Saw programme from tv for long time ago about something that this reminds, there was kids that could tell easily all numbers from paper without looking for example and some parents that were bit crazy, they pushed kids to direction they believed in and there was no real proof of anything, test done enough many times and kid can remember what should be there etc.
I felt pretty bad watching that, one kid has had only one out of body excperience and still her mother was arranging all kind of paranormal gatherings etc.
People tend to over react too easily.
I had operation to my knee, there I was near ceiling watching how doctors did operate my leg even I should have been in deep sleep, I guess one could call that out of body experience, but I would put it as bad dream.
Few times have got knocked out and I remember once how I saw tunnel and light at end of it, then someone comes to tell that it is not yet my time, some imagination doing tricks I believe.
Have had few accidents during my life, based to stats I should not be alive anymore, but who would kill the evil
I would say that there is HUGE gap between believing something and accepting something is possible, some tend to just think it is non beliver or beliver but there really is much more.
Let me rub my figurative hands together in an existential way . . . I love this shit . . .
There is eveidence to sudgest that the subconcious brain actually operates a good half a second in front of the concious brain. Basically 'feeding' the concious you with only the important bits that the subconcious has already digested, prioritised and given back to your concious brain to react to. Which in itself is thought provoking as to who is in control. Is your subconcious another 'you' or some kind of benevolent force that operates for you not by you. Also this could mean that the world around you that you see, hear and cope with might actually be happening half a second earlier than you realise. Bizarre concept. Got that from the New Scientist.
The thing with Schumey and the lights are probable more preemptive than actually 'seeing the future'. He is a proffessional racing driver and in such a position having been in countless number of race starts he would have more than a adequate 'feel' for the lights changing. Sometimes he's early, sometimes late and sometimes spot on. Maybe in later years he became uncannyly spot on but I bet in his carting days he was just as hit and miss as any of us would be.
I do feel that people can become very empathic to certain stimuli if exposed for longf enough or feel strongly for such a thing. Whether that means you can actually altar the course you are set is a different matter. We've all had that feeling of inevitability when the brakes start squealing and time streches out so you can really enjoy the feeling of you pissing you pants. But how many of us have been able to use that to our advantage and do the right thing. And how much of that right thing is just luck and how could you test such a thing?
Personally I can't excape the feeling that people who profess to have precognition or physic abilities are just pandering to popular belief and sensationalism. Those that have true 'skills' in those areas wouldn't think anything of it particularily. They just make bloody good doctors or, case in point, racing drivers. I think we all have a certain amount of empathy to what goes on around us, I don't see how we can't. There are alot of mysterys out there but not in the way that popular television and the ilk declare it to be.
I have never seen a ghost, but I've had a chill run up and down my spine in the height of summer. Could that just be a bad nerve connection or did I really just cross a spirit threshold? I'm going for the former.
I don't believe in seeing the future but I have on more than one occasion either predicted an accident or had a 'feeling' that one was immenent. On a few times I have felt that I have altered my course of actions, maybe slowing down, taking a different route, stopping and talking to someone rather than blundering on. Did I advert danger or just bumble along like I normally would. Was it a concious desicion to do so?
I have dreams that predict the future. I don't think it's anything to do with psycic abilities or supernatural auras or magic beads or whatever. No I think that the real reason I have so many of these dreams that come true is mainly due to the types of dreams that i generally have and of course, the laws of averages. Most of my dreams are very realistic and center around realistic every day stuff (gee, even in my dreams I need to get a life). well if you have enough dreams about doing everyday things then sooner or later some of these dreams will come true or close enough to be interpreted as such.
LOL it'd be nice if I could dream up winning lottery numbers.
I don't hold too much stock in New Age ..religion?..
I'm not an atheist either, I just can't believe that the origin of our very existence is simply a matter of "just because".
UFOs. I really don't know what to make of them. I seriously doubt little green men are flying around out there, I mean sure it's possible, but considering the age of the universe as a whole and the amount of time it takes for a planet to develop life from organic sludge to having sentient organisms, it gets hard to believe that there is a species that has evolved to the point of transgalactic travel at this time.
Sure, there could be a planet out there that didn't have their evolutionary development disrupted by asteroids or volcanic eruptions. And I guess an advanced society could progress without being set back by Dark Ages or whatever, but I just don't think so.
What's really paranormal that needs to be looked into is the Sock monster.
You put 4 pairs of socks in the clothes dryer and then you only have 3 and a half pairs when you go to take them out. Definately some sort of cosmic forces at work there.
Good post, funnybear. The New Scientist bit goes exactly along with what I quoted earlier from Oliver Sachs.
If you ever come across his book "The man who mistook his wife for a hat" its both the wierdest title book ever and a really fascinating read into the functioning of the brain.
The sscientific explanation for the Big Light when near death and the floating out of the body stuff is that it is a defence mechanism controlled by the brain in which it floods itself with high levels of seratonin and endorphins when a massive shutdown is about to happen, thus 'softening' the blow. With all these opiate-related chemicals floating about, people having been 'brought back from the edge' all reported similar experiences of warmth, floating towards a big light, being bathed in a feeling of love and well-being. It is more plausible for me to understand this as a chemically-induced event rather than anything of a spiritual nature.
My problem is that religious beliefs lack any logic and evidence to suggest the true existance of an all-powetrful deity. By their very nature they are a belief. I need more to go on than that.
No value, sure, but no reason to support anything when there's no evidence of its existance. Far better to support principals that are established and proven than ones that aren't.
Well, I've had loud knocking noises following by objects jumping off tables and getting smashed in a house where the only other occupant was with me the whole time. There were no draughty windows, nobody else outside the house messing with us. Her family was convinced it was the ghost of her grandfather (they'd had a few situations like this over a two week period around the second anniversary of his death) and I had no reason to suggest any alternative explanation.
Another time I was working lunch shifts in this cafe in Wakefield. They had an open line kitchen on the first floor and when I was up there on my own I was always seeing people milling around in the dining room out of the corner of my eye. After a couple of weeks of this I went downstairs to the bar and asked the wait staff if they'd been up there, and they all looked at me like I had two heads. Apparently it's known to be "haunted" but none of them had ever seen anything. The building's over 500 years old, so again it doesn't seem unfeasible.
i don't think that its possible to see the future, its just that our brain makes relations to stuff experienced before, and its like calculating what could happen in the near future.
When you see a biker drive through a corner, your brain will recognize that he is sliding/will crash before it comes to your consciousness. Just a function from your brain to react correct in dangerous situations based on experience .
I think a lot of religion, the hole light at the end of the tunnel, omnipotent diety that controls all and sundry is a rather crude way if explaining the unexplainable. If I was back in the heathen days looking a way to quantify conciousness or epileptic fits or the sun and the moon I am going to personify them. Give them an identity. By doing that it means I can effect them, I can become their friends and feel that I can in some way control my surroundings. I think it's very difficult for us, the selfish ape, to actually acknowledge that we have far less control over our surroundings than we like to think. This universe of ours has been around for Billions of years, we are nothing, absolutly nothing in comparision. A mere speck on a speck on a speck of cosmic importance. And yet we have done so much. The dinosaurs where arounf for millions of years, we barely make it out of the thousands and yet we have done more to effect our planet than anything before us. But who is to say that this isn't meant to be. That in some way this is all preordained. I can't remember where I've seen it or heard it but there is a theory that we are just a evolutionary stepping stone on the way to our next incarnatation. Now wouldn't that fit nicely, albeit on a slightly longer timeframe, into an asecnsion into heaven idea. Our minds out evolve our bodies and ascend to higher planes.
It amazes me that the further you look into science the more complex and completely mindblowing it gets. I can't help a bit of me think that all this we see around us just cannot be by accident. There is far to much complication. But then in saying that maybe this is nature. This is exactly how it should be. And in that case are their the infinite number of universes out there either in time or in parrallel that subscribe to a different set of cosmic constants where humans didnt' quite cut the mustard and it's tortoises that managed to thrive in a stronger gravity . . . But then if you had a stronger gravity this planet wouldn't be what it is with us . . See, everything interacts, everything means something to something else. Something, somewhere holds everything together. How can this not be designed?
Isn't that a fundemental of Budism? Maybe I should go and see the Lhama . . . See if he's got any answers . . .
There's an old addage something along the lines of "Believing isn't seeing, seeing is believing." Basically, if you see it, you truly believe it. You see what you want to believe. For one person, it may be an 'outer body experience.' For another, it may be a hallucination. As Sam said, you can not be forced to believe something; maybe it really was a hallucination, but to that person who had the experience, it was divine providence, and nothing can take that away from them. I know what you mean though; sometimes I feel like I am completely wrong in my religious views, but we all have doubts.
+1. Like Sam, I don't believe in them, but I cannot say they do not exist.
"God created Man in his image and Man, being a gentleman, returned the favour."
I see the fragility of the ecosystem as a sort of proof against design. If this was all designed, the way things interact, the laws of physics and nature, etc, I don't think it would be so easy to effect a massive change, as we have. I see it all as a secluded evolution. An animal in Africa has never come into contact with a predator from Russia, for instance. So fending off said Russian animal is not one of its primal instincts, and therefore is not calculated into its next evolutionary step. Now, when that Russian animal is brought to Africa and placed in the African animal's habitat, it will ruin it. It will have no natural predators, and so it's population will not be kept in check the same way the African animals' number will be. The African animals will have no defense of their own against the new Russian immigrant, and so it cannot properly defend itself, so its numbers will take a hit unseen from any other predator.
Surely if everything on the planet were designed, there would be some balance of the species to keep such events from happening? You could argue that the balance was keeping these animals apart, and.. well, that could be a valid argument indeed. But I just don't see it that way; we've evolved to be able to traverse this planet in its (near) entirety. If this were designed, this would have been either forseen, or designed, too. In which case, such events as those described with the animals above would not occur.
I always thought that would be the case, but in my case seeing wasn't good enough. I used to see these people practically every day, several times a day, one more vividly than the others - I could tell what she was wearing - but still I wouldn't say I believe in ghosts. I suppose because there's no way to know if I was actually watching the deceased pottering around I'm still not willing to call it "ghosts".
You know, I been re reading some of these posts (You godless heathens, have you no sense of decency? lol )
For the sake of argument, let's say there was a God. Now lets say we were going to set about getting truly bona fide evidence of God - inarguable proof
of God's existence.......
If we were advanced enough to be able to do this, what would that make us?
Wouldn't you have to be God-like to pull something like that off?
I mean think about it. How advanced would we have to be to 100% prove or disprove God?
I dunno maybe we should just go for ghosts first.... might be easier.
The very basis of god is that he cannot be proven. To prove god exists would mean to suspend believe, you suspend believe you have no god, just a greater but real being such as ourselves. Which is why I never push myself to qualify gods existence to anyone including myself. If there is a god and he is a benevlolent one then he see's me for all my faults and my good bits. So long as I stay true to myself and act out my life to how I see best then I can't see how I can do any more than that. Some might say that to have that faith and to use it and follow certain teachings (take your pick) that you can better your life and others with it. unfortunatly a lot of these teachings are given by man to man. Therefore a lot is misconstrued and alot of misguided pronciples arise. I prefer to pick and choice from the multitude for if there is a god then he will be present in all things.
There also needs to be evil. If you don't have evil how can you know good? It's a fundemental force in nature, the Ying and the Yang, the opposite and equal, black and white and every shade in between. You need the bad in this world to maintain the balance. Everyone assumes that we possible would default to the good. I don't believe that, I believe that fundementally we are capable of some very heinous acts. Every one of us. It's as we grow and recognise things around us that we look to the good in this world. The bad people are the norm. The good are the abnormal. The abnormal are what make us humans humans and not base animals.
Whats really creppy thing is when you want to call somebody, you lift up the phone, and realize the person is already there... no ringing or waiting.. he/she is just there, and that person wanted to call you!
Experienced it several times.
I believe its a coincidence thing - read about it ones in a science magazine, where it basically said that ppl take notice off unusual things, and forget/don't notice the normal ones.
Like, I've called someone a millions times - but 5 of those were as mentioned above..... pure coincedence.
Having just read some of this thread I'd have to say...
A week after my friend's mum died, he bought himself a nice little runaround. Got into it late in the evening when it was dark, and sat there thinking to myself "This interior looks familiar and the smell", now I had never been in this version of Fiesta before, so he took me for a spin in it and I thought it was just weird, as if it had happened to me before, not sure whether it was because a shocking event (death of a friend) had just happened or what but there's some stuff i do or something i see that looks surreal even if it was the first time this had happened... freaky.
i believe in it yes; i have had visions before, but the past few years i've had less and less; and these were no extraordinary visions, they were just normal visions of looking at something/something happening infront of me
this is actually a really complex topic as Al has already pointed out about that book (sounds interesting btw), the mind is extremely complex and puts things together that is truely out of this world as we have seen before through inventions etc.
dont really have anything to say on the topic lol but, i do believe in it, but i dont believe in concrete predestination (im catholic so i blelieve in choices determine fate to an extent of course)
String theory poses the possibility of somehow "controlling the future" with our own thoughts. It's basically energy controlling energy, and the universe would be slightly different for different people because of different choices and thoughts they would have made.
Edit: Just noticed that only JTbo has been here longer than me of people in this thread... illepall
LOL you know, I bet that demons are morally repulsed at Humanity's knack for
commiting evil deeds.
Uh... sorta getting back to the topic, I read that Princeton University is
shutting down it's ESP program. I guess you didn't have to be a psychic
to see that one coming.
I'm pretty skeptical when it comes to paranormal stuff, but I don't think it
would hurt to have some sort of REAL scientific reseach done on the stuff.
Even if it led nowhere, I bet the spin off from it could benefit research in
other more practical fields.
I know Duke University has or had a parapsycology department.
I don't think it get's alot of funding.
Apart from my 1st girlfriend's mum, who was a messiah or something like that , I don't believe in anything supernatural / unreal. Includes gods (imaginary friends for grown-ups), aliens (in hollywood / humanoid form at least, lol), and fortune tellers (gypsie women that are after easy money).
God granted mankind freedom, and thus, can not intervene in such actions. Having horrible acts is more proof of the devil than it is disproof of God.
I am agnostic, though, but not really because of any human occurances. I gotta say, I am pretty proud of this community. Every religious-related discussion I have ever seen on an open public board has wound up turning into a mud-slinging contest between two groups. This has not happened, and we are having a real discussion here. Kudos to all of you
im amazed at the guy who would want to phone someone and the other guy would be just there without dialing, and it happened more than once
do you remember highway to heaven?
once in a chat i was gonna say: "im beginning to think im an angel who fell", when i had typed "im begi" a guy without letting me finish seeming to read my mind said: "what makes you think that?"
i said i thought i knew why i had fell, then i was gonna say " i trust divine justice" when i had typed " i tr" he answered dont doubt it
then he asnwered me another couple of questions, though he didnt read my mind then
i dont know what to make out of this story, probably hallucinations for my excesses
but something just popped out my mind, do you know theres an statistic that says that sexually abused childrem are more likely to become abusers than non abused children, this might be(imho) due to this children being rencarnations of abusers who still didnt learn the horrible karma lesson
still if i were god i wouldnt make people as free as to harm others(even if in the end is just harming themselves)
.
illepall