Thoughts on the Afterlife, ghosts, and spirits.

[carrie721]

Originally Posted by Zombie

Anyway, I am a skeptic, and I wear that mantle with pride. It is not bad or wrong to be a skeptic, though the Sylvia Brownes of the world might wish you to think otherwise. It is not a life without hope or future. Being a skeptic does not automatically mean you are cynical. It does not mean that you are not open to new ideas. In fact, quite the opposite - skepticism is hallmarked by curiosity and an appetite for answers. We question claims not because we want to piss in anyone's cornflakes but because we honestly want to find real answers. If someone claims they have a truth, we want to hear it and see for ourselves.

word on that bird.

truth is, i am cynical about quite a few things. i'm frequently cynical about humans and their intentions. i'm not paranoid, i just have a pretty good understanding of human behavior. however, i am not cynical about the infinite number of possibilities that exist in an infinite universe. it is because i believe there is an infinite number of possibilities that it seems pointless, foolhardy, and inefficient to align myself with one specific elaborate story. especially when my own personal experience in this vast universe is so insignificant, and especially in the face of an utter lack of evidence that any one myth is the "right" one.

and yeah, sign me up for the zombie book club. i'm always eager for reading recommendations.

i'll show you mine if you show me yours.

[David]

Originally Posted by GODDESS6

i do believe in an afterlife~

I believe in an aftertaste.

[fringed n fab]

Originally Posted by holidayroad

I don't believe in God and Heaven, but I do believe in ghosts/spirits because I have personally seen one and heard/saw presence/evidence of others. I guess what I find somewhat confusing about the belief in God is that so many people have so many different takes on it. For example, fringed n fab believes in God, psychics, and ghosts. Yet, a lot of Christians would say that that psychics and ghosts are ideas that are against the Christian God. Ten years ago, I moved from farther north to the south here in the U.S. and unless you live in small towns in the South, you would never believe how much the majority of people here are Consumed by Christianity and God. If you don't believe in it exactly the way they do, to them you are flat out wrong and going straight to hell. People here believe if you are not in church everytime the doors are opened, it means you're not a Christian. These people can be scary!

And that is why I could never step foot again in a conventional church. For "people like me" we're already condemned to hell and banished from Heaven before we even enter the door. It's no wonder some people just go kill themselves over so much frustration from being told they're some defect of humankind or that they're wrong for being what they are. It's nice to know that yes, our God is an all loving God who loves every one of us and couldn't possibly "hate" us because he just doesn't have it in him to do so. Which is what I started to feel years ago before I even started reading it elsewhere. You say it's all hokey and untrue or unfounded, the dead talking about this. Well what if it IS true about Heaven and how God is supposed to be from ones already gone who are already up there? And that's why I'll listen to a lot of this. It only makes sense that God's not really a being to fear. That he loves us all no matter what. Churches and some of their teachings have taught so many that He's something to fear and He's this unapproachable being and I don't think so at all anymore. I think He's there for all of us if we just let him in. It's puzzling how church can actually turn a person away from God instead of actually making one feel comfortable and bringing them in.

[fringed n fab]

Years ago my late aunt was telling my mom and dad about all these weird things happening in their house back in the early 80's. How their teenaged daughters would be getting ready for school in the mornings and stand in front of the dressing mirror fixing their hair and go to grab the hairbrush that had just been sitting there and it vanish and be gone and go to look for it and ask if the other sister had taken it, only to return to find it still laying there on the dresser. Or the time when my aunt was home alone busy cleaning the house with only my little 3 year old cousin and my cousin wanted a pickle from atop the fridge in the huge pickle jar and my aunt had told her "In a minute when mommy's finished" and five minutes passed and my cousin returns with the pickle in her hand and my aunt asked "Barbie how on earth did you get that pickle?" and the little girl said "Bobo got it for me." It was a playful ghost they had for years while living in that house.

[fringed n fab]

A couple years later after being told that story, my mom and little sister had dropped by the same aunt's house to pay a visit for something and the door was open so mom opens the screen door and walks on in only to find my aunt and everyone were gone. So mom and my sister sit down in the dining room thinking my aunt maybe ran around the corner to the store real quick for something. Mom says the next thing she knows, she hears all these dishes breaking in the kitchen and runs in there to find cups and plates just scooting out of the cabinets and falling to the floor, so she grabbed my little sister up and ran out the door as fast as she could with her and got the hell out of that house.

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by David

I believe in an aftertaste.

Sometimes aftertaste is the best part! I went to work with aftertaste, last week. I couldn't think about work, all night long!

[holidayroad]

Originally Posted by fringed n fab

And that is why I could never step foot again in a conventional church. For "people like me" we're already condemned to hell and banished from Heaven before we even enter the door. It's no wonder some people just go kill themselves over so much frustration from being told they're some defect of humankind or that they're wrong for being what they are. It's nice to know that yes, our God is an all loving God who loves every one of us and couldn't possibly "hate" us because he just doesn't have it in him to do so. Which is what I started to feel years ago before I even started reading it elsewhere. You say it's all hokey and untrue or unfounded, the dead talking about this. Well what if it IS true about Heaven and how God is supposed to be from ones already gone who are already up there? And that's why I'll listen to a lot of this. It only makes sense that God's not really a being to fear. That he loves us all no matter what. Churches and some of their teachings have taught so many that He's something to fear and He's this unapproachable being and I don't think so at all anymore. I think He's there for all of us if we just let him in. It's puzzling how church can actually turn a person away from God instead of actually making one feel comfortable and bringing them in.

I'm glad that you can still have faith in God and that his 'followers' haven't ruined it for you. I like what you said about how it's puzzling how church can turn people away from God instead of bringing them in. That's how most churches seem to operate here. Be 'one of us' or stay away! I'm Wiccan and my husband is as well. We have found crosses set up on our lawn (thankfully not burning) and have had mail sent to us that said some not so great things about us (it wasn't signed). I think the only thing that keeps trouble away now is that we let our son go to church with his grandfather.

[Zombie]

Originally Posted by GODDESS6

i used to be a huge sylvia browne fan~ read her books, never missed an appearance she had on montel, read everything i could find about her online~

my dad had just died & she gave me hope & was inspiring~

but then i read how her & her husband had been defrauding people~ it was posted on here about it a long time ago~ along w/ alot of other things she doesn't want folks to know~ it was very disheartening to find out

just google her, you can read for yourself~

but i still believe in an afterlife, ghosts & spirits~ i always have~

She's a pretty nasty piece of work, in my opinion. This is why I call her a dangerous person - she peddles hope, but it's a false hope. She's also consistently intellectually dishonest - her long-standing fued with James Randi is an excellent example of that.

Originally Posted by carrie721

word on that bird.

truth is, i am cynical about quite a few things. i'm frequently cynical about humans and their intentions. i'm not paranoid, i just have a pretty good understanding of human behavior. however, i am not cynical about the infinite number of possibilities that exist in an infinite universe. it is because i believe there is an infinite number of possibilities that it seems pointless, foolhardy, and inefficient to align myself with one specific elaborate story. especially when my own personal experience in this vast universe is so insignificant, and especially in the face of an utter lack of evidence that any one myth is the "right" one.

and yeah, sign me up for the zombie book club. i'm always eager for reading recommendations.

i'll show you mine if you show me yours.

Well, I'm pretty cynical, too, it's just not an automatic byproduct of my skepticism. My cynicism usually stems from observing people & the things we do to each other. That never ceases to amaze me in the worst way possible.

For reading on this and related subjects, I recommend:

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan

Why People Believe Weird Things: Psuedosicence, Superstition and Other Confusions of Our Time by Michael Shermer

Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder by Richard Dawkins

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns and Other Delusions by James Randi

Randi also has an excellent book called "The Faith Healers" that has a foreword by Carl Sagan. I'm a big Randi fan, he's kind of awesome.

For online reading, I recommend:

the Skeptic's Dictionary, www.skepdic.com

Skeptic Magazine's site, www.skeptic.com

The James Randi Educational Foundation, http://www.randi.org/ - There's a wealth of stuff about Sylvia Browne here - http://www.randi.org/sylvia/index.shtml - Randi has a $1 million Challenge, wherein he will give you a million smackers if you can prove your claimed abilities under a set of mutually agreed upon protocols. Sylvia has accepted the Challenge, but conveniently won't get around to actually doing it, even though she agreed to the protocols on Larry King Live. D'oh!

Whatchoo got for me?

[Zombie]

Originally Posted by holidayroad

I'm glad that you can still have faith in God and that his 'followers' haven't ruined it for you. I like what you said about how it's puzzling how church can turn people away from God instead of bringing them in. That's how most churches seem to operate here. Be 'one of us' or stay away! I'm Wiccan and my husband is as well. We have found crosses set up on our lawn (thankfully not burning) and have had mail sent to us that said some not so great things about us (it wasn't signed). I think the only thing that keeps trouble away now is that we let our son go to church with his grandfather.

That's terrible! It would never occur to me to send a letter to a religious family in my town calling them names for being religious. I'm sorry that you have to deal with that.

[LukeA]

Originally Posted by holidayroad

I'm glad that you can still have faith in God and that his 'followers' haven't ruined it for you. I like what you said about how it's puzzling how church can turn people away from God instead of bringing them in. That's how most churches seem to operate here. Be 'one of us' or stay away! I'm Wiccan and my husband is as well. We have found crosses set up on our lawn (thankfully not burning) and have had mail sent to us that said some not so great things about us (it wasn't signed). I think the only thing that keeps trouble away now is that we let our son go to church with his grandfather.

Wait- you're telling me people who identify themselves as religious are also timid & hypocritical?

(I'm very sorry that you have to deal with such idiots)

[fringed n fab]

Originally Posted by Zombie

The James Randi Educational Foundation, http://www.randi.org/ - There's a wealth of stuff about Sylvia Browne here - http://www.randi.org/sylvia/index.shtml - Randi has a $1 million Challenge, wherein he will give you a million smackers if you can prove your claimed abilities under a set of mutually agreed upon protocols. Sylvia has accepted the Challenge, but conveniently won't get around to actually doing it, even though she agreed to the protocols on Larry King Live. D'oh!

Whatchoo got for me?

To me I feel she's proven herself to too many others that she's for real. And I don't say that to many "psychics". I don't think she needs to "prove" herself to anyone or accept someone elses money to take their "test". To me, believing in man and science is a BAD thing because man will lead you to believe many things (his way) if you're not careful. That goes for a lot of churches too. I appreciate everyone's viewpoints on this and this issue always leads one way or the other and is to be expected. No one's ever "right" or "wrong" about it. It's our personal beliefs and views and what we feel about this whole thing. And that's ok

[fringed n fab]

You walk up to total strangers and just know this stuff about them?

[fringed n fab]

[fringed n fab]

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by fringed n fab

To me I feel she's proven herself to too many others that she's for real. And I don't say that to many "psychics". I don't think she needs to "prove" herself to anyone or accept someone elses money to take their "test". To me, believing in man and science is a BAD thing because man will lead you to believe many things (his way) if you're not careful. That goes for a lot of churches too. I appreciate everyone's viewpoints on this and this issue always leads one way or the other and is to be expected. No one's ever "right" or "wrong" about it. It's our personal beliefs and views and what we feel about this whole thing. And that's ok

Well, there is an objective reality out there, that we're a (tiny) part of, so theres always a right or wrong answer. The question is, how do we know we're right? Of course, it's a philosophical fallacy to say with certainty that you know you're right - e.g. the chair on which I'm sitting may not exist at all, because all my brain is doing is interpreting sense data like sight and feeling, which are fallible. If you're certain you can see your computer screen at the moment and know it exists, just (very!) briefly glance directly at the sun. You should see a colour patch for a while if you look at a white wall or close your eyes, that (almost certainly) doesn't really exist. So how do you know your monitor isn't in fact a very elaborate light trick? Of course, it could also be a hallucination, perhaps because your brain isn't getting all the sugar it needs (at least I think that's how hallucinations work). So, as confident as you are, you can't be certain!
So, how's that relevant here? Well, I'm a skeptic, and when I say I know there's not an afterlife, no ghosts and no spirits, I am actually saying that, given available evidence and our (i.e. scientists) current understanding of how the universe works, I find these phenomena both highly unlikely and contradictory to expectation, because of the nature of the current hallmarks of physics, Einstein's Gereral Relativity and Quantum Field Theory. I also subscribe to scientific naturalism, which is a pretty minimalistic philosophy - basically, the only things that exist are what the natural sciences say exist - which rules out paranormalism and supernatural causes. (Actually, what does it mean to have supernatural causes? If they're causes that physically exist, wouldn't that make them natural? And if not, then wouldn't they be non-existent?)
And another thing - science, like James Randi, demands a very high amount of evidence for a theory. Even when scientists have accepted that theory, they continue to put it under severe strain. How else would there be progress? After all, QED is so accurate that it's correct to one part in 10^12, a million million! It's like knowing the size of North America from coast to coast to the width of a human hair! And even then we're not satisfied - such is why the LHC was constructed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider
I'll finish (I waffle a lot, don't I? ) with two quotes from Richard Dawkins:
"There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality."
"We should be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brain falls out. "
Both from "The Enemies of Reason - Slaves to Superstition"