To think psychics are all fakes?

[LambinsideaDuckinsideaTrout]

I don't like that they take peoples money when they are in a vulnerable place, lost loved ones etc. It's immoral. Just my opinion.

Thoughts? Opinions?

What MaidofStars said, squared...

Every time someone utters "it's not doing any harm", they unwittingly feed into the system that sees virgins raped to cure men of HIV, that sees children die because parents don't seek formal medical treatment, that sees the vulnerable counting their few remaining pennies because they've been conned by someone so disgustingly amoral to take their cash in return for fake messages form their dead family.

I agree with those obviously damaging things but what's your position on Father Christmas and fairies? Are we damaging children by telling them these stories? Should the world be all about cold hard facts and evidence?

"
It's a foolish to entirely dismiss ideas, occurances, beliefs etc just because science hasn't caught up yet"

It is also foolish to carry on believing something once it has been shown to be false. The things science has caught up with.....

But believing in a phenomenon doesn't mean believing every person ever who claims to be able to do/see/cure etc. People have to make up their minds on an individual person based on their gut feelings and opinions. That goes for anything and everything.

I'm a believer and I have already said I don't believe a lot of these people are who they say they are.

A belief in the paranormal is completely different to warped individuals who would make the claims you state.

curlew

true

if the proof is not based on false data

"I agree with those obviously damaging things but what's your position on Father Christmas and fairies? Are we damaging children by telling them these stories? Should the world be all about cold hard facts and evidence?"

No. Because they are children. And they stop believing in them as the grow up.

And no, the world is also about stories and rainbows and wonder and stars and love and laughter and dreams and poetry and colours and delight and kittens and babies and music and shapes in the clouds. Who needs pseudoscientific bullshit when you've got all that? A rainbow is just as glorious if you know what causes it as it is if you think it was painted on the sky by fairies. More so, because you know it's part of the amazing pattern and scheme of nature.

But Giles, these supernatural stories date back thousands of years and predate science precisely because they were pre-scientific people's way of trying to explain to themselves things we now have scientific explanations for.

One very clear example is changeling stories, which are a major part of folklore right up until the 20th c in my part of Ireland. The stories talk about the fairies stealing newborns (and sometimes nursing mothers to feed the stolen babies) and leaving in their place 'strange' babies who look odd, behave strangely, appear un-childlike, never cry or never stop crying, and women who suddenly look and sound different, no longer act normally etc etc. You could get the real children and mothers. Back by killing the changeling or performing certain rituals.

These stories are fairly obviously a way of a peasant, often pre-literate people trying to 'explain' children born with a deformity, or who did not develop 'normally' (some of the stories have descriptions of the changeling which match Down's syndrome, autism, CP), and women with post-natal depression or psychosis.

The phenomenon described in the stories is real, but not the supernatural explanation.

I see what you are getting at now, Katnip & yes, I agree.

By and large, I do think people think they see things that they then call "ghosts". I don't think they are all liars, but I do think a lot of embellishment goes on when they are relating their story later.

We all do this all the time. Ask any police officer.

I dismiss the notion that ghosts exist. Completely.

I do not, and never have, dismissed the idea that people think they have seen ghosts. But to be fair, most "ghostly encounters" are so bloody stupid, that yes, I do dismiss them.

Few of them are: Grandma came back & talked to me for half an hour (those are rare).

They are more like: "I was in the kitchen & felt cold. Suddenly the cat hissed and the curtains flapped. Explain that then".

Do I dismiss the second example as crap? Oh yes.

The first, I would be kinder and suggest they see a doctor.

We can explain many, most probably. But not all.

Things still crop up that science cannot explain.

It's like alternative medicine. It's the stuff people used when there wasn't anything that actually worked. Give the ancients penicillin and paracetamol and they would have grabbed them with both hands, casing aside their smudge stick and chicken entrails without a backward glance.

"
"Things still crop up that science cannot explain."

Absolutely. Yet.

Things still crop up that science cannot explain

But when they are explained, it will be science that has done the explaining.

And you can bet your bottom dollar that the explanation will not be a supernatural one.

Science has solved many, many, many mysteries. Not once, not a single time, has the answer been woo.

Why do people forget this?

And that just happenes to be where we disagree.

I believe that somethings will remain unexplained or at the very least remain only partly explained.

I don't think we are really meant to know everything. Science and the thirst for knowledge has done lots of good. But it has also done lots of bad too.

MaidOfStars post perfectly illustrates why such harmful and dangerous beliefs should at the very least be dismissed. And Giles, your post referring to the burning of witches also shows how harmful such beliefs can be.

I'm sure all those nurses in the hospital that I punched when trying to escape wished that I didn't believe they were going to have me killed.

For all of you that believe your friend of a friend of a friend... saw a ghost: well, when I was in hospital I was visited by Ant and Dec and leeches seeped out of my skin. I know you're all jealous now!

I also have a rather nice bridge up for sale. I'll let you have it for a good price. Here it is:

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Brooklyn_Bridge_-_New_York_City.jpg

Nice, huh?

I don't think we are really meant to know everything

Meant?

FWIW top scientists agree that the Big Bang Theory is a very good explanation of how God created the Universe - something out of nothing.

the more science tries to explain away God's existence the more proof they find that points towards an intelligent creator.

And if God exists (which I believe/know He does, based on non-scientific experiences) then so does the Holy Spirit.
which is proof that spirits, bad and good, exist.

whether people can communicate with them and to what purpose is different matter.

You could not possibly be more wrong, Zing.

"The more science tries to explain away God's existence the more proof they find that points towards an intelligent creator."

Like what?

"And if God exists [...] then so does the Holy Spirit"

Why? Plenty of people who believe in a God don't believe in a Holy Spirit. What's the compelling argument that one automatically implies the other?

"which is proof that spirits, bad and good, exist."

Why? If it were demonstrated that one good spirit existed, how would that be 'proof' that bad spirits exist?

based on the Bible.

Hettie

you couldn't be more wrong.

So the existence of a book that says that God exists proves that he exists which proves that the Holy Spirit exists which proves that bad spirits exist?

And that just happenes to be where we disagree. I believe that somethings will remain unexplained or at the very least remain only partly explained.

You have absolutely no rational basis for this belief. Quite possibly, this is due, in part, to a category error.

The scientific method can ONLY measure and explain that which we can detect ("some things"). That which we can detect ("some things") can be measured and explained via the scientific method.

If current knowledge is insufficient to explain that which we can detect, the knowledge will be built upon until it become explicable.

If there are "some things" for which we currently have no scientific explanation, the very fact that there is a "thing" means that we can use the scientific method to investigate it.

If "some thing" cannot be addressed by the scientific method, it ceases to be a "thing" and becomes a metaphysical question.

So what kind of "thing" do you think science will not be able to explain?

Zing, you do understand that 'knowing' and 'believing' are not the same thing, right?

And that the Bible only counts as evidence that other people, in the distant past, believed in the Judaeo-Christian God?

you couldn't be more wrong

OK. Well, I don't like being wrong, so please could you tell me exactly what proof they've found, these "top" scientists, that points towards an intelligent creator.

Oh, and the proof that the universe came from nothing as well.

(BTW: BB theory doesn't propose that the universe came from nothing).

does the Bible prove that God exists?

if you accept that the Bible is telling the truth then yes. and so yes to all the other questions.

but for me it's other way round. I believe/know that God exists therefore I believe that the God's Word (written or spoken, through Him or some others) are true