The Supernatural

God

There’s a biggie. I mean you’ve got billions of people running around the world, running governments and international organisations who believe in a guy they never saw and with absolutely no evidence he exists. If he exists he seems to be completely irrelevant to our mortal lives and allows immense suffering of innocent living things.
What’s the point really. What’s the point of having a God and a devil.
What difference does it make in anyway even if they did exist.
If I am a believer I go to heaven. If I am a non-believer I go to hell. How convenient!

Yeah people believe the strangest things. If you don’t believe in any of that stuff you are often labelled ‘boring’ or a ‘spoilsport’.
In Ireland people used to believe stone age forts were fairy rings where the fairies lived underground, some still do. It’s extremely bad luck for a farmer to plough a fairy ring.

In Taiwan you have to smile when people read your palm or tell you that Scorpios are always like that …

As for people who claim to be abducted, the vast majority already had a strong propensity to believe in fantasy beings with no objective proof before their claimed abduction. These folks are often very literal minded…interpreting dreams as reality or seeing huge meaning in dreams and coincidences around them.They think human brains are perfect. That our minds can’t play tricks, that our memory fails, that we don’t confuse reality with our imagination on a regular basis. That we don’t stamp our subjective wish for things on real events. That a lot of people don’t suffer from mental illnesses. Why should the brain be any different than any other organ. It breaks down sometimes and maybe we don’t even know when it does.

Notably two or three posters mentioned they had supernatural experiences but didn’t describe them. Come on guys, give us a juicy ghost story? I’ll keep open-minded.

Counteracting the scientific method by saying all observation is subjective is silly. Of course there is subjectivity, but the point is you try to remain as independent as possible in your conclusions and allow others to independently verify your results.

Some say that you since a ghost appearance seems to be a temporal and unpredictable thing that it is impossible to prove by the scientific method. I often argue like this. If people see a ghost it means that the ghost should be visible to others as the light is reflecting into their eyes. If you can ‘see’ a ghost will also be detectable by cameras. Why can’t cameras detect a ghost just like our eyes can. Now if we are seeing the ghost with our mind how come blind people don’t see ghosts at night time. How come when I have my eyes closed I don’t see ghosts? There are some inherent contradictions in this.
How come with billions of cameras in the world we can’t get any clear pictures or video?
What I find interesting is people who say they believe in God and especially a version of God they were raised with but study science or engineering for years and years. This to me proves their critical thinking is flawed. They examine the world around them with supposed critical thinking but are willing to accept fairy tales that they were raised with. A person like that will not make a good independent scientist. It also proves that people are entirely capable of holding two completely conflicting views of the world at the same time. Human beings are nothing if not versatile.

Hello everyone. My name is John, and I’m an …abductee.
…There was a bright light, blah blah blah, anal prob, blah, blah, spaceship, blah blah, anal probe, blah blah blah…sexual experiments, blah blah, main chamber, blah blah blah, anal probe…blah blah blah… And then things got weird.

But it’s ever so fun to see movies or read stories about vampires, exorcisms, hauntings, demons, aliens…etc etc etc
Life would be far more dull without the mumbo jumbo!

And don’t forget Santa Clause. . .

"Dear Editor–I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun, it’s so.’
"Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O’Hanlon
115 West Ninety-fifth Street

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. . .

stormfax.com/virginia.htm

:smiley:

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]My point is that even science is just a bunch of conclusions drawn by human beings based on subjective observations that will inevitably be overturned in the future when further knowledge is acquired.
There really is no such thing as an objective fact; everything is based on subjective observations, opinions and experiences – even science.

Come to think of it, aren’t there in fact many different realities? You have your reality and I have mine and both in fact are real (for each of us respectively)? Why do witnesses to an event often describe it so differently? They’re not necessarily lying – it’s just that based on their experiences, personalities, powers of observation, etc., reality is different for each of them. Given that, is it possible that feng shui and astrology are real . . . although maybe not for you?[/quote]

  1. You say anything we decide will probably be proven wrong some day, so why bother.
  2. Science is an attempt to be as objective as possible. I take it you think we should not even bother.
  3. You confuse perspective with reality. One basic precept of science is that the laws of science work the same in every part of the universe. Gravity works the same way in our galaxy as in Andromeda.

The scientific method is a way to try to negate the effects of personal experiences, personalities, hallucinations, etc. I know that feng shui and astrology are real, I just think they are 99% bull.

I mostly agree with the Mother. Science is not as objective as some people like to think. People go looking for the results they want, and get them, just like with non-scientific methods. Even scientists admit that these days. Science is a tool in explaining theworld we live in, but it’s not the be all and end all. It’s certainly not the key to discovering ‘the truth’.

As for my supernatural experience - no, I’m not telling. People would just laugh and say “you were just on acid”.

Brian

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeasssseeee, Bri?
Go on, we promise not to laugh…:wink:

go on bu lai en. I wont tell anyone.

[quote=“Bu Lai En”]I mostly agree with the Mother. Science is not as objective as some people like to think. People go looking for the results they want, and get them, just like with non-scientific methods. Even scientists admit that these days. Science is a tool in explaining theworld we live in, but it’s not the be all and end all. It’s certainly not the key to discovering ‘the truth’.

As for my supernatural experience - no, I’m not telling. People would just laugh and say “you were just on acid”.

Brian[/quote]

I agree with everything you said. Especially the part about laughing and saying that you were probably on acid.

It’s a dicotomy. If there is subjectivity there must be objectivity.

Even something as subjective as beauty can be described objectively by caos theory. Does that make beauty any less awesome or beautiful to the observer? No.

Science simply puts you in the drivers seat. Without science John Almos will always be searching for the Yeti. With science he will be the Yeti, and make peace with the Yeti within. That’s if he doesn’t blow himself up before hand in some confused attempt at fusing his hunting and science skills together in pursuit of the Yeti.

Ok, who the heck is Hsu Fu??

[quote]almas john wrote:
the fate/final destination of Hsu Fu.

Ok, who the heck is Hsu Fu??[/quote]

Aceman,
Turn to page 264 and 265 of “Formosan Odyssey”

According to ancient Chinese historical records, the mariner Hsu Fu was sent by Emperor Qin Shihuang to search the Pacific for life-prolonging plants. On his second trip in 218 B.C., Hsu Fu and his 3,000 followers disappeared. The Chinese of his time assumed he had simply conned the emperor and settled in distant lands. Some modern historians believe that Hsu Fu settled on the Ryukyu Islands between Taiwan and Japan. Of course, his fleet could have been destroyed in a typhoon.

The Ryukyus have a pretty interesting history and it is a damn shame that it is not easier to get to them.

“the sage never discussed mysticism”

taking “the great white man in the sky” out of life’s daily parade has been a gradual yet consistent reduction. airplanes don’t crash because god willed them to. most usually, airplanes crash due to humans. resting on god as a teddy bear just seems to relieve us of our developmental need for self-actualization.

used to believe. even wanted to be a priest. had dreams of being the first american pope. in retrospect i am stunned at how many hours of my life i pissed away praying for the great pie in the sky.

Skeptic Yank wrote [quote]in retrospect I am stunned at how many hours of my life i pissed away [/quote]

Yeah, me too. And if I had all that time back, I’d be spending it drinking. :smiley: