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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  General Discussion  |  Topic: What are your paranormal beliefs? 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Poll
Question: Which of the following (if any) do you believe in?
UFOs/Alien visitations - 38 (23.3%)
Ghosts - 26 (16%)
Telepathy/Telekinesis - 17 (10.4%)
Bigfoot/Yeti - 10 (6.1%)
Demons/Exorcisms - 12 (7.4%)
Chupacabra/Nessie/other Cryptids - 9 (5.5%)
Mediums/communications with the dead (including EVP) - 8 (4.9%)
Other (explain) - 43 (26.4%)
Total Voters: 87

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Author Topic: What are your paranormal beliefs?  (Read 60997 times)
Amarr HM
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Reply #280 on: March 18, 2015, 02:13:53 PM

Spirits of aborted babies? Thats the second time I read it in this thread...

Thought I'd add a bit of weight - in a lot of cases the abortions would, lead to the death of the mother. During the period they were said to being performed (1940-60) it was punishable by death. This would mean it's likely the dead were buried on-site as to not raise alarm. Un-wedded mothers were treated abysmally due to the Catholic stranglehold in Ireland, see Bon Secours and the Tuam mass graves.

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bhodi
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No lie.


Reply #281 on: March 18, 2015, 05:37:07 PM

8 year ago me:

I have no faith and little belief. That's my explanation.

Old me? You're still right.

People are dumb and believe what they want to believe. Human senses can't be trusted Everything I've read and experienced since has only solidified this fact.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2015, 05:39:26 PM by bhodi »
Paelos
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Reply #282 on: March 18, 2015, 06:44:35 PM

I miss polls.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
Cyrrex
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Reply #283 on: March 19, 2015, 12:12:45 AM

We should find some way of figuring out if the people around here would like to see polls make a comeback.

"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
Paelos
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Error 404: Title not found.


Reply #284 on: March 19, 2015, 06:07:28 AM

We should find some way of figuring out if the people around here would like to see polls make a comeback.

Yes what could we do to arrange some sort of voting around polls?

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
pxib
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Reply #285 on: March 19, 2015, 11:22:37 AM

I recommend telepathy.

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Yegolev
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2/10 WOULD NOT INGEST


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Reply #286 on: March 20, 2015, 06:42:59 AM

He might be pranking us.

I only have myself to blame for this bias.

Just for the record, I don't believe in ghosts per the popular description.  The notion of spirits of dead people even existing is rather ludicrous.  What I do think, however, is that there are things which cause us to perceive things which due to our programming can seem to fit into the description of a human... that is doing inhuman things.  Similar to how people saw a face on Mars in a shitty photo.  We have to rely on our senses and our interpretations of the patterns to create a working model of the world around us, and it's entirely possible that we are surrounded by lots of imperceptible things.  Or maybe even inconceivable things, meaning we aren't able to see the pattern due to the limitations in our head-meat.

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pxib
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Reply #287 on: March 20, 2015, 09:40:47 AM

What I do think, however, is that there are things which cause us to perceive things which due to our programming can seem to fit into the description of a human... that is doing inhuman things.
Indeed, but we no longer have to depend on our senses and interpretations. We can do repeatable tests with strict standards and scientific instruments, and when we do we tend to discover that ghosts are caused by reflections, air currents, day/night temperature changes, and spooky old architectural traditions. It's only when we do depend on our sense and interpretations, letting our head-meat run wild, that explanations turn supernatural.

If they're inconceivable, imperceptible, mysteriously immune to science, and almost completely harmless... why insist they exist? Why should anybody care?

if at last you do succeed, never try again
Cyrrex
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Reply #288 on: March 20, 2015, 11:54:30 AM

..... ghosts are caused by reflections, air currents, day/night temperature changes, and spooky old architectural traditions.

Or maybe it's because ghosts require these conditions in order to become manifest.  Hah!

"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
Merusk
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Reply #289 on: March 20, 2015, 04:01:42 PM

I recommend telepathy.

I remain disappointed that telepathy or the possibility of such was below ufos and ghosts.  It's energy that travels through the air and is interpreted by a sensory organ.   It's more possible than the rest, especially considering we can use our weak brain waves to control thing here and now.

Granted I am also talking of the universal possibility. I do not believe in human telepathy as our meat currently exists.

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pxib
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Reply #290 on: March 20, 2015, 04:27:06 PM

We already have better superpowers than telepathy: Empathy and language. Why waste time on brain waves when you've got light and sound?

if at last you do succeed, never try again
Kail
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Reply #291 on: March 20, 2015, 04:34:44 PM

I remain disappointed that telepathy or the possibility of such was below ufos and ghosts.  It's energy that travels through the air and is interpreted by a sensory organ.   It's more possible than the rest, especially considering we can use our weak brain waves to control thing here and now.

I don't think that's how most people view telepathy.  Energy which is interpreted by a sensory organ is how all of our known senses work, so unless there's another bullet point you want to tack on there I don't see much debate happening.  Nobody is arguing that eyesight is a myth.

Generally it's more about being able to sense specific emotions or thoughts or something, which is where the debate comes in since nobody has been able to reliably detect the existence of anything like that with any kind of instrument.  In the same way that nobody has been able to reliably detect Bigfoot or UFOs or the other items on the list.  So I'm not sure about it being more or less possible than anything else being discussed.
Merusk
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Reply #292 on: March 20, 2015, 09:20:11 PM

We already have better superpowers than telepathy: Empathy and language. Why waste time on brain waves when you've got light and sound?

You wouldn't. It makes no sense in our evolutionary sphere. However, it's more a possibility than anything else on that list so it never belonged there. Caveat being that "alien visition/ UFOs" is referring to "anal probing" not "well shit, there's life out there SOMEWHERE"

Yeah it's a bit of goalpost shifting, but still bothers me.  Quirks.

The past cannot be changed. The future is yet within your power.
Malakili
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Reply #293 on: March 20, 2015, 10:33:53 PM

The thing is, paranormal and supernatural have a lot of overlap.  But anything that exists is by definition natural, so it gets mucked up.  If you imagine actual telepathic ability explained by biology, I bet a lot of the people who believe in it would reject it as "not real telepathy" because it wouldn't have any "woo" attached to it.

It's a bit like magic.  So Penn and Teller can saw a lady in half and put her back together, only not really.  So it's not "real magic" - but ironically, it IS real magic in the sense that it is the type of magic that can actually be performed.  When people say "real magic" they mean, precisely, the kind of magic that doesn't actually exist, or "not real magic."

That's why a lot of these discussions just don't interest me too much.  Either ghosts are a thing that exist in the universe or they aren't.  If they did exist, it would be an amazing discovery for humanity.  But so far the evidence is pretty much nil.  Again this falls back into the "everyone has video cameras with them all the time now" thing for me.  If most of this stuff exists, we should be seeing it all over the place.
Khaldun
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Reply #294 on: March 21, 2015, 05:37:02 AM

Ghosts I can at least imagine there would be reasons why they can't be photographed. You can't photograph dark matter (whatever it turns out to be) even if it was right in front of you, for example. There might be properties of minds that allow them to imagine they are perceiving photons-on-retinas in the presence of a ghost (e.g., seeing something) when in fact there's nothing to see, since there are other circumstances where minds can 'see' things that can't be photographed (minds can hallucinate, minds can dream and 'see').
Lantyssa
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Reply #295 on: March 21, 2015, 08:12:46 AM

Dark matters turns out to be matter too dark to take photos of.

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Malakili
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Reply #296 on: March 21, 2015, 09:52:01 AM

Ghosts I can at least imagine there would be reasons why they can't be photographed. You can't photograph dark matter (whatever it turns out to be) even if it was right in front of you, for example. There might be properties of minds that allow them to imagine they are perceiving photons-on-retinas in the presence of a ghost (e.g., seeing something) when in fact there's nothing to see, since there are other circumstances where minds can 'see' things that can't be photographed (minds can hallucinate, minds can dream and 'see').

Yes, you've just done a pretty good job explaining ghost sightings.  But for some reason you include some vague possible "property of a mind" that just happens to exactly replicate hallucination in the presence of ghosts.  Ohhhhh, I see.
Khaldun
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Reply #297 on: March 21, 2015, 01:09:54 PM

Eh, not arguing it for myself at all. Just saying that I could see how a true believer could reconcile "rarely photographed" with the requirements of naturalism in some of these cases. Not with Bigfoot, Loch Ness, etc. or even with UFOs if UFOs are assumed to be alien spacecraft.
Lantyssa
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Reply #298 on: March 21, 2015, 01:12:16 PM

They have special light-shielding which lets them be seen by the human eye, but gives cameras trouble.  Kind of like the flicker you get from trying to take video of a monitor or TV screen, but more advanced.

I bet Big Foot and Nessie have fur and scales that do that, too.  Isn't Nature amazing?

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Kail
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Reply #299 on: March 21, 2015, 03:58:20 PM

Eh, not arguing it for myself at all. Just saying that I could see how a true believer could reconcile "rarely photographed" with the requirements of naturalism in some of these cases. Not with Bigfoot, Loch Ness, etc. or even with UFOs if UFOs are assumed to be alien spacecraft.

I don't know if that's usually a problem.  You can come up with unproven sci-fi justification for just about anything paranormal.  The question is "is it real" not "is it theoretically possible if we assume X Y and Z are true". 

And even if it were, photography is the least of a ghost's worries.  They can pass unaffected through solid matter sometimes, but other times they can physically impact the world.  They can walk through walls but don't sink through the floor.  The idea that they're the spirits of the dead is a whole book of problems by itself.
Amarr HM
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Reply #300 on: March 22, 2015, 04:19:15 PM

Perhaps tears in the time fabric can allow objects to periodically manifest in two time locations at once. So a person at different time can close a door and the event can be seen at a future or past location. The likelihood of this is increased if the object has been relatively static for a long period of time, like very old buildings.

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Engels
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Reply #301 on: March 24, 2015, 03:41:11 PM


I should get back to nature, too.  You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer.  Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached.  Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe

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WayAbvPar
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Reply #302 on: March 26, 2015, 02:44:22 PM


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