[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Pit thread
[/QUOTE]
No, no, no! MPSIMS, not the Pit! 
[QUOTE=lekatt]
Can you see that believing in everything is the same as believing in nothing?
[/QUOTE]
Aw, that one finally got through to you, so much so that you’ve adopted it as your own!
Sorry I’m late; I don’t really hang around GD.
[QUOTE=samarm]
Interesting point, Sampiro. Maybe things that we would call “paranormal”, are actual events which can be explained by some as yet undiscovered laws of the natural world. Its possible that in 100 years time scientists will be able to debunk a lot of what people might call hauntings and supernatural events.
[/QUOTE]
My sentiments exactly; the original definition of “paranormal”.
By the way, all you Sylvia haters should get a kick out of this: Robert Lancaster (of Stop Sylvia Brown) attended one of her Vegas acts.
[QUOTE=lekatt]
I remember reading about a study by Psychology Today magazine. They sent questionnaires out to thousands and they showed 5% of the people who returned them heard voices.
[/QUOTE]
Which says a boatload about people who answer magazine surveys.
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
So, it is always possible that there is no afterlife, (the “light” could be the spirit’s perception of annihilation*), and learning that there are ghosts wandering about would simply give people false hope.
[/QUOTE]
Huh? And how is going to the movies and kissing girls after your death not an afterlife?
[QUOTE=clairobscur]
Huh? And how is going to the movies and kissing girls after your death not an afterlife?
[/QUOTE]
“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”
[QUOTE=meenie7]
The next time my best friend and I are together, we will conduct a test on Marcus for our own curiosity. (He lives in California now and I don’t see him as often as I’d like.) Marcus says he will commit to that at least. The bigger stuff, he doesn’t have a problem doing, but he worries about me, in the event the test “fails” and I am embarrassed as a liar or a crazy person.
[/QUOTE]
If you’re interested, there is a parapsychology program at the University of Virginia that might be interested in your experiences. They will also safeguard your identity, so there is no possibility of embarrassment:
Thought I’d mention it, since if they did want to learn more about your experiences, it would be a way to help increase understanding of this kind of thing without compromising your wish that your friends and family won’t know about Marcus.
[QUOTE=Frank]
“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”
[/QUOTE]
Indeed it isn’t. 
Marcus is laughing at that.
[QUOTE=ivan astikov]
Hands up all those who think meenie is cheating mankind, by refusing to have his experiences independently tested? I’d have thought natural curiosity alone, would have caused meenie to have had his ‘haunting’ verified somehow?
[/QUOTE]
Hand promptly raised.
To scratch head.
The desire for privacy does not need to be defended. Is there nothing people won’t be judgmental about?
I am beginning to think those who hold that a Scientist is an adherent to Scientism have a point.
[QUOTE=j666]
Hand promptly raised.
To scratch head.
The desire for privacy does not need to be defended. Is there nothing people won’t be judgmental about?
I am beginning to think those who hold that a Scientist is an adherent to Scientism have a point.
[/QUOTE]
What happened to fighting ignorance? I thought extraordinary claims required extraordinary proof? Those of us who are interested in the concept have merely politely asked meenie to do a very simple test, and she is under no obligation whatsoever to listen to any of our requests.
[QUOTE=ivan astikov]
What happened to fighting ignorance? I thought extraordinary claims required extraordinary proof? Those of us who are interested in the concept have merely politely asked meenie to do a very simple test, and she is under no obligation whatsoever to listen to any of our requests.
[/QUOTE]
And she said in post #218 that she’d conduct a test. Just not this minute.
[QUOTE=begbert2]
And she said in post #218 that she’d conduct a test. Just not this minute.
[/QUOTE]
I apologise to meenie if I am coming across as very pushy. It’s just a little frustrating, when a potential paradigm shift for mankind could be resting on meenies experiences being proven beyond mere stagecraft. I dismiss the idea of a god because I see little sign of the ‘miraculous’ in this world we inhabit. Everything is bounded by ‘nature’, and truly wonderous, world-view changing ideas are relegated to the realm of mumbo-jumbo land.
[QUOTE=ivan astikov]
What happened to fighting ignorance? I thought extraordinary claims required extraordinary proof? Those of us who are interested in the concept have merely politely asked meenie to do a very simple test, and she is under no obligation whatsoever to listen to any of our requests.
[/QUOTE]
Since when is fighting ignorance equivalent to accusing people of moral turpitude?
Some have accused meenie of doing harm by sharing a story s/he was invited to share.
The topic of the OP was [very loosely] if you believe in the paranormal, why?
To suggest that meenie is somehow immoral for sharing the story, and refusing to meet an anonymous challenge, the results of which would not be believed if positive is …
… the kind of tactics perfectly designed for perpetuating ignorance.
[QUOTE=katpohl]
I started looking/searching on the Internet for psychic sites about 4 years after my daughter passed ,there is no explanation why ‘all the sudden’ I became interested in the subject, but I found a site that seemed less wacko’ then most of them and started hanging out in the chat room on the site. On eveing a 'reader 'from Scotland ask me if he could ‘read me’ , I said sure not having a clue what he meant by ‘read me’ .On this site no reading can be done without a third person in the reading and it had to be a mod , so the reader tells me which reading room in chat to go to, I get there and there is the reader and a mod there. Chat is all in text on this site.
[/QUOTE]
Could you IM/email me this site? I’d like to do a little reading there.
[QUOTE=meenie7]
The next time my best friend and I are together, we will conduct a test on Marcus for our own curiosity. (He lives in California now and I don’t see him as often as I’d like.) Marcus says he will commit to that at least. The bigger stuff, he doesn’t have a problem doing, but he worries about me, in the event the test “fails” and I am embarrassed as a liar or a crazy person.
[/QUOTE]
Good. I was going to suggest this. Marcus may not be comfortable being tested, so easing him into it by appearing when another person is present may be the right approach.
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Second, nothing that meenie7 can do will “prove” the existence of Marcus (except to meenie7. No matter what evidence is proferred, someone will figure out a way to dismiss it. That is neither here not there regarding the reality of meenie7’s experiences, but it means that demands for proof are a waste of time. No one on this board is going to accept the word of another poster that some third party has verified meenie7’s tests and if the tests failed, they could actually be because Marcus did not want to be put on display, was afraid of cameras, felt meenie7 was betraying a trust, or for some other reason.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, one of the standard lines used to handwave aside criticisms of nonsense like ghosts, psychic powers, and God. The people who want evidence of something that so totally contradicts what we know of the world are all bad people. They can’t possibly be dismissive because it’s an idea that’s logically inconsistant or violates known physical laws - they are True Believers in anti-ghostism or whatever who will deny any and all evidence. Instead of being skeptics who are dismissive of such beliefs because there’s never been any evidence for them to reject.
This is simply another example of a “jealous phenomenon”; something that convieniently only appears in front of people who already believe in it. And as such things always are, it’s garbage - real oddball events don’t carefully avoid skeptics and chase people who are believers.
[QUOTE=meenie7]
The next time my best friend and I are together, we will conduct a test on Marcus for our own curiosity. (He lives in California now and I don’t see him as often as I’d like.) Marcus says he will commit to that at least. The bigger stuff, he doesn’t have a problem doing, but he worries about me, in the event the test “fails” and I am embarrassed as a liar or a crazy person.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for this - I wish you luck and look forward to hearing the results, if you choose to share.
[QUOTE=j666]
Hand promptly raised.
To scratch head.
The desire for privacy does not need to be defended. Is there nothing people won’t be judgmental about?
I am beginning to think those who hold that a Scientist is an adherent to Scientism have a point.
[/QUOTE]
She absolutely has the right to privacy. And yes, I am judgemental about people who are willing to share their earth-shattering experiences on the internet but won’t conduct a simple test (that can be done privately) to verify it.
Nobody here has demanded she go on TV and do this in front of the world.
If you post in ‘Great Debates’ on ‘The Straight Dope’ about these kinds of things - do you really expect it NOT to be challenged?
She’d have been ripped limb from limb if she had posted it on the JREF site! Those hard-core skeptics are an ornery old bunch!