the paranormal phenomena such as alien abduction, crop circles, witchcraft, ghosts, UFO, astrology, reincarnation, etc... have been an interesting, but yet, very controversial subject.

today, i think almost half of the American population are believing in such paranormal events, and this coming from a very civilized society.

what's unique is whenever skepticisms arise, these paranormal believers are quick to criticize any paranormal skeptics of being close-mindedness, ignorant, and antagonistic to their philosophical belief.

in addition, the tendency of these paranormal believers often used skeptic's vulnerable arguments including critics' lack of societal consensus, the idea against one's discretion to find the truth, and even oftentimes, presenting pseudo-scientific evidence to debunk any paranormal skeptic's claims.

so as you can see, whenever some skeptics involved in a war of words with paranormal believers, these few points are being used to satisfy their belief.

but from my perspective, it's a way to divert rationale, logic, and most importantly, to please their psychological weaknesses.

what's your opinion on these paranormal phenomenon, and general believer themselves??

This is real because its tangible and an observable phenomena

http://www.johnofgod-healing.com/

martin_nuke, we have had a few dispute back n forth, especially on the subject of reincarnation.

it'll be intriguing and enlightening if you can tell me your reasons for adamantly hard to be persuaded that reincarnation is an unlikely phenomenon.

i would love to see your perspective and gladly share you with mine too.

like you, i "used" to believe in paranormal phenomena, for example, UFO and alien abduction, despite never encountered one or had direct experience.

be noticed i emphasize greatly on the "used" bold, past-tense verb as to demonstrate the 180-degree turn i've took and no longer held the same view and stance like before.

probably like you or anyone else, i'm very sensitive to defend the ufology and eyewitness testimony of alien abduction because i'd share this same principle with the ufological community, "there are thousands of UFO sigh case and eyewitness testimony, and IF only one case, in theory, is honest by nature, then the extraterrestrial visit is proven true."

to maintain this principle when argued, i blindly supported this fantastical claim that our probabilistic nature in quantum mechanics that if one of many is right, then the chance is high.

furthermore all legitimate testimonies from eyewitnesses, some of them are in high-profiled professions such as academic teachers, scientists, psychologists, ufologists, military personnel, even highly-secretive agents like FBI and CIA, and an overwhelming number of UFO sighs convinced me that they wouldn't joking around by putting their reputation and career on the line to prove a non-profitable cause.

however surprisingly, i've noticed all these high-profiled people were all "former or retire" professionals. lol also the publicity and media attention sometime gave them special benefit, however most cases are rare.

in other word, i can't used phony reference to the probability of quantum mechanics or took retired specialists, pseudo-scientists, and former advisers words as if it's concrete evidence to support my belief because it is simply naive to think, period.

all empirical evidences and claims must be put or subject to experimental test is what i've learned. even if i have a good case, without it being testable, the peers would be screaming in objection.

therefore, i found major flaw in my optimistic principle after i encountered and talked with scientific people, particular friends in class.

it's true, in the judicial system, eyewitness and video sigh are arguably the MOST imperative evidence one could has to prove his/her case, but in scientific sense, it's the LEAST significant evidence. or, in fact, eyewitness doesn't even qualify as proof in the scientific community; thus giving its meaning as radical view and unacceptable laughing stock.

basically, i dispute eyewitness' psychological process and neurological problem that led to their personal experience with paranormal phenomena.

remembered that our brain visual and memory cortex recognized pattern very well and could put us into a stage of hallucination and aberration, so whenever some events occurred, for instance, abducted by aliens, remembered past life, heard ghost noise, sleep-walking, and etc.. we could easily misinterpret our observations, and irresistibly put ourselves in a delusive condition.

though, paranormal enthusiasts insisted and said it really happened, meanwhile refusing skeptics' contingent points are in denial of real supportive data.

for example, people whose experiencing abduction and ghosts could be having sleep paralysis due to their neurological disease, called narcolepsy. and no matter what scientific data showed that 70% of these individuals have this illness, they would continued to accept their judgmental reliance.

i must say being a defensive fanatic is more irrational, preposterous, and ignorant than non-believer.

generally speaking, this lackof of scientific evidence, approval, and realism made me questioning the reality of abnormal events and contingent subject.

and obviously, to dismiss an observable fact, you need to offer an alternative explanation. but given the lack of tangible proof and ambiguous, inconsistent story to begin with, i simply decided to refute all claims put forth by paranormal believers.

though, i am content to argue and debate with anyone who refutes my points.

however conclusively, we'll just end up agreeing that it is an anomalous phenomenon since no logical explanation or experimental test can be done to prove or disprove all paranormal phenomena, and that's why it's an interesting discussion.

I don't believe in reincarnation just spirit attachment. If the embryo develops, only a single unique entity could develop with the embryo but if there are other entities like past lives beside the original one, they are hitch hikers or what you call spirit attachment which could disguise itself as reincarnation.

It is only in Hindu, etc... where they believe in reincarnation.

spirit attachment?? it sounds very spiritual.

have you seen one entity with 2 heads?

i know it's easy to say yeah they just making it up or whatever, i myself don't believe. but there was a buddy of mine, completely skpetic and still level headed. he saw something in a vacation, to which today he still contends as probably something that is explainable by rationality, however he was so moved and could not explain that he's still wondering what happen to these things, that is experienced but could not be explained, outside of 'crazy alien talk'.

I didn't read the whole thread just skimmed and this really stood out,




I can understand^. That's the the only thing that makes me wonder if there is truth to the paranoramal: why would ALL (not talking some who may but ALL) of these people who claim to have such experiences including people you and many others have known themselves either lie or be that imaginary to the point of hallucinating or that stupid as to mistake an ordinary event as something extraordinary?
me for instance I used to be a big-time skeptic and now I'm reconsidering though I haven't converted yet cause recently I had these relatively insignificant but interesting experiences that could be explainable but still questionable like losing and finding stuff in odd places you have no idea how they got there eg at home, otherwise normal day, lost my glasses, days later it turns up outside on my front lawn without any plausibe culprits in my family who would have thrown them out who were the only ones home at the time (you might say I might have slept walked but me or no one else has ever known me for doing this).... also some weird shadowy figure, no one there, I saw once for a split second but sure I saw... how did the lights get on, I'm sure I turned them off?...... hear someone (dunno who it could be) kicking the door couple times when I vacuumed..... how did a bracelet- a style and color I would seemingly otherwise never buy, get in my coat pocket that even though others wore said it wasn't theirs??? little things like that... (anyone else have any they could share?)

and sometimes these hard-core skeptics people make these phenomena out to be so evil, turning others into skeptics, making them think it's all wrong to believe and stuff but is the "unexplainable" so evil afterall? for instance didn't a lot of the good Jesus did- the miracles, healing etc not have a medical, scietific etc explanation? of course not but rather a supernatural, (spiritual if you will) one.

so i guess i'm 50/50 on believing in them....

^your problem is explained in this paragraph..



i want to be a believer too, but my rationality doesn't allow me.

by all means, i think there are extrinsic factors that need to take into account for unexplained events, and being a skeptic is the first step in solving them.

Just because you couldn't figure it out doesn't mean it should be attributed to the supernatural. It's merely you wanting to be able to answer your question, with a facade of an answer which really doesn't answer anything....but satisfies your urge to know. A supplemental answer, if you will. That's how I see it. You just don't know because you don't have enough evidence or knowledge to figure it out. Who put something in your pocket? Well, there's plenty of explanations less supernatural...you just choose the supernatural reason because it's easier and requires no investigation.

While it is human nature to want to know the answer to everything, it is okay and humble to accept you don't always know. No need to jump into the supernatural which is merely an unexplained-explanation.

You also find alot of scientist who are religious as well.
You will find very highly academic educated people who hold metaphysical beliefs.


(respectfully)
Your making a sweeping broad generalization about 'paranormal believers'.
Unfortunately there are dim wits & fanatical dogmatists of all sort of beliefs out there.



(respectfully)
Logic and rational isnt neccesarily in the domain of sceptics or even materialists.
Logic and rational has been used also by religious scholars. eg. by creationists, evolution by design propagators etc.



Heres a related post:
http://www.asiafinest.com/forum/index.php?...t=0&start=0



Me personally. I support the scientific method. I believe certain claims should be tested. I do believe there are alot of fraudsters out there. So tests are indeed needed. I also believe certain paranormal phenomenon can certainly be explain by science. At the same time I wouldnt automatically discount everything that is consider paranormal. (The dangers of dogmatism)

if you can prove it you can claim a million dollars

zzzzzz

Where can I claim the million dollars?