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Old 05-14-2020, 04:52 AM
 
Location: PRC
6,917 posts, read 6,832,021 times
Reputation: 6517

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Angry-Koala
You're asking others to disprove your unfalsifiable claim instead of giving proof for your claim. Carl Sagan came up with an analogy that explains why the burden of proof is up to the person making the claim, called "The Dragon in My Garage".
Right, but...if "something" in his garage occasionally interacted with the 3D world, then he would have to stop and investigate it. That is more like the spirit world we have, it is NOT like the "wee beastie" in his garage. It is easy to dump the burden of proof on someone else, but what makes the scientists view more correct rather than the believers view?

I think it all boils down to - What is reality?

Is it inside our head or is it outside our head. I guess you and Carl Sagan would have it outside our head. I would have it inside.

Bearing in mind we are all just energy, it makes sense to view the world as non-solid and just a thought projection which appears solid and physical to us in this 3 dimensional world.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Carl Sagan
Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.
Worthless to whom? Science which is too materialistic anyway.
================================

Quote:
Originally Posted by KCZ
I don't believe in spirits, but I could be persuaded to change my mind if someone showed me some evidence they exist.
If you gave me a dollar for the number of times I have heard "I would love to believe in..." but it never works out. This is either because the criteria are too great, or that the phenomena is not conducive to that kind of concrete proof which some folk need to believe in it. The paranormal is not the kind of phenomena which is repeatable and thats whan science-types need to be able to prove something is real. That means our side can never win at giving you the proof you would love to have so you are always going to be disappointed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TXRunner
The claim that spirits exist would need sufficient evidence to warrant such a belief. So far there seems to be a significant lack of that evidence.
So, looking for proof? I say the same thing to you too.

Tallysmom you make it sound like it is the fault of the spirit. I am not sure whether you mean to do this or not. Do you blame them for not giving you a sign?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallysmom
But I don’t think it’s real. I just want to believe. It’s comforting to think when I get emotional my husband is there with his arms around me telling to get over myself. That would be so him.

It could be an ability that I don’t have. I have a very intelligent street-smart kind of brother-in-law who can’t go some places because of what he feels. He’s very uncomfortable — someone is there.
I think you have it here. Personally, I think it is us who is the one who cannot 'feel' the presence of the spirits. I have been searching and trying to feel this my whole life and generally I dont feel anything. Maybe I would be freaked out, maybe I am too afraid or maybe I was afraid once when I was young and said to myself "never again" would I fear spirits so I have closed myself off from them for the rest of my life. I dont know. All I know is that I would like to, but generally I dont, apart from a few times in my life when I have felt a 'something'. I have tried to develop these sensitivities with various techniques, but those too dont produce anything much and certainly nothing like I see in other people. I have sat in medium development circles every week for years to no avail. I think that some of us are just like lumps of clay and not open to these energies - ie: closed off from the next world.

One thing which may help you is that I have learned to trust my gut and believe it is true. Not allowing my left-brain to dominate me so much that I dismiss every little thing as imagined. I think it appears that these spirit things are subtle and even though I often used to need a hammer blow to my head to get me to take notice, I am getting better at recognising the smaller things. I used to think I was deluding myself, maybe I am still !

So, reading the Michael Newton books, I believe he has it about right when he regresses people beyond birth. He describes spirits after leaving their body trying really hard to visit loved ones and get through to them. Some can do it, some cannot due to grief, and other blockages. Sometimes all our thoughts are focused and occupied and there is no 'quiet moment' for them to get through to us.
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Old 05-14-2020, 05:22 AM
 
Location: equator
11,035 posts, read 6,586,897 times
Reputation: 25523
I believe in the spirit world as described in the Bible. They are God's other creation, in another dimension. Some went rogue and that's why evil exists. Their influence on creation, including man.

Just because I can't see them, doesn't preclude their existence. Or I wouldn't believe in wind or electricity, lol.

I also believe in the Big Bang without understanding any of it. Nothing depends on my puny comprehension, thank God.
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Old 05-14-2020, 05:33 AM
 
2,029 posts, read 1,358,162 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by steiconi View Post
Do you believe in unicorns, too? Lots of stories about them.
Thing is, stories are often either completely or substantially wrong.

I used to have a book about fantastic animals. One of my favorites was the Vegetable Lamb. This little creature grew on a plant, and its wool was harvested and spun into cloth. We call it cotton now, and know it's not an animal.

Somebody started with a fact (cotton plants), and imagined it into a myth. That could be true with many "unproven" concepts like ghosts and vampires.

You say
" i respect agnostics more than atheists...because there is an openness....that's all,
a humility that
'Hey, maybe there is a Creator of some sort. But, I want to see It myself.')
I do believe seeing is believing."

Do you respect agnostics more than, for instance, fundamentalists, who have no openess?

If you believe seeing is believing, have you seen spirits? Or god?
This Vegetable Lamb you speak of....do you know where I can purchase one? Seems low maintenance. Thanks.
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Old 05-14-2020, 07:39 AM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,295 posts, read 84,292,537 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallysmom View Post
I was my father’s favorite child. After his death, nothing. One dream a few years later, like a horror movie. My father wouldn’t scare the hell out of me. My mother died in 2010. Once again nothing. No feeling of a presence, no signs, nothing.

My husband died last year, nothing. He loved me more than life itself, with his diagnosis he didn’t care about himself, he only worried about me. If he could he come back, he would. Nothing.

I spent a great deal of time looking up my ancestry, including going to the cemeteries where my ancestors were buried to see their graves. And to leave a token for them. A flower, a stone, something. Nobody’s ever come back to say thanks, or answer my questions that I got, because I got a lot of them.
As somebody who loves to go to cemeteries whether the people there were related to me or not--

It said, in general, that there usually aren't many spirits in cemeteries, despite movie scenes to the contrary, because the dead had no connection with the cemetery in their living years. Their empty bodies went there after they were already dead. They are more likely to show up in a place where they lived or near someone they loved than in a graveyard.

I'm not vouching for any of this as factual, mind you. Just relating what "they" say.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallysmom View Post
And I love ghosts. Out of all the paranormal phenomena you can think of, ghosts seem to me as if they would be real. They make sense to me. It makes sense when you hear the story of Catherine Howard running down that hallway to get to the king to beg for her life. It’s an imprint — something so traumatic that it stuck there like a film. And it makes sense that sometimes when something awful happens or something really good happens the spirit wants to stay in that area for whatever reason.
The only real experience I have had with seeing a ghost was like this, although it didn't seem particularly traumatic, but it is almost as if a memory of something was imprinted in the house I rented. A few times when I was in the dining room, I would see a figure in my peripheral vision walking through the dining room and over to the small hallway where there was a door to the basement. When I turned my head, nothing was there. I figured it was too much weed in the Seventies. But it happened often enough in that same spot that I started to think it must be something. So, I resolved to NOT turn my head the next time it happened and just see what I might be seeing in my peripheral vision. And I did. The impression I had was of a tall man with a long coat and a hat with a brim.

At the time, I had a roommate who was not working while she was undergoing cancer treatments, and she was home during the day. One day we were out in the car, and she mentioned that when she was home she often heard footsteps upstairs but no one was there. And the sound of a door slamming in the house. Then she was quiet for a minute, and she said, "And sometimes I think I see somebody." I said, "What do you see?

She said, "A tall man wearing a hat walks through the dining room and disappears at the basement door."

I had to pull the car over to the side of the road. Told her I'd seen him, too. Then I came to realize that we weren't the only ones seeing him. Every so often, the cats would stop what they were doing and dash over to the basement door, sticking their paws under and meowing.

Eventually I did hear the door slamming when I was home one day, too. Opened and closed a few doors in the house, and of course the sound it matched was the basement door.

This "guy" wasn't scary and didn't seem to be some entity that was aware of us. As I said, it was like some memory imprinted on the house that survived through time.

There were other weirdnesses in that house, but that's enough for now.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallysmom View Post
But I don’t think it’s real. I just want to believe. It’s comforting to think when I get emotional my husband is there with his arms around me telling to get over myself. That would be so him.

It could be an ability that I don’t have. I have a very intelligent street-smart kind of brother-in-law who can’t go some places because of what he feels. He’s very uncomfortable — someone is there. I don’t doubt him. But my sister who’s with him doesn’t feel this. It’s just a restaurant, or a comedy club, or a theater. And they live in an area that was both heavily impacted by the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.
I have felt as if I was visited by the spirits of people I have lost, my father a few times, my brother rather frequently (as have others in my family) but not everyone. My mother died six weeks ago and I've been sort of expecting her to make herself known, but so far, nothing.
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Old 05-14-2020, 08:25 AM
 
Location: Swiftwater, PA
18,764 posts, read 18,050,478 times
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To me eternity is a very long time. To believe in sprits could be condemning myself to a very boring afterlife. No matter what scenario one believes of the afterlife; all could get very boring in the countless years after death.

It isn't only that; but we know what happens to the human body after death. Eventually we all turn to dust and nobody has ever proven that dust 'thinks'. Even our dreams come from a live, thinking, brain.

OK; so lets even think that maybe our last second is where time stops. In other words we would be frozen in time to repeat our last breaths. Would that mean that we would have an immortal world where all we felt was the pain of dying?

I am very happy with believing that this is it. Once it is over; it is over and we do not have to worry about anything ever again. My son and I were at the bedside of my wife when she died of cancer. She took her last breath and a second latter a peaceful smile was on her face. She was no longer suffering. That is what I believe will happen when I die. I want "nothing" to be my heaven.
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Old 05-14-2020, 09:20 AM
 
2,634 posts, read 2,663,339 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ocpaul20 View Post
So, looking for proof? I say the same thing to you too.

Proof of what exactly? I'm not claiming anything does or does not exist. What would I need proof of?
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Old 05-14-2020, 09:58 AM
 
Location: The Commonwealth of Virginia
1,386 posts, read 993,573 times
Reputation: 2151
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn View Post
What I mean is: Why would you think after centuries of stories - that they absolutely do not exist
not even a maybe ? You could stop here or read on.
I'd like to believe in "spirits" because that would confirm (to me, anyway) that consciousness exists after death. I'd like to believe that my consciousness won't simply wink out, like a light, when I die. That's spooky to me.

But I can't believe because I want to believe. Some on City Data have argued that the brain is the seat of consciousness, and when the brain dies, consciousness dies. Others have argued that, because we don't have a good theory of how human consciousness exists, we can't know what happens to it when we die.

I consider myself an agnostic, but I'm leaning toward believing that consciousness does NOT exist after death. That's why I generally do not believe in spirits.

But I want to believe....

--
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Old 05-14-2020, 02:52 PM
 
30,032 posts, read 11,623,237 times
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I simply do not believe in things that cannot be proven. I am open to changing my opinion if the facts were discovered. And I don't think you have to be an agnostic to have this point of view. I am atheist.

But people that believe in god and or the supernatural tend to discount the evidence or lack there of that their ideas are correct. More rigid than atheists.

Last edited by Oklazona Bound; 05-14-2020 at 03:09 PM..
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Old 05-14-2020, 04:08 PM
 
Location: Log "cabin" west of Bangor
7,058 posts, read 9,046,558 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn View Post
...Why would you think after centuries of stories - that they absolutely do not exist
not even a maybe ?
Firstly, it's millenia of stories, stories that were created by people who lacked the knowledge to explain the events occurring in the world around them. They are stories, tales born out of ignorance. Our knowledge has advanced much since then. We can choose knowledge over ignorance, we can choose to become educated.

Quote:
Why not say, "Hey, I've never seen one, but maybe there are spirits that come around..."?
Because I am educated in the sciences. I understand how bio-electric energy powers our bodies and brains. I understand what happens to that energy when the body dies and the neural circuits fail, and there is no longer a cohesive container or field to constrain it.

I am comfortable with that knowledge and have no need to imagine some 'magical' 'thing' that will somehow prevent that which was 'me' from dissipating back to whence it came, in forms that are no longer recognizable as 'me', and never will be again.

People can be convinced to 'see' things which are not there, and to believe things that are not true. I have watched hypnotists do that very thing- one particularly amusing event was when I watched a hypnotist convince a man that his penis had [somehow] separated itself from his body and was running away from him, he was very distraught as he chased it around the room trying to catch it and put it back where it belonged.

People can convince *themselves* to 'see' things that are not there, and to believe things that are not true. It is not much different from what the hypnotist does, except they do it to themselves (though often with input from other people). They want so badly to believe that something is true, that they will convince themselves that it *is* true, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. They will 'see' things that do not actually exist, because that is what they *want* to see, or 'see' things that do not exist because they have been convinced that they *do* exist, even though they actually do not.

I learned, when interviewing witnesses, that a group of people seeing the same event, will often tell very different stories from each other, despite having all seen the exact same event. I also had to learn to be very careful about how I asked questions, so as not to insert a false idea into their minds- some people want to be 'helpful'- if you ask a witness about a suspect that they saw running from a crime if he had a blue jacket or a green jacket, they are likely to choose one or the other, when, in fact, the suspect may not have been wearing a jacket at all...but you put the thought into their head, and then that is how they 'see' it and remember it, even though it is not the truth.

I am also educated in Psychology, and I understand why people may want to believe certain things, and how people can be convinced to believe certain things, even though those things may not be true.
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Old 05-14-2020, 08:56 PM
 
11,443 posts, read 622,307 times
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Quote:
I simply do not believe in things that cannot be proven.
Well its hard to think like this Oklazona Bound because the universe is not all on the same level! (realm)

We are on the physical realml (What we can see) but there is so much more...... You might be alarmed if you knew what might be in your room with you @ the moment!!
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