The paranormal!

I do believe that paranormal activity does take place at times. Islam explains these things by telling us in Quran about the existance of certain things called jinn. These are spirit-beings for lack of a better term. They are not human at all. Shaytan (the devil) is a part of this race of beings. According to Islamic beliefs, they are created from a smokeless fire, or heat. Much like man is created from earth and angels are created from light. These beings have existed before the dawn of man, and have exceptionally long lives. They have other qualities that, if I list them I will make this post long. It is these jinn who paranormal activity is attributed to. A jinn can be a believer in Allah, but those who aren't are among the shayateen/devils. Given their general characteristics, such activity is very much within their realm of capabilities.

There are many things the science has yet to explain . More that we can not precieve with our normal senses . Who has ever seen an atom without some type of aid ? Does that make an atom " paranormal "? If science did not explain what an atom was , would it cease to be ?

I have never seen any of you . For all I know , you could be one person , using different nicknames .

One either accepts the so called " supernatural " , or they do not . Personally , I think that there is nothing " super " , " para " or " un " natural about it .

well, i see atoms right now, billions of em, they are just really really really really really really really really really really *takes deep breath* really really really really small. but i can still see em, lol. but i do see your point, and i shall further it. people still see paranormal activities once and awhile, like seeing atoms without the aid, it just seems to blend into everyday happenings, now add a super powered electron microscope (necromancy or some other sort of paranormal magiks) and you can see it clearly.....did i make sense? not sure if i did...

tlcmel said:

I believe there is much more beyond our 5 senses.

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Just in the name of technical accuracy here, the number of senses depends on how you define them but I think just about every definition has more than 5. 26 is a fairly common number cited.

tlcmel said:

I don't know but it happens too often, and there is highly advanced technology that is used to detect such phenomena which to me is validating enough.

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Could you say what you're thinking of here?

BFD_Zayl said:

ok, then how do you explain what i believe? hm? no, go ahead, tell me how you feel. i give you permission to be brutal and harsh, let the mods take note of that, and that the material answering this post.

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BFD_Zayl said:

nothing to worry about, im not mad..well..maybe a wee tad (heh heh.. i said wee) because really, when you say ghosts,spirits,apparitions,etc. dont exist your pretty much sayin my religion does not exist, thats all

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Giving alternative explanations for events than the ones you believe to be true isn't brutal and harsh. You've challenged someone who doesn't believe in the paranormal to explain your beliefs. I gave an alternative explanation for apparitions and other life-like things seen or heard above. If you want to comment on that then feel free.

kreeden said:

There are many things the science has yet to explain . More that we can not precieve with our normal senses . Who has ever seen an atom without some type of aid ? Does that make an atom " paranormal "?

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Is there really any difference between seeing something with your eyes and seeing something with a microscope? A piece of electronic equipment can malfunction, so can a piece of biological equipment. There's nothing special about perceiving something with the normal senses. They're just biological machines to transmit information to out brains. There's nothing fundamentally inferior about information that also comes via a piece of non-biological equipment.

Real Sorceror said:

Just guessing, but your an Athiest, yes?:sarcastic

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Yes, is that an issue?

Belief in ghosts and spirits has existed in every culture almost since the dawn of man. That alone suggest something.

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Yeah, and plenty of people have believed in religion from the beginning of time, however that still isn't any sort of tangible proof that any of the gods people have believed in exist. It suggests nothing more than people feel the need to believe in something outside themselves. This does not automatically infer the existance of said supernatural beings.

2)Bigfoot is an urban legend, and the best "evidence" for him was actually a guy in a suit.

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Sure, tell that to the hundreds of people who believe that he is as real as you are. If hundreds of people believe in it, does that also suggest something?

3)The Chupacabra is nothing like Bigfoot. The thing is said to be a vampire that comes at night and kills livestock. I've never heard of Bigfoot doing that. Also, the Bigfoot myth was not started by Mexicans and is not hundreds of years old.

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However, they are both urban legends. The chupacabra was an old Mexican folk tale - because it's older, does that give it more credibility? That seems to be what you're suggesting by implying that if people believed in something for thousands of years it must be true. What makes that any different than bigfoot?

4)I'm gonna ignore that you said theres no God. We'll start with the small stuff.

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Why, does it upset you that atheists have conviction of faith as well? I personally do not seperate belief in god from belief in ghosts and bigfoot.

5)Is there anything you've ever witnessed that you can't rationally explian?

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No.

BFD_Zayl said:

nothing to worry about, im not mad..well..maybe a wee tad (heh heh.. i said wee) because really, when you say ghosts,spirits,apparitions,etc. dont exist your pretty much sayin my religion does not exist, thats all

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Then you are placing the definition of your religion in their hands.

Real Sorceror said:

As my first question on this board, I'd like to ask who believes/disbelieves in the paranormal and supernatural. I'm talking mostly about ghosts, magic, psychics, mediums, and all manner of other out of the ordinary things.
Now, while I myself believe in the paranormal, I will say that there is a massive number of fakes and hoaxes. I'm not certian, but I think there are actually more fruads than real deals.

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I have yet to be persuaded that there are any "real deals".

I won't say that I know that there aren't, but I don't believe that there are.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Real Sorceror said:

..I found out that many Christians don't believe in ghosts. I found this rather odd, considering the amount of supernatural events they believe in.

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The Bible is chock-full of ghosts, UFO's and spooky paranormal incidents, that's why it's such a fascinating book. For example -
"Amid disquieting dreams in the night, when deep sleep falls on men,
fear and trembling seized me and made all my bones shake.
A spirit glided past my face, and the hair on my body stood on end. It stopped, but I could not tell what it was.
A form stood before my eyes, and I heard a hushed voice.."
(Job 4:12)

Willamena said:

Then you are placing the definition of your religion in their hands.

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your right, ah, well i apologize for acting mad earlier:sorry1:

I see that the paranormal is another term for things that we have not been able to explain yet.



I have seen ghosts. My children has seen them.

I have seen a UFO.......without a doubt.

I have witnessed "psychic phenomena" where I was told to read a scroll that popped up in my mind, and when I read it, the man that told me to read brought out a notebook that had the exact readings I saw in my mind right there on the paper. I had not been told any of this, nor did I know anything about the notebook.





So, yes, I do believe in the "paranormal" simply because I think that exploration and study have not been able to come up with a definitive explanation for these happenings quite yet. In time, we will be able to, but for now, they are simply classified as the unexplained.




Peace,
Mystic

MaddLlama said:

Yes, is that an issue?

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No, I suppose it isn't

Yeah, and plenty of people have believed in religion from the beginning of time, however that still isn't any sort of tangible proof that any of the gods people have believed in exist. It suggests nothing more than people feel the need to believe in something outside themselves. This does not automatically infer the existance of said supernatural beings.

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And you don't consider it strange that as man evolved we just spontaneously came up with the idea of the supernatural?

Sure, tell that to the hundreds of people who believe that he is as real as you are. If hundreds of people believe in it, does that also suggest something?

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Yes, it suggest that hundreds of people have been dupped. You know they still use that photo of "Nessy" as proof even though people came forward and admitted to creating a fake?

However, they are both urban legends. The chupacabra was an old Mexican folk tale - because it's older, does that give it more credibility? That seems to be what you're suggesting by implying that if people believed in something for thousands of years it must be true. What makes that any different than bigfoot?

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People all over the planet believe in ghost and spirits. They all somehow came up with very similiar ideas. But you're right in that the age of a belief does not neccassarily make it true.

Why, does it upset you that atheists have conviction of faith as well? I personally do not seperate belief in god from belief in ghosts and bigfoot.

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It does not truely upset me. I understand that, more often than not, belief in the supernatural requires personal experience.

No.

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Precisely.

Booko said:

I think most, or even the vast majority, of paranormal events are hoaxes or tricks of the mind.

But I generally think that the universe is stranger than we think it is sometimes, and that things are more interconnected than we know. So it's possible some of the stuff is true.

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I sit firmly next to Booko on this one. Imho, there is definitey "something to it all" but I tend not to let my imagination run away with itself.

I used to play a game at a store I worked at. There were three elevators that went to the seventh floor. I began to play a game of guess which elevator arrives first and would go stand in front of the door I thought it would be. You can imagine the odd looks I would get when I would break from the crowd and stand in front of the door that opened first. It goes without saying that many times I had to make a quick dash to another door, LOL. But I was able to guess the correct door about 30% - 40% of the time.

A tip: My accuracy went up when I began to pay attention to what caused me to make a selection. Oddly, when I would let my body just stand when "it" wanted, it was fairly accurate. When I consciously decided which elevator would arrive, I was often standing there looking foolish. Odd, but quite true. What I realized is that you cannot force these inner "senses", they are not dogs that can be trained tricks. If you learn to simply ACT and not superimpose your view... things flow nicely.


Ohhhhhh. One last thing, like Michel, I am not a believer in the "paranormal" or "supernatural". The thing is, I see these things as completely normal and quite natural events, although considerably misunderstood.

Well my mother was very psychic. So much so that it was normal for her to see things and not tell people about them. She wasn't at all interested in the paranormal but had the most amazing collection of personal Ghost encounters.

When she died of a dibilitating illness that made her bed ridden and incapable of speech she appeared to a friend and had a 20 minute conversation with her.

Something similar happened with her father as well when he died.

Personally I've had a couple of very limited OOBEs and I get sleep paralysis ocassionally thats it.
Rationally it doesn't make any sense to me. I definately think people experience these things. Do they exist in objective reality?.