# The Paranormal, the Supernatural, and the Extraterrestrial



## Foxfyre

*Gentle reminder:  This thread is in the CDZ*

The human race has perhaps always had notions of the paranormal and/or supernatural.  We find references in some of the earliest recorded histories in all known cultures.  More recently, we have added notions of the extraterrestrial to those things we are curious about.

Adding credibility to the notions is a growing body of people, many who seem to be quite intelligent, normal, and credible, who report encounters with paranormal or extraterrestial craft and/or beings.

This could even qualify as a quasi-political thread as both the paranormal and the extraterrestrial could qualify as threats to human safety and/or national security and for various other reasons.  Certainly the government has been operating radio telescopes for some time and continues to research reported UFO sightings, etc.  Waste of time?  Or are you happy with some of our resources being devoted to that?

So what do you think?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?

Personal experiences, logic, reason, and credible recorded histories are appropriate here.


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## SayMyName

I was not able to vote because one category is missing. "I believe there are some things that science has not explained yet."


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## Swagger

Like I've written previously, I'm still drawn on the paranormal i.e - ghosts and poltergeists. But I'm certain we aren't alone in the universe. And that at some point, before the dawn of man up until the present day, we've been either observed or visited by technologically advanced extraterrestrials. Nothing will sway me on that.


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## Political Junky

Somehow religious people are exempt from criticism of their paranormal beliefs.


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## SayMyName

This could be a great thread! Anyone listen to George Noory's Coast to Coast late night on the radio?

Home - Coast to Coast AM


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## Dr Grump

I believe that there are other beings out there. Just haven't visited us..

As for the paranormal - no way, no how....


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## Foxfyre

SayMyName said:


> I was not able to vote because one category is missing. "I believe there are some things that science has not explained yet."



You can still vote.  There was no attempt to define WHAT a ghost or angel or exterrestial being, etc. is, so I don't imagine the names will change once science is able to explain them.


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## Foxfyre

SayMyName said:


> This could be a great thread! Anyone listen to George Noory's Coast to Coast late night on the radio?
> 
> Home - Coast to Coast AM



Yes, when we were operating our business, I would be out and about keeping on site appointments during the day and then would do paper work or other activities into the wee hours of the morning many nights.  Beginning at 11 p.m. mountain time, to keep me company (and awake), we used to get Art Bell that was a fascinating mix of the odd, strange, unexplained.  And when Art handed the keys to Coast to Coast to George Noury and the weekend hosts, they brought a much different dimension but often just as interesting.

It is one of those programs you have to take with a huge grain of salt and healthy skepticism--I'm sure the hosts do too--but some of the things they report are fascinating.  And unexplainable.


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## Quantum Windbag

Political Junky said:


> Somehow religious people are exempt from criticism of their paranormal beliefs.



Somehow, you make less sense than the guy on the corner who is telling me that the government is controlling us through RADAR.


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## Foxfyre

A gentle reminder folks.  This thread is in the CDZ


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## ABikerSailor

Do I believe in supernatural beings?  Yep.  Seen evidence of them too much in my life, sometimes it's the Big Man Himself, sometimes it's one of His agents.

Do I believe in UFO's?  Again, yep.  Saw one when I was around 10 years old living up in Hamilton Montana.  I saw a large glowing cigar shaped object that was glowing sort of orangish yellow rise up from the mountains behind my house.  I then got my Grandmother and sister over to the window to see it, and it disappeared really quickly towards the north, best guess I can estimate on it's speed was over 500 mph.  My Grandmother turned towards me and told me to never speak of it again, or people would think I was nuts.

I also believe that this world is way too large and we haven't really discovered all the things on it, so there are plenty more life forms to discover, maybe even Bigfoot (which I saw living in Vaughn MT when I was 17, walking along the back canal on my Grandfather's property).  I knew it had to be at least 7 1/2 to 9 ft tall, because I also knew the grass that lined the canal was around 4 ft tall, and it only came up to it's waist.

As far as the angels being ET's?  There is a very good possibility of that, because the religious paintings of the Middle Ages all have some kind of UFO in the painting.  Check out Ancient Aliens sometime on the History Channel, it's got stuff that will make you think.


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## hjmick

Someone's been living in New Mexico too long...

And it ain't me...


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## Foxfyre

One place of interest in this category is the old historic, St. James Hotel in the Village of Cimarron in Northern New Mexico.  It boasts a long history and current hauntings by various spirits who still call the hotel home.  It has been researched by many paranormal experts, including the popular Ghost Hunters, and all have declared the activity to be detectable.

I have been there numerous times, and have never witnessed anything out of the ordinary.  But I've never booked a room and spent the night either.


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## ABikerSailor

Dr Grump said:


> I believe that there are other beings out there. Just haven't visited us..
> 
> As for the paranormal - no way, no how....



Telepathy could be considered "paranormal", and yes, it does exist.

You can prove this to yourself quite easily by the way, just go to some place where there are people with their backs to you and stare at the back of their head.  Within 30 seconds, they will feel you staring at them and turn around and look at you.

Also explains why you can feel people staring at you when you're walking down the street, even though you're not looking at them.


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## syrenn

I voted that i believe in extraterrestrial beings. 

To think WE are the only ones in this entire universe is a bit arrogant.


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## Caroljo

I've never seen anything "abnormal".  But 2 of my kids have, in a house we used to live in.  They are not the kind to exaggerate or make things like that up.  Of course i didn't know because i'd never seen anything.  But one evening my daughter was in her room upstairs, we were watching tv downstairs and all of a sudden there a was big "bang" from upstairs...like something was thrown really hard and hit the wall or something. Actually, when we went upstairs my daughter said that it was something hitting her door....but there was nothing around to explain it!  Her and my one son both saw my mother after she died.  I just don't know....i do have an open mind, and i am also a Christian.  I know we're not to be involved in demonic things....but i don't know what to think about my kids seeing my mom.  I believe them...but how???


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## Foxfyre

hjmick said:


> Someone's been living in New Mexico too long...
> 
> And it ain't me...



Aw come on, get into the spirit of it HJ.  But yeah, I've lived a lot of years in New Mexico and, because of having a fairly unique occupation as occupations go, I have had opportunity to go lots of out of the way places in New Mexico and have talked to lots of folks who tell me they have seen some amazing things.

You simply can't have any interest in the unexplained at all and not have your interest peaked by some of that stuff.


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## hjmick

Foxfyre said:


> hjmick said:
> 
> 
> 
> Someone's been living in New Mexico too long...
> 
> And it ain't me...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Aw come on, get into the spirit of it HJ.  But yeah, I've lived a lot of years in New Mexico and, because of having a fairly unique occupation as occupations go, I have had opportunity to go lots of out of the way places in New Mexico and have talked to lots of folks who tell me they have seen some amazing things.
> 
> You simply can't have any interest in the unexplained at all and not have your interest peaked by some of that stuff.
Click to expand...


I don't go in for the paranormal, but I think it rather arrogant for us to believe we are the only intelligent _(and that is debateable...)_ beings in the universe.


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## Foxfyre

Caroljo said:


> I've never seen anything "abnormal".  But 2 of my kids have, in a house we used to live in.  They are not the kind to exaggerate or make things like that up.  Of course i didn't know because i'd never seen anything.  But one evening my daughter was in her room upstairs, we were watching tv downstairs and all of a sudden there a was big "bang" from upstairs...like something was thrown really hard and hit the wall or something. Actually, when we went upstairs my daughter said that it was something hitting her door....but there was nothing around to explain it!  Her and my one son both saw my mother after she died.  I just don't know....i do have an open mind, and i am also a Christian.  I know we're not to be involved in demonic things....but i don't know what to think about my kids seeing my mom.  I believe them...but how???



I am also a Christian and I don't think curiosity about the paranormal to be at all unChrsitianlike.  We are commanded not to play around with or court demons, but I don't think there is any admonition not to know what they are or are not.  

As for what your children saw, my instinct is to believe them.  I have spoken with far too many people who have had visitations from the dearly departed.  Maybe a dream.  Maybe real.  Who knows, but all found the experience to be not at all unpleasant and for many oddly comforting.


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## hjmick

Foxfyre said:


> Caroljo said:
> 
> 
> 
> I've never seen anything "abnormal".  But 2 of my kids have, in a house we used to live in.  They are not the kind to exaggerate or make things like that up.  Of course i didn't know because i'd never seen anything.  But one evening my daughter was in her room upstairs, we were watching tv downstairs and all of a sudden there a was big "bang" from upstairs...like something was thrown really hard and hit the wall or something. Actually, when we went upstairs my daughter said that it was something hitting her door....but there was nothing around to explain it!  Her and my one son both saw my mother after she died.  I just don't know....i do have an open mind, and i am also a Christian.  I know we're not to be involved in demonic things....but i don't know what to think about my kids seeing my mom.  I believe them...but how???
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am also a Christian and I don't think curiosity about the paranormal to be at all unChrsitianlike.  We are commanded not to play around with or court demons, but I don't think there is any admonition not to know what they are or are not.
> 
> As for what your children saw, my instinct is to believe them.  I have spoken with far too many people who have had visitations from the dearly departed.  Maybe a dream.  Maybe real.  Who knows, but all found the experience to be not at all unpleasant and for many oddly comforting.
Click to expand...


If you are "commanded not to play around with or court demons," what the hell are you doing at USMB?


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## JakeStarkey

Yeah, a fun show, a lot of seeming looniness, but some of it very interesting.


SayMyName said:


> This could be a great thread! Anyone listen to George Noory's Coast to Coast late night on the radio?
> 
> Home - Coast to Coast AM


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## Foxfyre

hjmick said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> hjmick said:
> 
> 
> 
> Someone's been living in New Mexico too long...
> 
> And it ain't me...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Aw come on, get into the spirit of it HJ.  But yeah, I've lived a lot of years in New Mexico and, because of having a fairly unique occupation as occupations go, I have had opportunity to go lots of out of the way places in New Mexico and have talked to lots of folks who tell me they have seen some amazing things.
> 
> You simply can't have any interest in the unexplained at all and not have your interest peaked by some of that stuff.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I don't go in for the paranormal, but I think it rather arrogant for us to believe we are the only intelligent _(and that is debateable...)_ beings in the universe.
Click to expand...


True story.  It was fifteen or so years ago that State Farm Insurance contracted with us to do safety and condition inspections on ALL their farm and ranch properties in New Mexico.  That involved hundreds of farms and ranches and, over a period of many weeks, took us to every nook and cranny in the state.

So that's how I found myself way out in the middle of nowhere on narrow dirt roads, dodging rabbits and antelope herds, about 50 miles northwest of Roswell NM.   And that included the very property where that alien spacecraft was reported to have crashed in July, 1947.

No evidence anywhere of the crash now, but I talked with two old gentlemen who said they were there.  Saw the debris scattered over a fairly large area.  And there was no way that it was the weather balloon that is the official position of the government.  When government officials arrived that day, they ordered all the locals to leave the area immediately and they were not allowed to return for several days.

So what happened out there?  Nobody knows.  It is still classified.


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## SayMyName

Caroljo said:


> I've never seen anything "abnormal".  But 2 of my kids have, in a house we used to live in.  They are not the kind to exaggerate or make things like that up.  Of course i didn't know because i'd never seen anything.  But one evening my daughter was in her room upstairs, we were watching tv downstairs and all of a sudden there a was big "bang" from upstairs...like something was thrown really hard and hit the wall or something. Actually, when we went upstairs my daughter said that it was something hitting her door....but there was nothing around to explain it!  Her and my one son both saw my mother after she died.  I just don't know....i do have an open mind, and i am also a Christian.  I know we're not to be involved in demonic things....but i don't know what to think about my kids seeing my mom.  I believe them...but how???



If you are Christian, then it is demons that would be impersonating your mother and making the noises. Otherwise, would Jesus have not forwarned of other phenomena?


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## Foxfyre

hjmick said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Caroljo said:
> 
> 
> 
> I've never seen anything "abnormal".  But 2 of my kids have, in a house we used to live in.  They are not the kind to exaggerate or make things like that up.  Of course i didn't know because i'd never seen anything.  But one evening my daughter was in her room upstairs, we were watching tv downstairs and all of a sudden there a was big "bang" from upstairs...like something was thrown really hard and hit the wall or something. Actually, when we went upstairs my daughter said that it was something hitting her door....but there was nothing around to explain it!  Her and my one son both saw my mother after she died.  I just don't know....i do have an open mind, and i am also a Christian.  I know we're not to be involved in demonic things....but i don't know what to think about my kids seeing my mom.  I believe them...but how???
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am also a Christian and I don't think curiosity about the paranormal to be at all unChrsitianlike.  We are commanded not to play around with or court demons, but I don't think there is any admonition not to know what they are or are not.
> 
> As for what your children saw, my instinct is to believe them.  I have spoken with far too many people who have had visitations from the dearly departed.  Maybe a dream.  Maybe real.  Who knows, but all found the experience to be not at all unpleasant and for many oddly comforting.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If you are "commanded not to play around with or court demons," what the hell are you doing at USMB?
Click to expand...


LOL.  Well when horns pop up or I spot somebody with a tail, I'll know to worry about it.


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## Foxfyre

SayMyName said:


> Caroljo said:
> 
> 
> 
> I've never seen anything "abnormal".  But 2 of my kids have, in a house we used to live in.  They are not the kind to exaggerate or make things like that up.  Of course i didn't know because i'd never seen anything.  But one evening my daughter was in her room upstairs, we were watching tv downstairs and all of a sudden there a was big "bang" from upstairs...like something was thrown really hard and hit the wall or something. Actually, when we went upstairs my daughter said that it was something hitting her door....but there was nothing around to explain it!  Her and my one son both saw my mother after she died.  I just don't know....i do have an open mind, and i am also a Christian.  I know we're not to be involved in demonic things....but i don't know what to think about my kids seeing my mom.  I believe them...but how???
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you are Christian, then it is demons that would be impersonating your mother and making the noises. Otherwise, would Jesus have not forwarned of other phenomena?
Click to expand...


Respectfully requesting that we not get into specific theological discussions on this thread except as pertinent to extra normal phenomenon.  Let's keep this interesting, light, and fun, okay?


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## Swagger

Foxfyre said:


> hjmick said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Aw come on, get into the spirit of it HJ.  But yeah, I've lived a lot of years in New Mexico and, because of having a fairly unique occupation as occupations go, I have had opportunity to go lots of out of the way places in New Mexico and have talked to lots of folks who tell me they have seen some amazing things.
> 
> You simply can't have any interest in the unexplained at all and not have your interest peaked by some of that stuff.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't go in for the paranormal, but I think it rather arrogant for us to believe we are the only intelligent _(and that is debateable...)_ beings in the universe.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> True story.  It was fifteen or so years ago that State Farm Insurance contracted with us to do safety and condition inspections on ALL their farm and ranch properties in New Mexico.  That involved hundreds of farms and ranches and, over a period of many weeks, took us to every nook and cranny in the state.
> 
> So that's how I found myself way out in the middle of nowhere on narrow dirt roads, dodging rabbits and antelope herds, about 50 miles northwest of Roswell NM.   And that included the very property where that alien spacecraft was reported to have crashed in July, 1947.
> 
> No evidence anywhere of the crash now, but I talked with two old gentlemen who said they were there.  Saw the debris scattered over a fairly large area.  And there was no way that it was the weather balloon that is the official position of the government.  When government officials arrived that day, they ordered all the locals to leave the area immediately and they were not allowed to return for several days.
> 
> So what happened out there?  Nobody knows.  It is still *classified*.
Click to expand...


Do you think that that simple word fuels the majority of speculation when attached to events like Roswell above anything else? I do. 

Here's another unexplained incident of equal controversy to slake your interest. It's always fascinated/perplexed me. Dyatlov Pass incident

Here's alittle snippet to wet your appetite: 



> The lack of eyewitnesses has inspired much speculation. Soviet investigators determined only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths. Access to the area was barred for skiers and other adventurers for three years after the incident.


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## IGetItAlready

Was playing with my little sister one day when I was about 10, she was 8. It was windy and we noticed out her bedroom window that the wind was kicking up these awesome little dirt tornadoes in the newly tilled field across the road. So we're in her window watching these things in the middle of the day when we notice what looks like a star way out in the distance, except it's slowly moving to the left. After a few seconds or so it reverses trajectory and is now slowly moving to the right, then it stopped again and began to slowly grow as if it were moving toward us. This thing grew from little more than a pin prick of light to where a dime held at arms length might JUST cover it. Then it stopped again. My little sister was getting scared and just as she said she wanted to go get mom this thing appears to zing away from us and shoot up and to the left. It went from dime sized back to a pin prick of light and shot up into oblivion in less than a second. 

No idea what it was but we both saw it and neither of us will ever forget it.


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## SayMyName

Foxfyre said:


> SayMyName said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Caroljo said:
> 
> 
> 
> I've never seen anything "abnormal".  But 2 of my kids have, in a house we used to live in.  They are not the kind to exaggerate or make things like that up.  Of course i didn't know because i'd never seen anything.  But one evening my daughter was in her room upstairs, we were watching tv downstairs and all of a sudden there a was big "bang" from upstairs...like something was thrown really hard and hit the wall or something. Actually, when we went upstairs my daughter said that it was something hitting her door....but there was nothing around to explain it!  Her and my one son both saw my mother after she died.  I just don't know....i do have an open mind, and i am also a Christian.  I know we're not to be involved in demonic things....but i don't know what to think about my kids seeing my mom.  I believe them...but how???
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you are Christian, then it is demons that would be impersonating your mother and making the noises. Otherwise, would Jesus have not forwarned of other phenomena?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Respectfully requesting that we not get into specific theological discussions on this thread except as pertinent to extra normal phenomenon.  Let's keep this interesting, light, and fun, okay?
Click to expand...


Absolutely. I am not saying it is true, I was just going on what she was saying as a Christian, and that supposedly the bible then gives little other choices for such phenomena.

But I understand what you are saying.


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## Quantum Windbag

ABikerSailor said:


> Dr Grump said:
> 
> 
> 
> I believe that there are other beings out there. Just haven't visited us..
> 
> As for the paranormal - no way, no how....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Telepathy could be considered "paranormal", and yes, it does exist.
> 
> You can prove this to yourself quite easily by the way, just go to some place where there are people with their backs to you and stare at the back of their head.  Within 30 seconds, they will feel you staring at them and turn around and look at you.
> 
> Also explains why you can feel people staring at you when you're walking down the street, even though you're not looking at them.
Click to expand...


Even if that was true, which it isn't, it is not telepathy.


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## ItsjustmeIthink

This makes me think of that one saying, sorry but I can't remember who said it or really how it went.

But it was something like "If we're the only ones in the universe then space is a lot of wasted space" or something somewhat like that. Idk

I've always thought if space is infinite then there should also be an infinite possibility that other forms of life exist.


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## Steelplate

I don't necessarily believe in ghosts. I am a skeptic...but I am very much fascinated by the subject and would love to go on an investigation with a team. On the other hand, I don't dismiss the existence of them either...in fact, I'd love to have an experience that would erase all doubt as to the question of life after death. Don't get me wrong....I am a Christian, but since you have to die before you find out for sure...my faith doesn't exactly satisfy my curiosity or quite frankly, my fear.

As far as UFO's and/or extraterrestrial life? Sure, I believe that there is other life out there...perhaps even highly intelligent life. No where in the Bible does it say that God created us and only us, or even that we were his first creation.

Whether they have visited Earth? I don't know...I've never seen anything.

Just a note on my faith... I believe in God...maybe not the same way that Fundamentalists do though. I believe that the concept of God is so beyond our intellectual and emotional grasp that even ideas like string theory and quantum science is only scratching the surface of the Creator's intellect. The more complex we find the Universe to be, the more convinced I am that there is indeed a God.


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## Dont Taz Me Bro

It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.


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## Steelplate

Foxfyre said:


> SayMyName said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Caroljo said:
> 
> 
> 
> I've never seen anything "abnormal".  But 2 of my kids have, in a house we used to live in.  They are not the kind to exaggerate or make things like that up.  Of course i didn't know because i'd never seen anything.  But one evening my daughter was in her room upstairs, we were watching tv downstairs and all of a sudden there a was big "bang" from upstairs...like something was thrown really hard and hit the wall or something. Actually, when we went upstairs my daughter said that it was something hitting her door....but there was nothing around to explain it!  Her and my one son both saw my mother after she died.  I just don't know....i do have an open mind, and i am also a Christian.  I know we're not to be involved in demonic things....but i don't know what to think about my kids seeing my mom.  I believe them...but how???
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you are Christian, then it is demons that would be impersonating your mother and making the noises. Otherwise, would Jesus have not forwarned of other phenomena?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Respectfully requesting that we not get into specific theological discussions on this thread except as pertinent to extra normal phenomenon.  Let's keep this interesting, light, and fun, okay?
Click to expand...


wow...guess I blew that with my post....sorry. But it's hard not to interject faith in a discussion on the paranormal. I happen to think that there is not necessarily a conflict...but opinions vary.


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## Foxfyre

Dont Taz Me Bro said:


> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.



Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.

Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.


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## Foxfyre

Steelplate said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SayMyName said:
> 
> 
> 
> If you are Christian, then it is demons that would be impersonating your mother and making the noises. Otherwise, would Jesus have not forwarned of other phenomena?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Respectfully requesting that we not get into specific theological discussions on this thread except as pertinent to extra normal phenomenon.  Let's keep this interesting, light, and fun, okay?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> wow...guess I blew that with my post....sorry. But it's hard not to interject faith in a discussion on the paranormal. I happen to think that there is not necessarily a conflict...but opinions vary.
Click to expand...


No, I don't think you blew it at all.  I just didn't want us to stray into a food fight over religious beliefs and opinions of those holding those beliefs, but for those of us for which our faith explains extra normal phenomenon or that causes us to reject paranormal phenomenon,  you are right that you cannot separate that from our reality.

And I concur that we all would like confirmation of our faith so we wouldn't have to lean so hard on it.  But I think God makes us naturally fearful of death so that our instinct is to avoid it as long as possible.  At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

But like when I have visited the St. James Hotel, I so very much want to see one of the phenomons that so many have reported there.  And sometimes when I am out away from the city looking into a cloudless sky filled with bright stars, I sometimes really really wish I would witness an honest to goodness spaceship descending from the heavens.

I think for many of the more curious among us, it is just human nature.


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## Steelplate

I love what you said about confirmation, leaning on faith and the fear of death. Makes sense.


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## Wiseacre

Faith and religion have nothing to do with the question of the existence of things like paranormal, supernatural, or extraterrestial.   They may exist or they may not, but the truth is the truth either way.


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## IGetItAlready

Foxfyre said:


> Dont Taz Me Bro said:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I don&#8217;t think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they haven&#8217;t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
Click to expand...


I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.


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## Foxfyre

IGetItAlready said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dont Taz Me Bro said:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
Click to expand...


If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported.  It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.


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## Steelplate

IGetItAlready said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dont Taz Me Bro said:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
Click to expand...


But his only basis of his observation is life on Earth....at our current level of understanding and abilities. I mean, I don't pretend to know one way or another.


----------



## Foxfyre

Wiseacre said:


> Faith and religion have nothing to do with the question of the existence of things like paranormal, supernatural, or extraterrestial.   They may exist or they may not, but the truth is the truth either way.



True, but our faith or lack thereof could very definitely have a bearing on how we perceive or interpret a paranormal experience.


----------



## Steelplate

Foxfyre said:


> IGetItAlready said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported.  It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.
Click to expand...


ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.

I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.


----------



## IGetItAlready

Foxfyre said:


> IGetItAlready said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I don&#8217;t think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they haven&#8217;t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported.  It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.
Click to expand...


I believe he was referring more to different species rather than different races of people. IE: Big cats kill amphibians, invertebrates and other mammals and have developed advanced hunting techniques with which to do so. The same is true of Killer Whales and other predators. 
He was simply making the case that advanced intelligence and peacefulness or an evolution beyond doing harm to another living being, do not necessarily go hand in hand.


----------



## Foxfyre

I do think my theory that visitors from other worlds to ours would not have harming us in mind because if they're here, they haven't done that and would almost certainly have the capability to do so.

Looking to Spielberg's movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", I would hope that our government would realize we have no capability of any kind to fight an invasion of beings with the knowhow and ability to come here.  So we might as well figure out how to greet them as friends in the spirit of how we greeted the fictictous visitors in that movie.


----------



## Foxfyre

Steelplate said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> IGetItAlready said:
> 
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported.  It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.
> 
> I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.
Click to expand...


Yes we have defense capabilities against human enemies.  But look at the USA, Canada, the countries of Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.  All highly technically advanced and successful and not one plotting to harm another people in any way.  And all living relatively peacefully within respective rule of law.

We can clearly see that techological advancement and prosperity does not make a people more hostile to other people.  We can only hope that this is a universal truth if we are having extra terrestrial visitors.


----------



## SayMyName

IGetItAlready said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dont Taz Me Bro said:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I don&#8217;t think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they haven&#8217;t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
Click to expand...


I kinda feel the same way as Hawking does on this matter.


----------



## IGetItAlready

SayMyName said:


> IGetItAlready said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I kinda feel the same way as Hawking does on this matter.
Click to expand...


I tend to agree. *CRASS, INAPPROPRIATE HUMOR ALERT!!!* Aside from how to walk, talk or feed himself, what DOESN'T Hawking know.


----------



## ItsjustmeIthink

IGetItAlready said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dont Taz Me Bro said:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I don&#8217;t think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they haven&#8217;t suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
Click to expand...


I think the issue there is that Hawking infers that extraterrestrials will have a human way of thinking. I think how they perceive things would be, maybe, more interesting than their tech.

Edit: I still think this applies for animals and other non-human, earth-bound organisms. What I mean to say is that the concept of the food chian, survival of the fittest, what a predator is, etc etc are all specific to Earth; i.e. 'Earthlings' have created these concepts from scratch with their humans minds and I think that doesn't give us much reason to think that other, alien life would be inheirently predacious.


----------



## American Horse

Foxfyre said:


> I do think my theory that visitors from other worlds to ours would not have harming us in mind because if they're here, they haven't done that and would almost certainly have the capability to do so.
> 
> Looking to Spielberg's movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", I would hope that our government would realize we have no capability of any kind to fight an invasion of beings with the knowhow and ability to come here.  So we might as well figure out how to greet them as friends in the spirit of how we greeted the fictictous visitors in that movie.



I agree with you, and not much with Hawking who did in the last year or so make comments about the possibility of dangers in making alien contact.  It's always possible for an "out of control/self replicating" highly technological and artificial entity to overrun our sector of the galaxy, mining raw planetary material into more of their own kind with a prejudice or nonchalance to life-forms that get in their way.  

In that scenario it would be possible to obviate the vast time scales needed to cross space, since as machines, not biological matter vulnerable to the harsh radiation and cosmic rays, they could for their purposes be indestructible,  immortal, and self perpetuating with a single "minded" goal.

But barring a bizarre scenario like that, the investment is too great for an entity to reach across space, even between stars a few light years apart, and  be bent on destruction of the rare intelligent fellow traveler they might encounter.  They could only carrry the biological seed of their race and civilization, not a whole population.

If they come, thay can have Mars, or one of the moons of Jupiter or Saturn.


----------



## American Horse

I believe there is no question there is alien intelligence in our home galaxy.  There is no convincing evidence or firm support they have reached our environs.  There is a very large community of observers qualified to identify one by separating ordinary ambiguous phenomenon from real encounters or sightings but they don't identify any legitimate sightings.  

There is a  very large community of constant and daily observers of the sky, astronomers, professional and amateur, who spend a lot of time looking at the skies as a lifetime avocation.  They have the advantage of convenience and opportunity to spot likely events and they don't. Anyone can search out forums where astronomers talk their interest and you'll not find any mention, except by the newbie visitor asking for answers who believe they have seen something unexplainable by natural phenomena.


----------



## Montrovant

I'm pretty skeptical of most paranormal ideas.  Ghosts, telepathy, telekinesis, etc...I am of the opinion that most of the time, when people see something strange and unexplained, they put their own label to it without really having enough evidence.  I imagine that the vast majority of cases have a more mundane explanation, but because they are so rare or unusual, people who experience them believe in something supernatural, instead.  And let's face it, there are plenty of things in the natural world that can appear supernatural!

As far as alien life, I think there's a good chance it exists.  I don't know about intelligent life, but everything we have seen tells us the universe is vast almost beyond imagining.  If life could arise on earth, whether through natural, random occurrence or at the impetus of some intelligence, there's no reason to think it can't happen elsewhere.  It is also quite possible that there has been life elsewhere in the distant past that no longer exists, that we are currently the only life in the universe, and that life will spring up on other planets in the future.  Again, the vastness of the space and time involved make me question the reasoning of anyone who denies the possibility.

I don't especially think this planet has been visited by alien life.  Perhaps if some way were found to surpass the barrier of the speed of light, greatly surpass it, we might have intelligent visitors.  I don't know if that is taken into account often enough in this type of discussion; it could take ridiculously long periods of time to travel to other planets.  Even at the speed of light it would take any alien visitor about 4 years to get here from the closest star to us.  Much as I love sci-fi and want to see interstellar travel happen, it may be that the distances are to great and there is no way possible to traverse them in a reasonable timeframe.
As to the many supposed UFO sightings, alien abductions, crop circles, and various other supposed examples of non-terrestrial life, none of them have been compelling to me.  I don't believe the people who say they have been abducted.  Sorry, I need more than someone's testimony to buy that idea.  With UFO's, again, the number of people who have supposedly seen alien craft seems ridiculous.  It makes this planet appear to be some kind of interstellar traffic light!  And again, I expect most or all such sightings have a more mundane, if perhaps unusual, explanation.


----------



## FA_Q2

Foxfyre said:


> Steelplate said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported.  It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.
> 
> I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes we have defense capabilities against human enemies.  But look at the USA, Canada, the countries of Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.  All highly technically advanced and successful and not one plotting to harm another people in any way.  And all living relatively peacefully within respective rule of law.
> 
> *We can clearly see that techological advancement and prosperity does not make a people more hostile to other people. * We can only hope that this is a universal truth if we are having extra terrestrial visitors.
Click to expand...


And there is your key.  Sure, advancement has ensured a more peaceful approach to our own kind because if it did not we would never have advanced.  It has also seen the complete subjugation of all other life on this planet.  We keep pets in cages and subject animals to some pretty horrific treatment in the food industry in order to feed the world.  Essentially, &#8216;lesser&#8217; life forms would not agree with your conclusion that we are far more peaceful.  That is exactly what we would be to an alien civilization that is capable of getting here &#8211; &#8216;lesser.&#8217;  I don&#8217;t think that aliens would travel all this way for nothing be it resources, space for colonization, research or simple exploration.  Only the latter example might work out for us.

All in all, while I do not believe in the supernatural I do believe there is life out there other than us.  What I cannot agree with is the idea that it has visited us before or is currently visiting us now.  If they were here and wanted to remain unseen there is essentially no way that we would have seen them.  The technological gap would be breathtaking as they not only would need to break the speed of light, they would need to solve a thousand other needs for real space travel.  If they did not care about being seen, there would not be any question to their existence.  It would be obvious.

The accounts of abduction are even more off the charts.  Most of them involve a secrete message to save the world that somehow missed anyone of importance and ended up with the guy in the trailer park or they involve some sexual tryst with an alien/hybrid.  Really?  That makes ZERO sense.  Crop circles?  Sure, there are a ton of reasons that an alien would want to bend wheat&#8230;.

Maybe cow mutilations because what the aliens really want is beef.

No, they are not here as far as I can tell.  My mother is a HUGE believer in aliens and I was subjected to all the conspiracy theories and alien &#8216;UFOologists&#8217; that you can find.  At the time, I believed in it all (young impressionable mind and all that).  When I was 10 I read a good book on the subject by Carl Sagan: A Demon Haunted World that really opened my eyes and got my critical thinking skills started.  He asked the one question that was avoided by everyone else: WHY?  If you can give me a good motivation for visitation and the occurrences that are attributed to them, perhaps I can start to agree again but the truth is, there are no fathomable reasons for ET to fly hundreds of light years to bend some wheat, cut up a cow and tell Johnny that we need to start recycling more.  

If we do ever encounter a benevolent species I would imagine it would happen more like Contact or The Day The Earth Stood Still.


----------



## Foxfyre

Wiseacre said:


> Faith and religion have nothing to do with the question of the existence of things like paranormal, supernatural, or extraterrestial.   They may exist or they may not, but the truth is the truth either way.



But truth may or may not be a factor in what we believe.  Do people see ghosts because they believe in ghosts?   Or because there are ghosts?

Do people believe they have encountered an angel because they believe in angels?  Or because there are angels?

Do people see exterrestrial spacecraft or beings because they believe they exist?  Or because they do exist?

And I think very often our faith comes from our religion whether that be theistic or based on other passions such as math or science.


----------



## Foxfyre

FA_Q2 said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Steelplate said:
> 
> 
> 
> ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.
> 
> I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes we have defense capabilities against human enemies.  But look at the USA, Canada, the countries of Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.  All highly technically advanced and successful and not one plotting to harm another people in any way.  And all living relatively peacefully within respective rule of law.
> 
> *We can clearly see that techological advancement and prosperity does not make a people more hostile to other people. * We can only hope that this is a universal truth if we are having extra terrestrial visitors.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> And there is your key.  Sure, advancement has ensured a more peaceful approach to our own kind because if it did not we would never have advanced.  It has also seen the complete subjugation of all other life on this planet.  We keep pets in cages and subject animals to some pretty horrific treatment in the food industry in order to feed the world.  Essentially, lesser life forms would not agree with your conclusion that we are far more peaceful.  That is exactly what we would be to an alien civilization that is capable of getting here  lesser.  I dont think that aliens would travel all this way for nothing be it resources, space for colonization, research or simple exploration.  Only the latter example might work out for us.
> 
> All in all, while I do not believe in the supernatural I do believe there is life out there other than us.  What I cannot agree with is the idea that it has visited us before or is currently visiting us now.  If they were here and wanted to remain unseen there is essentially no way that we would have seen them.  The technological gap would be breathtaking as they not only would need to break the speed of light, they would need to solve a thousand other needs for real space travel.  If they did not care about being seen, there would not be any question to their existence.  It would be obvious.
> 
> The accounts of abduction are even more off the charts.  Most of them involve a secrete message to save the world that somehow missed anyone of importance and ended up with the guy in the trailer park or they involve some sexual tryst with an alien/hybrid.  Really?  That makes ZERO sense.  Crop circles?  Sure, there are a ton of reasons that an alien would want to bend wheat.
> 
> Maybe cow mutilations because what the aliens really want is beef.
> 
> No, they are not here as far as I can tell.  My mother is a HUGE believer in aliens and I was subjected to all the conspiracy theories and alien UFOologists that you can find.  At the time, I believed in it all (young impressionable mind and all that).  When I was 10 I read a good book on the subject by Carl Sagan: A Demon Haunted World that really opened my eyes and got my critical thinking skills started.  He asked the one question that was avoided by everyone else: WHY?  If you can give me a good motivation for visitation and the occurrences that are attributed to them, perhaps I can start to agree again but the truth is, there are no fathomable reasons for ET to fly hundreds of light years to bend some wheat, cut up a cow and tell Johnny that we need to start recycling more.
> 
> If we do ever encounter a benevolent species I would imagine it would happen more like Contact or The Day The Earth Stood Still.
Click to expand...


Wow, a very well reasoned and constructed post.  Kudos.

Crop circles have already been pretty well debunked by those who have figured out how to make them and do.  Cattle mutilations have been less conclusive and who knows who has done that?  I do not for a minute think it was aliens, however, as it makes no sense to single out cattle.

But that brings us to the 'why'.  When we cannot fathom scientific technology that would allow the 'how' of them getting here in the first place, I can accept that we might not yet be evolved enough to grasp the 'why' either. So that is a question of course I have, but not one that particularly bothers me.   As for 'being seen' or 'not being seen', I could believe that they would at times choose to be seen, maybe to test how we would react to them?  I don't know.  But it is all fascinating to me.

Meanwhile those of us who have not encountered other beings or been aboard spacecraft are limited to the film versions of hostile visitors:  "War of the Worlds" or "Independence Day" versus friendly visitors:  "E.T." or "Close Encounters. . ." or "Star Man" or others.

Or we still have the conspiracy theories as you mention, not the least of which are some kind of bizarre government experiments at Area 51.


----------



## Dajjal

Nowdays it is immposible to look up into the sky and expect to see anything but human creations. Either you are seeing some kind of aircraft, or if you see strange things in the sky at night you are probably seeing space junk, or the space station.

But back in the days of sputnic one, I used to go out into the garden in Kent, England when the sputnic was reported to be passing over head. I saw the sputnic once, and it was quite bright, and it moved smoothly across the visible sky in a couple of minutes.

BUT! while I was looking for it, I noticed something else was moving. It looked like any other star, but it was slowly moving in relation to other stars. Then it stopped moving for a couple of minutes, then it moved off again very slowly. It took about twenty minutes to cross the night sky, and it stopped and started moving again in a regular pattern. I saw this phenomina twice on different nights while looking for the sputnic. The only other thing up there at that time was the U2 spy plane, and that could not stop.

Considering there was nothing up there that could stop moving and start again, at the time,  I have always wondered what it could have been. It was definately an unidentified flying object.


----------



## Foxfyre

Montrovant said:


> I'm pretty skeptical of most paranormal ideas.  Ghosts, telepathy, telekinesis, etc...I am of the opinion that most of the time, when people see something strange and unexplained, they put their own label to it without really having enough evidence.  I imagine that the vast majority of cases have a more mundane explanation, but because they are so rare or unusual, people who experience them believe in something supernatural, instead.  And let's face it, there are plenty of things in the natural world that can appear supernatural!
> 
> As far as alien life, I think there's a good chance it exists.  I don't know about intelligent life, but everything we have seen tells us the universe is vast almost beyond imagining.  If life could arise on earth, whether through natural, random occurrence or at the impetus of some intelligence, there's no reason to think it can't happen elsewhere.  It is also quite possible that there has been life elsewhere in the distant past that no longer exists, that we are currently the only life in the universe, and that life will spring up on other planets in the future.  Again, the vastness of the space and time involved make me question the reasoning of anyone who denies the possibility.
> 
> I don't especially think this planet has been visited by alien life.  Perhaps if some way were found to surpass the barrier of the speed of light, greatly surpass it, we might have intelligent visitors.  I don't know if that is taken into account often enough in this type of discussion; it could take ridiculously long periods of time to travel to other planets.  Even at the speed of light it would take any alien visitor about 4 years to get here from the closest star to us.  Much as I love sci-fi and want to see interstellar travel happen, it may be that the distances are to great and there is no way possible to traverse them in a reasonable timeframe.
> As to the many supposed UFO sightings, alien abductions, crop circles, and various other supposed examples of non-terrestrial life, none of them have been compelling to me.  I don't believe the people who say they have been abducted.  Sorry, I need more than someone's testimony to buy that idea.  With UFO's, again, the number of people who have supposedly seen alien craft seems ridiculous.  It makes this planet appear to be some kind of interstellar traffic light!  And again, I expect most or all such sightings have a more mundane, if perhaps unusual, explanation.



All you bring up are reasonable concepts to reasonable people.   Two schools of thought exist re the frequency of 'sightings', however.  Either the plethora of sightings and experiences speaks to a greater probability of visitations or it is the power of suggestion or some other such phenomenon.

I am reminded of many years ago, our rather elderly church nursery worker and a much younger good friend of mine, mother of three, were returning to our small northern Texas Panhandle town after a meeting they had attended in Amarillo.  Now these were about as normal, intelligent, reasonanbly well educated, and down to earth people as you would ever find anywhere.  Neither given to making up stories, both honest to a fault, and given to measured common sense.

Yet that day, when they were still about ten miles out, they both report a very large silver disc hovering over the wheat field of yet another church member family.  They slowed the car to get a better look.  They both report that the disc hovered for a short time--probably less than a minute--and then quickly rose high into the air and sped away vanishing in a few seconds.

Upon the report the farmer family went to the area in the field as they instructed and did find a disturbance in the wheat.

What was it?  They don't know.  I don't know.  But it is such things that would make a person a hard core believer.


----------



## Dajjal

As for spooky stuff, I was a regular visitor to spiritualist churches, and to trance lectures in the London headquarters, the spiritualist association, in Belgrave sq.

I also sat in two psychic developing circles myself. during the 1970s.

I have had many messages given to me by various different mediums in different churches up and down the country (England).

I had one message from a dead brother I did not know existed, until I got a message from him, and when I went home I asked my mother about him and she was shocked. She was not a spirtualist and had never been to the church, but never the less I had been told his name, and the exact circumstances of his death by a medium I had never seen before, who was visiting the church.

Over the years I also had many evidential messages from my grandparents ,who told me things the mediums giving me the message could not possibly have known.

Added to that I have always been able to feel psychic energy myself, and although I did not develop into a medium I did learn how to control my chakras, and close out negative feelings. I also learned how to seal my aura against unpleasant psychic feelings.


----------



## Foxfyre

Very interesting Dajjal.  So given your experience, of course you are a true believer.  I have talked with others who are equally true believers.

The closest to that sort of thing I have experienced is levitating a table during a seance as a kid and playing with a Ouiji board.  But even during those sessions, I was never convinced that somebody in the group was not manipulating the process rather than some summoned disembodied spirit.


----------



## Swagger

One constant throughtout this thread is the assumption that alien vessels that have visited and/or observed our planet/galaxy are 'manned', in the conventional sense. Who's to say that these extraterrestrial beings are only ahead of us in the sense that they're capable of sending unmanned craft out to probe and explore neighbouring galaxies, but haven't yet developed sufficient life support systems to accomodate a sentient crew? There could well be a number of extraterrestrail races that are well aware of our existence, and are in the process of collecting data on us and our planet, but haven't yet reached the level of technological advancement we assume would render them capable of visiting us in person.


----------



## Mr. Jones

Foxfyre said:


> IGetItAlready said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think it was Steven Hawking who pointed out that the most successful and advanced of earths inhabitants are those who kill others, implying that highly advanced extraterrestrial visitors, should they ever visit us, may likely NOT come in peace.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If Steven Hawkings did say that, all we have to do is look around us to see that his theory cannot be supported.  It is the most successful and technically advanced of Earth's inhabitants who are also the most peaceful and who have learned to live in harmony with each other more consistently than have most of the less successful and less technically advanced countries.
Click to expand...


Perhaps if or when the visitors do stop by, they will take into consideration that the intelligent Earthlings, that do not engage in wars and murder, need to be liberated from the ones that do and help us out a bit..

I have experienced some very strange things, paranormal if you will, lived in a haunted house where lights would go on and off, my kids saw a lady staring at them who had no feet, just floating, found a strange dead cat in the upstairs guest bedroom, sprawled out in the middle of bed, heard someone walking up and down the stairs, and even invited friends over to play cards and wait for this to happen and sure enough it did.
By this time we expected it, but it freaked them out, and they insisted we accompany them on a search of the whole house...
We called the police on several occasions thinking an intruder was in the house..
We also heard moaning coming from the basement many times...It was so creepy the hairs on my arm stood straight up..The kids would sleep in the living room..
Did some inquiry with locals and neighbors and found out the house was abandoned for years prior to a complete rehab, and that kids used the place to conduct "devil worship" parties...
There was a wooden door that opened to a storage room in the basement, and in it I found a machete that appeared to be bloodstained IMO...

When I was around 10, I was awakened and visited by the voice of a woman who was singing to me...I could feel her/its presence, right in my face and I was so terrified I completely soaked the bed.
My family and I were new tenants to the building and didn't know our neighbors.
I hung out with other kids on the block and we used to go to the local grocery store and ask old folks if we could help them with their grocery bags, for some change, and to my surprise, a strange looking old lady with extremely overdone makeup on, enlisted our services and she ended up living on the 2nd floor of our building.
The other kids were acting funny as we were walking with her stuff, and later they told me that she was a witch who kept chickens and rabbits and cats in her apt. in cages etc...

I spied on her through her kitchen window and sure enough that was true. She was weird. Can't say she was an actual witch or there was any connection to my singing lady experience....but....

One other time I was visiting my cousins and uncle, who was a jockey and was staying in the employee section of Arlington Park Race track in Illinois.
This was a few months before the 1971 fire that killed 26 horses.
We used to sneak in the stables and go and feed the horses hay and sugar cubes.
One night as we were walking back and crossing a big dark field, a bright light came from behind a tree line, shot up into the night sky, and illuminated us like a huge spot light. It seemed to hover over us as we looked up in shock, then we grabbed each other and tripped over ourselves as we ran with this light still on us. Looking up at it while trying to run from it as it followed us, it suddenly just flew higher into the sky and we watched it disappear straight up out of sight.....UFO? IDK... But it scared the crap out of us

So I'm a believer of the strange and paranormal, and I believe in the good force of God, so therefore I have to believe in the existence of its opposite as well. The battle between the 2 is all around us...


----------



## onecut39

Foxfyre said:


> SayMyName said:
> 
> 
> 
> This could be a great thread! Anyone listen to George Noory's Coast to Coast late night on the radio?
> 
> Home - Coast to Coast AM
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, when we were operating our business, I would be out and about keeping on site appointments during the day and then would do paper work or other activities into the wee hours of the morning many nights.  Beginning at 11 p.m. mountain time, to keep me company (and awake), we used to get Art Bell that was a fascinating mix of the odd, strange, unexplained.  And when Art handed the keys to Coast to Coast to George Noury and the weekend hosts, they brought a much different dimension but often just as interesting.
> 
> It is one of those programs you have to take with a huge grain of salt and healthy skepticism--I'm sure the hosts do too--but some of the things they report are fascinating.  And unexplainable.
Click to expand...


I listened to Art Bell for years.  I came to find his credibility stank. He was fun to listen to but I never found a thing he said about the paranormal to have any objective truth.

For about twenty years I tried very hard to believe is space visitors.  I read everything I could find.  This was before the internet and it was a lot tougher getting information.  I spent hours in the library and of course read all the popular books such as "Chariots of the Gods"

Ufos?  There are lots of strange things, most explainable, some not but always the underlying problem that there seems to be no reason for these actions.  Any UFO sighting I have ever heard of is a rather small craft.  Their actions, for the most part, lack any kind of plan or reason.  Where is the mother ship?  Perhaps cloaked like the Klingon vessels in "Startreck"?   

Bottom line?  It just isn't there.  Not that there are not some unexplainable things.  Personally I found the drawings is 'south america that can only be seen from great height, to be inexplicable.  It is also inexplicable why an alien would make such things.  They are primitive.  Like a cave drawing.

I am left with the conclusion that if something really is out there it surely does not think like we do and if they got here they have power sources we just dream about.

I don't think they are out there and I am glad.  There is no evidence to suppose that they would be  kind or beneficial.  The opposite would more likely be true.


----------



## onecut39

FA_Q2 said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Steelplate said:
> 
> 
> 
> ahhh...man. I hate to disagree with you...but we are still pretty barbaric. We just have ways of killing from a distance where it doesn't horrify the folks at home. But believe me, the people on the receiving end? They live it.
> 
> I think we've come a long way...but we still have a much longer way to go.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes we have defense capabilities against human enemies.  But look at the USA, Canada, the countries of Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.  All highly technically advanced and successful and not one plotting to harm another people in any way.  And all living relatively peacefully within respective rule of law.
> 
> *We can clearly see that techological advancement and prosperity does not make a people more hostile to other people. * We can only hope that this is a universal truth if we are having extra terrestrial visitors.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> And there is your key.  Sure, advancement has ensured a more peaceful approach to our own kind because if it did not we would never have advanced.  It has also seen the complete subjugation of all other life on this planet.  We keep pets in cages and subject animals to some pretty horrific treatment in the food industry in order to feed the world.  Essentially, lesser life forms would not agree with your conclusion that we are far more peaceful.  That is exactly what we would be to an alien civilization that is capable of getting here  lesser.  I dont think that aliens would travel all this way for nothing be it resources, space for colonization, research or simple exploration.  Only the latter example might work out for us.
> 
> All in all, while I do not believe in the supernatural I do believe there is life out there other than us.  What I cannot agree with is the idea that it has visited us before or is currently visiting us now.  If they were here and wanted to remain unseen there is essentially no way that we would have seen them.  The technological gap would be breathtaking as they not only would need to break the speed of light, they would need to solve a thousand other needs for real space travel.  If they did not care about being seen, there would not be any question to their existence.  It would be obvious.
> 
> The accounts of abduction are even more off the charts.  Most of them involve a secrete message to save the world that somehow missed anyone of importance and ended up with the guy in the trailer park or they involve some sexual tryst with an alien/hybrid.  Really?  That makes ZERO sense.  Crop circles?  Sure, there are a ton of reasons that an alien would want to bend wheat.
> 
> Maybe cow mutilations because what the aliens really want is beef.
> 
> No, they are not here as far as I can tell.  My mother is a HUGE believer in aliens and I was subjected to all the conspiracy theories and alien UFOologists that you can find.  At the time, I believed in it all (young impressionable mind and all that).  When I was 10 I read a good book on the subject by Carl Sagan: A Demon Haunted World that really opened my eyes and got my critical thinking skills started.  He asked the one question that was avoided by everyone else: WHY?  If you can give me a good motivation for visitation and the occurrences that are attributed to them, perhaps I can start to agree again but the truth is, there are no fathomable reasons for ET to fly hundreds of light years to bend some wheat, cut up a cow and tell Johnny that we need to start recycling more.
> 
> If we do ever encounter a benevolent species I would imagine it would happen more like Contact or The Day The Earth Stood Still.
Click to expand...


I agree.  I said about the same thing.  You said it first......and better.


----------



## Foxfyre

onecut39 said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> SayMyName said:
> 
> 
> 
> This could be a great thread! Anyone listen to George Noory's Coast to Coast late night on the radio?
> 
> Home - Coast to Coast AM
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, when we were operating our business, I would be out and about keeping on site appointments during the day and then would do paper work or other activities into the wee hours of the morning many nights.  Beginning at 11 p.m. mountain time, to keep me company (and awake), we used to get Art Bell that was a fascinating mix of the odd, strange, unexplained.  And when Art handed the keys to Coast to Coast to George Noury and the weekend hosts, they brought a much different dimension but often just as interesting.
> 
> It is one of those programs you have to take with a huge grain of salt and healthy skepticism--I'm sure the hosts do too--but some of the things they report are fascinating.  And unexplainable.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I listened to Art Bell for years.  I came to find his credibility stank. He was fun to listen to but I never found a thing he said about the paranormal to have any objective truth.
> 
> For about twenty years I tried very hard to believe is space visitors.  I read everything I could find.  This was before the internet and it was a lot tougher getting information.  I spent hours in the library and of course read all the popular books such as "Chariots of the Gods"
> 
> Ufos?  There are lots of strange things, most explainable, some not but always the underlying problem that there seems to be no reason for these actions.  Any UFO sighting I have ever heard of is a rather small craft.  Their actions, for the most part, lack any kind of plan or reason.  Where is the mother ship?  Perhaps cloaked like the Klingon vessels in "Startreck"?
> 
> Bottom line?  It just isn't there.  Not that there are not some unexplainable things.  Personally I found the drawings is 'south america that can only be seen from great height, to be inexplicable.  It is also inexplicable why an alien would make such things.  They are primitive.  Like a cave drawing.
> 
> I am left with the conclusion that if something really is out there it surely does not think like we do and if they got here they have power sources we just dream about.
> 
> I don't think they are out there and I am glad.  There is no evidence to suppose that they would be  kind or beneficial.  The opposite would more likely be true.
Click to expand...


Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods is a terrific read and made believers out of a lot of people.  That is until Clifford Wilson's Crash Go the Chariots systematically took Von Daniken's theories apart one by one.

What those of us who read both books were left  with was the sense that there were some truths or at least unexplained components in both, both authors stretched quite a bit to reach various conclusions, and neither were conclusive one way or the other.  But both make you think.


----------



## FA_Q2

Foxfyre said:


> But that brings us to the 'why'.  When we cannot fathom scientific technology that would allow the 'how' of them getting here in the first place, I can accept that we might not yet be evolved enough to grasp the 'why' either. So that is a question of course I have, but not one that particularly bothers me.   As for 'being seen' or 'not being seen', I could believe that they would at times choose to be seen, maybe to test how we would react to them?  I don't know.  But it is all fascinating to me.


That is possible but I cant buy this with the evedence that is out there.  Motivations can be mysterious but the world (and this case universe) tends to operate on the same basic principals.  There is more out there we dont know than we do though so anything is possible.



Foxfyre said:


> Or we still have the conspiracy theories as you mention, not the least of which are some kind of bizarre government experiments at Area 51.


I dont buy into much of the government as the answer either.  Sure, a lot of the sights in the sky near Edwards are experimental aircraft but the government is surprisingly bad at keeping a secret.  Of course, light itself can be pretty misleading.  We can see stars that are behind the sun, light can be bent and points of light can do all sorts of crazy things when subjected to a moving atmosphere of varying gasses.

There are things we cant explain.  Rather than trying to explain them with fantastical things like aliens I prefer simply to say they are unexplained.  Many of these things will never be explained.  It is fun to think of what they might be but, in the end, we just dont know


----------



## Dont Taz Me Bro

Foxfyre said:


> Dont Taz Me Bro said:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
Click to expand...


Well, I never said that they've necessarily visited us, just that they're out there somewhere and they don't have to be smarter than us.  It could be a planet of life no more intelligent than a cow.


----------



## FA_Q2

Dont Taz Me Bro said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dont Taz Me Bro said:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Well, I never said that they've necessarily visited us, just that they're out there somewhere and they don't have to be smarter than us.  It could be a planet of life no more intelligent than a cow.
Click to expand...


ET beef: its whats for dinner


----------



## Wiseacre

I don't think there's any doubt there is extraterrestrial life out there at all.   Most of it may well not be intelligent, and even less capable of interstellar travel.   Not impossible though.

The interesting question might be that if there is an intelligent ET out there that CAN travel through space, would they also be advanced enough not be to warlike conquerors.   Just because we are like that doesn't mean a far more advanced civilization would be.   Myself, I prefer to think that one day the human species will eventually find more productive and rewarding uses of it's time than violence, greed, and conquests.   I see no reason not to acknowledge the possibility that a more advanced species may have already done so.


----------



## Steelplate

interesting thought on ET life in regards to faith. If there is ET life out there...which I think we all tend to think there is. If that life is more intelligent than us, that either means God didn't create us first, or he did a better job with later creations. If they are less intelligent than us, then it means that God didn't stop with us.

very black and white, right?

Here's another thought...God designed a self replicating system in which life can flourish or not all on it's own...or even some combination of self replication/direct creation.

But then again...maybe I'm just exhausted and my brain has diarreah. Went to see Jackson Browne last night and didn'get home till after midnight and fell asleep after 1AM....gonna be a long day at work...sigh....


----------



## Noomi

I don't believe in angels, like the kind that appear to religious folk, but I do believe that sometimes, when people die, they have unfinished business on this earth, and stay until it is completed. I also believe that some people are unable to 'cross over' and need a helping hand.

I believe in other life forms, because IMO it is silly to think that with all the planets out there, ours is the only one occupied by life.


----------



## Dajjal

Noomi said:


> I don't believe in angels, like the kind that appear to religious folk, but I do believe that sometimes, when people die, they have unfinished business on this earth, and stay until it is completed. I also believe that some people are unable to 'cross over' and need a helping hand.
> 
> I believe in other life forms, because IMO it is silly to think that with all the planets out there, ours is the only one occupied by life.



So we finally agree on something. However spiritualists teach that there are angels, and they are a separate species to us, that never incarnate. Instead they work behind the scenes guiding human evolution. There are angels of karma who guide us into suitable reincarnations for the experience we need, and they are indifferent to whether they send us into a suffering life or not, as they know it is for the good of our souls.
But angels do not have wings and they travel instantly by willing it.

Here is the bit we agree on. People who die with unfinished buisness do hang around the earth, and they sometimes cannot cross over into the higher realms.

As for other lifeforms, they are us. We ourselves reincarnate on different planets in the universe, on worlds that are at a level of development that suits the needs of our soul.
So we are already out there on other planets , and we are all probably aliens.
Because at the present day there is great progress being made, and souls will flock to get the chance to incarnate here. There is probably a long queue of souls waiting to get the chance to incarnate on this planet at this time, and there has been since the begining of the 19th century. The world wars were a great chance for many people to settle karmic debts.


----------



## ItsjustmeIthink

Maybe we're living in a incomprehensibly complex computer simulation. In that situation "God" would be the programmer, no?


----------



## Foxfyre

Dont Taz Me Bro said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dont Taz Me Bro said:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a mathematical impossibility for extraterrestrials not to exist.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Impossibility?  I dont think so.  But improbability with a ratio so big none of us could even imagine it, yeah I think so.
> 
> Further if we are experiencing visitations from extra terrestrials, these would have to be beings so unimaginably technically advanced to our own civilization that they could probably do anything to us they wanted to do.  And the fact that they havent suggests to me that if they exist, they intend us no harm.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Well, I never said that they've necessarily visited us, just that they're out there somewhere and they don't have to be smarter than us.  It could be a planet of life no more intelligent than a cow.
Click to expand...


I know.  Just commenting on the mathematical aspect coupled of your post with my added thoughts of any E.T.s who have visited us if they have.  And there are a lot of perfectly normal, well adjusted, reasonably well educated, and mentally competent people who are convinced they have.


----------



## Foxfyre

ItsjustmeIthink said:


> Maybe we're living in a incomprehensibly complex computer simulation. In that situation "God" would be the programmer, no?



It is concepts like that, such as we find in the movie "The Matrix" that are fascinating to me.  Endless possibilities.  

Reminds me of my son proposing a thought that what if every particle we know beginning with atoms are actually their own universe populated with beings that are living inside ever larger universes populated with beings, and our own solar system is nothing more than an atom existing within a much larger one on a scale so large we can't even imagine?

Well of course we were just having fun with the concept, but I'll have to admit I have never thrown something into a sizzling hot skillet or tossed a log on the fire after that without that crossing my mind.   What if I just incinerated a billion universes?   

Seriously though, I am impressed with some of you who are already thiinking outside the box here with concepts, thoughts, maybes, what ifs etc.  Mostly it is just fun thinking about concepts, but greater truths have come from less.   Do the extra terrestrials have the ability of telepathy?  And are they gradually infusing our thought processes with larger concepts that we will recognize as truth once it hits us?

For the religious, many of us believe God/Holy Spirit operates in just that way.  And Jesus taught that what he did, greater things would we who believe do.  Maybe he had something much larger in mind that what we could understand at the time?   At any rate, the concept of angels and ghosts and signs and wonders have been around for a very very long time, long before Jesus,  and I can't believe such concepts all came entirely out of a vacuum.


----------



## Againsheila

Years ago, when we were stationed in Nebraska, you could see for miles.  We saw a light flying, it went up, across, down, across, up, across, down, across.  Next day it was in the newspaper that it was a weather balloon.  My father was in the Air Force and he said he didn't know of any weather balloons that could fly like that.  Hence, it is an unidentified aircraft.  Perhaps it was a military experiment, but wouldn't my father, an officer at the local airbase know about it?


----------



## Foxfyre

Againsheila said:


> Years ago, when we were stationed in Nebraska, you could see for miles.  We saw a light flying, it went up, across, down, across, up, across, down, across.  Next day it was in the newspaper that it was a weather balloon.  My father was in the Air Force and he said he didn't know of any weather balloons that could fly like that.  Hence, it is an unidentified aircraft.  Perhaps it was a military experiment, but wouldn't my father, an officer at the local airbase know about it?



Weather balloons seem to get a lot of credit for a lot of unexplained phenomenon.  

Steve Schiff (RIP) was the NM District #1 Congressional representative in the 1990's and was absolutely the more intelligent, most honest, most dedicated public servant of ANYBODY I have ever had the privilege to consider a national leader.  And I experienced real grief when cancer finally took him.

But when he was still well, at our request, he agreed to see what he could find out about the Roswell incident.  When he reported back to us, he said available records were very sketchy but all the considerable government investigation into the event was still sealed or had been destroyed.  The official government position is what crashed out there was a weather balloon.  Even a U.S. Congressman could not find out what really happened.

And those of us in New Mexico who have had occasion to meet or who know people who lived there at the time, we all know it was no weather balloon.  What it actually was?  Never admitted if it in fact was determined.


----------



## Noomi

Dajjal said:


> Noomi said:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't believe in angels, like the kind that appear to religious folk, but I do believe that sometimes, when people die, they have unfinished business on this earth, and stay until it is completed. I also believe that some people are unable to 'cross over' and need a helping hand.
> 
> I believe in other life forms, because IMO it is silly to think that with all the planets out there, ours is the only one occupied by life.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So we finally agree on something. However spiritualists teach that there are angels, and they are a separate species to us, that never incarnate. Instead they work behind the scenes guiding human evolution. There are angels of karma who guide us into suitable reincarnations for the experience we need, and they are indifferent to whether they send us into a suffering life or not, as they know it is for the good of our souls.
> But angels do not have wings and they travel instantly by willing it.
> 
> Here is the bit we agree on. People who die with unfinished buisness do hang around the earth, and they sometimes cannot cross over into the higher realms.
> 
> As for other lifeforms, they are us. We ourselves reincarnate on different planets in the universe, on worlds that are at a level of development that suits the needs of our soul.
> So we are already out there on other planets , and we are all probably aliens.
> Because at the present day there is great progress being made, and souls will flock to get the chance to incarnate here. There is probably a long queue of souls waiting to get the chance to incarnate on this planet at this time, and there has been since the begining of the 19th century. The world wars were a great chance for many people to settle karmic debts.
Click to expand...


I had to pos rep you for that post. I like it when someone agrees with me.


----------



## Foxfyre

I was driving home from work one afternoon in heavy traffic.  For reasons unimportant to the story I had had very little sleep the night before and I was very tired and fighting the urge to sleep.   The stop and go traffic was not helping.   At one point--I still remember the location--I felt like something was shaking me and I snapped awake just in in time to brake and avoid hitting the stopped car ahead of me.   I still had the strong impression of a warm hand print on my shoulder.  There was nobody in the car with me.

The only explanation for that is a guardian angel?


----------



## Foxfyre

Amused at the ad at the top of the page when I came into this thread this morning:  "Live Psychic Readings 3 free minutes"


----------



## CandySlice

.Hamlet:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.


----------



## Dajjal

About twenty five years ago someone undid the brakes on my motorcycle, while it was parked in a sidestreet. I came back to my bike and tried to pull in the clutch, but the cable was sticky.

Then it came into my mind, like an idea from nowhere, that I should check all the brakes.
That idea probably saved me from either death or serious injury, because someone had ondone my back brake rod. I had an aggressive riding style, and normally I would have driven to the end of the road at a lick, and pulled up sharply at the cross roads. But with no back brake I would probably have gone straight out into the crossroads, and been hit broadside on by oncoming traffic.

To this day I do not know what warned me to check my brakes, but I tend to think it was a telepathic message from the spirit world. And it probably saved me from death or serious injury.


----------



## Foxfyre

Dajjal said:


> About twenty five years ago someone undid the brakes on my motorcycle, while it was parked in a sidestreet. I came back to my bike and tried to pull in the clutch, but the cable was sticky.
> 
> Then it came into my mind, like an idea from nowhere, that I should check all the brakes.
> That idea probably saved me from either death or serious injury, because someone had ondone my back brake rod. I had an aggressive riding style, and normally I would have driven to the end of the road at a lick, and pulled up sharply at the cross roads. But with no back brake I would probably have gone straight out into the crossroads, and been hit broadside on by oncoming traffic.
> 
> To this day I do not know what warned me to check my brakes, but I tend to think it was a telepathic message from the spirit world. And it probably saved me from death or serious injury.



Thanks for sharing this.  I have no explanation for why we don't always receive such messages from the 'other world', why they are inconsistent, why everybody doesn't get them, but I have experienced them myself or have heard so many stories like yours, that I simply cannot just shrug them off or dismiss them as irrelevent.  I have to believe there is something there.


----------



## Old Rocks

Foxfyre said:


> One place of interest in this category is the old historic, St. James Hotel in the Village of Cimarron in Northern New Mexico.  It boasts a long history and current hauntings by various spirits who still call the hotel home.  It has been researched by many paranormal experts, including the popular Ghost Hunters, and all have declared the activity to be detectable.
> 
> I have been there numerous times, and have never witnessed anything out of the ordinary.  But I've never booked a room and spent the night either.



Spent a night there, and the only thing that I noticed was how uncomfortable the couch was because my 12 year old daughter listened to all the ghost stories, and insisted on sleeping with her mom, didn't care where I slept.


----------



## Foxfyre

Old Rocks said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> One place of interest in this category is the old historic, St. James Hotel in the Village of Cimarron in Northern New Mexico.  It boasts a long history and current hauntings by various spirits who still call the hotel home.  It has been researched by many paranormal experts, including the popular Ghost Hunters, and all have declared the activity to be detectable.
> 
> I have been there numerous times, and have never witnessed anything out of the ordinary.  But I've never booked a room and spent the night either.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Spent a night there, and the only thing that I noticed was how uncomfortable the couch was because my 12 year old daughter listened to all the ghost stories, and insisted on sleeping with her mom, didn't care where I slept.
Click to expand...


So nothing out of the ordinary?  Nothing that went bump in the night?  Did any of those related 'ghost stories' at least give you pause for thought?


----------



## Againsheila

Foxfyre said:


> I was driving home from work one afternoon in heavy traffic.  For reasons unimportant to the story I had had very little sleep the night before and I was very tired and fighting the urge to sleep.   The stop and go traffic was not helping.   At one point--I still remember the location--I felt like something was shaking me and I snapped awake just in in time to brake and avoid hitting the stopped car ahead of me.   I still had the strong impression of a warm hand print on my shoulder.  There was nobody in the car with me.
> 
> The only explanation for that is a guardian angel?



I'll go with that.  Ever since my little brother passed, whenever I go visit my big brother, I feel my little brother with me, telling me to go his way, it's faster.


----------



## Againsheila

Foxfyre said:


> Amused at the ad at the top of the page when I came into this thread this morning:  "Live Psychic Readings 3 free minutes"



timing is everything.


----------



## Wiseacre

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. 

William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5


Personally, I do not casually accept or dismiss that which I do not understand or experience.


----------



## Foxfyre

Wiseacre said:


> There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
> Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
> 
> William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5
> 
> 
> Personally, I do not casually accept or dismiss that which I do not understand or experience.



And with that I bet you have a whole lot more fun than those who dismiss anything that is paranormal, spiritual, etc.  I certainly don't buy all the stuff I read about or is told to me or see on TV.  But for me, an open mind on all things makes life much more interesting and ripe with possibilities.

For instance two friends of mine, about my age, a few years ago took charge of an old, historic house overlooking a great ocean view.   He is a retired PhD physicist; she a retired PhD Professor of European History.   Both pretty agnostic.  Neither given to making up stories or notions of fantasy of any kind.   After a couple of weeks of living there, she finally admitted to him that she had several times seen a rather transparant apparition that she described as a man in gardener's clothing.  The only explanation she had for it was a 'ghost'.   He then admitted to her that he had twice encountered the same being in the hallways of the house.  It made no sound, it only appeared for a short time each time, but it was obviously aware of them because he had raised his hand to acknowledge our friend when they met in the hall.  It was so real that Andy stepped aside to allow it to pass.   They did not feel any fear from this experience and had no sense that the 'ghost' intended them any harm.

I believe they saw what they report.


----------



## Againsheila

Foxfyre said:


> Wiseacre said:
> 
> 
> 
> There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
> Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
> 
> William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5
> 
> 
> Personally, I do not casually accept or dismiss that which I do not understand or experience.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And with that I bet you have a whole lot more fun than those who dismiss anything that is paranormal, spiritual, etc.  I certainly don't buy all the stuff I read about or is told to me or see on TV.  But for me, an open mind on all things makes life much more interesting and ripe with possibilities.
> 
> For instance two friends of mine, about my age, a few years ago took charge of an old, historic house overlooking a great ocean view.   He is a retired PhD physicist; she a retired PhD Professor of European History.   Both pretty agnostic.  Neither given to making up stories or notions of fantasy of any kind.   After a couple of weeks of living there, she finally admitted to him that she had several times seen a rather transparant apparition that she described as a man in gardener's clothing.  The only explanation she had for it was a 'ghost'.   He then admitted to her that he had twice encountered the same being in the hallways of the house.  It made no sound, it only appeared for a short time each time, but it was obviously aware of them because he had raised his hand to acknowledge our friend when they met in the hall.  It was so real that Andy stepped aside to allow it to pass.   They did not feel any fear from this experience and had no sense that the 'ghost' intended them any harm.
> 
> I believe they saw what they report.
Click to expand...


My sister had a maid that worked in some old homes in Tacoma.  In one of them, there was always a chair facing toward the window.  She'd turn it to face the room and before she was finished cleaning in the room, the chair was turned back toward the window.  One day the maid got an idea, when she entered the room, she said aloud "I have to clean in her now, I'd appreciated it if you'd leave until I finish."  She says she felt something go past her.  She cleaned the room without incident, then said aloud "Okay, I'm done" and she felt it go past her again, and the chair moved while she was watching it, to face the window again.  At least, that's her story.


----------



## peach174

I had a girlfriend that was about 30 years older than me. Her name was Ester.
We had met when I joined the VFW and became very good friends almost immediately.
She was quite a character and everyone at the VFW loved her. She was always making us smile.
She died about 10 years ago.

At the VFW, we have the Ladies Auxiliary meeting once every month. Ester would always sit in the same spot every single month. It was her spot.
Right after she died, we had our Aux. meeting ,(it was about 1 week later) and the light that was above where she always sat, would start to blink on and off. We told the men about it and they told us that they had just changed that light. They moved the bulb to another one to test it out, it worked just fine. They moved it back,it worked just fine.
We started our meeting and the light started blinking on and off again and did this throughout the whole meeting. We all joked about it and said it had to be Ester.This happened for months at each meeting. After the meeting was over it stopped blinking.
It never blinked when we had any other events in the back hall.
We have Bingo back there twice a week on Tue. and Sun.,the light was just fine. It only blinked like that at our Aux. meeting.

Wait - it gets even more weird.

Ester smoked a certain brand of cigarettes and the whole thing was white. She also wore a certain brand of lipstick, so the butt of her cigarette was red from that lipstick when she put her cigarette out.
We have a room that is always locked up, because it has all of the bingo supplies in there.
My husband was the Bingo manager and he smokes. So after each Bingo game was over he would clean the ash tray and set it back in the bingo supply room and lock it up. He was the only one who had the key to that room.
At the next Bingo game, he opened the room up and saw several white cigarette butts in his ashtray, with Ester's red lipstick on the butts. He knew darn good and well that he had cleaned that ashtray before he locked that room up. What was really strange was there was no ash, just red lipstick butts.
This also went on for several moths and he would show it to us. Again we all joked and said it was Ester.

I had my own experience with her.
She use to love picking up a strand of my hair in the back of my head and feel it.
She said it reminded her of her daughter's hair when she was a baby. Her daughter lived back east, so every time I would go into the VFW, she would get up from where she was sitting, take a strand of my hair and feel it ,then she would go back and sit down. 
I didn't like it very much, but it gave her great joy and comfort so I let her do it.
About two weeks after she died, I was sitting at the Bar in the VFW and I felt a piece of my hair being lifted up and then set back down. I felt electricity go through that strand of hair. It was really such a strange feeling. The guy that was sitting next to me saw it being lifted up and his eyes got really big. I said "What was that"? He said "I don't know".
I then said, I knew, it had to be Ester. 
Ester haunted our VFW for about a year and then nothing from her, she had moved on.


----------



## there4eyeM

If you think of earth as a kind of 'capsule' spinning through space, then I have to say, yeah, I sometimes feel I'm on an alien 'vessel'.


----------



## Foxfyre

Ghosthunters has become one of the most popular cable television shows and I have watched from time to time.  It does raise questions why the 'ghost hunting' has to be done in the dark?  Why do they have to spend a night?  Why wouldn't ghosts be active in the daytime?

I confess that I have often thought the stuff on that show to be really contrived.  But some thngs, if they are the real deal, are amazing.  Like the ghosts who turn on a flash light on cue.  But why must that be in a darkened room?

And then I real that 'real' ghost hunters despise the show?

I honestly don't know what to think.  I confess some skepticism.  At the same time, I keep an open mind about 'ghosts'.


----------



## Meister

*Moved per Foxfyre's request.*


----------



## Quantum Windbag

Foxfyre said:


> Ghosthunters has become one of the most popular cable television shows and I have watched from time to time.  It does raise questions why the 'ghost hunting' has to be done in the dark?  Why do they have to spend a night?  Why wouldn't ghosts be active in the daytime?
> 
> I confess that I have often thought the stuff on that show to be really contrived.  But some thngs, if they are the real deal, are amazing.  Like the ghosts who turn on a flash light on cue.  But why must that be in a darkened room?
> 
> And then I real that 'real' ghost hunters despise the show?
> 
> I honestly don't know what to think.  I confess some skepticism.  At the same time, I keep an open mind about 'ghosts'.



Everything on that show is faked.


----------



## jan

ItsjustmeIthink said:


> This makes me think of that one saying, sorry but I can't remember who said it or really how it went.
> 
> *But it was something like "If we're the only ones in the universe then space is a lot of wasted space" or something somewhat like that. Idk*
> I've always thought if space is infinite then there should also be an infinite possibility that other forms of life exist.



That saying is from the movie "Contact"...and I so agree with Jodi Foster!  It's an awful waste of space if there aren't any aliens.



Steelplate said:


> I don't necessarily believe in ghosts. I am a skeptic...but I am very much fascinated by the subject and would love to go on an investigation with a team. On the other hand, I don't dismiss the existence of them either...in fact, I'd love to have an experience that would erase all doubt as to the question of life after death. Don't get me wrong....I am a Christian, but since you have to die before you find out for sure...my faith doesn't exactly satisfy my curiosity or quite frankly, my fear.
> 
> As far as UFO's and/or extraterrestrial life? Sure, I believe that there is other life out there...perhaps even highly intelligent life. No where in the Bible does it say that God created us and only us, or even that we were his first creation.
> 
> Whether they have visited Earth? I don't know...I've never seen anything.
> 
> Just a note on my faith... I believe in God...maybe not the same way that Fundamentalists do though. *I believe that the concept of God is so beyond our intellectual and emotional grasp that even ideas like string theory and quantum science is only scratching the surface of the Creator's intellect. The more complex we find the Universe to be, the more convinced I am that there is indeed a God*.



I couldn't agree more!  

Doesn't string theory suggest that there are 11 dimensions rather than only the three we're aware of?  I wonder if perhaps these dimensions can cross over on given occassions?  I don't know...just food for thought.



Steelplate said:


> I love what you said about confirmation, leaning on faith and the fear of death. Makes sense.



I don't really fear death...I fear the pain I may have to go through leading up to death.  Shoot...give me the pain drugs!!!!!


----------



## Foxfyre

Thanks to Meister for moving this thread into the new Paranormal forum.  It was started in the CDZ and there may be intermittant mentions of that here and there in the thread, but it is better off here.

So QW is certain everthing on Ghosthunters is faked.  I'll have to admit some of it really does seem to be contrived or at least amplified into something more than is actually there, but I have read up on accounts reported by those who have actually been there and I have to believe that some phenomenon is occurring that is real.   I can't believe that everybody with famous places goes along with a deliberate hoax.

I still wonder though why ghost investigations can only be done at night in the dark.

Steelplate and I seem to share the same religion in that we do not confine God to anybody's prescribed theories of theology and understand that God is greater than any of us have intellect or words to understand or define.  And even when you combine all the intellect, education, and knowledge that has ever existed on Earth, we know only a teensy fraction of all that there is to know.   That is why I hope we are being visited by extraterrestrials because if they are here, they obviously intend us no harm and they would have to be so much more advanced than we are, they would have so much to teach us when we are ready.  (I'm assuming that since they are still keeping their distance that they know we aren't yet ready.)

And I think fear of death is a defense mechanism programmed into the human animal.  There is obviously some purpose to our living our lives, and if we had no fear of ending them, we would have much less incentive and determination in getting ourselves through the sometimes awful things we experience.


----------



## Quantum Windbag

Foxfyre said:


> Thanks to Meister for moving this thread into the new Paranormal forum.  It was started in the CDZ and there may be intermittant mentions of that here and there in the thread, but it is better off here.
> 
> So QW is certain everthing on Ghosthunters is faked.  I'll have to admit some of it really does seem to be contrived or at least amplified into something more than is actually there, but I have read up on accounts reported by those who have actually been there and I have to believe that some phenomenon is occurring that is real.   I can't believe that everybody with famous places goes along with a deliberate hoax.
> 
> I still wonder though why ghost investigations can only be done at night in the dark.
> 
> Steelplate and I seem to share the same religion in that we do not confine God to anybody's prescribed theories of theology and understand that God is greater than any of us have intellect or words to understand or define.  And even when you combine all the intellect, education, and knowledge that has ever existed on Earth, we know only a teensy fraction of all that there is to know.   That is why I hope we are being visited by extraterrestrials because if they are here, they obviously intend us no harm and they would have to be so much more advanced than we are, they would have so much to teach us when we are ready.  (I'm assuming that since they are still keeping their distance that they know we aren't yet ready.)
> 
> And I think fear of death is a defense mechanism programmed into the human animal.  There is obviously some purpose to our living our lives, and if we had no fear of ending them, we would have much less incentive and determination in getting ourselves through the sometimes awful things we experience.



Simple enough, pick any single thing from Ghost Hunters, post a video, and I will tell you how they did it.


----------



## Foxfyre

Quantum Windbag said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks to Meister for moving this thread into the new Paranormal forum.  It was started in the CDZ and there may be intermittant mentions of that here and there in the thread, but it is better off here.
> 
> So QW is certain everthing on Ghosthunters is faked.  I'll have to admit some of it really does seem to be contrived or at least amplified into something more than is actually there, but I have read up on accounts reported by those who have actually been there and I have to believe that some phenomenon is occurring that is real.   I can't believe that everybody with famous places goes along with a deliberate hoax.
> 
> I still wonder though why ghost investigations can only be done at night in the dark.
> 
> Steelplate and I seem to share the same religion in that we do not confine God to anybody's prescribed theories of theology and understand that God is greater than any of us have intellect or words to understand or define.  And even when you combine all the intellect, education, and knowledge that has ever existed on Earth, we know only a teensy fraction of all that there is to know.   That is why I hope we are being visited by extraterrestrials because if they are here, they obviously intend us no harm and they would have to be so much more advanced than we are, they would have so much to teach us when we are ready.  (I'm assuming that since they are still keeping their distance that they know we aren't yet ready.)
> 
> And I think fear of death is a defense mechanism programmed into the human animal.  There is obviously some purpose to our living our lives, and if we had no fear of ending them, we would have much less incentive and determination in getting ourselves through the sometimes awful things we experience.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Simple enough, pick any single thing from Ghost Hunters, post a video, and I will tell you how they did it.
Click to expand...


Naw, if it is improtant to you, you can do that.  While I do not fault you for your skepticism or disbelief, and acknowledge that you indeed could be right, I simply don't care enough to bother worrying about what is real and what isn't.  I just apply logic that if it was all fake, the program would not have been as successful or long lived as it has been and there would be a lot ore people exposing the hoax.   And I also go with what I believe to be reliable and honest accounts of what appears to be paranormal activity related by others in different contexts and just include it all in a growing store of reported experience and knowledge.


----------



## Quantum Windbag

Foxfyre said:


> Quantum Windbag said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks to Meister for moving this thread into the new Paranormal forum.  It was started in the CDZ and there may be intermittant mentions of that here and there in the thread, but it is better off here.
> 
> So QW is certain everthing on Ghosthunters is faked.  I'll have to admit some of it really does seem to be contrived or at least amplified into something more than is actually there, but I have read up on accounts reported by those who have actually been there and I have to believe that some phenomenon is occurring that is real.   I can't believe that everybody with famous places goes along with a deliberate hoax.
> 
> I still wonder though why ghost investigations can only be done at night in the dark.
> 
> Steelplate and I seem to share the same religion in that we do not confine God to anybody's prescribed theories of theology and understand that God is greater than any of us have intellect or words to understand or define.  And even when you combine all the intellect, education, and knowledge that has ever existed on Earth, we know only a teensy fraction of all that there is to know.   That is why I hope we are being visited by extraterrestrials because if they are here, they obviously intend us no harm and they would have to be so much more advanced than we are, they would have so much to teach us when we are ready.  (I'm assuming that since they are still keeping their distance that they know we aren't yet ready.)
> 
> And I think fear of death is a defense mechanism programmed into the human animal.  There is obviously some purpose to our living our lives, and if we had no fear of ending them, we would have much less incentive and determination in getting ourselves through the sometimes awful things we experience.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Simple enough, pick any single thing from Ghost Hunters, post a video, and I will tell you how they did it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Naw, if it is improtant to you, you can do that.  While I do not fault you for your skepticism or disbelief, and acknowledge that you indeed could be right, I simply don't care enough to bother worrying about what is real and what isn't.  I just apply logic that if it was all fake, the program would not have been as successful or long lived as it has been and there would be a lot ore people exposing the hoax.   And I also go with what I believe to be reliable and honest accounts of what appears to be paranormal activity related by others in different contexts and just include it all in a growing store of reported experience and knowledge.
Click to expand...


My problem with shows like that is the way they shine laser pointers around and then act like they are seeing ghosts. I remember one clip from an early ghost hunting documentary where they hung up a mirrored ball and filmed the reflected light on the walls claiming it proved that ghosts are real. Ghost hunters carries on in the same tradition.


----------



## Caroljo

Yes...that can happen.  However, seeing their grandmother didn't scare them...but the bang on her bedroom door could have been something else.


----------



## April

SayMyName said:


> This could be a great thread! Anyone listen to George Noory's Coast to Coast late night on the radio?
> 
> Home - Coast to Coast AM



It's been a while...but yes, I am familiar with the show. 
Before my system crashed I had it saved as a fave.


----------



## April

Quantum Windbag said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Ghosthunters has become one of the most popular cable television shows and I have watched from time to time.  It does raise questions why the 'ghost hunting' has to be done in the dark?  Why do they have to spend a night?  Why wouldn't ghosts be active in the daytime?
> 
> I confess that I have often thought the stuff on that show to be really contrived.  But some thngs, if they are the real deal, are amazing.  Like the ghosts who turn on a flash light on cue.  But why must that be in a darkened room?
> 
> And then I real that 'real' ghost hunters despise the show?
> 
> I honestly don't know what to think.  I confess some skepticism.  At the same time, I keep an open mind about 'ghosts'.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Everything on that show is faked.
Click to expand...


I agree with QW...and it's not just that show (about ghosthunting) either.


----------



## RetiredGySgt

There are no ghosts, no sooth sayers or paranormal people. Satan is responsible for all that stuff.

I seriously doubt we have been visited by Extraterrestrials but I also seriously doubt we are the only planet with intelligent life on it.

I think the Government should research and investigate any report of such activity.


----------



## ABikerSailor

RetiredGySgt said:


> There are no ghosts, no sooth sayers or paranormal people. Satan is responsible for all that stuff.
> 
> I seriously doubt we have been visited by Extraterrestrials but I also seriously doubt we are the only planet with intelligent life on it.
> 
> I think the Government should research and investigate any report of such activity.



Paranormal people are that way only because of Satan?  Really?

I think Jesus would beg to differ with you on that.


----------



## RetiredGySgt

ABikerSailor said:


> RetiredGySgt said:
> 
> 
> 
> There are no ghosts, no sooth sayers or paranormal people. Satan is responsible for all that stuff.
> 
> I seriously doubt we have been visited by Extraterrestrials but I also seriously doubt we are the only planet with intelligent life on it.
> 
> I think the Government should research and investigate any report of such activity.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Paranormal people are that way only because of Satan?  Really?
> 
> I think Jesus would beg to differ with you on that.
Click to expand...


Satan provides the voices , the visions and the apparitions. The Bible is clear, when you die you are as asleep, you know nothing, feel nothing and can not "communicate" with anyone.No one but Jesus has ascended to Heaven and even on Judgement day only 144000 will ascend, the rest will be given restored bodies to live on a restored Earth.

If a "dead" person is talking to you and you are not insane, then it is Satan or his minions lying to the person as to who they are. That too is in the Bible, Satan rules Earth until Armageddon. He has no corporal body he uses deceit lies and falsehood to confuse and turn people to his ways.

The Bible also states that soothsayers, fortunetellers and those that speak to the dead are being used by Satan.

Perhaps you should read it, or maybe reread it since you obviously don't know what it says.


----------



## ABikerSailor

RetiredGySgt said:


> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> RetiredGySgt said:
> 
> 
> 
> There are no ghosts, no sooth sayers or paranormal people. Satan is responsible for all that stuff.
> 
> I seriously doubt we have been visited by Extraterrestrials but I also seriously doubt we are the only planet with intelligent life on it.
> 
> I think the Government should research and investigate any report of such activity.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Paranormal people are that way only because of Satan?  Really?
> 
> I think Jesus would beg to differ with you on that.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Satan provides the voices , the visions and the apparitions. The Bible is clear, when you die you are as asleep, you know nothing, feel nothing and can not "communicate" with anyone.No one but Jesus has ascended to Heaven and even on Judgement day only 144000 will ascend, the rest will be given restored bodies to live on a restored Earth.
> 
> If a "dead" person is talking to you and you are not insane, then it is Satan or his minions lying to the person as to who they are. That too is in the Bible, Satan rules Earth until Armageddon. He has no corporal body he uses deceit lies and falsehood to confuse and turn people to his ways.
> 
> The Bible also states that soothsayers, fortunetellers and those that speak to the dead are being used by Satan.
> 
> Perhaps you should read it, or maybe reread it since you obviously don't know what it says.
Click to expand...


What about all the prophets like Moses?  They heard voices (Abraham heard God), as well as were given visions.  Did those come from Satan as well?

I thought it was God that talked to the prophets.


----------



## Grandma

RetiredGySgt, 

No. It isn't Satan. For that to be remotely possible Satan would have to have the ability to be in several places globally at once, moving, speaking (in that location's native language,) looking and dressing differently...

I don't want to harsh your Jesus buzz, but I've made great study of religions, and anytime that Satan is pretending to be a ghost argument comes up it's always a case of that particular sect trying to exert too much control over the parishioners. 

Joel 2:28
King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions


----------



## konradv

I clicked that I believe in extra-terrestrial beings, but I don't believe they've ever been here.  I do support research, though.


----------



## editec

Sadly there's so many hoaxes out there that if there's any REAL evidence, it gets painted with the same broad DUBIOUS brush.


Of course I believe that there is life, intelligent life, in the universe.


As to whether it has visited Earth?


Well maybe.

But to be perfetly honest give the distances between stars I'd be AS inclined to believe that TIME TRAVELORS are visiting us as ALIENS.

After all, it seems likely that if one can travel between the stars one will likely have also found a way to beat the clock.


----------



## Foxfyre

editec said:


> Sadly there's so many hoaxes out there that if there's any REAL evidence, it gets painted with the same broad DUBIOUS brush.
> 
> 
> Of course I believe that there is life, intelligent life, in the universe.
> 
> 
> As to whether it has visited Earth?
> 
> 
> Well maybe.
> 
> But to be perfetly honest give the distances between stars I'd be AS inclined to believe that TIME TRAVELORS are visiting us as ALIENS.
> 
> After all, it seems likely that if one can travel between the stars one will likely have also found a way to beat the clock.



Einstein proved that time travel was theoretically possible and that our concept of time via the clock would accommodate it.  But then again, if you are religious, it is logical that the God who is author of it all, including time and space, would not be constrained by the same 'clock' that is imposed on us mere mortals.

But even if we go with our more mundane concept of physics, is the possibility of hyper-warp speeds so impossible?  Is that any more implausible to us than a concept of mach speeds would have been to those traversing the country in Conestoga wagons?

Two of my favorite movies provide food for thought.  One Spielberg movie "Always" has the newly deceased character played by Richard Dreyfus receiving preliminary instructions from an experienced guiding angel, and as they move from place to place, the time frame shifts.  She explains "Time is funny stuff, Pete."

The other "Final Countdown" is a decent sci-fi flick in which the concept is the aircraft carrier Nimitz at sea in 1981 passing through a time warp and finding itself in 1941 shortly before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.  The Nimitz alone had the fire power to destroy the entire Japanese fleet and the plot was in part the decision of whether to do that and thereby alter history and what the ramifications of that would be.

But the most interesting thing was:
1.  Mr. Tideman, the contractor who designed the Nimitz, sees his employee, Warren Lasky, an efficiency expert, off at Pearl Harbor.  Lasky is flown to the Nimitz as it embarks on some routine maneuvers.  Lasky has never met Mr. Tideman.
2.  On board the Nimitz, Lasky meets Commander Owens, the chief pilot in charge of air operations.
3.  Just before the Nimitz can effect an attack on the Japanese fleet, the time warp reclaims the Nimitz and returns it to the 20th Century.  Due to a plot twist, Commander Owen is left behind in 1941.
4.  As Lasky leaves the Nimitz he is greeted by Mr. Tideman who now invites him into his Limousine and Lasky discovers that Mr. Tideman is Commander Owen who is now 40 years older.

So okay, you can think of how advantageous it would be to us to be able to go back 40 years and relive them with the knowledge we have now.   But also, Owens/Tideman also existed simultaneously as the 30 something year old Owens and as the 70 something year old Tideman.   And it is that I can't quite wrap my mind around in the concept of time travel.


----------



## Foxfyre

LOL, well apparently that last post was a thread killer.

But the phone just rang and before I picked up the receiver, I had a sudden memory of a friend I haven't communicated with in any form for more than 40 years.   Hadn't even thought of in decades.  And it was that friend on the phone.

These kinds of phenomena really make you think about things not always being confined to the five senses.


----------



## ABikerSailor

Foxfyre said:


> LOL, well apparently that last post was a thread killer.
> 
> But the phone just rang and before I picked up the receiver, I had a sudden memory of a friend I haven't communicated with in any form for more than 40 years.   Hadn't even thought of in decades.  And it was that friend on the phone.
> 
> These kinds of phenomena really make you think about things not always being confined to the five senses.



Actually, they're not...................

Ever notice that there are some people who have lived together for 20 plus years, and they can carry on a conversation without even saying a word?

How about thinking of someone (like you did with your phone call), and they suddenly show up at your house?

Ever notice that you can sit across a room from someone who ISN'T looking at you, start staring at the back of their head, and within a short amount of time, they turn around and look at you?

How about when you're walking down the street, and even though you're not looking at people, you can feel them looking at you?

All of that is rudimentary telepathy.  And yeah.............it's real.  I can even prove it.


----------



## Foxfyre

ABikerSailor said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> LOL, well apparently that last post was a thread killer.
> 
> But the phone just rang and before I picked up the receiver, I had a sudden memory of a friend I haven't communicated with in any form for more than 40 years.   Hadn't even thought of in decades.  And it was that friend on the phone.
> 
> These kinds of phenomena really make you think about things not always being confined to the five senses.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, they're not...................
> 
> Ever notice that there are some people who have lived together for 20 plus years, and they can carry on a conversation without even saying a word?
> 
> How about thinking of someone (like you did with your phone call), and they suddenly show up at your house?
> 
> Ever notice that you can sit across a room from someone who ISN'T looking at you, start staring at the back of their head, and within a short amount of time, they turn around and look at you?
> 
> How about when you're walking down the street, and even though you're not looking at people, you can feel them looking at you?
> 
> All of that is rudimentary telepathy.  And yeah.............it's real.  I can even prove it.
Click to expand...


All good points.  It all is just more evidence to me that there is so much more to know than what we already know.  And the wisest people keep an open mind about everything  You can have an open mind without being a believer.


----------



## ABikerSailor

Foxfyre said:


> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> LOL, well apparently that last post was a thread killer.
> 
> But the phone just rang and before I picked up the receiver, I had a sudden memory of a friend I haven't communicated with in any form for more than 40 years.   Hadn't even thought of in decades.  And it was that friend on the phone.
> 
> These kinds of phenomena really make you think about things not always being confined to the five senses.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, they're not...................
> 
> Ever notice that there are some people who have lived together for 20 plus years, and they can carry on a conversation without even saying a word?
> 
> How about thinking of someone (like you did with your phone call), and they suddenly show up at your house?
> 
> Ever notice that you can sit across a room from someone who ISN'T looking at you, start staring at the back of their head, and within a short amount of time, they turn around and look at you?
> 
> How about when you're walking down the street, and even though you're not looking at people, you can feel them looking at you?
> 
> All of that is rudimentary telepathy.  And yeah.............it's real.  I can even prove it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> All good points.  It all is just more evidence to me that there is so much more to know than what we already know.  And the wisest people keep an open mind about everything  You can have an open mind without being a believer.
Click to expand...


Interestingly enough, telepathy and prophecy are 2 "senses" of the soul, according to Judaic beliefs.


----------



## Montrovant

ABikerSailor said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> LOL, well apparently that last post was a thread killer.
> 
> But the phone just rang and before I picked up the receiver, I had a sudden memory of a friend I haven't communicated with in any form for more than 40 years.   Hadn't even thought of in decades.  And it was that friend on the phone.
> 
> These kinds of phenomena really make you think about things not always being confined to the five senses.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, they're not...................
> 
> Ever notice that there are some people who have lived together for 20 plus years, and they can carry on a conversation without even saying a word?
> 
> How about thinking of someone (like you did with your phone call), and they suddenly show up at your house?
> 
> Ever notice that you can sit across a room from someone who ISN'T looking at you, start staring at the back of their head, and within a short amount of time, they turn around and look at you?
> 
> How about when you're walking down the street, and even though you're not looking at people, you can feel them looking at you?
> 
> All of that is rudimentary telepathy.  And yeah.............it's real.  I can even prove it.
Click to expand...


I'd like to see such proof.  Telepathy requires an ability to both send and receive thoughts which we have, to my knowledge, not discovered any way to do in the human body.


----------



## Foxfyre

Montrovant said:


> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> LOL, well apparently that last post was a thread killer.
> 
> But the phone just rang and before I picked up the receiver, I had a sudden memory of a friend I haven't communicated with in any form for more than 40 years.   Hadn't even thought of in decades.  And it was that friend on the phone.
> 
> These kinds of phenomena really make you think about things not always being confined to the five senses.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, they're not...................
> 
> Ever notice that there are some people who have lived together for 20 plus years, and they can carry on a conversation without even saying a word?
> 
> How about thinking of someone (like you did with your phone call), and they suddenly show up at your house?
> 
> Ever notice that you can sit across a room from someone who ISN'T looking at you, start staring at the back of their head, and within a short amount of time, they turn around and look at you?
> 
> How about when you're walking down the street, and even though you're not looking at people, you can feel them looking at you?
> 
> All of that is rudimentary telepathy.  And yeah.............it's real.  I can even prove it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I'd like to see such proof.  Telepathy requires an ability to both send and receive thoughts which we have, to my knowledge, not discovered any way to do in the human body.
Click to expand...


And yet most of us have experienced it.   So when I call somebody and they know it is me before they pick up the phone, am I communicating via telepathy?  Or vice versa?   And Biker was relating those people who have been together so long and are so in tune with each other that they have actual conversations without saying a word?


----------



## ABikerSailor

Montrovant said:


> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> LOL, well apparently that last post was a thread killer.
> 
> But the phone just rang and before I picked up the receiver, I had a sudden memory of a friend I haven't communicated with in any form for more than 40 years.   Hadn't even thought of in decades.  And it was that friend on the phone.
> 
> These kinds of phenomena really make you think about things not always being confined to the five senses.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, they're not...................
> 
> Ever notice that there are some people who have lived together for 20 plus years, and they can carry on a conversation without even saying a word?
> 
> How about thinking of someone (like you did with your phone call), and they suddenly show up at your house?
> 
> Ever notice that you can sit across a room from someone who ISN'T looking at you, start staring at the back of their head, and within a short amount of time, they turn around and look at you?
> 
> How about when you're walking down the street, and even though you're not looking at people, you can feel them looking at you?
> 
> All of that is rudimentary telepathy.  And yeah.............it's real.  I can even prove it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I'd like to see such proof.  Telepathy requires an ability to both send and receive thoughts which we have, to my knowledge, not discovered any way to do in the human body.
Click to expand...


Actually, in some cases we have learned how to do that....................

Thought-Controlled Wheelchair Successfully Passed First Clinical Trials

And................there's a video game...................

Mind-Controlled Videogames Become Reality - WSJ.com

And, finally, just something to play around with................

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Mattel-P2639-Mindflex-Game/dp/B001UEUHCG]Amazon.com: Mindflex Game: Toys & Games[/ame]


And, you've heard of the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Chavez?  When he's talking about energy and power, he's really talking about focusing your energy and directing it towards the dog.

BTW...............the human brain generates 25 watts of power continually while you're alive.  Why else do you feel a "shock" of sorts when someone is staring you down?

Then, there's also the best friends who are so in tune with each other's energy that they often finish each others sentences as well as come up with the same thoughts at the same time.


----------



## Montrovant

None of that is proof of telepathy in any way.  Mechanical interfaces with the brain do not equal telepathy.  Nor do they show how humans have a way to receive and interpret the thoughts of another person.  Further, instances of supposed telepathy often seem to ignore physical constants, such as the speed of light (can thoughts travel instantaneously over any distance?).

As with pretty much any 'supernatural' events or experiences, there is a distinct lack of hard evidence.  Unless someone can show a transmitter/receptor for thoughts in the human body, can describe just how thoughts travel outside ourselves, I remain skeptical, at best, about human telepathy.


----------



## Foxfyre

Montrovant said:


> None of that is proof of telepathy in any way.  Mechanical interfaces with the brain do not equal telepathy.  Nor do they show how humans have a way to receive and interpret the thoughts of another person.  Further, instances of supposed telepathy often seem to ignore physical constants, such as the speed of light (can thoughts travel instantaneously over any distance?).
> 
> As with pretty much any 'supernatural' events or experiences, there is a distinct lack of hard evidence.  Unless someone can show a transmitter/receptor for thoughts in the human body, can describe just how thoughts travel outside ourselves, I remain skeptical, at best, about human telepathy.



Certainty is a very large word for any scientist.  And yet no scientist will insist that if we cannot 'prove' or 'demonstrate' or 'test' something at this time, then it doesn't exist.

And then there is phenomenon that some cannot explain.  The three AGT judges swear that they were NOT in on this stunt:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFbK7K4b_IU]Psychic Guesses the Judge&#39;s Drawings - America&#39;s Got Talent Season 7 - Eric Dittleman Audition - YouTube[/ame]


----------



## PredFan

I reject and notion of the paranormal. 

That said I believe that there is life on other planets, infact I'll be willing to bet that there is extraterrestrial life IN THIS SOLAR SYSTEM. I don't concider the subject of alien life or alien visitation to be "paranormal". I believe that that is a misuse of the word.


----------



## PredFan

The Amazing Randi has a million dollar or more prize still out there for anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities. No one has claimed it. The Amazing Randi is an accomplished magician and mentalist. Scammers know that they cannot get anything past him.


----------



## Dajjal

PredFan said:


> The Amazing Randi has a million dollar or more prize still out there for anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities. No one has claimed it. The Amazing Randi is an accomplished magician and mentalist. Scammers know that they cannot get anything past him.



True occultists and spiritualists are fully aware that it is never intended for us to have absolute proof of psychic powers, or the existence of God. We must evolve spiritually by free choice.

We are incarnate for experience sake, and we learn by trial and error over countless incarnations. Proof of the afterlife would take away the point of incarnating as we would no longer be free to act. We would be bound by fear of the consequences of self serving acts. Actions have a reaction, and according to spiritual philosophy we are accountable for everything we do, and this works itself out over many lifetimes. This is the way we evolve and it is a perfect, divine plan.


----------



## Foxfyre

PredFan said:


> The Amazing Randi has a million dollar or more prize still out there for anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities. No one has claimed it. The Amazing Randi is an accomplished magician and mentalist. Scammers know that they cannot get anything past him.



And yet police forces have utilized psychics with favorable results among honest assessments of mostly failures and/or wrong information which is more commonly the result of such efforts.  And while I believe that the human mind is capable of receiving information through means undetectable and unverifiable by modern science, I also know that most psychic demonstrations are slight of hand so to speak.  Still others are 'proved' after the fact and sometimes straining at gnats to fit a conclusion into a prediction.

So since I believe psychic abilities exist and that most demonstrations of them are phony, I have to believe such abilities are a form of spiritual gift and cannot be summoned on demand.   But is it possible that a race of beings exists somewhere who communicate entirely through telepathy?   I keep an open mind.


----------



## PredFan

Dajjal said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> The Amazing Randi has a million dollar or more prize still out there for anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities. No one has claimed it. The Amazing Randi is an accomplished magician and mentalist. Scammers know that they cannot get anything past him.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> True occultists and spiritualists are fully aware that it is never intended for us to have absolute proof of psychic powers, or the existence of God. We must evolve spiritually by free choice.
Click to expand...


My, how convenient.



Dajjal said:


> We are incarnate for experience sake, and we learn by trial and error over countless incarnations. Proof of the afterlife would take away the point of incarnating as we would no longer be free to act. We would be bound by fear of the consequences of self serving acts. Actions have a reaction, and according to spiritual philosophy we are accountable for everything we do, and this works itself out over many lifetimes. This is the way we evolve and it is a perfect, divine plan.



Mmmm-kay.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> The Amazing Randi has a million dollar or more prize still out there for anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities. No one has claimed it. The Amazing Randi is an accomplished magician and mentalist. Scammers know that they cannot get anything past him.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And yet police forces have utilized psychics with favorable results among honest assessments of mostly failures and/or wrong information which is more commonly the result of such efforts.
Click to expand...


Actually, if you sift through the non-sense, you can find, at least in the rare cases where the psychic had success in solving crimes, you will find solid "police work" from the "psychic". In many other examples, the cases are selected personally by the psychic. In every major case where there's been intensive investigation by the police, no psychic has been able to solve the crime and most are way off base.



Foxfyre said:


> And while I believe that the human mind is capable of receiving information through means undetectable and unverifiable by modern science, I also know that most psychic demonstrations are slight of hand so to speak.  Still others are 'proved' after the fact and sometimes straining at gnats to fit a conclusion into a prediction.



I'd like to see those "proved" after the fact cases.



Foxfyre said:


> So since I believe psychic abilities exist and that most demonstrations of them are phony, I have to believe such abilities are a form of spiritual gift and cannot be summoned on demand.   But is it possible that a race of beings exists somewhere who communicate entirely through telepathy?   I keep an open mind.



Not telepathy as we know it. Probably communication through some form of sound waves like bats or cetacians, but telepathy? Thoughts by humans or even any creature with a brain are elecrical impulses that travel accross neurons. They don't float through the air and jump to other people's neurons. It's just impossible.

It's good to have an open mind, I do, but I also am a skeptic. You can be both.


----------



## Foxfyre

PredFan said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> The Amazing Randi has a million dollar or more prize still out there for anyone who can prove that they have psychic abilities. No one has claimed it. The Amazing Randi is an accomplished magician and mentalist. Scammers know that they cannot get anything past him.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And yet police forces have utilized psychics with favorable results among honest assessments of mostly failures and/or wrong information which is more commonly the result of such efforts.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Actually, if you sift through the non-sense, you can find, at least in the rare cases where the psychic had success in solving crimes, you will find solid "police work" from the "psychic". In many other examples, the cases are selected personally by the psychic. In every major case where there's been intensive investigation by the police, no psychic has been able to solve the crime and most are way off base.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> And while I believe that the human mind is capable of receiving information through means undetectable and unverifiable by modern science, I also know that most psychic demonstrations are slight of hand so to speak.  Still others are 'proved' after the fact and sometimes straining at gnats to fit a conclusion into a prediction.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I'd like to see those "proved" after the fact cases.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> So since I believe psychic abilities exist and that most demonstrations of them are phony, I have to believe such abilities are a form of spiritual gift and cannot be summoned on demand.   But is it possible that a race of beings exists somewhere who communicate entirely through telepathy?   I keep an open mind.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Not telepathy as we know it. Probably communication through some form of sound waves like bats or cetacians, but telepathy? Thoughts by humans or even any creature with a brain are elecrical impulses that travel accross neurons. They don't float through the air and jump to other people's neurons. It's just impossible.
> *It's good to have an open mind, I do, but I also am a skeptic. You can be both. *
Click to expand...


I thought that was what I have been expressing in some detail?     (I must be getting old.)


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> And yet police forces have utilized psychics with favorable results among honest assessments of mostly failures and/or wrong information which is more commonly the result of such efforts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, if you sift through the non-sense, you can find, at least in the rare cases where the psychic had success in solving crimes, you will find solid "police work" from the "psychic". In many other examples, the cases are selected personally by the psychic. In every major case where there's been intensive investigation by the police, no psychic has been able to solve the crime and most are way off base.
> 
> 
> 
> I'd like to see those "proved" after the fact cases.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> So since I believe psychic abilities exist and that most demonstrations of them are phony, I have to believe such abilities are a form of spiritual gift and cannot be summoned on demand.   But is it possible that a race of beings exists somewhere who communicate entirely through telepathy?   I keep an open mind.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Not telepathy as we know it. Probably communication through some form of sound waves like bats or cetacians, but telepathy? Thoughts by humans or even any creature with a brain are elecrical impulses that travel accross neurons. They don't float through the air and jump to other people's neurons. It's just impossible.
> *It's good to have an open mind, I do, but I also am a skeptic. You can be both. *
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I thought that was what I have been expressing in some detail?     (I must be getting old.)
Click to expand...


You have, but if that was the gist of your posts then it is I who must be getting old.


----------



## Dajjal

PredFan said:


> Not telepathy as we know it. Probably communication through some form of sound waves like bats or cetacians, but telepathy? Thoughts by humans or even any creature with a brain are elecrical impulses that travel accross neurons. They don't float through the air and jump to other people's neurons. It's just impossible.
> 
> It's good to have an open mind, I do, but I also am a skeptic. You can be both.



The theory is that the seat of conciousness is in the immortal spirit and it filters down into the brain through the chakras. Conciousness survives the death of the brain and in fact, is greatly enhanced by being free of a brain. 

One of the faculties of a discarnate spirits mind is they can communicate by telepathy.


----------



## Foxfyre

Dajjal said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Not telepathy as we know it. Probably communication through some form of sound waves like bats or cetacians, but telepathy? Thoughts by humans or even any creature with a brain are elecrical impulses that travel accross neurons. They don't float through the air and jump to other people's neurons. It's just impossible.
> 
> It's good to have an open mind, I do, but I also am a skeptic. You can be both.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The theory is that the seat of conciousness is in the immortal spirit and it filters down into the brain through the chakras. Conciousness survives the death of the brain and in fact, is greatly enhanced by being free of a brain.
> 
> One of the faculties of a discarnate spirits mind is they can communicate by telepathy.
Click to expand...


So in the interest of the curious, how do you know this?


----------



## Dajjal

Among other things I attended many trance lectures at the spiritualist association in London, during the 1970s. Trance lectures are when a medium purportedly goes into a trance, and a spirit speaks with their mouths. I heard many lectures by a medium called Ursular Roberts and I was fairly convinced she was genuine at the time. Although she has now died, some of her talks are posted on the Internet.
I also attended white eagle lodge, where I heard the medium Grace Cook give trance lectures.

I heard a lot of lectures, and although I have forgotten much of what I heard it gave me an overall picture of the afterlife, and a spiritual theology.

http://www.whiteagle.org/we_home.htm

http://website.lineone.net/~enlightenment/ursula_roberts.htm


----------



## Foxfyre

Dajjal said:


> Among other things I attended many trance lectures at the spiritualist association in London, during the 1970s. Trance lectures are when a medium purportedly goes into a trance, and a spirit speaks with their mouths. I heard many lectures by a medium called Ursular Roberts and I was fairly convinced she was genuine at the time. Although she has now died, some of her talks are posted on the Internet.
> I also attended white eagle lodge, where I heard the medium Grace Cook give trance lectures.
> 
> I heard a lot of lectures, and although I have forgotten much of what I heard it gave me an overall picture of the afterlife, and a spiritual theology.



So your experience is witnessing something that FELT honest and real to you?   I'm sure you would apprecciate those of us who know such things can be faked but made to look and feel quite real to the receptive.   At the same time, I have experienced phenomena that there is no way that I can relate without sounding a bit wooo wooo, so I'm not about to tell you that what you experienced was not real.  I wasn't there.  You were.   As Predfan said, I don't have to believe it to be open to the possibility that what you experienced was the real deal.

I was once part of something called a "Lay Witness MIssion" some years ago in which a volunteer team goes into a troubled church with the intent of helping the people regain their faith in revitalizing it.  And part of the program is various team members providing their Christian witness.  Few of us had any idea what we were going to say when we were called on, but somehow everybody found the words.

But I distinctly remember two occasions when we were in prayer as the team leader was deciding who to call on.   And each time, there was a real sense of a kind of electrical energy--not at all unpleasant but quite discernable--that passed thorugh me. . . .just before the team leader called my name.   Can you prove something like that?  Nope.  No way.  But I know as certainly as I am typing this, that it happened.


----------



## Dajjal

Here is a link with the actual teachings on it.

Wisdom of Ramadahn


----------



## Dajjal

Foxfyre said:


> So your experience is witnessing something that FELT honest and real to you?   I'm sure you would apprecciate those of us who know such things can be faked but made to look and feel quite real to the receptive.   At the same time, I have experienced phenomena that there is no way that I can relate without sounding a bit wooo wooo, so I'm not about to tell you that what you experienced was not real.  I wasn't there.  You were.   As Predfan said, I don't have to believe it to be open to the possibility that what you experienced was the real deal.
> 
> I was once part of something called a "Lay Witness MIssion" some years ago in which a volunteer team goes into a troubled church with the intent of helping the people regain their faith in revitalizing it.  And part of the program is various team members providing their Christian witness.  Few of us had any idea what we were going to say when we were called on, but somehow everybody found the words.
> 
> But I distinctly remember two occasions when we were in prayer as the team leader was deciding who to call on.   And each time, there was a real sense of a kind of electrical energy--not at all unpleasant but quite discernable--that passed thorugh me. . . .just before the team leader called my name.   Can you prove something like that?  Nope.  No way.  But I know as certainly as I am typing this, that it happened.



I have had a lot of experience of psychic and spiritual matters, and I used to be sure of what I believed, but I have not been to a spiritualist church for years now, and I must admit I have doubts about it in my old age. Never the less I feel moved to keep writing about it.

Here is a link to a Guru I studied under, and I can tell you he had some kind of power.

Gururaj Ananda Yogi


----------



## PredFan

Dajjal said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Not telepathy as we know it. Probably communication through some form of sound waves like bats or cetacians, but telepathy? Thoughts by humans or even any creature with a brain are elecrical impulses that travel accross neurons. They don't float through the air and jump to other people's neurons. It's just impossible.
> 
> It's good to have an open mind, I do, but I also am a skeptic. You can be both.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The theory is that the seat of conciousness is in the immortal spirit and it filters down into the brain through the chakras. Conciousness survives the death of the brain and in fact, is greatly enhanced by being free of a brain.
> 
> One of the faculties of a discarnate spirits mind is they can communicate by telepathy.
Click to expand...


None of which has ever been proven.


----------



## Foxfyre

PredFan said:


> Dajjal said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Not telepathy as we know it. Probably communication through some form of sound waves like bats or cetacians, but telepathy? Thoughts by humans or even any creature with a brain are elecrical impulses that travel accross neurons. They don't float through the air and jump to other people's neurons. It's just impossible.
> 
> It's good to have an open mind, I do, but I also am a skeptic. You can be both.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The theory is that the seat of conciousness is in the immortal spirit and it filters down into the brain through the chakras. Conciousness survives the death of the brain and in fact, is greatly enhanced by being free of a brain.
> 
> One of the faculties of a discarnate spirits mind is they can communicate by telepathy.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> None of which has ever been proven.
Click to expand...


And yet there are those of us who have experienced that which strongly suggests a form of telepathy.

Does something have to be provable now in order to be plausible?  If you really do some soul searching, there is so much that you believe that you cannot prove.  You trust scientists to tell you what exists 'out there' and how things work 'out there', when scientists have been doing that for millenia even as so-called 'settled science' has been reordered and rewritten again and again as the consensus views are proven to be in error.   And with all that, we still all believe in science.

So why not that which science cannot yet found a way to address?  Why is it so important to some to believe in science and to disbelieve in the paranormal and/or supernatural?


----------



## Montrovant

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dajjal said:
> 
> 
> 
> The theory is that the seat of conciousness is in the immortal spirit and it filters down into the brain through the chakras. Conciousness survives the death of the brain and in fact, is greatly enhanced by being free of a brain.
> 
> One of the faculties of a discarnate spirits mind is they can communicate by telepathy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> None of which has ever been proven.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> And yet there are those of us who have experienced that which strongly suggests a form of telepathy.
> 
> Does something have to be provable now in order to be plausible?  If you really do some soul searching, there is so much that you believe that you cannot prove.  You trust scientists to tell you what exists 'out there' and how things work 'out there', when scientists have been doing that for millenia even as so-called 'settled science' has been reordered and rewritten again and again as the consensus views are proven to be in error.   And with all that, we still all believe in science.
> 
> So why not that which science cannot yet found a way to address?  Why is it so important to some to believe in science and to disbelieve in the paranormal and/or supernatural?
Click to expand...


Because generally the paranormal and/or supernatural is based on things that either go against what we know against reality, or is based on things which are impossible to test/prove.  Take telepathy.  There have been no discoveries of parts of the human body that transmit or receive telepathic signals that I know of.  No one has even shown what those signals are made of.  

Science is at least supposed to be based on observable evidence.  It should be repeatable.  It's easier to swallow someone telling you to believe in a scientific study which some other scientists reviewed and possibly even repeated on their own, than it is to just take someone's word that what they experienced was a ghost/telepathy/magic/god/whatever.  Especially when there are so many supposed supernatural events of many different sorts.


----------



## Foxfyre

Montrovant said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> None of which has ever been proven.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And yet there are those of us who have experienced that which strongly suggests a form of telepathy.
> 
> Does something have to be provable now in order to be plausible?  If you really do some soul searching, there is so much that you believe that you cannot prove.  You trust scientists to tell you what exists 'out there' and how things work 'out there', when scientists have been doing that for millenia even as so-called 'settled science' has been reordered and rewritten again and again as the consensus views are proven to be in error.   And with all that, we still all believe in science.
> 
> So why not that which science cannot yet found a way to address?  Why is it so important to some to believe in science and to disbelieve in the paranormal and/or supernatural?
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Because generally the paranormal and/or supernatural is based on things that either go against what we know against reality, or is based on things which are impossible to test/prove.  Take telepathy.  There have been no discoveries of parts of the human body that transmit or receive telepathic signals that I know of.  No one has even shown what those signals are made of.
> 
> Science is at least supposed to be based on observable evidence.  It should be repeatable.  It's easier to swallow someone telling you to believe in a scientific study which some other scientists reviewed and possibly even repeated on their own, than it is to just take someone's word that what they experienced was a ghost/telepathy/magic/god/whatever.  Especially when there are so many supposed supernatural events of many different sorts.
Click to expand...


Yes, it is easier--perhaps because it is more socially acceptable?--to accept a peer reviewed scientific study printed in a magazine than to accept a 'wierd' experience related  by an 'unscientific' person.  And yet how many 'scientific studies' have been falsified just so somebody would have something to publish in those journals?  Peer review is not consensus or agreement.  It is generally simply an agreement that the reported method utilized in the study is a valid scientific method.

And yet I know people whom I deem credible--including myself--who have served as scientific research assistants who admitted that the research being done and the published scientific study was at best flawed.  At worst, entirely bogus.  In the 'publish or perish' world of religion/academia/science, the tempation to get creative is immense.

Who would have thought a thousand years ago that the speed of sound or light would be scientifically measurable?  That great vessels would be able to travel beneath the waves and ice caps or fly through the air or journey to the moon?  And certainly those who first conceived of such a thing or a thousand other scientific principles that we now take for granted must have been the wierdos and looney tunes people of their time.  Galileo was excommunicated by the Church for supporting the heliocentric model of the solar system as first proposed by Copernicus.  Kepler was excommunicated when he put forth a scientific concept that the moon was a solid body.  Nobody knew how to prove that scientifically at the time of course.

So the fact that there is no known way to scientifically test or prove  the existence of telepathy or the supernatural or the paranormal or extraterrestrial beings is not a good reason to dismiss as bogus all the reported experience with such phenomena.


----------



## Montrovant

Foxfyre said:


> Montrovant said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> And yet there are those of us who have experienced that which strongly suggests a form of telepathy.
> 
> Does something have to be provable now in order to be plausible?  If you really do some soul searching, there is so much that you believe that you cannot prove.  You trust scientists to tell you what exists 'out there' and how things work 'out there', when scientists have been doing that for millenia even as so-called 'settled science' has been reordered and rewritten again and again as the consensus views are proven to be in error.   And with all that, we still all believe in science.
> 
> So why not that which science cannot yet found a way to address?  Why is it so important to some to believe in science and to disbelieve in the paranormal and/or supernatural?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Because generally the paranormal and/or supernatural is based on things that either go against what we know against reality, or is based on things which are impossible to test/prove.  Take telepathy.  There have been no discoveries of parts of the human body that transmit or receive telepathic signals that I know of.  No one has even shown what those signals are made of.
> 
> Science is at least supposed to be based on observable evidence.  It should be repeatable.  It's easier to swallow someone telling you to believe in a scientific study which some other scientists reviewed and possibly even repeated on their own, than it is to just take someone's word that what they experienced was a ghost/telepathy/magic/god/whatever.  Especially when there are so many supposed supernatural events of many different sorts.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes, it is easier--perhaps because it is more socially acceptable?--to accept a peer reviewed scientific study printed in a magazine than to accept a 'wierd' experience related  by an 'unscientific' person.  And yet how many 'scientific studies' have been falsified just so somebody would have something to publish in those journals?  Peer review is not consensus or agreement.  It is generally simply an agreement that the reported method utilized in the study is a valid scientific method.
> 
> And yet I know people whom I deem credible--including myself--who have served as scientific research assistants who admitted that the research being done and the published scientific study was at best flawed.  At worst, entirely bogus.  In the 'publish or perish' world of religion/academia/science, the tempation to get creative is immense.
> 
> Who would have thought a thousand years ago that the speed of sound or light would be scientifically measurable?  That great vessels would be able to travel beneath the waves and ice caps or fly through the air or journey to the moon?  And certainly those who first conceived of such a thing or a thousand other scientific principles that we now take for granted must have been the wierdos and looney tunes people of their time.  Galileo was excommunicated by the Church for supporting the heliocentric model of the solar system as first proposed by Copernicus.  Kepler was excommunicated when he put forth a scientific concept that the moon was a solid body.  Nobody knew how to prove that scientifically at the time of course.
> 
> *So the fact that there is no known way to scientifically test or prove  the existence of telepathy or the supernatural or the paranormal or extraterrestrial beings is not a good reason to dismiss as bogus all the reported experience with such phenomena.*
Click to expand...


Perhaps not, but it IS a good reason to dismiss anyone who claims to be able to prove such things, at least until they actually do so.   The methods of science just have more credibility as a general rule.  Especially when you consider the inconsistent nature of memory and how relying on someone's interpretation of an inexplicable event may color their description.  

Of course there is nothing preventing scientists from using or creating bad data, of lying about results, etc.  The important difference isn't the people involved but the method of discovery.  'I conducted experiments to support my conclusions' is more reasonable than 'I saw a light I couldn't explain, it must have been a ghost'.  It's just the nature of the events.


----------



## Foxfyre

Montrovant said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Montrovant said:
> 
> 
> 
> Because generally the paranormal and/or supernatural is based on things that either go against what we know against reality, or is based on things which are impossible to test/prove.  Take telepathy.  There have been no discoveries of parts of the human body that transmit or receive telepathic signals that I know of.  No one has even shown what those signals are made of.
> 
> Science is at least supposed to be based on observable evidence.  It should be repeatable.  It's easier to swallow someone telling you to believe in a scientific study which some other scientists reviewed and possibly even repeated on their own, than it is to just take someone's word that what they experienced was a ghost/telepathy/magic/god/whatever.  Especially when there are so many supposed supernatural events of many different sorts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, it is easier--perhaps because it is more socially acceptable?--to accept a peer reviewed scientific study printed in a magazine than to accept a 'wierd' experience related  by an 'unscientific' person.  And yet how many 'scientific studies' have been falsified just so somebody would have something to publish in those journals?  Peer review is not consensus or agreement.  It is generally simply an agreement that the reported method utilized in the study is a valid scientific method.
> 
> And yet I know people whom I deem credible--including myself--who have served as scientific research assistants who admitted that the research being done and the published scientific study was at best flawed.  At worst, entirely bogus.  In the 'publish or perish' world of religion/academia/science, the tempation to get creative is immense.
> 
> Who would have thought a thousand years ago that the speed of sound or light would be scientifically measurable?  That great vessels would be able to travel beneath the waves and ice caps or fly through the air or journey to the moon?  And certainly those who first conceived of such a thing or a thousand other scientific principles that we now take for granted must have been the wierdos and looney tunes people of their time.  Galileo was excommunicated by the Church for supporting the heliocentric model of the solar system as first proposed by Copernicus.  Kepler was excommunicated when he put forth a scientific concept that the moon was a solid body.  Nobody knew how to prove that scientifically at the time of course.
> 
> *So the fact that there is no known way to scientifically test or prove  the existence of telepathy or the supernatural or the paranormal or extraterrestrial beings is not a good reason to dismiss as bogus all the reported experience with such phenomena.*
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Perhaps not, but it IS a good reason to dismiss anyone who claims to be able to prove such things, at least until they actually do so.   The methods of science just have more credibility as a general rule.  Especially when you consider the inconsistent nature of memory and how relying on someone's interpretation of an inexplicable event may color their description.
> 
> Of course there is nothing preventing scientists from using or creating bad data, of lying about results, etc.  The important difference isn't the people involved but the method of discovery.  'I conducted experiments to support my conclusions' is more reasonable than 'I saw a light I couldn't explain, it must have been a ghost'.  It's just the nature of the events.
Click to expand...


Not more reasonable.  Just more socially acceptable.  It is no more unreasonable for me to report that I saw my shadow earlier than for me to report that I conducted a scientific experiment with the following result.  Both events are just as valid.  And, depending upon my credentials, the shadow story might be the more believable.  And yet there is absolutely no way in heaven or earth that I can prove what I saw.

So when somebody tells me that they saw what, for want of a better explantion, a 'ghost', then yes, I think there is room for an open mind about what was actually seen.  But to dismiss it as 'impossible' just because there is yet no consistent scientific proof for the existence of ghosts, is in my opinion to be close minded, narrow minded, and devoid of openness to possibilities.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Dajjal said:
> 
> 
> 
> The theory is that the seat of conciousness is in the immortal spirit and it filters down into the brain through the chakras. Conciousness survives the death of the brain and in fact, is greatly enhanced by being free of a brain.
> 
> One of the faculties of a discarnate spirits mind is they can communicate by telepathy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> None of which has ever been proven.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> And yet there are those of us who have experienced that which strongly suggests a form of telepathy.
Click to expand...


That isn't even remotely like proof.



Foxfyre said:


> Does something have to be provable now in order to be plausible?



If the claim defies what we know to be true about reality? Absolutely.



Foxfyre said:


> If you really do some soul searching, there is so much that you believe that you cannot prove.



I can't think of anything actually. Except for God, but i know I can't prove he exists and wouldn't even try.



Foxfyre said:


> You trust scientists to tell you what exists 'out there' and how things work 'out there', when scientists have been doing that for millenia even as so-called 'settled science' has been reordered and rewritten again and again as the consensus views are proven to be in error.   And with all that, we still all believe in science.



Actually, I don't trust them without reading up on it. In fact I think that they are bull shitting us on Global Warming. The reason I can say that is that I've looked at it and investigated it and found the truth. I did that with the paranormal and found that the scientists are correct.



Foxfyre said:


> So why not that which science cannot yet found a way to address?  Why is it so important to some to believe in science and to disbelieve in the paranormal and/or supernatural?



It isn't that science cannot find a way to address it, it's that science shows that it doesn't exist.

If somehow psychic abilities were proven to be true, THEN it would be something that science cannot yet find a way to address.


----------



## Foxfyre

Really, Predfan?  To pull one example from your post, you have conducted your own experiments, dug out your own ice cores, tested the temperatures, content, acidity, and all other variables of the air, soil, and oceans, and done the exhaustive statistical analysis using all the available data around the world to form a scientific conclusion re global warming?   I'm really impressed.

Or have you read what the AGW advocates have written and read the rationale of those who question their conclusions, and picked a side based on who you deemed the most believable?  Or, in the case of some, the one you WANTED to believe?

Do you believe those stars twinkling in the night sky are distant suns similar to our own?   Why?  Nobody has ever been able to test or evaluate what they are even using our most powerful telescopes.  Our conclusions about them are based on scientific REASON only without a single shred of proof being available to us.

Nor is there any test in the universe that can positively confirm that I saw my shadow when I went outside earlier.  You believe that I did because you have seen shadows.  And I am guessing that if you ever saw or dealt with a phenomenon that you had absolutely no explanation for other than it was a ghost, you would believe that there is a strong possibility that ghosts exists.  And you wouldn't be able to prove it to a soul.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> Really, Predfan?  To pull one example from your post, you have conducted your own experiments, dug out your own ice cores, tested the temperatures, content, acidity, and all other variables of the air, soil, and oceans, and done the exhaustive statistical analysis using all the available data around the world to form a scientific conclusion re global warming?   I'm really impressed.



I don't need to do all that. I only need to read both sides of the issue and use some logic. this I have done with the paranormal and found it to be bunk.



Foxfyre said:


> Or have you read what the AGW advocates have written and read the rationale of those who question their conclusions, and picked a side based on who you deemed the most believable?  Or, in the case of some, the one you WANTED to believe?



The former.



Foxfyre said:


> Do you believe those stars twinkling in the night sky are distant suns similar to our own?   Why?  Nobody has ever been able to test or evaluate what they are even using our most powerful telescopes.  Our conclusions about them are based on scientific REASON only without a single shred of proof being available to us.



Actually very few statistically are like ours. But anyway you are wrong. It is very easy to prove that they in fact are stars.



Foxfyre said:


> Nor is there any test in the universe that can positively confirm that I saw my shadow when I went outside earlier.  You believe that I did because you have seen shadows.



Yes there is. It is proven by determining the amount of cloud cover, the time of day you saw your shadow, the easily proven fact that light casts shadows and VOILA! Your claim is proven. Also, the claim that you saw your shadow doesn't violate the laws of physics.



Foxfyre said:


> And I am guessing that if you ever saw or dealt with a phenomenon that you had absolutely no explanation for other than it was a ghost, you would believe that there is a strong possibility that ghosts exists.  And you wouldn't be able to prove it to a soul.



No I wouldn't. I know that there are no ghosts so I'd look for another more plausable explanation, including the explanation that I was being hoaxed by some of my smart ass family.


----------



## Montrovant

Foxfyre said:


> Montrovant said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, it is easier--perhaps because it is more socially acceptable?--to accept a peer reviewed scientific study printed in a magazine than to accept a 'wierd' experience related  by an 'unscientific' person.  And yet how many 'scientific studies' have been falsified just so somebody would have something to publish in those journals?  Peer review is not consensus or agreement.  It is generally simply an agreement that the reported method utilized in the study is a valid scientific method.
> 
> And yet I know people whom I deem credible--including myself--who have served as scientific research assistants who admitted that the research being done and the published scientific study was at best flawed.  At worst, entirely bogus.  In the 'publish or perish' world of religion/academia/science, the tempation to get creative is immense.
> 
> Who would have thought a thousand years ago that the speed of sound or light would be scientifically measurable?  That great vessels would be able to travel beneath the waves and ice caps or fly through the air or journey to the moon?  And certainly those who first conceived of such a thing or a thousand other scientific principles that we now take for granted must have been the wierdos and looney tunes people of their time.  Galileo was excommunicated by the Church for supporting the heliocentric model of the solar system as first proposed by Copernicus.  Kepler was excommunicated when he put forth a scientific concept that the moon was a solid body.  Nobody knew how to prove that scientifically at the time of course.
> 
> *So the fact that there is no known way to scientifically test or prove  the existence of telepathy or the supernatural or the paranormal or extraterrestrial beings is not a good reason to dismiss as bogus all the reported experience with such phenomena.*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps not, but it IS a good reason to dismiss anyone who claims to be able to prove such things, at least until they actually do so.   The methods of science just have more credibility as a general rule.  Especially when you consider the inconsistent nature of memory and how relying on someone's interpretation of an inexplicable event may color their description.
> 
> Of course there is nothing preventing scientists from using or creating bad data, of lying about results, etc.  The important difference isn't the people involved but the method of discovery.  'I conducted experiments to support my conclusions' is more reasonable than 'I saw a light I couldn't explain, it must have been a ghost'.  It's just the nature of the events.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Not more reasonable.  Just more socially acceptable.  It is no more unreasonable for me to report that I saw my shadow earlier than for me to report that I conducted a scientific experiment with the following result.  Both events are just as valid.  And, depending upon my credentials, the shadow story might be the more believable.  And yet there is absolutely no way in heaven or earth that I can prove what I saw.
> 
> So when somebody tells me that they saw what, for want of a better explantion, a 'ghost', then yes, I think there is room for an open mind about what was actually seen.  But to dismiss it as 'impossible' just because there is yet no consistent scientific proof for the existence of ghosts, is in my opinion to be close minded, narrow minded, and devoid of openness to possibilities.
Click to expand...


I notice that you use a non-supernatural event for your example.

It IS more unreasonable for you to say you saw a ghost than to say you saw your shadow.  Shadows are something we all see, we all experience, we can all go create a shadow if we want to.  Seeing a ghost is, at best, speculation regarding an unexplained event.

Perhaps you are misunderstanding me.  I am not denying that people experience unexplained things.  I am saying that I don't accept their supernatural explanations for those events.  If someone sees a light moving oddly in the sky and claims they saw an alien craft, I'm not going to believe that is the case, whether I find them trustworthy or not.  I'll believe they saw something, but I won't accept the UFO explanation they have assigned to what they saw.

There are often non-supernatural explanations for things which, on first glance, may appear to be supernatural in origin.  I think it is entirely reasonable to find it easier to believe something based on observable, repeatable events than something another person tells you which you cannot observe yourself.

When it comes to science which one either doesn't understand or cannot observe any aspects of, it's a different story.


----------



## Foxfyre

Montrovant said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Montrovant said:
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps not, but it IS a good reason to dismiss anyone who claims to be able to prove such things, at least until they actually do so.   The methods of science just have more credibility as a general rule.  Especially when you consider the inconsistent nature of memory and how relying on someone's interpretation of an inexplicable event may color their description.
> 
> Of course there is nothing preventing scientists from using or creating bad data, of lying about results, etc.  The important difference isn't the people involved but the method of discovery.  'I conducted experiments to support my conclusions' is more reasonable than 'I saw a light I couldn't explain, it must have been a ghost'.  It's just the nature of the events.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not more reasonable.  Just more socially acceptable.  It is no more unreasonable for me to report that I saw my shadow earlier than for me to report that I conducted a scientific experiment with the following result.  Both events are just as valid.  And, depending upon my credentials, the shadow story might be the more believable.  And yet there is absolutely no way in heaven or earth that I can prove what I saw.
> 
> So when somebody tells me that they saw what, for want of a better explantion, a 'ghost', then yes, I think there is room for an open mind about what was actually seen.  But to dismiss it as 'impossible' just because there is yet no consistent scientific proof for the existence of ghosts, is in my opinion to be close minded, narrow minded, and devoid of openness to possibilities.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I notice that you use a non-supernatural event for your example.
> 
> It IS more unreasonable for you to say you saw a ghost than to say you saw your shadow.  Shadows are something we all see, we all experience, we can all go create a shadow if we want to.  Seeing a ghost is, at best, speculation regarding an unexplained event.
> 
> Perhaps you are misunderstanding me.  I am not denying that people experience unexplained things.  I am saying that I don't accept their supernatural explanations for those events.  If someone sees a light moving oddly in the sky and claims they saw an alien craft, I'm not going to believe that is the case, whether I find them trustworthy or not.  I'll believe they saw something, but I won't accept the UFO explanation they have assigned to what they saw.
> 
> There are often non-supernatural explanations for things which, on first glance, may appear to be supernatural in origin.  I think it is entirely reasonable to find it easier to believe something based on observable, repeatable events than something another person tells you which you cannot observe yourself.
> 
> When it comes to science which one either doesn't understand or cannot observe any aspects of, it's a different story.
Click to expand...


Yes, those of us who have read much history at all KNOW that there were many supernatural explanations for poorly understood natural phenomenon of a particular era.  But I used the shadow example because it IS something that is entirely common and that most people have experienced.   But now, what if I came in and told you I just saw my shadow.  And you look out and see that it is heavily overcast and beginning to rain.  Now what would you think?  Would you still believe I had seen my shadow?  And, if I in fact had seen it, how would I prove that to you.   Or would you assume that I had seen something else?   Or misunderstood what I saw?

The point being that there are or can be components of our existence that we cannot explain with science and cannot prove to anybody.  How do I prove to you that I dreamed last night?  Or what I dreamed?  And if I dreamed something that coincidentally then did happen, is it coincidence?  Or some kind of paranormal event?  How would we know?

You can keep an open mind to all possibilities without having to accept anybody's explanation for anything.  It is rejecting the possibilities that slows the progress of our learning; not the embracing of them.


----------



## Brawd

Foxfyre said:


> *Gentle reminder:  This thread is in the CDZ*
> 
> The human race has perhaps always had notions of the paranormal and/or supernatural.  We find references in some of the earliest recorded histories in all known cultures.  More recently, we have added notions of the extraterrestrial to those things we are curious about.
> 
> Adding credibility to the notions is a growing body of people, many who seem to be quite intelligent, normal, and credible, who report encounters with paranormal or extraterrestial craft and/or beings.
> 
> This could even qualify as a quasi-political thread as both the paranormal and the extraterrestrial could qualify as threats to human safety and/or national security and for various other reasons.  Certainly the government has been operating radio telescopes for some time and continues to research reported UFO sightings, etc.  Waste of time?  Or are you happy with some of our resources being devoted to that?
> 
> So what do you think?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?
> 
> Personal experiences, logic, reason, and credible recorded histories are appropriate here.



I don't believe in them.

If they existed we would have concrete evidence by now.


----------



## Montrovant

Foxfyre said:


> Montrovant said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Not more reasonable.  Just more socially acceptable.  It is no more unreasonable for me to report that I saw my shadow earlier than for me to report that I conducted a scientific experiment with the following result.  Both events are just as valid.  And, depending upon my credentials, the shadow story might be the more believable.  And yet there is absolutely no way in heaven or earth that I can prove what I saw.
> 
> So when somebody tells me that they saw what, for want of a better explantion, a 'ghost', then yes, I think there is room for an open mind about what was actually seen.  But to dismiss it as 'impossible' just because there is yet no consistent scientific proof for the existence of ghosts, is in my opinion to be close minded, narrow minded, and devoid of openness to possibilities.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I notice that you use a non-supernatural event for your example.
> 
> It IS more unreasonable for you to say you saw a ghost than to say you saw your shadow.  Shadows are something we all see, we all experience, we can all go create a shadow if we want to.  Seeing a ghost is, at best, speculation regarding an unexplained event.
> 
> Perhaps you are misunderstanding me.  I am not denying that people experience unexplained things.  I am saying that I don't accept their supernatural explanations for those events.  If someone sees a light moving oddly in the sky and claims they saw an alien craft, I'm not going to believe that is the case, whether I find them trustworthy or not.  I'll believe they saw something, but I won't accept the UFO explanation they have assigned to what they saw.
> 
> There are often non-supernatural explanations for things which, on first glance, may appear to be supernatural in origin.  I think it is entirely reasonable to find it easier to believe something based on observable, repeatable events than something another person tells you which you cannot observe yourself.
> 
> When it comes to science which one either doesn't understand or cannot observe any aspects of, it's a different story.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes, those of us who have read much history at all KNOW that there were many supernatural explanations for poorly understood natural phenomenon of a particular era.  But I used the shadow example because it IS something that is entirely common and that most people have experienced.   But now, what if I came in and told you I just saw my shadow.  And you look out and see that it is heavily overcast and beginning to rain.  Now what would you think?  Would you still believe I had seen my shadow?  And, if I in fact had seen it, how would I prove that to you.   Or would you assume that I had seen something else?   Or misunderstood what I saw?
> 
> The point being that there are or can be components of our existence that we cannot explain with science and cannot prove to anybody.  How do I prove to you that I dreamed last night?  Or what I dreamed?  And if I dreamed something that coincidentally then did happen, is it coincidence?  Or some kind of paranormal event?  How would we know?
> 
> You can keep an open mind to all possibilities without having to accept anybody's explanation for anything.  It is rejecting the possibilities that slows the progress of our learning; not the embracing of them.
Click to expand...


Again, using the example of a shadow just doesn't make sense.  It would be better for you to say you DIDN'T see your shadow when you should; that would mesh more closely with supernatural claims.  If you tell me you stood in front of a light but didn't cast a shadow it would be something that didn't make sense and I would find it hard to believe.  Further, since I can easily repeat the process and see that standing in front of a light causes a shadow, I have good reason to dismiss your claims, especially if you then make some unsubstantiated claim like your lack of a shadow was caused by ghostly intervention.

While rejecting possibilities may be bad, accepting possibilities without any evidence is just as bad.  Skepticism is perfectly healthy.


----------



## Foxfyre

Montrovant said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Montrovant said:
> 
> 
> 
> I notice that you use a non-supernatural event for your example.
> 
> It IS more unreasonable for you to say you saw a ghost than to say you saw your shadow.  Shadows are something we all see, we all experience, we can all go create a shadow if we want to.  Seeing a ghost is, at best, speculation regarding an unexplained event.
> 
> Perhaps you are misunderstanding me.  I am not denying that people experience unexplained things.  I am saying that I don't accept their supernatural explanations for those events.  If someone sees a light moving oddly in the sky and claims they saw an alien craft, I'm not going to believe that is the case, whether I find them trustworthy or not.  I'll believe they saw something, but I won't accept the UFO explanation they have assigned to what they saw.
> 
> There are often non-supernatural explanations for things which, on first glance, may appear to be supernatural in origin.  I think it is entirely reasonable to find it easier to believe something based on observable, repeatable events than something another person tells you which you cannot observe yourself.
> 
> When it comes to science which one either doesn't understand or cannot observe any aspects of, it's a different story.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, those of us who have read much history at all KNOW that there were many supernatural explanations for poorly understood natural phenomenon of a particular era.  But I used the shadow example because it IS something that is entirely common and that most people have experienced.   But now, what if I came in and told you I just saw my shadow.  And you look out and see that it is heavily overcast and beginning to rain.  Now what would you think?  Would you still believe I had seen my shadow?  And, if I in fact had seen it, how would I prove that to you.   Or would you assume that I had seen something else?   Or misunderstood what I saw?
> 
> The point being that there are or can be components of our existence that we cannot explain with science and cannot prove to anybody.  How do I prove to you that I dreamed last night?  Or what I dreamed?  And if I dreamed something that coincidentally then did happen, is it coincidence?  Or some kind of paranormal event?  How would we know?
> 
> You can keep an open mind to all possibilities without having to accept anybody's explanation for anything.  It is rejecting the possibilities that slows the progress of our learning; not the embracing of them.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Again, using the example of a shadow just doesn't make sense.  It would be better for you to say you DIDN'T see your shadow when you should; that would mesh more closely with supernatural claims.  If you tell me you stood in front of a light but didn't cast a shadow it would be something that didn't make sense and I would find it hard to believe.  Further, since I can easily repeat the process and see that standing in front of a light causes a shadow, I have good reason to dismiss your claims, especially if you then make some unsubstantiated claim like your lack of a shadow was caused by ghostly intervention.
> 
> While rejecting possibilities may be bad, accepting possibilities without any evidence is just as bad.  Skepticism is perfectly healthy.
Click to expand...


Skepticism is a resistance to belief based on reason, experience, or prejudice.  It is a difference animal than disbelief or denial, but not the same thing as embracing a concept in hopes that it is true.

Perhaps it is reasonable to be skeptical  of something based on one or two accounts of something happening when the vast reservoir of experience contradicts those one or two accounts.

But using an example I used earlier:

You do not believe that pink elephants exist.

But if one, then another, then another, then dozens of people came into the place where you are, and each one reported that he or she had seen a pink elephant outside, would  you continue to believe that pink elephants do not exist?

. . . or. . . .

would you more likely think that
a) this was an organized practical joke?. . .or
b) they were seeing something that they interpreted as a pink elephant. . .or
c)  they saw a pink elephant?

And sooner or later, would you be sufficiently curious to go see for yourself?

So you look outside.  No pink elephant.  But the people inside are absolutely convinced that they saw one and you are persuaded that it was no practical joke or organized effort and these people did not even know each other and had not communicated in any way with each other.

Now what do you believe?

If it was only one or two 'nuts' reporting paranormal experiences, it is reasonable to be skeptical or even a non believer.  But when you have hundreds or thousands of people, none who know each other or have communicated with each other in any way, reporting paranormal experiences, and many of these are absolutely normal people with no motive or stimulus to encourage any unusual behavior or reactions, now what is it more normal to believe?

If scientists had shrugged their shoulders and said this or that didn't exist or wasn't true purely because nobody had ever 'proved it' or verified its existance, we wouldn't have a fraction of the scientific knowledge that we now have.

Bacteria and viruses existed for a very long time before anybody was able to verify their existance.

In my opinion, to  assume that something isn't so because it has not yet been conclusively verified is to shut oneself off from 99+% of all that there is to know.


----------



## ABikerSailor

On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).

But.............then again...............go back in time to the 1700's and pull out a Bic lighter, and most people would call you a witch.   I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.


----------



## Foxfyre

ABikerSailor said:


> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).
> 
> But.............then again...............go back in time to the 1700's and pull out a Bic lighter, and most people would call you a witch.   I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.



Which reinforces the point I've been trying to make.  We tend to believe what we have seen or heard or tasted or experienced whether or not anybody believes us.  And everything else we choose to believe or not.

So will science eventually show us logical explanations for everything that it cannot now logically explain?  I don't know.  My gut feeling is that an eternity is not long enough for us to learn everything there is to know.  Those who WANT to believe in the paranormal are more likely to interpret unusual experiences that way.  Those who do NOT want to believe will dismiss reports as delusion or hoaxes or misinterpretations.

But I suspect those who have encountered a 'ghost', most especially on more than one occasion, are far more likely to be believers than those who do not whether or not science has any conclusive information about it.   And I personally know people with advanced educations, including one scientist, and who give every appearance of being of sound mind and fully possessing common sense who report they have seen things they cannot explain in any other terms than 'ghost' or disembodied spirit.  And I for one do not feel qualified to tell them they didn't experience what they say they did.


----------



## Montrovant

ABikerSailor said:


> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).
> 
> But.............then again...............go back in time to the 1700's and pull out a Bic lighter, and most people would call you a witch.   I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.



An artificial limb which can run off the electrical impulses of your nerves is NOT telepathy.  Telepathy is two people communicating through thoughts alone.

Your example would be like saying people can fly unaided just because they can fly through the use of machines. 

Certainly many things which seem supernatural now may be explained through science later.  My issue is the possibility, perhaps even probability, that those explanations will not be the same as what so many assign to those things now.


----------



## Montrovant

Foxfyre said:


> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).
> 
> But.............then again...............go back in time to the 1700's and pull out a Bic lighter, and most people would call you a witch.   I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which reinforces the point I've been trying to make.  We tend to believe what we have seen or heard or tasted or experienced whether or not anybody believes us.  And everything else we choose to believe or not.
> 
> So will science eventually show us logical explanations for everything that it cannot now logically explain?  I don't know.  My gut feeling is that an eternity is not long enough for us to learn everything there is to know.  Those who WANT to believe in the paranormal are more likely to interpret unusual experiences that way.  Those who do NOT want to believe will dismiss reports as delusion or hoaxes or misinterpretations.
> 
> But I suspect those who have encountered a 'ghost', most especially on more than one occasion, are far more likely to be believers than those who do not whether or not science has any conclusive information about it.   And I personally know people with advanced educations, including one scientist, and who give every appearance of being of sound mind and fully possessing common sense who report they have seen things they cannot explain in any other terms than 'ghost' or disembodied spirit.  And I for one do not feel qualified to tell them they didn't experience what they say they did.
Click to expand...


I wonder if, had they not already known about the concepts of ghosts, if those people would have viewed their experiences in the same way.  We all too easily assign an explanation such as ghosts to something we can't otherwise explain, but that's just putting an unexplained label on an unexplained event.


----------



## ABikerSailor

Did anyone ever think that the paranormal is what has guided us to this point in history?

I mean................really.................you've gotta have something in your head telling you to invent stuff like the telephone, parachute, airplane, etc.


----------



## FA_Q2

ABikerSailor said:


> Did anyone ever think that the paranormal is what has guided us to this point in history?
> 
> I mean................really.................you've gotta have something in your head telling you to invent stuff like the telephone, parachute, airplane, etc.



?

I personally believe that the thing between our ears generally called a brain is what 'told' intellegent people to invent those things...

Whether you believe in the supernatural or not there is no reason to think that we, as an intellegent people, are not capable of independent and original thought.


----------



## ABikerSailor

FA_Q2 said:


> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> Did anyone ever think that the paranormal is what has guided us to this point in history?
> 
> I mean................really.................you've gotta have something in your head telling you to invent stuff like the telephone, parachute, airplane, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ?
> 
> I personally believe that the thing between our ears generally called a brain is what 'told' intellegent people to invent those things...
> 
> Whether you believe in the supernatural or not there is no reason to think that we, as an intellegent people, are not capable of independent and original thought.
Click to expand...


Really?  

Can you explain the Nazca Lines?

How about the Mayan temples that represented the solar system?

Someone taught our ancestors those things.


----------



## Againsheila

The Paranormal, the Supernatural, and the Extraterrestrial walked into a bar....for some reason I keep waiting for a punch line.


----------



## Foxfyre

Againsheila said:


> The Paranormal, the Supernatural, and the Extraterrestrial walked into a bar....for some reason I keep waiting for a punch line.



LOL.  Okay, somebody use that brain between his/her ears and come up with one.  

Seriously, I don't KNOW the explanation for unusual knowledge and phenomena in the ancient records.  I am not going to embrace Von Daniken's theory that it was extraterrestrials who gave the ancients their knowledge, but I have no basis to dismiss that as impossible either.  I am a firm believer that God, via the Holy Spirit and/or angel spirit guides, gives us insight and understanding and inspiration and I believe I have experienced that.  Is there room for the skeptics to challenge what I believe I have experienced?  Of course there is.  Are there other explanations for 'ghost sightings' as reported by well educated and fully competent and reliable people?  Of course there are.  But I leave open the possibility that there are such things as ghosts too.

The arguments that "if God is. . . ."  then "why didn't God do" or "why did God allow". . .etc. etc. are the strongest in the Atheists' arsenal, but 'if that is so, then how do you explain. . ." arguments fit almost any controversial topic one wants to address.    The fact that something is mostly so does not have to reject any variables or departure from the norm.  (I have always considered it rather foolish to think that mere mortal man has the ability to comprehend even a tiny fraction of all the God is.)  

The arguments that it doesn't exist because it hasn't been authenticated or proved is to dismiss the entire history of scientific discovery and knowledge and suggests that we have all the science there is to know now.    What educated, intelligent person believes that?

The argument that extraterrestrials have never been here because we don't know how to go there is pretty short sighted in my view of the world.

And to refuse to believe or at least hold open the door of possibility is the very definition of a closed mind.


----------



## ABikerSailor

Foxfyre said:


> Againsheila said:
> 
> 
> 
> The Paranormal, the Supernatural, and the Extraterrestrial walked into a bar....for some reason I keep waiting for a punch line.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LOL.  Okay, somebody use that brain between his/her ears and come up with one.
> 
> Seriously, I don't KNOW the explanation for unusual knowledge and phenomena in the ancient records.  I am not going to embrace Von Daniken's theory that it was extraterrestrials who gave the ancients their knowledge, but I have no basis to dismiss that as impossible either.  I am a firm believer that God, via the Holy Spirit and/or angel spirit guides, gives us insight and understanding and inspiration and I believe I have experienced that.  Is there room for the skeptics to challenge what I believe I have experienced?  Of course there is.  Are there other explanations for 'ghost sightings' as reported by well educated and fully competent and reliable people?  Of course there are.  But I leave open the possibility that there are such things as ghosts too.
> 
> The arguments that "if God is. . . ."  then "why didn't God do" or "why did God allow". . .etc. etc. are the strongest in the Atheists' arsenal, but 'if that is so, then how do you explain. . ." arguments fit almost any controversial topic one wants to address.    The fact that something is mostly so does not have to reject any variables or departure from the norm.  (I have always considered it rather foolish to think that mere mortal man has the ability to comprehend even a tiny fraction of all the God is.)
> 
> The arguments that it doesn't exist because it hasn't been authenticated or proved is to dismiss the entire history of scientific discovery and knowledge and suggests that we have all the science there is to know now.    What educated, intelligent person believes that?
> 
> The argument that extraterrestrials have never been here because we don't know how to go there is pretty short sighted in my view of the world.
> 
> And to refuse to believe or at least hold open the door of possibility is the very definition of a closed mind.
Click to expand...


God doesn't do any of the evil in the world, man does.  Why?  Because God loves us enough to endow us with free will.  We are free to choose to follow Him or not.


----------



## Foxfyre

ABikerSailor said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Againsheila said:
> 
> 
> 
> The Paranormal, the Supernatural, and the Extraterrestrial walked into a bar....for some reason I keep waiting for a punch line.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LOL.  Okay, somebody use that brain between his/her ears and come up with one.
> 
> Seriously, I don't KNOW the explanation for unusual knowledge and phenomena in the ancient records.  I am not going to embrace Von Daniken's theory that it was extraterrestrials who gave the ancients their knowledge, but I have no basis to dismiss that as impossible either.  I am a firm believer that God, via the Holy Spirit and/or angel spirit guides, gives us insight and understanding and inspiration and I believe I have experienced that.  Is there room for the skeptics to challenge what I believe I have experienced?  Of course there is.  Are there other explanations for 'ghost sightings' as reported by well educated and fully competent and reliable people?  Of course there are.  But I leave open the possibility that there are such things as ghosts too.
> 
> The arguments that "if God is. . . ."  then "why didn't God do" or "why did God allow". . .etc. etc. are the strongest in the Atheists' arsenal, but 'if that is so, then how do you explain. . ." arguments fit almost any controversial topic one wants to address.    The fact that something is mostly so does not have to reject any variables or departure from the norm.  (I have always considered it rather foolish to think that mere mortal man has the ability to comprehend even a tiny fraction of all the God is.)
> 
> The arguments that it doesn't exist because it hasn't been authenticated or proved is to dismiss the entire history of scientific discovery and knowledge and suggests that we have all the science there is to know now.    What educated, intelligent person believes that?
> 
> The argument that extraterrestrials have never been here because we don't know how to go there is pretty short sighted in my view of the world.
> 
> And to refuse to believe or at least hold open the door of possibility is the very definition of a closed mind.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> God doesn't do any of the evil in the world, man does.  Why?  Because God loves us enough to endow us with free will.  We are free to choose to follow Him or not.
Click to expand...


That is also my belief and is heartfelt.  But. . . . I can also appreciate the agnositc or Atheist who cannot intellectually or emotionally embrace a concept of a Divine or Supreme Being is perfectly justified in questioning how a loving God can allow evil, pain, suffering, loss, etc. etc. etc.  I don't fault those who ask that question.  I do fault those who say there can be no God unless it is an evil God BECAUSE there is evil, pain, suffering, loss etc. etc. etc.  Such an argument takes a leap that simply can't be supported within the whole concept.

It is the same that those who have never seen a ghost and reject those who claim to have seen or detected the presence of ghosts saying that because they haven't experienced it, it doesn't exist.  Such is short sighted at best and really faulty thinking at worst.

It is the same with those who are convinced we are alone in the universe or that extraterrestrials have no visited us purely based on the fact that we can't visit them.  The thoughtful and open minded person accepts that technology and science that would allow them to be able to get here would be so far advanced from the science we have that nobody has yet conceived of it yet.    But no doubt most would have pooh poohed the concept of humans traveling to the moon as utter fantasy even a century or two ago.


----------



## PredFan

ABikerSailor said:


> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).



Can science explain why these thought-guided limbs work?



ABikerSailor said:


> But.............then again...............go back in time to the 1700's and pull out a Bic lighter, and most people would call you a witch.



Sure, but creating fire is scientific. It can be explained, it could even be explained to people of the 1700s given a chance.



ABikerSailor said:


> I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.



It depends. They won't show that ghosts exist, nor will they show that telepathy exists or withcraft. Right now, there pretty much isn't much happening in the universe that can't be explained by science. those things that are unexplainable, are probably unobservable as well.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).
> 
> But.............then again...............go back in time to the 1700's and pull out a Bic lighter, and most people would call you a witch.   I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which reinforces the point I've been trying to make.  We tend to believe what we have seen or heard or tasted or experienced whether or not anybody believes us.  And everything else we choose to believe or not.
> 
> So will science eventually show us logical explanations for everything that it cannot now logically explain?  I don't know.  My gut feeling is that an eternity is not long enough for us to learn everything there is to know.  Those who WANT to believe in the paranormal are more likely to interpret unusual experiences that way.  Those who do NOT want to believe will dismiss reports as delusion or hoaxes or misinterpretations.
> 
> But I suspect those who have encountered a 'ghost', most especially on more than one occasion, are far more likely to be believers than those who do not whether or not science has any conclusive information about it.   And I personally know people with advanced educations, including one scientist, and who give every appearance of being of sound mind and fully possessing common sense who report they have seen things they cannot explain in any other terms than 'ghost' or disembodied spirit.  And I for one do not feel qualified to tell them they didn't experience what they say they did.
Click to expand...


Science has already explained ghosts, alien abductions, telepathy, and the like. You just won't accept their explanations because they won't tell you that they are real.


----------



## PredFan

Montrovant said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).
> 
> But.............then again...............go back in time to the 1700's and pull out a Bic lighter, and most people would call you a witch.   I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which reinforces the point I've been trying to make.  We tend to believe what we have seen or heard or tasted or experienced whether or not anybody believes us.  And everything else we choose to believe or not.
> 
> So will science eventually show us logical explanations for everything that it cannot now logically explain?  I don't know.  My gut feeling is that an eternity is not long enough for us to learn everything there is to know.  Those who WANT to believe in the paranormal are more likely to interpret unusual experiences that way.  Those who do NOT want to believe will dismiss reports as delusion or hoaxes or misinterpretations.
> 
> But I suspect those who have encountered a 'ghost', most especially on more than one occasion, are far more likely to be believers than those who do not whether or not science has any conclusive information about it.   And I personally know people with advanced educations, including one scientist, and who give every appearance of being of sound mind and fully possessing common sense who report they have seen things they cannot explain in any other terms than 'ghost' or disembodied spirit.  And I for one do not feel qualified to tell them they didn't experience what they say they did.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> I wonder if, had they not already known about the concepts of ghosts, if those people would have viewed their experiences in the same way.  We all too easily assign an explanation such as ghosts to something we can't otherwise explain, but that's just putting an unexplained label on an unexplained event.
Click to expand...


Precisely. One of the things that I like to do to believers is to tell them that I believe in UFOs. If they know me they know something is up and they give me a loook like they are waiting for the other shoe to drop. If they don't know me, then they usually start going on as if I'm one of them. That's when I lay the bomb that while I believe in UFOs, I don't believe in aliens. That usually throws them for a loop. Fun times.


----------



## PredFan

ABikerSailor said:


> Did anyone ever think that the paranormal is what has guided us to this point in history?
> 
> I mean................really.................you've gotta have something in your head telling you to invent stuff like the telephone, parachute, airplane, etc.



The paranormal DID have a lot to do with us getting to where we are today. It's otherwise known as religion.


----------



## PredFan

ABikerSailor said:


> FA_Q2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> Did anyone ever think that the paranormal is what has guided us to this point in history?
> 
> I mean................really.................you've gotta have something in your head telling you to invent stuff like the telephone, parachute, airplane, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ?
> 
> I personally believe that the thing between our ears generally called a brain is what 'told' intellegent people to invent those things...
> 
> Whether you believe in the supernatural or not there is no reason to think that we, as an intellegent people, are not capable of independent and original thought.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Really?
> 
> Can you explain the Nazca Lines?
Click to expand...


Yes, I can. they are drawings designed by the people of the region in order to appease their gods. Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of drafting can make them.



ABikerSailor said:


> How about the Mayan temples that represented the solar system?



It's the same thing as seeing Jesus's face in a piece of toast.



ABikerSailor said:


> Someone taught our ancestors those things.



Sure. It was taught to them over time by people before them who studied things. Knowledge, handed down.


----------



## Foxfyre

PredFan said:


> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can science explain why these thought-guided limbs work?
> 
> 
> 
> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> But.............then again...............go back in time to the 1700's and pull out a Bic lighter, and most people would call you a witch.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Sure, but creating fire is scientific. It can be explained, it could even be explained to people of the 1700s given a chance.
> 
> 
> 
> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> It depends. They won't show that ghosts exist, nor will they show that telepathy exists or withcraft. Right now, there pretty much isn't much happening in the universe that can't be explained by science. those things that are unexplainable, are probably unobservable as well.
Click to expand...


Well, if you think we have the capacity to explain everything that exists now, you have a much smaller view of the universe than I do.  I think we have a teensy fraction of the science that there is to have and a teensy fraction of all the knowledge there is to know.

Who is to say that there will never be a scientific discovery that allows us to detect spirits, ghosts, the paranormal?  How do you conclude that because we don't have that capability now, that we won't ever have it?

Until the 17th century humans had no idea that such a thing as bacteria existed.  And even after they were able to see them through the first microscopes, it would be two more centuries before they figured out how to put that knowledge to practical use.

I simply cannot conclude that two more centuries later that we have all the science we will ever have.  I think medicine is still in its primitive stages compared to what it will one day be.  And I think we will be surprised at how wrong some of our even settled scientific opinion about many things will turn out to be when we are able to actually test that opinion. 

And I simply cannot accept an argument that ghosts, spirits, extraterrestrials, etc. are not with us purely because we have no conclusive way to prove it yet.


----------



## Meister

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can science explain why these thought-guided limbs work?
> 
> 
> 
> Sure, but creating fire is scientific. It can be explained, it could even be explained to people of the 1700s given a chance.
> 
> 
> 
> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> It depends. They won't show that ghosts exist, nor will they show that telepathy exists or withcraft. Right now, there pretty much isn't much happening in the universe that can't be explained by science. those things that are unexplainable, are probably unobservable as well.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Well, if you think we have the capacity to explain everything that exists now, you have a much smaller view of the universe than I do.  I think we have a teensy fraction of the science that there is to have and a teensy fraction of all the knowledge there is to know.
> 
> Who is to say that there will never be a scientific discovery that allows us to detect spirits, ghosts, the paranormal?  How do you conclude that because we don't have that capability now, that we won't ever have it?
> 
> Until the 17th century humans had no idea that such a thing as bacteria existed.  And even after they were able to see them through the first microscopes, it would be two more centuries before they figured out how to put that knowledge to practical use.
> 
> I simply cannot conclude that two more centuries later that we have all the science we will ever have.  I think medicine is still in its primitive stages compared to what it will one day be.  And I think we will be surprised at how wrong some of our even settled scientific opinion about many things will turn out to be when we are able to actually test that opinion.
> 
> *And I simply cannot accept an argument that ghosts, spirits, extraterrestrials, etc. are not with us purely because we have no conclusive way to prove it yet*.
Click to expand...


From being a non believer into a believer because of my own personal experience, I fully agree with you. What I experienced was real and was undeniable.
I haven't tried to change anyones opinion of what they believe in because of what I experienced.  But, there is no way that they can change what I believe using science.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> On 60 Minutes on Sunday, they were showing how people were being helped by thought guided artificial limbs.  Just a few years back, many people said something like that was impossible because telepathy doesn't exist (it does).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can science explain why these thought-guided limbs work?
> 
> 
> 
> Sure, but creating fire is scientific. It can be explained, it could even be explained to people of the 1700s given a chance.
> 
> 
> 
> ABikerSailor said:
> 
> 
> 
> I personally believe that eventually science will show us many things that we consider "supernatural" today, which will be logically explained in the future.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> It depends. They won't show that ghosts exist, nor will they show that telepathy exists or withcraft. Right now, there pretty much isn't much happening in the universe that can't be explained by science. those things that are unexplainable, are probably unobservable as well.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Well, if you think we have the capacity to explain everything that exists now, you have a much smaller view of the universe than I do.  I think we have a teensy fraction of the science that there is to have and a teensy fraction of all the knowledge there is to know.
Click to expand...


easy for you to say, but far far from the truth. Can you think of something, anything observable that science cannot explain? I can think of one thing, but science is working on that right now and will probably be able to explain it in the future.



Foxfyre said:


> Who is to say that there will never be a scientific discovery that allows us to detect spirits, ghosts, the paranormal?  How do you conclude that because we don't have that capability now, that we won't ever have it?



It isn't a matter of not having the technology to detect them, it's that science knows that they don't exist.



Foxfyre said:


> Until the 17th century humans had no idea that such a thing as bacteria existed.  And even after they were able to see them through the first microscopes, it would be two more centuries before they figured out how to put that knowledge to practical use.



Bad example. Bacteria are observable and their behavior is observable and predictable. Anyone with a microscope can see them. Bacteria can also be the explanation for a lot of observable phenomona, everything from sickness to making beer. You cannot say the same for the paranormal.



Foxfyre said:


> I simply cannot conclude that two more centuries later that we have all the science we will ever have.



We don't, and I never stated that we did. I merely stated that there is very little in the universe that cannot be explained.



Foxfyre said:


> I think medicine is still in its primitive stages compared to what it will one day be.



Another bad example. Everything in the body can be explained. Nothing that the human body does is paranormal. The new things we usually learn are techniques and therapies, not previosly unknown body parts.




Foxfyre said:


> And I think we will be surprised at how wrong some of our even settled scientific opinion about many things will turn out to be when we are able to actually test that opinion.



I assure you that despite what the crackpots who gave us Global Climate Change say, NO science is settled.

The paranromal, btw, always fails when tested.




Foxfyre said:


> And I simply cannot accept an argument that ghosts, spirits, extraterrestrials, etc. are not with us purely because we have no conclusive way to prove it yet.



They aren't testable, aren't reproducable, and defy known laws of physics. It isn't that we can't prove yet that they exist, it's that we can prove they don't.


----------



## Foxfyre

Yes.  I observe millions/billions of stars shining brightly in a cloudless New Mexico sky.  Science can speculate what they are based on understanding of our own sun.  But there is no way to be certain when we have no way to test whether all those other stars are of the same chemical makeup, consistency, or behave as our sun behaves.  But we know they are there.

And again going back to my shadow analogy.  I know I saw it.  Or did not see it.  But there is no scientific method known to humankind that can verify what I saw or did not see.

As Meister posted, he knows what he saw.  He knows that it was real.  He cannot prove it to anybody using any known method, scientific or otherwise.  Nor can you prove that he didn't see it or that it was not real.


----------



## earlycuyler

ABikerSailor said:


> Did anyone ever think that the paranormal is what has guided us to this point in history?
> 
> I mean................really.................you've gotta have something in your head telling you to invent stuff like the telephone, parachute, airplane, etc.



Abooutivley 1,000,000,000,000 % and getting to some of the stuff wou mentioned lets throw in the television, radio, tape recorder, video camera and their use in investigating the paranormal. I consider my self a Christian (despite my behavior here) but the bible clearly says ghosts exist. There is even the use of a "channeler" in the bible. For me though, a person has to be willing to see whats there. I have never seen spooks or specter's, but I dont doubt those out of hand that say they do.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> Yes.  I observe millions/billions of stars shining brightly in a cloudless New Mexico sky.  Science can speculate what they are based on understanding of our own sun.  But there is no way to be certain when we have no way to test whether all those other stars are of the same chemical makeup, consistency, or behave as our sun behaves.  But we know they are there.



Actually, that's wrong. We can and have tested those far away stars and shown exactly what they are made of. We can also explain their actions. we call them dwarves, giants, pulsars quasars, etc.



Foxfyre said:


> And again going back to my shadow analogy.  I know I saw it.  Or did not see it.  But there is no scientific method known to humankind that can verify what I saw or did not see.



Yes there is. It's repeatable, observable, measurable, and doesn't defy the laws of physics.



Foxfyre said:


> As Meister posted, he knows what he saw.  He knows that it was real.  He cannot prove it to anybody using any known method, scientific or otherwise.  Nor can you prove that he didn't see it or that it was not real.



Meister never stated what it was he saw, so therefor we cannot surmise that his observations prove anything at all.

If, for example, he stated that he saw a ghost, I can prove that he didn't, but I wouldn't try to claim he didn't see anything. I'd just prove that it wasn't what he claimed it was.


----------



## Meister

PredFan said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes.  I observe millions/billions of stars shining brightly in a cloudless New Mexico sky.  Science can speculate what they are based on understanding of our own sun.  But there is no way to be certain when we have no way to test whether all those other stars are of the same chemical makeup, consistency, or behave as our sun behaves.  But we know they are there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, that's wrong. We can and have tested those far away stars and shown exactly what they are made of. We can also explain their actions. we call them dwarves, giants, pulsars quasars, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> And again going back to my shadow analogy.  I know I saw it.  Or did not see it.  But there is no scientific method known to humankind that can verify what I saw or did not see.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes there is. It's repeatable, observable, measurable, and doesn't defy the laws of physics.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> As Meister posted, he knows what he saw.  He knows that it was real.  He cannot prove it to anybody using any known method, scientific or otherwise.  Nor can you prove that he didn't see it or that it was not real.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Meister never stated what it was he saw, so therefor we cannot surmise that his observations prove anything at all.
> 
> If, for example, he stated that he saw a ghost, I can prove that he didn't, but I wouldn't try to claim he didn't see anything. I'd just prove that it wasn't what he claimed it was.
Click to expand...


You would have to search what I experienced, Pred.  it's in this forum.  I didn't tell everything though, because of this type of response.  You cannot prove what I saw isn't so...there is no way that you could.  I was once in your shoes, but I'm no longer.  It was real, all of it.


----------



## PredFan

Meister said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes.  I observe millions/billions of stars shining brightly in a cloudless New Mexico sky.  Science can speculate what they are based on understanding of our own sun.  But there is no way to be certain when we have no way to test whether all those other stars are of the same chemical makeup, consistency, or behave as our sun behaves.  But we know they are there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, that's wrong. We can and have tested those far away stars and shown exactly what they are made of. We can also explain their actions. we call them dwarves, giants, pulsars quasars, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes there is. It's repeatable, observable, measurable, and doesn't defy the laws of physics.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> As Meister posted, he knows what he saw.  He knows that it was real.  He cannot prove it to anybody using any known method, scientific or otherwise.  Nor can you prove that he didn't see it or that it was not real.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Meister never stated what it was he saw, so therefor we cannot surmise that his observations prove anything at all.
> 
> If, for example, he stated that he saw a ghost, I can prove that he didn't, but I wouldn't try to claim he didn't see anything. I'd just prove that it wasn't what he claimed it was.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> You would have to search what I experienced, Pred.  it's in this forum.  I didn't tell everything though, because of this type of response.  You cannot prove what I saw isn't so...there is no way that you could.  I was once in your shoes, but I'm no longer.  It was real, all of it.
Click to expand...


If your claim was that it was supernatural, I could easily prove it wasn't so. I would never try to prove you didn't see anything, I'd just prove that it couldn't be what you claimed it to be. Assuming that you claimed it was of the paranormal nature.


----------



## Meister

PredFan said:


> Meister said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, that's wrong. We can and have tested those far away stars and shown exactly what they are made of. We can also explain their actions. we call them dwarves, giants, pulsars quasars, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes there is. It's repeatable, observable, measurable, and doesn't defy the laws of physics.
> 
> 
> 
> Meister never stated what it was he saw, so therefor we cannot surmise that his observations prove anything at all.
> 
> If, for example, he stated that he saw a ghost, I can prove that he didn't, but I wouldn't try to claim he didn't see anything. I'd just prove that it wasn't what he claimed it was.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You would have to search what I experienced, Pred.  it's in this forum.  I didn't tell everything though, because of this type of response.  You cannot prove what I saw isn't so...there is no way that you could.  I was once in your shoes, but I'm no longer.  It was real, all of it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> If your claim was that it was supernatural, I could easily prove it wasn't so. I would never try to prove you didn't see anything, I'd just prove that it couldn't be what you claimed it to be. Assuming that you claimed it was of the paranormal nature.
Click to expand...


Like I said, I'm not here to change your mind.


----------



## PredFan

Meister said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Meister said:
> 
> 
> 
> You would have to search what I experienced, Pred.  it's in this forum.  I didn't tell everything though, because of this type of response.  You cannot prove what I saw isn't so...there is no way that you could.  I was once in your shoes, but I'm no longer.  It was real, all of it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If your claim was that it was supernatural, I could easily prove it wasn't so. I would never try to prove you didn't see anything, I'd just prove that it couldn't be what you claimed it to be. Assuming that you claimed it was of the paranormal nature.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Like I said, I'm not here to change your mind.
Click to expand...


Ok.


----------



## Foxfyre

Nor am I here to change anybody's mind.  I am here to discuss a subject that I find interesting, provocative, and stimulating.  But I do not believe for a minute that Predfan can prove, either easily or with great difficulty, that the supernatural or paranormal does or does not exist.   If I'm wrong about that, he is invited to show his proof.  And I will then personally nominate him for the Nobel Prize or other recognition to which he would be entitled given that he would be the first mortal to do so.


----------



## Foxfyre

PredFan said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes.  I observe millions/billions of stars shining brightly in a cloudless New Mexico sky.  Science can speculate what they are based on understanding of our own sun.  But there is no way to be certain when we have no way to test whether all those other stars are of the same chemical makeup, consistency, or behave as our sun behaves.  But we know they are there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, that's wrong. We can and have tested those far away stars and shown exactly what they are made of. We can also explain their actions. we call them dwarves, giants, pulsars quasars, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> And again going back to my shadow analogy.  I know I saw it.  Or did not see it.  But there is no scientific method known to humankind that can verify what I saw or did not see.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yes there is. It's repeatable, observable, measurable, and doesn't defy the laws of physics.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> As Meister posted, he knows what he saw.  He knows that it was real.  He cannot prove it to anybody using any known method, scientific or otherwise.  Nor can you prove that he didn't see it or that it was not real.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Meister never stated what it was he saw, so therefor we cannot surmise that his observations prove anything at all.
> 
> If, for example, he stated that he saw a ghost, I can prove that he didn't, but I wouldn't try to claim he didn't see anything. I'd just prove that it wasn't what he claimed it was.
Click to expand...


That you can duplicate something is NOT proof that what I reported is what happened.  Evidence and research is not always the same thing as proof.  That scientists surmise the chemical makeup of stars based on light signatures and drawing informed assumptions is NOT testing the chemical makeup of those stars.

Believing everything a scientists tells us is so just because he says he has proved it is one way of acquiring knowledge, but in my opinion, that will continue to include flawed knowledge just as has been the case for all the millenia that humankind has been doing science.  I doubt many days go by that some scientist doesn't discover something that what they once thought was decided wasn't so decided after all.

In a way I wish I could just trust and accept things as you do and be so secure that we already know what there is to know.  I just am not made that way though.  Too much natural curiosity and skepticism I guess.  Too much hope that there is a future of knowledge that allows us to be better, more efficient, more effective, more constructive, more successful than what we are now.  And too much evidence that there are dimensions and much phenomena that we cannot yet access and still poorly understand.


----------



## FA_Q2

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes.  I observe millions/billions of stars shining brightly in a cloudless New Mexico sky.  Science can speculate what they are based on understanding of our own sun.  But there is no way to be certain when we have no way to test whether all those other stars are of the same chemical makeup, consistency, or behave as our sun behaves.  But we know they are there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, that's wrong. We can and have tested those far away stars and shown exactly what they are made of. We can also explain their actions. we call them dwarves, giants, pulsars quasars, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes there is. It's repeatable, observable, measurable, and doesn't defy the laws of physics.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> As Meister posted, he knows what he saw.  He knows that it was real.  He cannot prove it to anybody using any known method, scientific or otherwise.  Nor can you prove that he didn't see it or that it was not real.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Meister never stated what it was he saw, so therefor we cannot surmise that his observations prove anything at all.
> 
> If, for example, he stated that he saw a ghost, I can prove that he didn't, but I wouldn't try to claim he didn't see anything. I'd just prove that it wasn't what he claimed it was.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That you can duplicate something is NOT proof that what I reported is what happened.  Evidence and research is not always the same thing as proof.  That scientists surmise the chemical makeup of stars based on light signatures and drawing informed assumptions is NOT testing the chemical makeup of those stars.
> 
> Believing everything a scientists tells us is so just because he says he has proved it is one way of acquiring knowledge, but in my opinion, that will continue to include flawed knowledge just as has been the case for all the millenia that humankind has been doing science.  I doubt many days go by that some scientist doesn't discover something that what they once thought was decided wasn't so decided after all.
> 
> In a way I wish I could just trust and accept things as you do and be so secure that we already know what there is to know.  I just am not made that way though.  Too much natural curiosity and skepticism I guess.  Too much hope that there is a future of knowledge that allows us to be better, more efficient, more effective, more constructive, more successful than what we are now.  And too much evidence that there are dimensions and much phenomena that we cannot yet access and still poorly understand.
Click to expand...


That's a rather silly way of stating things.

Scientists and those that trust in science in no way shape or form 'trust' what we know or believe that everything is just so because scientists say that is the way it is.  In fact, if you truly understand science you acknowledge that everything you currently believe as fact is likely to be completely false.  It just happens to be much close to the truth than we were 100 years ago.

What you are describing is how FAITH works.  It is the opposite of how science works.


You must understand that the pursuit of science is rooted in the quest for grater and grater knowledge.  There is no proof that the paranormal, telekinesis or God don't exist (you can't prove a negative) but there is a lack of proof for those things as well.  That people don't put their faith in them existing is not close minded or 'accepting' anything.  It is simply acknowledging that you are not going to believe in something that has no proof for you whatsoever.  As they say, you don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster now do you?  I chose to believe in the things that I can prove.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> Nor am I here to change anybody's mind.  I am here to discuss a subject that I find interesting, provocative, and stimulating.  But I do not believe for a minute that Predfan can prove, either easily or with great difficulty, that the supernatural or paranormal does or does not exist.   If I'm wrong about that, he is invited to show his proof.  And I will then personally nominate him for the Nobel Prize or other recognition to which he would be entitled given that he would be the first mortal to do so.



Well I won't be the first, not by far. Which paranormal "event" or "talent" would you like me to disprove first? You pick.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes.  I observe millions/billions of stars shining brightly in a cloudless New Mexico sky.  Science can speculate what they are based on understanding of our own sun.  But there is no way to be certain when we have no way to test whether all those other stars are of the same chemical makeup, consistency, or behave as our sun behaves.  But we know they are there.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, that's wrong. We can and have tested those far away stars and shown exactly what they are made of. We can also explain their actions. we call them dwarves, giants, pulsars quasars, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes there is. It's repeatable, observable, measurable, and doesn't defy the laws of physics.
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> As Meister posted, he knows what he saw.  He knows that it was real.  He cannot prove it to anybody using any known method, scientific or otherwise.  Nor can you prove that he didn't see it or that it was not real.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Meister never stated what it was he saw, so therefor we cannot surmise that his observations prove anything at all.
> 
> If, for example, he stated that he saw a ghost, I can prove that he didn't, but I wouldn't try to claim he didn't see anything. I'd just prove that it wasn't what he claimed it was.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That you can duplicate something is NOT proof that what I reported is what happened.
Click to expand...


If I can duplicate a claim, measure it, and explain it and it doesn't violate the laws of physics, then yes, it is proof. You can deny it all you want to, but you're wrong.




Foxfyre said:


> Evidence and research is not always the same thing as proof.



Then what the hell IS proof in your mind because that's proof to the rest of the world. If I had evidence, and my research showed that esp did exist, and I could observe measure and repeat the use of it, I'll bet you';d accept THAT as proof of ESP.



Foxfyre said:


> That scientists surmise the chemical makeup of stars based on light signatures and drawing informed assumptions is NOT testing the chemical makeup of those stars.



Not it isn't, but doing that is unnecessary. You have proven that a star is made up of those things and do not have to physically go there to test it. The methods that they use to examine stars is based on the same measures we use to examine many other things right here on earth.



Foxfyre said:


> Believing everything a scientists tells us is so just because he says he has proved it is one way of acquiring knowledge, but in my opinion, that will continue to include flawed knowledge just as has been the case for all the millenia that humankind has been doing science.



Nobody, not even other scientists believe everything that science says is so is always true. Science is always correcting itself and reformulating theories. The difference is that the science never wavers from the solid fact that the laws of physics cannot be broken. There has never been a time when a scientist discovered something that broke the laws of physics. Other than Quantum Physics, which has slightly different rules.



Foxfyre said:


> I doubt many days go by that some scientist doesn't discover something that what they once thought was decided wasn't so decided after all.



Again, aside from the Global Warming Hoax, no real scientists will say that "such and such" science is settled.



Foxfyre said:


> In a way I wish I could just trust and accept things as you do and be so secure that we already know what there is to know.



Not anything even close to what I actually said.



Foxfyre said:


> Too much natural curiosity and skepticism I guess.



No offense, but you almost totally lack skepticism.



Foxfyre said:


> Too much hope that there is a future of knowledge that allows us to be better, more efficient, more effective, more constructive, more successful than what we are now.



It will happen. It just won't include superstition.



Foxfyre said:


> And too much evidence that there are dimensions and much phenomena that we cannot yet access and still poorly understand.



There isn't a shred of evidence of those things.


----------



## Foxfyre

PredFan said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Nor am I here to change anybody's mind.  I am here to discuss a subject that I find interesting, provocative, and stimulating.  But I do not believe for a minute that Predfan can prove, either easily or with great difficulty, that the supernatural or paranormal does or does not exist.   If I'm wrong about that, he is invited to show his proof.  And I will then personally nominate him for the Nobel Prize or other recognition to which he would be entitled given that he would be the first mortal to do so.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well I won't be the first, not by far. Which paranormal "event" or "talent" would you like me to disprove first? You pick.
Click to expand...


That's easy.  Prove that I saw my shadow when I went outside a few minutes ago.

I will not accept an argument that I could have seen it.
I will not accept an argument that it was possible that I saw it.
I don't want the fact that millions of people see their shadows presented as evidence that I saw it.
I want proof that I saw it.

Or if you want to go the more difficult proving a negative route:

Prove that I didn't see a ghost in the hallway awhile ago.


----------



## Foxfyre

FA_Q2 said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, that's wrong. We can and have tested those far away stars and shown exactly what they are made of. We can also explain their actions. we call them dwarves, giants, pulsars quasars, etc.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes there is. It's repeatable, observable, measurable, and doesn't defy the laws of physics.
> 
> 
> 
> Meister never stated what it was he saw, so therefor we cannot surmise that his observations prove anything at all.
> 
> If, for example, he stated that he saw a ghost, I can prove that he didn't, but I wouldn't try to claim he didn't see anything. I'd just prove that it wasn't what he claimed it was.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That you can duplicate something is NOT proof that what I reported is what happened.  Evidence and research is not always the same thing as proof.  That scientists surmise the chemical makeup of stars based on light signatures and drawing informed assumptions is NOT testing the chemical makeup of those stars.
> 
> Believing everything a scientists tells us is so just because he says he has proved it is one way of acquiring knowledge, but in my opinion, that will continue to include flawed knowledge just as has been the case for all the millenia that humankind has been doing science.  I doubt many days go by that some scientist doesn't discover something that what they once thought was decided wasn't so decided after all.
> 
> In a way I wish I could just trust and accept things as you do and be so secure that we already know what there is to know.  I just am not made that way though.  Too much natural curiosity and skepticism I guess.  Too much hope that there is a future of knowledge that allows us to be better, more efficient, more effective, more constructive, more successful than what we are now.  And too much evidence that there are dimensions and much phenomena that we cannot yet access and still poorly understand.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That's a rather silly way of stating things.
> 
> Scientists and those that trust in science in no way shape or form 'trust' what we know or believe that everything is just so because scientists say that is the way it is.  In fact, if you truly understand science you acknowledge that everything you currently believe as fact is likely to be completely false.  It just happens to be much close to the truth than we were 100 years ago.
> 
> What you are describing is how FAITH works.  It is the opposite of how science works.
> 
> 
> You must understand that the pursuit of science is rooted in the quest for grater and grater knowledge.  There is no proof that the paranormal, telekinesis or God don't exist (you can't prove a negative) but there is a lack of proof for those things as well.  That people don't put their faith in them existing is not close minded or 'accepting' anything.  It is simply acknowledging that you are not going to believe in something that has no proof for you whatsoever.  As they say, you don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster now do you?  I chose to believe in the things that I can prove.
Click to expand...


Maybe it is silly to you, but not to me.  Predfan, and maybe you too, seem to think that if it can't be dealt with scientifically using the science we have at our disposal right now, then it doesn't exist.

I have not opposed or pooh poohed or dismissed any scientific principle of any kind.  I do believe those who accept opinion just because it is described as scientific opinion are utilizing more faith to believe that opinion than do those of us who have experienced the supernatural or seen a 'ghost' or encountered an 'angel' and speak from our personal experience.

What we have seen.
What we have experienced.
That requires much less faith to believe than does, as one example, believing that time travel exists because Einstein theoretically proved it.

And I believe that my concept that there is much more to know, to experience, to understand, to learn than what humankind has already accomplished embraces a much more realistic view of science than does a view that if science can't prove it now, then it doesn't exist.


----------



## PredFan

Foxfyre said:


> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Nor am I here to change anybody's mind.  I am here to discuss a subject that I find interesting, provocative, and stimulating.  But I do not believe for a minute that Predfan can prove, either easily or with great difficulty, that the supernatural or paranormal does or does not exist.   If I'm wrong about that, he is invited to show his proof.  And I will then personally nominate him for the Nobel Prize or other recognition to which he would be entitled given that he would be the first mortal to do so.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well I won't be the first, not by far. Which paranormal "event" or "talent" would you like me to disprove first? You pick.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> That's easy.  Prove that I saw my shadow when I went outside a few minutes ago.
> 
> I will not accept an argument that I could have seen it.
> I will not accept an argument that it was possible that I saw it.
> I don't want the fact that millions of people see their shadows presented as evidence that I saw it.
> I want proof that I saw it.
> 
> Or if you want to go the more difficult proving a negative route:
> 
> Prove that I didn't see a ghost in the hallway awhile ago.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I won't bother with the shadow thing, you've shown that you think you can make the rules and you can't. You've been shown how that argument falls flat already so I'll skip it.

As for the ghost, that's easy.

Step 1. Are you claiming that you saw a ghost in the hallway?


----------



## boedicca

The poll choices are in adequate. To quote Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Arkestra:

"My home is out there is outer space.  I must be a member of the angel race".


----------



## Foxfyre

PredFan said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> PredFan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well I won't be the first, not by far. Which paranormal "event" or "talent" would you like me to disprove first? You pick.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's easy.  Prove that I saw my shadow when I went outside a few minutes ago.
> 
> I will not accept an argument that I could have seen it.
> I will not accept an argument that it was possible that I saw it.
> I don't want the fact that millions of people see their shadows presented as evidence that I saw it.
> I want proof that I saw it.
> 
> Or if you want to go the more difficult proving a negative route:
> 
> Prove that I didn't see a ghost in the hallway awhile ago.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Yeah, I won't bother with the shadow thing, you've shown that you think you can make the rules and you can't. You've been shown how that argument falls flat already so I'll skip it.
> 
> As for the ghost, that's easy.
> 
> Step 1. Are you claiming that you saw a ghost in the hallway?
Click to expand...


No.  But I could have seen one.  Prove that I didn't.

And I acknowledge your admission that you cannot prove that I saw my shadow earlier too.


----------



## Montrovant

Foxfyre said:


> FA_Q2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> That you can duplicate something is NOT proof that what I reported is what happened.  Evidence and research is not always the same thing as proof.  That scientists surmise the chemical makeup of stars based on light signatures and drawing informed assumptions is NOT testing the chemical makeup of those stars.
> 
> Believing everything a scientists tells us is so just because he says he has proved it is one way of acquiring knowledge, but in my opinion, that will continue to include flawed knowledge just as has been the case for all the millenia that humankind has been doing science.  I doubt many days go by that some scientist doesn't discover something that what they once thought was decided wasn't so decided after all.
> 
> In a way I wish I could just trust and accept things as you do and be so secure that we already know what there is to know.  I just am not made that way though.  Too much natural curiosity and skepticism I guess.  Too much hope that there is a future of knowledge that allows us to be better, more efficient, more effective, more constructive, more successful than what we are now.  And too much evidence that there are dimensions and much phenomena that we cannot yet access and still poorly understand.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's a rather silly way of stating things.
> 
> Scientists and those that trust in science in no way shape or form 'trust' what we know or believe that everything is just so because scientists say that is the way it is.  In fact, if you truly understand science you acknowledge that everything you currently believe as fact is likely to be completely false.  It just happens to be much close to the truth than we were 100 years ago.
> 
> What you are describing is how FAITH works.  It is the opposite of how science works.
> 
> 
> You must understand that the pursuit of science is rooted in the quest for grater and grater knowledge.  There is no proof that the paranormal, telekinesis or God don't exist (you can't prove a negative) but there is a lack of proof for those things as well.  That people don't put their faith in them existing is not close minded or 'accepting' anything.  It is simply acknowledging that you are not going to believe in something that has no proof for you whatsoever.  As they say, you don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster now do you?  I chose to believe in the things that I can prove.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> Maybe it is silly to you, but not to me.  Predfan, and maybe you too, seem to think that if it can't be dealt with scientifically using the science we have at our disposal right now, then it doesn't exist.
> 
> I have not opposed or pooh poohed or dismissed any scientific principle of any kind.  I do believe those who accept opinion just because it is described as scientific opinion are utilizing more faith to believe that opinion than do those of us who have experienced the supernatural or seen a 'ghost' or encountered an 'angel' and speak from our personal experience.
> 
> What we have seen.
> What we have experienced.
> That requires much less faith to believe than does, as one example, believing that time travel exists because Einstein theoretically proved it.
> 
> And I believe that my concept that there is much more to know, to experience, to understand, to learn than what humankind has already accomplished embraces a much more realistic view of science than does a view that if science can't prove it now, then it doesn't exist.
Click to expand...


This wasn't directed at me, but I feel compelled to comment. 

It's not so much that something doesn't exist because it can't be dealt with through scientific means, as that there's no reason to decide it DOES exist.  This also speaks to the idea that people assign explanations to experiences they don't understand; it's not that someone didn't see SOMETHING, it's the idea of deciding it was a ghost that is an issue.

Put another way, I don't doubt that there are some paranormal explanations for unexplained event that differ depending on the society a person comes from.  What one person sees as an alien craft, another sees as an angel, another sees as the spirits of their ancestors, etc.

There are doubtless many unexplained things that happen to people.  It is the haphazard method of deciding how to explain those things in paranormal terms that bothers me.


----------



## Foxfyre

Montrovant said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> FA_Q2 said:
> 
> 
> 
> That's a rather silly way of stating things.
> 
> Scientists and those that trust in science in no way shape or form 'trust' what we know or believe that everything is just so because scientists say that is the way it is.  In fact, if you truly understand science you acknowledge that everything you currently believe as fact is likely to be completely false.  It just happens to be much close to the truth than we were 100 years ago.
> 
> What you are describing is how FAITH works.  It is the opposite of how science works.
> 
> 
> You must understand that the pursuit of science is rooted in the quest for grater and grater knowledge.  There is no proof that the paranormal, telekinesis or God don't exist (you can't prove a negative) but there is a lack of proof for those things as well.  That people don't put their faith in them existing is not close minded or 'accepting' anything.  It is simply acknowledging that you are not going to believe in something that has no proof for you whatsoever.  As they say, you don't believe in the flying spaghetti monster now do you?  I chose to believe in the things that I can prove.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe it is silly to you, but not to me.  Predfan, and maybe you too, seem to think that if it can't be dealt with scientifically using the science we have at our disposal right now, then it doesn't exist.
> 
> I have not opposed or pooh poohed or dismissed any scientific principle of any kind.  I do believe those who accept opinion just because it is described as scientific opinion are utilizing more faith to believe that opinion than do those of us who have experienced the supernatural or seen a 'ghost' or encountered an 'angel' and speak from our personal experience.
> 
> What we have seen.
> What we have experienced.
> That requires much less faith to believe than does, as one example, believing that time travel exists because Einstein theoretically proved it.
> 
> And I believe that my concept that there is much more to know, to experience, to understand, to learn than what humankind has already accomplished embraces a much more realistic view of science than does a view that if science can't prove it now, then it doesn't exist.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> This wasn't directed at me, but I feel compelled to comment.
> 
> It's not so much that something doesn't exist because it can't be dealt with through scientific means, as that there's no reason to decide it DOES exist.  This also speaks to the idea that people assign explanations to experiences they don't understand; it's not that someone didn't see SOMETHING, it's the idea of deciding it was a ghost that is an issue.
> 
> Put another way, I don't doubt that there are some paranormal explanations for unexplained event that differ depending on the society a person comes from.  What one person sees as an alien craft, another sees as an angel, another sees as the spirits of their ancestors, etc.
> 
> There are doubtless many unexplained things that happen to people.  It is the haphazard method of deciding how to explain those things in paranormal terms that bothers me.
Click to expand...


We are all limited by the language we have to describe or explain anything.  And sometimes there just doesn't seem to be any way to describe it exactly as we experience it.  So a bit of tolerance and leeway there I think is in order.

But yes there are many unexplained things.  I have never encountered anything I would describe as possibly extra terrestrial, but I am not prepared to say that nobody ever has.  Not when you have so many witnesses who say they have.

I have never encountered a visible angel that I identified as an angel.  But I can't say for certain what people saw who say they have.

I have never personally seen a 'ghost'.  But I have heard and read enough testimony from people who are very credible to believe that such phenomena exists.  What it is I don't know.  But neither does anybody else.  And I for one am curious about it.

I can appreciate those who are skeptical that any of this stuff is real or unexplainable in anything other than paranormal terms.  An open mind allows for all manner of explanations when we don't really have any plausible ones.  But the closed mind that denies that such things exist because there is no 'scientific' verification or other plausible explanation are not the ones to look to to expand our knowledge and understanding.


----------



## FA_Q2

Foxfyre said:


> Maybe it is silly to you, but not to me.  Predfan, and maybe you too, seem to think that if it can't be dealt with scientifically using the science we have at our disposal right now, then it doesn't exist.


?
I actually said the exact opposite:


> In fact, if you truly understand science you acknowledge that everything you currently believe as fact is likely to be completely false.


I don't know about predfan but I in no way shape or form believe that if we cannot currently prove it then is simply does not exist.  If that is what he supports I can say that it is defiantly the opposite of science.  Science does not eliminate any possibility.  Those things are, however, a matter of faith.


Foxfyre said:


> I have not opposed or pooh poohed or dismissed any scientific principle of any kind.  I do believe those who accept opinion just because it is described as scientific opinion are utilizing more faith to believe that opinion than do those of us who have experienced the supernatural or seen a 'ghost' or encountered an 'angel' and speak from our personal experience.
> 
> What we have seen.
> What we have experienced.
> That requires much less faith to believe than does, as one example, believing that time travel exists because Einstein theoretically proved it.


Yes, you have pooh poohed and dismissed scientific principals because you have directly stated that scientific theory is a matter of faith.  This is something that really annoys me because it is a complete lack of understanding in how science works.  Simply put, science is not an exercise in faith at all.  It requires evidence, testing and repeatability.  These things are not faith whatsoever.

Further, what you have experienced and seen are also not articles of faith.  The fact that you seen something in your hall is not a matter of faith as that is a matter of experience.  What you are demanding as its explanation IS FAITH.  You are saying that it is a ghost.  That is faith because such a thing cannot be tested, reproduced or tested in any way shape or form.  Faith has already answered that question for you.  I can show how it could be a thousand other things but no matter what evedense is shown to you, you are still going to claim it is a ghost because that is what you have put your faith in.


To tell you the truth: that is the closed minded approach.  Science approaches the question of what was seen with an open mind, testing and experimenting until it can reproduce the given example and come up with a solution - whatever that solution may be.  Should no solution present then the scientist states that they simply do not know.  You, on the other hand, have started with a supernatural explanation.  

Oh, and Einstein has never done any such thing 


Foxfyre said:


> And I believe that my concept that there is much more to know, to experience, to understand, to learn than what humankind has already accomplished embraces a much more realistic view of science than does a view that if science can't prove it now, then it doesn't exist.


Again, I don't think anyone actually prescribes to that view as that is inherently unscientific.


----------



## Foxfyre

FA_Q2 said:


> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> Maybe it is silly to you, but not to me.  Predfan, and maybe you too, seem to think that if it can't be dealt with scientifically using the science we have at our disposal right now, then it doesn't exist.
> 
> 
> 
> ?
> I actually said the exact opposite:
> 
> 
> 
> In fact, if you truly understand science you acknowledge that everything you currently believe as fact is likely to be completely false.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> I don't know about predfan but I in no way shape or form believe that if we cannot currently prove it then is simply does not exist.  If that is what he supports I can say that it is defiantly the opposite of science.  Science does not eliminate any possibility.  Those things are, however, a matter of faith.
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> I have not opposed or pooh poohed or dismissed any scientific principle of any kind.  I do believe those who accept opinion just because it is described as scientific opinion are utilizing more faith to believe that opinion than do those of us who have experienced the supernatural or seen a 'ghost' or encountered an 'angel' and speak from our personal experience.
> 
> What we have seen.
> What we have experienced.
> That requires much less faith to believe than does, as one example, believing that time travel exists because Einstein theoretically proved it.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Yes, you have pooh poohed and dismissed scientific principals because you have directly stated that scientific theory is a matter of faith.  This is something that really annoys me because it is a complete lack of understanding in how science works.  Simply put, science is not an exercise in faith at all.  It requires evidence, testing and repeatability.  These things are not faith whatsoever.
> 
> Further, what you have experienced and seen are also not articles of faith.  The fact that you seen something in your hall is not a matter of faith as that is a matter of experience.  What you are demanding as its explanation IS FAITH.  You are saying that it is a ghost.  That is faith because such a thing cannot be tested, reproduced or tested in any way shape or form.  Faith has already answered that question for you.  I can show how it could be a thousand other things but no matter what evedense is shown to you, you are still going to claim it is a ghost because that is what you have put your faith in.
> 
> 
> To tell you the truth: that is the closed minded approach.  Science approaches the question of what was seen with an open mind, testing and experimenting until it can reproduce the given example and come up with a solution - whatever that solution may be.  Should no solution present then the scientist states that they simply do not know.  You, on the other hand, have started with a supernatural explanation.
> 
> Oh, and Einstein has never done any such thing
> 
> 
> Foxfyre said:
> 
> 
> 
> And I believe that my concept that there is much more to know, to experience, to understand, to learn than what humankind has already accomplished embraces a much more realistic view of science than does a view that if science can't prove it now, then it doesn't exist.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> Again, I don't think anyone actually prescribes to that view as that is inherently unscientific.
Click to expand...


Okay, my intent is not to annoy you, but let me try to explain.

I understand the atomic weight of various substances because I have weighed them in chemistry class.   I understand that certain chemical reactions occur or certain organisms react in certain ways because I have witnessed this in chemistry and/or biology class.

I have also had enough advanced learning in astronomy and a smattering of quantum physics to appreciate the theories and calculations that go into scientific studies of the universe and also on sub microscopic scales.   But I have not personally conducted any of such studies nor done any hands on research myself.  What I know I have read as opinion offered by others.

To believe their opinion as the real deal requires us to consciously accept their opinion as accurate.   Just as students of ancient science read and heard scientific opinion that the Earth is flat and the sun rotates around the Earth.

Are modern scientists more accurate about their calculated conclusions than those ancient scientists were?  Probably.  But it requires a degree of faith to accept that they did their experiments competently and drew the right conclusions from them.  It requires faith to believe what others tell us when we do not check it for ourselves.

So I usually believe my chemistry or biology or physics professor when he teaches me what is believed to be true about the universe, its origins, and how it works.   I also believe my pastor when he teaches me about deeper meanings found in Biblical passages.   And all require a degree of faith in order to trust that the teacher got it right.

And I believe my friend who I know to not be one to make up stories or exaggerate a reality when he tells me that he encountered a ghost and that there is absolutely no other plausible explanation for that encounter.

And is there more to every single one of all of these concepts than what my teachers know to teach me or my friend knows to tell me?  I leave that possibility wide open as well as the possibility that each could be mistaken in what they know or what they believe they saw.


----------



## Foxfyre

Bud Hopkins, college graudate, renown artist/sculpter--his work is displayed in a number of world class art museums--saw a UFO in the early 1960's and from that time on until he died a couple of years ago, he devoted a great deal of his time to research dealing mostly up close and personal with the witnesses to UFOs including many who claim to have been on board one of the spacecraft.

He has received mixed reviews--labeled a nut by the skeptics and 100% disbelievers of course, but given some credibility by those who keep an open mind on the subject.

I mention this because today, March 20, is Alien Abduction Day, recognized at least in Toronto.    I wonder if I member who answered the poll that he/she had been on board an alien spacecraft was just being silly?  Or honest?


----------



## Kooshdakhaa

In my backyard there is a gothic cross that marks the spot where a young woman was murdered in 2000, about two years before I bought the house.  A man who lived in the house told me that he would sit on the back deck and have conversations with her, that her spirit was very present.

Well, she's not here.  He had a tendency to drink a bit, I think that's the explanation for his "conversations" with her.  I have talked to her, but she doesn't answer.  I have sat on the spot where she died and felt nothing.  My dogs feel nothing.  There was one of those white crosses they use to mark fatal accidents along the highway, and I replaced it with a beautiful gothic cross.  One day a young man was walking by and he called out, "I see you kept the cross!"  I told him that as long as I own the house there will be a cross there, that I have respect for the woman who died there.  "She was my mother," He told me.

For decades I was open to the possibility of the paranormal, but as I've grown older I've realized that there is perfectly normal explanation for every supposedly "paranormal" occurrence.  Some people are open to these explanations, and some prefer to believe in the ghosts and spirits and poltergeists and weird writing on the walls.

I prefer the truth.


----------



## Kooshdakhaa

As for extraterrestrial beings, I think there is every reason to believe there is life elsewhere in our Universe.  Whether or not they are visiting us here, I'm not so sure.  My husband has an extensive library on UFOs, etc. and has read more than anyone I know on the subject.  One day I asked him if he had come to any conclusions about the UFO sightings, alien abductions, etc.  He said that he had.  He believes "we" are doing it...meaning mankind right here on Earth.  Probably government/military experiments.  After all the reading he's done, that's what he thinks is happening.  He doesn't believe aliens are here.

I think it is quite possible that an advanced alien civilization could accomplish travelling here to Earth.  But if they do, I don't think they'll be all secretive, abducting us from our beds in the night, etc.  I think we'll all know they're here, no doubt about it.


----------



## LoudMcCloud

What people don't realize is that aliens will come from within.  The odd of us coming in contact with lifeforms from another is very great.  We are more likely to create a new type of race before that we come in contact with other civilizations that have become type 1 civilizations.  However,  we are still a type 0 civilization.  Watch this video of one of the most recognized theoretical scientist.  He can explain it better than I can.  This is the thoughts of a collection of major scientists around the world.

[ame=http://youtu.be/6GooNhOIMY0]Michio Kaku 3 types of Civilizations - YouTube[/ame]


----------



## JoeB131

Foxfyre said:


> *Gentle reminder:  This thread is in the CDZ*
> 
> The human race has perhaps always had notions of the paranormal and/or supernatural.  We find references in some of the earliest recorded histories in all known cultures.  More recently, we have added notions of the extraterrestrial to those things we are curious about.
> 
> Adding credibility to the notions is a growing body of people, many who seem to be quite intelligent, normal, and credible, who report encounters with paranormal or extraterrestial craft and/or beings.
> 
> This could even qualify as a quasi-political thread as both the paranormal and the extraterrestrial could qualify as threats to human safety and/or national security and for various other reasons.  Certainly the government has been operating radio telescopes for some time and continues to research reported UFO sightings, etc.  Waste of time?  Or are you happy with some of our resources being devoted to that?
> 
> So what do you think?  Yes?  No?  Maybe?
> 
> Personal experiences, logic, reason, and credible recorded histories are appropriate here.



I'm not sure if this is still in the CDZ, but I will try to be polite. 

I reject ghosts.  The Spiritualist movement has been a fraud, as exposed by Harry Houdini, fo crying out loud.  

For Aliens-  

While I think it is possible that life evolved on other planets, the vast distances between stars make it unlikely we are being visited. 

MOre to the point, since aliens seem to be what we expect them to be, I can't take them seriously. 

 In the 1950's, people who saw UFO's reported contact with "Space Brothers", human aliens who looked like White People who were here to warn us about the dangers of Nuclear War.  And opposing them were "Men In Black" who also looked human, but were swarthier and non-white.  Just like movies like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "This Island Earth" told us they would be! 

In the 1980's and beyond, aliens were big-headed and had unnecessary fixations on... well, is this still in the CDZ?   Okay, I won't go there, but it seems odd that this seems right along the same lines as movies like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."


----------



## Dajjal

JoeB131 said:


> I reject ghosts.  The Spiritualist movement has been a fraud, as exposed by Harry Houdini, fo crying out loud.



I have to say that you should not rely on Houdini's experiences, and research spiritualism on your own before forming a conclusion. But it is the work of years. You cannot reject the entire movement on the basis of one or two sittings, you need to go to many different mediums.
I did that from the early 1970's and I have had many, many evidential messages of the survival of my grandparents.



JoeB131 said:


> For Aliens-
> 
> While I think it is possible that life evolved on other planets, the vast distances between stars make it unlikely we are being visited.



I agree.


----------



## Foxfyre

Many a skeptic on many, many things has become a believer with personal experience.  To believe that something doesn't exist just because we ourselves have not experienced it or because it has not yet been 'proved' scientifically, is not, we might say, the scientific way.


----------



## Kooshdakhaa

For me, it is not just that I haven't experienced the paranormal that makes me skeptical.  It is that in almost every case I hear about there is a "normal" explanation within reach.  Either the people who had the paranormal experience are drunk, or smoking weed, or doing some other drugs, or they are kind of wacky, suggestible people in the first place.  And they tell you their stories and you're thinking, "Well, it could have been such and such."  There is another explanation.

As for staring at the back of people's heads and they sense that and turn around...I don't think that's paranormal.  I think that's normal.  It's just extrasensory perception.

I used to be afraid to make comments like this when I was younger.  I thought I would be taught a lesson by being subjected to some frightening paranormal experience.  Swarmed by ghosts in my bed, or something.  But now I know that's not going to happen.  And I have actually hoped for signs from beyond at times, and most of my life been very receptive to such encounters.   

But then I grew up.

That said, I hope there is something beyond this life (as long as it's good, that is!).  But I don't think we get to find out until we actually go there.  In other words, die.


----------



## Kooshdakhaa

P.S. And why do you keep saying this is in the Clean Debate Zone, when it's not?


----------



## Foxfyre

Kooshdakhaa said:


> P.S. And why do you keep saying this is in the Clean Debate Zone, when it's not?



If that was addressed to me, I haven't said it is in the CDZ. In fact, I requested that Admin move it from the CDZ to this forum after this forum was created.  JoeB was making an assumption that it might still be in the CDZ and so he would be polite.

I would hope that we could be polite even outside the CDZ, especially on a topic like this that we could have so much fun with in addition to actually learning from each other.

Nobody is expecting anybody to believe anything that they don't.  My only argument re belief is that any of us are limited to knowing only what we have a) experienced and/or b) choose to believe or not believe.  A closed mind restricts knowledge to just that.

An open mind allows for the possibility that others have experienced something different and know something different than we yet know as well as keeping open the possibility that there is a whole lot of stuff out there that none of us know yet.


----------



## Meister

Kooshdakhaa said:


> For me, it is not just that I haven't experienced the paranormal that makes me skeptical.  *It is that in almost every case I hear about there is a "normal" explanation within reach. * Either the people who had the paranormal experience are drunk, or smoking weed, or doing some other drugs, or they are kind of wacky, suggestible people in the first place.  And they tell you their stories and you're thinking, "Well, it could have been such and such."  There is another explanation.
> 
> As for staring at the back of people's heads and they sense that and turn around...I don't think that's paranormal.  I think that's normal.  It's just extrasensory perception.
> 
> I used to be afraid to make comments like this when I was younger.  I thought I would be taught a lesson by being subjected to some frightening paranormal experience.  Swarmed by ghosts in my bed, or something.  But now I know that's not going to happen.  And I have actually hoped for signs from beyond at times, and most of my life been very receptive to such encounters.
> 
> But then I grew up.
> 
> That said, I hope there is something beyond this life (as long as it's good, that is!).  But I don't think we get to find out until we actually go there.  In other words, die.



Just because there could be a normal explanation does not mean that it is the explanation.


----------

