Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So we would have to go back to the psychic "Trish" in Red Bank, NJ, and ask her "how many times did you take a wild guess that a customer had a second cousin who died in childhood before you hit it right with Mighty Queen?" I'm just not seeing this as a realistic guess that a self-respecting fraud would try. Heck, if she DID, I might indeed go back and ask her for some lottery numbers!
The other flaw in your suspicions is that I never asked her to tell me anything like that. I went for a Tarot Card reading, not to see a medium to contact "spirits". She just said that out of nowhere before she even picked up the cards. What would she have to gain by making up something that was such a remote possibility? If I'd never lost a childhood friend/had a second cousin who died in childhood, she'd risk losing any faith I had in anything she said subsequently, because I would have thought she was just making up crap and would likely have dismissed whatever she said in the card reading.
If I am at all right about how this works more generally speaking, your psychic didn't make a "wild guess." Trish often says something about someone dying in childhood, "second cousin, cousin, close friend, relative" and whether exactly correct or "close enough," Trish gets some sort of hit often enough. Single, double, triple and sometimes even a home run.
Indeed, why don't we ever hear about psychics winning the lotto?
You are correct to describe my thoughts along these lines as "suspicions," because of course I can't know what Trish does each and every time she has a tarot card reading, but wouldn't it be interesting to hear 100 of those readings so we could better know exactly what her M.O. might be? That's really what we're missing here and what is essentially impossible to come by, unless Trish were to disclose what she does (and be entirely honest about it). Maybe Trish always makes some sort of statement like that before doing a reading, or maybe in your case it really was a very rare thing. This too I would like to know along with a few other things about Trish before I can put my suspicions to rest entirely.
I guess this is one way to address people who have opinion different from yours, but rather than make similar insult about people who prefer this approach, I just try to ignore them. Give that a go and maybe leave a little room for those of us trying to have an intelligent discussion here. Possible? In case you and your half-brother haven't noticed, there are others not so bored, and not thinking they are the center of the universe. People who are actually capable of adult conversation...
It isn't the different opinions that are the problem. It is the opinionated attitude and disdain by which they are presented.
It may just be a personality issue. There are a few on this forum who seem to assume that their intellect or knowledge is superior to that of the others they are addressing.
This conversation reminds me of a situation from my working years. I worked in the public sector engineering/construction industry. (I am not an engineer, but I could play one on TV because I've lived within it for forty years. )
When I started, I was in a construction field office for a major project. There were a lot of old-time construction inspectors in the office, men who were not degreed engineers but who had worked on construction sites for decades and had seen all sorts of problems and conditions in the field that often required unique and innovative solutions.
Around that time it was decided by the powers that be that such formally uneducated types would no longer be hired, but rather that up and coming construction inspectors must have engineering degrees. The older guys would of course continue to work
until it was time to retire, but they would be replaced by degree-holding field inspectors, fresh out of engineering school.
We had a trainee come to work in the office who proceeded to tell the older engineers that what they were doing in the field was WRONG because the books he'd been reading for the past four years told him so. Eventually he was schooled by his own mistakes and what he actually witnessed out there on site and came to realize that his book knowledge was only a part of his education. The real-life, hands-on experience these older men had with actual field conditions trumped what he thought he knew when it came to practical application.
That way of thinking is a common problem on Internet message boards. Links and written information are often great for advancing a conversation, but they have their limits.
I encounter this sort of "defense" all the time, for reasons I'm always a little curious about, but certainly more often with some and not others. I've never made these arguments as some sort of attempt to prove who is smarter. The effort is to weigh the facts in a way that makes the most sense to me, consider them in that context and simply exchange opinion about what makes better sense or not. Simple as that.
No doubt in time with enough experience in this forum, we all come to know what the "personality issues" tend to be with some people, and no doubt some people can read my comments without going that route. Complimenting me and/or agreeing with me generally speaking, while others seem to take offense. Always they are people who seem emotionally invested in their beliefs, seemingly unable to consider them objectively, and ultimately it is always those kinds of people who DISAGREE with me (above all else) who take offense. Then of course resort to insult.
I've seen the same dynamic play out with others, but I've never been able to completely understand the angst, and no doubt there is nothing I can do about it. Accordingly, I just continue to express my opinion best I know how and not worry about the unnecessary insults. The option to ignore is always a better more civil alternative far as I'm concerned anyway...
Regarding "hard evidence"
all of these provide data or "evidence" that has meaning and is useful:
perception, intuition, personal experience, wisdom, emotional response, and awareness all provide additional valid data points in navigating daily life, in developing understanding, in making sense of things, in making decisions, in learning, in relationships, and in discernment.
to ignore those elements is to disregard evidence
and the more data that accumulates, that is more evidence that accumulates
And consider this:
There is no such thing as a coincidence.
There are no coincidences.
If that is the case, then what does it ask of you, where does it take you
Perfect example...
Some can consider a comment like this objectively. I know I can, but others will consider it somehow condescending to ask on what basis we should consider this notion "there is no such thing as coincidence."
Not only can I not help but ask, but it's exactly this sort of notion that begins to determine how someone will interpret what is happening around them. Simple coincidence or synchronicity for example?
Our predisposition about what is going on around us tends to predetermine our answers that have a serious way of clouding what the truth may actually be in these respects. Not to agree is one thing, but not to consider this rather significant dynamic as a real possibility is also a choice born of personal desire, rather than want of the truth whatever it may be...
I am female, yes. Interesting that you brought that up though. Women are usually more receptive to intuition/psychic experiences than men so we have more experiences of this nature. Not that men can't but that the world rewards the more masculine traits of action, assertiveness, aggression, logic so those predominate. Being receptive isn't as highly prized among men so they tend to have fewer experiences with intuition or of a psychic nature. Things are changing though which is good.
Can we consider both your comments here a little further, and if not of some interest with respect to my comments too, why are my comments so often addressed? Damned if I do and damned if I don't, but I thank you anyway for the focus on the topic rather than the personal nonsense thrown into the mix by some who can't seem to help themselves (and who I do try to ignore best I can but sometimes fail)...
You mention what we are taught in school, but you discount all we are taught in the home and of course in the home there are typically women who will often invoke their "intuition" when it comes to lots of things. I was raised in a home with a good mother and two sisters. I am no stranger to all you describe about how people, women in this case, will describe what they are experiencing in all variety of ways. We are taught, however, much of these ways in the home.
My wife and I also raised two children, and there was a very similar "push and pull" with respect to my wife's "intuition" about protecting our children as they grew up much like I remember between my mother and father when I was growing up. Can't begin to count how many times my wife "had a bad feeling" about letting our kids do this or that, while I always had similar concerns, but balanced them with all it takes to let kids grow up.
Though I a do the best I can to avoid thinking in sexist terms, there are obvious differences between women and men in these regards that can be explained in many ways that don't involve any extra supernatural senses. Women, just like people in general, are more or less inclined to consider all these sorts of differences in empirical terms while others are prone toward the more "romantic."
Why we lean one way or the other is hardly anything more than a "personality issue," and of course our personalities, experience and critical thinking skills are what drives our thoughts and feelings in these regards above all else.
Religious upbringing can also train us to disregard our natural intuition, and sometimes to negative consequences. I have OCD, which is an anxiety disorder (though not the handwashing/perpetual cleaning thing you see in the movies), and a therapist once suggested that some of it may be a result of disregarding natural intuition. I did some reading on learning to tune in and pay attention to natural intuition, and it helped with managing the intrusive thoughts and distinguishing what might be my intuition talking and what might be obsessing.
^ THIS.
Interesting to me, really, because I've always thought the other way around...
The religion we learn in the home always seemed to me to require an ability to connect with something beyond the realm, and the inability to do so is considered somehow a short-coming to better connect with what is beyond the realm. Why it always seemed to me that religious people were also more inclined to believe in supernatural phenomena over atheists for example.
On the other hand, of course, most religions are not too accepting of contrary versions related to what all actually is going on beyond the realm. I suspect this is what you may be addressing more specifically.
Again much having to do with what our upbringing will lead us to believe in these respects, or not believe...
OCD is a common affliction among the religious. OCD is especially common among fundamentalist Christian women. Even for those who no longer consider themselves believers, however, the years of indoctrination beginning with one's earliest memories is hard to completely overcome.
Religious OCD: 'I'm going to hell'
By Elizabeth Landau, CNN
updated 7:33 AM EDT, Sat May 31, 2014
(CNN) -- When she was 12, Jennifer Traig's hands were red and raw from washing them so much. She'd start scrubbing a half an hour before dinner; when she was done, she'd hold her hands up like a surgeon until her family sat down to eat.
Jennifer Traig was obsessed with cleanliness and avoiding pork fumes when she was a teenager.
Her hand washing compulsions began at the time she was studying for her Bat Mitzvah. She was so worried about being exposed to pork fumes that she cleaned her shoes and barrettes in a washing machine.
"Like a lot of people with OCD, I tended to obsess about cleanliness," said Traig, now 42. "But because I was reading various Torah portions, I was obsessed with a biblical definition of cleanliness."
Family dinners were awkward for Tina Fariss Barbour, too, as an adolescent. She would concentrate so hard on praying for forgiveness that if anyone tried to interrupt her thoughts, she wouldn't respond.
"First I had to get rid of all my sins, ask forgiveness, do it in the right way, and then I had to pray for protection," said Barbour, now 50. "Or, if something bad happened to my family, it would be my fault because I had not prayed good enough."
Moderator cut: Copyright violation--post a snippet and the link.
I was heavily indoctrinated into Christian belief as a child. Do I have OCD as a result? My wife accuses me of having MCD (messy compulsive disorder). But my lifelong compulsion has been to confront and challenge believers by addressing and discrediting their religious indoctrination. There may well be a correlation there.
Curious...
Have you ever been accused of thinking you are smarter than they are when trying to explain such things? Your "compulsion" appreciated in any sort of balanced, fair or objective way? I too was inculcated as a Catholic at a young age and there is little doubt in my mind the correlation you draw here is an accurate one.
this describes the behavior of "religion bashing" and those who engage in "let's bash religion"
it is simplistic and superficial
I always feel you have something better to offer than to simply "bash" any such exchange...
It is far too simplistic and superficial to describe the important differences of opinion in these respects, and if you could lead toward a better way to exchange thoughts and opinions about the right and/or wrong about supernatural phenomena and/or religion, I would be delighted to follow your lead!
Personally I hope this does not turn into a religion bashing thread. I'm not here for that. I hesitated until there was no way around it even bringing religion into this discussion because frankly intuition and psychic experiences don't require one to be involved with religion. Intuition is something we can all have and develop regardless of religious or spiritual inclinations.
Agreed, and I'd like to think no worries about this, but if emotions get involved, there's no telling what will happen no matter the subject. I'm glad you are seemingly a part of what I consider a little better balanced an approach.
On the other hand, when the religious evangelize they consider it righteous, and not only their right, but their sacred duty. "Jesus died but was resurrected from the dead and was subsequently taken bodily up to heaven. He did this for you! If you really want to start a discussion concerning what is "simplistic and superficial," I'm there Dude.
While I suspect we are mostly of like mind in these regards, I also suspect from my Executive Coaching experience that you are promoting the sort of discussion you prefer in the wrong way. That said, I've tried every variety of taking the "higher ground," and inevitably there will be someone who drags you down into the muck no matter what your approach...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)
