Does paranormal exist?

I consider myself open minded, I am not under influence of any of religions, nor I believe that there is god in any form, being a fatherly figure that monitors what we do 24x7, nor god as force behind creation of universe.

Trough my education I was able to inform myself on many so called 'paranormal experience' other claimed they experienced, but as soon as you start asking questions, most of discussion turn very easy into clash/fight.

Similar to Richard Dawkins, I tend to believe that people who believe in stories of someone's paranormal experience or for example prediction are actually enemies of reason.

One would say that such a thing is harmless, but that remind me of James Randi's Ted Talk when he debunks Sylvia Browne for con-artist she really is. For those who don't know about Sylvia, she claims she can talk to dead people. Her son apparently has the same 'gift', but cost less to have him contact some of your dead folks. (only about 200 bucks, 500 if you want Sylvia to do it)

Same goes for horoscope, reading from stars... all other paranormal activities...

My question is, do you really believe paranormal exists??

And more importantly, do you believe it is harmless?

Bonus question is, WHY do those that claim paranormal get so easily offended?

reply to post by SuperFrog

Same goes for horoscope, reading from stars... all other paranormal activities... My question is, do you really believe paranormal exists?? And more importantly, do you believe it is harmless? Bonus question is, WHY do those that claim paranormal get so easily offended?

I fully believe it exists.

No I do not believe it is harmless.

Not everyone does.

It is when people start to throw accusations around that it gets heated.
IMO

*heads off to work*

I think similar to you in my belief structure.

However, I can not deny the fact that I have seen a ghost, or whatever that was, I have heard a ghost before, I have seen a UFO, I have on many occasions experienced ESP or intuitiveness to a high degree.

So when I think back to things I have experienced that I cannot explain.

I don't know what to think.

I am waiting for a logical explanation.
The Universe is a strange place indeed!

Paranormal exists.

Paranormal can be benevolent or malicious.

Some people like to argue that it's crazy to believe in the paranormal. But what's really crazy is believing that mankind has somehow acquired full spectrum knowledge of all facets of the universe... especially as materialist "science" has been making that claim for hundreds of years--ever since they thought the earth was flat and the galaxy was geocentric--and they haven't been right yet.

Insanity: repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different result.

Science: believing it has everything figured out--categorized and cataloged in neat little boxes with fancy labels, since time began.

(God exists, too. Tens of thousands of NDEs can't be wrong... especially when a lot of them are coming from 100% homegrown atheists.)

You should see my bathroom after chilly night. I'll make you a believer.

therealguyfawkes

(God exists, too. Tens of thousands of NDEs can't be wrong... especially when a lot of them are coming from 100% homegrown atheists.)

I agree with you, up until this line, * for you.

I have faith in the concreteness of science and the rationality of it.

But then, I am reminded of the weird things I have experienced personally that science cannot explain (yet).

Is science done yet, can science explain weird things that cannot be replicated in a lab?

However, I am agnostic, I do not know and I do not have all the answers, all I know is that science has a ways to go yet to explain things that have scanty evidence, but happen to people, when it wants to happen, not when science wants it too.

reply to post by therealguyfawkes



Let's not go into God debate here, as first of all, you will not be able to prove it does exist, nor I would be able to prove it does not exist.

But as for paranormal, why, if paranormal really exists, no one (again, bit bigger letters) NO ONE has ever beein able to claim One Million Dollar challenge?!

Before him, Houdini did the same, debunking all those paranormal activities.

How come, no one has ever been able to prove neither one of them wrong?

Edit: for those interested - here is Sylvia Browne's web site - www.sylviabrowne.com...

First, she accepted 1M challenge, but decade later she still did not show up to perform and take prize. Also, many of her 'prediction' were wrong, but people still BELIEVE and give money to get 'reading'....

Toadmund
I think similar to you in my belief structure.

However, I can not deny the fact that I have seen a ghost, or whatever that was, I have heard a ghost before, I have seen a UFO, I have on many occasions experienced ESP or intuitiveness to a high degree.

So when I think back to things I have experienced that I cannot explain.

I don't know what to think.

I am waiting for a logical explanation.
The Universe is a strange place indeed!

Some of the things can be self projected biased things that manifests because you believe others who have told you it exists. I like to get the unknown telling me directly what the unknown is without my own idea of what the unknown should be, so that I am not ego biasing the information. But I am not sure I am success full about not ego biasing information.

I have played around with giving psychics information with intent to tell me that are specific to me that they do not even know the meaning off. It is kinda funny playing around with ESP.

My experiances are mostly on feeling energies in my body, noticing weird number patterns in my reality and being able to send good intention to specific people.

All is normal. People have just not quantified the unknown yet and many do not want to know. If they wanted to know they would research synchronicity/placebo effect and energy fluctuations in spiritual peoples bodies.

reply to post by SuperFrog

Bonus question is, WHY do those that claim paranormal get so easily offended?

People get offended when someone is telling them that what they experienced, didn't happen.
They feel like either that person is telling them that they're seeing/hearing things, that they're crazy, or that they're a liar.
That's offensive.

If something completely unexplainable happens to you, and you're not drunk/high/tired, etc, then you'll become a believer.

*Also, whatever the weird happenings are, or where they originate from, I doubt that it's something that can be forced to happen at a particular time. Therefore, unless there's a witness to the weirdness, it can't be proven.
Even with a witness, it still can't be proven or repeated, because then people just think the witness is "in on it".
You'd need massive amounts of witnesses

SuperFrog


But as for paranormal, why, if paranormal really exists, no one (again, bit bigger letters) NO ONE has ever beein able to claim One Million Dollar challenge?!

Because of this?

Toadmund
all I know is that science has a ways to go yet to explain things that have scanty evidence, but happen to people, when it wants to happen, not when science wants it too.

reply to post by LittleByLittle

James Randi explains this trough assumption making - your brain trying to connect new experience to something already seen, read, heard about about. It is very easy to deceive yourself, as well to deceive others. His ted talk is really informative and interesting.

If you mean paranormal as in ghosts, clairvoyance, spirits, auras and that kinda thing then nope, doesn't exist. And nothing other than a personal experience could ever convince me otherwise. The universe and the world itself, in it's normal state, is mind blowing enough for me.

To quote the late, great Douglas Adams

'Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?'

Staying at my grandmothers house with my brother after living in another province.
A short story made shorter:
In bed I was (my dead grandfathers bed and room), looked into the hallway, I see what I thought was my brother, he proceeded to the end of the bed, I complained of his restlessness in bed that he was going to keep me up, then I said, oh well climb in.
So he crawled up from the end of the bed and laid next to me.
Then I watched as he faded away.

Then there was my Grandmothers ghost cat(s), I would feel a cat walking on me while I laid on the couch trying to sleep, only to see her only living cat was sleeping on the chair.

Was that a projection from my mind?
My logic tells me to think that as an explanation, however, it was so real to me that I do not know what to think.

So, frog guy, when something truly weird happens to you, you will have to rethink everything you have ever thought, and question everything you think.


So, the logical explanation would be sleep paralysis, or I was in a pseudo awake and sleeping state at the same time, alpha and beta brain waves duking it out.
But it was so real, it did not seem like brain tricks at all.

One thing I like to ask is;

If the paranormal is real, then there's millions of sightings every year right?
If so, why in this day an age do we not have ONE piece of irrefutable evidence that it exists?

I do believe the are some things we are 'currently' unable to explain, but I don't believe it has anything to do with God or religion.

reply to post by SuperFrog

My question is, do you really believe paranormal exists?

Yes

And more importantly, do you believe it is harmless?

Harmless to start off with. But once the spiritual hobby goes hard-core the negative entities (lost spirits) have total control (via suggestion) over the person.

Bonus question is, WHY do those that claim paranormal get so easily offended?

Maybe its because they know that everything depends on where a person's spirit is.

Money, material items are worthless when a person dies. They know this. So when a skeptic laughs at them because a spiritual event didn't happen, then they know that skeptic is screwed when they die.

Some that do claim paranormal are still filled with pride. This is why spirits don't talk to them.

My question is, do you really believe paranormal exists??

And more importantly, do you believe it is harmless?

Bonus question is, WHY do those that claim paranormal get so easily offended?

1 - Absolutely.
2 - It’s both harmless and not.
3 - Why? Because so many people ‘poo poo’ what they know is real. (In other words someone says 'WOW I saw a ghost, I know I did' - and the negative Nancies respond - 'I want what he's on' instead of believing.)

The problem as I see it? Anyone who’s experienced anything - can’t relate in words - how wonderful it is.

Doesn't matter if it's God or strawberry soda - If you’ve never experienced how sweet either is? Human nature says to ‘refute it’ before believing what you have never experienced.

Me? I believe in both God, strawberry soda and the paranormal.

Why not?

peace

reply to post by Toadmund


That would be sleep paralysis only if you were unable to move any muscle, or say something.

Would it be possible, that your brain was already thinking about history of that room, before you even realizing it?

Hallucination is more close explanation, and it is possible. We would have to know more about your experience, but would be better if you open topic on it, rather then in this thread.

Some things are just to hard to measure, ESP being one of them.

Just to kind of give an example, twice last week, I mentioned something about the fire marshal, and both times, he showed up within an hour of me talking about him in the office at work. You can't really measure those kinds of experiences. It happens a lot though *ponder*

Dreaming of a person I have not seen in years,(they were a stalker) and then they show up the next day ringing my bell....how does one measure that?

This is the problem with ESP, although you can train yourself to use it somewhat, it is to unpredictable and often times an after the fact experience.

SuperFrog
reply to post by therealguyfawkes

 

Let's not go into God debate here, as first of all, you will not be able to prove it does exist, nor I would be able to prove it does not exist.

Hahaha, I could prove to you that God exists... but I don't think you'd enjoy my method. (And it'd be on you to somehow reincarnate yourself in such a way that you could come back and write the follow-up post admitting I'm right.)

reply to post by SuperFrog

My question is, do you really believe paranormal exists??

And more importantly, do you believe it is harmless?

Bonus question is, WHY do those that claim paranormal get so easily offended?

Yes, it exists. It has been scientifically PROVEN to exist....but the science community has "ignored" and "defamed" those who study it for centuries now.

James Randi is a fraud, a liar, and conspires with others to COVER UP THE EVIDENCE and HUNDREDS of studies that have been done by dozens of researchers, with very impressive results.

Is it harmless? It's a facet of humanity that is real.

BONUS ANSWER: Because the evidence shows that it IS real, and people like Randi are obstructing its introduction to mainstream knowledge.

Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics by Chris Carter is an excellent text that shows the actual research results, and totally debunks Randi's asinine refusal. Randi is a sore loser. Don't listen to him.