Role play - skeptics/believers cross-dressing party

[HenDralux]

I don't know if this has been done before on here, so forgive me if it has, but I thought it may be a worthwhile and possibly entertaining exercise.

Basically, in this thread, we all get to reverse our usual belief systems and ideas about the paranormal and argue it accordingly. The more skeptically inclined get to put their case forward for the existence of paranormal phenomena, and vice versa.

Note: This is not an exercise in parodying the worst or most irritating feature of what you may assume to be your usual 'foe' on this subject - no matter how tempting. ;)

The object of the idea is to sensibly debate a position which is opposite to what you usually hold, supporting your ideas as truthfully as can be managed - hopefully without the need to stray too far into the realms of fantasy. Try to put forward an argument you believe in, as much as is possible for you.

Remember folks, you are safe within the confines of this thread to step over and experience your own personal dark-side...

Being someone who leans to a more skeptical viewpoint on the paranormal, I'll start things off:

We can never get round to testing all mediums who claim the ability to communicate with the dead. Simply debunking a few
obvious charlatans will *never* negate the possiblility that someone out there truly does have a paranormal gift.

The Randi challenge can't be taken seriously as it degrades people with actual gifts into that of a mere lab-rats. This is never going to happen.

Randi, skeptics et al will never acknowledge the possibility that, in this particular area, human knowledge can not yet grasp the concept of another plane of existence, and simply trying to test it by *known* means will always fail.

[Yahweh]

Q: There are so many beliefs and opinions out there and it gets confusing so what should I believe!?
A: A good rule of thumb is if CSICOP doesn’t support it then its BS since they are the true objective committee that represents truth to the fullest extent! In order to avoid the doomed ways of irrationality be sure to check with the websites of CSICOP and skepticdic to avoid making the fallacious move of coming to an independent decision regarding what to believe! You are in better hands by allowing superior intellects to decide what is permissible for you to accept rather then trusting your own trivial judgments! As always when in doubt be sure to ask yourself WWMJROTJREFD and the materialism compatible answer to the question shall be clear!


NDEs and dreams are just false memories!!!

[HenDralux]

Originally posted by Yahweh

NDEs and dreams are just false memories!!!

Not *exactly* sure of your standpoint on this yahweh, whether you were being sarcastic...from an opposite point of view...see, this is confusing now. ;)

Maybe we should all have 'sketpics' - 'believers' badges on to make it clear...or at least state in each post at the top of which side of the fence, if any, we usuall reside.

So, I'll stick to the point quoted from your post:

How can you be sure that NDEs are false memories? Do you consider that there is a possibility science does not yet have the tools which can successfully test this theory to a definite conclusion?

[Loki]

A stupid skeptical atheist anti -god argument :

1. God is all powerful, and all loving
2. Evil exists on Earth
3. An all loving and all powerful god would not allow evil
4. An all loving and all powerful god does not exist.

The kind, caring, intelligent theist response :

1. God is all powerful, and all loving
2. Evil exists on Earth
3. An all loving and all powerful god would not allow unnecessary evil
4. The necessity of evil is shown by the existence of this earth.

[Loki]

HenDralux,

I'm tempted to offer the anti-materialism "Argument from Conceiveablility (P-Zombies)" topic here, because I think it's a pretty good case to show that opinions on consciousness are rooted in subtle assumptions. But it's been done many times before, and the general concensus around here is that it isn't that strong an argument (I tend to disagree).

[Atlas]

When you look into the eyes of a child, how can you say there is no God? Don't atheists feel the same things I do? They must have the capacity. I think they suppress it all because they fear what it will mean to them to give up their precious little egos.

[Loki]

Atlas,

When you look into the eyes of a child, how can you say there is no God? Don't atheists feel the same things I do?
I agree - it must be so boring to live a life so empty of love and mystery.

[HenDralux]

I think we live in a current era which is particularly obsessed with a certain type of science. The need for every single detail to be fully verified/proven/critically championed before we can even begin to look upon something as a staple of mass societal acceptance.

I feel as humans we go through many phases of what is and is not universally credible as a belief structure.

We are so arrogant as a species as to ALWAYS believe that our current knowledge and critical thought capacity is perfect and therefore has all the answers. This has been disproven time and time again - and I expect that in the future, a 'science' based around an overriding omnipresent supreme creator will not sound as 'silly' as it may appear to some today.

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Originally posted by Yahweh
Q: There are so many beliefs and opinions out there and it gets confusing so what should I believe!?
A: A good rule of thumb is if CSICOP doesn’t support it then its BS since they are the true objective committee that represents truth to the fullest extent! In order to avoid the doomed ways of irrationality be sure to check with the websites of CSICOP and skepticdic to avoid making the fallacious move of coming to an independent decision regarding what to believe! You are in better hands by allowing superior intellects to decide what is permissible for you to accept rather then trusting your own trivial judgments! As always when in doubt be sure to ask yourself WWMJROTJREFD and the materialism compatible answer to the question shall be clear!


NDEs and dreams are just false memories!!!

Exactly! ! ! Angry wet cat would be proud!


[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!'s usual opinion]

The unjustified delusion of the self is in actuality a material illusion, operating as a slave to the all pervading physical laws of the material universe! Alleged sensations and emotions are nothing more than observable neurons firing, there is really no qualia or actual feel of anything!

[/!Xx+-Rational-+xX!'s usual opinion]

[The Don]

There are too many reports of amazing things happening for them to be disregarded. Whether it's mediums who are able to pinpoint the location of a missing person, healers who are able to cure people whom conventional medicine has failed or people who can exploit the wisdom of the ancients. Skeptics are happy enough to say that they don't know how such people can do what they do but oftentimes they offer the weak argument that "we don't know what causes it, but we know it cannot be paranormal".

If you don't know what causes something, how can you be so sure that you know something does not cause it ?

The sheer weight of evidence shows that there is something at work. There are enough anomalous experimental results to show that there are other forces at work but these are always summarily excluded.

Skeptics need to be open minded about these effects and instead of seeking to eliminate them by designing tests which prevent positive results, they should embrace them and look for ways to exploit them.

[Zombified]

The existence of non-material consciousness, seperate from the merely physical universe, is the only rational interpretation of quantum mechanics.

The orthodox interpretation does not offer an objective means of determining when a measurement takes place. If you include the state of the measuring device in the state function, then the system merely continues to evolve according to the Schrodinger equation without the change of state required of the measurement process. If you have some other gadget monitoring that device, the same argument applies. You can even consider the scientist watching the instrument: his eyes, brain, etc, are made of atoms, and those ought to be included in the wave function as well. But this has to stop somewhere, or no measurement ever takes place at all, and obviously measurements, with their irreversible changes of state, do happen.

Therefore, there must be something that is not material involved in the measurement process. That can only be the consciousness of the experimenter. Note that this is not merely a brain function; the brain is made of atoms, so it cannot be the true measuring device. It must be truly nonmaterial.

The deterministic and purely mechanical hidden variables interpretation has already been ruled out by experiment: quantum mechanics is truly nonlocal, unless you want to throw out cause-and-effect entirely. The transactional interpretation only sweeps this under the rug, it doesn't really solve the problem.

The many-worlds hypothesis is a monstrosity: with every possible world existing, how is it possible to make any moral choice at all, if we in fact make every choice offered to us? And it doesn't actually address any of the objections to the orthodox interpretation, nor does it reproduce the probabilities of outcomes without assuming that every system creates an infinite multiplicity every single instant.

Since the orthodox, hidden variable, and many-worlds interpretations are completely untenable, we are left with the assumption of non-material consciousness as the only viable alternative.

Having proven that a non-local, non-material consciousness must exist, how can we possibly rule out anomalous or paranormal cognition? Indeed, it would seem to be required in order for the notion to make any sense at all. What's more, since this non-material consciousness clearly does not depend on a material brain in order to function, how can we deny the obvious conclusion that this consciousness must survive the death of the body?

Scientists need to stop irresponsibly ignoring this possibility. They have been blinded by their metaphysical bias: scientists assume, without any proof, that nothing exists if you can't measure it. Certainly you can't measure something that doesn't exist, but asserting the converse is plain bad logic, of a sort freshmen students are supposed to be able to spot. A truly open-minded investigator will not cripple himself with such an unwarranted assumption.

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

I'll pretend that I'm a believer now...!

I'm a believer and I think that consciousness is made of magical immaterial fairy dust. I hate science but I'll pretend that it supports my delusions. I also enjoy ignoring all the scientific proof pointing to materialism but it's OK to have faith because I'm gullible. Anything that appeals to my wishful thinking and that contradicts science must be true. I wanna be in the special olympics...


Even pretending to be credulous sucks! I'm sorry science!

[UnTrickaBLe]

Originally posted by The Don
There are too many reports of amazing things happening for them to be disregarded. Whether it's mediums who are able to pinpoint the location of a missing person, healers who are able to cure people whom conventional medicine has failed or people who can exploit the wisdom of the ancients. Skeptics are happy enough to say that they don't know how such people can do what they do but oftentimes they offer the weak argument that "we don't know what causes it, but we know it cannot be paranormal".

If you don't know what causes something, how can you be so sure that you know something does not cause it ?

The sheer weight of evidence shows that there is something at work. There are enough anomalous experimental results to show that there are other forces at work but these are always summarily excluded.



Proof? Links? Controlled scientific experiments? What are you talking about?

[The Don]

Originally posted by UnTrickaBLe


Proof? Links? Controlled scientific experiments? What are you talking about?
This webiste contains details of studies which provide clinical trial evidence for the effecacy of homeopathic remedies http://www.holistic-online.com/Homeopathy/homeo_clinical.htm

Police routinely call in psychics to help them http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/p_psych3.htm. they wouldn't do this if it didn't work

How about Uri Geller and hsi amazing powers ? He has been extensively tested by scientists and shown that he hs powers http://www.occultopedia.com/g/geller.htm

Near death experience anecdotes are ubiquitous. There's lots of evidence here: http://www.near-death.com/

[UnTrickaBLe]

Originally posted by The Don

This webiste contains details of studies which provide clinical trial evidence for the effecacy of homeopathic remedies http://www.holistic-online.com/Homeopathy/homeo_clinical.htm

Police routinely call in psychics to help them http://www.100megsfree4.com/farshores/p_psych3.htm. they wouldn't do this if it didn't work

How about Uri Geller and hsi amazing powers ? He has been extensively tested by scientists and shown that he hs powers http://www.occultopedia.com/g/geller.htm

Near death experience anecdotes are ubiquitous. There's lots of evidence here: http://www.near-death.com/

;)

[Atlas]

Originally posted by Zombified
The existence of non-material consciousness, seperate from the merely physical universe, is the only rational interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Zombi,

You sure use a lot of big words. You must be smart. But if unbelievers can't find God in a field of meadow flowers or by playing with a new puppy, I don't think any amount of "head words" is going to change them.

I think you're playing their game. And they have all of the tricks of the devil at their disposal.

Until they believe in damnation and the hellfire that they will burn in forever I'm afraid they will never come to understand the God of Love that we both know. They are firmly in the Devil's grasp. If you are going to use big words, make sure you tell the about the eternal punishment that awaits them.

Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom - not the big words of man's reason.

Am I wrong?
-----------------

Loki, when you said, "Atlas, I agree", I was very impressed. Is everybody in Australia as wise as you?

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The Don, I really liked the way you shut down Untrickable. You are very resourceful. Are you a spiritual researcher or something? Or is it just a hobby? I totally agree that the evidence is overwhelming. I don't necessarily believe all of the New Age stuff, but I keep an open mind - unlike most skeptics who think an open mind is an empty mind. What fools! Almost everybody I talk to has an anecdote. How can you ignore that?!? Some atheists have them too - but their hearts have been hardened and they do not recognize the ways that God reveals Himself in the world around us. Too bad for them I guess. Good Work Don!

[rastamonte]

When Skeptics dismiss anything that does not have sufficient proof, they are dismissing much of the real world. Many things which we know to be fact today were not proven 100 years ago, yet they are as true now as they were then. Many things that skeptics scoff at, such as Alternative Medicine, have been used for centuries by healers with many positive results.