Paranormal Experiences

by mattnoel 108 Replies latest jw friends

Mary

"....Ouija board is...........not ancient. It's not demonic. It doesn't work when the participants are blindfolded. The planchet has never been recorded moving on its own. You, my friend, have been duped into believing urban legends....."
ROFLMAO!! Rem, the only person you're fooling is yourself. There are THOUSANDS of people who have played with Ouija Boards who have said these things move ON THEIR OWN and that they spell out information that no one else would know. But of course, I guess all these people were either LYING or their minds were playing tricks on them, or they probably believe urban legions or UFOs. Obviously they're all foolish, stupid people who can't tell if what they're seeing is real or not. I guess until you personally witness a poltergeist, you'll continue to be condesending to anyone who dares believe that there's a world beyond this one.
By the way, you still haven't given a logical explanation as to Sunspot's experience............I guess it must have been all in her mind.
".....You are like the UFO enthusiast who sees a light in the sky and can see no other explanation than aliens from a distant galaxy....."
How the hell would YOU know what I think? I am open minded enough to realize that there is more than one possible explanation for weird things that go on, whether it be ghosts, UFOs or Bigfoot. Do I believe in UFOs. I've never seen one personally, but when a group of Military guys all testify that they saw a circular object with pulsating lights around the bottom, no more than a hundred yards from where they were stationed, just suddenly lift off the ground, hover there and then take off; yep, I believe them. Of course, you'd probably agree with the sceptic they interviewed who insisted it was either the planet Mars they saw, or a lighthouse. If the Military group of men can't tell the difference between a circular object and a lighthouse; we're in big trouble.
rem

Mary,
There are THOUSANDS of people who have played with Ouija Boards who have said these things move ON THEIR OWN and that they spell out information that no one else would know.

There are thousands of people who have reported seeing the Loch Ness monster too. What does that prove? Nothing. You know why? Because they are just anecdotes. If you have hard evidence, i.e. Ouija board planchets moving on their own in a laboratory while being recorded, please enlighten me. If it is that common of an experience it shouldn't be too difficult to replicate. I'm waiting...
By the way, you still haven't given a logical explanation as to Sunspot's experience............I guess it must have been all in her mind

I don't have to give a logical explanation, nor can I since there is no evidence of the experience. All i'm saying is that an explanation the requires the rewrite of the laws of physics is extremely improbable. Why jump to such an improbable conclusion when there are other more probable ones? People like you are so confident in your paranormal non-explanations that you feel no need to do any type of investigation to get to the heart of the matter. Your pat answer tickles your ears.
How the hell would YOU know what I think?

Everything that you've written so far shows that you are a fuzzy, non-critical thinker. An irrational one at that. That's how I know not so much what you think but how you think.
rem
Mary

By the way, you still haven't given a logical explanation as to Sunspot's experience............I guess it must have been all in her mind

"....I don't have to give a logical explanation, nor can I since there is no evidence of the experience. All i'm saying is that an explanation the requires the rewrite of the laws of physics is extremely improbable......"
But not impossible?
"....Why jump to such an improbable conclusion when there are other more probable ones?....."
Such as????
".....People like you are so confident in your paranormal non-explanations that you feel no need to do any type of investigation to get to the heart of the matter......"
Absolutely not. I think for most "experiences", there is probably a very logical, scientific explanation. I had a couple of horrifying experiences a few years ago where I was sure that demons were in my room. I couldn't move. After seeing a program on "night terrors", I realized that what I had experienced was that Sleep Paralysis. But there's a big difference between seeing hearing things in the middle of the night when you may or may not be fully awake or asleep, to when you have "encounters" in the middle of the afternoon, when you're fully awake. How can you scienfically explain a fork that stands up by itself and hovers in the air? I think we'd both agree that this defies the laws of gravity as we know it.
Your pat answer tickles your ears.
Um, I'm not the one with the pat answers. You are. I have conceded that there a great number of paranormal experiences can probably be explained by science, but there are ones that cannot. You, on the other hand, refuse to even consider the possibility that there could be something else out there and give your "pat answers" with no explanations.
"......Everything that you've written so far shows that you are a fuzzy, non-critical thinker. An irrational one at that...."
And I would have to conclude that everything that you've written so far shows that you are a narrow-minded, stubborn, overly-critical thinker, who will not even consider the possibility that you don't have all the answers. Rem, we obviously are never going to agree on this subject. You don't believe in a world beyond this one; I do.
Abaddon

Hi hooberus;
Naturalistic evolution cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for supernatural phenomena.
Like I said at the start of that piece hooberus, if you believe in Creation, my question might not interest you... but I disagree in any case, as I have already figured out potential evolutionary mechanisms for internal paranormal abilities. Oh, and believers in god cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for its existence without violating the arguments they put forward for intelligent design, or the flawed arguments regarding thermodynamics they sometimes try to use against evolution.
I should point out that there is no scientifically repeatable evidence for supernatural phenomena. That is different from it not existing. We might not be able to measure it. Yet.
But many of the arguments in the ‘can’t measure it yet’ vein fail to see that even before one could prove by observation and measurement the Earth was round, you could see the top sail of a boat approaching shore before the hull. You cannot give an equivalent example regarding supernatural phenomena; even if the person being shown this ‘supernatural event’ (the top sail appearing first) didn’t believe the Earth was round, they would see the evidence and it would be repeatable, even if they couldn't prove it by measurement and maths.
All the anecdotal claims for supernatural phenomena, and let us be clear on this, every single one, can NOT be repeated in an equivalently persuasive manner to unbelievers.
Again, this doesn’t mean supernatural phenomena don’t exist. But the sheer lack of conformation to general scientific models is cause for suspicion. It’s why I asked the question I did; I find the weight of anecdotal evidence interesting, but as NONE of it is repeatable, I see it interesting to speculate about how such abilities could arise if they did exist using standard scientific models. If you can’t prove something exists through experiment, and it has no logical method of development, it adds weight to the suspicion that it actually doesn’t exist.
Therefore those who believe in evolution are bound to reject for example the existence of angelic or demonic phenomena or other phenomena which indicates that humans have a spiritual soul.
Wrong. I reject the existence of angels or demons ‘cause there is no evidence. Believers in god are bound to reject the existence of firm proof for a naturalistic evolution of man... you really should stop using invertable sentences, they undermine your arguments...?
Those of us who believe in the biblical account of creation which provides for humans to have a soul within them as well as the creation of spiritual beings above humans such as angels, will tend to be more open to believe these experiences as being possible,
…and less liable to insist upon incontrovertible evidence… and more liable to dispute physical evidence that conflicts with previously held opinions of faith... whereas scientists will, after a big argument, generally refine theory to fit facts, rather than playing with the facts to fit a story.
I myself have interviewed many people (even people who are not "religious") and have concluded that there is way too much stuff going on in order to be explained by naturalistic phenomena. Of course these things may not be testable by the "scientific method" however that does not mean that they have not occurred.
… but they have NEVER been proved scientifically, all the same. Not once. Ever. Which is why we can never agree on things
Do you expect deamons to perform in front of a camera, so that later athiests may be convinced of the supernatural and may even come to believe in spiritual things?
Really bad argument. Reverse it; d o you expect angels to perform in front of a camera, so that later athiests may be convinced of the supernatural and may even come to believe in spiritual things? Answer; given that god is love, yes. Given that god would have saved Sodom for ten righteous men, yes. The lack of provability is too convenient hooberus, and is uncharacteristic of the persona of god as expressed by the New Testament.
Oh, and if internal paranormal powers exist, they are either a new feature selected for by natural selection that is not fully developed yet, or they are selected for by another mechanism, probably sexual selection, although as with other characteristic not selected for by natural selection, they do have incidental potential survival benefits, so might appear to be seleected for by natural selection.
But it is a big if
rem

Mary,
I had a couple of horrifying experiences a few years ago where I was sure that demons were in my room
This is exactly my point. You initially jumped to an incorrect conclusion because you lacked information. When you learned about night terrors, you got to the heart of the matter. If you had never learned about the science behind night terrors you would still believe demons were in your room! But for some reason you believe there are still a small percentage of phenomenon that can only have a supernatural explanation - this an admitted argument from ignorance.
Again, just as the studies have shown, believers are more likely to miscalculate probability and this is a classic example. With the experience of the fork there are many more explanations that are more probable than rewriting the laws of physics. Sunspot lying or being crazy are much more likely - it happens all the time. I believe Sunspot is sincere, but it is also much more likely that she has modified this memory all these years after the experience than a supernatural explanation that has never been recorded. If you really understood how the brain works you would immediately see this. Maybe the fork really did fly in the air, though some of the details of the memory have been corrupted over time and retelling. There are many plausible explanations for why a fork would fly in the air that don't include the paranormal - use your imagination.
Just think if that fork had flown in the air and landed in someone's chest. All of a sudden this becomes a murder investigation. How long do you think the supernatural story would last in court? With a real investigation the truth would come out. Maybe it was some freak accident - stranger things have happened.
As far as the supernatural being possible - yes of course it is. But there is a huge gulf between possible and probable. Invisible Pink Unicorns are possible, though not probable. You can't just cling to possibilities. You have to provide good reason to move a remote possibility to the realm of probability. Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
One more example: With the fork experience, could it not have been aliens that pulled it up in a tractor beam? What about Fairies? Maybe an invisible witch was using it as her broom? A Pink Unicorn was controlling it telepathically from the Pleades... Which scenario is more likely and why? You see, there is no way to rank all of these non-falsifiable theories in probability. The Paranormal explanation is just as (un)likely as the rest of these. Until you provide evidence (not anecdotal) of why the Ghost explanation is more likely than the others there is no reason to even give it any credence. Natural explanations already are more likely because we know people lie, people misremember things, people forget things, freak natural phenomenon have been known to occur and have been documented, etc. All that's missing in this experience is detailed information. With detailed information it is extremely likely that a natural cause will be found and extremely improbable that a paranormal explanation will be the correct one.
rem
Mary

".....Sunspot lying or being crazy are much more likely - it happens all the time....."
I can't believe you actually said that.
rem
Mary,
Maybe you can't believe I said that because you don't understand probability.
How many documented and verified cases are there of people lying? Probably millions.
How many documented and verified cases are there of insane people? Probably hundreds of thousands.
How many documented and verified cases of the paranormal exist? None.
That's why it is much more probable that Sunspot is either lying or crazy than a real paranormal event happened to her. Now I don't think she's crazy (though I don't know her at all) and I said I believed she was sincere. That's why I provided the possibility of physical phenomenon and memormy reconstruction that happens in normal humans. These are also much more probable than a real paranormal event happening to her.
I'm reading a very interesting (and quite technical) book about the mind by Daniel Dennet at the moment. It's called Consciousness Explained. The reason it is interesting is because it touches upon some of the things we've been discussing in this thread. Not so much paranormal experiences, but human perception in general and all of the experiments that have been performed and the very strange results they've uncovered.
There are many 'mental illusions' that can trick us into perceiving something that never really happened. They are a bit like optical illusions, but they work at a deeper level. He writes about many different experiments, but one interesting one is the eerie future predicting ability of the brain. Here's how it works:
Two small lights, side by side, flash in sequence. One is red and the other is green. If the lights flash in sequence fast enough, it will look as the dot of light is moving instead of just seeing two separate lights. Nothing too interesting so far... this is how movies work. The interesting thing is that even if it's the first time someone has done this, they will experience the light changing color mid flashing sequence. That is, before the second light has even flashed! How can that be?
Well, I'll just tell you that there is a perfectly natural explanation to this problem and it deals with the way the brain works. What the person is experiencing is just an illusion of the mind that happens in normal, healthy people. There is no real precognition going on, though to the subject experiencing it, it seems like there is.
With simple experiments like this (and there are others that are fascinating as well), it's easy to understand that the brain is not some simple tape recording device that we can pull memories out of anytime unmolested. The brain does not work like this at all, and that is why extraordinary claims must be received with great skepticism. All too often such claims have been proven to be normal, everyday occurances. There is no reason to suggest that the remaining minority of unsolved claims would be anything other than normal happenings if there was enough information to fully investigate.
If there were just one documented and verified occurance of the supernatural, then it would be logical to include it as a serious possibility. If there were many, then it could have some probability. Until then, it's just not a satisfactory explanation.
rem
hooberus
hooberus

Hooberus,
Look up the history of the Ouija board. It did not exist before Parker Brothers.
Your argument about demons performing in front of atheists is just silly. This is a classic non-falsifiable ad hoc theory. It is not even worthy of discussion among intellectually honest adults.
There seems to be a type of feedback loop with believers. People tell stories, believers suck them up without any skepticism. The stories get recounted and exaggerated. No one questions the story and it just keeps getting more and more fantastic. Believers are their own worst enemies when it comes to being duped by stories like these. They are not only the dupees, but fellow dupers.
rem
"The first commercially available Ouija board was manufactured by the Kennard Novelty Company in Baltimore, MD. and bears the patent date of February 10 1891.The following year William Fuld introduced what would become the proverbial 'grandaddy' of all Ouija and talking boards. His design is a near perfect copy of the Kennard board. Parker Brothers eventually bought the Ouija name and design from William Fuld in 1966. The current Ouija board is produced by Hasbro, who acquired Parker Brothers in the late 1990's. There were several precursors to the standard Ouija board prior to this time, including home made versions in the 1880's. The main inspiration was drawn from a planchette available during the 19th Century. People used these devices for automatic writing. A planchette is a flat piece of wood, usually oval in shape, with a pencil or pen inserted in the middle. The wooden piece rested on rollers or casters, and was placed upon a sheet of paper. The user then asked a question, closed their eyes, and placed their writing hand on the planchette. The 'spirits' would then guide the writer's hand and form words and information."
hooberus

Hooberus,
Look up the history of the Ouija board. It did not exist before Parker Brothers.
Your argument about demons performing in front of atheists is just silly. This is a classic non-falsifiable ad hoc theory. It is not even worthy of discussion among intellectually honest adults.
There seems to be a type of feedback loop with believers. People tell stories, believers suck them up without any skepticism. The stories get recounted and exaggerated. No one questions the story and it just keeps getting more and more fantastic. Believers are their own worst enemies when it comes to being duped by stories like these. They are not only the dupees, but fellow dupers.
rem
actually, If demons manifested themselves before "intellectuallt honest adults" such as yourself, you might actually begin to question your world view (though I doubt it) Since they know what manner of obsever that they are dealing with, I doubt that they would manifest themselves to an unsaved naturalistic only minded person such as yourself, and risk letting you out of the mind box that you are in.

Paranormal Experiences

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