I have no clue, Mr. Freeze...
Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - I'm not a "ghost psychologist"...
I'm just relating what I saw...
How can anyone really be a 100% confident atheist given the paranormal and occult?
by yadda yadda 2 78 Replies latest jw friends
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ziddina
A double post!!
Yeah, why on earth WOULD a 'ghost' hang out around an accounting department...??
Paying for past sins as an embezzler, perhaps...???
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Finkelstein
Being that there have been billions of people living on this planet together with a surmountable portion of human ignorance
with these people, over many centuries, its an assured probability of unknown and unrecognized occurrences being spoken about.
This has to be confidently accepted as just plain fact, after all were only human.
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DarioKehl
These stories always grow in the telling. When I was still inside, one of my favorite past times was sharing "demun stories" with all my JW friends. Sure, mysterious things happened all the time, but the human brain is remarkably deceptive. And I'll admit, when things happened (and at the time, I wasn't such a skeptic so I believed some of these experiences were real evidence of demons), I would "flavor" my story every time I retold it to another person. After awhile, I even started believing my own embellishments! So yes...I am guilty as charged for not only believing and embellishing, but actively convincing others of these accounts.
George Costanza said it best: "It's not a lie... if you believe it."
Thanks to Snare&Racket for bringing up James Randi's $1M prize. Every day that prize goes unclaimed is another powerful piece of evidence that there's just no such thing as the supernatural.
Sidenote: It did always seem kind of ironic to me just how much fear JWs had of demons and how much emphasis they put on their apparent powers and ability to interact physically in your life. They could scare the crap out of you with stories and warnings from WT but never had a problem explaining their way out of why angelic or godly intervention doesn't happen in modern times. If anything, for current JWs, demons offer more proof of the supernatural than jah ever does! Think about it: at one point in history, god supposedly parted the Red Sea, led by pillars of fire and cloud, maintained a constant ambient source of "spiritual glory" inside the most holy room of the tabernacle, but nothing like that occurs today because the mere existence of the WBTS supplies all the "proof" that we should need. Evidence of god and holy spirit is only manifested by this amazing global organization and its works of dispensing food. Meanwhile, demons make smurfs walk out of Kingdom Halls and garage sale items can strangle elders' wives during the night? But, the Revelation book says demons are currently in "Tarturus" so they can't be as powerful as they were in Noah's day? Yet they can still haunt your house and inanimate objects. Whatever.
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OnTheWayOut
Most "paranormal" reports are a bunch of rubbish from wild imaginations and cons. Even where something cannot be explained, it does not default to "God did it."
Why list UFO sightings? ...or hypnotism? Does more life in the universe prove that life must have been created by God? NO! Does more deception of the brain prove that anecdotal evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that 'voices' are real? Definitely NOT!
I can even ask that UFO sightings be discounted as military maneuvers and wild imaginations. Crop circles are made by pranksters. Aliens come up with such extravagant technology and come all the way to earth just to bend wheat in a field or probe some truck driver in Nebraska? HA HA! Most Big Foot claims or Loch Ness monster sightings are made by those that want these things to be true, along with those that hear God's voice. (But I do believe there may be life ON EARTH that we don't know about. It doesn't default to "God did it.")
But why bother? I don't need to debunk ever last report. As reports are denied, believers just move God into a smaller box. If we were able to prove He isn't in all of the universe or anywhere at all unless He was the size of a grain of sand, then believers would say He can contain Himself in a grain of sand. ...or the typical "God is outside of our material existence." Demonstrate actual evidence instead of God's existence, instead of insisting that proving a negative is impossible. I default to logical answers until they are proven wrong.
Could there be intelligent life outside of our own existence that is beyond us? Certainly. It doesn't default to God. Could intelligent life have had any influence on the existence of humans? Doubtful, but not impossible. It doesn't default to God. Even life after death, which has not been the least bit proven, would not default to God.
Many people cling to God because of an emotional sureness. They need to believe. My emotions when it comes to God are this: "If You are out there, You have some explaining to do." My emotions tell me that the God of man's creation is disgusting and falls way short of the benevolence they give him credit for. If such a "devil" were to exist, how dare you all worship Him? Light a candle for children of Indonesia and Haiti and read in all of man's holy books about how God has taken a crap on human beings throughout their belief in Him.
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King Solomon
Darkmatter2525 made a video which asks a question, do you REALLY want a relationship with God?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYkxWO4Op6c&list=UULhtZqdkjshgq8TqwIjMdCQ&index=1&feature=plcp
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Crisis of Conscience
OTWO said - I default to logical answers until they are proven wrong.
I like that! LOL It's so much easier than trying to explain or defend what doesn't make sense. Thanks!
CoC
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cofty
Most Big Foot claims or Loch Ness monster sightings are made by those that want these things to be true
hey don't you be casting aspertions on our Nessie!
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still thinking
MrFreeze.... zid, I have to point out something in your story. The big question I have when someone presents stories like this is "Why?" Why would a spirit being move the blind? Think about it, if you were a ghost, why would you hang out in a conference room moving blinds? It just doesn't make sense to me. I hear people tell stories about keys moving or cupboards being opened. Why would the spirits be doing that?
simple...when they died they left their brains behind.
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GromitSK
Folks are entitled to believe whatever they want I guess. The crunch comes when one tries to convince another of the truth of these beliefs. What one person might accept as sufficient evidence to support a belief can be very different from what another requires. Absolute categorical proof is a high evidential standard to meet, but if that's what a person requires in order to satisfy them, then as far as I can see that's fair enough. There is perhaps little point debating it if one's evidence does not meet the criteria of the other parties to the discussion.
To say there is no evidence to support supernatural or paranormal phenomena is not true as far as I can see. The Society for Psychical Research in the UK (and there are many other agencies across the world) has well over a hundred years of research records on the subject. Does that body of research constitute categorical proof? I don't think so, at least not for me. Is it evidence of such phenomena being at least possible? Surely it is. Unless one has already decided that such phenomena are impossible. How much weight one credits it with is perhaps a personal judgement after having read some of it for oneself, including how it was acquired.