Why We Believe

This is a terribly biased piece of journalism that oozes with souless intellecual pomposity. Who are we to assume that our manmade scientific method is some universal dogma from which all of existience must be judged? Isn't that just another form of religion?

This is a terribly biased piece of journalism that oozes with
soulless intellectual pomposity.
-Chad

Rational and well thought out article. I think however that another side of the story could have been told. If you pay careful attention to the environment around you, numerous things can be perceived that cannot be easily explained by science. In my life some of them have been so profound as to confer with certainty that there is another side of existence that intersects in some way with the world as we know it. Most scientists such as myself have a routine which we go through every day that enables us to get challenging work done. This routine requires very selective attention and cognitive focus which shuts out any irrelevant noise from the environs. I believe skeptics are in this mode all of the time and in fact are very close-minded people. They have a simple pat excuse for any event that deviates from the norm in any way. In most if not all instances I am willing to bet they did not ever investigate or explore the deviation beyond their simple assumptions. Fortuantely few people take this to the extremes that skeptics do and I tend to refer to their behavior as intellectual arrogance. When something unexpected occurs I consider and investigate all possible causes and even implausible ones and the vast majority of the time I find the real answer to the creak or bump. If no explanation is found I file the event away and look for patterns if any future events occur. I am willing to leave the event unexplained in my mind and assign a probability that it was paranormal. In other words I am comfortable with uncertainty if no simple explanation is found. Over time by cataloging unusual events you begin to put together pieces of a puzzle of a possible universe or reality that transects ours but of which we often cannot directly measure. An extreme example was when I was visiting distant relatives a few years after my uncle had died in his house. I was expecting no paranormal activity nor desired any. Nevertheless while speaking to my aunt in her kitchen I was forcefully poked in the lower back when clearly nobody was behind me. I had never experienced anythng like it before or since but this is exactly the kind of thing my uncle enjoyed doing when he was alive to his close relatives. There is absolutely no physical explanation or evidence for what I experienced leaving no doubt in my mind that it was paranormal. Despite even this experience, which has never been duplicated, I still maitain a healthy skepticism in the same vein as this article about claims of paranormal experiences, but there is no doubt that some form of existence continues after death in my mind.

It seems quite arrogant to think all that exists must meet scientific standards especially since very few reliable studies have flaws. Those who require reproduceable proof as seen in studies may not be capable of preceiving ghosts, UFOs or other paranormal. They may disregard the occurance or interpret / preceive the situation in a manner which is acceptable to them. Because a person is older and less social is not a reason to be more superstious, religious or have a greater belief in the paranormal. Maybe an older person is wiser, more accepting of the unknown and willing to accept that we don't have all the answers, that our personal experiences are valid as those which can be scientifically proven. Whether an experience is dis-believed by the scientific community does not mean that it didn't happen as the individual experienced it, only that those who wish to re-interpret the experience have difficulty coping with that which they can not prove through scientific devises, evaluation or reproduceable means. Kathryn in Michigan

I found this article to be extremely insiteful. As someone who has seen things myself i cannot explain, i feel it is of the upmost importance to maintain a skeptical view for the persuit of TRUTH rather than the persuit of a personal or selfish need to explain something that might not be there. Where as i respect people's opinions to beleive in what they want, I beleive more in the progress of humanity and what we as people need to do to not only see the world for what it is rather than what we want it to be. Funny enough I find myself more and more fascinated with the paranormal and esoteric thought process. I think it is important for every human being to question that which cannot be substantiated with imperical evidence, but not neccessarily shrugged off. We are no longer cavement, yet in order to understand the truth, even possible truth of some paranormal ideas, we must remain open minded in both the ideas of such claims of ghosts, etc as well as the possibility that they are nothing more than the power of our psyche.

I think this article was written by someone who has not had a personal experience of seeing someone that is dead that came back, I did. It was three days after a friend of mine died. He did not appear to me in a dream and I was not in between dreaming a waking. He woke me up, startled me, I shut my eyes real tight, opened them, he was still there, and I closed them again for a moment longer, opened them again, and he was gone. I wish I would have been brave enough to speak to him. I have dreamt of his since, but then I knew I was dreaming. Also, myself and some family members have seen the same image of a man that was glowing, his form is so clear you can tell that he has a crew cut hair style, and must have been in the military. Plus, there were a few times when I felt my bed being sat on by an invisible force. For whatever reason(ing) there are invisble beings that are here, they exist. It's not because of how the brain functions and when someone claims to be reincarnated I still have my doubts but I don't discredit what has happened to anyone else. I personally would not believe in ghosts... but the reality is there is other forms of existence, and Scientists try to explain how we all evolved from cosmic slop, they have a right to their beliefs... and I would like to once hear from a Scientist who has had an encounter with an invisible being explain what he/she actually saw. Or better yet I would like to hear from others who have had something climb in the bed with them, wake up with them pressing on their back, snoring. It happened to me... whatever it was, was snoring. At the time I had two boyfriends who had passed, one from drowning in the river, and another probably had a heart attack, in any event, I was terrified and refused to sleep in my room for half
a year. Now... I'm not afraid anymore, cause of the things that have occured. So, for those who don't believe, don't discredit those who do. Those who believe more than likely have had a personal experience or know someone near and dear to them that has and have made them believers.

I think this article was written by someone who has not had a personal experience of seeing someone that is dead that came back, I did. It was three days after a friend of mine died. He did not appear to me in a dream and I was not in between dreaming a waking. He woke me up, startled me, I shut my eyes real tight, opened them, he was still there, and I closed them again for a moment longer, opened them again, and he was gone. I wish I would have been brave enough to speak to him. I have dreamt of his since, but then I knew I was dreaming. Also, myself and some family members have seen the same image of a man that was glowing, his form is so clear you can tell that he has a crew cut hair style, and must have been in the military. Plus, there were a few times when I felt my bed being sat on by an invisible force. For whatever reason(ing) there are invisble beings that are here, they exist. It's not because of how the brain functions and when someone claims to be reincarnated I still have my doubts but I don't discredit what has happened to anyone else. I personally would not believe in ghosts... but the reality is there is other forms of existence, and Scientists try to explain how we all evolved from cosmic slop, they have a right to their beliefs... and I would like to once hear from a Scientist who has had an encounter with an invisible being explain what he/she actually saw. Or better yet I would like to hear from others who have had something climb in the bed with them, wake up with them pressing on their back, snoring. It happened to me... whatever it was, was snoring. At the time I had two boyfriends who had passed, one from drowning in the river, and another probably had a heart attack, in any event, I was terrified and refused to sleep in my room for half
a year. Now... I'm not afraid anymore, cause of the things that have occured. So, for those who don't believe, don't discredit those who do. Those who believe more than likely have had a personal experience or know someone near and dear to them that has and have made them believers.

The title of the article is "Why we believe in ESP, Ghost, Etc." yet it only says we believe in them because of our brain. They explain one thing with something that isn't full understood in itself. If I recall correctly, humans only use one tenth of their brain. What about the other nine tenths? Even if those numbers are wrong, I know that scientists don't know EVERYTHING about the human brain. So how can it be right to say that all those things happen because of the brain when we don't know fully what a brain is capable of? It's like answering a question with another question.

The title of the article is "Why we believe in E.S.P, Ghosts, Etc." yet it only answered that question by saying it is a function of the brain. Do we know everything there is to know about the brain? No. So they explained it something that is still completely unexplained in itself. If I recall correctly, a human uses only one tenth of the total brain power. That would mean that the other nine tenths is not used. How can it be said that all these things happen because of the brain when we don't fully know everything about the brain?

I think everybody has a 6th sense. To say we have 5, I think, is erroneous. It may be something paranormal, or it may be an all knowing bond a mother has with a child. When I was a child, I was much more intuitive that I am now as an adult. But I did have something odd happen about 25 years ago. I had a dream about my ex-boyfriend (the love of my life at that point in time) and had a feeling I'd see or hear from him. Sure enough about a month later I did. Some time past and again, I had another dream and I knew I'd be hearing from or seeing him again. Within a couple of weeks, I ran into him at a store. At that point, I knew I'd never see him again, and I never did. Unfortunately, I heard he passed away a couple of years ago.

well put perhaps.....except for ...spelling......if you are going to submit an opinion...spell the word correctly.....there is no "wiji" board....there is only a OUIJA board.

First of all...at least know how to spell....whatever your belief system may be. It is not "wiji" board.......it is ouija board.

-Sighs- This is my view point on the whole 'ghost' nonsense. I'm going to use wigi boards as an example. When people use a wigi board, it moves by itself. Why does it do that? There has to be something there besides the person using it to make it move. Static isn't enough to move a wooden board. My youth leader was telling us how he used a wigi board before he turned to Christ as his Savior. Him and a couple of his college buddies were messing around with one, and of course, it moved by itself. It gave my youth leader a 1-800 number. When he got home, he called it and it was a recording that said ???This is the gateway to hell???, and he slammed the phone down and never touched a wigi board again. I personally believe that the ???spirits??? or ???ghosts??? that people think they can call from the grave are demons.

When people use a wigi board, the most common question they ask the ???spirits??? is ???are you a good spirit???? and of course it would answer yes. What is it going to say? ???No, I???m bad and I???m going to kill you???? I doubt that. In fact, people have ended up killing themselves because they played with that board too much. The people who keep messing around with demons and the ???undead??? eventually get what they have set up for them. You???re opening doors to things you shouldn???t be when you play around with stuff like that. And what surprises me is how eager people are to see what comes out of those doors.

This author's inability to distinguish between the supernatural and the paranormal disqualifies this as a piece of serious journalism. Then again, it is Newsweek, so why am I bringing up serious journalism?

This author's inability to distinguish between the supernatural and the paranormal disqualifies this as a piece of serious journalism. Then again, it is Newsweek, so why am I bringing up serious journalism?

Whoa there ewoody2003 - I believe what trucker mama said. When one opens up his/her mind then we can discover a section of our minds left undeveloped. I have seen ghosts, doors open by themselves, seen candles floating in the air, received messages from the dead, felt someone in the room & have had prophetic dreams my entire life. Just like in science we are unbelievers until the facts have been proven. Who's to say there aren't ghosts, etc? Too many people have experienced their presence & their effects upon our lives to dismiss their validity. I would rather have "someone" tell me not to drive down a road & miss an accident than not be able to connect with the other world.