Does the Supernatural exist?

I'm curious, vote on the poll please and let us palaver.

Well, you know me Toosey, i believe you've gotta leave space in your beliefs for 'the unknown' and 'the unknowable' and all that.

...but...

I'm not particularly sold on ghosts.

Here's a natty little proof of how one type of ghost-experience can be generated.

Basically, there are certain types of 'vibration' that cause certain body parts like the eye to vibrate subtly, triggering a 'someone or something is nearby' type of feeling. The natural response, having turned round a few times, is to assume some nigh-invisible presence is about the place. [It can even cause the appearance of a blurred 'shape' to appear at the periphary of vision - as well as other unsettling physical effects]

Apparently, this is one of the many types of vibration that they make sure don't occur in cars. Which is handy, coz not only does it means your windows don't rattle on long journeys, it means you also don't spend the entire time convinced there's someone sitting on the empty back seat .

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Generally, i'm not sold on ideas of afterlife etc. As for other Supernatural stuff, what sort of thing were you thinking of?

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I believe the human mind can only percieve so much. We can only process a certain frameset of information and that's that. I don't know what is beyond our perception, but whatever lays beyond the wall of human thought might as well be dubbed the supernatural.

Be it ghosts or the past inhabitants of the universe who exist betwixt the particles of the twilight, I don't deny the possibility simply because not everyone is capable of being aware of it. I have great faith in genetic variation and I find it perfectly acceptable that some people were born more prone to recieving the unknown than others. It could be the next step in evolution for all we know.

That said, I think a lot of people tend to make **** up.

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My parents are convinced that the house I was born in was haunted. They've told me stories, not 100% convinced, but I've not seen enough proof to make up my mind either way.
Had plenty of bad experiences involving spirits, especially vodka.......yup I've cracked that one before!!!!

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Toga, toga, toga......


Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbour?

Of course the Supermarket exists! I was there just yesterday and bought me some milk and a loaf of bread among other things. Lovely people too!

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

No. When you die, you die. Believe it.

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We're soldiers. Soldiers don't go to hell. It's war. Soldiers, they kill other soldiers. We're in a situation where everybody involved knows the stakes. And if you're gonna accept those stakes... You gotta do certain things. It's business, we're soldiers. We follow codes... Orders.

You've addressed one item in the catalog of things that could be considered 'supernatural'. What about the rest?

Also, while most of modern day science as well as most of conventional wisdom allows for the possibility of the existence of things outside our realm of six senses, you stand firm in your belief that these things in FACT do not exist. Care to tell us why?


OG- I like your brain.

Darth, pour me three fingers and let us transcend the physical

Nope.

I had to go with maybe, though I lean towards the negative....

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This is an interesting question, but not as interesting as the answers. I find the reason people generally say "no" is because they've simply resolved not to believe in anything unempirical; there's no scientific proof of anything supernatural, so why should I believe in it?

This appears very sensible at first, but I don't think that it is. Something supernatural, by definition, must exist outside of science. If it were measurable or observable or empirically demonstrable, it would cease to be supernatural. Therefore, saying that you don't believe in the supernatural because it can not be scientifically proven is really just a roundabout way of saying that you don't believe in the supernatural, period. You start with the assumption that nothing outside of the natural can exist, and since the definition of supernatural falls outside of that, you don't believe in it. There's no real reason; just a presupposition about what can and cannot exist. It's a slightly dressed up way of saying "that's just not the sort of thing I believe in."

Anyway, I went with "yes," if only because it's a broad enough term to encompass any sort of spirit, soul, life force or deity.

Who said that?

I went with maybe .

No one here. It's just the reason I most often hear when this topic comes up, and I can't really recall hearing any other reason.

I voted 'yes', which might suprise those here that know me.

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Ay, sure. For those who insist all supernatural phenomenon are impossible. That'd be their stance.

But at the same time, it's good to have reasons for believing in things isn't it? Or at least, to have a sliding scale... (From 'almost certainly isn't true'...to...'almost certainly is' . In the case of the vibrating-ghost-sensation, i'd say there's almost certainly no ghost activity involved )

(It's so cute when you argue for lack-of proof being a good thing btw )

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EDIT
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Incidently (and smoothly ignoring Djangles as he exhibits the classic symptoms you were talking about)...

I just wanna delve into your argument a bit more...

Well, to presuppose the existence of the supernatural without evidence would also seems to lack a firm 'reason' too. . Just saying . Both sides are guilty of presupposition there.

I think what's bugging me about your stance here tho is that: Reasonable scientists don't assume that just because they can't test something it doesn't or can't exist. I know you didn't directly accuse the science world of that kind of mind-set, but it kind of felt like you were.

Amongst the less-extreme practitioners of the scientific method, there's a lot of acceptance of the unknown, and the unknowable - and the Supernatural fits in those kind of categories very nicely indeed .

Altho i'll admit that scientists do find it 'psychologically appealing' to try and forget about those type things

[or whatever that phrase was that we used to knock back and forth ]

Sure... in fact, the tooth fairy is telling me right now that it does exist!

I guess it all comes down to whether you believe in fairies...

I'll explain my reason for answering "no," then. Although, it should be said that because "supernatural" is such a broad term (and so difficult to define), one cannot - in my opinion - answer either way, lest they begin to generalize. But for the sake of wanting to post something, I answered.

When we're talking about fairly tangible, grounded supernatural phenomena (apparitions, weeping paintings, cryptids, spontaneous human combustion), I've done a considerable amount of research. and I've found that most sources claiming the validity of these things don't really take into consideration the discrepancies (they just simply promote the "mystery" of it all, or ignore them altogether).

For example, one guy claiming that spontaneous human combustion was a real phenomena couldn't explain the frequency of victims who smoked, were elderly or incapacitated, or used oxygen units for breathing (or all of those together). He also couldn't accept the likelihood that the residual body parts - usually a foot - were left because most victims burned sitting, and fire naturally burns up the body. His biggest argument rested on the fact that the victims didn't get up and run around (in fact, many of them were resting in their beds). Many of the victims, again, were incapacitated, but others were not. They didn't die from burning to death, though. They most likely died from smoke inhalation - and it's been scientifically proven that when one is sleeping deeply, pain receptors on the body also rest (otherwise, all our rolling around and kicking in bed would keep us up all night). This evidence was collected and presented by Joe Nickell, a CSICOP researchers here in Kentucky.

With ghosts, I read an article recently about a chemist who was working in his lab late at night, and who experienced all the standard "ghost" symptoms: irrational fear, cold sweat, flushed hands, hair standing up, and of course, the grey, disappearing apparition. Being a scientist, though, he studied what happened, and found that an internal fan in the lab wasn't circulating electromagnetic waves properly. It's been scientifically documented that an over-exposure of electromagnetic waves can cause anxiety, fluxuations in body temperature (cold sweating), and even hallucinations. The chemist had the fan repaired, and he never had another experience. For my money, this experience seems to explain more than the majority of ghost sightings.

When we're talking about the religious supernatural (not including weeping paintings, stigmata, and the Shroud of Turin), we're talking about purely subjective material. The whole point of believing or not believing in something is because it works for you, makes sense to you, improves your life, etc. Saying you don't believe in God is just as credible as saying you do, because one can't prove either way. In fact, believing that something isn't makes just as much sense as believing that something is.

I don't know about others, but here's how I feel:

I don't assume that anything unproven does or doesn't exist. But I do understand that something might exist, or it might not. Because of that, I think believing in something because it could be true is the same as not believing in something because it could be false. I lean toward the latter, and it's a matter of who I am, and what makes sense to me.

Check the link in my first post for that very guy's publication on his discovery...

I don't think Yods was particularly hitting at people with our mindset, but he provoked the same reaction in me .

I couldn't open it (it's a PDF file, and I don't have Reader here at home), but yeah, I think that's the one. The title sounds familiar.

Oh, I know he wasn't attacking anyone, and I wasn't defending myself. I was just trying to explain why I answered "no," and why that's a perfectly acceptable reason.

'Tis why I used the term supernatural instead of being more specific. The whole idea came about at Thanksgiving when people were having a ghost discussion in my back yard. Some one said that they didn't believe in the supernatural at all and I had to ask him then why he feels compelled to go to church every Sunday.

After some uncomfortable foot shuffling, we headed to the garage refrigerator for beers instead of finishing that conversation.

So, I decided to test it here.

Oh, the 'fairy' comment is retarded.

There is of course the reason of believing that everything can in fact be scientifically proven, sooner or later. Which is more open minded than just calling the so called supernatural humbug. You admit to the fact that something extraordinary has happened and even if it can't be explained right now, it probably will or can be in due time.

I have a friend who's a member of UFO Sverige ("UFO Sweden"). When they get a report of a unexaplainable sighting of some sort, they send one of their members out there. If the member does not find any valid natural explanation for the "thing" (they have some sort of checklist, I suppose), it is officially dubbed a UFO.

In other words, those who believe in the Supernatural often do so for romantic reasons. They don't seek natural explanations because that would take away the reason to why they pay so much interest in these things - the excitement for the unknown and unexplainable. Instead of trying to explain the unexplainable (or, rahter, the things hard to explain) or acknowledging those things that might offer an explanation, they choose to settle with "we can't explain this!".

I'm not saying that ghosts or spirits or other supernatural elements or phenomenons definitely do not exist. I'm probably more critical of those who seek out arguments to glorify the myths and ignore the facts or underlying reasons. I think these people are often not the ones who actually see supernatural things but the ones who go around looking for them or interviewing those who do experience this kind of things. Like a news reporter who's written the story beforehand.

I have never witnessed anything that I would call supernatural. They say that some people are open for these things and some are not, and some people for sure seem to see things on a regular basis. I probably lean towards the opinion that people simply have different personalities and people can see the exact same thing but react to it in completely different ways. I guess something really odd has to happen to me for me to call it supernatural.