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Why people believe weird things - vids


seeder

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Why we blame everything on aliens

"Why when something weird or unexplained happens do we immediately blame aliens?! From crop circles, missing persons, even animal mutilations--ET's been blamed for 'em all! Trace explores why we're so quick to hop on the "aliens did it" bandwagon".

and

"Michael Shermer: Why people believe weird things"

Why do people see the Virgin Mary on cheese sandwiches or hear demonic lyrics in "Stairway to Heaven"? Using video, images and music, professional skeptic Michael Shermer explores these and other phenomena, including UFOs and alien sightings. He offers cognitive context: In the absence of sound science, incomplete information can combine with the power of suggestion (helping us hear those Satanic lyrics in Led Zeppelin). In fact, he says, humans tend to convince ourselves to believe: We overvalue the "hits" that support our beliefs, and discount the more numerous "misses."

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"Professional Skeptic Michael Shermer". See, it is so like a religion, (or indeed, like professional Atheists), that people must be converted to their way of thinking and follow the Right path, so much so that people can make a career out of it. Although at least religious evangelists don't just laugh at those they're trying to convert; even they recognise that that's counterproductive.

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Michael Shermer on Aliens. (the first bit is silly but persevere, its only 1.39 long. Its about the typcal GREY type alien, and I like his thinking

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I think most of us need to believe...believe in something, whatever we choose, gods, aliens, fairies, etc.

When something happens we instinctively try to elaborate reasons, and when we can't find a clear easy reason, we go for the bizarre.

Maybe it's in our DNA, maybe we have a gene that makes us believe in higher powers.

I am not religious, for example, but I'm not an atheist, I'm an agnostic....cause I can't prove nor disprove that god exists.

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I think most of us need to believe...believe in something, whatever we choose, gods, aliens, fairies, etc.

When something happens we instinctively try to elaborate reasons, and when we can't find a clear easy reason, we go for the bizarre.

Maybe it's in our DNA, maybe we have a gene that makes us believe in higher powers.

Your sentence, bolded, is bang on target :tu:

Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception

Michael Shermer says the human tendency to believe strange things -- from alien abductions to dowsing rods -- boils down to two of the brain's most basic, hard-wired survival skills. He explains what they are, and how they get us into trouble.

watch to the end for the kissing chimps bit, hilarious

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[/media] Edited by seeder
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After recent events in my life, I can say it sucks to not have something to believe in when it comes to a after life.( or not know what to believe ) It is actually pretty scary and depressing to me.

As for crop circles, videos, etc......I call that ignorance, and lack of education. Education has become television and youtube.

Edited by Sakari
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I really don't think its unreasonable or shrouded in ignorance to believe that aliens do exist. What is really ignorant is to believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe and that some of them could be far more advanced than we are. Advanced enough to come here.

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The video about the supposed backmasking in Stairway to Heaven is a perfect example of why people believe in EVPs.

Note that people could only make out the supposed name 'Satan' in the first hearing but when prompted with subtitles in the second hearing they could 'hear' it all.

Same with EVPs. Hear it without any clues as to what the voice is supposedly saying and people will agree that it's a very clear EVP, but will offer wildly different opinions as to what it says. When they're told what to listen for beforehand, they'll all hear it when there's not really anything there other than a vague resemblance to a voice or speech.

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Oh the monkey test!! That was disgusting and hilarious at the same time! ha ha ha

On a serious note: very very interesting. Our minds are always looking for patterns and especially faces...even in the dark...all survival mechanisms.

I've never heard of Micahel Shermer before, but I'll definitely try to read about him.

Thanks, Seeder.

:)

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Oh, backmasking. That brings back memories. I went to a Christian school and we had to bring in examples of Satanism in rock and roll music, naughty lyrics, backmasking, symbolism in album covers, that sort of thing. To this day, I'm terrified of listening to Hotel California and any song from the Rush "Moving Pictures" album. Those naughty, naughty Satanists trying to corrupt the minds of innocent children. :devil:

Sorry, didn't mean to derail, Seeder. :blush:

Edited by MacsMom
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"Professional Skeptic Michael Shermer". See, it is so like a religion, (or indeed, like professional Atheists), that people must be converted to their way of thinking and follow the Right path, so much so that people can make a career out of it. Although at least religious evangelists don't just laugh at those they're trying to convert; even they recognise that that's counterproductive.

Spot on. It literally is self-professed bias. Yet they claim religious adherence to a scientific method? They fail to realise that this precludes bias.

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Oh the monkey test!! That was disgusting and hilarious at the same time! ha ha ha

On a serious note: very very interesting. Our minds are always looking for patterns and especially faces...even in the dark...all survival mechanisms.

I've never heard of Micahel Shermer before, but I'll definitely try to read about him.

Thanks, Seeder.

:)

Here is a couple of articles Shermer wrote a few years back that go hand in hand with the OP's videos....

If you want to read some Shermer, here ya go...and you can back off the specific location in address bar of browser (location of the documents) to get to the main site.

http://www.skeptical...reads/id15.html

http://www.skeptical...hreads/id2.html

Edited by Jeremiah65
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I really don't think its unreasonable or shrouded in ignorance to believe that aliens do exist. What is really ignorant is to believe we are the only intelligent life in the universe and that some of them could be far more advanced than we are. Advanced enough to come here.

Nope me either. I absolutely believe in life elsewhere, however, I dont believe they are coming here! But I do think its unreasonable to assume/believe daft things credited to aliens, like cattle mutilations where we have evidence of natural forces. like building the PumaPunku walls, where we have evidence from the Spanish who witnessed it being built, and the pyramids, where again a record (of sorts) was left to how it too was biuilt

yet they are 3 biggies that people attribute to ET. Over and over!

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Oh the monkey test!! That was disgusting and hilarious at the same time! ha ha ha

On a serious note: very very interesting. Our minds are always looking for patterns and especially faces...even in the dark...all survival mechanisms.

I've never heard of Micahel Shermer before, but I'll definitely try to read about him.

Thanks, Seeder.

:)

search youtube on his name, he has many many vids, some long, some short. But yeh if readings your thing I believe he has a website

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Oh, backmasking. That brings back memories. I went to a Christian school and we had to bring in examples of Satanism in rock and roll music, naughty lyrics, backmasking, symbolism in album covers, that sort of thing. To this day, I'm terrified of listening to Hotel California and any song from the Rush "Moving Pictures" album. Those naughty, naughty Satanists trying to corrupt the minds of innocent children. :devil:

Sorry, didn't mean to derail, Seeder. :blush:

No derail in evidence!! Cure your fears with the below

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Very informative for people who don't bother to look for more options than "aliens". It would be stupid to not believe that there is life out-there, I believe that there's life growing in your toilet (for instance), so why not somewhere in the Universe? Now, that an intelligent civilization is visiting us to mutilate our cows, abduct people to play with their anuses and such stuff, well, no.

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Nope me either. I absolutely believe in life elsewhere, however, I dont believe they are coming here! But I do think its unreasonable to assume/believe daft things credited to aliens, like cattle mutilations where we have evidence of natural forces. like building the PumaPunku walls, where we have evidence from the Spanish who witnessed it being built, and the pyramids, where again a record (of sorts) was left to how it too was biuilt

yet they are 3 biggies that people attribute to ET. Over and over!

Are they really the three biggest pieces of evidence that people attribute to ET?

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Are they really the three biggest pieces of evidence that people attribute to ET?

3 biggies I said, not the the 3 biggest!

.

Edited by seeder
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real life experience ! thats something you cannot learn from books .. or education ! and you cannot prove it , you can only tell people what you saw and what you believe what it was ! even if it doesnt make sense , somewhere in your heart you know that it is not possible , but yet you know it is just as real as the clothes you are wearing , when theres a ghost standing in your hallway , a meter in front of you and you are looking directly at it . you just know that it is real ! or a triangle shaped craft that is flying above your house and in that moment it vanished up in the sky with speed you never witnessed before ! you just know that your mind is not playing tricks with you ! the only thing you can do is accept the truth ! there is more out there than one can learn from books !

its weird, but we know better . we know the truth !

and i hope that the skeptic in here , would never ever have to see the things and hear the things that i have seen !

i believe that most of the people ,cannot handle it !

thats why some are searching really hard to find something explainable to ease their minds. and to tell themselfs that they are sane !

so just believe WHAT i tell you :P . dont experience it ! you ll get a heart attack :P .

btw , side story about myself , i think it was pretty funny ..

when i had history class about pyramids in Egypt how they were built by slaves and so on. when the teacher asked me ! when were they built and who builded them and how? !

i answered this = the slaves didnt built it , and we still dont know when they were builded,or how ! but i do know that it is not manmade , aliens builded it !i think its impossible to built it with the technology from back then ! everyone laughed at me . :( they all tough that i was joking ! i was deadly serious . but hey i never told them that i was seriuos lol !

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Another short vid - Michael Shermer - Baloney Detection Kit (or how to treat bold claims before blindly believing them)

I liked his analogy with SETI, and the UFO crowd,... both believe in the existence of aliens, but where ufologists just believe in stories and fuzzy pics, and have no scientists to back up their claims...SETI, setup by scientists, are actively searching for ET, 24/7, and have the equipment ufologists do not... and who actually test their own data... and have never found evidence of aliens. Yet both are looking and both believe, (or something like that) :tu:

Pay attention Zoser!

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[/media]

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Edited by seeder
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Spot on. It literally is self-professed bias. Yet they claim religious adherence to a scientific method? They fail to realise that this precludes bias.

you clearly didnt watch, he is a skeptic sure, but backed up by science :tu:

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IMO Michael Shermer is a fraud. He has been shown to be a fraud over and over again. He is part of the cover up of ancient civilizations and the fact that aliens have visited earth. Anyone who has done his homework knows that earth, mars and our moon all had ancient civilizations that were somehow related. The amount of information that is hidden from the public is great. Anyone want to see a martian?

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IMO Michael Shermer is a fraud. He has been shown to be a fraud over and over again. He is part of the cover up of ancient civilizations and the fact that aliens have visited earth. Anyone who has done his homework knows that earth, mars and our moon all had ancient civilizations that were somehow related. The amount of information that is hidden from the public is great. Anyone want to see a martian?

Go on then. I want to see a martian. But did you just join to reply to this thread? And how can a skeptic be a fraud :lol:

when they just rationally question others claims? :tu:

.

Edited by seeder
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The real question should be ."How do we Tell a Believer from a Real Alien" ? :tu:

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