i need some skeptic input... dreams that come true

by googlemagoogle 121 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Jeffro

  It's to this kind of comment that I direct my reply.
  If your post is merely rational argument, then there's surely no need for it.

  You'd probably complain about his hair style reducing his rationality, or somesuch.

  So which is it? ;) (Seriously, it really doesn't worry me.)
  
  But glasshouses aside...

  They aren't really trying to convince anyone, they're just chatting about something that they believe happened to them. But they do get a little sensitive when folks start questioning their personal experience, especially when the inquisitor is psychically-blind.

  In all fairness, the thread topic is about "skeptic input". If these phenomena are ever to be proven and the mechanisms behind them determined, it will be because sceptics have continued to ask questions and seek proof. If people just sit back and concede that maybe they did happen without any challenge, they will forever be viewed in the realm of science fiction.
  
  As unfavourable as you may find the approach of some sceptics, it has a crucial role.
  
  'psychically blind' sounds a bit reminiscent of the Watchtower's "spiriturally blind".
• 

  LittleToe

  SB:

  They immediately look for ways to discredit something rather than exploring the possibility that it may exist.

  IMHO this is a deviation from the scientific method. The latter seeks to posit something before it attempts to knock it down.

  Jeffro:
  Hypocrite? Me? Nawww

  As unfavourable as you may find the approach of some sceptics, it has a crucial role.

  I agree.

  'psychically blind' sounds a bit reminiscent of the Watchtower's "spiriturally blind".

  It's a theory. Setting aside your mentally-numbing allusion of the WTS, why don't you have a crack at it...
• 

  Abaddon

  Ross, a very dear friend of mine was one for the OBEing.

  I have tried it. Fro my bed I could quite convincingly 'fly' out of my flat, down the Heavitree Road, over Countess Weir roundabout, and then onto the A380 heading towards Torquay. I always lost concentration around Telegraph Hill though and the 'image' went.

  In these trips I can resolve details quite precisely and there appears to be an expectable level of activity (cars, people) below me as I travel.

  Of course, my mind is quite able of synthesising such things... what would be needed is a micolight aircraft flying the same route with a camera on it. That way I could preclude the 'details' of the trip (man with red scarf walking dog in Kenn village) being fabrication, or sow that they were just fabricated. Insert appropriate controls and you have an experiment.

  ALL this paranormal stuff has very easy methods of testing if you think about it.

  Telekenisis? Lift something with your ming..

  OBE? Provide proof what you oberve is there when you say you observed it -same works for Clairvoyance.

  Precogniton? Unambiguous prediction recorded and disseminated widely before the event.

  So far, no dice. This doesn't mean it doesn;t 'happen' to the people who say it happens to, it just means their reality is prehaps not always matched by an objectively determinable greater reality.
• 

  googlemagoogle

  even if you had it in black and white from Einstien himself, you wouldn't believe it.
  
  and why should one believe anything that comes from "einstein himself"?
  
  Many people put too much faith in science [as we know it] while completely ignoring other methods of understanding.
  
  because science is trying to evolve, it doesn't have to stick on dogmas. if something convincably is proven wrong, it is dropped. "other methods of understanding" try everything to keep their dogmas up and running. no matter what.
• 

  LittleToe

  Gyles:Have you ever seen someone lift something with their ming?
  I knew this girl, once, who did this party trick with eggs...
  

  Google:
  That's a rather naive view of the Scientific establishment
  Their bastions and hallowed halls can be quite as resistant to changing their precious ideas as can the theological ones.

  Incidentally, the worlds of theology and the paranormal also enjoy continuous evolution. It can be glacier-like, at times, but is not non-existant.
• 

  Abaddon

  Ross

  ROFLMAO!

  That's a good one... a well spotted typo...

  ... did you see Graham Norton's Millennial New Year program? The one where he heralded in the new Millennium by having a German sex performer fire a ping-pong ball out of her, well, ming, to hit a target and set off fireworks?

  Now THAT is a paranormal power I can believe in. PG muscles that can fire a ping-pong ball 20 yards... I need to have a quiet lie down now..
• 

  Jeffro

  That's a good one... a well spotted typo...

  Not really that well spotted, as what was spotted wasn't actually there... Ming (the Merciless) is Flash Gordon's arch-rival. The typo you didn't spot (somewhat less of Flash Gordon's arch-rival) would have had an 'e' on the end.
• 

  LittleToe

  Jeffro:
  Yeah, but I don't have a personal Ming, to boss around and get to pick stuff up for me.
  If you really analyse the joke to death, you could probably find something scientific in it

  LT, of the "taunts the aussie" class.
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  If you really analyse the joke to death, you could probably find something scientific in it

  LT,

  if you apply the rule of parsimony to it, you will find that the joke is funnier than we all think! i personally think that the joke is pure coincidence, and the spelling mistake should not be chalked up to any supernatural force.
• 

  MerryMagdalene

  ROFL @ LT and TS

  (keeps on rollin')

  ~Merry