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Merged The razor of Hitchens and the Spirits!

Here's a question that will continue to go unanswered: If you truly believe in spirits as they are advertised in pulp media, and if you are a person of deep religious faith...why are you posting on this board?

You already know the response to baseless claims here. You can't make claims without data to back them up, and Youtube videos, and links to books written by zealot, and printed by small niche publishers are not evidence. Here you are likely to cross paths with folks who regularly read scientific journals, and research papers. A few have participated in the review of research papers. So it's not a burden to post a link to scientific papers and journals as some folks here subscribe, or have free access through university or corporate internet. And if you post a link you can also quote highlights, and write your take on the data presented to show you grasp the information.

Yet this rarely happens. When it does a fun exploration of those research papers unfolds, and we learn something. But there are no research papers pointing to the existence of spirits of any kind. This not from the lack of scientific investigations. I've posted links to those research papers and projects before. There are real scientists from various disciplines who are very interested in the paranormal, and have done serious work. Their results just don't swing the way believers want them to.

So if you're a believer, why aren't you willing to do the honest work? If this is about your faith then fine, but faith and fact are two different things at times. And you don't come here ready to defend your beliefs with anything more than ghost stories. You are not looking for a debate, you are looking for a fight. Why? I guess you get off on it. Owning the pseudo skeptics. And all you do is handicap things for the next person who will come here with an honest question, and maybe some kind of data. Not asking you to leave, just asking you to think...for once...
 
Axxman300 said:
By then I was on my second dog. My first one died when I was three. My second one died a year before from Leukemia. Luck of the draw, I guess. I never wanted another dog after he passed away.
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I hope my comment wasn't hurtful. In my mid fifties and I'm on my first dog but work with them every day. So I can say with authority that he's a very unusual specimen and he's my companion almost 24 hours a day. He's over twelve now and can't imagine any other dog filling his place.

ETA: That's him in my avatar.
 
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P.J. Denyer said:
I hope my comment wasn't hurtful. In my mid fifties and I'm on my first dog but work with them every day. So I can say with authority that he's a very unusual specimen and he's my companion almost 24 hours a day. He's over twelve now and can't imagine any other dog filling his place.

ETA: That's him in my avatar.
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No problem. I got the joke. I love dogs. The late 60s and mid-70s were kind of rough times for veterinary medicine.
 
Axxman300 said:
Here's a question that will continue to go unanswered: If you truly believe in spirits as they are advertised in pulp media, and if you are a person of deep religious faith...why are you posting on this board?

You already know the response to baseless claims here. You can't make claims without data to back them up, and Youtube videos, and links to books written by zealot, and printed by small niche publishers are not evidence. Here you are likely to cross paths with folks who regularly read scientific journals, and research papers. A few have participated in the review of research papers. So it's not a burden to post a link to scientific papers and journals as some folks here subscribe, or have free access through university or corporate internet. And if you post a link you can also quote highlights, and write your take on the data presented to show you grasp the information.

Yet this rarely happens. When it does a fun exploration of those research papers unfolds, and we learn something. But there are no research papers pointing to the existence of spirits of any kind. This not from the lack of scientific investigations. I've posted links to those research papers and projects before. There are real scientists from various disciplines who are very interested in the paranormal, and have done serious work. Their results just don't swing the way believers want them to.

So if you're a believer, why aren't you willing to do the honest work? If this is about your faith then fine, but faith and fact are two different things at times. And you don't come here ready to defend your beliefs with anything more than ghost stories. You are not looking for a debate, you are looking for a fight. Why? I guess you get off on it. Owning the pseudo skeptics. And all you do is handicap things for the next person who will come here with an honest question, and maybe some kind of data. Not asking you to leave, just asking you to think...for once...
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I'm reminded of Edvard Ernst, a man who was so devoted to 'complimentary medicine' that he headed up a university department devoted to it and was determined to prove it's validity scientifically, but so honest that when the results proved otherwise he went public with them and followed the facts.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I hope my comment wasn't hurtful. In my mid fifties and I'm on my first dog but work with them every day. So I can say with authority that he's a very unusual specimen and he's my companion almost 24 hours a day. He's over twelve now and can't imagine any other dog filling his place.
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I have a similar story. My parents never went in for dogs, so now I and my siblings all have dogs.

The saddest day at my company was when we had to banish dogs because the cleanliness requirements around our new clean rooms forbade them within a certain distance. Up until then we had maintained the building as a canine haven. The office dogs routinely accompanied their humans to work and had a lively little pack amongst themselves. We still do a monthly park meet-up so that they can play together.

The notion of the Rainbow Bridge and chasing squirrels in heaven is obviously the kind of emotional coping mechanism that leads to such things as belief in reincarnation as spirits.
 
arthwollipot said:
Sorry, but multiverse cosmology is more than just "fanciful speculation". They are real theories, proposed to explain real scientific phenomena, and are backed up by real science.
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Fair enough. I don't consider them on the same footing as other elements of cosmology, nor as falsifiable. But "fanciful speculation" was unkind.
 
A quick rant.

I am currently caring for my mother who is now in late-stage dementia. I am not doctor or psychological expert. In the past four years I've watched my mother's mental decline as the disease shuts down the higher centers of her brain. Since last July she no longer remembers where she worked for 20 years, isn't exactly sure where she lives, and recently has lost both the ability to tell time, but can't make the basic reasoning that if it's 10:30 and the sun is out it's morning verses when it's 10:30 at night. She says a 24-hour day doesn't make any sense because the clock only goes to 12. I've stopped explaining this to her as her attention span is only 8 minutes, and the entire conversation begins again.

So the idea that the soul uses the brain is stupid, and insulting to me. My mother is vanishing. The idea that her soul chose this particular brain is ignorant, and cruel. The brain is a unique and complex organ. There are days where mother "is there", and capable of simple conversations where she has memories of the past. But those days are few. Many days I check on her, only to be met by a stranger. I can tell there are times where she has no idea who I am. I've never pursued the idea of the soul and its existence, and I won't start now. Right now I see no proof of the existence of my mother's soul, and even less proof of a loving God. My mother was a deeply religious person, where are the angels? Where are the saints?

I ask those questions as a ghost hunter. I'm the guy who's spent hours in dark buildings, spent hundreds of dollars on film to take pictures of empty rooms. I've done the work. I've been dead. And now I watch my mother fade into a mindless living corpse. Needless to say I have little patience these days with Woo-Slingers proselytizing spirits, and spiritualism of any kind. They're all just lazy drug dealers hiding behind invisible fantasy beings to push their passive-aggression on rational people. The idea that my mother's soul has simply left her body in advance of her demise is an insult to the woman she was.

So if my tone gets a little mean in this thread, now you know why.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I think you may have misread steenkh's post, I took it as them pointing out that damage to the brain has been shown to cause personality changes...
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That works too. 😁

I got thinking in terms of a differential scenario where the brain works as shown medically in one mode and then would purportedly operate differently when the proposed spirit is driving. There's no reason to suppose you couldn't measure that. I guess that's not really relevant.

I agree that when physical damage to the brain occurs such as the result of injury or disease, a personality change is often manifest and that this supports better a hypothesis that the brain itself is the seat of personality rather than simply being a conduit for some external entity.

Axxman300 said:
I am currently caring for my mother who is now in late-stage dementia.
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Caring for someone with dementia is exhausting. Caring for a loved one with dementia is an emotional disaster.

The various physiological causes of dementia (e.g., Alzheimer's disease) cause the various areas of the brain to operate out of synch, and thus to miss messages.

The deeper point is that we become very attached to and observant of others' personalities. They can shape, dominate, enrich, and enrage our lives. Many shelves of books have been written on how we think personalities behave. It's very difficult to remember that our best objective evidence is that all this is just an emergent property of a kilogram or so of water, protein, fat, and a delicate balance of electrochemical reactions that can go off kilter at the drop of a hat. That emergent behavior is amazingly important the human experience, therefore it's intuitive to want to say it comes from something more profound than just an organ.

But then when faced with even a slight misbehavior of the physical organ, that illusion comes crashing down. When nature treats the brain as a protein and fat deposit, and attacks it with such mundane weapons as lesions and voids, there's no overlordly spirit to rise above it. Even small changes in the chemical or electrical behavior track with changes in personality and cognitive ability. The brain is remarkably resilient, but there's no magical preservation of the personality that suggests it lives somewhere else.

Axxman300 said:
So if my tone gets a little mean in this thread, now you know why.
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Indeed, this isn't a game for some people. No need to apologize.
 
Axxman300 said:
A quick rant.

I am currently caring for my mother who is now in late-stage dementia. I am not doctor or psychological expert. In the past four years I've watched my mother's mental decline as the disease shuts down the higher centers of her brain. Since last July she no longer remembers where she worked for 20 years, isn't exactly sure where she lives, and recently has lost both the ability to tell time, but can't make the basic reasoning that if it's 10:30 and the sun is out it's morning verses when it's 10:30 at night. She says a 24-hour day doesn't make any sense because the clock only goes to 12. I've stopped explaining this to her as her attention span is only 8 minutes, and the entire conversation begins again.

So the idea that the soul uses the brain is stupid, and insulting to me. My mother is vanishing. The idea that her soul chose this particular brain is ignorant, and cruel. The brain is a unique and complex organ. There are days where mother "is there", and capable of simple conversations where she has memories of the past. But those days are few. Many days I check on her, only to be met by a stranger. I can tell there are times where she has no idea who I am. I've never pursued the idea of the soul and its existence, and I won't start now. Right now I see no proof of the existence of my mother's soul, and even less proof of a loving God. My mother was a deeply religious person, where are the angels? Where are the saints?

I ask those questions as a ghost hunter. I'm the guy who's spent hours in dark buildings, spent hundreds of dollars on film to take pictures of empty rooms. I've done the work. I've been dead. And now I watch my mother fade into a mindless living corpse. Needless to say I have little patience these days with Woo-Slingers proselytizing spirits, and spiritualism of any kind. They're all just lazy drug dealers hiding behind invisible fantasy beings to push their passive-aggression on rational people. The idea that my mother's soul has simply left her body in advance of her demise is an insult to the woman she was.

So if my tone gets a little mean in this thread, now you know why.
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I'm sorry to hear about your mother, I had an aunt who suffered from Alzheimer's and I vividly remember her confusion any time I visited her in the year before she died.
 
Axxman300 said:
A quick rant.

I am currently caring for my mother who is now in late-stage dementia. I am not doctor or psychological expert. In the past four years I've watched my mother's mental decline as the disease shuts down the higher centers of her brain. Since last July she no longer remembers where she worked for 20 years, isn't exactly sure where she lives, and recently has lost both the ability to tell time, but can't make the basic reasoning that if it's 10:30 and the sun is out it's morning verses when it's 10:30 at night. She says a 24-hour day doesn't make any sense because the clock only goes to 12. I've stopped explaining this to her as her attention span is only 8 minutes, and the entire conversation begins again.

So the idea that the soul uses the brain is stupid, and insulting to me. My mother is vanishing. The idea that her soul chose this particular brain is ignorant, and cruel. The brain is a unique and complex organ. There are days where mother "is there", and capable of simple conversations where she has memories of the past. But those days are few. Many days I check on her, only to be met by a stranger. I can tell there are times where she has no idea who I am. I've never pursued the idea of the soul and its existence, and I won't start now. Right now I see no proof of the existence of my mother's soul, and even less proof of a loving God. My mother was a deeply religious person, where are the angels? Where are the saints?

I ask those questions as a ghost hunter. I'm the guy who's spent hours in dark buildings, spent hundreds of dollars on film to take pictures of empty rooms. I've done the work. I've been dead. And now I watch my mother fade into a mindless living corpse. Needless to say I have little patience these days with Woo-Slingers proselytizing spirits, and spiritualism of any kind. They're all just lazy drug dealers hiding behind invisible fantasy beings to push their passive-aggression on rational people. The idea that my mother's soul has simply left her body in advance of her demise is an insult to the woman she was.

So if my tone gets a little mean in this thread, now you know why.
Click to expand...
I will add my like to this. My mother died 12 or so years ago, also with Alzheimer's or some similar dementia. It was a long and gradual decline. By 91 when she died she knew and remembered nearly nothing. She recognized me (only living child) until near the end, but that was about it. My wife, who probably put more love and actual work into the relationship for decades, was just someone who showed up a lot. She had been a philosophy professor, a teacher, a mentor to many, spoke French and could read and translate Latin, German, and ancient Greek well enough to do official translations for published philosophers. A lifelong "do-gooder," she helped real people in real ways, and performed real services to individuals community and environment whose impact can be seen long after her death. A might-have-been concert pianist sidelined by early arthritis, she could still sight-read anything from Poulenc to Cole Porter well into her decline....you get the picture. If she had a soul it was in what she did, not what she was or what she became. And that, I should not have to add but will anyway, was something. A real thing of social and environmental benefit, which need not be stuffed into the diaphanous robes of angels or daubed with indigo mush.
 
A bunch of posts have been moved to the Scorpion's Spiritualism thread. Please have your discussions of Scorpion's experiences in the destination thread so that discussions of Calderaro's experiences remain in this one.

It's possible that some posts could have remained here, or that some posts have been left here that could have been moved. You may report any posts moved (or not moved) in error.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Agatha
 
Sufficient evidence is key: Any claim, regardless of how extraordinary it may seem, only requires sufficient evidence to warrant belief the focus should be on the quality and reliability of evidence, not its perceived extraordinariness.
 
What constitutes an extraordinary claim varies from person to person, making it an unreliable standard for evaluating evidence
 
Calderaro said:
What constitutes an extraordinary claim varies from person to person, making it an unreliable standard for evaluating evidence
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True for day to day claims, not so much for fantastical supernatural entities. As soon as you breathe the words "beyond ordinary/understood entities", you have both feet in the extraordinary camp by definition.
 
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confirmation bias can influence how we interpret evidence, while the sagan standard can affect what we consider to be sufficient evidence for a claim
 
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