How Can Skeptics Still Deny the Supernatrual?

People will always deny anything that does not fit with their perspective of the world, rather it was beaten into them by a state run public school system, or read in an imitation of scripture. Human beings are great at dying the truth, you could say we have a gift for it.

a reply to: OOOOOO

I don't really get your comment... You are using something natural to describe or show proof of the supernatural? 0.o

The universe as well as the earth is amazing but it is the epitomy of natural no? How a plant grows is amazing, but still it is natural and explainable by science... Everyday new explanations are found for the universe as our understanding develops...

In my opinion when someone talks about the supernatural they are talking ghosts, deamons, faries, and super powers lol...For this there just is no evidence... This has nothing to do with the amazing universe or our amazing bodies or the amazing world we love upon. All of these things are studied and proven by science... We know so much of how all this works today...

Every single person that I have seen claim power of the supernatural nature has been proven a fraud! Also there are people that can demonstrate these same abilities and SHOW you they are being a fraud and it is just a trick! As amazing as a magic trick is, it's still a trick!

a reply to: NewRNA

It's nothing to do with this at all and please don't pretend like it is! I'm the most rebelious mofo you're ever likely to meet! lmao... I certainly do not tow the gov line and I left school at 14 as I was sick of the nonsense! I was brought up catholic, guess what I refused to get confirmed even under heavy family pressure and still being a child...

I have a brain and I choose to use it! Why should I believe something that I have never seen any proof of? NON Absolutely zero... On the contrary I have seen time and time again people PROVEN as hoaxers and magicians... Crooks even! Not once have I seen a genuine one that has stood under real scrutiny!

Some have been very good magicians though, can see how easy it is to be fooled by them. But magicians they are all the same... Same with ghosts, seen no concrete proof of any of it.

When I do, I'll say okay now I believe but until then I would be a fool to do so, would I not?

originally posted by: Astyanax
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.

OK. Let's put it to the test. Prove that unicorns do not exist.

originally posted by: Dfairlite
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.

Truth? Truth is a belief and there are many beliefs, often contradictory. I think you mean fact. That which does not exist will not be observable in a thousand years, either. If you make a claim of fact that something exists, it's up to you to cite testable evidence to prove your claim of fact. If you make a claim of personal belief, you are not obligated to prove it but neither is anyone else obligated to believe it. You seem to want people to accept your beliefs as fact yet I'll bet that you don't accept everyone else's beliefs as fact.

originally posted by: Astyanax
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.

The link you posted supports my argument not yours. LOL.

originally posted by: Meee32
In my opinion when someone talks about the supernatural they are talking ghosts, deamons, faries, and super powers lol...For this there just is no evidence...

Every single person that I have seen claim power of the supernatural nature has been proven a fraud! Also there are people that can demonstrate these same abilities and SHOW you they are being a fraud and it is just a trick! As amazing as a magic trick is, it's still a trick!

Woahhhh there, podnuh...

#'s gettin' mighty deep in heeah...

NOTHING could be any further from the truth.

I'm talking personal experience here, not second hand he said she said BS.

Save yourself some wasted time and learn from those who have personal experience with this stuff before you write off the truth.

The best way to learn the truth about something is by studying those who have had first hand experience with it.

Just a couple of examples out of many others I could list that completely kick your theory to curb:

Ex-sorcerer Ian Clayton, former occult Grand Master Lyke Uzorma, ex-witch Ana Mendez.

"Ian Clayton, a New Zealand prophet and father of four, is a man who found himself seemingly chosen by the demonic realm to become a great occult leader. At age 12, his growing awareness of God led him to the Bible and he started reading it from the beginning. Halfway through Deuteronomy he decided that it was full of rules and regulations and didn’t want anything to do with it. Just as he shut the Bible he heard a voice say, “Put your hand on top of the table and pick the table up.” Ian put his hand flat on the table top and it rose, sideways off the floor.

“It was an amazing power rush,” Ian explained. “Suddenly, I walked in power.” Spirits started materializing at night and taught Ian how to do things such as astral travel and psychic healing, pendulum diagnosis, use of herbs in healing and in gaining power, and the power of demons in the spirit world. As the lessons continued, people grew frightened of Ian’s power. Many would talk about the headaches they got after being around him—headaches Ian attributes to the demonic resonance of the spirit force around his life. Meanwhile, signs and wonders manifested in Ian’s life much to his surprise and others’ shock.

“I would put my hand out and it would go into the wall—not up against it,” he said. By age 17, Ian was frightened of his own power and turned into an introvert attempting to shelter himself from others because of the phenomena that would occur. According to Ian, the spirits taught him to become a psychic healer and he would lay hands on a body and take out the bits that were diseased. He could heal and he could kill with the same power that resided within him. “The moment I touched their flesh they submitted to the demon in my life. When I got angry at somebody I would release spirits and the people either were killed or became sick. At one point, my father got sick and my mother ended up in hospital because of my cursing them.”

Shifting Shadows of Supernatural Power

I had a visitation of Satan. He showed up like a beautiful angel, this angel of light this Satan himself showed himself the way he really was, and suddenly he took his mask off and I saw the devil face to face and he said to me I have come here to claim you as my wife and you will be married to me. When I saw the devil I said I'm not going to be married to you. And he said there's no way out, I already own you you have signed a contract with blood and I own your soul and you are to serve me. And I said I will never marry you... well there's no way out I am your master and you will have to do whatever I ask you to do.

From that moment on there was a war that started, I was not going to submit to whatever he wanted me to do but a war started and he started to send demons to torment me. It was like feeling I was being ripped up from within, and the torment the pain, I would spend weeks just weeping and weeping tormented without being able to do nothing, just being under the foot of the devil for entire weeks, the pain in my soul was so strong... It was destroying everything around me. My family was totally torn into pieces...

And when we think about witches and warlocks they always boast like if they have all the power, like if they have everything under control, the truth... we were all tormented, the truth is we were all weak, the truth is we were serving the father of all lies and we were living a lie that we knew, we were putting a facade we were boasting in our pride but the truth there was brokenness in each and every one of us and we were just waiting for the moment that the devil would hit each one of us.

I started to discover something, I started to discover the devil was not as mighty as we presumed he was, there were certain people the devil could not touch. So one day in one of the visitations of the devil I challenged him, and I said you promised that if we serve you you would give everything we ask and we are bringing all these people to you and you cannot touch that person that we are trying to destroy, why is it that you cannot do this? Why is it that you cannot do that? Why is it that you cannot touch and destroy that marriage that we have been asking you to destroy?

Why is it that you cannot touch that person? Why is it that you've been telling us that you have all the power when you don't? And I spoke this word face to face to the devil. That day I signed my sentence to death, after that moment the spirit of death was after me day and night. During all that year I was at the brink of death, major tragedies, I was assaulted, I was in a fire, four different times the devil wanted to kill me.

a reply to: Murgatroid

Ermmm which part of my post mentions first or second hand???

Didn't bother to read the rest of your post because the first bit is nonsense so most likely the rest will be too

The only reason sceptics don't believe anything to do with the 'supernatural' and cant understand the evidence or have the listening/viewing/reading ability to connect all the various pieces while researching is because they don't look for any, making them the most difficult people to ever have conversations with and not only that but can cause a person to disbelieve what they previously believed in and lose interest because they cant accept the truth even if all the pieces were connected and point directly towards 'yes'.

a reply to: Meee32

No skin off my back...

Plenty of others here on ATS who actually ARE interested in whats real.

Skeptics are always correct in their mind and for majority of them there's never a time for debate over anything. They always respond in a negative tone and cant have friendly discussion without extreme hostility. Skeptics don't ever intend to discuss facts in detail. In my personal experience, they are never correct and always looking to create discomfort. To have a normal life and future, live in peace without discomfort, avoid skeptics. Anyone who enjoys speaking to them is lucky to have found someone who wants to talk to you as much as you want to talk to them but not in a friendly way but instead talk to create discomfort and always have that negative tone.

originally posted by: Jimmy11118
The only reason sceptics don't believe anything to do with the 'supernatural' and cant understand the evidence or have the listening/viewing/reading ability to connect all the various pieces while researching is because they don't look for any, making them the most difficult people to ever have conversations with and not only that but can cause a person to disbelieve what they previously believed in and lose interest because they cant accept the truth even if all the pieces were connected and point directly towards 'yes'.

Clearly, you do not understand what the word skeptic means. It refers to one who questions. Skeptics ask for evidence. Skeptics test theories. Skeptics don't just assume that something exists and skeptics don't just assume that something does not exist. You are are confusing skeptics with debunkers. Debunkers decide, without regard to evidence or asking questions, that something does not exist. In that, they are like True Believers who, without regard to evidence, decide that something does exist.

originally posted by: Jimmy11118
Skeptics are always correct in their mind and for majority of them there's never a time for debate over anything. They always respond in a negative tone and cant have friendly discussion without extreme hostility. Skeptics don't ever intend to discuss facts in detail. In my personal experience, they are never correct and always looking to create discomfort. To have a normal life and future, live in peace without discomfort, avoid skeptics. Anyone who enjoys speaking to them is lucky to have found someone who wants to talk to you as much as you want to talk to them but not in a friendly way but instead talk to create discomfort and always have that negative tone.

You've just described what you're doing!

originally posted by: LoneCloudHopper2
I am wondering how or why skeptics still assert that the belief in the supernatural is delusion in the face of so much evidence. They easily forget that spirituality has been an intrinsic part of the human experience and never has there existed a non-spiritual society. Now with science, technology and gross materialism people are seeing ghosts and demons as 'silly superstitions' which belong to the past. I've noticed two things about such people: A. They are often well-read on current events. B. They are not so well-read on history. I am not a history buff myself, but rarely do I have to do much reading before I get into the spiritual experiences of well-respected historic figures. Every great mind I've met (or read about) was spiritual (and almost all of them non-religious too.)

Skeptics tend to hold to two arguments: "I've never experienced it" or "It's never been proven." The former disproves nothing and as for the latter, prove what to whom? Or should I say, what is proof? If it is scientific proof, who is to verify that? If they mean the majority of scientists, I have questions of my own: How could you know (since many scientists may keep it to themselves (some believe in God and are not Christian scientists, for example?) And what would their belief prove? As Mahatma Gandhi said: "Even in a minority of one, the truth is still the truth."

The evidence is endless, but a few examples: Studies showing that the body loses weight when a person dies, studies showing that the brain reacts when being stared at through a one-way mirror, deep-regression hypnosis revealing past-life memories and pre-life memories of a very similar and non-religious description (see Dr. Michael Newton,) and the scientific fact that physical matter is mostly space made up of particles held together by an invisible magnetic force—resembling a physical form to the human eye and by touch, due to the magnetic force (therefore our perceived reality is itself electrical signals perceived by the brain.)

Since reality is a perception through stimuli, then what makes the waking world more real than the dream world and how then could one (in intellectual honesty) assert that one world cannot interact with the other? They are connected, quite obviously—since we must sleep and 'recharge' ourselves. We awake, 'refreshed' and ready for a new day; we are bringing energy from the dream state into this one, and since we often dream what we experience while awake, vice-versa would also appear to be the case.

But now to common sense points. Everyone has stepped in on a heated debate and felt the tension in the air ("so thick you could cut it like a knife.") What about "women's intuition," the ability of either sex to "pick up" things from people they are closely linked to? Mothers often feel a psychic bond to their children, sensing when they are in danger. "Gut instincts" can aid detectives as well as writers like myself; inspiration striking us and a great idea just "pops into your head." Some people have had shared dreams with someone close, or dreams which came true. Déjà vu is extremely common, sometimes making you feel that every single object, person, word spoken, every single thing in that moment had been somehow witnessed or experienced before; a powerful experience which then fades. Sometimes you just "get a feeling" that something will work out or have a "bad feeling" that it won't. We've always had these experiences, they're nothing new and are absolutely nothing to be so embarrassed about that we all must hide them and pretend they don't happen, when they do (for the majority of us.)

And then there is the one subject that silences most skeptics: Edgar Cayce. If any one person's story every proved the existence of supernatural ability, it was his. Debunking what he proved and to so many would be a futile effort, so skeptics just conveniently overlook it. The few attempts to debunk him that I've read fall pathetically short of debunking the massive amount of real healing he accomplished on multiple people (and while monitored by credible witnesses.)

Countless books, immense public fascination, feelings stirring deep inside you that such things have truth, and yet skeptics still say "bah humbug!" If they feel that way, fine, but how they can still assert their view onto others in such a bold way as to make them feel either foolish or insane for disagreeing with their rigid outlook is absurd to me in the face of so much evidence; which includes photographs, audio recordings, physical evidence, countless credible witness accounts. How about the case of Spring-Heeled Jack? Debunk that one! Several credible witnesses all had the same delusion? A man with springs on his boots who ran around with cold, icy hands and who ripped at women's clothes, who startled such prominent people that the law got involved to search for him?

I'm sorry, skeptics, I can appreciate your fear of the unknown, but your assertions speak of, dare I say, self-delusion to me. At this point, the writing is pretty bold on the wall.

Easily, actually. For one, define "supernatural" please. Vague generalazations obfuscate the situation, be specific. People who are skeptical may tell you a certain photo of a blurry ligjtning bug isn't an orb, but you can't assume they don't have room to beleive in anything slightly unconventional. Supernatural phenomenon (I'm being vague because you didn't give me any specifics to go on) is usually misunderstood natural phenomenon, so it's mostly bull honkey. You can beleive what you want, but chances are you believe in something that isn't real. Physics for example, almost all can be easily proven as charlatans or flat out delusional, yet people twist and mold their words to fit what actually ended up happening. This isn't proof, and proof is how intelligent people decide what is most likely real or not.

originally posted by: Jimmy11118
Skeptics are always correct in their mind and for majority of them there's never a time for debate over anything. They always respond in a negative tone and cant have friendly discussion without extreme hostility. Skeptics don't ever intend to discuss facts in detail. In my personal experience, they are never correct and always looking to create discomfort. To have a normal life and future, live in peace without discomfort, avoid skeptics. Anyone who enjoys speaking to them is lucky to have found someone who wants to talk to you as much as you want to talk to them but not in a friendly way but instead talk to create discomfort and always have that negative tone.

True believers on the other hand, are the exact opposite of the coin. They frequently make posts that aren't really discussions, but are only open for head-nodding and people who agree with them. People who offer differing opinions are dismissed out of hand, which implies their differing opinions are not welcome, and are often called trolls. True believers don't want discussions or differing opinions. They only want confirmation from others who believe. Look at 2012 and how terrible the thread content was back then. Same with religious threads on ATS. These generally aren't open for true discussion, which is why noone bothers even posting in them anymore. We let the head-nodders have these threads to mentally masterbate one another. They are little more than Star farming/popularity contests anyway.

When you offer a differing opinion, you are immediately labeled 'negative' or 'lower energy' by true believrs.

If you don't want honest, open conversation, there are TONS of new age spirituality/religious sites all over the internet that don't allow open honest discussion. You'll probably feel right at home there.

originally posted by: Jimmy11118
Skeptics are always correct in their mind and for majority of them there's never a time for debate over anything. They always respond in a negative tone and cant have friendly discussion without extreme hostility. Skeptics don't ever intend to discuss facts in detail. In my personal experience, they are never correct and always looking to create discomfort. To have a normal life and future, live in peace without discomfort, avoid skeptics. Anyone who enjoys speaking to them is lucky to have found someone who wants to talk to you as much as you want to talk to them but not in a friendly way but instead talk to create discomfort and always have that negative tone.

Seriously?


Pick up a dictionary and read the definition of skeptic.

Did you just join to repeat this ignorance that has been said in very similar terms by others before you that also have issues understanding what a skeptic is?


I really love your suggestion about a normal life and live in peace?

How do people avoid all other people?

That is in reality what your suggestion says.

To have a normal life and future, live in peace without discomfort, avoid skeptics.

How are you going to avoid yourself?

Humans are skeptical creatures and simply don't believe everything they hear or read, so they are skeptical of what comes across them.

"I am a pink Unicorn that can speak 23 languages, type and read in 3 and have a tattoo of 3 elephants on my forehead.

I just transformed into a beautiful goose that can shoot rockets out of my behind."


Do you believe what you just read or are you skeptical?

originally posted by: Emma3
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)...

The same could be easily said of believers.

a reply to: Meee32

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...

Evidence of the Ethereal / spiritual / Paranormal, as I said, seems to be a personal, individual thing. The Evidence acceptance seems to be hinged on a persons "Education", in one institution or another. You can not see another level of science, when the science you have been taught, teaches you there are no other possibilities. "Science, the Religion with Binders".

I too was raised in and studied our/your version of science so I can relate to exactly what you share. I wasn't just skeptical about UFOs, I was downright negative, until, I was personally hit with the truth, with my own eyes. If you are waiting for the public opinion boat on the subject, your going to wait a awfully long time. But, that is your choice.

If you are willing to consider the possibility, take your scientific binders off and start looking. In the same way a kindergartner can not comprehend collage, our main stream science can not comprehend advanced science. We are just not trained to do so, in my opinion.

Your opinions are based in your education, everyone is the same way in this respect. And we are all covertly programed to reject that which can not be held, observed, weighed, or tested. The fundamental question then becomes, can something exist outside of our every day reality?

Check this link out guys...

A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness

(1) Research on parapsychological phenomena (psi) is being carried out in various accredited universities and research centers throughout the world by academics in different disciplines trained in the scientific method (e.g., circa 80 Ph.D.s have been awarded in psi-related topics in the UK in recent years). This research has continued for over a century despite the taboo against investigating the topic, almost complete lack of funding, and professional and personal attacks (Cardeña, 201). The Parapsychological Association has been an affiliate of the AAAS since 1969, and more than 20 Nobel prizewinners and many other eminent scientists have supported the study of psi or even conducted research themselves (Cardeña, 2013).

(2) Despite a negative attitude by some editors and reviewers, results supporting the validity of psi phenomena continue to be published in peer-reviewed, academic journals in relevant fields, from psychology to neuroscience to physics e.g., (Storm et al., 2010; Bem, 2011; Hameroff, 2012; Radin et al., 2012).

(3) Increased experimental controls have not eliminated or even decreased significant support for the existence of psi phenomena, as suggested by various recent meta-analyses (Sherwood and Roe, 2003; Schmidt et al., 2004; Bösch et al., 2006; Radin et al., 2006; Storm et al., 2010, 2012, 2013; Tressoldi, 2011; Mossbridge et al., 2012; Schmidt, 2012).

More in the link.


There are also calls for an end to materialism. This for example:






Whether it's legit or not I don't know, but it is interesting.