24 replies to this topic

[Rosewin]

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One such survey of the beliefs of the general United States population regarding paranormal topics was conducted by the Gallup Organization in 2005. The survey found that 73 percent of those polled believed in at least one of the ten paranormal items presented in the survey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranormal#Belief_polls

Edited by Clovis, 15 April 2008 - 12:43 PM.

[Never Say Die]

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The studies tell otherwise... the more educated a person is the less they are likely to beleive in a faith based / lack of evidence phenomenon..

I don't think that's true, I know a lot of clever people, or well educated people that have a strong belief in the supernatural, some of the teachers in my school for example, I know that one of them claims to be a witch.

I agree that the world around us can be amazing, but I find that learning about the supernatural a lot more interesting than anything else, it's not that I don't think the world is boring, or that there aren't spectacular things, it's just that, in my opinion, the paranormal has less boundaries, and a lot of things are open to our own interpretations or beliefs.

Also, if your more willing to at least consider the paranormal, wouldn't that make you more open minded? As in, thinking outside the box? Not to mention, believing in the paranormal is not childish, by saying 'paranormal' you are covering a very wide range of beliefs and thoughts. There is nothing wrong or childish in believing in it.

[capeo]

Never Say Die on Apr 15 2008, 01:38 PM, said:

I don't think that's true, I know a lot of clever people, or well educated people that have a strong belief in the supernatural, some of the teachers in my school for example, I know that one of them claims to be a witch.

I agree that the world around us can be amazing, but I find that learning about the supernatural a lot more interesting than anything else, it's not that I don't think the world is boring, or that there aren't spectacular things, it's just that, in my opinion, the paranormal has less boundaries, and a lot of things are open to our own interpretations or beliefs.

Also, if your more willing to at least consider the paranormal, wouldn't that make you more open minded? As in, thinking outside the box? Not to mention, believing in the paranormal is not childish, by saying 'paranormal' you are covering a very wide range of beliefs and thoughts. There is nothing wrong or childish in believing in it.

Wrong?  Depends.  Irrational?  Absolutely.  Childish?  Kind of.

[Im-postle-able]

Never Say Die on Apr 16 2008, 03:38 AM, said:

I don't think that's true, I know a lot of clever people, or well educated people that have a strong belief in the supernatural, some of the teachers in my school for example, I know that one of them claims to be a witch.

I agree that the world around us can be amazing, but I find that learning about the supernatural a lot more interesting than anything else, it's not that I don't think the world is boring, or that there aren't spectacular things, it's just that, in my opinion, the paranormal has less boundaries, and a lot of things are open to our own interpretations or beliefs.

Also, if your more willing to at least consider the paranormal, wouldn't that make you more open minded? As in, thinking outside the box? Not to mention, believing in the paranormal is not childish, by saying 'paranormal' you are covering a very wide range of beliefs and thoughts. There is nothing wrong or childish in believing in it.

heh just because someone works in a school it doesn't mean they are well educated.. they are just educated at teaching a certain curriculum..

You say that the supernatural is more interesting that anything else?

So you're saying that an  whimsical explanation for a phenomenon which is unprovable, unreproducable, and has really weak evidence which seems to fall apart under even the most basic scruitiny is more interesting than rational and HEAVILY supported explanations with real evidence which is reproducable and can withstand scrutiny again & again...

One is fiction... one is real...

Again, if anyone was able to support your "more interesting" supernatural explanations then they would have discovered a new set of physical laws of the universe.. they would get world fame blah blah.... but predictably no-one can support thier claims because firstly they are fiction.. and secondly they all deep down know what they are trying to "sell" as an explanation is really just whymsical fantasy...

Belief in the paranormal without evidence IS childish by definition. Children believe what theya re told because they don't know how to think through a problem rationaly. A fully developed set of critical thinking skills completely destroys and supernatural or paranormal explanations with a few simple queries... is there evidence? no.. is the explanation robust? no... can anyone in the world show any evidence which can stand to simple scruiteny? no... well then chances are it's not true..

Being open minded is great... being open minded to include theories which have NO evidence is counterproductive.

[Kevin A.]

Never Say Die on Apr 12 2008, 03:53 PM, said:

This actually happened a couple of months ago, but I'm not positive as to what happened, so I thought I'd ask everyone here.

It happened just before I went to bed, I heard my grandparents saying something about a 'fire', so I went and looked out a window. On the bank opposite our house, someone had lit a fire (there was another one further down the road, but I couldn't see it). Anyway, the fire was quite big, and it was near some trees (basically it goes loads of trees, then an area of grass, then loads of tree's again all the way down the road)

Well, the fire was just reaching the bottom of the leaves of the tree's, I didn't really want them to go on fire, since it'd probably spread like crazy. I'd been practising pyrokinetics for about a week (and I got absolutley nowhere), but I thought I might as well try to suppress the fire. So I just stared at it, keeping my mind calm and imagined it becoming smaller. It seemed to go smaller, so it wasn't reaching the leaves anymore. I stayed like that for about 5 minutes or so until the fire brigade arrived, then I just stopped concentrating, the fire rose again, then the firemen put it out. Afterwards I was really tired and slightly dizzy.

I'm not saying I managed to control or affect the fire in anyway, it just seemed like I did. So, anyone got an explanation?

Several points here. One is that memory is a supple thing. It is not nearly as hard and fast as most of us would like it to be. We often end up remembering things the way we believe them to be or the way we want them to be. I have a feeling that this supple memory thing is playing its part here.

Second it "seemed to go smaller"? From what distance? Define "seemed"? How much did the fire die down? Be precise belief, thinking something so and vague terms does not help your case.

Third you stared at a distant fire for five minutes straight concentrating on making the fire die down. You then looked away and felt really tired and dizzy? Surprise surprise. Nothing to do with psi powers here....

Lastly I have a suggestion. The next time something is amiss and you feel the need to intervene, get off your butt and do something about it. Don't just stand there staring and concentrating hoping some magical mystical power is going to help out. Get off your butt and act....

Kevin A.

[Never Say Die]

Firstly, to 'Im-postle-able':

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So you're saying that an whimsical explanation for a phenomenon which is unprovable, unreproducable, and has really weak evidence which seems to fall apart under even the most basic scruitiny is more interesting than rational and HEAVILY supported explanations with real evidence which is reproducable and can withstand scrutiny again & again...

Actually, I was trying to say that I dislike the idea of putting walls around everything, I don't like to think in black and white, where something is or isn't, 'heavily supported explanations'? no, I don't like the idea of something being definite.

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A fully developed set of critical thinking skills completely destroys and supernatural

Then why are there some things that can't be explained? Why do I read and hear about things that people can't explain, true, maybe I shouldn't believe what the news, internet or people say, but I choose to at least give the supernatural a chance, and not to close my mind off to it.

To Kevin A.:

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Several points here. One is that memory is a supple thing. It is not nearly as hard and fast as most of us would like it to be. We often end up remembering things the way we believe them to be or the way we want them to be. I have a feeling that this supple memory thing is playing its part here.

Perhaps, but I told two of my friends about this the day afterwards, and I know that I told them the exact same story.
Also, I can usually tell if a memory is solid or faded somewhat, and I have tried to change some things, or recall certain things about my memory, and I never can, which is why I'm sure that this is what happened. I'm not the type of person who'll lie to themselves to gain attention or to my my life sound more 'exciting'.

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Second it "seemed to go smaller"? From what distance? Define "seemed"? How much did the fire die down? Be precise belief, thinking something so and vague terms does not help your case.

Third you stared at a distant fire for five minutes straight concentrating on making the fire die down. You then looked away and felt really tired and dizzy? Surprise surprise. Nothing to do with psi powers here....

The distance was from the top floor of my house, slightly diagonally on the grass verge, so it was across a one lane road. When I say seemed, basically in my eyes it went smaller, how much did it die down? Quite simply I can't remember, if I were to guess, I'd say it died by 1/4, so it was 3/4 the size, but I can't be sure.

Ok, so maybe I felt tired simply because I stared at it too long, but even so, I never claimed to have psi powers.

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Lastly I have a suggestion. The next time something is amiss and you feel the need to intervene, get off your butt and do something about it. Don't just stand there staring and concentrating hoping some magical mystical power is going to help out. Get off your butt and act....

What do you expect me to do? Run over and chuck a glass of water at it? Somebody had already called the fire brigade, there was already somebody down there, but they were just trying to pull these plastic barriers (there were road works in our street) out of the fire, though it didn't help.

So seriously, what was I supposed to do? The only other thing I could have done was to watch like everyone else, since no one had anything to put a fire out with.

[inkblot]

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The world in an amazing place WITHOUT childish fantasies of the supernatural...

Why? I don't understand that arguement. Assuming that there's infinite universes (which is the only way the universe's creation can make sense), there had to be at least one complex universe out there.  What's more, we are nothing more than quantum computers walking around a lonely planet. What's amazing about that?

The same logic applies here. 100 billion people in 10,000 years. Odds are that one would have a dream about a fire, then wake up and see one.

Edited by inkblot, 16 April 2008 - 09:46 PM.

[Sporkling]

Odds? If you discount everything as odds, then things are not going to be true. There are many people having premonitions everyday. The odds of that happening are very little. Lesser than anything else. And that goes on for a long time. Everyone has it. They can tell you. You i'm sure ever had an occation that you did not listen to your gut and regreted it. A lot of people has that.

[Irish]

A reminder is in order here......
The subject of metaphysical abilities and psychic phenomena is a very controversial one. There is and always will be conflict between those who strongly believe in these phenomena, and those who do not. Therefore it is important to respect each other's opinions on the subject. This means no flaming, no namecalling, no trolling and no personal attacks.

Thank you for your cooperation
Irish

[stevemc2]

Papaver on Apr 12 2008, 04:54 PM, said:

If there were no coincidences in life then that would be weird.

That's an insightful statement, check out Carl Jung's views on 'synchronicity'  which is his term for coincidence.  

Here's a kind of stupid - but true - story on coincidences that just happened to me:

The other night I was watching "Kidnaped", and the star was Armand Assante.  The next day I went to rent movies, I had been wanting to rent, "When Nietzche Wept" and rented it, it stars Armand Assante, then while the clerk was checking me out I quickly went back to get another movie at random, so I picked out "Consequence" without looking who the stars were, and just now I put it in and lo and behold!  Armand Assante is the star!!

.............stupid but true!

Who knows, maybe tomorrow I'll accidentally run into Armand Assante, who i'm not any particular fan of, other than I thought he did a good job acting in "Napoleon"