How Can Skeptics Still Deny the Supernatrual?

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: Pardon?

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: Murgatroid

originally posted by: jaws1975
I disagree, just look at Eben Alexander the Harvard neurosurgeon who had a very compelling NDE.

Absolutely, his book, has drawn a huge amount of cynicism.

The scientific fundamentalists scoff and attack his book (Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife) because a spirit world clash's with their own scientific cult fundamentalism.

• The experience of the afterlife was so "real" and expansive that the experience of living as a human on Earth seemed like an artificial dream by comparison.

• The fabric of the afterlife was pure LOVE. Love dominated the afterlife to such a huge degree that the overall presence of evil was infinitesimally small.

• In the afterlife, all communication was telepathic. There was no need for spoken words, nor even any separation between the self and everything else happening around you.

• The moment you asked a question in your mind, the answers were immediately apparent in breathtaking depth and detail. There was no "unknown" and the mere asking of a question was instantly accompanied by the appearance of its answers www.divinitynow.com...

Give his due, he comes over as being convinced at what he thinks he's seen and remembered however it's still only testimony.
Testimony is not proof.
The fact that the book has the word "Proof" in the title tells me something...

I don't think you understood my question.

In your post there didn't seem to be a question.
I just commented on the video.

Unless of course you asked it psychically .

a reply to: LoneCloudHopper2

Since I have had the 'unexplainable' happen in my presence and with me as a participant, I find skeptics to be boring.

I can give statistical correlations and that does not convince them. I can give sworn testimony and that does not sway their attitudes.

Skeptics are not even aware that they are not what they say. An honest evaluation is the source of knowledge. They (like so many religious nuts) function under a flawed BELIEF SYSTEM.

I find that they have already concluded that I am LYING when I inform them of the circumstances that have led to my conclusions that the weird is real. I do not function under falsities promulgated by the ignorant. I have experienced things which were unexpected and bizarre. Yet I remain an agnostic. Not because I think spirituality is false but that NO EXPLANATION is possible with our current state of knowledge concerning this issue.

I hope that before I pass a reasonable approach and series of discoveries will allow me to die actually knowing something about what is next if anything.

Wouldn't the world be just that much more interesting if these things did exist? All the best stories have supernatural tones and influence.

I used to believe in such things. I still have a lot of those "non-fiction" books on my shelf. I don't believe anymore. It's always an interesting, albeit frustrating moment when I tell folks I know that I don't believe we have souls, there's no such thing as ghosts, etc. It seems no one wants to go there.

I've searched the webz and read a lot on this site actually, seeking alternate views and evidence to support supernatural(or whatever those of you whom don't care for that term choose)existence.
But, I haven't found a thing that could be considered even weak evidence to support any of the theories, such as NDE and the other ones discussed here. I think there's a remote chance we might develop some sort of telepathy as a race one day is the only possibility I can come up with.
I consider personal experience to be one of the weakest bases for belief.
I evaluated all the "personal experiences" that I have had in my life. Sure, I had a few. When I spent time really giving those experiences some thought with logical reasoning, I realized that not one of them were actual evidence I could use to justify continuing that belief system. Our minds REALLY wanna make ourselves special very badly. We want the world to be more than there is. We want something that gives us reason to be good and our lives to be counted as something.

A small part of me still craves the supernatural to be something that exists and I still search for evidence at times. I REALLY wanted to find some little, creepy towns that knew the secrets that were never mapped until Google showed up, but sadly, that amounted to nothing as well.
However, I am finding increasing solace in the fact that all things supernatural do not exist.

I mean, we get to live up to 100 years on this world filled with a variety of stimulation. Why isn't that enough?

originally posted by: Pardon?

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: Pardon?

originally posted by: Tangerine

originally posted by: Murgatroid

originally posted by: jaws1975
I disagree, just look at Eben Alexander the Harvard neurosurgeon who had a very compelling NDE.

Absolutely, his book, has drawn a huge amount of cynicism.

The scientific fundamentalists scoff and attack his book (Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife) because a spirit world clash's with their own scientific cult fundamentalism.

• The experience of the afterlife was so "real" and expansive that the experience of living as a human on Earth seemed like an artificial dream by comparison.

• The fabric of the afterlife was pure LOVE. Love dominated the afterlife to such a huge degree that the overall presence of evil was infinitesimally small.

• In the afterlife, all communication was telepathic. There was no need for spoken words, nor even any separation between the self and everything else happening around you.

• The moment you asked a question in your mind, the answers were immediately apparent in breathtaking depth and detail. There was no "unknown" and the mere asking of a question was instantly accompanied by the appearance of its answers www.divinitynow.com...

Give his due, he comes over as being convinced at what he thinks he's seen and remembered however it's still only testimony.
Testimony is not proof.
The fact that the book has the word "Proof" in the title tells me something...

I don't think you understood my question.

In your post there didn't seem to be a question.
I just commented on the video.

Unless of course you asked it psychically .

LOL. I think you were responding to someone else's post. The same thing happened to me today.

I think they're just too arrogant and closed minded to even bother thinking about different points of view from their own (interestingly enough, they usually think they're very scientific, smart and open minded)...

originally posted by: largo
a reply to: LoneCloudHopper2

Since I have had the 'unexplainable' happen in my presence and with me as a participant, I find skeptics to be boring.

I can give statistical correlations and that does not convince them. I can give sworn testimony and that does not sway their attitudes.

Skeptics are not even aware that they are not what they say. An honest evaluation is the source of knowledge. They (like so many religious nuts) function under a flawed BELIEF SYSTEM.

I consider myself to be a skeptic but I don't assume that all people are lying about unexplainable experiences. I do, however, expect those who claim that something is FACT to prove that claim via testable evidence. That's how it works. As I pointed out earlier, a lack of testable evidence does not prove that something did not happen or does not exist. Genuine skeptics understand that. However, I find it far more common that "true believers" (in whatever) expect everyone to accept as FACT their claims totally unsupported by testable evidence.

Let's put it to the test. What happened in your presence that was unexplainable? What do statistical correlations have to do with it? What does sworn testimony have to do with it?

a reply to: micpsi

If you expect people to spend a long time studying a subject, you'd better offer them some benefit, or at least an inkling that it's true and worth the time you're asking them to spend on it.

'Remote viewing of subatomic particles' indeed.

Can anyone show me something supernatural?

a reply to: Tangerine

Yes, I'm familiar with the philosophical arguments. After all, my friend may be hiding from me in the pub.

You must, however, draw a distinction between theory and practice.

a reply to: gottaknow

Wouldn't the world be just that much more interesting if these things did exist?

No, it would be thoroughly boring, because all explanations for all phenomena would be reduced to a single one: magic!

The world is an endlessly fascinating place for those who take a genuine interest in it. See my signature.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Tangerine

Yes, I'm familiar with the philosophical arguments. After all, my friend may be hiding from me in the pub.

You must, however, draw a distinction between theory and practice.

Uh..what philosophical arguments? What theory? What practice? I don't understand how your response applied to my post.

a reply to: Tangerine

The statement 'it is impossible to prove a negative' is — supposedly — a proposition in logic. Though it is, in fact, false .

Negative proof.

a reply to: Astyanax
Appreciate the reply, but, I was just hypothesizing on all supernatural possibilities in existence such as magic, ghosts, souls, creatures of supernatural existence. I don't actually believe in all of it and pretty much echo your statement at the end of my post. You may have misunderstood. But, hey! Thanks for at least pausing on what I wrote!

a reply to: All Seeing Eye

How can you compare a skeptic to a hand beating NUN? Lmao... A skeptic is someone that questions everything... As we all should do! Including your hand beating NUN, and then perhaps they would have seen the folly and cruelty of their actions... The NUN is more like the believer, like the OP, read some nonsense about soul weight and just believes it.

There is no evidence for the paranormal, so why on earth would I just believe it? IF evidence does present itself I am all for changing my perspective, but I haven't seen anything yet, so...

It's simple, as aquinas says in the summa theologica: "Hence the fact that some happen to doubt about articles of faith is not due to the uncertain nature of the truths, but to the weakness of human intelligence..."

Those who demand "proof" deny themselves the truth of things unseen. What is observable today, was not observable 1000 years ago, what will be observable in 1000 years is not observable today. Believing in only what can be presently observed is extremely limiting imo.

a reply to: LoneCloudHopper2

You can't expect others to believe in what you believe because belief itself is merely an individuals affirmation of an idea perpetuated by experiences. For instance, someone sees what appeared to be an apparition of the sorts, they're dumbfounded by the experience and cannot explain it. This perpetuates the idea that something strange happened in this persons mind potentiating the formation of belief in the existence of the supernatural aka spiritual side of life.

Why do you feel it is important for everyone to believe in what you believe? How does that reflect the validity of such a belief to yourself? Surely if you concretely believed, by experiential acquisition rather than second-hand acquisitions, that the supernatural exists then what stirred you to seek validation for your beliefs?

A belief is only as powerful as the conviction of the believer. Conviction is attained through experience rather than intellectualization. Words, pictures and videos will never be capable of concretely proving the supernatural, only by experiencing a phenomena first hand can we validate it's existence, not to others, but to ourselves.

This means that a belief is only relative to the believer. If you experienced witnessing a spiritual being that experience is only relative to your perception of reality, not anyone elses. We can try as hard as we can to convince others of our truths but surely, until we are capable of telepathy, it will all be in vain.

a reply to: LoneCloudHopper2
This whole debate seems so juvenile to me it is as a joke, that people with such great minds, could be so ignorant as to really realize, see, what is going on.

Just the fact alone that we exist and are able to ask such questions, it just cracks me up. We, this Universe is super natural this whole thing is completely unbelievable, we are floating around on balls in some kink of endless Nothing, kind of sounds like a fairy tale to me. First prove to me that I am here, and not just a figment of my own imagination, I don't know you may be fooling me?

The Nothing is very boring place, as no thing is there, it has no dimension, as there is Nothing to measure, it is neither large nor small, short or long, hot nor cold.
There are many higher levels of realization, that exist far beyond our human mind, but even with that the Monad exist somewhere. This place this time exist because it must exist, this is all part of the Grand Plan.

The Magic, the mystery, is all around, some of us don't see it because they are to grounded, to the commonality of this seaming normal, some what dull existence.

Another thing cracks me up, Michio Kaku said, like the Milky Way is going to have a terrible crash into Andromeda, what is he stupid, by who's perspective is this a bad, terrible thing.

But not even the Nothing can not, not exist, without the Perspective of the Something.

That which has always been and will always be.

This is the gross physical plane, cause and effect, things are pretty much cut and dried here, but you can always try and peek behind the curtain.

The Magic and Mystery is all around. I know but I can't see the forest for the trees.

a reply to: hellobruce

i used to be that way, i hear something in a documentary or watch something in a video and just assume that this # must be real, and that i'm right because it goes against the grain. i'm glad i'm getting better at citing and providing sources for people

originally posted by: OOOOOO
Another thing cracks me up, Michio Kaku said, like the Milky Way is going to have a terrible crash into Andromeda, what is he stupid, by who's perspective is this a bad, terrible thing.

Kaku has sold out to the elite...

He knows that if he speaks the truth it would cost him dearly.

Look up 'Updated List of Obviously Murdered Scientists'...

On July 19 Kaku really lost his "cool" when he tried to intellectually bully RT Interviewer Oksana Boyco. Kaku becomes quite rude and belligerent with the host at this point. He asks, “Are you a 'conspiracy theorist'?”. And he demands that she answer his question, “Who was behind 9/11?” He repeats it five times in rapid succession! You can hear him interrupt her every time she tries to answer. He is clearly trying to use the full weight of his celebrity “Science Guy” status to intimidate the young and articulate Russian journalist, Oksana Boyco.

A question to Dr. Michio Kaku

See also Dr Kaku's interview on RT three days later where he really reveals his position on 9/11 in a heated exchange with Oksana Boyko. Kaku is quite combative in this interview with Oksana.

At 9:25 Kaku becomes quite rude and belligerent with the host at this point. He asks, “Are you a 'conspiracy theorist'?”. And he demands that she answer his question, “Who was behind 9/11?” He repeats it five times in rapid succession! You can hear him interrupt her everytime she tries to answer. He is clearly trying to use the full weight of his celebrity “Science Guy” status to intimidate the young journalist Oksana.

Michio Kaku Gave Michael Shermer An Unskeptical Interview

a reply to: Murgatroid

Yes, I'm starting to think, Kaku is not all that.

i myself am some what of a closed Universe theorist, as in the open view, some contradiction occur in the quantum levels.

When Kaku speaks of the dismal end of the Universe, he does not put intelligent beings into his statements, equations. It may be as they say, we are all living in a simulation, created in the future.