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?

When people are dead, they cease to exist. They live on in the memories of others, and that is all that matters.

No-one can tell the future because it hasn't happened yet and I can influence what happens to me. I can make choices.

Psychics are all fake. Some may be delusional, others intentionally exploit, but they are all fake.

No y.n.b.u. You're free and entilted to think what you like. I happen to agree with. Why do we never hear about psyhics winning the lottery. xx

For example I don't think science will fully explain what happens when we die.

I'm not talking about the physical I'm talking about when people report seeing things and people etc when they are passing over before they get pulled back.

Science has an explanation but it doesn't explain why some people are able to describe things that actually happened. See parts of the surgery or attempts to re start their hart. Things that were said and done despite the fact they were technically dead at that moment.

Endorphind adrenaline or drugs may in some minds explain the whole tunnel of light thing but not the rest.

yellow

that is a theological & logical conondrum that I am in the middle of trying to figure out.
I believe that God exists and I also know that He exists.
and I need to learn more to understand how that can be.

I think once you know something there's no need to say you believe in it.
I'm not sure how to best phrase this.
anyway, that's my problem.

But how do you decide which particular version of God's Word is true? Why (even assuming you've decided that you believe/know that one single God exists) the Bible rather than (say) the Kitáb-i-Íqán or the Hermetica or The Great Hymn to the Aten?

Not going to get that evidence, am I, Zing? How very, er, typical.

Let's not start on about the bible, the bible has led to people spouting hatred and ignorance and validating it by the words of god.

As evidenced on this delightful site

Religion is a very handy 'get out of jail free' card played by those that have no evidence to back up their beliefs. To those that believe; what makes you think your god is the real god, there are a lot to choose from.

As for the big bang theory, that's what it is, a theory. No scientist claims it is absolutely true. However, they do think it may have stemmed from the singularity not a god.

Back to the point now. Psychics are fake.

Wine

very good questions.
I don't know how best to answer them, sorry.

I believe that the Bible tells the truth and that's enough for me.
I don't have a need to understand everything in it - precisely because I know that it's impossible to understand everything.
that's faith to me.

gosh, I find it very difficult to explain any of this (especially because I am quite sleep deprived right now)

All psychics are fake. Some are not doing it deliberately, but are confused.

As for 'but science doesn't know everything' that one is well past its sell by date.

If you're going to believe because you can't disprove it then where do you draw the line. Should I believe that invisible dinosaurs are living in the cellar?

I am hands down just about the most cynical person you will ever meet. But I went to a psychic once.

My gran who I was incredibly close to passed away very suddenly and I was utterly distraught.

Someone suggested a psychic and although I scoffed at them (I don't believe in psychics) I kind of thought you cannot judge until you try it yourself and it was as good a time as any to do it even though I was sure that dead is dead.

She described my nans appearance, how sudden it was she had died, how she was now with a teenage boy and was crying tears of happiness (my uncle - her son - passed away at 14), how we had lived much closer and then she had regretted moving away even though it hadn't made us less emotionally closer, she named my brother and sister and told me to tell my mum that on the day of nans passing she had made the right decision even though she knows it was at a huge cost (my gran had been adamant that she didn't want to die in hospital and mum had to make the decision as to whether she travelled home or stayed. If she had stayed then my aunt who was flying from Australia may have been able to say her goodbyes but as it was she got there too late and my mum had been given herself a hard time)

I must admit I am still incredibly cynical BUT that visit was so incredibly close that I cannot deny that there was something there.. and do you know what? it comforted me at a time when nothing else could.

Hettie

read this book "A case for the Creator" to start with.

plenty of evidence - I am nowhere near qualified enough to try and sum it up for you.

and I question your need to be nasty

Waffly, sorry to hear about your gran, I truly am. I did the same thing when my dear nan died in a way. I went to a spiritualist service every week waiting to hear from her. I got nothing. I really recommend having a look at the link I posted somewhere up there ^^^^ which is the conversation between Derren Brown and Richard Dawkins. It explains a lot.

I saw a performance of Derek Acorah's a few years ago (a journo friend had some press tickets and took me along). I could not believe how gullible people were - to me it was blatant cold reading, couched in cosy chat and banter, with some would-be slick covering-over of his 'misses' and huge bigging-up of his hits.

This is no exaggerration:

'So your grandad passed on quickly did he....I'm getting a pain in my heart....does that mean anything to you?'

'Not really.....he was in a car accident.'

'Ah, he must have had a heart condition, then.....'

'No, he was as fit as a fiddle....'

'Yes, sometimes older men try to hide their illnesses from their family...'

'Hmmm....well he did get a bit breathless when he ran up the stairs, I remember.'

'Yes, he's telling me that he used to hate getting out of breath.'

All woo, the whole lot of it.

Gileswithachainsaw, what happens when people die that can't be explained by science or that even requires explaining?

Btw there may be a medical definition of dying for legal reasons, but I'd say that being dead is when you don't wake up again. the other cases are people who were very nearly dead. Eg. Stopped breathing and heart stopped pumping momentarily.

I can stop breathing and then come back again btw. I have this special power. I call it holding my breath.

I haven't been nasty in the slightest.

I don't want to read "Case for the creator" - I read books about science instead.

I can categorically tell you that there is zero evidence pointing to an intelligent creator. Zero. If anyone has told you anything else, whether from a pulpit or in a book, then they have lied to you.

that book is about science and scientists, people much like yourself who thought there was zero evidence.
they proved themselves wrong.

you ask for evidence and when given a good starting point you ignore it.

strange behaviour. why ask then?

The Case for a Creator ? Discussion at length of its "evidence" here.

It's written by a journalist called Lee Strobel. He is not a scientist. Real scientists laugh at everything he said in that book. Sorry.

ItsOkayItsJustMyBreath Oh don't get me wrong, I am not saying that she was psychic, just that at the time of my visiting it didn't MATTER, I felt comforted and it gave me a tiny slice of hope that she was ok. I don't mind that it was probably cold reading, it was worth the £15 I spent to be able to have the cd recording of the session for me to go back for the next few weeks after her death while I needed it. I am not sure how to explain it but for that short period of time I needed some kind of net since my usual go to in times of stress was my nan!

I don't believe in God, I don't believe in harming others for the sake of superstition but I do think that if something comforts you then why should it matter if its not real?

Hettie

clearly we'll never agree on this.You think I'm wrong, I think you are wrong.
ad infinitum.

by "on this" I mean God's existence.

you ask for evidence and when given a good starting point you ignore it

Thing is, Zing - if I said that there was evidence of something, I'd present it - I wouldn't tell someone to go and read a book. I'd tell them what the evidence is then suggest further reading.

It sounds to me like you've been told there's evidence, so have believed that, rather than knowing what the evidence is. That's strange behavior, if anything is.

I am already aware of Lee Strobel - I know what arguments he makes, and he has been debunked again and again and again. By real scientists.

Yep. Facing reality is scary.

See ya.

Zing, you can believe whatever you like for whatever reason you like.

But if you're going to claim that there's lots of scientific evidence for your position you really do need to be able to tell us what it is. And if all you can do is point to a widely-discredited book, written with a distinct agenda, where most of the "experts" interviewed don't actually have higher level qualifications in the subjects they are being interviewed about then you haven't really done that.

So we're back to you believe because you just do (fine), and there's no actual scientific evidence to support that stance.