Do you believe in guardian angels?

[beakerandburette]

I have an 2mo DD and recently I have been finding white feathers in her cot, pram, Moses basket ect. I mentioned it to my mum and she suggested it could be an angel, I'm a little sceptical but I must admit it is a little bit strange.

So do you believe and have you had any experience of this?

"She hasn't made specific claims though."

She said she had used her gifts to help find lost children. Seems pretty specific to me.

Ultimately a faith and belief in God comes from an open heart (even if only a fraction) and a personal revelation. Therefore by definition it can't be used to prove it to someone else. If someone chooses to seek, they will find. If they actively don't then they won't, and no amount of discussion will convince them otherwise. But we can all choose to respect others whatever they believe as long as they're not spreading hatred.

Why should I respect views that go against all known science and are supported by no evidence? Why should we respect views no matter how ridiculous?

I dunno On the Site Stuff thread, MrsRTea proposed a thread for psychologically helpful strategies, which would include stuff like meditation and visualisations. I'd like this; I use it all the time and am an avid follower of neuroscience - the scientific sort! - to inform & motivate my thinking (I have severe depression: I need to use MH management techniques, but they are the same ones used by business and athletic coaches.)

When I've occasionally started a thread, or posted on another's, to discuss & share ideas, my posts have always been misinterpreted by both woo and anti-woo respondents as referring to woo shit. This board should be the ideal place for such a thread. The practices encompass both philosophy and 'spirituality' with a smattering of quasi-religion and a lot of science. In practice, though, the only thread that wasn't hijacked was in Mental Health, where a poster wanted to know how psychotherapy can possibly work.

It gets on my nerves when people refuse to see the difference between imagining and believing. As I keep saying, it's a very long stretch from "I found a feather, and it reminded me of the beauty in the world" to "I found a feather and knew my angel was with me." But people keep insisting on making that stretch. Not only that, but they come over all sarcastic when I reply the feather was quite enough at that moment, thank you, I don't believe in supernatural beings!

I have to work quite hard at not feeling anxious for the evidently huge amount of people who're ready to attribute explicable phenomena to inexplicable sources. I'm already anxious enough. Fuck it, I WILL try starting a thread in Mental Health and abandon it when it goes all woo. Just really posting this because I know some of this board's regulars do get it ... you know who you are

There was the mass sighting of an angel on a battle field, during the first world war, which may be explained away by mass hysteria... or not.

There really wasn't any mass sighting though. The Angel of Mons is legend based on a fictional story about ghostly archers appearing on a battlefield, written by a newspaper reporter called Arthur Machin. The legend sprang up afterwards.

Wikipedia has quite a good summary.

It is understandable that people wanted to believe at the time. Beliefs can be very comforting.

IF I have a guardian angel then he/she could sure do with sorting things out a bit???

I wonder about 'bad' ones?

I was once told I had a 'black shroud dripping down over me' by some charmer?

sorry, should clarify the 'charmer' wasn't someone I had consulted, just a random person (the janitor at my Uni Halls, many years ago)

Janitors are often weird I suspect they end up doing that job because they don't have to interact much with other people! The wise response to "There's a black shroud dripping over you" might be "There's a blocked toilet on the second floor." Shrouds don't drip, anyway

I don't think that science can be used to categorically proved or disprove matters of belief.

They can when those beliefs involve claims like 'I have a gift that I use to find missing people'. We could look at the evidence of them finding a missing child and any evidence for there being a natural explanation and so on.

free reign to ridicule the religious beliefs of others

Absolutely. I will ridicule the ridiculous. You think it would be good if we couldn't?

"I don't think that science can be used to categorically proved or disprove matters of belief.

They can when those beliefs involve claims like 'I have a gift that I use to find missing people'. We could look at the evidence of them finding a missing child and any evidence for there being a natural explanation and so on."

As I said earlier, IndigoBarbie asked someone to set up a scientific test to investigate her powers. I said I could, and asked her to PM me her details so we could organise it. She hasn't posted since.

Everyone does have absolute freedom to post their ideas.

As do others who tell them what they think about those ideas.

Attacking people is not allowed. Attacking ideas is called "debate".

"Hak calls for others to accept her point of view categorically because their is a 'perceived' abuse. "

No I don't.

Sunshinemum-it is not her belief in angels that I am challenging.

It is her assertion that she has used her gifts to find lost children. I think it is entirely reasonable to expect anyone to agree that making a claim like that without any supporting evidence is unacceptable. So yes, on this point I do expect other people to agree with me.