Do you believe in the Paranormal?

Sinfonia

Just wondering about the opinions on this from the gen pop of AH...
(Would be kinda redundant in the Paranormal forum/Skeptics Corner)

Personally, I don't. If a rational explanation is even possible or conceivable, I will put much more stock in that. The only thing I've always wondered about is they some dogs go and sit by the front door a few minutes before someone arrives home. Even the answer to that wouldn't necessarily be paranormal, just a part of physics that I don't understand...

Anyway. Whatch'all think?

Mickeroo

If the paranormal was real it wouldn't require belief.

CardBordWindow

Have you not seen Paranormal Activity!?
Don't piss off the spirits!!

epgc3fyqirnbsx

I believe in paralegals

HazDanz

My rational brain says no but in saying that I wouldn't want to say definitively no in case freaky ghost twins or something start appearing at the end of my bed.

xzanti

Mickeroo wrote: »

If the paranormal was real it wouldn't require belief.

Could say the same for religion.

Amirani

Nope, why would you believe in something for which there is no evidence?

Amirani

xzanti wrote: »

Could say the same for religeon.

And it would be just as accurate...

Bipolar Joe

I like the idea, but I like it when things have decent science to back up claims. I know a girl who's dead into paranormal sh!te, I pissed her off, I think, when I told her about the prevailing theory for those "Ghostly moments" where you feel like there's a spirit or whatever in the room. Fence sitting at its most extreme, but the thing with this junk is for the most part you'll never know because of how the idea is set up.

niamhsiobhan

Mickeroo wrote: »

If the paranormal was real it wouldn't require belief.

That's actually a really good point, never thought about it like that. I would generally say probably not, nothing odd has ever happened to me. You hear some people's stories and a lot could have real explanations. Having said that I've also heard a few I couldn't logically explain in my head, then again stories is all they may be . . .

Mickeroo

xzanti wrote: »

Could say the same for religeon.

Religion requires belief in a lot of the paranormal imo.

Saila

niallsparky wrote: »

Nope, why would you believe in something for which there is no evidence?

like some sort of.... god

epgc3fyqirnbsx

Colonel Mustard in the library with the spanner

Biggins

No.

strokemyclover

It's all a sham. Too easy to get some folks to believe in it all though. I'd like to see more than flickering lights and a shaking table before I'd vote Yes

Dude111

I most certianly do

Duggy747

Nope

It would be cool if it was real, because if I became a ghoul when I died I'd just go to the cinema / gigs / perv on women / scare people I don't like all the time. :pac:

Mickeroo

It always irks me when I hear people saying things like "oh but so many people have witnessed <insert paranormal phenomena here> there has to be some truth to some of it, we don't really know."

IMO this book should be on the school curriculum.

Sinfonia

I'd just like to say at this point, that it seems that once a religion debate occurs in an AH thread, it takes it over and the thread gets locked.
Let's just take it for granted that many people will equate belief in the paranormal to religious beliefs and leave that there.

/tyranny
...If that's ok

MetalDog

I've an uncle who is an exorcist . . . . every time he visits our house, all the spirits seem to mysteriously disappear.

HUNK

Dude111 wrote: »

I most certianly do

Interesting. May I ask why?

Yes, I do.

Wibbs

I believe there are many things beyond our understanding at the moment, that might be confused with the paranormal, but in time we'll understand and then they'll become normal. I certainly don't dismiss individuals experiences out of hand. I myself have seen a "ghost" even though I don't believe in ghosts as they're explained away by more believing folk. But I did directly perceive something. That someting may be my brainfart(which is cool in of itself and worthy of a further why) or maybe be an observable objective reality(which may be "real" or explainable even as a reality). There may well be something to it. There certainly is on the subjective front, but discovery may make it an objective reality. If it doesn't then cool. Either way something is to always to be discovered.

Chuck Stone

I believe ther is plenty of stuff that science has not yet discovered but as for spooks and shit like that?

Fuck no.

Saila

Wibbs wrote: »

I believe there are many things beyond our understanding at the moment, that might be confused with the paranormal, but in time we'll understand and then they'll become normal. I certainly don't dismiss individuals experiences out of hand. I myself have seen a "ghost" even though I don't believe in ghosts as they're explained away by more believing folk. But I did directly perceive something. That someting may be my brainfart(which is cool in of itself and worthy of a further why) or maybe be an observable objective reality(which may be "real" or explainable even as a reality). There may well be something to it. There certainly is on the subjective front, but discovery may make it an objective reality. If it doesn't then cool. Either way something is to always to be discovered.

or it could just have been an hallucination

Aodan83

No, but that doesn't mean that if I'm in the house on my own, watching a scary film won't give me the heebie-jeebies!

tfitzgerald

Yes I do . No smoke with out fire and all that there are just too many ghost storys/sightings one or two of them must be true.

jpm4

tfitzgerald wrote: »

Yes I do . No smoke with out fire and all that there are just too many ghost storys/sightings one or two of them must be true.

why must one or two be true if the several thousand other sightings are false?

Amhran Nua

Chuck Stone wrote: »

I believe ther is plenty of stuff that science has not yet discovered but as for spooks and shit like that?

Fuck no.

I'm fairly sure that there is plenty of stuff that science has not only not discovered yet, but has completely failed to imagine yet. Only a short while ago, believing in invisible rays that would let you communicate with people around the world in seconds would have been laughable.

The book is very far from closed yet.

VenusPlays

I'm happy to say I'm not sure. I love that there are things in this life we cannot yet explain and I love that sometime someone might be able to. There should always be mystery and the unknown to drive brilliant minds to want to find out.

Wibbs

Saila wrote: »

or it could just have been an hallucination

Hence I mentioned and noted Brainfart and subjective and lots of "mays".

tfitzgerald

jpm4 wrote: »

why must one or two be true if the several thousand other sightings are false?

I didn't say that the rest were false I said that with all the sightings some of them must be real they all can't be false IMHO

allydylan

i believe in ghosts but that's about as far as it goes when it comes to paranormal stuff i believe in

Sinfonia

tfitzgerald wrote: »

I didn't say that the rest were false I said that with all the sightings some of them must be real they all can't be false IMHO

It's the logic that's disagreeable.

If enough people told you they had seen a UFO/Unicorn/Flying Human Being/A Penguin with the head of a horse would you believe that they must exist because "one or two" claims must be real?
How many claims must there be in order for you to believe it?

yesno1234

HazDanz wrote: »

My rational brain says no but in saying that I wouldn't want to say definitively no in case freaky ghost twins or something start appearing at the end of my bed.

Twins eh?

Sinfonia

allydylan wrote: »

i believe in ghosts but that's about as far as it goes when it comes to paranormal stuff i believe in

Which is pretty far!

fonecrusher1

No i don't believe in ghosts, zombies, lochness monster, fairies, spirits, religion, goblins, orcs, poltergeists, spectres, bigfoot etc.

allydylan

Sinfonia wrote: »

Which is pretty far!

i have reason to believe in them, and no i'm not crazy

wolf moon

No.

Obelisk

I done the ouija board last week. True story

jpm4

tfitzgerald wrote: »

I didn't say that the rest were false I said that with all the sightings some of them must be real they all can't be false IMHO

Do you believe in the Loch Ness monster? Huge amount of sightings down through the years, no solid evidence whatsoever.

fonecrusher1

jpm4 wrote: »

Do you believe in the Loch Ness monster? Huge amount of sightings down through the years, no solid evidence whatsoever.

Thats because the people who say they have 'seen' this imaginary creature really want to believe it exists.

And yes you could say the same thing about religious folk.

jpm4

fonecrusher1 wrote: »

Thats because the people who say they have 'seen' this imaginary creature really want to believe it exists.

And yes you could say the same thing about religious folk.

yup pretty much and the same with ghosts.

Chuck Stone

I have a soft spot for banshees because I think it's a loverly part of our folklore.

carfiosaoorl

yes definitely, I believe

Asphyxia

In a way I do! I was brought up with a very old fashion father with all his old sayings and superstitions, between him and my grandfather they had scary ghost stories :eek: Somethings can still play on my mind when I'm in my house alone at night :rolleyes:

fonecrusher1

Asphyxia wrote: »

In a way I do! I was brought up with a very old fashion father with all his old sayings and superstitions, between him and my grandfather they had scary ghost stories :eek: Somethings can still play on my mind when I'm in my house alone at night :rolleyes:

How true. I find you & your post delightful.

UsernameInUse

Yes, I do. And the bastard has been taking more money out of my account lately. I swear this just all started happening over the last couple of months. You'd think he'd leave me with a couple of bob, particularly since we got to pay back the Europeans.

OneArt

I think all paranormal phenomena that happens has a scientific explanation behind it. Even if it turns out that the likes of ghosts or telekinesis or telepathy is real, I think then there are scientific laws of which we are ignorant which make it possible.

I always go for the most rational explanation, but I wouldn't rule out ghosts existing just because there's no scientific explanation for them (yes, I know a lot of ghost experiences have perfectly normal explanations). Who knows, some things considered paranormal today may be considered normal science in the future.

Da Shins Kelly

Like almost everyone, I've heard spooky stories and such, and my grandmother was quite the believer in this kind of stuff and used to warn me and my brother to stay away from certain places because of weird sh*t happening. Despite that, no, I would be inclined to believe it's all a load of sh*t.

kylith

I don't believe in the paranormal; I believe in cold reading, hot reading, confirmation bias and the capacity for the human mind to be tricked. How many times have you thought you saw a spider only for it to be a bit of fluff or dirt?