Why We Believe

Frankly, I believe it is the fear of death that makes some of us believe in the paranormal. It's the fear of your own death and the denial of someone else's death. So long as be have something to cling to that keeps us here on this universe then we believe. But I believe there is a place waiting for me that is going to be so great I would never want to come back to this place as a ghost or re-incarnated!!!

Interesting, but I think you need further research. I have a photo taken by one of my small grandchildren where you can actually see a ghost. My daughter was looking at pictures on her camera late one night and found that her small children had taken some pictures while they were playing and she didn't even know they had used her camera. Apparently this ghost that I have affectionately named "Walter" wanted to see what the children were doing. The picture shows my small grandson, Zach, standing in front of his bedroom door. Just outside of his bedroom is a bathroom. The bathroom door is open and hanging on the bathroom door is a long mirror. Directly across from the bathroom is a basement. You can see the reflection of an old man in the mirror. His facial features are very clear and he has a blue and white checkered blanket wrapped around him, which is also very clear. It is amazing and should make a believer out of a non-believer. There is absolutely no other explanation for this image. The mirror was not smudged, there is nothing in the area of the mirror that would have caused such a reflection, and they do not have a blue and white checkered blanket. My grandchildren were 3, 4, and 5 at the time. What's your explanation for this?!

As a scientist and a skeptic, I do not think that "belief in anything for which there is no empirical evidence is a sign of mental pathology". There were good reasons that we evolved to believe in these things, since it's better to believe in false coincidences and meanings than to miss an important clue that effects your survival.

I'm not a rocket scientist or anything but if you are leaning that god doesn't exsist? Are you feeling like that because you cant see him? Well I hate to break it you but you cant see the air you breathe yet you breathing right? Or is it perhaphs you went through or are going through a tough time in your life and just because you are a poor sport and thing don't turn out your way you pout like a child and blame God or dont believe he exists? Spend a night in a few so called haunted hotel rooms or houses, or camp out at gettysburg. The paranomal does exist to an extent. The mind is a powerfull thing and you just haven't experienced the true potential of your mind and what the world has in store.

I think mln35 is pretty accurate...it is our fear of death; the final day. So we come up, in our minds, of such things as ghost and reincarnation so that day will never come. Do I believe...no, but I do enjoy reading about those that do.

Interesting, but I think you need further research. I have a photo taken by one of my small grandchildren where you can actually see a ghost. My daughter was looking at pictures on her camera late one night and found that her small children had taken some pictures while they were playing and she didn't even know they had used her camera. Apparently this ghost that I have affectionately named "Walter" wanted to see what the children were doing. The picture shows my small grandson, Zach, standing in front of his bedroom door. Just outside of his bedroom is a bathroom. The bathroom door is open and hanging on the bathroom door is a long mirror. Directly across from the bathroom is a basement. You can see the reflection of an old man in the mirror. His facial features are very clear and he has a blue and white checkered blanket wrapped around him, which is also very clear. It is amazing and should make a believer out of a non-believer. There is absolutely no other explanation for this image. The mirror was not smudged, there is nothing in the area of the mirror that would have caused such a reflection, and they do not have a blue and white checkered blanket. My grandchildren were 3, 4, and 5 at the time. What's your explanation for this?!

"Whether it's a rock formation or a hungry bear, it's better to assume it's a hungry bear," says Saler. "If you suppose it's a rock formation, and it turns out to be a hungry bear, you're not in business much longer."

Reminds me of Lord of the Flies. Know what happens next?

It's funny that the only hypothesis that your article does not take into account is that some "paranormal" phenomena could in fact be real. I love empirical proof - so prove to me that ghosts don't exist. Perhaps in 500 years' time people will read this article and laugh at our ignorance.

So, why is it that the people that "believe" are the ones with the evolutionary "problem", and the people that are skeptical are the ones that somehow have found the "solution". It seems to me an equally likely scenario that the skeptical people have some sort of genetic wiring NOT to see the paranormal and to quickly dismiss anything that can't immediately empirically prove. This isn't to say science doesn't have value, just that science should know it's place.

Ryangrub; if you think this holiday is about the death - then you are as uneducated about it as those who think it is a satanic holiday. The following is quoted from a website of those who are knowledgable about the meaning of this festival called Samhain. "Samhain is the first and, in some ways, most important of the great Celtic feasts. It is remembered throughout the Celtic territories as the end and the beginning of the year's cycle, and a time when the gates between the worlds stand open. In the agricultural year, Samhain is the season during which herds of cattle were culled. A few were kept for breeding stock while many were butchered to sustain the clans through the winter. Thus the season between Samhain and midwinter was a time of feasting and plenty.

The change from the light to dark half of the year meant that the powers of the spirit world were especially active. Common folk considered the night of Samhain a time to keep to their halls and seek the protection of the gods and goddesses as they enjoyed the bounty of the passing year. "

This festival was Christianized, as were most festival/feasts celebrated by the ancient faiths; especially those of Celtic in nature. Others were Christianized too, like festivals of the Norse and Greeks from ancient times.
For we believers of the Celtic origin, the festival is a time to celebrate our ancestors and the 'open door' between our living realm here, and the realm in which our ancestors' spirits inhabit. For me (borrowing from its origins), it is also a time to prepare for the coming darker days - when we have less daylight and people generally become less active; animals hibernate, and the world seems to be resting under the blanket of snow...
Please don't damn my festival; don't criticize my beliefs; and I won't point out the flaws in yours.

The belief of the supernatural has been a part of man from the time we were cave dwellers. We have brains that search for a scientific reason for the supernatural and I believe it is natural to question our beliefs in the hereafter, ghosts, and the existence of God. BUT our hearts tell us there is something -- even though not quite tangible, we know in our hearts that there is something more out there; something more to life than just living and then lights out, poof -- you're gone. There is something that leads us to believe that we're more than just worm food when this walk on earth is over. I feel when I talk to God, he answers -- not in words, but spiritually, I feel the warmth and love and my heart tells me it's real.

I like the idea that our energy lives on. Whether you want to call it a soul or not, I don't plan on just fizzling out when my time comes. It feels satisfying and quite possible to me that we just may pass on to another dimension and live on.

A friend of mine said that we have more to lose by not believing than to believe. That's a safe bet for sure. I guess all questions will be answered when we die. Or not.

Why is it everyone that believes they are reincarnated is of someone famous? I do believe, but how many other's think they are the reincarnation of John Adams?

So, we have to have a scientific study to validate that something exists prior to believing it's existence?
That sort of mentality suggests that gravity did not exist until Sir Isaac Newton "discovered" it when he was hit upon the noggin by an apple. I'm in such big trouble because obviously I am the figmant of someone's over-active imagination, quick, I need a scientific study to determine whether I truly exist or not!

I don't believe the article mentions God but the born again commenters sure read that into it! Must be that they are defensive. Scientists certainly need an open mind when searching for evidence, but then again they don't need it so open that the wind blows between their ears either. There is a difference between searching for evidence & searching for it until it is 'created'.

"But one day in 1995, when Semkiw was the medical director for Unocal 76, the oil company, he heard a voice in his head intoning, "Study the life of Adams!" Now he found details much more telling than those silly coincidences he had learned a dozen years earlier. He looked quite a bit like the second president, Semkiw realized. Adams's description of parishioners in church pews as resembling rows of cabbages was "something I would have said," Semkiw realized. "We are both very visual." And surely it was telling that Unocal's slogan was "the spirit of '76." It was all so persuasive, thought Semkiw, who is now a doctor at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Group in California, that as a man of science and reason whose work requires him to critically evaluate empirical evidence, he had to accept that he was Adams reincarnated."

Wow. Talk about your thought insertion and ideas of reference... This man ought to be evaluated, right away.
Jonathan Riven, MA
(Masters in Community Psychology)

Enjoyed reading that when rational thinking comes in conflict with the emotions the former is dead in the water! Witness the mindless voting in our Presidential elections. I've always observed the emotional over rides on logic, but this is the first time I have read any real scientific basis for that observation.