Ha! Reminds me of the scene in Ghostbusters when Jeanine asks Winston all those questions before he’s hired…
“As long as there is a steady paycheck in it, I’ll believe whatever you want.”
I don’t believe in Peter Pan
Frankenstein or Superman
I’d like to know if the people who stated their disbelief in ghosts, ESP, aliens, etc. due to the lack of scientific evidence believe in God. I think that there are alot of things that happen in this world that are just unexplainable. I’ve witnessed things that I cannot shrug off to be something easily explained.
I’ve had dreams that later on basically come true, right down to the smallest detail. I’ve had Deja vu happen to me, I’ve never been able to understand that phenomenon! I’ve made a decision in a split second that saved me from great harm or even death but no reasoning behind why I made that decision. Sure some of this stuff could be brushed off as coincidence, but that’s too easy. I’ve woken up during open heart surgery to see myself lying on the operating table and hearing the surgeon and nurses talking and hearing the anesthesiologist gasp “Her eyes are open!” and then suddenly the next thing I know I’m waking up in ICU with my parents starting down at me with tears in their eyes. No one brought up near death experiences.
I’m curious why religious beliefs seem to not fall under the same scientific scrutiny…
(back to lurk mode…)
I believe that life exists out there somewhere; whether it has achieved “intelligence”, I’m not so sure (I’m not so sure we’ve achieved intelligence…). If space-faring aliens do exist, I’m sure they have better things to do than midnight fly-bys through cow country in spaceships shaped like pie tins.
And, as a minor nitpick (hey, we’re all about fighting ignorance, right?), there were no aquatic dinosaurs. Neither plesiosaurs, pliosaurs nor icthyosaurs were dinosaurs. Nessie, no matter what it might be if real, isn’t a dino.
On the other hand, God did appear to Oral Roberts and threaten to “call him home” if he didn’t raise a million bucks. When was the last time Bigfoot tried to extort money from a celebrity?
I’m confused. Does basically true mean 100% true or somewhat true? If it’s only somewhat true, it’s not right down to the smallest detail. Besides which, dreams are strange things, often fuzzy and rarely remembered in great detail. You may be misremembering the dream, making it feel as if a similar dream is coming true.
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My first thought would be instinct. Self-preservation can be a strong driving force in decision-making emergencies.
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Why is that too easy? There are coincidences in the world. When I call my girlfriend and the phone is busy, only to hang up and have my phone ring because she’s calling me, does that imply a psychic link behind me and the SO or is it just a coincidence? I think it’s the latter.
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Quite often they do. Most people who follow the scientific method do not believe in the existence of God. See the end of obfusciatrist’s post.
I allow myself one indulgence when it comes to believing in such things: Bigfoot. I know in my heart of hearts that the big guy is out there.
I am almost positive there’s some kind of extraterrestrial life out there in the universe. As for it visiting Earth, eh…not too sure. Maybe, maybe not.
As for all the other stuff, show me proof and I’ll believe it (skeptically), but until then, I can’t say it’s absolutely absurd, but I won’t say I believe in it either.
I do know one thing though, something in the damn house had to eat all of those 100 tea sandwiches and I’m *pretty *sure it wasn’t the dog 
I could be wrong though.
My parents took me to Church, so I could make up my own mind. I studied the Bible enough to win the Religious Studies prize at School.
Then, when I was still a teenager, I applied scientific method to religion.
No evidence of the Resurrection, just a bunch of accounts written 30-100 years afterwards. No intervention by God on Earth in 2000 years.
So I’m an agnostic.
Just because coincidence is easy to suggest as an explanation doesn’t mean it’s not the answer.
OK, billions of people dream every night. A few of them dream of airplanes crashing. If, ** by coincidence ** a plane crashes the next day, they announce “I’m psychic!”
It helps (mathematically) if you write down all your dreams and see how many are absurd.
If you have a dream that doesn’t happen, no one says “This proves the world is explicable.” But that happens all the time. Because it’s so normal, you don’t pay it any attention.
Deja Vu is certainly unsettling. But no one ever comes up and says “Why did you do that twice?” or “Look what just happened to you!” So it’s almost certainly just an internal hiccup.
We make decisions all the time, based on experience, conscious and unconscious stimuli. How do you know that some ‘paranormal’ effect saved your life? Where’s the evidence?
Remember James Randi’s offer of $1,000,000 for any proof of psychic powers is still unclaimed. Easily the most convincing argument for a scientific world I’ve ever heard!
I believe there are remains of ancient civilizations waiting to be rediscovered. Some really cool shit has been found in South America.
I believe in the existence of life elsewhere in the universe.
I think there is much to be found in the ocean. As has already been said.
The only realy far out thing that I believe in are Ghosts. It’s far fetched and there is no proof. I’ll claim ignorant on this one. Since I’m not trying to conivince anyone else, this belief is harmless.
I think that’s a great question. In my case, I believe in God, but I don’t expect Him (Her? Darn it, why doesn’t English have a gender-neutral personal pronoun?) to give rise to hypotheses that can be distinguished from a purely naturalistic explanation of the universe. In short, God isn’t a testable hypothesis, and so is outside the realm of science.
Just for the record:
I believe aliens are likely, but that it’s extremely unlikely they’re visiting us.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
I don’t believe in Nessie, but I think it makes a cool topic of conversation and I believe there are many large marine animals yet to be discovered.
I don’t know what the heck to think of crop circles, and probably won’t until I see one. I find supernatural explanations unlikely.
I don’t believe in mental powers, remote viewing, precognition and such.
I believe that Paul McCartney is alive.
I believe that there was a conspiracy regarding JFK’s assassination. Not sure who or why, but I don’t think Oswald was a lone nut. And the “Magic Bullet” is absolute hooey.
I believe extraterrestrial beings exist, and they’ve probably done a few drive-bys. There’s just too much space for us to be alone. But I have a very hard time believing that they abduct folks from lonely country roads & stick tools up said abductees butts.
I believe Elvis, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix are all dead, and I don’t believe that foul play was involved in the deaths of any of them.
I believe that the government is mostly okay. I believe that there’s stuff that they don’t tell us about, but I also believe that most of that stuff is better off kept secret.
I believe that the Face on Mars is a bunch of rocks that caught the light just right.
I believe we did land on the moon. More than once.
I believe that some people are more sensitive than others, and know things that they shouldn’t know, but I believe that John Edward is a crock.
I believe that the God of Abraham exists, but I don’t believe that He is the only God. I believe that there are many Gods and Goddesses. I believe that magick, like prayer, sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. And I believe that if you think magick/prayer works, it might. If you don’t believe it works, it won’t.
I believe that more often than not, medicine works better & faster than natural/herbal remedies, but natural/herbal remedies aren’t hooey.
I also believe that my beliefs are just that–my beliefs. I could be wrong about any or all of them.
That deer doesn’t count because…um… it’s really ugly!
Sure, why not. If I’m right then I simply have a higher sense of awareness of my surroundings and if I’m not then I’m just paranoid. Is that the idea?
Now I have an image of Bobby Sue hearing strange noises it the back and going out to investigate, where she finds her husband Jimbo and his drinkin’ buddy Cletus naked in the toolshed.
Bobby Sue: Jimbo! Why whut the hell are y’all doin’ out here in the middle of the night?! And why do you have a hammer in your ass?
Jimbo: It’s not whut it looks like, baby.
Cletus (removing a tire iron from his anus): Yeah, we wuz adbucted by aliens!
Jimbo: That’s right! Aliens! We wuz abducted by aliens and they took our clothes and greased us up and did these experiments on us! We didn’t do it ourselves!
Cletus: Oh yeah, definitely not our idea. Wuz them damn commie aliens.
After I saw Oliver Stone’s JFK I went online and searced a bunch of Universities servers for JFK info, curious to see how liberal Stone was with the facts. Turns out, he was inventive to the point that it turned my stomach.
I’m not sure what to believe now, but the Magic Bullet theory was widely discussed on all the sites I visited. They all made the trajectories work because the guy in front of (who was holding the hat and got shot in the wrist) Kennedy was sitting towards the middle of the seat instead of towards the outside (this is true, they backed it up with the photos of the shooting and the caravan before the shooting).
I’m not sure what to believe about the bullet, either, but it’s certainly not as whimsical or magical as some people make it out to be.
Like Crunchy’s post, I must say.
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I do place God under the same scientific scrutiny as everything else. I find that there is no theoretic necessity for god to exist (the reason electrons were believed to exist before more tangible evidence was found). I also find that the evidence that god exists anyway is weak.
Combining the two, I see no reason to think there is a god. Dogs obviously exist, even if we have no theoretical reason for why they must exist. The explanatory need for electrons was strong enough that assuming their existence was not irrational, even lacking observed evidence.
Give me tangible evidence of existence for god or a convincing theory for why it must exist and I will start to consider that my atheism may be wrong.
Problem is that the theory has the bullet entering JFKs back and exiting out his neck.
The DOCTOR who examined the back wound put his pinky in and said he could feel the end. In other words the wound in the back did not go through. The Warren Report writers decided to throw away this bit of testimony to make the theory fit.
I like Crunchy’s post as well.
We could spend years on this subject (and others already have). The best I can suggest for anyone who doubts Oswald’s sole culpability in the killing of Kennedy but is actually willing to look at the facts is to read Case Closed by Gerald Posner. Posner does something few other people have done; look at all the evidence. For example, he reviews the statements (given at the time, not years later) of the dozens of witnesses who actually watched Oswald point a rifle at Kennedy and shoot him.
How can there be witnesses who saw Oswald as he shot Kennedy that were never brought forward? You think the people trying to prove Oswald did it would’ve used them.