himself and was highly skeptical, he phoned James Randi up, the night before the show in which Geller was to appear. Randi advised Carson that they should provide their own props for Geller to work with and not let any of Geller's staff near them. The props included drawings sealed in an envelope and little metal cups with lids on (it was Geller's job to 'mentally deduce' which did not have water inside, just by passing his hands over them). It was painfully embarrassing to watch, almost cringe-worthy. Geller looked like a lost child and his attempts at psychic powers utterly failed (of course, if you don't use your own props, you cannot rig them).

What is startling, is that this event did not effect Geller's career, if anything it made Geller more popular, people seem to have an obsession with the 'mysterious'. As Randi himself said: "Even after this event, 'it still takes time for Geller's star to fade'.

I guess the real reason that Geller's popularity faded, is that you can only interest people with spoon bending so many times, the novelty soon wears off... Of course he had other gimmicks as well, such as moving compass needles and stopping watches, but they have all been shown to be magicians tricks and if you repeat the same trick over and over, people get bored.

Randi has had a highly successful media career and had several highly successful TV shows, that were networked in different countries. These programs revolved around, individuals claiming to have supernatural/paranormal abilities. They would come on his show, and going through a test set up by Randi, to prove or disprove their abilities. Such abilities of course have never been proved and the Randi Foundation Prize is still up for grabs.

In the days when Uri Geller was at the heights of his success, he had hoodwinked many individuals into believing he really did have paranormal abilities. He even fooled many scientists into believing his claims for such ability. But Randi made an important point, that scientists are not the best people to rely on, in trusting their 'common sense' when it comes to paranormal claims. Scientists seem to be just as capable of being hoodwinked as anyone else...

As Randi said, the best person to expose a charlatan, who is merely using a magician's trickery, is another magician and of course that is exactly what Randi does, in exposing fakers. The paranormal 'events', such as bending spoons with the mind, will be presented by the mystic and then James Randi will come along and do the same 'trick' ...But the difference is, he stands up and says it's just a magic trick, not only that, he shows the audience how the trick is done.

In one big stunt on Australian TV, he set up a water divining test. The ground was dug-up, water pipes were placed in holes and they were filled back in. This was all done 'behind-the-backs' of the water diviners, so they had no idea where the pipes were. The pipes were filled with water, it was then a water diviners job to dowse for water. The results came in and were negative for the dowsers.

So why does James Randi do it. Well, he believes that these individuals who make claims for paranormal/supernatural powers, often set themselves up as authority figures and exploit the vulnerable. The healer for example may claim to have the ability to cure cancers and other diseases. What is so pitiful is that this exploitation is often usually aimed at the desperate and vulnerable. These individuals are often at their wits end and out of desperation, will try anything.




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Atheism or Religion?

The claim that neither religion or atheism is right, is on its surface, a fair pronouncement, that somehow you can weigh one logically against the other and each is equally preferable. But when you dig a bit, you realize it is a hollow claim. It is a claim that presupposes an equal footing, between religion and atheism. Therefore, one cannot disprove the religious position and thus, one has to hold just as much faith that there is no God; as a theist holds that there is. Let us 'dig' in, to see why the claim is a poor one.

When an atheist says there is no God, it is based on probability and that probability is arrived at, based on the improbability of the claim. This simply means, it is improbable based on the simple fact, that there is no evidence to lead to probability. On the other hand, when a religious person says they believe in God, it is not a belief based on probability, rather, is is a belief built on faith and tradition.

Thus, we arrive at two different methods of knowledge. The religious position that holds the God concept as true, is a belief based purely on faith and tradition, whereas, the atheist position against the concept of God, is held as a belief grounded in improbability.

One can say as an atheist, there is no evidence to back up the religious proposition and therefore, there is no reason to hold it up as probable, until such evidence can be presented. A theist on the other hand, cannot say, 'there is no evidence against the possibility of God, therefore God is a probable concept'.

For a theist to say, there is no evidence against the concept of God, is really no different, than that of a mystic, who believes in the tooth fairy and saying: 'one has no evidence against the possibility of tooth fairies, therefore, they should be held in the realm of the probable'.

The very point is, that the concept of God lies within the same category as tooth fairies, hobgoblins, gremlins, ghosts, vampires - et al, none of these arbitrary mind-spun concepts can be disproved or indeed proved, that is because one cannot prove or disprove a negative. What one can do however, is offer a base of probability and simply say, unless you can present any evidence, then your claim is simply an arbitrary speculation and remains in the category of improbable.

Indeed, because the God concept lies in the same arbitrary conceptual category as tooth fairies, that is enough on its own, not only to dismiss it as improbable, but most likely impossible.

What makes the God concept an arbitrary concept, not to be taken seriously as a probable event, is the fact that it is a supernatural speculation. Supernatural means 'above nature'. This alone means it is unprovable by the laws of nature, because to prove it, one would have to do so, through some supernatural means. One would have to suspend all know laws of physics, to grasp 'a straw' that would bring the God concept into the realm of the probable. The fact that it's a supernatural speculation, is enough on its own to dismiss it as nonsense.

There is another point here too, and it is one that theists are liable to forget to mention. The burden of proof in any honest claim; or an attempt at a claim of probability, is that, the burden of proof is with the one making the claim. So, if someone makes a claim that God exists, then the burden of proof is their's. Unless such evidence can be presented, then an atheist has every right, to hold the God concept up, to be as likely as tooth fairies and hobgoblins.




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Understanding the Concept of God

The God concept is a man invented, arbitrary mind spun speculation. The God concept has no connection to reality.

The concept of God is based on the belief in the supernatural. Supernatural simply means above nature (there is nothing above nature, existence, exists and only existence, exists). Thus, to know God one would have to step outside of reality to know. In other words one would have to defy the laws of physics to know.

The concept of God is as meaningless as any other supernatural, none objectively identifiable concept ...such as ghosts, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, hobgoblins, werewolves vampires and so on.

The belief in God is simply an acceptance of a mystical concept, based on faith and handed down through tradition. Indeed, tradition is a funny thing ...the more time has passed since a belief is held through tradition, the more people believe it, as if somehow the passage of time makes something more true. As for faith, it is simply the belief in something without evidence.

The point is that one cannot prove or disprove God because it is an arbitrary speculation. The arbitrary is neither true nor false. It is just a mind-spun ejaculation. It is a cognitively dead concept, that has no connection to objective reality.

The fact that one cannot prove or disprove the arbitrary is not proof that it exists. Rather, it is proof that it is meaningless. As an example, if I said, "I believe that there are invisible aliens walking our streets," you could not prove or disprove it because it is an arbitrary man made speculation, with no objective connection to reality. Such speculations are meaningless and deserve no objective consideration.

Higher level concepts such as species are not objectively identifiable as individual entities in reality ...meaning, you cannot point to an individual object in reality called species. However, this alone does not make it an arbitrary concept. Species is a complex higher level concept used as a cognitive mental tool by man. One can connect species with the concept animal and from animal one can point to a dog called spot. Thus, there is a complex chain of hierarchical concepts that lead from species to a dog called spot. This is exactly what one cannot do with the God concept ...nothing in a chain of concepts can lead an individual, from an abstract mental concept to a concrete identifiable God and that is because it is an arbitrary concept with no connection to realty.

It is a common approach of many theists to say to an atheist... "you cannot prove God does not exist" as if the lack of evidence against there being a God, is proof for it. This is very faulty reasoning. As any scientist will tell you, you cannot prove a negative.

In a court of law if someone is accused of a crime, then in an honest court system, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. For the same reason, if someone claims that God exists, then the burden of proof is theirs. It is not up to the disbeliever to prove God does not exist, it is up to the believer to prove he does.

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