Angels in Disguise.

[steve s]

The other night I saw the most dreadful commercial for a DVD called Angels in Disguise. It seems to consist of dramatizations of people in peril being assisted by a good Samaritan. So basically, anyone who comes to your aid is an angel, literally. The commercial talks about "thousands of true stories," and says "there seems little doubt that angels exist." And it had the obligatory shot of a woman saying "This wasn't a dream or a hallucination." Well that settles it for me. I'm a believer!.

Here's the webpage for the DVD.
http://www.grizzlyadams.com/public/home/index.cfm?productID=60

Steve S.

[Safe-Keeper]

Looked at the page, and found it rather pathetic.

"The Window Blind" First person account: A young mother is awakened in the middle of the night and pushed by some unseen presence toward her daughter's bedroom where she finds the young girl being strangled by the drawstring on the window blind. The next morning the daughter asks who it was in the room with her mother.Sounds like a typical urban legend.

"Angels in Gingham and Overalls " A mother and daughter, traveling to meet their soldier father, are stalled on a lonely road when the daughter becomes deathly ill. They are rescued by an old couple in denim and gingham who turn out to be patrons of the local hospital, both having died long before that very day."Long before that very day"? Sounds like someone wrote "that very day" and then decided that "long before that day" would add more effect to the story.

"The Locked Door" A young girl is trapped in her room as fire consumes her home. Neither her mom or dad, nor the firemen can get in to save her. The little girl suddenly escapes out the back door – to the amazement of everyone. She tells them her grandfather led her out to safety – the same grandfather that in fact has passed away many years earlier. And...when they check the deadbolt on the back door, it is melted shut. No one could have opened it.No one could have opened it, but the daughter has escaped through the door? Did her late grandfather teach her how to become ethereal? And do fires melt shut deadbolts in the first place? And why would the back door be sealed - wouldn't the firefighters break it open from the outside to get in and save the girl?

1. We don't know if these events in fact happened.
2. It is irrational to jump to supernatural conclusions just because all possible natural answers happen to elude you.
3. None of these cases, even if they happened exactly as described, are proof of angels. In fact, they sound more like ghost stories than anything else.

And did anyone else find that girl in the beginning of the promotional video incredibly creepy? She reminded me of the girl who leaped at the sliding door in the "does this scare you thread".

My stance is that guardian angels or other supernatural creatures aiding and protecting us may well exist - and the belief in them makes a whole lot more sense to me than the belief in some protective omnipotent entity or entities, because in the case of the latter you have to make up all sorts of excuses as to how he or she or it or they didn't help you when they are, after all, omnipotent. With a guardian angel or protective spirit or whatever, you can simply say that they did their best, but sadly failed. Maybe they had lots of people to protect, maybe they simply messed up, maybe they can't interact too well with our world. That's all fine and dandy. However, it doesn't change the fact that we have zero existence for such creatures, and that the lack of an obvious natural explanation for an event doesn't necessitate a supernatural explanation.

[bokonon]

The Window Blind" First person account: A young mother is awakened in the middle of the night and pushed by some unseen presence toward her daughter's bedroom where she finds the young girl being strangled by the drawstring on the window blind. The next morning the daughter asks who it was in the room with her mother.
Interesting. So I guess an angel can rouse a full-grown woman from sleep and push her from one room to the next, but can't remove a drawstring from a child's neck. Someone should probably get a grant to study this phenomenon, it's as paradoxical as it is paranormal.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

No chance the young girl was gagging and gasping for breath and otherwise making noise? No, I suppose not.

~~ Paul

[Silentknight]

Whoops, I read the thread title and assumed it had to do with an animated show about two warring factions of angels who take on the forms of vehicles. Don't ask me why.

[Safe-Keeper]

OMG! Gabriel transforms into a church van and runs over Richard Dawkins!

And regarding the ad video: what's up with this generic approach to ads I see? I mean, sometimes it seems every single advertisement I watch has this "soft voice and cross-fades between slow-motion happy people, especially parents and children". And wow, the last part of the ad reminded me a lot about an ad for some Disney's DVD like Peter Pan or The Lion King. I caught myself thinking, "if this was the trailer for a Disney's movie on guardian entitites, I'd love to watch it".

[alfaniner]

Quote:
They are rescued by an old couple in denim and gingham who turn out to be patrons of the local hospital, both having died long before that very day.


Was one of them named Marge? And very large?

[Gagglegnash]

Hi

"long before that very day."

Today is 21 December 2008. Long before this very day would be 21 December 1972.

Other than that, I think you're spot on... and I'm one of those Believer guys!

....

Mmm... is this pandering or pimping? I'll have to check. ...and yeah. Creepy li'l girl.

[Bikewer]

It does strike me as rather sad that folks would rather assume some supernatural agency was at work than believe their fellow human beings capable of altruistic behavior.

We had a retired gentleman working as a security guard for the biology department. He drove quite a long commute each day. One day he came in a few minutes late, going on as to how his life had been saved by an angel.

It was a very hot day, and his car had a flat on the highway. With his heart condition, he was afraid the exertion of fixing the flat would kill him. Not to worry, a nice young man stopped and helped him out. Had to have been an angel....

[Safe-Keeper]

It does strike me as rather sad that folks would rather assume some supernatural agency was at work than believe their fellow human beings capable of altruistic behavior.It reminds one of people who get lost in the woods and are saved by the combined and exhausting efforts of police, rangers, and the Red Cross - only to give thanks to... God:rolleyes:.

[Beerina]

"The Locked Door"

A young girl...

I think I saw this one on Skinimax. Totally hot!

...is trapped in her room as fire consumes her home. Neither her mom or dad, nor the firemen can get in to save her. The little girl suddenly escapes out the back door – to the amazement of everyone. She tells them her grandfather led her out to safety – the same grandfather that in fact has passed away many years earlier. And...when they check the deadbolt on the back door, it is melted shut. No one could have opened it.

Oh, wait. Nevermind. :(




In any case, as people are mentioning, they are silly on the surface of it, and lack rigor, shall we say?

I wonder how a deadbolt could melt without the surrounding wood and plastic being long since destroyed? And if it was a melted deadbolt in what was left of the rubble of a burned home, why presume it somehow melted, then the door burned down?

And why phase the girl through the door (and, presumably, through the ferocious fire and heat that was melting the deadbolt) when you could just teleport here there? And what about the usual "feet" issue, why don't the feet phase through the floor and she falls towards the center of the earth? And how does she get traction on the floor even if the phasing ignores gravity?

Nah, with phasing power, you have to be very careful how you do things, and cobbling together a weird system such that you can walk through walls like a ghost seems to be needlessly complicated, all just for reasons of dramatic display.



http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/2317494f28a1c5eaf.bmp (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=14678)

[Skeptic]

That's not much different than belief in God, is it? Everything that happens is REALLY due to angels which we cannot see who take the form of good samaritans, just like everything that happens is REALLY due to a God which we cannot see who takes the form of natural laws.

[steve s]

It does strike me as rather sad that folks would rather assume some supernatural agency was at work than believe their fellow human beings capable of altruistic behavior.


That's what I find so depressing about all this. About a week ago our local paper had a frontpage story about some secret Santa who was going around handing out $100 bills. They quoted a woman as saying (I'm paraphrasing), "Only God could make someone do something like this." And the quote was displayed rather prominently. It's a shame that she has such a dim view of humanity that she thinks no one could do this out of the kindness of the heart.

When I saw the commercial I mentioned in the OP, it was during a terrific 2-hour documentary about the 4.5 billion year history of the earth. Two hours of science and reason undermined by 30 seconds of nonsense. It's an uphill battle.

Steve S.