atheist or theist?
atheist
69.5%
162
theist
30.5%
71
233 votes
Citizeninsane said: I agree that nobody knows for sure, but at least from my experience defining the terms in the fashion that I have helps clear up misconceptions. So it may be irrelevant in reality with respect to the evidence, but it helps in practice. Whether it is better or not, I am unsure. I think that making the distinction is detrimental firstly because only those who are not convinced of their position would make it in the first place, and because it is implying that the uncertainty rests with you, and not a universal truth that applies to everyone regardless of belief. It also gives the impression that you are an atheist apologetic who is trying to cater to religious groups; it seems unlikely to me that a religious person would be willing to admit uncertainty, though perhaps this is some personal bias, as an atheist. On the other hand it is good to remind people that we cannot know with certainty- but I think the best way to do that is to state that it applies to everyone rather than to volunteer ourselves for it. |
| Losing an Argument online? Simply post a webpage full of links, and refuse to continue until your opponents have read every last one of them! WORKS EVERY TIME! "I was debating with someone who believed in climate change, when he linked me to a graph showing evidence to that effect. So I sent him a 10k word essay on the origins of Conservatism, and escaped with my dignity intact." "THANK YOU VERBOSE WEBPAGES OF QUESTIONABLE RELEVANCE!" |
Nazatin18 said: 1. We jump to conclusions, interpreting the sound we hear as a footsteps. And it sounds like footsteps. Have you tried to check it where they come from? And most likely there's a different cause for that. Rats seem to use the same cadence as humans, so it would sound like a person walking. There can be plenty of explanations for odd sounds/footsteps. Like for instance panels shrink/expanding due to temperature/moisture, either flexing against each other or against cement. Don't jump straight to conclusion. Hearing odd sounds can be a sign of injury to the ear from noise or the first sign of progressive hearing loss. The feeling that your're being watched by somebody? Irrational Fear? When it comes to infrasound - you cannot consciously hear it, but your ears will sense it. Your mind is puzzled and cannot understand from where these inputs are coming from and it just screws your mind. 2. What makes you think that you would not start breathing after the second spank if there was no prayer before? People are too obsessed with finding connections between things. 3. What do you do when your prayer does not come true? And when it does, it's suddenly a God's work. Even if a prayer fails 999 times and comes true just once, a person will still think it's a God's will. I'll put my head any day on that that you'd find the cat even without the prayer. 4. There's a disconnect between your mind and body when you're going into or coming out of Rapid Eye Movement sleep, you may experience sleep paralysis or "walking dreams". In such dreams you are awake, but you seemingly can't move or are "paralyzed" as if you were asleep. During this sleep paralysis your mind can come up with different twisted hallucinations. People have witnessed aliens, ghosts and some had a sense that apocalypse is coming, or that they're being murdered. It's quite common experience. Nazatin18 said: 1.Bullshit. 2.Same as your 4th point. 3. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/H/hearing-voices/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect Sound anomalies ... This doesn't prove God or anything like that. Don't jump to conclusion straight away. That proves that you're quite closed-minded individual, no offensive intended. |
one-more-timeNov 18, 2012 1:06 PM
| LUL |
Nazatin18 said: 1. My grandmas house was know to be haunted by a lady and my grandfather. In the night, when you're alone, you'll hear footsteps from the lady who hung and shot herself in there. She would be walking around the house. Next, My grandfather always loved to play the piano so one day, the piano just started playing on its own. Nobody was there using it. You would see the keys being pressed on by themselves. It's not one of those play by itself pianos you would see on tv. These were my experiences. I'm hoping to have more spirits pop up in front of me, it would make me happy. If you don't believe this then oh well. I believe this because I experienced this. There may be more I'm missing but I may have forgotten. I could tell you guys what my brothers have experienced and what they experienced is far more frightening than my 1 and 4 stories but it would take too long to type this out since I'm typing this from my Blackberry. So yeah, I probably won't expect you guys to believe this (except probably #3) but it's this truth. What does that have to do with God? Ghosts aren't compatible with the idea that people go to either Heaven or Hell when they die. Haunting spirits are a supernatural idea, not a religious idea. |
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| "But don't cry my friends, we are all the same.Every one of us is a human with "H" capital... and now we are two and one of us has to be shit." -Mr.Freeman |
Shadake said: akutasame94 said: I have no idea what I am... I believe in something but don't think it's a God, at least not the one church wants us to believe in. Well someday we will all find the lady called Death that will eternally embrace us and give us poisoned kisses xD Then we will find out for sure... I am sure that I would hate going to a magical paradise where all I could do is just lay on my back and do nothing for eternity... I'd rather go to hell and be forever stabbed by Devil or his henchman xD Well said :D I have similar imagination. But I don't really think there is something like ' Heaven ' or ' Hell ' ;x It would be too simple. I am more for reincarnation. Honestly I prefer reincarnation, but still it has so many problems, plus I really don't wanna live another boring lifetime as a simple human. Maybe it's because I can't do all the fun stuff, but that's how I feel... I actually hope that I'll be able to chose sth when I die, and transfer myself to a world like the one from Elder Scrolls and become Dragon Hunter or maybe in some kind of Naruto World... Then again there is another problem. From my perspective these worlds now look out of the ordinary and cool, but if I switched to those realities I would probably be bored by that XD So yeah, no way out from this magic circle :D |
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AnnoKano said: Whether it is better or not, I am unsure. I think that making the distinction is detrimental firstly because only those who are not convinced of their position would make it in the first place, and because it is implying that the uncertainty rests with you, and not a universal truth that applies to everyone regardless of belief. It also gives the impression that you are an atheist apologetic who is trying to cater to religious groups; it seems unlikely to me that a religious person would be willing to admit uncertainty, though perhaps this is some personal bias, as an atheist. On the other hand it is good to remind people that we cannot know with certainty- but I think the best way to do that is to state that it applies to everyone rather than to volunteer ourselves for it. I understand that your concern for uncertainty is that it seemingly is only being applied to the agnostic (a)theist, and that it is not the case for the gnostic (a)theist . But as I have said before, I agreed that these are just claims and need to be demonstrated to be true before their claim is actually justified. I do not think for a second that the burden of proof and the status of uncertainty of all human individuals should not be brought up and driven in any given debate, but like I said this was all for the purposes of outlining who is claiming what, and not so much as who actually is justified in their certainty. Also, I have met plenty of theists that claim to be uncertain in the sense they cannot demonstrate their claims so they fall back on faith. |
CitizeninsaneNov 18, 2012 1:26 PM
extraspectra said: Narmy said: Ghosts aren't compatible with the idea that people go to either Heaven or Hell when they die. Haunting spirits are a supernatural idea, not a religious idea. But evidence of the supernatural would change whether or not people believed in that there is such a thing as the supernatural at all. If someone proves a ghost theory it may punch a hole in philosophical materialism. :) Yay for new new words! Also, why are they here and not in heaven or hell? Maybe because they can't move on? :D They regret something so they stay in this world until they get over it XD Like in Angel Beats, only reincarnation is the main focus there xD |
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Singateru said: one-more-time said: Nazatin18 said: 1. We jump to conclusions, interpreting the sound we hear as a footsteps. And it sounds like footsteps. Have you tried to check it where they come from? And most likely there's a different cause for that. Rats seem to use the same cadence as humans, so it would sound like a person walking. There can be plenty of explanations for odd sounds/footsteps. Like for instance panels shrink/expanding due to temperature/moisture, either flexing against each other or against cement. Don't jump straight to conclusion. Hearing odd sounds can be a sign of injury to the ear from noise or the first sign of progressive hearing loss. The feeling that your're being watched by somebody? Irrational Fear? When it comes to infrasound - you cannot consciously hear it, but your ears will sense it. Your mind is puzzled and cannot understand from where these inputs are coming from and it just screws your mind. 2. What makes you think that you would not start breathing after the second spank if there was no prayer before? People are too obsessed with finding connections between things. 3. What do you do when your prayer does not come true? And when it does, it's suddenly a God's work. Even if a prayer fails 999 times and comes true just once, a person will still think it's a God's will. I'll put my head any day on that that you'd find the cat even without the prayer. 4. There's a disconnect between your mind and body when you're going into or coming out of Rapid Eye Movement sleep, you may experience sleep paralysis or "walking dreams". In such dreams you are awake, but you seemingly can't move or are "paralyzed" as if you were asleep. During this sleep paralysis your mind can come up with different twisted hallucinations. People have witnessed aliens, ghosts and some had a sense that apocalypse is coming, or that they're being murdered. It's quite common experience. Nazatin18 said: 1.Bullshit. 2.Same as your 4th point. 3. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/H/hearing-voices/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect Sound anomalies ... This doesn't prove God or anything like that. Don't jump to conclusion straight away. That proves that you're quite closed-minded individual, no offensive intended. damn you ruined all :( There is probably no way to get skeptics to believe even if they experience it themselves. My grandma is a pastor and probably all these things happening have to be linked with her somehow. |
| @MaedhrostheTall, didn't spend much time, but from what I read had the impression of "God did it" card. It's not hard to concisely talk about something, but that doesn't prove anything. (or is it way around, about anything, but that doesn't prove something? Can someone clarify this for me, please?) Nazatin18 said: There is probably no way to get skeptics to believe even if they experience it themselves. My grandma is a pastor and probably all these things happening have to be linked with her somehow. I understand that our mind is unreliable. You need proof, not "I experienced this and that" or "Well, my neighbour told me about his experience". And correlation does not imply causation. |
one-more-timeNov 18, 2012 1:56 PM
| LUL |
Nazatin18 said: Singateru said: one-more-time said: Nazatin18 said: 1. We jump to conclusions, interpreting the sound we hear as a footsteps. And it sounds like footsteps. Have you tried to check it where they come from? And most likely there's a different cause for that. Rats seem to use the same cadence as humans, so it would sound like a person walking. There can be plenty of explanations for odd sounds/footsteps. Like for instance panels shrink/expanding due to temperature/moisture, either flexing against each other or against cement. Don't jump straight to conclusion. Hearing odd sounds can be a sign of injury to the ear from noise or the first sign of progressive hearing loss. The feeling that your're being watched by somebody? Irrational Fear? When it comes to infrasound - you cannot consciously hear it, but your ears will sense it. Your mind is puzzled and cannot understand from where these inputs are coming from and it just screws your mind. 2. What makes you think that you would not start breathing after the second spank if there was no prayer before? People are too obsessed with finding connections between things. 3. What do you do when your prayer does not come true? And when it does, it's suddenly a God's work. Even if a prayer fails 999 times and comes true just once, a person will still think it's a God's will. I'll put my head any day on that that you'd find the cat even without the prayer. 4. There's a disconnect between your mind and body when you're going into or coming out of Rapid Eye Movement sleep, you may experience sleep paralysis or "walking dreams". In such dreams you are awake, but you seemingly can't move or are "paralyzed" as if you were asleep. During this sleep paralysis your mind can come up with different twisted hallucinations. People have witnessed aliens, ghosts and some had a sense that apocalypse is coming, or that they're being murdered. It's quite common experience. Nazatin18 said: 1.Bullshit. 2.Same as your 4th point. 3. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/H/hearing-voices/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect Sound anomalies ... This doesn't prove God or anything like that. Don't jump to conclusion straight away. That proves that you're quite closed-minded individual, no offensive intended. damn you ruined all :( There is probably no way to get skeptics to believe even if they experience it themselves. My grandma is a pastor and probably all these things happening have to be linked with her somehow. I experienced something weird, almost like those horror movie stories... But the thing is that I still don't believe in God, more likely I believe in some kind of demons xD If u wish to hear my story I'll gladly tell u xD |
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Goryo said: Trapalicious said: God has to exist for you to be gifted with such artistic abilities. If you're being sarcastic you're going straight to hell.  |
| Spoilers,spoilers....or at least delete part of quotes.... |
| "But don't cry my friends, we are all the same.Every one of us is a human with "H" capital... and now we are two and one of us has to be shit." -Mr.Freeman |
Trapalicious said: Goryo said: Trapalicious said: God has to exist for you to be gifted with such artistic abilities. If you're being sarcastic you're going straight to hell. Couldn't agree more :D |
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akutasame94 said: Nazatin18 said: Singateru said: one-more-time said: Nazatin18 said: 1. We jump to conclusions, interpreting the sound we hear as a footsteps. And it sounds like footsteps. Have you tried to check it where they come from? And most likely there's a different cause for that. Rats seem to use the same cadence as humans, so it would sound like a person walking. There can be plenty of explanations for odd sounds/footsteps. Like for instance panels shrink/expanding due to temperature/moisture, either flexing against each other or against cement. Don't jump straight to conclusion. Hearing odd sounds can be a sign of injury to the ear from noise or the first sign of progressive hearing loss. The feeling that your're being watched by somebody? Irrational Fear? When it comes to infrasound - you cannot consciously hear it, but your ears will sense it. Your mind is puzzled and cannot understand from where these inputs are coming from and it just screws your mind. 2. What makes you think that you would not start breathing after the second spank if there was no prayer before? People are too obsessed with finding connections between things. 3. What do you do when your prayer does not come true? And when it does, it's suddenly a God's work. Even if a prayer fails 999 times and comes true just once, a person will still think it's a God's will. I'll put my head any day on that that you'd find the cat even without the prayer. 4. There's a disconnect between your mind and body when you're going into or coming out of Rapid Eye Movement sleep, you may experience sleep paralysis or "walking dreams". In such dreams you are awake, but you seemingly can't move or are "paralyzed" as if you were asleep. During this sleep paralysis your mind can come up with different twisted hallucinations. People have witnessed aliens, ghosts and some had a sense that apocalypse is coming, or that they're being murdered. It's quite common experience. Nazatin18 said: 1.Bullshit. 2.Same as your 4th point. 3. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/H/hearing-voices/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect Sound anomalies ... This doesn't prove God or anything like that. Don't jump to conclusion straight away. That proves that you're quite closed-minded individual, no offensive intended. damn you ruined all :( There is probably no way to get skeptics to believe even if they experience it themselves. My grandma is a pastor and probably all these things happening have to be linked with her somehow. I experienced something weird, almost like those horror movie stories... But the thing is that I still don't believe in God, more likely I believe in some kind of demons xD If u wish to hear my story I'll gladly tell u xD Sure I'd like to read your story. :) |
Nazatin18 said: There is probably no way to get skeptics to believe even if they experience it themselves. My grandma is a pastor and probably all these things happening have to be linked with her somehow. Is quite appropriate video, I believe. |
| LUL |
one-more-time said: Is quite appropriate video, I believe. I find this video to be extremely relevant, and enjoy QualiaSoup's content along with his brother TheraminTrees's content. However, I find whenever I try to get someone to watch a video concerning this topic it almost always fails. |
| I practice strict monotheism, but I can't claim to hold any knowledge about the nature or essence of God and whatnot. |
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Heika said: I practice strict monotheism, but I can't claim to hold any knowledge about the nature or essence of God and whatnot. But according to monotheism, isn't the nature/essence of a God written in one of the holy books? |
Hitchens said: Heika said: I practice strict monotheism, but I can't claim to hold any knowledge about the nature or essence of God and whatnot. But according to monotheism, isn't the nature/essence of a God written in one of the holy books? Not in Islam, all Muslims have is God's will. I don't know about other holy books, but the Quran doesn't say much about the essence of God besides that his nature is transcendent and ultimately unknowable. |
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Nazatin18 said: one-more-time said: Nazatin18 said: I've had experienced things many of you won't believe. Continue.. 1. My grandmas house was know to be haunted by a lady and my grandfather. In the night, when you're alone, you'll hear footsteps from the lady who hung and shot herself in there. She would be walking around the house. Next, My grandfather always loved to play the piano so one day, the piano just started playing on its own. Nobody was there using it. You would see the keys being pressed on by themselves. It's not one of those play by itself pianos you would see on tv. 2. When I was a baby, I was supposed to be dead. Here it goes. My mom was giving labor to be and I come out. The doctor slaps me and I wouldn't breathe, I was choking. My grandmother gets a hold of me and prays to God (She's a pastor for a church). After she finishes praying, she slaps me and I start to cry and breathe. (This is the story I get from them) 3. I prayed for a cat, I get a cat a few days later. It was a cat that was run over by a car. He was still living and he was just a mere kitten when I found him. I kept him and raised him and taught him to trust me. Took 4 months of hard work and dedication as he was terrified of me. Good times. 4. When I was trying to sleep, I open my eyes to see a black shadowy figure standing in the back of the room. It was in human shape form. It creeped me out. It was pitch black and it was standing tall. I pray to God to protect me and make it go away. After saying the word AMEN, all I hear and feel is wind passing passed my ears. I look to see that the black figure wasn't there anymore. These were my experiences. I'm hoping to have more spirits pop up in front of me, it would make me happy. If you don't believe this then oh well. I believe this because I experienced this. There may be more I'm missing but I may have forgotten. I could tell you guys what my brothers have experienced and what they experienced is far more frightening than my 1 and 4 stories but it would take too long to type this out since I'm typing this from my Blackberry. So yeah, I probably won't expect you guys to believe this (except probably #3) but it's this truth. How strange that God went through the trouble to get you a cat, yet he has completely neglected the third world. |
| ^Unknown are his plans to the common mind. Didn't you know? |
| "But don't cry my friends, we are all the same.Every one of us is a human with "H" capital... and now we are two and one of us has to be shit." -Mr.Freeman |
Katagami said: How strange that God went through the trouble to get you a cat, yet he has completely neglected the third world. Made my day. |
| Maybe God was about to save the third world but then got distracted with an ADOWABLE kitten. And so he saved it, and as he was about to move onto the task at hand, he saw a WHOLE LITTER of baby kittens! And he got absorbed by how cute they were. And so this cycle has continued for millennia, God just kept getting too distracted by solving the problems of cute cats and kittens, and so the third world was never saved. Sounds legit. |
| I just find it incredible how humans can be so logical and rational about EVERYTHING in their lives except this "god" thing. It's nothing more than a "Comfort mechanism"....."god" gives you comfort that the world has control, that "evil" will be punished, that "good" will be rewarded and that our lives are somehow "special". Every piece of evidence shows that humans are ANIMALS, we have slowly evolved over millions and billions of years to what we are now. The difference between man and the rest of the animal kingdom is that our special trait was high intelligence. Most humans do not think that animals have "souls" or that they will go to heaven or hell. When an animal dies, it just dies! Why are we special? We're NOT! |
Heika said: Hitchens said: Heika said: I practice strict monotheism, but I can't claim to hold any knowledge about the nature or essence of God and whatnot. But according to monotheism, isn't the nature/essence of a God written in one of the holy books? Not in Islam, all Muslims have is God's will. I don't know about other holy books, but the Quran doesn't say much about the essence of God besides that his nature is transcendent and ultimately unknowable. Fair enough. extraspectra said: Hindu's think animals have souls. Not... quite. Just that some animals have a sort of mythological bond with the Gods, so they are to be respected (and not eaten, hence the whole cow thing). |
extraspectra said: Hindu's think animals have souls. Yes, that's why I said MOST humans, not all humans. Furthermore, until someone can properly explain what a "soul" is, it's kinda silly to even bring it up. |
extraspectra said: Hitchens said: Not... quite. Just that some animals have a sort of mythological bond with the Gods, so they are to be respected (and not eaten, hence the whole cow thing). I have not read all of this blog yet but apparently there is some ambiguity as to animals having souls in Judaism. http://rooster613.blogspot.com/2011/03/do-animals-have-souls-part-i.html TL;DR. I was advocating for Hinduism in case you were confused. Either way I don't really care whether religion X thinks that animals have souls or religion Y thinks that religion X is bullshtting. |
extraspectra said: I'm not trying to dickish. I just want to establish the legitimacy of the counter point that Its possible that there is something 'else' about the world. I agree that if we ever figure out what it is it probably won't be so cuddle as we want. Maybe there is, who knows, until we see evidence there's no need to believe in it. After all, humans crave proof for the majority of the things they are told. For example the reason why so very few people believe in aliens is because we have not been shown sufficient proof for their claims. While I personally don't believe in the "Hollywood-type aliens" I do in fact believe that there could be life in other planets, it's not impossible that other planets had similar conditions to earth in the early stages where abiogenesis occurred. |
Katagami said: Nazatin18 said: one-more-time said: Nazatin18 said: I've had experienced things many of you won't believe. Continue.. 1. My grandmas house was know to be haunted by a lady and my grandfather. In the night, when you're alone, you'll hear footsteps from the lady who hung and shot herself in there. She would be walking around the house. Next, My grandfather always loved to play the piano so one day, the piano just started playing on its own. Nobody was there using it. You would see the keys being pressed on by themselves. It's not one of those play by itself pianos you would see on tv. 2. When I was a baby, I was supposed to be dead. Here it goes. My mom was giving labor to be and I come out. The doctor slaps me and I wouldn't breathe, I was choking. My grandmother gets a hold of me and prays to God (She's a pastor for a church). After she finishes praying, she slaps me and I start to cry and breathe. (This is the story I get from them) 3. I prayed for a cat, I get a cat a few days later. It was a cat that was run over by a car. He was still living and he was just a mere kitten when I found him. I kept him and raised him and taught him to trust me. Took 4 months of hard work and dedication as he was terrified of me. Good times. 4. When I was trying to sleep, I open my eyes to see a black shadowy figure standing in the back of the room. It was in human shape form. It creeped me out. It was pitch black and it was standing tall. I pray to God to protect me and make it go away. After saying the word AMEN, all I hear and feel is wind passing passed my ears. I look to see that the black figure wasn't there anymore. These were my experiences. I'm hoping to have more spirits pop up in front of me, it would make me happy. If you don't believe this then oh well. I believe this because I experienced this. There may be more I'm missing but I may have forgotten. I could tell you guys what my brothers have experienced and what they experienced is far more frightening than my 1 and 4 stories but it would take too long to type this out since I'm typing this from my Blackberry. So yeah, I probably won't expect you guys to believe this (except probably #3) but it's this truth. How strange that God went through the trouble to get you a cat, yet he has completely neglected the third world. Because cats are awesome. |
| I know to you these might not be satisfactory explanations, but this is how I would explain your stories. 1. and 4. You see and here what you want, to an extent. Experiences such as the two you described are not uncommon, thanks to our popular culture. Psychology. 2. You just needed to be a proper slap, and by chance your grandmother was the one that delivered it. Being a pastor, I imagine she prays over everything important to her. Which implies that, with almost perfect certainty, she prays before something goes right. It equally implies that she prays before something goes wrong. However, psychology ensures that instances of unsuccessful praying are harder to recall. If I tell you the next card I draw from the deck is going to be the King of Hearts every single time I draw a card, I'm going to be right eventually and it's going to look miraculous when I am. 3. When something is at the front of your mind, you take more notice when you encounter it than you otherwise would. This leads you to believe that the event is actually occurring more frequently, but in reality it is not. You only register and remember what you pay attention to. Also psychology. It's important to remember that remarkable events must occur in your life and therefore do not require an explanation. Everyday experiences are average because you've had worse ones and better ones, by the definition of average. Due to the extreme randomness of life, you are likely to experience some things that are far above average. You may be tempted to call these instances miraculous, but when you consider that you experience essentially an infinite number of things, it is quite unsurprising that, on occasion, everything seems to align in your favor. Just as it would be unsurprising to see ten 1's in a row, were you to roll a dice a large number of times. I hope I'm not crossing any borders with any of this, that's not what I intend to do. |
JoshNov 18, 2012 7:28 PM
LoneWolf said: @Josh makes me sad to call myself Canadian. |
Nordhau5 said: I know to you these might not be satisfactory explanations, but this is how I would explain your stories. 1. and 4. You see and here what you want, to an extent. Experiences such as the two you described are not uncommon, thanks to our popular culture. Psychology. 2. You just needed to be a proper slap, and by chance your grandmother was the one that delivered it. Being a pastor, I imagine she prays over everything important to her. Which implies that, with almost perfect certainty, she prays before something goes right. It equally implies that she prays before something goes wrong. However, psychology ensures that instances of unsuccessful praying are harder to recall. If I tell you the next card I draw from the deck is going to be the King of Hearts every single time I draw a card, I'm going to be right eventually and it's going to look miraculous when I am. 3. When something is at the front of your mind, you take more notice when you encounter it than you otherwise would. This leads you to believe that the event is actually occurring more frequently, but in reality it is not. You only register and remember what you pay attention to. Also psychology. It's important to remember that remarkable events must occur in your life and therefore do not require an explanation. Everyday experiences are average because you've had worse ones and better ones, by the definition of average. Due to the extreme randomness of life, you are likely to experience some things that are far above average. You may be tempted to call these instances miraculous, but when you consider that you experience essentially an infinite number of things, it is quite unsurprising that, on occasion, everything seems to align in your favor. Just as it would be unsurprising to see ten 1's in a row, were you to roll a dice a large number of times. I hope I'm not crossing any borders with any of this, that's not what I intend to do. Every other other point you've mentioned except your first point makes sense. The reason I'm saying this is because I wasn't in a sleep paralysis state when this happened. I haven't even fallen asleep yet. I was still fully conscious and I wasn't even tired. I was able to move and this thing just pops up out of nowhere. I wasn't terrified but I just wanted it gone. So i prayed and wind passes passed my ears. The window was even closed. I remember this event because it was amazing to see it. It was also unexpected. |
| Ahh the powers of suggestion... |
| My subjective reviews: katsureview.wordpress.com THE CHAT CLUB. |
| i would say i'm sort of an atheist, but i would say that a higher power could exist and in some cases explains alot. I study alot of physics at college and go to alot of seminars and some of the stuff we do not know about the cosmos is hard to ever explain, for instance we know the big bang happened, but where did it come from? what existed before it? could god just be a being from another parallel universe with some weird tech? but i would agree there is no christian god or muslim or whatever because like someone else posted why would he even create things like greed or vast poverty in the third world, common he can create a universe but can't feed Africans lol i would also like to state that an atheist can have a religion, i myself am a practicing Buddhist because its more about living as a good person and having good character, not blindly following some deity |
theglack said: Buddhists like to think of themselves as atheists, but it's not that simple. Most forms of Buddhism are deist, not atheistic. There are enlightened beings (bodhisattva), son of gods (deva), and Buddhas who have attained the highest levels of contentment. They are either worshipped or hailed and respected. Then, there demons in the layers of Hell called Naraka.i would also like to state that an atheist can have a religion, i myself am a practicing Buddhist because its more about living as a good person and having good character, not blindly following some deity |
| My subjective reviews: katsureview.wordpress.com THE CHAT CLUB. |
| I'm the choice that likes to believe that a higher being exists, but I'm pretty skeptical about it myself. I mean hell yeah if their is, but I can't fully believe it myself without some solid proof that proves a higher being does exist. So I guess according to that chart agnostic theist. |
Touch me, you filthy casual~ |
Nazatin18 said: akutasame94 said: Nazatin18 said: Singateru said: one-more-time said: Nazatin18 said: 1. We jump to conclusions, interpreting the sound we hear as a footsteps. And it sounds like footsteps. Have you tried to check it where they come from? And most likely there's a different cause for that. Rats seem to use the same cadence as humans, so it would sound like a person walking. There can be plenty of explanations for odd sounds/footsteps. Like for instance panels shrink/expanding due to temperature/moisture, either flexing against each other or against cement. Don't jump straight to conclusion. Hearing odd sounds can be a sign of injury to the ear from noise or the first sign of progressive hearing loss. The feeling that your're being watched by somebody? Irrational Fear? When it comes to infrasound - you cannot consciously hear it, but your ears will sense it. Your mind is puzzled and cannot understand from where these inputs are coming from and it just screws your mind. 2. What makes you think that you would not start breathing after the second spank if there was no prayer before? People are too obsessed with finding connections between things. 3. What do you do when your prayer does not come true? And when it does, it's suddenly a God's work. Even if a prayer fails 999 times and comes true just once, a person will still think it's a God's will. I'll put my head any day on that that you'd find the cat even without the prayer. 4. There's a disconnect between your mind and body when you're going into or coming out of Rapid Eye Movement sleep, you may experience sleep paralysis or "walking dreams". In such dreams you are awake, but you seemingly can't move or are "paralyzed" as if you were asleep. During this sleep paralysis your mind can come up with different twisted hallucinations. People have witnessed aliens, ghosts and some had a sense that apocalypse is coming, or that they're being murdered. It's quite common experience. Nazatin18 said: 1.Bullshit. 2.Same as your 4th point. 3. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/H/hearing-voices/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect Sound anomalies ... This doesn't prove God or anything like that. Don't jump to conclusion straight away. That proves that you're quite closed-minded individual, no offensive intended. damn you ruined all :( There is probably no way to get skeptics to believe even if they experience it themselves. My grandma is a pastor and probably all these things happening have to be linked with her somehow. I experienced something weird, almost like those horror movie stories... But the thing is that I still don't believe in God, more likely I believe in some kind of demons xD If u wish to hear my story I'll gladly tell u xD Sure I'd like to read your story. :) All of you have in mind I was very young when this happened xD Where I lived there was a house. People believed it was haunted. So at the time camera phones just appeared my friend bought one. So we decided to go to that house and check it out. We went into the house. I went upstairs when I heard something coming from the closet. I thought I saw something but when I opened nothing was there. Then a noise came from downstairs and I found my friend scared. I asked him what happened and he said he saw shadow wit bright eyes (blue was the color if I remember correctly)... We ran out of the house and I told him about the noises upstairs. We took a look at the window of the room I was in and there was a female face. He took the phone and took the picture. Then we ran like mad from there. When we were far away from that house we opened the picture on the phone just to see some kind of wraith on the pic. He quickly closed the pic, and when I told him to open it again it wouldn't open... Phone would just freeze. Then we went to his home and booted up the pc, moved pic to desktop and opened it. For a few seconds we looked at it and then computer shut down. It wouldn't turn on anymore. Later on we found out that processor burned down o.O Fuck we were scared. He fixed the PC, pic was nowhere to be found. Just few weeks ago I asked him if he remember and he just laughed, saying how stupid we were. It was all probably a coincidence XD I thought so from the start, but the pic of that wraith or whatever it was (maybe just play of shadows and old torn down curtains) is still haunting me. I need to visit that house again XD |
|
| Atheist. |
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| Hail Zeus. |
 |
akutasame94 said: Nazatin18 said: akutasame94 said: Nazatin18 said: Singateru said: one-more-time said: Nazatin18 said: 1. We jump to conclusions, interpreting the sound we hear as a footsteps. And it sounds like footsteps. Have you tried to check it where they come from? And most likely there's a different cause for that. Rats seem to use the same cadence as humans, so it would sound like a person walking. There can be plenty of explanations for odd sounds/footsteps. Like for instance panels shrink/expanding due to temperature/moisture, either flexing against each other or against cement. Don't jump straight to conclusion. Hearing odd sounds can be a sign of injury to the ear from noise or the first sign of progressive hearing loss. The feeling that your're being watched by somebody? Irrational Fear? When it comes to infrasound - you cannot consciously hear it, but your ears will sense it. Your mind is puzzled and cannot understand from where these inputs are coming from and it just screws your mind. 2. What makes you think that you would not start breathing after the second spank if there was no prayer before? People are too obsessed with finding connections between things. 3. What do you do when your prayer does not come true? And when it does, it's suddenly a God's work. Even if a prayer fails 999 times and comes true just once, a person will still think it's a God's will. I'll put my head any day on that that you'd find the cat even without the prayer. 4. There's a disconnect between your mind and body when you're going into or coming out of Rapid Eye Movement sleep, you may experience sleep paralysis or "walking dreams". In such dreams you are awake, but you seemingly can't move or are "paralyzed" as if you were asleep. During this sleep paralysis your mind can come up with different twisted hallucinations. People have witnessed aliens, ghosts and some had a sense that apocalypse is coming, or that they're being murdered. It's quite common experience. Nazatin18 said: 1.Bullshit. 2.Same as your 4th point. 3. http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/H/hearing-voices/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_voice_phenomenon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect Sound anomalies ... This doesn't prove God or anything like that. Don't jump to conclusion straight away. That proves that you're quite closed-minded individual, no offensive intended. damn you ruined all :( There is probably no way to get skeptics to believe even if they experience it themselves. My grandma is a pastor and probably all these things happening have to be linked with her somehow. I experienced something weird, almost like those horror movie stories... But the thing is that I still don't believe in God, more likely I believe in some kind of demons xD If u wish to hear my story I'll gladly tell u xD Sure I'd like to read your story. :) All of you have in mind I was very young when this happened xD Where I lived there was a house. People believed it was haunted. So at the time camera phones just appeared my friend bought one. So we decided to go to that house and check it out. We went into the house. I went upstairs when I heard something coming from the closet. I thought I saw something but when I opened nothing was there. Then a noise came from downstairs and I found my friend scared. I asked him what happened and he said he saw shadow wit bright eyes (blue was the color if I remember correctly)... We ran out of the house and I told him about the noises upstairs. We took a look at the window of the room I was in and there was a female face. He took the phone and took the picture. Then we ran like mad from there. When we were far away from that house we opened the picture on the phone just to see some kind of wraith on the pic. He quickly closed the pic, and when I told him to open it again it wouldn't open... Phone would just freeze. Then we went to his home and booted up the pc, moved pic to desktop and opened it. For a few seconds we looked at it and then computer shut down. It wouldn't turn on anymore. Later on we found out that processor burned down o.O Fuck we were scared. He fixed the PC, pic was nowhere to be found. Just few weeks ago I asked him if he remember and he just laughed, saying how stupid we were. It was all probably a coincidence XD I thought so from the start, but the pic of that wraith or whatever it was (maybe just play of shadows and old torn down curtains) is still haunting me. I need to visit that house again XD That is one awesome story and one house I'm going to have to check out also. |
| Freetrought- only way to fly baby. With all seriousness and all the crap left behind, human mind comes up things that are ---interesting. Drugs are very optional to achieve "state of mind" where one can leave their "normality" and think what's really important and whats not, etc. I have tried to explain my troughts to many people, but it seems if a human is happy enough what he/she believes, he/she doensnt/want to believe other point of views. |
 |
Nazatin18 said: Nordhau5 said: I know to you these might not be satisfactory explanations, but this is how I would explain your stories. 1. and 4. You see and here what you want, to an extent. Experiences such as the two you described are not uncommon, thanks to our popular culture. Psychology. 2. You just needed to be a proper slap, and by chance your grandmother was the one that delivered it. Being a pastor, I imagine she prays over everything important to her. Which implies that, with almost perfect certainty, she prays before something goes right. It equally implies that she prays before something goes wrong. However, psychology ensures that instances of unsuccessful praying are harder to recall. If I tell you the next card I draw from the deck is going to be the King of Hearts every single time I draw a card, I'm going to be right eventually and it's going to look miraculous when I am. 3. When something is at the front of your mind, you take more notice when you encounter it than you otherwise would. This leads you to believe that the event is actually occurring more frequently, but in reality it is not. You only register and remember what you pay attention to. Also psychology. It's important to remember that remarkable events must occur in your life and therefore do not require an explanation. Everyday experiences are average because you've had worse ones and better ones, by the definition of average. Due to the extreme randomness of life, you are likely to experience some things that are far above average. You may be tempted to call these instances miraculous, but when you consider that you experience essentially an infinite number of things, it is quite unsurprising that, on occasion, everything seems to align in your favor. Just as it would be unsurprising to see ten 1's in a row, were you to roll a dice a large number of times. I hope I'm not crossing any borders with any of this, that's not what I intend to do. Every other other point you've mentioned except your first point makes sense. The reason I'm saying this is because I wasn't in a sleep paralysis state when this happened. I haven't even fallen asleep yet. I was still fully conscious and I wasn't even tired. I was able to move and this thing just pops up out of nowhere. I wasn't terrified but I just wanted it gone. So i prayed and wind passes passed my ears. The window was even closed. I remember this event because it was amazing to see it. It was also unexpected. People who believed in ancient Gods could swear of seeing things from those Gods as much as you do. Others who believe in Aliens are absolutely certain that they've seen them. The human mind sees what it wishes to see. The doctors before i was born said to my mother that i was dead in her belly and actually my body was in pieces and they should remove me from her belly so she won't get infected. At least that's what their machines showed it seems. My mother refused, she was a religious person so i guess maybe she didn't like the idea or she just couldn't accept her child being dead but i assume she must have prayed. So i ended up being born some time later alive and in one piece to the great surprise of the doctors. But instead of my mother being happy she suddenly felt no love like i wasn't her child and wouldn't let them bring me to her, she didn't want to see me. In the end my father and doctors forced her to accept that i should be taken with them home but she wouldn't feed me or come close to me until one night she saw a dream where she was holding me while being chased by disfigured monster looking men trying to take me and while running i felt of her hands in black bottomless hole. She woke up yelling my name, that woke my father who went to check on me and found me chocking in black vomit and turned me around saving my life. The next day my mother decided to suddenly accept i was her child. Now i can ether believe god saved me somehow, or that maybe am the antichrist or i can just think that the doctors needed new machines and my mother was not right at her mind(maybe from the shock of expecting a dead child) and that my father who knew nothing about kids gave me some really shitty stuff to swallow down that night before he put me to sleep. |
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