Do you believe in ghosts or the paranormal?

[Aqua Trenoble]

Spiritual healing remains completely untrue, no effects or anything supernatural for the matter has ever been proven, and it's practitioners are con artists who take advantage of other people to satisfy their own greed. That some of them are deluded enough to believe their own mumbo jumbo doesn't change this either. There's just nothing else that anyone can make of it considering the burden of proof.

I healed myself of a lasting, debilitating illness. Did I scam myself, then? I'll let you be the judge since you're obviously an expert in the subject.

 

[Aqua Trenoble]

Also, I've got to go have dinner, so I'll be back in a bit.

 

[thePyro_13]

Testimonials are the most horrible evidence available. That's why scam anti-virus/download/etc websites are always plastered with them.

They're unverifiable, and very easy to fabricate. ie. "I met God on the train this morning", instant testimonial. Completely useless in terms of proving god's existence, or even in proving whether or not I catch the train.

VALID, TRUE testimonials. Not ones that they made up on the spot.

Thus the problem, a true testimonial looks exactly the same as one that can be made up on the spot, they simply aren't verifiable. Their's no way to tell the real from the bad.

Which is why they can't be used as evidence, even if you personally know them to be true(ie, you witnessed them) theirs no point trying to use them to convince other people.

Watch the videos I posted near the top of this page, they talk alot about which kinds of evidence can actually be used and verified. And why most evidence given for paranormal activity is so readily dismissed by science. Keep in mind the video is mostly about forms of evidence, not about whether paranormal activity is real or not. Though they reference the paranormal as examples.

 

[aldt]

No. Not only because of the myriad other valid explanations - schizophrenia, hallucinations, et cetera - but because the only provided "evidence" is so wildly and ludicrously inconsistent that the explanations involving mental instability are supported not just by the claims of seeing sparkly winged angels, but by the basic eschewing of simple logic.

 

[electronicgoat]

Nope.
I do, however, like the idea of ghosts very much. It's a nice way of looking at the afterlife, and it's my favorite of the undead monster category.

 

[Burst6]

Spiritual healing remains completely untrue, no effects or anything supernatural for the matter has ever been proven, and it's practitioners are con artists who take advantage of other people to satisfy their own greed. That some of them are deluded enough to believe their own mumbo jumbo doesn't change this either. There's just nothing else that anyone can make of it considering the burden of proof.

I healed myself of a lasting, debilitating illness. Did I scam myself, then? I'll let you be the judge since you're obviously an expert in the subject.

A few questions.
1: are you sure you actually had a illness? The mind sometimes makes you feel ill, even if there's nothing wrong with you (the nocebo effect, the placebo's mean brother). Did a doctor tell you?
2: are you sure you just didn't get the placebo effect? You may still be ill.
3: Was the illness mental?


It's smart to exhaust every single possibility before getting to the supernatural. Get other people to help too, because you probably wont find every possibility alone.

If you and a bunch of other people can exhaust everything, and then pass it to people who actually went to school for this sort of thing, get enough proof and James Randi has a million dollars for you.


Don't try to give me any evidence though. From my point of view it's either a placebo or you're just lying. There's no way you can prove it on an internet forum, and i will not believe you.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

I try to be a rational person and don't like believing in things that don't physically make sense... however, I'm still convinced that I have seen a ghost and have believed in ghosts ever since I was very young. Almost completely because I want to believe they exist. The stories entertain me and I don't have any evidence to prove that it's all mental so as of right now I'll say yes I do but I kind of don't really any more. But I did see a ghost or what I still believe to be a ghost and as of right now I'll have to mark it down as something unexplainable.

 

[Aqua Trenoble]

A few questions.
1: are you sure you actually had a illness? The mind sometimes makes you feel ill, even if there's nothing wrong with you (the nocebo effect, the placebo's mean brother). Did a doctor tell you?
2: are you sure you just didn't get the placebo effect? You may still be ill.
3: Was the illness mental?


It's smart to exhaust every single possibility before getting to the supernatural. Get other people to help too, because you probably wont find every possibility alone.

If you and a bunch of other people can exhaust everything, and then pass it to people who actually went to school for this sort of thing, get enough proof and James Randi has a million dollars for you.


Don't try to give me any evidence though. From my point of view it's either a placebo or you're just lying. There's no way you can prove it on an internet forum, and i will not believe you.

I suppose that it's reasonable to be skeptical. So:

1. I very definitely was ill. My lymph nodes were swollen, I had a damn sore throat, and I was coughing a lot and even short of breath. If I was imagining all that then please put me out of my fictional misery.

2. I am most certainly not still ill. My lymph nodes are fine and I've had no resurgence of any of the symptoms in the intervening months.

3. The illness was in no way mental or imagined. Other people commented on it and I even have a good idea of where I got it, as I was hanging out with a sick friend not long before I too became ill.

There are no other possibilities. I cured myself through force of will and that's that. I've even done it before that, though those examples were far more subtle. And I really don't want to replicate the phenomenon, either. Aside from the obvious downside of being sick again, it took a lot of energy to fix myself.

I don't even particularly care if you believe me, I just am giving a personal experience and seeing what people make of it.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Even if it worked only once, that's a 100% better scorecard than anything spriritual, paranormal has ever achieved.

Oh that's right, I forgot that spiritual and paranormal forces don't exist and have never done anything. Must suck to live in your world...

Same world you live in. Until the spiritual and paranormal can actually be explained in rational, structured experiments, and "psychic ability" can be replicated, it's all hokum.

 

[Aqua Trenoble]

Oh that's right, I forgot that spiritual and paranormal forces don't exist and have never done anything. Must suck to live in your world...

Same world you live in. Until the spiritual and paranormal can actually be explained in rational, structured experiments, and "psychic ability" can be replicated, it's all hokum.

Arguably we all live within our own personal worlds with their own events and rules, but I digress.

If you refuse to accept even the possibility that there's more than science and logic then you're missing out on some really rad shit. That's all I meant.

 

[Dfskelleton]

One would be surprised how truly powerful the human mind is. If we believe in the paranormal, the mind is likely to trick the senses into seeing, hearing, feeling, or smelling something that isn't there.
As a Catholic, however, I try to keep the mindframe that anything could be possible. If ghosts do exist, I'm not sure if they'd have hostile emotions toasted humans, or be able to hurt them for that matter.
EDIT: Damn you, Automatic Spellcheck on my iPhone! I would fix the toasted thing, but I'm going to leave it there because it's amusing.

 

[Aqua Trenoble]

I would like to state that I am a man of science and rationality. I believe in supernatural occurrences simply because that's the way my world works and because the explanations ring true for me.

I also would like to state that I am really damn tired of this whole mess.

Thank you.

 

[ResonanceSD]

Oh that's right, I forgot that spiritual and paranormal forces don't exist and have never done anything. Must suck to live in your world...

Same world you live in. Until the spiritual and paranormal can actually be explained in rational, structured experiments, and "psychic ability" can be replicated, it's all hokum.

Arguably we all live within our own personal worlds with their own events and rules, but I digress.

If you refuse to accept even the possibility that there's more than science and logic then you're missing out on some really rad shit. That's all I meant.

I fail to see why you feel the need for there to BE anything else. Isn't the physical universe enough without, let's not pull any punches, fairy stories?

 

[soulfire130]

Yeah, I beleive do to personal experiences of my own.That does not mean, however, that if everytime something wierd happens it is paranormal. If a door suddenly closes, I'm not going to just believe its a ghost or demon. I check to find what caused it to close. If I can't find any non-paranormal reason for it closing, I consider the possiblity of it being paranormal.

Of course, if a full figure apparition appears right in front of me out of nowhere, I will do two things:

1. Definantly call that real

2. Do something that F.E.A.R 1-3 taught me: FUCK. EVERYTHING. AND. RUN.


I would talk about the personal experience but I don't feel like painting a bigger target on me than I already have.

 

[Aqua Trenoble]

I fail to see why you feel the need for there to BE anything else. Isn't the physical universe enough without, let's not pull any punches, fairy stories?

No. Let's face it, what we know is really damn boring and there's nothing new under, above, or beyond the sun. If things become true when you believe in them, what reasons are there to not believe in something new?

 

[ResonanceSD]

I fail to see why you feel the need for there to BE anything else. Isn't the physical universe enough without, let's not pull any punches, fairy stories?

No. Let's face it, what we know is really damn boring and there's nothing new under, above, or beyond the sun. If things become true when you believe in them, why is there any reason not believe in something new?

Boring? I think that says more about either

what you know about the universe

or

what you can understand about the universe


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi_Educational_Foundation#One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge


Win this. Come back when you do. Here's my unbelievably accurate prediction. You can trust me, I have a crystal ball badge. You won't. No one will.


Oh and that'll be $200.


EDIT: To James Randi, I'm starting compound interest from now until my prediction is proved.

 

[thePyro_13]

A few questions.
1: are you sure you actually had a illness? The mind sometimes makes you feel ill, even if there's nothing wrong with you (the nocebo effect, the placebo's mean brother). Did a doctor tell you?
2: are you sure you just didn't get the placebo effect? You may still be ill.
3: Was the illness mental?


It's smart to exhaust every single possibility before getting to the supernatural. Get other people to help too, because you probably wont find every possibility alone.

If you and a bunch of other people can exhaust everything, and then pass it to people who actually went to school for this sort of thing, get enough proof and James Randi has a million dollars for you.


Don't try to give me any evidence though. From my point of view it's either a placebo or you're just lying. There's no way you can prove it on an internet forum, and i will not believe you.

I suppose that it's reasonable to be skeptical. So:

1. I very definitely was ill. My lymph nodes were swollen, I had a damn sore throat, and I was coughing a lot and even short of breath. If I was imagining all that then please put me out of my fictional misery.

2. I am most certainly not still ill. My lymph nodes are fine and I've had no resurgence of any of the symptoms in the intervening months.

3. The illness was in no way mental or imagined. Other people commented on it and I even have a good idea of where I got it, as I was hanging out with a sick friend not long before I too became ill.

There are no other possibilities. I cured myself through force of will and that's that. I've even done it before that, though those examples were far more subtle. And I really don't want to replicate the phenomenon, either. Aside from the obvious downside of being sick again, it took a lot of energy to fix myself.

I don't even particularly care if you believe me, I just am giving a personal experience and seeing what people make of it.

"http://www.emedicinehealth.com/swollen_lymph_glands/page6_em.htm#Swollen Lymph Glands Treatment"

Swollen Lymph Nodes heal on their own? Anti-biotics can speed up recovery and mask symptoms, but you don't have to do anything to get better.

>"There are no other possibilities."
Their are many possibilities, the most likely being that you were on the mend anyway, and just happened to coincide with you deciding to tank your illness.

Occam's razor, why select the explanation with the most assumptions, and least probability?

 

[Patrick Dare]

Why did you put miss in quotes? I never wrote that word. I never even went near that word. People aren't missing things, they're deliberately trying to ignore or disprove them. I don't believe I wrote spirit healing or alternative treatments either, but that's beside the point.

I'm calling it potential evidence because it's apparently completely fine to dismiss valid evidence by nullifying the credibility of the source. Until I can prove otherwise or you see how preposterous that logic is, I will continue to call it potential evidence, even if it damages my argument.

We derailed because my evidence is only potential. Until the sources of the testimonials are proven infallible, said testimonials mean nothing. You began digging at that and then everything went to hell.

Bottom line, there is no evidence. I said that previously in this thread, on page one or two. Nothing I say or do will prove or disprove that my mom is genuine. So what do we do now?

What you are claiming your mom can do is considered alternative medicine and probably spiritual healing as well.

Testimonials (a.k.a. anecdotes) are not considered evidence. Evidence would be empirical, double blind studies for example. These types of studies are done all the time to test new drugs, etc. They are also used to test alternative medicine, new age healing, etc. and every time they show no effect (outside of a placebo effect which basically means it's useless).

 

[Aqua Trenoble]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi_Educational_Foundation#One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge


Win this. Come back when you do. Here's my unbelievably accurate prediction. You can trust me, I have a crystal ball badge. You won't. No one will.


Oh and that'll be $200.

Dammit, I'm not trying to prove anything! I just want people to realize that there can be so much more than just what you perceive. But I guess everyone's too busy trying to prove me wrong to learn anything.

 

[ResonanceSD]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi_Educational_Foundation#One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge


Win this. Come back when you do. Here's my unbelievably accurate prediction. You can trust me, I have a crystal ball badge. You won't. No one will.


Oh and that'll be $200.

Dammit, I'm not trying to prove anything! I just want people to realize that there can be so much more than just what you perceive. But I guess everyone's too busy trying to prove me wrong to learn anything.

Sir, I take grave offence to "trying". Sure, I can't "perceive" Infra-red light. It's ALL AROUND US. However, there are rational, empirical, REPEATABLE tests to prove it's existence.