It's a Byzantine-style sigil, like a signature using letters from your name to form a graphic symbol. It doesn't signify anything religious.
seeing dead people
- Thread starter ugafan
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It's a Byzantine-style sigil, like a signature using letters from your name to form a graphic symbol. It doesn't signify anything religious.
ugafan
Looking for a woman
which calls into question empirical knowledge.
this is a great example to illustrate what a was talking about earlier. before technology existed to discover this, there was no way to explain what was going on. now we can see there are factors outside of the mind that can cause such visualizations. there is much more to discover, things we could not even possibly conceive of without a shift in our understanding of reality.
Capt Quirk
Veteran
I agree that hard proof is needed to study what is suspected. That is why there are paranormal groups, like TAPS used to be, before they went commercial and sold their souls to SciFi network. Believe me when I say I wish I could have come out of that house with some hard evidence, and was actually reluctant to leave because I hadn't been able to gather it. I also dismissed a lot of personal experiences, until I had experiences myself, things I couldn't explain away. That doesn't mean I see orbs in every picture and assume it is ghostly activity. Sometimes knocks in the wall are pipes. Phantom smells could just be nothing other than an odor that has soaked into the walls. But there is yet to be an explanation for the feeling of something walking across my bed. There was a possible explanation for my tv turning on by itself, but both the tv AND the surround sound at the same time? Two different componants, two different remotes, two different frequencies, both at the same moment? The feeling of fingers tickling my back freaked me out too, and there was nothing remotely close to me. Like I said, some things do have logical explanations, others don't. That doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Anhar_Miah
Veteran
Well logically it is very relevant,
First one needs to define under which scope goblins and ghosts fall under:
(a) Observable, naturalistic, etc
(b) Conceptual, immaterial, etc
If it is (a) then apply the tool of scientific methodology and prove with concrete data the existence or non-existence.
If it is (b) then apply the tool of Theology and philosophical methodology and prove using that method the existence or non-existence.
Capt Quirk
Veteran
Goblins would fall under the class of cryptozoology I think, like fairies, gnomes, big foot, nessie, etc. Of course, the same might even apply to demons. While I feel most of those might only be myths, there is a lot of stories from way back. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, I have never met one. so I can't say for sure. Most myths have a basis in reality.
The only problem being that (b) is in the realm of the imaginary and doesn't help us with the objective material world in which real events occur.
Sure there was. There was the mistaken baseless goblins/angels/demons superstition. That's an explanation; it's just that it's a valueless explanation with zero material support.
The example I offered illustrates how the mind is the critical component. What's happening "outside the mind" in the example offered, is just EM radiation. The visualization part is still "in your head" and does nothing to support the idea that there's supernatural beasties involved, at all.
This doesn't impress me as an argument supporting the acceptance of the supernatural, Bigfoot, Mothman, ghosts, spirits, et all. Hard physical evidence and repeatable experiment would be steps in that direction, but for some reason they're steps that no one has taken, for the last couple thousand years.
Like the old saying recommends, keep an open mind...but not so open that everything falls out.
ugafan said:
Well, there's evidence aplenty, of *that*.
166 episodes' worth.
btw it's really distressing how much pornography is called up by a simple "Flintstones" image search...
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ugafan
Looking for a woman
lol. i'm just pulling your leg about the dinos. :grin:
my earlier statements weren't to prove the existence or nonexistence of any supernatural creatures. they were just general thoughts on the limitations of science and how there is a lot out there that can't be explained (yet). that's not to say they can't be explained scientifically eventually.
my earlier statements weren't to prove the existence or nonexistence of any supernatural creatures. they were just general thoughts on the limitations of science and how there is a lot out there that can't be explained (yet). that's not to say they can't be explained scientifically eventually.
Anhar_Miah
Veteran
An "imaginary" is a product of a thought process, and any other thought whether "real" or "imaginary" is still a product of a thought process,
By YOUR reasoning why should one be deficient and another sufficient?
The onus of burden of proof lies upon you to explain why you have created the logical inconsistency?
Capt Quirk
Veteran
Poltergeists could in theory be considered imaginary, since it is the mind at work as opposed to an entity.
taormina
Hates to Rent
Capt Quirk, I can tell by the way you phrase things that you're convinced you are right - your comments sound like facts, not suppositions.
I mention this because you quickly dismissed what I said about the Bible out of hand, as if you are in possession of the entire truth of these matters while we are all still grasping for answers.
Let's all remember that when we venture into such unchartered territory, none of us knows anything.
How do you know Poltergeists are people's mind at work??
I mention this because you quickly dismissed what I said about the Bible out of hand, as if you are in possession of the entire truth of these matters while we are all still grasping for answers.
Let's all remember that when we venture into such unchartered territory, none of us knows anything.
How do you know Poltergeists are people's mind at work??
Nathyn
Low Budget Ninja
Actually this is indeed the official stance of the Catholic Church. (At the same time they arm themselves with a crapload of excorcist figure that one out). There was a newspaper article about Chicago getting it's own excorcist a few years ago. And there was a mention of excorcisms being more frequent.
-Nate
Capt Quirk
Veteran
It isn't so much that I am convinced that I am right, because this is really unproven theory. The information I base much of my statements on has been culminated over 30 something years of reading up on the subject. Being the youngest kid, my older siblings subjected me to lots of horror movies. Being curious about the stuff, I read every book I could on subjects from parapsychology, cryptozoology to witchcraft and other different religions.
The only reason I cast doubt on the Judeo Christian Bibles, is the same reason I have doubts about any other religious text- Each religion is based on the belief that it is the only truth. That means the others would have to be false. How can you be sure that this book is any more valid than that scroll, or that scroll is more valid than what was painted on a wall 4,000 years ago? I have never met a Deity face to face and chatted, so I am not dismissing the possibility of a supreme being, but that is as far as I'll go until said introduction is made, and I will make no assumptions as to their name and affiliation until then. So, before this thread gets shut down for religious conflict, that is just my opinion, and nothing more.
As for poltergeists, it has been the contention of many people far more learned than myself, that they are a psychokinetic manifestation. They usually do not have an intelligence of their own, and are random occurrences, sometimes even focusing their attacks on one person. This kind of activity has been found to occur where there is an adolescent in the home. The Bell Witch has been called a poltergeist for example, but it doesn't seem to fit the pattern, because it was claimed to be not only an intelligent entity, but would discuss scripture with the one daughter.
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Capt Quirk
Veteran
The Church is being very cautious when it comes to possession and exorcism, because while they may be working in the name of God to expel evil, the law of man frowns upon ceremonies that might result in the death of a person, such as the events that were the basis for the movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose, where a girl died during the attempt to expel a Demon. While it is one thing to believe in Gods and Demons, try using that as your defense in court.
I don't see any inconsistency.
For example, electrons aren't imaginary; their reality can be and has been repeatedly proven. They make clicks in detectors and their presence can be detected by replicable experiment. And there happens to be a very large field of technology exploiting their real, un-imaginary properties. The fact that conceptualizing what have been proven as real electrons involved a 'thought process,' has zero implications for the reality of the discovery the process led to.
Now, can you say the same for poltergiests, Zeus, goblins, Loki, leprechauns, ghosts, Enkidu, Osiris and the Tooth Fairy? Has their reality been proven, ever, at all, in any way? Of course not. So their status as products of a 'thought process' has zero to do, with whether or not they are real - that's a matter to be determined by proof, and there is none of any value. On the other hand, there is a vast quantity of evidence that their existence would require contraventions of physical laws that have never yet been observed. Not once. Forget about repeatedly, in the lab.
Capt Quirk
Veteran
Look into Electronic Voice Phenomenon.
The wild improbability of the unsupported claims made by the books, doesn't raise any questions? Only the fact that there are competing sets of wildly improbable unsupported claims?
People who claim to be 'far more learned' than you, anyway. I'd like to know exactly what fields their 'learning' is rooted in. Do they publish in peer-reviewed journals? Do they construct proper testable theories, and experiments to validate the theories, that have been repeated by other independent researchers?
The standard for being 'learned' in any meaningful way, needs some kind of definition. Getting one's name known as an 'expert' in a field where there isn't even any such thing as a body of expertise, is a very shaky one.