Merged The razor of Hitchens and the Spirits!

The existence of spirits may be beyond the scope of conventional scientific methodology suggesting that the absence of evidence does not necessarily imply nonexistence!
Click to expand...

As a veteran ghost-hunter, let me tell you why you're wrong. If spirits can open and close doors then there is a force being applied that can be detected, measured, and tracked. If spirits can speak audibly then there is at minimum a force that can push air molecules, and that can be detected, and measured. If spirits can apply enough force that their "footsteps" can be heard then that force can be detected, and measured. After 170 years of parapsychological research conducted at every level from PhD to the neighborhood plumber no force has been detected nor recorded.

If I go to the moon tomorrow I need to bring my own air, a pressure suit so I can go for a walk, and enough food, and water for the journey. If tomorrow I go to the bottom of the ocean I need to be inside a container that can handle the pressure, I need to bring my own air, and anything else to survive in that environment. Point being that if spirits "interact" with our world then the physics of our world must apply to them too, even if it's only for a few seconds. Nobody has detected nor recorded the known energies required to produce the known phenomenon associated with spirit activity. And in those same 170 years of parapsychology science has split the atom, figured out plate tectonics, and discovered black holes. In fact black holes existed only on chalkboards for around fifty years before we got optics on one because the math added up. That's science.

And the story of how science discovered, and embraced the existence of black holes long before we could get a picture of one is a primary example of how, and why you are wrong in thinking this way. I can also point to Sir Isaac Newton's work as another example of science proving things are possible centuries before technology caught up (and technology caught up in a big way thanks to Newton's work). Now if you want to say that science is missing something then you need to hit the books to find those relative principles that might be applied to spirit activity.

Again, speaking as a ghost-hunter with over thirty years of research I can say that the skeptics are not the ones being petty and small minded. You want to believe in spirits? Cool, go nuts. But don't come here expecting to lower standards, or change basic rules of science just because there is no proof spirits exist. Do what I did, go back to school, get some college science under your belt, and learn to ask better questions.
 
Calderaro, nobody denies you had pain, or that it went away. But you have not proven your pain was caused by evil spirits. You have also not proven evil spirits exist at all. So your pain probably has a much more rational reason to exist, and to go away.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Calderaro, nobody denies you had pain, or that it went away. But you have not proven your pain was caused by evil spirits. You have also not proven evil spirits exist at all. So your pain probably has a much more rational reason to exist, and to go away.
Click to expand...
There are also kind spirits
Do you only accept empirical evidence?
 
while science requires empirical evidence it also evolves with new discoveries The absence of current evidence does not equate to evidence against the existence of spirits it merely reflects the current limitations of scientific understanding
 
Think of it this way. People also believed in trolls, and dragons. In fact, as late as the 1800s, us Norwegians believed erratics, boulders deposited by glaciers, must've been left there by trolls. If you went back to that time people would probably think you crazy if you denied the existence of trolls and other supernatural creatures. Heck, there would probably be people back then who would have sworn that they had seen a troll or some other creature, that some mysterious ailment was caused or healed by them, or that they affected their lives in some other way.

You, in the same way, seem to have decided the same way that some kind of nebulous spirits exist, but probably never stopped to question why. As several posters have pointed out to you, a stomach ache going away right after a prayer doesn't prove anything. Sometimes it started raining after a rain dance, but today we see no causation (as in, an actual connection between two things beyond them just happening at the same time) between dancing and rain. Sometimes it rains after humans dance, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes pain goes away shortly after prayer, meditation, or home remedies, sometimes it doesn't. So just saying that you experienced that the pain went away after prayer doesn't prove anything, more than erratics prove the existence of trolls.
 
Calderaro said:
In addition to traditional scientific evidence there are other types of evidence that can be considered valid in different contexts!!
Types of Evidence Other than Scientific Evidence !! Anecdotal Evidence ,Historical Evidence,Cultural Evidence,Philosophical Evidence,Visual and Instrumental Evidence,Psychological Evidence!! Although scientific evidence is fundamental to validating theories in science, other forms of evidence also play important roles!!
Click to expand...

A lot of words not defined. Certainly there are many forms of evidence that are not strictly scientific, which form the basis of our daily lives, but they are still something other than faith, surmise, or assumption. We do not need to perform scientific experiments to do our daily tasks, but we also do not have to subject them to rigorous examination or proof. But at least in theory, we could if we had to. But not all experience is evidence. In some sense we experience all our thoughts, whether right or wrong. We experience confusion, error, delusion, hallucination, illogic, and insanity. Empiricism requires experience. Evidence requires more than that.

I humbly suggest that if when you went to college you were taught pseudo-skepticism, and somehow corrected that by asking new questions, you either were a bad student or you went to a bad school, or both. Many here have studied philosophy of one sort or another, and some of us have tossed away most of it, but it helps to understand the meaning of what you are saying, and to be able to express it coherently in a language that is shared by those you're arguing with. And it can be convenient to know if your ideas are new or old, and not demolished by some scholar centuries ago.

Knowledge and faith are two very different things, and many people have weighed in on this subject. Many who have done so have dismissed and criticized those who maintain, as Steven J. Gould did, the existence of non-overlapping magisteria, a world in which the lion and lamb of the material and the spiritual can peacefully coexist. But even he (or perhaps especially he, being an actual scientist) knew the difference, and understood why they cannot overlap. That is the case whatever you believe. Even if you are entirely right, and privy to God's own truth, it's not evidence unless he makes it so, and that has never happened. And if it does, it won't be faith any more. It will be science.
 
Last edited:
Axxman300 said:
As a veteran ghost-hunter, let me tell you why you're wrong. If spirits can open and close doors then there is a force being applied that can be detected, measured, and tracked. If spirits can speak audibly then there is at minimum a force that can push air molecules, and that can be detected, and measured. If spirits can apply enough force that their "footsteps" can be heard then that force can be detected, and measured.
Click to expand...
And the efficacy of prayer in medical situations can be (and has been) measured. It turns out that it is no better than placebo.
 
transsexuality is empirical evidence of the existence of spirits
A transgender woman is someone who was assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman. This identity can be understood as a manifestation of the true essence of the spirit. If we consider that the female spirit has reincarnated in a male body, this can explain the dissonance that the person feels between their gender identity and their body.
 
Calderaro said:
transsexuality is empirical evidence of the existence of spirits
A transgender woman is someone who was assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman. This identity can be understood as a manifestation of the true essence of the spirit. If we consider that the female spirit has reincarnated in a male body, this can explain the dissonance that the person feels between their gender identity and their body.
Click to expand...
No.
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in the field in any way, but I read the comic book Genderqueer recently and it explained that apparently something can go wrong with hormones in the fetal stage, you know, when the fetus can transitioning from girl to boy. Apparently the brain can remain female while the rest of the body that is born is male, or vice-versa. The book explains it better than me, see page 199-203. No idea if this is true, but it makes a heck of a lot more sense than an unfounded belief in spirits.

And again, once you introduce hypothetical supernatural explanations, why spirits, exactly? Why not divine intervention, a spell cast by witches, or a curse from supernatural beings who live in the woods?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom