Why We Believe

We'd have absolutely no reason to believe in anything supernatural is someone hadn't first told us about it or we read it in a book. Supernatural entities are abstract linguistic inventions that are defined into existence and nothing more. Here it is, the 21st century, and we're still talking about ghosts. What a foolish and superstitious species. When are we ever going to grow up and start practicing critical thinking, rational inquiry, and practical reasoning?

Outstanding article! But unfortunately the authors skipped over people's extreme need to believe in something to help them cope with the cold reality of life and the world. The brain can and does create plenty of "evidence" for ghosts and other paranormal events... but it is all in the brain. Since we only use a percentage of our brains, why is it so upsetting to people to think that the other parts we don't actively use could create these experiences? After years of paranormal research, and careful examination of loads of "anecdotal stories" I have yet to come across one credible or tangible shred of evidence that ghosts exist. If a ghost can throw things, appear, makes noises, etc., then why can't they prove their existence to paranormal researchers? I have watched every episode of Ghost Hunters and everything they catch is either a hoax (like the sped-up film from Eastern State Prison where the "ghost"'s sneakers can be seen) or it's caught in just such a way that the whole frame of the incident is never visible. For example, when one of the researchers was in bed and the blankets got pulled down off his foot; you can see the blankets being pulled, but the end where the action would be originating from is off-camera. And that is how it ALWAYS is. You can never see the end of the camera frame where the action is actually being performed. I used to be a believer until I started watching everything with a skeptic's eye, and ever since then it is so easy to see the trickery involved in these shows. It's all in how you look at it. On a personal level I have been a paranormal researcher for many years and have gone into "haunted" private residences many times. I have never seen or heard anything that couldn't be debunked quickly and easily. It is really all in our brains. The vast majority of the time, when people report seeing an apparition it is usually just as they are waking up. They are unable to distinguish between being fully awake and being half asleep. People just want to believe in life after death so badly that they see what they want to see. It's the same reason people believe in God. It's because life is too difficult to face alone and the idea of a random and uncaring universe is too much for some people to bear.

The one thing that I think the author glossed over at the end is why there are those of us who are skeptics. All of the other beliefs could be shown to be rooted in evolution or as a normal part of the human brain. The only reason the author gives for skepticism is that it makes a skeptic feel smug?! C'mon.

How about without skepticism early man would never get over his fear of the unknown to do something that has never been done? Without skeptics, man never would have utilized fire, or mined for ore, or planted crops, or gone to the moon. Skepticism is just as much a part of our evolved nature as belief in supernatural things. Perhaps because we live in a large, segmented society most of us do not need to engage our skeptical thoughts, since there are others who do that job for us, such as scientists and engineers.

Newsweek missed a golden opportunity to explore the tremendous research by Dr. Semkiw. This article as much as said all the case after case documentation where not only facial features match but details in the individual biographies match, was nothing more than some trick of the mind. I am so surprised by this narrow perspective. I really would have expected more from Newsweek. http://www.johnadams.net

Wow...seriously way to just discount everything that everyone believes, and you did it in such a fashion that pissed everyone off. Congrats on the awesome read! (seriously this article is terrible)

PS: Read my comment from bottom up as it is a 3 part comment

Example:

From you article, quote: "And do they understand that the most likely explanation of bad dreams, impotence, nosebleeds, loneliness, bruises or just waking up to find their pajamas on the floor does not involve aliens? Yes, they told her, but abduction feels like the best explanation". First of all, what does impotence have to do with anything? You are just trying to make everyone who disagrees with your view seem like an impotent, sad and lonely person so that they lose any credibility. This is why your article is a cheap piece of work and you should concentrate on using your minds productively as I see clear evidence that you are capable of it, but you traded integrity for popularity in this article and you should truly be ashamed of it. Secondly, I am sure that a person who wakes up in the middle of the night does not think they were abducted simply because they had a bruise. The claimed abductees have abduction experiences first and then they attribute some other events to the abductions. We have not even started exploring the universe and you two want to tell me, and the world around you, that there are no aliens or if there are aliens they could not get to the Earth? Why stop there, if you believe that aliens could exist theoretically, and could theoretically get to Earth, it would mean they would presumably have advanced technology, so if all this is theoretically possible, would it not be possible that they wish to abduct people for experiments? Granted a lot of people are weirdos and are imagining things and aliens may not exist at all, but your point of view is such that if an alien stood in front of you and slapped you on the face, you would say "nah, it's my mind playing tricks on me" - so what if aliens truly exist and come to your house for a cup of coffee, just give it a remote possibility, would you believe it or would you attribute it to your brain, because if you go down that path, perhaps we are all schizophrenics and see all these people around us but they're not real? How do you prove anything is real? By touching it? Well mind can play awesome tricks on you, are you sure you want to believe it,?... EVER?

I agree that this article is misleading - at best. I expected more out of a story from this magazine. This could have been a great opportunity to open a discussion with the general public on reincarnation. It is sad that it missed the mark.

The article title is very misleading here. I thought I was going to read about ghosts and I end up reading this article about how we should all be athiests. Maybe it would have settled better with me if instead of a ghostly picture and the Halloweeny title "Belief in the paranormal reflects normal brain activity carried to an extreme", the picture had shown Newseek on top of a Bible and read, "Why it's time to put our old fashioned religion behind us." In the future, please be better about titling your articles so I can avoid the ones I am really not in the mood for.

dministration called it's main internment camp Guantanamo Bay. While there are certainly many guilty terrorists held in Guantanamo, there are also many innocent American citizens who have been held illegally for years without even being charged with any crime. They have been tortured by our government. Some of them have died.

Recently the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration in the matter of Guantanamo Bay. The Supreme Court Justices were NOT on the side of the terrorists. They were on the side of the Geneva Convention, that says you can not torture POWs, and on the side of US laws that state you can not imprison a person without charging them with a crime and bringing them to trial. I'm sure that like most Americans, the Justices who voted against the illegal, immoral doings at Guantanamo didn't feel sympathy for the terrorists. They felt sympathy for the laws of AMERICA, the land of the FREE, where even rat finks get a fair trial.

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, the Bush administration is busy trying to build a smokescreen to hide the CRIMES they have committed. Those pesky weapons of mass destruction. Just think, the National Debt went up over 6 trillion dollars under Bush. More than 2 TRILLION of it went directly into the pockets of Halliburton, a corporation owned by the Cheney family. Halliburton is now a DUBAI corporation and therefore is not subject to US taxes. All that money they took out of the US Treasury is going into the coffers of a MUSLIM country.

Did you hear about how the US government is being charged millions for Halliburton deliveries of sand into Iraq from Kuwait? Sand. Like there is a shortage of sand in Iraq? Another contractor shipped sand from Idaho to Iraq at our expense. Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses these and other excesses of our current government's out of control spending in Iraq.

Your grandchildren will be working like slaves to pay off this debt, so that the Bushes and Cheneys can live the high life in Dubai.

Yeah, they're patriots, Bush&Co. They wear flag pins. And hide the money they stole from America in Dubai.

And they want me to believe that Obama is a socialist. Right.

In case you think McCain is any different than Bush, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w

dministration called it's main internment camp Guantanamo Bay. While there are certainly many guilty terrorists held in Guantanamo, there are also many innocent American citizens who have been held illegally for years without even being charged with any crime. They have been tortured by our government. Some of them have died.

Recently the Supreme Court ruled against the Bush administration in the matter of Guantanamo Bay. The Supreme Court Justices were NOT on the side of the terrorists. They were on the side of the Geneva Convention, that says you can not torture POWs, and on the side of US laws that state you can not imprison a person without charging them with a crime and bringing them to trial. I'm sure that like most Americans, the Justices who voted against the illegal, immoral doings at Guantanamo didn't feel sympathy for the terrorists. They felt sympathy for the laws of AMERICA, the land of the FREE, where even rat finks get a fair trial.

Meanwhile, back in Iraq, the Bush administration is busy trying to build a smokescreen to hide the CRIMES they have committed. Those pesky weapons of mass destruction. Just think, the National Debt went up over 6 trillion dollars under Bush. More than 2 TRILLION of it went directly into the pockets of Halliburton, a corporation owned by the Cheney family. Halliburton is now a DUBAI corporation and therefore is not subject to US taxes. All that money they took out of the US Treasury is going into the coffers of a MUSLIM country.

Did you hear about how the US government is being charged millions for Halliburton deliveries of sand into Iraq from Kuwait? Sand. Like there is a shortage of sand in Iraq? Another contractor shipped sand from Idaho to Iraq at our expense. Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz discusses these and other excesses of our current government's out of control spending in Iraq.

Your grandchildren will be working like slaves to pay off this debt, so that the Bushes and Cheneys can live the high life in Dubai.

Yeah, they're patriots, Bush&Co. They wear flag pins. And hide the money they stole from America in Dubai.

And they want me to believe that Obama is a socialist. Right.

In case you think McCain is any different than Bush, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdJUCU1UH2w

well then i would ask you what makes the brain subsitute for missing links? what function is that and where does it come from, how come we see something meaningful when its only a stain? how come it happens? thats the evolution, a natural tendency? if you are cold, freezing cold, you certainly dont mind wearing the murderers coat, but if you can choose, why wear it, there may be, in the invisible world of atoms and further..., something of the murderer actually left, and it may get into you..., or not? its like, i know i can wear this, and sometimes, i cant wear this, something just tells me the right from wrong, science is by far not as far as our brain and that which makes it work. ... also, what makes you give this examples of people running into bears, what are we, in a fairy tale? dont you think that they, whoever they were, might have been lucky to find one to have something to eat? this feeling of presence of someone else, of something living, may be gotten even from things anorganical. its a mistake to try explain everything through science. and then, one can tell when something is a fantasy, imagination, as it is certainly different from something real. be it a ghost or a feeling of internal communication with someone you know, or dont. skeptics are good, offering some good links here in this article as well. but as i see it, i dont know what an atheist really is. someone who decided that there is no god, or someone who doesnt believe in one, or someone whose belief was killed and who lives in god already. itd be funny to see, how many atheist do good things. howgh

I am Walter Semkiw and I am very disappointed in the Newsweek article, Why We Believe, which totally misrepresented my interview. If someone is truly open to learning more about me, I have a 425 page US book entitled Return of the Revolutionaries: The Case for Reincarnation and Soul Groups Reunited, which presents independently researched reincarnation cases, as well as a proposed cohort reincarnated from the time of the American Revolution.

I have another book entitled Born Again, which is designed for international publication, which features the most important independently researched cases that demonstrate objective evidence of reincarnation. When Born Again was published in India, I was featured on CNN. It is clear that the Newsweek reporters didn???t bother to read either book. They had an agenda in mind and found me to serve as the butt of their theory on why people believe in the supernatural.

In my books, I compile cases that demonstrate objective evidence of reincarnation, including the observations that people have the same facial features and personality traits from one lifetime to another. The most compelling cases come from the University of Virginia, where the late Ian Stevenson, MD documented 2500 cases in which children spontaneously remember past lives. Stevenson cases that demonstrate that facial features remain consistent include those of Susan Ghanem and Daniel Jurdi, which can be reviewed at:

http://www.johnadams.net/cases/samples/Walsch/ghanem.html

http://www.johnadams.net/cases/samples/Walsch/jurdi.html

The case of Barbro Karlen, in which she has memories since childhood of being Anne Frank, demonstrates that we can change religion, nationality and ethnic affiliation from lifetime to lifetime. This observation can lead to greater world peace. Rather than be scoffed at, reincarnation research should be generously funded.

The Newsweek article, Why We Believe, made me realize that Newsweek lacks integrity and that it is no better than a tabloid that defames people in sensational ways. The authors of this article, Sharon Begley and Kurt Stoller, do not deserve to be called journalists and they should be ashamed of themselves. Their juvenile article is misleading and amounts to slander.

For skeptics interested in learning more about objective evidence of reincarnation, I suggest they read Ian Stevenson???s, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, published by the University Press of Virginia, and Life Before Life, written by Jim Tucker, MD, who is continuing Dr. Stevenson???s work at the University of Virginia investigating children who spontaneously remember past lives.

For my full rebuttal, go to www.johnadams.net

Walter Semkiw, MD

Comment: Great expose. I am 75, in middling health, with some claims to an education and find equanimity in what I hope is not peculiar to my perceiving self. It is quite simply the joys of Mystical Atheism. The quantum leaps from the hic et nunc may be triggered by a Faure Mass or an Isabelle Boulay baring her soul in song. I find no need for Bronze Age speculative theologies.For this I am thankful.

Great expose. I am 75, in middling health, with some claims to an education and find equanimity in what I hope is not peculiar to my perceiving self. It is quite simply the joys of Mystical Atheism. The quantum leaps from the hic et nunc may be triggered by a Faure Mass or an Isabelle Boulay baring her soul in song. I find no need for Bronze Age speculative theologies.For this I am thankful.