Ghostly experiences (ooohh scarrrryyyy)

[monkey0506]

This is an important distinction and the inability to make it is exclusively found in believers.

False. You're not just suggesting, but explicitly stating, that a specific mental distinction is impossible to reach only if the person in question holds specific opinions. That's completely ludicrous to say the least. The human mind is one of the least rational things one could possibly hope to find. It doesn't matter if two thoughts/ideas/feelings/opinions/etc. are directly and absolutely contradictory, someone, somewhere will believe it, and not only believe in it, but find absolute and irrefutable evidence about its truth that they will be completely incapable of producing on demand.

For that reason it's completely absurd that any person should take for granted anything that any other person says, or even proves. Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false. Regardless of how many other people may have tested it, no matter how many times it may have been "proven", even under laboratory conditions, it's irrational for me to believe what you're telling me...at least until I've tested it myself.

[Igor Hardy]

For that reason it's completely absurd that any person should take for granted anything that any other person says, or even proves. Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false. Regardless of how many other people may have tested it, no matter how many times it may have been "proven", even under laboratory conditions, it's irrational for me to believe what you're telling me...at least until I've tested it myself.

Come on, don't we deserve at least a little amount of trust? It's also pretty irrational of you to believe any mind exists outside of your own. Yet I do hope you believe that, and don't think of us as some kind of mindless robots programmed to do things.

[Calin Leafshade]

Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false.

The fact that a Mormon just said this amuses me greatly.

"Hey, I saw God and Jesus, and an angel gave me a bunch of golden plates that you will never see. Do you believe me?"

[miguel]

I had a two minute long farting sequence tonight. My wife kicked me out of bed and it didn't help me when I told her that it could be a ghost...Or several ghosts.

I decline the theory that farts and ghosts are related.

[Stupot]

I had a two minute long farting sequence tonight. My wife kicked me out of bed and it didn't help me when I told her that it could be a ghost...Or several ghosts.

I decline the theory that farts and ghosts are related.

It's as good a theory as I've ever come across...

[Khris]

For that reason it's completely absurd that any person should take for granted anything that any other person says, or even proves. Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false.

If that were true, there's no way you could live anything resembling a normal life. You are accepting things to be true without personally testing them all the time. (Example? You don't jump off a bridge to get to the bottom instead of taking the stairs, even though you haven't tested the claim that you're going to get hurt/die if you jump.)
Also, if you mean to tell me that you don't believe any "historical truth" like "there were WWI and WWII" or that you have to test whether things are edible for yourself, you're simply insane. There's no other way to put it.

Regarding what prompted your post: it sounds like you completely misunderstood me. I read your post twice and don't see how it touches in any way what I said (but maybe I phrased things badly):

And I'll say it again: dismissing a claim is not remotely the same as claiming the opposite. This is an important distinction and the inability to make it is exclusively found in believers.

I'll rephrase:
If somebody doesn't get why "I don't believe that X exists" is very different from "I believe that X doesn't exist", there's a 99% chance they aren't a skeptic but a theist/believe in something supernatural.
The worst of them can't even grasp the concept of "not believing in something". If you told them you didn't believe in god, what they'd hear is, you hate god.

[Noctambulo]

False. You're not just suggesting, but explicitly stating, that a specific mental distinction is impossible to reach only if the person in question holds specific opinions. That's completely ludicrous to say the least. The human mind is one of the least rational things one could possibly hope to find. It doesn't matter if two thoughts/ideas/feelings/opinions/etc. are directly and absolutely contradictory, someone, somewhere will believe it, and not only believe in it, but find absolute and irrefutable evidence about its truth that they will be completely incapable of producing on demand.

For that reason it's completely absurd that any person should take for granted anything that any other person says, or even proves. Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false. Regardless of how many other people may have tested it, no matter how many times it may have been "proven", even under laboratory conditions, it's irrational for me to believe what you're telling me...at least until I've tested it myself.

Well, that means that you're a real -very real- skeptic

Yes, we have to test all we can by ourselves, but, we are very limited on time and resources to do it.

The vast majority of our knowledge comes from people we assume are telling us the truth (parents, teachers, books, tv, movies, etc, etc), and we "choose" what to believe or not, and that become our personal dogmas.

[monkey0506]

Unless I've tested and seen the evidence myself, then it's completely irrational for me to believe that anything is true, or false.

The fact that a Mormon just said this amuses me greatly.

"Hey, I saw God and Jesus, and an angel gave me a bunch of golden plates that you will never see. Do you believe me?"

Clearly you don't understand one of the core principles of our belief system. Doctrinally, we, Latter-Day Saints/Mormons are not supposed to blindly follow. This brings up the difference between a belief and knowledge. Believing in everything is fine so long as you're willing to test that belief and see if it holds true. If you're not sure about gravity's existence you would be justified in believing that it's not there so long as you take the opportunity to jump up or drop a plate and see if gravity takes no hold. You must also be willing to accept the result even if it wasn't the one you believed would manifest.

Science has extreme difficulty trying to test what is labeled as "supernatural", "paranormal", "spiritual", etc. So for someone closely aligned to the practices of science it makes absolute sense for them to not believe in these things. When they take the stand that these things must not exist, that's when they deviate from the skeptical and move toward scientific fundamentalism.

In the course if our lives there are an infinite number of possibilities and only a finite amount of time, energy, resources, etc. with which to follow through with testing these possibilities. So surely we must take some things "for granted" or else we would spend our entire lives vindicating our very existence.

Science, as modern theory presently stands, does not make a distinction between the proposed spiritual realm and the physical realm. Interactions between the two are considered untestable because we ourselves exist as physical beings, so by what method could we expect to interact with such a realm in which we ourselves do not exist? There is no scientific theory which would describe such a process. When individuals and groups claim such interactions, it is therefore explained using the existing theorem, as best as we are presently able. Hallucinations, blood clots in the brain, tumors, irrational delusion, blatant lying, and the like, all of these we can use our current understanding to explain, so it is the accepted explanation.

From the standpoint of a skeptical theist, I believe that it is possible for an individual or a group to interact with the spiritual realm. Based on what I have experienced as a result of my personal tests in this regard, I differentiate between "a feeling" and things of the spiritual realm. I can only speak for my own experience. If I went in search of a spiritual reponse to the effect that there was no God, yet the results I witnessed were to the contrary, would I not be amiss to hold to that belief that there was no God?

I cannot expect anyone to apply my experience as irrefutable proof in their lives. Indeed I would invite any who were willing to experiment, and see if they too found more than just "a feeling". As for the state of the human mind, why shouldn't you be able to experiment several times? If it's true shouldn't you find the same result?

If a person said to me that they experimented as I describe and felt nothing they could not attribute to their own mind, would it not be equally wrong of me to say, "You're going to burn in Hell if you don't believe as I believe,"?

The doctrine in which I believe, which by my own experience I hold to be true is such that God will hold man accountable for their own knowledge. There is much about this doctrine which I  will not say that I "know" to be true, because there is still so much that I have to learn about it. Experimenting on it must only come when I have learned enough about it to create a well-formed stand on the particular issue.

I understand skepticism toward religion, and indeed I advocate it. However, I do not believe that something must be quantifiable and testable under laboratory conditions in order for it to exist, nor for such existence to be experimented upon. Perhaps my experience is delusion, maybe I am insane, but is it more absurd to follow your experience with religion than to follow my own? Regardless of opposition or support to my point of view, I am obligated, as a skeptic, to state what I have seen; what I have seen time and again, even when I felt so sure that it must be wrong. How could a loving God ask me to face some of the things I have encountered in my life? The pain, the suffering, and the dark places I have been in my life, how could God exist and let this go on? And then knowing there are so many that have faced so much, so very much worse than myself...I have not simply been a blind follower. I have questioned, many times.

Even when I didn't understand, I found an answer than I cannot deny. You may or may not have my experience, and I may or may not be wrong. But I can only state what I have seen.

[ddq]

[Noctambulo]

Monkey, the thing is that there is a lot of people who lack the capacity of dealing with the unknown, and they have to fill in the blanks with what they believe, even when they contradict themselves.

That's why the fundamentalists (theists and atheists alike) are so desperate  to show how "superior" they are, because they KNOW "the truth", and if you don't think as them, you're either a "servant of Satan" or a "useless no brainer". And that makes them very dangerous...

[Khris]

Noctambulo, your ignorant, cheap attacks won't get you anywhere.
You also seem to be unaware of the fact that your statement implies that you think your own position is superior to what you see as extremists on both ends of the spectrum.

Skepticism, as I understand it, is the position that untestable claims must be dismissed.
Atheism as I understand it, is applying skepticism to the god hypothesis, nothing more. There are atheists who claim that there are no gods, but they are a subset. The rest is usually fine with stating that it's improbable, with the degree of improbability depending on the specific god claims made by the believer.

A core property of skepticism is the willingness to go where the evidence leads you and to acknowledge that we in fact don't know everything. We do try to fill in the blanks, but by doing scientific research, not by making stuff up, believing old books to the letter or saying goddidit.

You are attacking a badly disfigured straw man.

Science has extreme difficulty trying to test what is labeled as "supernatural", "paranormal", "spiritual", etc. So for someone closely aligned to the practices of science it makes absolute sense for them to not believe in these things. When they take the stand that these things must not exist, that's when they deviate from the skeptical and move toward scientific fundamentalism.

Unfortunately, you are making the same mistake as a lot people who have this skewed perception of science.
Scientists didn't start out by assuming that the supernatural doesn't exist. One of the purposes of the scientific method is to remove personal bias, so disregarding an entire possible dimension of reality certainly isn't very scientific.
But, over time, scientists noted that whenever they test supernatural claims using high standards and lab conditions, they turn out to be false. So by now, a lot of scientists are simply unwilling to waste their time with testing supernatural claims.

It's very similar to the distinction between medicine and alternative medicine. It's not like a proposed method of treatment starts out as being labeled alternative medicine. It's after it failed the testing of its effectiveness that it gets labeled alternative medicine. Because if the treatment were indeed effective, it would become part of "regular" medicine.

Same goes for natural and supernatural. The label is applied after we test the claim. As soon as a claim about reality can be confirmed, it becomes part of nature. If the testing fails, it doesn't.

And regarding

Science has extreme difficulty trying to test what is labeled as "supernatural", "paranormal", "spiritual", etc.

that's simply not true at all.
There are lots of people who claim to be able to communicate with the dead, read minds or auras, have an out-of-body experience and do other similar stuff. Claims like that can easily be tested. It has been done for decades. And without fail, as soon as some sort of control is used, the supernatural powers suddenly fail.

I didn't wake up one day and decided that from now on, supernatural doesn't exist. I simply followed the evidence.

[Stupot]

Seeing as this thread is already off topic, and I'm buggered if I start another (a)theism thread, I might as well just post this here:

Man faces five years for 'God does not exist' Facebook post.
Yeaaah, I probably won't be going to Indonesia any time soon...

[Noctambulo]

Noctambulo, your ignorant, cheap attacks won't get you anywhere.

And you are a superior kind of moron.

How do you like that?

But don't worry: I'll assume that you are not really mean, only an ignorant (as all fanatics)

From now on, I'll just ignore you (as I had to do when you started claiming your "superiority")

[Khris]

I'm not surprised to see you resort to personal attacks.
You have also insulted all skeptics and atheists.

I on the other hand haven't attacked you, just your arguments.

How about you address my arguments?
It should be easy to show my ignorance that way, right?

Also, being condescending doesn't help if you're already in the middle of losing an argument, it only makes you lose it faster.

[NickyNyce]

This post is not to start or continue an argument, I just could'nt help telling my way of thinking about SOME of this.

What if more people believed that the world was gonna end soon, then there was people that believed it wasn't. The world would be out of whack and near total chaos. Thank goodness that that's not the case. Good thing that more people in the world want to make sure of things before they believe it. This could get extremely radical if we all thought this way. The only time you shouldn't take the time to see if something is false is when you need to decide in an instant.

Innocent until 'proven' guilty, makes sense to me.

We are told a nuclear weapon is headed our way, OH my god, bomb everyone before it gets here. Ummm...NO...check and make sure first.

Iraq has nuclear weapons, let's go bomb the shit out of their country. Ooops, guess we were wrong

Does anyone believe that the world is going to end this year? If we can't prove 100% that it isn't going to end, should we panic and go nuts because we read somewhere that it will?

Years and years ago....People thought that the sun was a god, animals, deformed children, the stars, planets, the alignment of constellations, earthquakes, bad weather, the northern lights, giant mountains... why?

Because nobody could say they weren't. Of course that's changed now

I personally believe the world is a better place by not thinking this way, this is just my opinion.

[ddq]

William Shakespeare once said "Brevity is the soul of not sounding like a rambling, incoherent moron."

[LUniqueDan]

First of all, and perhaps most important, is that there's a separation between my daily life and working on Skeptoid. I don't walk around demanding peer-reviewed scientific evidence for everything that I see. I don't have a crazed, obsessive drive to know the validity of every new product for sale at the mall. I'd never get through my day without a certain amount of tolerance for pseudoscience. Fad products, marketing campaigns, greenwashing, and even straight-up fraudulent claims surround us, all day, every day. I accept that. Trying to be a full-time challenger of pseudoscience would not only be hopelessly quixotic, it would also annoy everyone around me, and rob me of the freedom to enjoy my day.

- Brian Dunning, Skeptoid.org

[Noctambulo]

Innocent until 'proven' guilty, makes sense to me.

It also makes sense to me, but is not necesarily the best approach every time. There are a lot of criminals who are free...

We are told a nuclear weapon is headed our way, OH my god, bomb everyone before it gets here. Ummm...NO...check and make sure first.

Iraq has nuclear weapons, let's go bomb the shit out of their country. Ooops, guess we were wrong

Well, that's not exactly the same: According to some people from the CIA, The US gobernment was pretty sure that Iraq didn't own any WMD (but everybody is 100% sure that Iraq owns a lot of oil.   )

Does anyone believe that the world is going to end this year? If we can't prove 100% that it isn't going to end, should we panic and go nuts because we read somewhere that it will?

I'm curious: How can someone prove 100% that something is going to happen or not?

Years and years ago....People thought that the sun was a god, animals, deformed children, the stars, planets, the alignment of constellations, earthquakes, bad weather, the northern lights, giant mountains... why?

Because nobody could say they weren't. Of course that's changed now

I personally believe the world is a better place by not thinking this way, this is just my opinion.

Well, I personally believe the world would be a better place if we all accept that the truth value of certain claims is unknowable.

[Mouth for war]

Wow! My intention for this thread was for entertaining purposes only....Seems things have gone out of line hehe

[Ghost]

Wow! My intention for this thread was for entertaining purposes only....Seems things have gone out of line hehe

Allow me: BY READING THIS you have a ghostly experience.