Split Thread Scorpion's Spiritualism

[Pixel42]

Debunked my ass. I maintain that pretty well everything I have said makes sense. I say again that the message I got from a dead brother I did not know I had was evidence of survival. The medium told me three facts I did not know, and she had to be getting the information from somewhere. I think she got it from my dead brother, but all you atheists have to try and think of other reasons. I do not believe any of you are right, and If you people cannot bear to read about it again that's just too bad.

And if you can't bear to read yet again why supernatural explanations should only be considered when all plausible mundane explanations (of which there are several in the case of your anecdotes) have been definitively ruled out, that's too bad as well. It remains true, no matter how many times you angrily deny it because of your emotional investment in manifestly ridiculous woo.

 

[Scorpion]

And if you can't bear to read yet again why supernatural explanations should only be considered when all plausible mundane explanations (of which there are several in the case of your anecdotes) have been definitively ruled out, that's too bad as well. It remains true, no matter how many times you angrily deny it because of your emotional investment in manifestly ridiculous woo.

Or , maybe there is a spirit world. Is that beyond possibility, or are all you people closed minded?

 

[Belz...]

Or , maybe there is a spirit world. Is that beyond possibility, or are all you people closed minded?

Being open minded doesn't mean you accept all claims uncritically. It means you reach conclusions based on ALL available evidence.

What you're doing is using a small subset of the evidence to support a conclusion you presumably already believe in. That is not being open minded.

You replied right now to a post that points out quite correctly that if there are mundane explanations available, then the rational person should conclude that those are more likely than supernatural ones, and you simply ignored that altogether. You're the close minded one.

 

[Pixel42]

Or , maybe there is a spirit world. Is that beyond possibility, or are all you people closed minded?

I certainly considered it a possibility before I educated myself about human psychology, cognitive biases and the scientific method, familiarised myself with all the scientific research that has been done on the subject, and then looked at many of the hundreds of anecdotes like yours in the light of that knowledge and understanding. My provisional conclusion was then that the spirit world does not exist.

I would reconsider that conclusion if any objective evidence for the spirit world was ever offered, but yet more easily explainable anecdotes like yours won't do it I'm afraid.

 

[philkensebben]

Debunked my ass. I maintain that pretty well everything I have said makes sense. I say again that the message I got from a dead brother I did not know I had was evidence of survival. The medium told me three facts I did not know, and she had to be getting the information from somewhere. I think she got it from my dead brother, but all you atheists have to try and think of other reasons. I do not believe any of you are right, and If you people cannot bear to read about it again that's just too bad.

Well I'm skeptical becauase no medium has ever proven any evidence of said medium abilities under scientific observation. Why on earth should anyone believe your anecdote? Dont you think my position is justified?

 

[8enotto]

All, none, always and never are words usually followed by an error of some sort.

I can agree psychology and sciences have solved a lot of supernatural events.

And it is proven many mediums are really good at cold reading and usually can guess what the person does not know about his lost friends.
Late night TV here is full of these fraudsters.

But also there are cases where the event or revelation is uncanny or unprovoked somehow defying any mundane explication.

In my thinking that event goes into the middle of the range as needing more time to figure it out.
I have experienced as such events in the past and with time and life experience some have unraveled. Others remain in the odd files.

I cannot embrace a spirit world in and among us, no more than my personal knowledge still limits me to not understanding all worldly possibility yet.

But I am honestly working on it.

 

[steenkh]

In the case of my getting a message from a dead brother I did not know I had, and getting his name and the circumstances of his death, it is clearly not guesses or cold reading.

Hot reading then. The medium took the trouble to look up facts about your genealogy that you had not looked up yourself.

 

[Scorpion]

Hot reading then. The medium took the trouble to look up facts about your genealogy that you had not looked up yourself.

That's a simple explanation. But the medium was from out of town. I had never seen her before, and it was before the age of home computers and the internet. Why and how would a woman only visiting the church for a Sunday service be able to vet who was going to be In the church and get personal information about them?

I was a nobody. Just one of a couple of dozen people who were in the church, and I only gave a few shillings to the offering plate. There was no way this medium could have been part of some great conspiracy to fool me. I am certain she did not know me from Adam. But she told me my dead brothers name. I did not even know he existed until she told me.

 

[Scorpion]

Well I'm skeptical becauase no medium has ever proven any evidence of said medium abilities under scientific observation. Why on earth should anyone believe your anecdote? Dont you think my position is justified?

You can assume I am lying, but I am not. Therefore there must be another explanation. My anecdote proves nothing to anyone but me, but I found it fairly convincing. Besides I had many other messages over the years, and I only go on about this message because it is striking that I was told I had a dead brother I knew nothing about. This rules out the possibility the medium was using telepathy.

 

[Pixel42]

Hot reading then. The medium took the trouble to look up facts about your genealogy that you had not looked up yourself.

The medium's visit would have been arranged by senior church members who doubtless had collected lots of information about the people likely to be there, which they were happy to share. The most likely original source of the information that so impressed Scorpion is Scorpion's mother, though it may have taken a very indirect route to get to the medium.

It's never been as difficult for a medium to get personal information as many people seem to assume. Sometimes a fair amount of research needs to be done and sometimes it just falls into their laps by sheer luck.

 

[Scorpion]

I certainly considered it a possibility before I educated myself about human psychology, cognitive biases and the scientific method, familiarised myself with all the scientific research that has been done on the subject, and then looked at many of the hundreds of anecdotes like yours in the light of that knowledge and understanding. My provisional conclusion was then that the spirit world does not exist.

I would reconsider that conclusion if any objective evidence for the spirit world was ever offered, but yet more easily explainable anecdotes like yours won't do it I'm afraid.

But still science does not know how we are conscious. The book ' consciousness explained' By Daniel Dennett states in the first few lines, his ideas are only a theory.

I tweeted him on twitter saying, if your ideas are only a theory why didn't you call your book 'consciousness explored' not 'explained'. Then I could have ignored it instead of wasting my money.

I must admit I cannot follow half of his book because it is about brain functions and stuff. But he discounts the possibility of the spirit as the cause of consciousness, and discredits any possibility of spirits moving physical objects. But there are lots of people who have testified to stuff moving about on its own. If just one such event were to be scientifically recorded it would show Dennett is wrong.

 

[Scorpion]

The medium's visit would have been arranged by senior church members who doubtless had collected lots of information about the people likely to be there, which they were happy to share. The most likely original source of the information that so impressed Scorpion is Scorpion's mother, though it may have taken a very indirect route to get to the medium.

It's never been as difficult for a medium to get personal information as many people seem to assume. Sometimes a fair amount of research needs to be done and sometimes it just falls into their laps by sheer luck.

My mother was not a believer, even to her dying day she thought psychiatrists were right about me, and I was nuts.

She had never been to a spiritualist church, and when I mentioned this message at a family gathering my mothers brother said to her. "you had a baby that died in the war, I didn't know that" and my mother said. "well I didn't go round telling everybody" She had not even talked about it to her own family, let alone strangers.

 

[Pixel42]

But still science does not know how we are conscious. The book ' consciousness explained' By Daniel Dennett states in the first few lines, his ideas are only a theory.

Gravity is "only" a theory too. You do know that the scientific use of this word is very different to the colloquial use?

But yes, science does not (yet) know everything about consciousness. That is not an excuse to wilfully ignore what it does know.

I must admit I cannot follow half of his book because it is about brain functions and stuff.

Then what grounds do you have for dismissing it and continuing to give credence to ignorant superstition instead?

But he discounts the possibility of the spirit as the cause of consciousness, and discredits any possibility of spirits moving physical objects. But there are lots of people who have testified to stuff moving about on its own. If just one such event were to be scientifically recorded it would show Dennett is wrong.

And yet, after literally hundreds of years of such claims, not a single one ever has. Funny that.

 

[Pixel42]

My mother was not a believer, even to her dying day she thought psychiatrists were right about me, and I was nuts.

She had never been to a spiritualist church, and when I mentioned this message at a family gathering my mothers brother said to her. "you had a baby that died in the war, I didn't know that" and my mother said. "well I didn't go round telling everybody" She had not even talked about it to her own family, let alone strangers.

There are countless ways in which the information could have got from your mother (or someone else who knew - doctor, nurse, midwife, priest, registrar) to one of the members of your church. Countless. You cannot possibly identify, let alone rule out, most of them, let alone all of them. Which means you cannot justify dismissing this natural explanation in favour of a supernatural one.

 

[Scorpion]

There are countless ways in which the information could have got from your mother (or someone else who knew - doctor, nurse, midwife, priest, registrar) to one of the members of your church. Countless. You cannot possibly identify, let alone rule out, most of them, let alone all of them. Which means you cannot justify dismissing this natural explanation in favour of a supernatural one.

My mothers baby died in the war, meaning it died before 1945. I went to spiritualist churches in the 1970s. Is it really credible that an obscure incident in the war that my mother did not talk about could be discovered by the church wardens from sources such as you speculate 25 years later?

 

[Scorpion]

Then what grounds do you have for dismissing it and continuing to give credence to ignorant superstition instead?

I have mentioned on this thread that I used to feel psychic energy myself, I also said I have had voices in my head that told me what turned out to be facts. I have also attended many trance lectures by famous mediums, and studied the teachings of various Indian gurus.

My entire life experience of seven decades brings me to the opposite conclusion of Dennett whose simplistic claim ' mind is brain' strikes me as banal.

I think Descartes was right, and we are the ghost in the machine.

 

[Pixel42]

My mothers baby died in the war, meaning it died before 1945. I went to spiritualist churches in the 1970s. Is it really credible that an obscure incident in the war that my mother did not talk about could be discovered by the church wardens from sources such as you speculate 25 years later?

It's far more credible than that the medium obtained the information by supernatural means. All it would take is someone at the church who knew someone (who knew someone …) who was around at the time and remembered it.

Why wouldn't someone remember something as distressing as a baby dying, even 25 years later? The 1970s is 40 years ago, yet you seem to have detailed memories of far more commonplace experiences.

But we've been through all this before. There's no way now to identify exactly how the medium obtained the information, and no good reason to conclude that it was by supernatural means.

 

[Pixel42]

I have mentioned on this thread that I used to feel psychic energy myself, I also said I have had voices in my head that told me what turned out to be facts. I have also attended many trance lectures by famous mediums, and studied the teachings of various Indian gurus.

So no good grounds at all then. Just a mish mash of mumbo jumbo. Glad we cleared that up.

 

[Scorpion]

It's far more credible than that the medium obtained the information by supernatural means. All it would take is someone at the church who knew someone (who knew someone …) who was around at the time and remembered it.

Why wouldn't someone remember something as distressing as a baby dying, even 25 years later? The 1970s is 40 years ago, yet you seem to have detailed memories of far more commonplace experiences.

But we've been through all this before. There's no way now to identify exactly how the medium obtained the information, and no good reason to conclude that it was by supernatural means.

Well there is still my personal experiences. The one I have mentioned before is that in 1998 I had no money and my credit card was maxed out, and it was nearing Christmas, and I moaned to myself " It will be the next century before I can afford a computer " At that moment a female voice said in the middle of my head. " Help is coming from an unexpected source" I took no notice, but later that week I felt as if there was a presence helping me to pick lottery numbers. On the night of the draw I picked up the ticket an hour before the draw and thought, " Maybe its worth a fortune, yea fat chance" and I threw it down. At that moment the same female voice said "you won". After the draw I found I had five numbers, which was enough to pay off my credit card and purchase a computer. I had never heard that female voice before, and have never hear it since.

 

[Pixel42]

Yes, we've discussed that anecdote before too, it's no more convincing now than it was the first time you posted it. People win small sums and have premonitions which are only remembered when they come true all the time, which is why scientific studies are required to discover whether premonitions are correct more often than would be expected by chance.

Doesn't look like Winter Salt has anything to add to the discussion either.