Is physicalism / materialism a dangerous belief?
Organized skeptic movements like JREF, CSI (CSICOP), etc. tend to imply paranormal belief is a dangerous belief. No doubt some bizarre beliefs (lacking proper evidence) are harmful upon occasion but could their own physicalist belief (which lacks proper evidence) be even more dangerous?
Even if physicalists were right, this would mean the evolution of the brain must have found evolutionary advantages in making us feel we are functioning through a body and must have found advantages in creating common spiritual experiences? e.g. The Near Death Experience?
Can a thought be evil in the physicalist's paradigm? According to the physicalist paradigm thoughts are assumed 100% private therefore only wrong if physically communicated or acted out? However if one accepts the evidence for telepathy, even to the weakest of degrees, can what one thinks of another person adversely affect them?
Also does the temptation to cheat increase when one thinks, one can never be physically caught?
What I am leading up to is this clip ........
Are You Nothing but a Pack of Neurons? | global oneness project
Do physicalists think Dean Radin's clip here is dangerous?
Die-hard skeptic Ray Hyman's once commented
“As a whole, parapsychologists are nice, honest people, while the critics are cynical, nasty people” (McBeath & Thalboume, 1985, p. 3).
Perhaps Hymans comment is a too stereotypical, perhaps skeptics become nasty when the skeptic thinks other beliefs are more 'harmful'.
Is believing matter creates the mind (physicalism) a less or more dangerous belief than the viewpoint that mind is not the same as the brain?