# Have you ever had a real experience you consider to be supernatural?



## Sanguinarious (Oct 16, 2022)

I have.

Normally I'm a rational skeptic, scientifically inclined person. I'm agnostic in that I believe that the actual origin to existence is almost certainly beyond human comprehension as we are now, so I believe that things we cannot explain likely do exist.

All that background established, I have had experiences I do believe had supernatural elements. One involved an experience I had while alone that I believe was a carefully aimed signal from a relative who had died recently. Another one involced several people, one a relative of mine, doing things over a few hours that were unusual to a notable degree and while seemingly unrelated all seemed to be perfectly timed to lead me to being exactly where and when I was needed to possibly save a woman's life.

Both experiences left me with the impression something had happened that had no rational explanation. I'm not easily convinced of the supernatural,  but I believe they happened nonetheless.

Have you ever had an experience you believe to be supernatural? I'm kind of curious if other people who generally use analytical thought, which gamers often do,  have experiences they can't rationally analyze.


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## Ryujin (Oct 16, 2022)

When I was younger, I used to have flashes of Deja Vu strong enough that I would go to a new place, need to find a washroom, and somehow walk straight to one. Once, when I was walking home after work from the bus stop (about 1:00am) I had a flash of a girl's face in my head. Met and started dating the girl about 2 weeks later.

There are, in fact, rather mundane explanations that could cover those events. I subconsciously noticed signs for what I was looking for. The girl worked in the same airport that I did and I might have seen her, without really registering it at the time. Those are far less fun though


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## Fifth Element (Oct 16, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> All that background established, I have had experiences I do believe had supernatural elements. One involved an experience I had while alone that I believe was a carefully aimed signal from a relative who had died recently. Another one involced several people, one a relative of mine, doing things over a few hours that were unusual to a notable degree and while seemingly unrelated all seemed to be perfectly timed to lead me to being exactly where and when I was needed to possibly save a woman's life.



Do you only want to discuss other peoples' experiences, or would you also be interested in discussing the irrationality of your supernatural beliefs? I'd be happy to explain the flaws in your reasoning here.


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## BookTenTiger (Oct 16, 2022)

I'm an absolute skeptic, but I still love these stories. I've experienced some pretty wild coincidences, but never anything I would claim as supernatural.

Oh, except for the time a voice in my head warned me a guy at a karate tournament was going to kick me right between the legs, and then he did!


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## pnewman (Oct 16, 2022)

Long ago, before caller ID, I used to always know if the caller was my sister, but it only worked on land lines. I absolutely do not believe in the supernatural but I have no idea why this happened.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 16, 2022)

Fifth Element said:


> Do you only want to discuss other peoples' experiences, or would you also be interested in discussing the irrationality of your supernatural beliefs? I'd be happy to explain the flaws in your reasoning here.



No thanks.


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## Dioltach (Oct 16, 2022)

Many years ago, I was ill - high fever and things. I went to sleep early, and woke up while it was twilight so my room wasn't very dark. There was a short female figure standing across the room, dressed in a grey robe with the hood pulled down over her face but with white hair coming down across her shoulders.

I pulled the blanket over my head, and even though I'm not religious I started praying.


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## Cadence (Oct 16, 2022)

There was a street light (white shining on road near middle of a residential block iirc) in Princeton NJ that I could never figure out how it decided to go on or off as I walked by (it was like a reverse set motion sensor going off most of the time when I got close, or someone having a switch for it messing with me).  Luckily no one called the cops as I walked by it well over a dozen times that evening .


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## Morrus (Oct 16, 2022)

I find tales of the supernatural and spooky stories  fun, but no I don’t consider any experience to actually be supernatural. If I can’t explain something, that’s just a lack of data, not magic.


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## Fifth Element (Oct 16, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> No thanks.



Fair enough.

To answer your question, no I've never had an experience I would describe as supernatural. Someone would have to first demonstrate that the supernatural is even a possibility before I would believe that.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 16, 2022)

Since our understanding of reality is based on linear time  and 3 dimensional space, how do you explain the fundamental initiation of existence from a state of non existence? 

By definition whatever initiated existence as we understand it is beyond our current comprehension. Some say a god did it and that that god is beyond our comprehension (but he wants our money) but that is resorting to a supernatural explanation for existence. 

So how do you explain existence in a rational scientific manner?


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## Morrus (Oct 16, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> Since our understanding of reality is based on linear time  and 3 dimensional space, how do you explain the fundamental initiation of existence from a state of non existence?
> 
> By definition whatever initiated existence as we understand it is beyond our current comprehension. Some say a god did it and that that god is beyond our comprehension (but he wants our money) but that is resorting to a supernatural explanation for existence.
> 
> So how do you explain existence in a rational scientific manner?



I thought you specifically _didn't_ want this debate?

The question isn't something I can parse; it's kinda word salad to me. But I supect that the answer is that my inability to explain something doesn't make it magic, it just makes it something I can't explain. I would consider myself very arrogant to suggest that everything I can't personally explain must therefore be magic. I can't explain quantum entanglement or nuclear fission, either, but I do not believe either to be supernatural.

Further to that, while I recognise that some poeple can explain those things, there is certainly a set of things which nobody as yet can explain. Which is why scientists still have jobs.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 16, 2022)

OK,  I'm saying a supernatural experience as a term of convenience. Maybe I should say an experience that cannot be explained by any rational means except coincidences so unlikely as to be harder to accept than any other explanation.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 16, 2022)

It is an interesting topic. I think we will all have to be pretty careful if we want the thread to stay open as it is potentially going to get into contentious territory. 

My background is a I was raised extremely religious, went through a period of agnosticism and a brief period of atheism in my very early 20s. But ultimately I returned to belief in God (for me it was a long process of reading philosophical arguments for and against, and having different experiences). Just my personal belief, not something I am interested in pushing on anyone else. I also found, despite moving towards agnosticism and atheism I still tended to do things like recite the Lords Prayer or the Rosary during things like heavy turbulence on a plane. Generally I am fairly skeptical of anything (not just supernatural claims but any, without evidence to support them), but I am always interested in other peoples experience and hearing what they believe about the world. 

I have had a few experiences I can say felt supernatural to me. Whether they truly were or not, I can't say with any degree of certainty (I can definitely find plausible wordy explanations for them). At the same time, I am persuaded that two were at least genuine. The first experience was one I am quite convinced was a product of lack of sleep and medications I was given following a surgery. I saw the classic little green men dancing on my chest at night. Even as it was happening I was convinced it was a hallucination (though it came during a time where I did feel the walls between the afterlife were seeping into real life: after coming home from the hospital I had this dread that I had died and was in purgatory). 

I've had two experiences though I feel were real and I would describe as religious experiences. And since those two events, I've continued to feel a presence at times. I don't think I can get into them without getting too deep into religious territory. For me, the experiences were profound and life altering. 

Another experience isn't my own, but when my grandfather was dying he began talking to deceased relatives as though they were there. This was in maybe the last few weeks before he passed where it you could tell he was leaving. I honestly didn't know what to make of it. Part of me said it's just his mind being affected by the dying process and memories surfacing (he was also hallucinating bears at the time) but I also found the conversations very compelling and had a nagging 'maybe he really is talking the them' feeling.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 16, 2022)

BookTenTiger said:


> Oh, except for the time a voice in my head warned me a guy at a karate tournament was going to kick me right between the legs, and then he did!




Did they penalize him for it?


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 16, 2022)

Yeah, I've had that 'felt a presence ' thing a lot.  A tensing of the scalp, the muscles along the side of the skull, a slight sense of almost like a pressure, indistinct but still palpable. A slight feeling between the shoulders.  Is thst what you mean?


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## Morrus (Oct 16, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> OK,  I'm saying a supernatural experience as a term of convenience. Maybe I should say an experience that cannot be explained by any rational means except coincidences so unlikely as to be harder to accept than any other explanation.



I reject the premise that there is such thing as a phenomenon which intrinsically _cannot _be explained, merely those which have not yet been explained. The fact that you or I cannnot explain it does not make it unexplainable.

I mean, you asked. You also said you didn't want to get into this debate, to which people said OK, but then you started it anyway.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 16, 2022)

OK I asked if people had certain expeirncces,  you and another user made it clear you hadn't.  Ok.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 16, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> Yeah, I've had that 'felt a presence ' thing a lot.  A tensing of the scalp, the muscles along the side of the skull, a slight sense of almost like a pressure, indistinct but still palpable. A slight feeling between the shoulders.  Is thst what you mean?




No. I mean the feeling of a benevolent spiritual presence


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 16, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> OK I asked if people had certain expeirncces,  you and another user made it clear you hadn't.  Ok.




It is a thorny topic. I think keeping it open to people with experiences, people without them, people who believe, people who don't, is the only real way to have a conversation about it on a forum. As long as people are being respectful to one another I don't see any issue with someone clearly stating they don't think supernatural events are possible or inexplicable, and vice versa. These kinds of claims get at fundamental beliefs about reality so I would expect someone to want to voice their opinion if a poster says they encountered the Ghost of Lizzie Borden and another poster believes ghosts don't exist.


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## R_J_K75 (Oct 16, 2022)

Yes, I have. I live in an area of South Buffalo NY that is well documented to have once been Indian burial grounds. Red Jacket was originally buried in the Seneca Indian Park which is a 2-minute walk from my house.  I don't know why or when, but they relocated his remains to Forest Lawn Cemetary. There's a paranormal investigator in WNY named Mason Winfield, who has done lots of research, haunted pub-crawls who said the area I live in has a large concentration of paranormal activity. Over the last 35 years of living in my house I've experienced quite a bit of odd and unexplainable phenomenon.  Heres one example off the top of my head. One night me and 5 or 6 friends were standing around and talking in my kitchen. My girlfriend at the time was standing by the stove, her hair was long enough that if she accidently backed into knob and lit the burner it probably could've ended badly. Fortunately, with the safety features built into the ignition process this isn't easy to do and takes a few seconds before the flame comes on. From where I was standing, I could see that she wasn't leaning on or touching the knobs. I told her to be careful not to back into the stove. No sooner than I finished the sentence the burner lit by itself. We were all kind of weirded out by this, I would say that one or two people seeing this could be written off but 6 people all agreeing that they saw the same thing is hard to explain away.


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## Fifth Element (Oct 16, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> So how do you explain existence in a rational scientific manner?



Since you asked, the answer is "I don't." If I don't know the answer to something, my response is "I don't know." I don't feel the need to add anything beyond that. I am comfortable with the fact that there are things I will personally never understand, but I don't supose that to mean that they are not understandable.


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## Warpiglet-7 (Oct 16, 2022)

I don’t know.  I go back and forth a bit and generally don’t think reports of paranormal activity are fact based.  I won’t litigate religion or other culturally sanctioned beliefs in this forum.  Suffice it to say I am in a field that has other explanations for unusual experiences.  Nevertheless…

I was having a philosophical discussion with a person of faith and a skeptic.  3 people in the room, inclusive of me.

We were discussing—of all things—the film “The Exorcist.”  I opined that “evil” and “demons,” “the devil” are real in what they represent—-selfish choices, hate and unjustified harm toward others.  I also said I did not think these concepts could manifest in the world aside from choices that humans make.  If they exist in any way, they do not interfere with the physical world.

As I said this, the fireplace which had contained a fire hours earlier “erupted?” In flame.  Perhaps another word would be better here.  But flames nearly two feet high burned for a count of three and then were gone.

I yelled “holy sh*t!” And looked at the others in the room.  The skeptic now was standing with wide eyes.  The person of faith said “that’s not funny.” 

They are family so you can rest assured we have thought about that over the years.

It is certainly possible that a gust came down the chimney and there were some embers Unnoticed by us.  Whatever the case, the _timing _and the size of the flames is unforgettable.  I am listening to Kid A by Radiohead as I write and have goosebumps.  Even as I say “coincidence” and it was just a gust…


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## BookTenTiger (Oct 16, 2022)

As a skeptic, what's fun to me about "supernatural" experiences is knowing there's an explanation, but not necessarily what the explanation is. For folks living before the understanding of genetics, a person born with albinism was a supernatural occurrence because they did not understand the reason behind it.

When someone tells a story of a ghost or psychic abilities or a prophetic dream, I figure there's a perfectly rational explanation... But the lack of one is fun too! It's like seeing a good magic trick. I know the magician isn't actually making the rabbit disappear, but knowing the truth is hidden from you is half the fun.


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## Dave Goff (Oct 16, 2022)

I have two "ghost stories" I experienced that I can't explain, but I sit on both sides of this discussion- I believe people really do have experiences that can be called paranormal or supernatural, but I also believe that these things will someday be quantifiable, repeatable, and able to be studied.

I read tarot cards at events sometimes, and I always tell people I believe there's more psychology involved than parapsychology. I think that our subconcious can process data in ways our conscious mind cannot, and we can use symbols to faciliate the communication between the two.

Have I experienced anything supernatural? Yes, I would say so.
Do I believe the events I experienced can be explained by science? Not currently, or at least not that I'm aware of, but likely at some point, definitely.


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## Andvari (Oct 16, 2022)

I haven't had any experiences I would categorize as supernatural, but I have experienced events of uncanny coincidence or things I could not explain. Here are a few.

As a child, I was playing in the woods near our home with the girl next door. We are on our way back, when suddenly I see a large shape in front of the path. I see it only for a split second, and my heart starts racing. I'm still not sure what it was, or if I was just imagining it. But I believe it was a big bird. When I tried recalling it, I saw an ostrich. Those do not exist where I live, so if it was a bird, it could have been a crane.

I once saw the Jim Carrey movie "The Number 23." After watching it to the end, as the credits rolled, I looked over at the digital clock. It said 23:23.

There was a period several years ago where I had the uncanny habit of looking at the clock just as it was 12:34. It happened several times a week during a longer period.


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## Jack Daniel (Oct 17, 2022)

I've had experiences that felt _uncanny_ at the time, but nothing I could ever consider supernatural. Every single time I've ever experienced that deeply uncanny sensation, it's always been in conjunction with a dangerous situation where I've feared for my life — full-on heart-pounding fight-or-flight fear. So I have no reason to believe that it's anything other than a neurochemical response.

Humanity has had the scientific method as we know it today for a good four hundred years now. In all that time, our investigations into the nature of the world have never discovered anything that we could rightly call supernatural. A supernatural explanation has never replaced a natural explanation for any observable phenomenon; only the opposite has ever happened. That is, I think, data enough to draw a conclusive inference.


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## Cadence (Oct 17, 2022)

Jack Daniel said:


> I've had experiences that felt _uncanny_ at the time, but nothing I could ever consider supernatural. Every single time I've ever experienced that deeply uncanny sensation, it's always been in conjunction with a dangerous situation where I've feared for my life — full-on heart-pounding fight-or-flight fear. So I have no reason to believe that it's anything other than a neurochemical response.
> 
> Humanity has had the scientific method as we know it today for a good four hundred years now. In all that time, our investigations into the nature of the world have never discovered anything that we could rightly call supernatural. A supernatural explanation has never replaced a natural explanation for any observable phenomenon; only the opposite has ever happened. That is, I think, data enough to draw a conclusive inference.




That's what the Technocracy wants you to think...  ;-)


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## BookTenTiger (Oct 17, 2022)

Jack Daniel said:


> I've had experiences that felt _uncanny_ at the time, but nothing I could ever consider supernatural. Every single time I've ever experienced that deeply uncanny sensation, it's always been in conjunction with a dangerous situation where I've feared for my life — full-on heart-pounding fight-or-flight fear. So I have no reason to believe that it's anything other than a neurochemical response.
> 
> Humanity has had the scientific method as we know it today for a good four hundred years now. In all that time, our investigations into the nature of the world have never discovered anything that we could rightly call supernatural. A supernatural explanation has never replaced a natural explanation for any observable phenomenon; only the opposite has ever happened. That is, I think, data enough to draw a conclusive inference.



But who's brave enough to actually investigate the supernatural??? It's spoooooooooky!


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## Fifth Element (Oct 17, 2022)

BookTenTiger said:


> When someone tells a story of a ghost or psychic abilities or a prophetic dream, I figure there's a perfectly rational explanation... But the lack of one is fun too! It's like seeing a good magic trick. I know the magician isn't actually making the rabbit disappear, but knowing the truth is hidden from you is half the fun.



In mythology, crows are often seen as an omen of death, as if they know death is coming. The reality is likely that whenever two opposing groups of humans making lots of noise gathered in a field, crows would also gather, not because they were able to predict death but because they're intelligent and know that there will soon be carrion to eat.


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## Umbran (Oct 17, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> I have.
> 
> Normally I'm a rational skeptic, scientifically inclined person. I'm agnostic in that I believe that the actual origin to existence is almost certainly beyond human comprehension as we are now, so I believe that things we cannot explain likely do exist.




Yes, well, in Archimedes' time lightning could not be explained - it seemed supernatural.

Science doesn't bother classifying things as "supernatural" - there is merely the natural that we have explained, and haven't yet explained.  And if some phenomenon defies your notion of what is possible in the universe, the appropriate scientific action is to _expand_ those notions, rather than to classify the phenomenon as beyond nature.


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## Older Beholder (Oct 17, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> Have you ever had an experience you believe to be supernatural? I'm kind of curious if other people who generally use analytical thought, which gamers often do,  have experiences they can't rationally analyze.



During high school my friends really got into having seances, (small country town with not much else to do) and I have to admit I saw some pretty weird stuff.

The best/worst example was when we were talking to one of the spirits and a friend of mine started to challenge it, demanding it knock paintings off the wall, mocking it that it couldn't. The glass we were using on the Ouija board became agitated before it flew across the room.


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## Levistus's_Leviathan (Oct 17, 2022)

Before we had our modern versions of scientific theories, we thought anything we couldn't explain was magical. The loud wind of winter was often thought to be the souls of angry spirits shepherded by Odin or some other pagan deity. Lightning was thought to be the wrath of God/gods. The seasons were believed to be caused by the daughter of a nature goddess going to the Underworld for 4 months, causing the nature goddess to be depressed, making the planet almost die until her daughter came back. Before we understood mental illnesses, we believed that they were caused by demonic possession or curses. Before we understood birth defects, we thought that fairies kidnapped infants and replaced them with changelings. 

All throughout history, as we have learned more and more about the universe and created greater scientific theories, we have debunked a lot of outdated superstitions. The "supernatural" is regularly debunked by science and reason in the modern day. 

I have had feelings and experiences that I don't know the explanation for. I thought that they were supernatural at the time. But after gaining a better understanding of history, science, and the various things we thought were magical/supernatural throughout history, I've learned to believe there are logical, scientific justifications for these things. I don't think magic or "the supernatural" exist in the real world, and am fine keeping those ideas in fictional worlds.


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## R_J_K75 (Oct 17, 2022)

Warpiglet-7 said:


> I don’t know. I go back and forth a bit and generally don’t think reports of paranormal activity are fact based. I won’t litigate religion or other culturally sanctioned beliefs in this forum. Suffice it to say I am in a field that has other explanations for unusual experiences. Nevertheless…




I've lived in my house what will be 35 years on October 31st. It's been so long I don't even think about it let alone let it bother me anymore, but generally speaking I've always got weird vibes living here. My father and brothers all have said the same. After a year or two of living here we were all having dinner and the conversation drifted towards the topic and we realized that we were all having the same strange experiences. I look at it in 1 of 3 ways. 1 - this is odd but I can find a logical reason behind it if I think about it enough. 2 - This is odd and I cant come up with a logical explanation but I'm sure there's one even if I don't know what it is. Then there's 3 - Some things are just eerie, unexplainable and out of the realm of conventional wisdom and fly in the face of tradition and physics. On a side note, I do believe in miracles...the Bills beat the Chiefs!


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## Umbran (Oct 17, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> OK,  I'm saying a supernatural experience as a term of convenience. Maybe I should say an experience that cannot be explained by any rational means except coincidences so unlikely as to be harder to accept than any other explanation.




I'm like Morrus on this - I generally replace "cannot be explained" with "has not yet been explained".

Given how poor human intuition on probability is, and how weird the human brain can get, the alternatives to "supernatural" seem a pretty good bet.


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## wicked cool (Oct 17, 2022)

Bedrockgames said:


> It is an interesting topic. I think we will all have to be pretty careful if we want the thread to stay open as it is potentially going to get into contentious territory.
> 
> My background is a I was raised extremely religious, went through a period of agnosticism and a brief period of atheism in my very early 20s. But ultimately I returned to belief in God (for me it was a long process of reading philosophical arguments for and against, and having different experiences). Just my personal belief, not something I am interested in pushing on anyone else. I also found, despite moving towards agnosticism and atheism I still tended to do things like recite the Lords Prayer or the Rosary during things like heavy turbulence on a plane. Generally I am fairly skeptical of anything (not just supernatural claims but any, without evidence to support them), but I am always interested in other peoples experience and hearing what they believe about the world.
> 
> ...



It’s funny that often when people are dying they see parents or loved ones that have passed or in some cases angels. Regardless they seem to find peace in it before they die.


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## Mercurius (Oct 17, 2022)

Perhaps a better term would be _paranormal. _Merriam Webster's first definition of _supernatural _is "Of or relating to existence outside the natural world." The first definition of _paranormal _is "Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation."

Meaning, supernatural is implied to be fictional and impossible, and thus more of a fictional concept (as in supernatural fiction). Paranormal is possible, but simply not (yet) understood.

There are lots of unexplained, not-yet-understood phenomena. Ghosts could exist and be paranormal, but not need to be supernatural. And of course the opposite is true: just because we don't understand something, or it doesn't exist within our current (scientific) paradigm, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't possible.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 17, 2022)

Speaking of ghosts, there's one thing most ghost stories have in common that just makes my scientific side do the NDT "Hmmmmmmmm..."

Most ghost stories seem to involve a sense of coldness.  Cold feelings,  cold air,  cold breezes seem to be very common in ghost stories. Now why is that? 


Just for a moment assume there is something to ghost stories,  that there is a thing that exists which is the basis of ghost stories. Call it an entity for the moment. 

This entity might be almost completely outside what we call reality. Almost but not  completely. It might hagr to follow at least a few of our known laws of physics, like thermodynamics. 

Not a major part of thermodynamics is it takes energy to do anything. Suppose an entity that is the basis for ghost stories has to follow this, abd in some way we can't understand now employs ambient heat as a form of ebergy,  is soaks up heat abd uses it to become visible, make sounds,  move stuff. Yes our current laws of physics say this isn't possible,  for _us.  _

But maybe not for something partially or mostly outside our currently known reality. Maybe something can take in heat abd channel it into ''manifestations''. 

It would explain why ''coldness'' is so associated with ghost stories from around the world and all sorts of separate cultures. I'm not saying I believe in ghosts, just putting out a possibility.


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## TheAlkaizer (Oct 17, 2022)

Not myself (that I can remember) but I got two stories to share. A short one and a long one. Neither happened to me.

*Grandmother's story*

I learned some years ago that my grandmother had a gift. My mom said "Your grandmother could _arrêter le feu_. (stop the fire" What she meant by that is that she could prevent the pain from burns through touching and voice. She said that many years ago, my mom burned herself with hot milk when I was a baby, and my grandmother started mumbling and touching her arm and said something like "It's done. The fire's gone. No burn for you," and my mom was fine. I took it as a funny story.

But I met some other members of my family years later when I visited my father's natal village and several people came to me saying "Oh, you're the grandson of Jeanne," and very quickly in the conversation they'd tell me how they'd always go see her when there was burn and how she could mumble something and instantly the burns wouldn't hurt anymore. Some even said that they could just call her and she'd talk them through it and the burns would stop hurting.

I always wanted to talk to my grandmother about it, but unfortunately she passed away the next year.

*Uncle's story*

The story has three characters: my mother, my uncle and the man.

My uncle is a painter. He lives on the street in Quebec City and paints for tourists. He's done it for years. He doesn't earn a ton of money but he's always been very happy.

A few years ago, let's say four, he had an accident while carrying his equipment and he hurt the index finger on his right hand. The part of the finger from the tip to the first phalanx became crooked. The rest of his finger could move normally and be straight, but the first phalanx was always bent. He sent pictures to my mother (whose a nurse) and she said that he should see a doctor; most likely he had a fracture and the bone was stuck or something (I don't remember).

So my uncle is not one that really goes to the doctor. So he waited for months. But eventually he goes. He writes back to my mother saying that she was right in her diagnostic but also that he went too late and that the bones fused together (or something) and that his doctor said it was not really possible to fix it now. That was bad news because it made it hard for my uncle to paint.

Comes Christmas and I see my uncle. I see his crooked finger, we talk about it. I witness it. It's impossible to straighten the tip of his finger.

Next year, he goes to a doctor in Ontario but he gets the same diagnostic. "We can't do much, it's too late." So at this point, my uncle just accepts that this is the way things are.

Later in the summer, he leaves a lot of his possessions behind and moves to spain to paint for tourist and visit a different country. He settles in Granada and spends the summer painting to earn enough money to eat and supply his painting and he sleeps in the nearby networks of caves (google it, it's really interesting).

At one point in the summer, it's sunset and my uncle is sitting next to the beach sipping a coffee reading a book. An older man sits next to him. They sit in silence for a few minutes. The man starts chatting. "Who are you?", "Where do you come from?" Very quickly, it turns an interesting conversation where two strangers share their life. The old man says that he's an healer. The conversation keeps going.

Eventually, the old man notices my uncle's finger and asks him what's up with it. My uncle explains all of it to him. The old man moves one seat closer to my uncle and says "Let me see." He takes my uncle's finger and asks him more question. My uncle starts blabbering, eyes locked on the sunset while the old man inspects his finger and eventually wraps his own fingers around it and starts massaging it gently. Lost in his discourse, my uncle doesn't pay much attention to it and he just blabbers for a minute or two.

When he's done, the old man lets go and says he has to go. But he thanks my uncle for the nice conversation, they wave and he goes. It takes several minutes before my uncle takes out some stuff to paint and then notices something. His finger is straight again. He sends a picture of his finger against the sunset to my mother, but she doesn't understand. "What's up with that picture?" and he's like "Don't you see?" It takes a few minutes for my mother to notice that his finger is straight. She video calls him and they talk about it and my uncle says that the old man healed him. He shows how his finger is mobile and works just like it did before.

My mother has no idea how it's physically possible. She saw the X-rays at the hospital, it's not possible.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 17, 2022)

There is a term for when a cancer just stops growing or even seems to die. It's called 'spontaneous remission' and medical science uses that term when it can't explain why it happens.


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## Snarf Zagyg (Oct 17, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> There is a term for when a cancer just stops growing or even seems to die. It's called 'spontaneous remission' and medical science uses that term when it can't explain why it happens.




I'm guessing you haven't actually looked at scientific articles in oncology on this issue. It's fairly well-documented.


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## Ryujin (Oct 17, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> There is a term for when a cancer just stops growing or even seems to die. It's called 'spontaneous remission' and medical science uses that term when it can't explain why it happens.



Rather interestingly, that term just came up on the Netflix show "The Midnight Club", which is about a group of late teens/young adults who are dying of various ailments, usually cancer, in a hospice. It's a Spooky Season sort of show with the characters telling ghost stories, ghost sightings, and premonitions.

The explanation that they give for "Spontaneous Remission", in the show, is that it generally involves a secondary infection that triggers the body to "do what it should be doing."


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## CleverNickName (Oct 17, 2022)

I've had plenty of things happen to me that I couldn't explain, but I wouldn't consider them supernatural.

For example, part of my job involves confined-space entry (CSE):  I have to go into manholes and pipes every now and then, to inspect them for damage, verify the construction, run tests, collect samples, and all that.  It's all part of the glamorous job of being a water engineer.  Sometimes, I get a premonition or a 'gut feeling' that something isn't right, and I'll call off the entry...and then discover that the atmosphere in the pipe was harmful and the 4GD was out of calibration, or my retrieval harness was damaged, or whatever.

Now I'd love to attribute that 'gut feeling' to my dad, rest in peace, looking over me and keeping me safe.  It's also possible that it is my own guardian angel, or an alien that has an interest in my lifespan, or nanobots that the government injected me with, or a safety charm that my grandmother placed on me when I was born (she was very superstitious).  But it's _most_ likely that it is the result of the hours of rigorous training, my years of CSE experience, and the lengthy and repetitive annual certifications that have all sharpened my awareness.  I've been trained to be vigilant (paranoid?) to danger, to follow regulations to a T, and to react quickly in danger, and _that _is the most likely source of my premonitions.

Note that I said "most likely."  I know, I know, Occam's Razor, "the easiest answer is also the most likely," sure.  But it's not evidence.  Since there's no safe way to test that theory (sending untrained people into confined spaces as control, for example), and since we don't have the technology to detect, measure, and predict the impact of ghosts/angels/aliens/nanobots/charms, my premonitions remain unexplained.

Unexplained, but probably not supernatural.


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## Morrus (Oct 17, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> There is a term for when a cancer just stops growing or even seems to die. It's called 'spontaneous remission' and medical science uses that term when it can't explain why it happens.



The logical fallacy you repeatedly describe in this thread is known as "God of the Gaps". While that particular fallacy spefically refers to theological explanations, it's also equally valid for supernatural/magical explanations.






						God of the gaps - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				




It can be very basically summarised as "If I can't explain it, it must be magic".


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## Fifth Element (Oct 17, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> Most ghost stories seem to involve a sense of coldness.  Cold feelings,  cold air,  cold breezes seem to be very common in ghost stories. Now why is that?



Simplest answer? Because people have heard that ghosts involve coldness, so when they feel a cold they can't explain, they're more likely to consider it indicative of a ghost, if they are prone to that type of thinking.



Sanguinarious said:


> It would explain why ''coldness'' is so associated with ghost stories from around the world and all sorts of separate cultures.



Based on my understanding of folklore, I would challenge a claim that ghosts are associated with cold around the world. Maybe in some cultures, but then you'll also have to consider whether this association is relatively new or not, possibly based on stories heard from other places around the world and then adopted by believers.


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## Umbran (Oct 17, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> Speaking of ghosts, there's one thing most ghost stories have in common that just makes my scientific side do the NDT "Hmmmmmmmm..."
> 
> Most ghost stories seem to involve a sense of coldness.  Cold feelings,  cold air,  cold breezes seem to be very common in ghost stories. Now why is that?




As you note, these things are associated with a _sense_ of coldness, but not a verified drop in temperature.  Despite what we see in the movies and TV, such experiences don't usually happen in sight of a thermometer.  

So, we then are in the realm of speaking not of actual temperature change, but in the _perception_ of same.  And human perception is complicated.  The body and the mind are not fully separable.  Things that impact the mind impact the body, and vice versa.

When you are cold, a person tends to pull their limbs in, their shoulders tense up, scrunching up to the ears, and so on.  This body posture we use to hold in body heat is extremely similar to the body posture we take when we are afraid - defensively drawing in to protect the body and appear to be less of a threat.

In some abuse survivors, we then see an effect of being cold _bringing on anxiety_.  The body takes on the same body posture as fear, and so the mind reacts with fear.  This can work the other way too, in which anxiety is _interpreted as cold_ by the conscious mind.

If you want, though, I could crunch some numbers, and see how much heat energy there is to steal out of a room's air, and how much could then happen with that energy.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 17, 2022)

wicked cool said:


> It’s funny that often when people are dying they see parents or loved ones that have passed or in some cases angels. Regardless they seem to find peace in it before they die.




There was something comforting about it, whatever the explanation is. This does bring to mind another event that happened which I would file under unusual. It certainly has plausible explanations though. My aunt had a stroke over ten years ago, and when we got to the hospital the doctors told us she was basically brain dead, wouldn't make a recovery and we should sign papers to have her taken off life support. One of the nurses whispered to us that we shouldn't feel pressured to make a decision. A picture of the pope was placed over her bed and she ended up recovering. She still has issues from the stroke but is able to live by herself, speak clearly, read, etc. She is basically back to normal with some residual issues around sight, memory, etc. Obviously this one has plenty of material explanations. Still it was an event that gave me pause in a number of respects (I started going back to Mass with her shortly after the stroke as a result).


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## Ryujin (Oct 17, 2022)

CleverNickName said:


> I've had plenty of things happen to me that I couldn't explain, but I wouldn't consider them supernatural.
> 
> For example, part of my job involves confined-space entry (CSE):  I have to go into manholes and pipes every now and then, to inspect them for damage, verify the construction, run tests, collect samples, and all that.  It's all part of the glamorous job of being a water engineer.  Sometimes, I get a premonition or a 'gut feeling' that something isn't right, and I'll call off the entry...and then discover that the atmosphere in the pipe was harmful and the 4GD was out of calibration, or my retrieval harness was damaged, or whatever.
> 
> ...



I've got something similar, that has made some people question if I have some sort of clairvoyant ability. There have been many times that I have led rather... ahem... "spirited" group rides on motorcycles. Many times I have slowed down for seemingly no reason, only for a police cruiser to pass us going in the opposite direction within less than a minute, in most cases.

The real reason is that I've thought to myself, "Now would be a _REALLY_ back time to see a cop", because our speeds had generally climbed to something frequently double the posted limit.


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## Fifth Element (Oct 17, 2022)

Umbran said:


> If you want, though, I could crunch some numbers, and see how much heat energy there is to steal out of a room's air, and how much could then happen with that energy.



What I've always wondered is what ghosts are supposed to be made of. Clearly it's something that is subject to gravity, since the Earth travels at about 370 km/sec through space and ghosts apparently stay right where they are relative to the planet.


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## Janx (Oct 17, 2022)

Once upon a time, at the turn of the century, my mother was in hospice in the land of ice and some snow, for it was only November. I traveled up there and spent the week by her side. On one of those cold days, I spotted a monarch butterfly flying just outside in the some snow of freezing temperatures.

I don't know the exact temperature (I reckon I could look it up). It wasn't the coldest possible in the clime, nor was it sunny but brisk. I don't know the tolerances of a butterfly or its season.

I just know it should have gone south back in September or so. Not flapping around in the cold woods of Minnesota outside a dying woman's room.


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## Janx (Oct 17, 2022)

Fifth Element said:


> What I've always wondered is what ghosts are supposed to be made of. Clearly it's something that is subject to gravity, since the Earth travels at about 370 km/sec through space and ghosts apparently stay right where they are relative to the planet.



I'm sure there's some kind of relative positioning going on. Or just like how the light from my flashlight doesn't fly off spinwardly but hits the wall.


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## JEB (Oct 18, 2022)

Is The Forum Getting More Antagonistic?
					

I've been lurking here for... a year? Two now? And I enjoy looking at people's thoughts on all kinds of TTRPG stuff. I enjoy the "what piece of art made you love X" threads, I enjoy the breaking down of game mastering styles, I enjoy having a place to check for RPG news.  But I feel like I'm...




					www.enworld.org


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## jdrakeh (Oct 18, 2022)

Yes, several, but many illegal drugs and days of sleep deprivation were involved in addition to various magical practices. Hard to tell where the naughty word started. Still, I don't use _any_ of that stuff anymore (and haven't for 18 years come this Halloween).


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## Hex08 (Oct 18, 2022)

When I was younger I had what I considered, at the time, to be supernatural or paranormal experiences. I was good friends with some kids who thought their house was haunted and the whole family generally believed in all kinds of supernatural phenomenon and as a child it was easy to get sucked in. Couple that with things I experienced on my own I certainly believed. As I have gotten older I found much of what I experienced had rational explanations. Now I don't believe in anything supernatural. Just because I can't explain something doesn't mean there is a paranormal reason for it happening and since I am not an expert in everything I don't assume I should always know why something happens. If I can't explain it there is a fair chance there is an expert who can and if there isn't yet an explanation it just means we haven't yet found it yet.

There are some great books that are helpful in understanding why people believe some of the things we do:
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer 
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe by Steven Novella


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## Maxperson (Oct 18, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> I have.
> 
> Normally I'm a rational skeptic, scientifically inclined person. I'm agnostic in that I believe that the actual origin to existence is almost certainly beyond human comprehension as we are now, so I believe that things we cannot explain likely do exist.
> 
> ...



Years ago I lived in an apartment with room mates. I came home and nobody was there.  I looked in every room, including the bedrooms and bathrooms, because I needed to talk to one of them.  Realizing that I was alone, I sat down at my computer with my door open.  My desk was right next to the door out of the room, so I always had a clear view down the hallway to all of the bedrooms and the bathroom.  

About a half hour after I sat down I heard water running in the bathroom.  When I went in, the bathtub faucet was on at full force when it hadn't been when I checked. Just in case I had missed someone coming in, I searched the apartment again and I was alone.  I turned off the faucet and sat down again. It was about 3 hours before anyone came home.  There's no explanation I have for how that faucet was not only turned on, but all the way as far it could go.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Oct 18, 2022)

JEB said:


> Is The Forum Getting More Antagonistic?
> 
> 
> I've been lurking here for... a year? Two now? And I enjoy looking at people's thoughts on all kinds of TTRPG stuff. I enjoy the "what piece of art made you love X" threads, I enjoy the breaking down of game mastering styles, I enjoy having a place to check for RPG news.  But I feel like I'm...
> ...



*Mod Note:*

And this is helpful/funny/germane how?


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## Argyle King (Oct 18, 2022)

I'm not sure that I would say I have experienced "supernatural" events, but I have experienced a handful of things which I cannot fully explain. 

For example, I've had several experiences in which I was able to smell when people were near death. Despite other people in the same room saying they didn't perceive anything, I could smell that death was near. My assumption is that my sense of smell is sensitive to something associated with how/why those particular people were dying, but I don't know how, why, or what. 
(I don't know if this is related, but sometimes I can also smell when a person is bleeding.)


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## Maxperson (Oct 18, 2022)

Argyle King said:


> I'm not sure that I would say I have experienced "supernatural" events, but I have experienced a handful of things which I cannot fully explain.
> 
> For example, I've had several experiences in which I was able to smell when people were near death. Despite other people in the same room saying they didn't perceive anything, I could smell that death was near. My assumption is that my sense of smell is sensitive to something associated with how/why those particular people were dying, but I don't know how, why, or what.
> (I don't know if this is related, but sometimes I can also smell when a person is bleeding.)



Let's drill down on this a bit and see if we can solve the puzzle.

Do you burn when you go out into sunlight?

Does the smell of garlic make you sick?

Do you go around, rather than over running water?


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## Janx (Oct 18, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Let's drill down on this a bit and see if we can solve the puzzle.
> 
> Do you burn when you go out into sunlight?
> 
> ...



I see where this interview is going.


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## ART! (Oct 18, 2022)

I'd like to add an observation, based on experience from both sides of this sort of conversation. I'm not even really comfortable reducing it to two "sides", but it'll do for now, I hope.

I'm not attacking or accusing anyone of anything, and I haven't read the whole thread, but because of my experiences I just want to add a word of caution.

Offers to dissuade others of their spiritual beliefs are fraught with pitfalls, for both parties. The would-be dissuader might just be (consciously or unconsciously) better at making arguments that seem rational, or they might just be more forceful, or less inclined to yield ground, than the "believer". Such attempts can even become gaslighting and abusive. So, even with the best intentions (and it's hard to know if one's intentions are actually best, or instead self-serving) these attempts can be harmful to the target of the dissuasion.

As noted, attempts to dissaude others of their beliefs can also be very self-serving, a way for the dissuader to stroke their ego and feel smarter-than or better-than the target.

I am in no way arguing that "believers" are less forceful, more gullible, more easily intimidated, etc. than non-believers. Nor am I arguing that they are less rational. If that sounds nonsensical, well, that's part of what I'm cautioning against. 

Myself, I was raised in a tradition that embraced religious faith _and_ reason, and I would feel just as silly saying I hadn't experienced anything "supernatural" as I would saying I haven't experienced anything rational.


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## Argyle King (Oct 18, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Let's drill down on this a bit and see if we can solve the puzzle.
> 
> Do you burn when you go out into sunlight?
> 
> ...






Funny enough, I'm highly resistant to sunburn and love garlic.

Running water sometimes gives me pause, but that's due to not being a particularly strong swimmer.


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## Blue (Oct 18, 2022)

I did have a real life experience I couldn't explain that seemed supernatural.  We had some pictures of my wife getting ready on our wedding day on top of a tall piece of furniture in out bedroom.  One specific one kept falling face down.  I would put it back when I noticed.  When I asked once, my wife said maybe ghosts were doing it.  But just that one of many.  I even moved to around some and it would still be the only one face-down out of many.  None of the others ever had it happen.  This continued for months.

Close to two decades later my wife admitted that when that was happening she was angry at one of the people in the picture with her so putting it down and then kept putting it facedown when noticed it was back.  But when I asked she felt it was petty so didn't own up.

So I did have something I couldn't explain and thought might be preternatural, only to later find out that a completely trustworthy source had out-of-character-ly mislead me.


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## Hex08 (Oct 19, 2022)

Maxperson said:


> Years ago I lived in an apartment with room mates. I came home and nobody was there.  I looked in every room, including the bedrooms and bathrooms, because I needed to talk to one of them.  Realizing that I was alone, I sat down at my computer with my door open.  My desk was right next to the door out of the room, so I always had a clear view down the hallway to all of the bedrooms and the bathroom.
> 
> About a half hour after I sat down I heard water running in the bathroom.  When I went in, the bathtub faucet was on at full force when it hadn't been when I checked. Just in case I had missed someone coming in, I searched the apartment again and I was alone.  I turned off the faucet and sat down again. It was about 3 hours before anyone came home.  There's no explanation I have for how that faucet was not only turned on, but all the way as far it could go.



Stupid steroid-taking mice.....


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## Sabathius42 (Oct 19, 2022)

I have some good ones for this topic.  The first two are just coincidence that's entertaining but the third is coincidence that made me think.

1.   My wife and daughter were out of town and I had the house to myself.  I am pretty hardcore skeptical but I like to watch scary movies to TRY to give myself the creeps for fun.  I had all the lights off in the middle of the night and watched Paranormal Activity.  I was perhaps 2 on a 10 scale creeped out when the movie ended.  Of note if you haven't seen the film, there is a demon that kind of lives in the basement of the house. 

I get up to walk to my kitchen and out away the snacks and as I pass by my basement door I heard this coming from down the stairs.  My daughter had that toy, but hadn't played with it for several years.  It had never before or since spontaneously activated.

2.  This is a gaming story to fit the theme of the boards.  In the early 90s we were playing a session of the RPG Chill.  The GM was doing their best at making the session a spooky one, so the lights were dimmed and people were trying to get into the spirit of it all.  At some point in his narrating that evening the GM said the words  "And then suddenly the phone rang...." which was a jump scare moment in the narrative, but at the exact same time he said that the actual phone in the room with us rang making us jump out of our seats.

We all congratulated the GM in the excellent prank to go with the session but in actuality it was pure coincidence, the phone call was someone for his younger brother.  Amazing timing.

The next one is long.

3.  This is a story that means a lot to me and it has done a lot to move me from Mr. Cynical Science to Mr. Who Really Knows.  Its too coincidental to be just coincidence.

My best friend growing up was Ernie.  I met him in 3rd grade when he moved next door.  This would have been 1981 or so.  He was my first D&D buddy, although we really didn't know how to play well and eventually his mom made him get rid of his books during the Satanic Panic (he just gave them to me!).

As a young adult I had moved around a lot, but no matter how far from the town we met I went, I would always visit with Ernie when I was back in the area  or he would travel to visit me.

Eventually in the summer of 1995 I moved back to the area we lived as kids and I could hang out with Ernie again on a regular basis.  Late that fall he was in a fatal car accident and my best friend was gone.

Neither one of us were religious and both of us were pretty skeptical about all things supernatural.  We did have an agreement with each other that if there was a way to come back in an afterlife we would swear to do it for the other.  The previously mentioned Netflix show Midnight Club had kids making the same promise.

After Ernie passed I had always hoped to hear from him somehow, but nothing really ever happened beyond an occasional dream, but that's to be expected, not even remotely a sign.  I dream about people I care about constantly.

Fast-forward to around 2015 or so.  In that time ive met my wife, gotten married, adopted a daughter, and got on with life.  My wife is actually somewhat religious and would regularly attend the Greek Orthodox Church.  When she moved to my town she never found a church she felt a big connection to, so she would occasionally bounce around and try different ones.  I would never go to church with her (I'm an agnostic) but would accompany her on Christmas Eve because she would be out very late by herself.

That year my wife chose to go to a church Inhad been to before.  It was the church that Ernie's funeral service was held at the day he was buried.  This was the first time I had been there since 1995 but since it was his families church I figured I might be able to see them after the service and say hello.

The church does the normal Christmas Eve service and as it is winding up they say they have something special to do that evening.  They call up an adult woman with a baby to the front.  I recognize the woman's name as being Ernie's sister.  When she gets to the front they announce the special thing they have for the evening.

The priest/minister/father (sorry I forget the title at that church) tells the congregation that the woman had a brother who used to go to that church in the past, but that he had passed away young when the woman was still a girl.    Because she loved her brother so much she wanted to honor him that night by baptizing the baby and giving it the middle name "Ernest"

This night had really made me wonder about how bright a sign had to be before you call it a sign and not just coincidence.  It has made me soften my stance on thinking I have everything figured out.

Note: I'm not 100% certain on the terms like baptizing and such.  I'm not super familiar with that church and its customs, but the gist is "some church thing that's important to babies and I'm doing this one to honor my brother".


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## Maxperson (Oct 19, 2022)

Hex08 said:


> Stupid steroid-taking mice.....



Back in the 70s I lived on a pig farm in Michigan. In those days you could feed the pigs all kinds of stuff to make them grow.  Inevitably, rats got into the feed. They had to be hunted with .22s, because they were too big for traps.  On one occasion one of the city owners from Detroit was out touring the farm and one of the rats went by.  He didn't see it well and asked what that was and my dad told him it was a cat.


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## Sepulchrave II (Oct 19, 2022)

I have had a number of experiences - some shared, some alone - which are are inexplicable to me, but I am reluctant to characterize them (or anything else) as _supernatural_, as I believe all phenomena are inherently natural. Some are just beyond our comprehension, either currently or foreseeably.

I suspect that the phenomenon of consciousness is considerably more complex than we can understand, and that our sense of a discrete, persistent "self" may be rather misguided.

The Universe is very big, and it seems reasonable that manifestations of consciousness far more complex or evolved than our own are present; the alternative, that we, as a species, represent the _summum bonum_ of consciousness, seems absurdly hubristic to me. By _Universe_, I mean _all that is the case_ (in a Wittgensteinian sense); I do not exclude the possibility of other "universes" (in the cosmological sense).

I suspect that our perceived linear passage through time does not accurately reflect "reality." But it's all we reliably have, so we have to work with it.


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## Zardnaar (Oct 19, 2022)

Sister had a rough time few years back so I went back to my hometown. 

 Think I got abducted by aliens.Memory loss that night. Drunk a dozen beers. Then washed them down with another 6. 

 Went to the nightclub drinking some more then went visiting  sisters friend at 1am and drunk some more. 

 Woke up the next day in the park just after dawn near my sister's place didn't quite make it home that night. 

 Didn't have much memory of that night, sister told me what I drunk around 30 drinks.  Due to the missing time jumps and vague recollections I think I got abducted by aliens on the way home and dumped in the park. That was 2006 iirc.


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## R_J_K75 (Oct 19, 2022)

Umbran said:


> I'm like Morrus on this - I generally replace "cannot be explained" with "has not yet been explained".



I can get behind this, it makes sense. @Morrus that's a better interpretation for 99.99% of the time. I consider myself a man of science before subscribing to the paranormal or supernatural belief system, but the human mind is conditioned to fear the unknown, so I think every once in a while, some odd incident that leaves you shaking your head creeps into ones life. 



Mercurius said:


> The first definition of _paranormal _is "Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation."



Normal is EXTREMELY REALATIVE. I think Id replace "normal" in that definition with "ordinary"? Regardless, I understand your point


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## Mercurius (Oct 19, 2022)

R_J_K75 said:


> Normal is EXTREMELY REALATIVE. I think Id replace "normal" in that definition with "ordinary"? Regardless, I understand your point



Well, I was just quoting Merriam Webster. But yes, I would agree that "ordinary" is better than "normal," especially when we bring in shamanic, mystical and transpersonal experiences.


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## Ryujin (Oct 19, 2022)

Mercurius said:


> Well, I was just quoting Merriam Webster. But yes, I would agree that "ordinary" is better than "normal," especially when we bring in shamanic, mystical and transpersonal experiences.



Maybe, but "paraordinary" just doesn't flow right.


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## Mad_Jack (Oct 19, 2022)

I'm somewhat convinced that there are wormholes in my house, lol...  

My house has a tendency to_ eat things_.

Sometimes items that have been sitting in the same place for years suddenly aren't there anymore, and a couple of times they've turned up years or even decades later in other places there's no real reason for them to be in.


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## Ralif Redhammer (Oct 19, 2022)

I have had one experience that makes me wonder. I was a teenager and saw something at night, when I was lying down to go to sleep. Dark shape, red eyes, large pale hands. I would put it down to a hypnagogic experience, save for the fact that my brother, when I told him about it, described having seen the same exact thing on a separate earlier occasion. I've not ruled out the possibility that he was pulling my leg, but I've asked him that numerous times since and he's always sworn that he wasn't.


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## Janx (Oct 20, 2022)

ART! said:


> I'd like to add an observation, based on experience from both sides of this sort of conversation. I'm not even really comfortable reducing it to two "sides", but it'll do for now, I hope.
> 
> I'm not attacking or accusing anyone of anything, and I haven't read the whole thread, but because of my experiences I just want to add a word of caution.
> 
> ...



These are good points. And they align with my general policy to avoid trying to convert someone to/from a religion.

But there's a big but than you even alluded to.

If somebody believes in something that truly isn't real (and there's a worrying lot of that going on these days), they don't have a solid position to defend. Whereas the person arguing against, does. Because that's how facts work.

Now in the case of something like Flat Earth, the truly wrong folks are entrenched, and have their own dizzying array of baloney to barf out as their argument. Only the most steadfast can wade through to debunking it all to get to their own proof. And even then, the denier will deny. It's crazy.

In a smaller case of, "I think I saw a ghost" maybe not so much. But then, if I can offer a simpler explanation (and demonstrate it) on how a water faucet got turned on by itself, well, why shouldn't I do that?

Because at the heart of it, we are humans looking to understand how the universe works. Every unexplained occurrence is a stimulus to somebody to figure it out. And settling for made up non-sense is the antithesis of that spirit. It is what holds us back from seeing the shadows on the wall in the back of the cave for what they truly are.

And so, I respect being kind about it, but I'm not gonna hold somebody back from figuring out the truth with actual facts. Which I shouldn't even have to put those 2 words together.


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## Dioltach (Oct 20, 2022)

I think there's a difference between facts and meaning. If someone says they saw a ghost, they're attributing a particular meaning to the experience. You can try to convince them otherwise with facts, and they might appreciate the science, but they won't like being told that the experience, and the meaning that they find in it, has no value.


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## Ryujin (Oct 20, 2022)

I think that it all comes down to "do no harm" for me. If someone's belief makes them search for meaning, then that's a good thing. If it makes them shut down their mind to anything that falls outside their world view, then that's bad. I have friends who are "Wiccans" and "Pagans." They believe in stuff like Reiki, Tarot readings, and the like, however, they use them as guiding principles instead of a straight jacket. They wouldn't, for example, use "essential oils" exclusively to treat illness, when there is a perfectly good General Practitioner just up the road. They are vaccinated. It's additive, not exclusionary. If all that it really does is provide a placebo effect, while causing no harm to themselves or others, where's the problem?


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## Umbran (Oct 20, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> It's additive, not exclusionary. If all that it really does is provide a placebo effect, while causing no harm to themselves or others, where's the problem?




Because, often it isn't "just a placebo effect".  Sometimes belief systems say something different than scientific systems, and they come into conflict.  Let me give you an example from my wife's work...

My wife is a veterinarian who does geriatric, palliative, hospice, and end of life care.

Some of my wife's clients have used "animal communicators" - people who are hired because the client believes they can communicate with their pet in great detail.  Fluffy may be senile, blind, and half-deaf, but the communicator knows that Fluffy wants a hamburger for dinner, and the blanket on her bed swapped out for the blue one.

When the communicator tells the client that Fluffy wants a lavender-scented candle burned at their passing, this is not a big deal.  When the communicator tells the client to change doses on Fluffy's medications, it can be a very big deal.  When the communicator tells the client that Fluffy "isn't ready to go yet" while the veterinarian says the animal is suffering, that's a problem.


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## Ryujin (Oct 20, 2022)

Umbran said:


> Because, often it isn't "just a placebo effect".  Sometimes belief systems say something different than scientific systems, and they come into conflict.  Let me give you an example from my wife's work...
> 
> My wife is a veterinarian who does geriatric, palliative, hospice, and end of life care.
> 
> ...



I believe that my previous statement explicitly excluded that sort of person


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## Umbran (Oct 20, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> I believe that my previous statement explicitly excluded that sort of person




That's like saying, "What harm is there in the cases that I cherrypick to not be harmful?"


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## Hex08 (Oct 20, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> I think that it all comes down to "do no harm" for me. If someone's belief makes them search for meaning, then that's a good thing. If it makes them shut down their mind to anything that falls outside their world view, then that's bad. I have friends who are "Wiccans" and "Pagans." They believe in stuff like Reiki, Tarot readings, and the like, however, they use them as guiding principles instead of a straight jacket. They wouldn't, for example, use "essential oils" exclusively to treat illness, when there is a perfectly good General Practitioner just up the road. They are vaccinated. It's additive, not exclusionary. If all that it really does is provide a placebo effect, while causing no harm to themselves or others, where's the problem?



The problem is kind of subtle. Take homeopathy or the supplement industry as an example. These industries are generally not regulated and there have been reports of ingredients in these products that are not disclosed on the label so people may not know what it is they are actually taking and that can be dangerous. Also, ingredients may be labeled but since there is no regulation or scientific standard the amounts can wildly vary. As an example, belladonna has been found baby teething gels and since there is no medical or scientific standard for the products and no regulation the dosage can vary and harm children.

Many supplements do have ingredients that have a medical effect but since people consider them "natural" they sometimes don't disclose to their doctor what they are taking and if being issued a prescription the doctor could, unknowingly, prescribe something that interacts negatively with the over-the-counter supplement.

Sometimes real treatments take time to be effective and someone can become impatient while on a legitimate treatment and try something that has no real efficacy (Reiki, homeopathy, acupuncture or whatever) while still continuing the medically approved treatment. Since the pseudoscientific method ends up being used closer to the time the person recovers, they may falsely attribute the actual cause of their cure to pseudoscience which can cloud their judgement for the rest of their treatment or future treatments.

Finally, the placebo effect is real and can cause a person to feel better without having actually improved their condition and cause them to delay seeking proper medical help.


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## Morrus (Oct 20, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> I think that it all comes down to "do no harm" for me. If someone's belief makes them search for meaning, then that's a good thing. If it makes them shut down their mind to anything that falls outside their world view, then that's bad. I have friends who are "Wiccans" and "Pagans." They believe in stuff like Reiki, Tarot readings, and the like, however, they use them as guiding principles instead of a straight jacket. They wouldn't, for example, use "essential oils" exclusively to treat illness, when there is a perfectly good General Practitioner just up the road. They are vaccinated. It's additive, not exclusionary. If all that it really does is provide a placebo effect, while causing no harm to themselves or others, where's the problem?



Given that particular example — pseudoscientific medical practices do cause harm, your anecdotal friends notwithstanding. People do seek out ‘alternative’ cures and neglect scientific medical treatment. It’s a thing. It happens. People die. And sometimes they even neglect their children in this way. Harm is caused.

That’s why science- based outreach is important. We can’t make people believe things, but we can make sure the correct information is available to them. What they do with it? That’s down to them. But pseudoscience needs to be challenged when it appears, because it does do harm.

It’s not just your friends, who sound great. It’s a much wider phenomenon than your social circle. It’s a global problem.

Now this has nothing to do with ghosts and UFOs, which was the topic of this thread. But since you brought up pseudoscience in _medicine_, I felt I should explain where the opposition to it comes from. It ain’t harmless.

Here’s one high profile example, but you can find this all over the place:









						The Gerson protocol, cancer, and the death of Jess Ainscough, a.k.a. “The Wellness Warrior”
					

Less than four days ago, a young Australian woman died of a very rare type of cancer. Most of my American and probably many of my European readers have never heard of her, but in Australia she had



					sciencebasedmedicine.org
				




Even worse, of course, are the pseudoscientific practicioners who prey on sick people. I’ve known people with cancer who are inundated by these vultures. When it goes that far, as far as I’m concerned it should be criminal.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 20, 2022)

Well I meant _any_ experience you'd say had *no* discernible rational, mundane explanation.

Oddly enough I notice some people who seem to decry 'faith' seeming to say there *must* be a rational, mundane explanation for _everything_ even if no trace of one can be found. Isn't thst a bit like...... _Faith_?


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## beancounter (Oct 20, 2022)

The closest I ever came to supernatural was when I was about 9 years old. I went up to the attic in my house (That was an old converted farmhouse from the 1800's) looking for a toy I hadn't played with in a while.

As I walked further into the area, I noticed (what appeared to be) a disembodied arm crawling on a box at back of the room. I ran from the attic in a panic, and a few minutes later, my courage returned, and with a baseball bat, went back in. Nothing was there, of course.

I figure it was either my step brother playing a trick on me, or my over active imagination seeing something move (probably a mouse?)

One other time, I thought I saw a ghostly figure in the corner of my eye, but it was gone so fast, I didn't really think about it for long.


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## Janx (Oct 20, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> Well I meant _any_ experience you'd say had *no* discernible rational, mundane explanation.
> 
> Oddly enough I notice some people who seem to decry 'faith' seeming to say there *must* be a rational, mundane explanation for _everything_ even if no trace of one can be found. Isn't thst a bit like...... _Faith_?



little f, big F.

Having faith that iteative research and experimentation will figure out the reason isn't a leap of faith.

Attributing something you can't explain to your Faith ends that discovery. Thor did it. Let's go get pancakes!


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## Hex08 (Oct 20, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> Well I meant _any_ experience you'd say had *no* discernible rational, mundane explanation.
> 
> Oddly enough I notice some people who seem to decry 'faith' seeming to say there *must* be a rational, mundane explanation for _everything_ even if no trace of one can be found. Isn't thst a bit like...... _Faith_?



Not really. Science is all about a process of observations and experimentation to determine how things work. Faith has no such process. Faith just inserts a reason why something happens if the answer is unknown. We may not have all of the answers yet but so far science has a pretty good track record of determining the way the universe works so until that method falls apart and stops being able to provide answers it's reasonable to assume it will continue to do so.


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## Umbran (Oct 20, 2022)

Hex08 said:


> Sometimes real treatments take time to be effective and someone can become impatient while on a legitimate treatment and try something that has no real efficacy (Reiki, homeopathy, acupuncture or whatever)




The National Institute of Health recognizes acupuncture is effective for a number of forms of pain relief, and may be a useful part of treatment for some other conditions, like seasonal allergies.

So, while acupuncture won't cure breast cancer, if your cancer treatment drugs are giving you joint pain, acupuncture may be an effective part of your pain management plan.









						Acupuncture: What You Need To Know
					

Information about acupuncture, including its safety and effectiveness in treating pain and other conditions.




					www.nccih.nih.gov


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## Hex08 (Oct 20, 2022)

Umbran said:


> The National Institute of Health recognizes acupuncture is effective for a number of forms of pain relief, and may be a useful part of treatment for some other conditions, like seasonal allergies.
> 
> So, while acupuncture won't cure breast cancer, if your cancer treatment drugs are giving you joint pain, acupuncture may be an effective part of your pain management plan.
> 
> ...



Acupuncture is problematic. If someone is looking for traditional Chinese medicine where needles are used to target the energy flows of the human body, or chi, it's pure pseudoscience. There are modern practitioners who don't use it that way and it does show some efficacy in pain relief, but it is most likely the placebo effect. Sham acupuncture has a similar effect. Belief is powerful but if it's reducing pain in the subject then that's fine as long as the patient is also addressing the cause of the pain (if possible).









						Acupuncture - PubMed
					

Acupuncture is a nonpharmacological treatment option for multiple different diseases and symptoms. Although numerous studies have been done regarding the efficacy of acupuncture, there only been a few landmark high-quality randomized controlled trials. The article mainly focuses on the evidence...




					pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


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## Umbran (Oct 20, 2022)

Hex08 said:


> Acupuncture is problematic. If someone is looking for traditional Chinese medicine where needles are used to target the energy flows of the human body, or chi, it's pure pseudoscience.




We should not confuse "we know how the treatment works" with "we recognize that the treatment works."  After all, we don't yet know the exact mechanism for the operation of Tylenol, but it is still widely recognized as an effective analgesic.  



Hex08 said:


> There are modern practitioners who don't use it that way and it does show some efficacy in pain relief, but it is most likely the placebo effect.




With respect, the article you linked to says, "It is questionable if acupuncture is clinically superior when compared to sham acupuncture."  That _does not_ equate to, "it is most likely a placebo effect."   

Especially because, in the realm of pain management, effect is the primary concern - if the patient's pain is reduced, that's awesome.  Reducing it substantially via placebo effect, which has minimal chances of side effects or significant interaction with medication or other treatment, is actually a feature, not a flaw.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 20, 2022)

Umbran said:


> The National Institute of Health recognizes acupuncture is effective for a number of forms of pain relief, and may be a useful part of treatment for some other conditions, like seasonal allergies.
> 
> So, while acupuncture won't cure breast cancer, if your cancer treatment drugs are giving you joint pain, acupuncture may be an effective part of your pain management plan.
> 
> ...




I have been to acupuncture and found it effective. At least where I went, and the person was trained in China, they also prescribed traditional chinese medicine too. I've also found massage that is based on concepts of Qi flow helpful. Mostly I have used these things to treat Crohns Disease and peripheral neuropathy related to my Crohns (I'm also on two antibiotics, so I am doing both approaches). Meditation was another very helpful method for dealing with symptoms. I have found a lot of improvement of symptoms from both these methods. The crohns itself is not going to be cured by these things, but stuff like pain, sensation in my hands and feet, and my overall immune function do seem better. I am not in a position to say why they work for me, whether the principles underlying them are real, but I find them effective, and to me that is the important thing (obviously there are non-supernatural explanations for why something like massage would be beneficial health wise, but I have also found greater results from people who subscribe to methods that are based around Qi flow).

I will say I was in a more skeptical phase when I first got sick (which was amplified by being sick). But being more open minded about these kinds of treatments has led to results for me.  I had a very radical improvement of health after trying this stuff. 

And when I did martial arts Qi was a pretty important concept in some of the styles I was involved in (and I found if you followed the principles the instructors gave it was helpful). You don't have to subscribe to a mystical notion of Qi to employ it. But I am also not persuaded that it isn't real either. And I am not talking about people who claim they can knock out others at a range through Qi, I am talking more about breathing technique, visualization techniques (one of my favorites is imagining golden light entering your body as you breath in and exhaling black smoke with each breath out). 

Personally I wouldn't knock Qi as a concept, but I also wouldn't necessarily file it under supernatural, as its something I've seen people talk about in lots of different ways. Maybe all it is is a useful way to visualize things like breathing so you engage your diaphragm in a better way, or maybe it's something more. To me what matters is it has yielded results.


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## Levistus's_Leviathan (Oct 21, 2022)

Dioltach said:


> I think there's a difference between facts and meaning. If someone says they saw a ghost, they're attributing a particular meaning to the experience. You can try to convince them otherwise with facts, and they might appreciate the science, but they won't like being told that the experience, and the meaning that they find in it, has no value.



"You can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into", in other words.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

Levistus's_Leviathan said:


> "You can't logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into", in other words.




I have seen a lot of people reverse theological belief or non-belief in a philosophy class by being exposed to all the arguments for an against something. People who believed in God, no longer doing so, people who didn't believe in God, believing in God (or becoming more theistic). I think people are a lot more likely to change their mind if the arguments are simply presented in that way (what I think people resist is the sense that someone is asking them to join in their way of thinking).


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## beancounter (Oct 21, 2022)

Bedrockgames said:


> I have seen a lot of people reverse theological belief or non-belief in a philosophy class by being exposed to all the arguments for an against something. People who believed in God, no longer doing so, people who didn't believe in God, believing in God (or becoming more theistic). I think people are a lot more likely to change their mind if the arguments are simply presented in that way (what I think people resist is the sense that someone is asking them to join in their way of thinking).




I'm not so sure of that. Belief is often tied to feelings of tradition, belonging, fear, peer pressure, etc. In addition, these are concepts that people are introduced to at a formative age, resulting in such beliefs being "hard coded" into their world view. A well reasoned argument is unlikely to change a persons religious belief (or lack thereof).

I'm talking in vague generalities here, because going deeper is bound to get people upset. As the saying goes, avoid talking about religion, politics and UFOs.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 21, 2022)

A person can change their belief, at least I have on occasion.

A long time ago I accepted the common belief that mother Teresa was a 'saint', as in a good person. I wanted to believe in good people, really.

Well I heard a man on an interview once say she was a ''bat from hell'' and promptly flipped the channel . How Dare he say that about such a kind women?!?!

Well years later I found out that man was Chris Hitchens and I listened to him afterwards because I was not a Christian and more of an agnostic, but still wanted to believe in good people.

Hitchens slowly laid out his case that mother Teresa was in fact a horrible person who caused vast amounts of suffering and didn't really abate any,  just moved it out of sight.

As I listened I began to think he might be onto something, and did my own research.  What I found made me change ny mind about the legend of mother Teresa, and realize he was right, she was a 'bat from hell'. Plus a hypocrite of the first order too. 

So yes some people can change my mind sometimes.


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## Sacrosanct (Oct 21, 2022)

The only real unexplained thing was when I was a kid.  We were living in our old farmhouse and my brother and one of his friends and I were watching TV.  MTV, to be exact, when they played music (that alone is a unique circumstance lol).  We were in the kitchen but we could see the TV.  Suddenly it began to change channels.  Went through six or seven of them (out of 10 that we had, if I recall correctly).  Eventually it went back to MTV.

Doesn't sound like anything weird, right?  Remember, this is back when they played music, so 1985 or so.  The TVs back then didn't have fancy remotes.  It was a manual dial you had to turn.  And the dial did turn.  Anyone with those TVs knows they didn't turn easily either.


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## Umbran (Oct 21, 2022)

Bedrockgames said:


> I have been to acupuncture and found it effective. At least where I went, and the person was trained in China, they also prescribed traditional chinese medicine too. I've also found massage that is based on concepts of Qi flow helpful.




To understand this we have to remember how traditional medical practices are formed - they are the product of centuries of trial and error, adopting techniques that seemed to work, and then rationalizing those techniques in terms of the traditional terminology, and sometimes adjusting the terminology to include the techniques.  

So, if someone finds that an tea made from willow bark helps with headaches, then of course we keep using that tea - and we rationalize an explanation for _why_ it works.  

The problems with the results are twofold - 
1) Practitioners of centuries ago didn't have _statistics_.  They adopted practices at best based on anecdote, so sometimes the effectiveness isn't really there.
2) the conceptual framework is generally retrofitted as rationalization, and so isn't terribly predictive.  When faced with a new problem, or one the framework doesn't usually handle, it can fail to offer effective treatment.


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## Umbran (Oct 21, 2022)

beancounter said:


> I'm not so sure of that. Belief is often tied to feelings of tradition, belonging, fear, peer pressure, etc. In addition, these are concepts that people are introduced to at a formative age, resulting in such beliefs being "hard coded" into their world view.




I might be able to clarify this a bit - a great deal of what we think of as belief is connected to the person's _identity_.  Questioning a deeply held belief analogous to questioning _who you are_.  Changing those beliefs is essentially willfully changing who you are as a person.

People can change who they are.  But it it _very hard_ to do.  And no, it won't generally be accomplished by one well-stated factual argument.  That argument has to be at the end of a chain of other things that make the person ready to accept that change.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

Umbran said:


> I might be able to clarify this a bit - a great deal of what we think of as belief is connected to the person's _identity_.  Questioning a deeply held belief analogous to questioning _who you are_.  Changing those beliefs is essentially willfully changing who you are as a person.
> 
> People can change who they are.  But it it _very hard_ to do.  And no, it won't generally be accomplished by one well-stated factual argument.  That argument has to be at the end of a chain of other things that make the person ready to accept that change.




And keep in mind what I was talking about was not a teacher presenting a student with one argument for why they should change their mind. Rather this is about presenting a topic and presenting the full arguments for both (or several) positions on that topic, such as arguments for and against God (with those arguments both being steal manned). And it isn't about trying to turn theists into atheists or atheists into theists, it is about exposing people to the arguments, to principles of logic, and allowing them to form their conclusions from that. There is also plenty of space there for students to formulate their own arguments, and have those arguments subject to criticism. I think approaches like this are more likely to work than telling someone why they need to change their position, because, to your point, it isn't an assault on their sense of identity. They can take those arguments to reinforce their identity if they choose. But they can also be persuaded to other points of view. 

And obviously this is a self selecting group. People who sign up to be philosophy majors or minors, or who seek out books where they can read these arguments, are probably interested in ideas and open to changing their perspective. But I saw plenty of people in these courses change their minds not just on whether they believed God existed or not but on hotly contested social and cultural issues (often times they were surprised where they fell once they saw steal manned arguments they hadn't encountered before).


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

Umbran said:


> To understand this we have to remember how traditional medical practices are formed - they are the product of centuries of trial and error, adopting techniques that seemed to work, and then rationalizing those techniques in terms of the traditional terminology, and sometimes adjusting the terminology to include the techniques.
> 
> So, if someone finds that an tea made from willow bark helps with headaches, then of course we keep using that tea - and we rationalize an explanation for _why_ it works.
> 
> ...




I'm pretty agnostic on this front. My point was more this is what has appeared to work for me, and I would be reluctant to dismiss the concepts behind something like that which works (especially when you consider the lineage of an idea like Qi and how it is often interpreted in a wide variety of ways). But ultimately it working is what has persuaded (I had similar experiences learning medication at a Buddhist temple where I lived, where I found a lot of what I was taught and learned to be genuinely effective). But then I am also generally open minded towards spiritual and supernatural explanations of things. 

In terms of ancient stats, I have no idea, but one thing I will say about Chinese Medicine and History is I am continuously surprised by how advanced their institutions, technology, records and bureaucracy were hundreds, even thousands of years ago. I don't know whether they kept something like modern statistics, but it wouldn't surprise me if there is more data than people might expect. They had pretty advanced printing technology well before Europe for example (they were using moveable type I think by 1000 BCE) and the government kept all kinds of data. But I know nothing about the history of Chinese medicine so I can't say one way or another (just that I'd go in with very few preconceptions if I were intending to learn more about the issue). I'd be very cautious about applying a broad and general narrative of traditional medicines to a specific case like this.


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## Fifth Element (Oct 21, 2022)

beancounter said:


> I'm not so sure of that.



It's absolutely true that people can change an irrationally-held belief when presented with evidence. So it is possible to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, which means the platitude is incorrect, which was the point. It won't always work, not nearly always, but it can and does work at times.


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## FrogReaver (Oct 21, 2022)

I once got home from school. I must have been in 6th or 7th grade at the time.  We lived in a single wide trailer out in the country on my papaws farm.  It was sunny, not too hot or cold outside and very windy.  I was home alone as usual as my mother didn’t get home for a couple of hours. Not long after I went inside what I can only describe as loud eerie organ music began to sound throughout the whole home.  I was so scared I went outside and stayed on the porch till she get home. Perhaps it was the wind?  But it never did anything like that before or since.


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## Fifth Element (Oct 21, 2022)

Sanguinarious said:


> Hitchens slowly laid out his case that mother Teresa was in fact a horrible person who caused vast amounts of suffering and didn't really abate any,  just moved it out of sight.



She said that suffering was good for them. But only *them*, of course, while she flew around the world obtaining the best medical care money could buy for herself.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 21, 2022)

Indeed exactly as I saw her when I ceased to accept her 'sainthood' and looked up facts. I was disappointed  badly, I wanted to believe in a pureky good person after all the festering bipedal masses of vileness and evil I'd met. But my rational mind won out over my desires in the end.


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## Sepulchrave II (Oct 21, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> I think that it all comes down to "do no harm" for me. If someone's belief makes them search for meaning, then that's a good thing. If it makes them shut down their mind to anything that falls outside their world view, then that's bad. I have friends who are "Wiccans" and "Pagans." They believe in stuff like Reiki, Tarot readings, and the like, however, they use them as guiding principles instead of a straight jacket. They wouldn't, for example, use "essential oils" exclusively to treat illness, when there is a perfectly good General Practitioner just up the road. They are vaccinated. It's additive, not exclusionary. If all that it really does is provide a placebo effect, while causing no harm to themselves or others, where's the problem?



I agree with this, and I don't really understand why it's elicited any pushback, as it seems to me you are saying:

1) Seek reputable, licensed medical attention if you're sick, and follow medical direction generally
2) If you want to supplement your allopathic program with prayer, going to church, chakra healing, vibrational therapy etc. etc., knock yourself out - it won't do any harm

Maybe other people are interpreting your words differently.

The only caveat I would add is:

If you take any herbal/naturopathic remedies, you do so at your own risk if their pharmacology is unproven or their interactions with prescription drugs are unclear.


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## Ryujin (Oct 21, 2022)

Sepulchrave II said:


> I agree with this, and I don't really understand why it's elicited any pushback, as it seems to me you are saying:
> 
> 1) Seek reputable, licensed medical attention if you're sick, and follow medical direction generally
> 2) If you want to supplement your allopathic program with prayer, going to church, chakra healing, vibrational therapy etc. etc., knock yourself out - it won't do any harm
> ...



Exactly. I can't speak for anyone else but my GP does ask if I'm using any such remedies during my visits. For the record, I don't.


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## Morrus (Oct 21, 2022)

Umbran said:


> To understand this we have to remember how traditional medical practices are formed - they are the product of centuries of trial and error, adopting techniques that seemed to work, and then rationalizing those techniques in terms of the traditional terminology, and sometimes adjusting the terminology to include the techniques.
> 
> So, if someone finds that an tea made from willow bark helps with headaches, then of course we keep using that tea - and we rationalize an explanation for _why_ it works.



As the old joke goes --
_
You know what they call alternative medicine which works? 

Medicine._


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## beancounter (Oct 21, 2022)

Fifth Element said:


> It's absolutely true that people can change an irrationally-held belief when presented with evidence. So it is possible to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into, which means the platitude is incorrect, which was the point. It won't always work, not nearly always, but it can and does work at times.




It depends on the belief. Believing in a flat earth for example, is a lot different than believing in deities.

You can prove that the earth isn't flat, but it's not possible to prove or disprove the existence of deities. And because it's not possible to prove either way, it's much harder to convince the Theist or Atheist to change their minds.

In my personal experience, the two Theist turned (self proclaimed) Atheist that I've met, were in fact rejecting the tenets of their former religion, not their belief in the existence of a god. So, they really weren't Atheist. Just unaffiliated Theist.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

Umbran said:


> Because, often it isn't "just a placebo effect".  Sometimes belief systems say something different than scientific systems, and they come into conflict.  Let me give you an example from my wife's work...




But I think he is just saying, a lot of people do with a doctor's approval. This is especially the case if you have a challenging illness. I know I have had conversations with my doctor about alternative treatments (and I've even had doctors bring them up). I think he is saying a large number of people just use this as supplementary and he was very specific about saying he is talking about people who don't do things like ignore medical advice in favor of alternative treatments (but simply compliment treatments with alternative remedies). 

My wife uses a lot of traditional cures (she was born outside the US and a lot of it is stuff I wasn't familiar with until I met her). Quite a bit of it, just from an outside perspective, and as someone who doesn't take the treatments she uses, it looks rather effective to me in many instances.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

Double post


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## beancounter (Oct 21, 2022)

Talking about snake oils...

On another forum, I once saw someone trying to sell hydrogenated water as some sort of cure-all and selling it for $20 per bottle. (Implying that hydrogen was added)

I reported it to the mod who rejected my report, until I reminded him that water is _naturally_ hydrogenated. (*H*₂O)


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

Umbran said:


> That's like saying, "What harm is there in the cases that I cherrypick to not be harmful?"




But he isn't cherrypicking, he is laying out clear parameters for how a particular thing ought to be used. Saying as long as the Doctor is okay with it and you are still using modern medicine, he isn't troubled if people seek alternative therapies (which I think is fair because I've met a large number of doctors, I think most of my doctors, who feel that way). And there are also shortlists of alternative and traditional therapies Doctors seem to have more confidence in as well (something like acupuncture is stuff I've had recommended by more than one doctor for instance).


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

Hex08 said:


> The problem is kind of subtle. Take homeopathy or the supplement industry as an example. These industries are generally not regulated and there have been reports of ingredients in these products that are not disclosed on the label so people may not know what it is they are actually taking and that can be dangerous. Also, ingredients may be labeled but since there is no regulation or scientific standard the amounts can wildly vary. As an example, belladonna has been found baby teething gels and since there is no medical or scientific standard for the products and no regulation the dosage can vary and harm children.




Personally I am all for people having good health, so I think this is a very fair thing to consider and something people should seriously weigh whenvever they look into alternative treatments (and I think you should also get approval from your doctor). This goes well past traditional cures though. And I agree there are a lot of shady supplement industries. But you don't have to go after something like herbal cures that cultures have handed down for hundreds or thousands of years to find an issue, just go to GNC. I used to be very involved in physical activities where GNC was just part of the culture, and I even tried some of that stuff for  awhile. One thing you realize is a lot of it does work, but you also have a nagging suspicion that it isn't good for you. I worked at a medical journal for a while and I remember editing articles that covered a lot of the products on GNC shelves that can do harm to internal organs. And there are herbal cures that can also be dangerous. But there is also a lot of stuff that actually seems pretty effective. And drug interactions are always a very, very big concern, whatever you are taking. Even if you don't supplement some of the ideas GNC culture has about how much protein to consume and how much vitamins you should get are not healthy for you. 

Also what we are talking about applies to food in stores. There is a lot of food we eat and we buy that is can be just as devastating for your body and organs over time. I don't think that means something like Soda ought to be outlawed (people have a right to drink that stuff if they want) but they should be given good nutritional and health information. Pretty much everyone in my family over 50 is diabetic or pre-diabetic. Heart disease runs on my mom's side of the family. I made a point of cutting out unnecessary sugar in my diet (and keeping my weight under control) so I can minimize my risks there. I take the same degree of caution with that, that I do with anything I put in my body. I always talk to my doctor about any treatment or therapy. 

Something people also need to understand about alternative therapies and medicine, and I would contrast this with traditional medicine, because the latter is much more closely tied to culture and family history, is with a lot of conditions, people end up hitting a wall, and they reach a point where they are just trying anything, with a doctor's approval, just to hedge their bets. It doesn't particularly matter why it helps, even if its purely psychological it can still help and, even if it physically does nothing in some cases, provided its safe and the doctor approves, it is at least giving them a sense of doing something and being in control (which also has a massive impact). 

One thing that has become very clear to me, and this is something that traditional meditation has helped me with a lot (but also something I've learned through modern therapy) is the power the mind has over our bodies. You aren't going to fix a heart attack with positive thoughts, but your thoughts do have an impact on health. With Crohns for instance you can see this in real time, and you can manage some crohns symptoms simply by being more conscious of how your thoughts affect something like the tightness of your stomach or the degree of nervousness you feel in your gut. That isn't a cure, but it isn't nothing, it is a very substantial degree of control over the illness. 

Another example is pain management. A lot of our pain management in modern medicine, has had serious unintended consequences. I've had family and friends who have become addicted to pain killers (and I've seen people die from that stuff: I'm sure many other people here have). I had a bunch of Crohns surgeries and each time they were trying to get me to go onto opiate medications. For the first three I did. But I also got uncomfortable being that reliant on them by the fourth. And so I used real basic medication techniques to help get my mind to distinguish between the pain and the emotions that amplified my perception of the pain. I was able to have multiple surgeries without taking any pain medication after I got out of the hospital. It hurt a little bit, but not nearly as bad as I thought it would, or as much as my doctor's said it would (and I informed them I wasn't taking the pain medication). To me that shows that some of these traditional spiritual methods can have very practical results for people, even in the context of something like recovering from a surgery. And given the risks of opioids, I'm glad I went that direction.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

beancounter said:


> Talking about snake oils...
> 
> On another forum, I once saw someone trying to sell hydrogenated water as some sort of cure-all and selling it for $20 per bottle. (Implying that hydrogen was added)
> 
> I reported it to the mod who rejected my report, until I reminded him that water is _naturally_ hydrogenated. (*H*₂O)




I'm pretty sure this is distinct from normal water. I think the thing with hydrogen water is it has extra hydrogen molecules added to it. It looks like it is still being studied, but I did find a handful of papers on it. Personally it isn't something I would take. I know that for some illnesses they are exploring hydrogen treatments and I think that is where this idea of hydrogenated water comes from (again I am not arguing that its effective or anything like that, just I think its more than normal water with a "Hydrogenated" label attached to it. 

But what I have seen is the reason it's most widely promoted is because people think it may have anti-inflammatory properties. I did see a handful of studies looking it up on google scholar. Again, hydrogen water sounds like something people are hyping without a lot of support, but there are some good reasons why people with inflammatory diseases will seek out alternative treatments like this. If you have serious inflammatory issues, one of the only treatments they use are immune suppressants. And those are very much a sledgehammer cure. I've been on them. I have had family members on them, but they can go sideways (My mother for example ended up with sepsis due to being on immune suppressants and got sick so often it was impacting her ability to work). There are a lot of foods and supplements people will try just because they are out of options or stuck between having to go on an immune suppressant in the middle of a pandemic or seek something that doesn't have a lot of data but maybe offers a sliver of hope to help.


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## Morrus (Oct 21, 2022)

As a side note, it's important to note that -- just as with COVID -- actual medical disinformation is dangerous and *may not be posted* on these forums. Just jumping in in advance, because we're very serious about that and I don't want to see anybody run afoul of it.


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## ART! (Oct 21, 2022)

Janx said:


> These are good points. And they align with my general policy to avoid trying to convert someone to/from a religion.
> 
> But there's a big but than you even alluded to.
> 
> ...



Thanks!

Let me counter, however, that it can be clearly and indisputably proven that the Earth is not flat. Proving that there are no ghosts, or no afterlife, or no Allah - for example - simply cannot be done. 

One can poke a person with spiritual beliefs with seemingly very rational counter-arguments, but a) why? (assuming no harm is being done by the believer), and b) I'll repeat my point about being careful who you argue with - just because an argument (yours, or the other person's) seems to make sense doesn't mean it does, and the person arguing the point may just be better at winning arguments, not necessarily better at being right.

I mostly avoid these kinds of conversations online, for the reasons one avoids contention online, but also because whenever I make even the slightest noise about defending religious faith and spiritual beliefs, I'm almost immediately expected to defend any and all spiritual belief across time and space.


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## Ryujin (Oct 21, 2022)

Bedrockgames said:


> Personally I am all for people having good health, so I think this is a very fair thing to consider and something people should seriously weigh whenvever they look into alternative treatments (and I think you should also get approval from your doctor). This goes well past traditional cures though. And I agree there are a lot of shady supplement industries. But you don't have to go after something like herbal cures that cultures have handed down for hundreds or thousands of years to find an issue, just go to GNC. I used to be very involved in physical activities where GNC was just part of the culture, and I even tried some of that stuff for  awhile. One thing you realize is a lot of it does work, but you also have a nagging suspicion that it isn't good for you. I worked at a medical journal for a while and I remember editing articles that covered a lot of the products on GNC shelves that can do harm to internal organs. And there are herbal cures that can also be dangerous. But there is also a lot of stuff that actually seems pretty effective. And drug interactions are always a very, very big concern, whatever you are taking. Even if you don't supplement some of the ideas GNC culture has about how much protein to consume and how much vitamins you should get are not healthy for you.
> 
> Also what we are talking about applies to food in stores. There is a lot of food we eat and we buy that is can be just as devastating for your body and organs over time. I don't think that means something like Soda ought to be outlawed (people have a right to drink that stuff if they want) but they should be given good nutritional and health information. Pretty much everyone in my family over 50 is diabetic or pre-diabetic. Heart disease runs on my mom's side of the family. I made a point of cutting out unnecessary sugar in my diet (and keeping my weight under control) so I can minimize my risks there. I take the same degree of caution with that, that I do with anything I put in my body. I always talk to my doctor about any treatment or therapy.
> 
> ...



Yes, the "undisclosed ingredients" thing is a different issue. That's one of failure to properly regulate an industry. 

Ingredients that can have an effect on medication, or cause some sort of drug interaction, need to be listed. Your example of foods that can be an issue is a very good one. For example something as simple as grapefruit juice can interact with many medications. One of my current med's effects are amplified by grapefruit juice and I have to avoid it, as a result.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

Ryujin said:


> Yes, the "undisclosed ingredients" thing is a different issue. That's one of failure to properly regulate an industry.
> 
> Ingredients that can have an effect on medication, or cause some sort of drug interaction, need to be listed. Your example of foods that can be an issue is a very good one. For example something as simple as grapefruit juice can interact with many medications. One of my current med's effects are amplified by grapefruit juice and I have to avoid it, as a result.




I’ve been on antibiotics for ten years following the surgeries I mentioned. Alcohol can affect the efficacy if many antibiotics but one I’m on can interact badly with alcohol (even small amounts). If your on medication it’s a very good idea to read the label for interactions and read labels at stores. Back when they had me on more medications grapefruit juice was one I saw all the time (I can drink it now but I’m so trained tobacconists with interacting with medicine I don’t even like the taste anymore)


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## Resayttan13 (Oct 21, 2022)

When I was younger, I used to live in really old house. I never really believed in ghosts, but there were definitely some weird things that happened in that house. One time, I was home alone and I heard a noise coming from upstairs. I went to investigate and there was nobody there. Another time, I was in my room and I saw a figure in the doorway, but when I turned on the light, there was nobody there. Whatever was happening in that house, it definitely wasn't natural. Even now, thinking about it gives me chills.


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## Bedrockgames (Oct 21, 2022)

ART! said:


> Thanks!
> 
> Let me counter, however, that it can be clearly and indisputably proven that the Earth is not flat. Proving that there are no ghosts, or no afterlife, or no Allah - for example - simply cannot be done.
> 
> ...




I think people are being pretty good overall in this conversation but it is something to consider when you challenge a person’s beliefs, what that will do to the person if you persuade. Religion and spirituality are more than just explanations of the world, they also give people meaning. I’ve seen people lose belief in that way and the result be negative for them. Not saying belief is superior to non-belief, just that it isn’t a minor thing for a person to relinquish their view of the meaning of life


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## ART! (Oct 21, 2022)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think people are being pretty good overall in this conversation but it is something to consider when you challenge a person’s beliefs, what that will do to the person if you persuade. Religion and spirituality are more than just explanations of the world, they also give people meaning. I’ve seen people lose belief in that way and the result be negative for them. Not saying belief is superior to non-belief, just that it isn’t a minor thing for a person to relinquish their view of the meaning of life



That's a big part of it, yeah. 

Plus, most people walk around believing things (about themselves, about others, etc.) all day long that other people would find patently untrue, so why pick on the harmless spiritual beliefs of others?


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## Nikosandros (Oct 21, 2022)

Personally I've never had any supernatural experience. In fact, I do not believe in the supernatural. This is just my opinion, not trying or wanting to convince anyone


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## Umbran (Oct 21, 2022)

ART! said:


> Let me counter, however, that it can be clearly and indisputably proven that the Earth is not flat. Proving that there are no ghosts, or no afterlife, or no Allah - for example - simply cannot be done.




So, this will seem like "just semantics" but in this case, it is quite relevant.

Technically, what you prove isn't, "The Earth is not flat."  What you prove is, "The Earth is round," and it just happens that flat and round are mutually exclusive.

That ends up important - with the Earth, we have something specific we can prove something contrary that eliminates the possibility that the world is flat.  With ghosts, the afterlife, and such, we cannot even state a positive assertion that might settle the issue, much less prove that assertion.

This leaves such questions in the state that's called "non-falsifiable".  Logic and science do not really apply to such questions.


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## FrogReaver (Oct 21, 2022)

Umbran said:


> So, this will seem like "just semantics" but in this case, it is quite relevant.
> 
> Technically, what you prove isn't, "The Earth is not flat."  What you prove is, "The Earth is round," and it just happens that flat and round are mutually exclusive.
> 
> ...



Flat and round aren’t mutually exclusive. Exhibit A:  Pizza!  

Flat and spherical are though


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## Umbran (Oct 21, 2022)

FrogReaver said:


> Flat and round aren’t mutually exclusive. Exhibit A:  Pizza!
> 
> Flat and spherical are though




Maybe next time consider for a moment longer that relying on the patience of others to tolerate nitpicks has some very bad failure modes.


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## Sanguinarious (Oct 21, 2022)

Flat earth? Seriously, check this video out. 


Honestly I don't know what to think about flat earth types.  I hope most of them are just being dicks, honestly. But I remember the guy who darwined himself with a 'steam powered rocket' trying to reach an altitude almost any private plane could have to prove earth was flat. 

Seriously,  people honestly believe earth is flat then yeah,  there is something seriously wrong with them. I mean I believe I have had a few experiences that the most plausible explanation of involves what is called supernatural, and by definition the initiation of existence is beyond our current understanding or explanation so meets the definition of supernatural, but a flat earth? Yeeesh.... 

Those people kinda scare me,  I mean the depths of their delusion, ignorance, stupidity,  whatever it is, is terrifying. It's dangerous too.  

I mean if people will let themselves believe that earth is flat, what else can they believe?  That anyone not just like them is evil? That all the ills of the world are due to people not like them?  Then what happens?  Yeah,  those people are scary.


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## Hex08 (Oct 21, 2022)

Umbran said:


> We should not confuse "we know how the treatment works" with "we recognize that the treatment works."  After all, we don't yet know the exact mechanism for the operation of Tylenol, but it is still widely recognized as an effective analgesic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Not to nitpick, and I certainly don't want to get into a back and forth on this because I do agree that pain management, even by placebo effect, is the end goal but the last paragraph of the paper I linked to states "However, it must be noted that there is a significant placebo effect." 

Some of my problem with acupuncture, aside from pain management, is that some practitioners still claim it is a cure for many ailments and that simply isn't true and can interfere with people seeking proper medical attention.


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## FrogReaver (Oct 21, 2022)

Umbran said:


> Maybe next time consider for a moment longer that relying on the patience of others to tolerate nitpicks has some very bad failure modes.



I considered that.  I also considered that a good natured nitpick for fun on a topic I agree with you on wouldn’t cause this response. 

People are complicated. Won’t be the first or last time I will be mistaken about their reactions.


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## Richards (Oct 24, 2022)

One time, I was home alone and I turned on the TV.  There on the screen in front of me were two brothers, Dean and Sam.  I watched it for a few minutes before switching to a different channel.

That was my only Supernatural experience.  I used to work with a guy who watched the whole series and said it was really good, but it didn't really do anything for me.  Maybe you had to watch it from the beginning to know what was going on.

What?

Johnathan


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## GreyLord (Oct 25, 2022)

Yes.

I've had them occur while awake and with full senses.  It wasn't something that was questionable on whether it occurred or not.  It occurred and it happened.

I'm not really going into any of them here.  I will say it has convinced me that there is more going on in this world than what we know or percieve...

But what exactly it may be...I can't say.  That's the bigger question I suppose.  It doesn't have to be something unnatural or strange, just perhaps something we don't yet understand and haven't gotten covered to in our science yet.


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