John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
Do you even know how to post a link?
Proof of Life After Death!!
- Thread starter Robin1
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Do you even know how to post a link?
ExMinister
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I guess you would need to see post 849, followed by post 916, quoting post 772.
Which, BTW, (post 772) struck me as a fairly decent summary of the anecdotes from a skeptic's perspective.
Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
I believe Robin has flounced off once again. She's done this a few times, both here and even in her own Comments section on her blog. She may come back, as she's done a few times but if she does, don't count on her having any better understanding of what we've been trying to say.
Robin, I'm sorry if you think you're being dog-piled here, but you chose to come into a skeptics' playground and offer to provide us PROOF of life after death. That's a heady claim in a group of people who are looking for any viable proof of ANYTHING that's claimed to be paranormal. And you might be surprised - there are any number of us who, given actual proof, would be delighted to admit that there really is a Bigfoot, Queen Elizabeth really is a lizard, or people can really move objects with their mind. Some of those things would be Way Cool!
You need to drop into some of the other areas of the forum and take a look around. We can have knock-down-drag-out fights over how many atheists can dance on the head of a pin or whether your stuffed shirt political favorite is better or worse than my stuffed shirt political favorite. It's what we do here. But then we can all go out and steal horses at the bazaar after dark and have a rollicking good time of it. Unless someone argues a point that is immoral to one's own standards, most of us blow off our debates and can hang out together like any group of friends.
That being said, most of us actually don't maintain a log of opinions of other posters. You're as good or bad as your latest post. We do have some posters who stalk from thread to thread, but they usually get called out on it and moderated. (There have been several discussion in FM on this.) Essentially, you are what you post.
Robin, I'm sorry if you think you're being dog-piled here, but you chose to come into a skeptics' playground and offer to provide us PROOF of life after death. That's a heady claim in a group of people who are looking for any viable proof of ANYTHING that's claimed to be paranormal. And you might be surprised - there are any number of us who, given actual proof, would be delighted to admit that there really is a Bigfoot, Queen Elizabeth really is a lizard, or people can really move objects with their mind. Some of those things would be Way Cool!
You need to drop into some of the other areas of the forum and take a look around. We can have knock-down-drag-out fights over how many atheists can dance on the head of a pin or whether your stuffed shirt political favorite is better or worse than my stuffed shirt political favorite. It's what we do here. But then we can all go out and steal horses at the bazaar after dark and have a rollicking good time of it. Unless someone argues a point that is immoral to one's own standards, most of us blow off our debates and can hang out together like any group of friends.
That being said, most of us actually don't maintain a log of opinions of other posters. You're as good or bad as your latest post. We do have some posters who stalk from thread to thread, but they usually get called out on it and moderated. (There have been several discussion in FM on this.) Essentially, you are what you post.
ExMinister
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If Robin continues on with the thread, I hope she will take this to heart.
Garrette wrote a wonderful post earlier too. So has Foolmewunz. I stopped writing thoughtful, time-consuming posts a while back when I realized they did not result in any kind of actual discussion of the points I had tried so hard to make.
Robin, note that you don't have to a nonbeliever to be a skeptic and critical thinker. Some people believe that agnoticism/atheism follows naturally from a mindset that follows the evidence. Others admit that they choose to continue to believe even knowing it isn't logical. Fair enough. If they don't make a claim about it here, no one bothers them.
But if someone says something illogical or irrational, we call them on it. That's the whole point. No matter your belief system, it's wonderful to know how to think well.
So maybe from being here you will appreciate knowing something about IPhones that you didn't know before. So you DID gain something. We are great providers of nonsupernatural explanations. So maybe you can let the IPhone story go. But maybe you still believe John Edward is psychic. Whatever. The point is to dialogue and discuss. Look for nonsupernatural answers before you accept the supernatural ones.
Battvette is a good example. As we discussed his situations, he realized the first scenario was probably just as easily explained without bringing the supernatural into it. Not so for the second scenario. So be it.
And that's basically what we all do here. Someone tells us something paranormal happened, we will help you find the nonparanormal explanation.
So granted this isn't the best place to claim you have proof of life after death that involves a medium and a series of personal experiences. If you claim to have proof of life after death here, it's got to be something a bit weightier - like maybe you're Dr. Sam Parna conducting the AWARE study and you've had 15 people survive cardiac arrest who all floated out of their bodies and identified the hidden computerized images the researchers had put on the tops of shelves for this very reason. This is a bit sturdier.
We'll still want to know about the research protocol, etc. We might want to see the results replicated. We'll be skeptical of Parna's research, too.
But if Parna's research could show that there is life after death, would we follow the evidence? Absolutely. As Foolmewunz said, there are some people here who would be thrilled.
All right, I did it again. Wrote another way-too-long post.
Oh, and I second Foolmewunz's suggestion to visit other subforums and threads and hang out for awhile. You'll get a good sense of the skeptic and scientific approach to things but without being at the receiving end of it for a change.
ExMinister, I had to pop back in here when I saw your comment..."A fairly decent summary of the anecdotes..."I guess you would need to see post 849, followed by post 916, quoting post 772.
Which, BTW, (post 772) struck me as a fairly decent summary of the anecdotes from a skeptic's perspective.
Really? You didn't see any purposeful misrepresentation of the facts in Meg's post 772 at all?
Really? You saw no purposeful mocking tone in Meg's posts 771 & 772 at all?
And you felt the need to try and mock me even further with the whole...see post 849 followed by post 916, quoting post 772....
Honestly, ExMinister, your behavior and many others on here I find purposely dishonest and hurtful, BUT the major difference is that sort of behavior is not at all surprising to me from the others...but from you, ExMinister, really? Is it so important to you to be part of the popular "non-believers" crowd that you forget how important it is to simply try and be kind? To be fair? Seems to me like you have truly lost your way and you don't even know it.
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Foolmewunz
Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
Robin,
You need to stop and do a little personal inventory. Disagreeing with your rash impressions is not attacking you, personally. You are now picking at nits and telling both Ex-Minister and myself that we've turned into shocking lost causes. Because we don't take your anecdotes and dot-connecting as "evidence"?
You make snarky (and funny) comments all the time. Now it's a horrid offense because Ex-Minister did it? You're just lashing out at everything and everyone here.
Your behavior towards Meg is completely uncalled for. I didn't know that she would post it, but I believe you feel hurt that she won a TLA for a post that basically laid the foundation for taking apart your conceptualization of your "proof". In short, you're taking this all far too personally. That shouldn't be surprising since if you live by the anecdotal personal experience, you die by the anecdotal personal experience.
I think you should take some personal inventory and take a break. You're behaving very offensively to people who actually like you. (And as you can see, some of us are no better - you say something offensive or hurtful and we snap back with a bit of the same. It's a downwards spiral and just as a rising tide raises all boats, a receding tide can ground all boats.)
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fromdownunder
Philosopher
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Aside from leaving out the bit about the new fridge, I found 772 a reasonable summary of your so called "proof". Here it is in full since you appear to be incapable of using the quote function
Please explain what was not factual about that statement. And look at from inside somebody elses head. If they offered the above as "proof" of life after death, would you believe them?
Because apart from the fridge, which she did not include and is just as silly, that is all you have - nothing.
Norm
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ExMinister
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Hi Robin - First, there is no popular crowd here, at least not that I'm aware of, unless, of course, I'm just not aware of it because I'm not in it.
I wasn't mocking you, I was kidding. I assume you know how to copy and paste to keep someone from having to search for an old post, even if you don't know how to link, so it just struck me as funny that you were having us go all over, here and there. But now that you mention it, I can see how it could be perceived as mocking in tone, although snarky might be a little better word for it as I can be snarky at times, thinking I'm joking. I was joking. My sincere apologies if it seemed offensive.
As far as seeing a problem with Meg's posts - Honestly, I saw the first post as part of a long string of posts in which you were both bantering back and forth playfully about IPhones - at least that's how it struck me. Did it not strike you the same way? You didn't seem upset by it at the time and maybe that's why it didn't strike me as mocking, unless you mentioned being upset by it later (?).
And as for the second post. What I think is what I said, and I do NOT mean it in an unkind way, although I guess I was still speaking somewhat tongue in cheek. Meaning, I guess, that I was half-kidding (I said "from a skeptic's perspective"). But no, I did NOT see a purposeful misrepresentation of the facts. Do I see Meg's post as having a mocking tone? When I wrote my comment, I hadn't thought of it one way or the other. But no I don't. Snarky, again? Well, maybe. Playful? Maybe. Because, as you said, it's important to read the surrounding posts, and it sounded to me like the two of you were BOTH being snarky and playful for quite a few posts surrounding this one. My thought was that Meg was making a point by writing it that way: she deliberately left the "magic" out. Attempting to show that to a skeptical or critical thinking mind, this is the way these types of stories appear? At any rate, that is just MY interpretation.
Now, a true misrepresentation of the facts is something else entirely. No, I didn't see that, and if I thought that had happened, it would upset me too. But you would have to point that out because it is not obvious to me.
I don't know Meg but it seems to me that she has a lot of good insights to offer, too, and I'm sorry that you two seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot.
Now that I have answered your questions to the best of my ability, could you please explain how you feel MY behavior has been dishonest and hurtful?
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meg
psychic reader
It is really funny, and actually I think rather Freudian slippish, that you would misuse the term cherry picking here, Robin.
Quoting a post with a link to that post is not cherry picking. It allows the reader to quickly go back and read the entire post in its place in the conversation, allowing the reader to guage for themselves the full conversation and context.
Your story about your John Edward reading is, however, a stellar example of cherry picking. You remember only a few hits, and you can't even really keep those straight from one post to the next (ie your brother's Valerie Harper tickets). And you list absolutely zero misses.
Anyone who's watched any amount at all of an unedited John Edward session knows that there ALWAYS are misses. Many many misses.
Your own personal favorite (measured by how often you use it) logical fallacy is the "fallacy of anecdotal evidence", which is itself a form of cherry picking.
That's so cool. It's almost like there really is a rational person deep inside you screaming to get out. Forcing you to use terms you don't understand, just so you'll have to look them up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking_(fallacy)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
Robin: Why is belief in an afterlife so important to you? It appears to be so much so that you came to a skeptic forum with the intent of showing evidence for same.
A former assistant of mine lost her father due to a sudden illness; she and he had unfinished business and being credulous, she spent much money she didn't have on psychics and mediums on line, on the phone and through personal "readings." It's been ten years on now and I understand she's still bleeding money in this pursuit. Not to be gruff, to her or yourself, but sometimes there is no "closure." Perhaps oftentimes.
I'd bet your memories of your father are far more dear than those that some callous clown would invent for you through a bit of Q and A, fishing and cold-reading. I'm just spitballing here but maybe it's more important that you remember and explore your real-life relationship with your father rather than a nebulous, manufactured idea of an afterlife relationship.
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Nay_Sayer
I say nay!
Far be it from me to imply her position, It seems that is taking a backseat to trying to convince people of John Edwards abilities.
That and bemoaning over any post that seems to point out the flaws in her claims.
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This is an disturbing undercurrent. Or overcurrent. Pimping for Edward might make a good band name but it's a piss-poor thread topic and should be lambasted. Pimping my facebook page is a good album name but frowned upon here, I think.
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ExMinister, if you don't see Meg's GLARING and DELIBERATE misrepresentations of my stories...post 772 (and so many others)...I will never be able to make you see it. If you don't see Meg's purposely hurtful and mocking tone in post 772 ( and so many others)...I will never be able to make you see it. If you don't see I never personally attack someone unless I am personally attacked first...I will never be able to make you see it. If you don't see the difference between bantering back and forth playfully and being purposely cutting...I will never be able to make you see it. If you don't see the difference between some on here who have disagreed with me yet remained kind, honest, and respectful and someone like Meg...I will never be able to make you see it.
And all of that , well , just makes me really sad...for you, and anyone else on here who can't seem to be able to see the truth, no matter how truly obvious it is. And I give up trying to...it's just not worth wasting any more of my time.
And all of that , well , just makes me really sad...for you, and anyone else on here who can't seem to be able to see the truth, no matter how truly obvious it is. And I give up trying to...it's just not worth wasting any more of my time.
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John Jones
Penultimate Amazing
So you're implying that you will never be able to make ExMinister see it? .
Maybe you should stop wasting your time. Oh. You said that already.
Pixel42
Schrödinger's cat
And yet Robin still hasn't identified a single misrepresentation in meg's posts, despite them being so "GLARING and DELIBERATE".
All meg did was list the perfectly normal events Robin has experienced, without mentioning the totally unjustified significance with which she chooses to invest them.
All meg did was list the perfectly normal events Robin has experienced, without mentioning the totally unjustified significance with which she chooses to invest them.
fromdownunder
Philosopher
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Just point out the GLARING and DELIBERATE misrepresentations. We are all eyes. You won't because you can't.
Norm
Recovering Agnostic
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Marcus
Illuminator
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Robin, please go to the posts that contain misrepresentations. Click the multiquote button (next to the quote button) for each post and click the quote button for the last one, all the posts will come up. You can then hilite or edit to show us where these misrepresentations took place. Thank You
Mashuna
Ovis ex Machina
If you can't see that your stories are mundane with no significance other than that with which you imbue them...
Well, you know the rest.