Ouija Board Experiences

[Terran]

In response, the possibility of ELF-waves being the culprit was put forward. A reasonable enough premise, but there is an underlying flaw with this and related science-based explanations. What I call a Negative Assumption. A Negative Assumption presumes two things about the alleged incident of supernatural activity its directed towards. One, that the application of the scientific principle alleged to be responsible is in essence a coincidence. In the case of the two broken mirrors, let's assume for a moment that some sort of sonic resonance created by ELF (Extreme Low Frequency) waves broke the two mirrors. That's where the offered explanation ends. It doesn't concern itself with where these sound waves came from, or how they happened to affect these two mirrors specifically. I did too offer an explanation where the sound wave came from. Infrasound is generated by natural processes such as avalanches, volcanoes, tornadoes, ocean waves, earthquakes, and meteors. It can be generated by large chemical or nuclear explosions and industrial equipment. So without a huge amount of information of the exact circumstances of the mirrors breaking, further 'explanation' would be impossible. As to an explanation on how only those two mirrors were effected by this phenomenon is actually simple. I mentioned Resonance In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at larger amplitude. Even small periodic driving forces can produce large amplitude oscillations. Resonance phenomena occur with all types of vibrations or waves. If these two mirrors were manufactured by the same company. Or manufactured by some set parameters they very likely would have the same Resonant frequency. This would mean after a period of time this constant vibration of that Resonant frequency would break only those mirrors. Humans wouldn't necessarily perceive these vibrations at all. Hell, the resonant frequency could have originated from a rhythmic power surges that transfer from the light fixtures to the mirrors. Or a rhythmic vibration from the plumbing system....There is literally oodles of sources for this vibration. One, that the application of the scientific principle alleged to be responsible is in essence a coincidence. So given any of these scenarios there is nothing "coincidental" about it besides these people sharing the same electricity provider. Unfortunately, it's often only a short slide from skepticism to cynicism. In the rush to prove a supernatural event nothing of the kind, it becomes enough for the skeptic to simply craft an alternate potential theory as to the source of the event. Satisfied they've chased off belief in the supernatural, the skeptic sees no need to establish just why the scientific principle in action affected a particular person or place, or even to confirm that their theory is in fact correct. Look at the vast majority of investigations related to the Amityville Horror AFTER the conclusion of the Warrens' investigation. Nearly all were simply hunting for a *possible* scientific cause of the reported incidents. There's next to no material giving these scientific theories any context. For instance, Mass Hysteria is a stock conclusion for many a skeptic. Using it, they can dismiss anything by blanketing any witness to the goings-on as just one more individual affected by Mass Hysteria. Where are the experts brought in to confirm the possibility of Mass Hysteria? Where is the investigation related as to why this particular household & associates are suffering from this Hysteria, but not their neighbors? It isn't enough to simply fashion a reasonable theory and draw a conclusion on the strength that their theory hasn't been disproved. It doesn't do science justice, and it certainly doesn't do the individuals involved justice. It's just the sketched outlines of my point, but I hope I've made it. Apologies for being so long-winded. What I don't understand is how a "super natural explanation" makes any sense for anything if simple principals are understood. For someone to have the perception that they "saw something", natural things literally HAVE to occur otherwise they literally did not occur. When the human body is working properly, a photon enters the eye and excites either a rod or a cone. Simply put these rods and cones translate this photon into an electrochemical signal. Which then through series of very complex "programming" the brain translates this into an image. Which then other areas of the brain react to. So for person/people to 'see' a figure. Light from the sun has to come all the way to earth and bounce off of whatever it is they are 'seeing' for that photon to then make its way to their eye. What did it bounce off of?... if Light can bounce of this figure or image this means that WHATEVER the image it must have 'physical'/'natural' properties. The only other way the brain can think its 'seeing' something in the absence of a photon exciting rods/cones is for a vibration to stimulate them or for some part in the neurological pathway to and within the brain to malfunction. Infrasound can even cause people to hallucinate grey figures if the resonant frequency of the eye is reach(18HZ according to NASA). But regardless of it being a photon, vibrations, or the brain messing up...If the stimulus can effect the natural universe than it is part of the natural universe. Measurable, Predictable, and Understandable.

[darth los]

Fascinating. I feel the same way about Atheists that you do towards we "religious people". Great argument though, the Third Reich and Soviet Russia used the same type of arguments to slaughter millions under the guise of people being less human for believing differently. It's a slippery slope. "Only a fool says there is no God". Yes, the truth often offends. Instead of attacking someone for being religious based on their own perceived subjective notions (and my doing the same towards those who feel opposite because of my perceived subjective notions) perhaps we could attempt to have a more reasonable discussion and get back to what the topic was originally about -- not an attack on people from differing perspectives. Los, we generally have great discussions because you're someone who I can appreciate when it comes to your usually well-reasoned thoughts, but if you think I'm a less intelligent or reasoned person because of my views on faith than I'm sorry to hear that. j.p. Well, that wasn't my intent. Let me attempt to clarify. It just boggles the mind how a totally rational, intelligent person can believe that without allowing for the possibility that it might not be true. And that's really my thing. For example: I don't believe in that stuff however, my reasoning power allows for the fact that i might be wrong. Now let's look at the opposite viewpoint. Religious people will simply not allow for the possibility, no matter how remote, that their belief system might be a sham, without a shred of proof to support them. So if an intellectually honest debate is to be had both sides must conceed that because without that there's really nothing more to talk about. Cause the truth is that they might be dead wrong just as i might be. Where, else could you point out inconsistency after inconsinstency contained within the religious texts they read (Outside of a GAr film that is! ZINGER ! ) and have them respond to you in this manner?:

[Terran]

Anyways, back on track guys, anyone else ever messed about with a Ouiji board? including the sceptics, have you ever done one & absolutely nothing happened? interested in both sides! When I was little tyke ...I alluded to earlier Essentially I tried to summon the devil cause I wanted to sell my soul for powers.... Im not being facetious ...I had a friend over and 'forced' him to help... What a let down.... Perhaps its part of the devil's moral code not to accept the souls of children....

[EvilNed]

Damn, just when I was about to argue that 2+2=4 is nothing more than a simian abstraction of a fundamental truth and that nothing can be proven to anyone else. Mathematics can. You said it yourself, they're a fundamental truth. I put a rock infront of you. Whatever language or thought pattern you follow, what it boils down too is that there is a rock infront of you. Don't go into the "But there's like billions of atoms in there!" because you can replace the rock with anything. Anything. Now put another rock besides the first one. You now have two rocks. Or dos. Or deux. Or zwei. Or två. Or just simply 2. There's two of them infront of you now, and an instant ago there were one. There's simply noway of getting around that. Put it on paper, put it in your mind, put it anywhere else. 1 + 1 = 2. On the subject of Ouija boards, did anyone see the Bullshit! episode? Thought it was kinda funny when they turned it over and the guys were blindfolded.

[AcesandEights]

1 + 1 = 2. Dude, I was so talking about 2+2=4. Stop obfuscating the issue with your 1+1 doctrine.

[EvilNed]

Dude, I was so talking about 2+2=4. That would indicate an increase of 100%! What are you crazy, it's gonna blow!!!

[JDFP]

So if an intellectually honest debate is to be had both sides must conceed that because without that there's really nothing more to talk about. Cause the truth is that they might be dead wrong just as i might be. Gotcha. Now I know where you are coming from and this makes perfect sense. I'm not for certain who these Atheists are who could argue that "There is no God and I won't believe it even if you show empirical proof!" but on the opposite side I perfectly accept that I fully believe in my faith and my attempt at following the path that God wants me to follow (even though regularly failing). At the same time, I accept that yes, there's always a possibility that my faith and ideology are not accurate. Is it possible that it's all a shame? Sure. I accept my faith on a matter of faith as well as a priori reasoning, which to me is more important than any fallible empirical demonstrations. At the same time, there's always the remote possibility that I may die and Zeuss may stand in front of me and start laughing as he says: "Hey, you thought you had it all figured out didn't you?". There's also a possibility that there may be a glitch in the matrix one day and we may all wake up from it. As humans, we see through lenses -- while I believe in Truth (as objective) as fallible individuals we will always only catch a perspeective of Truth and thus we see through our own subjective 'truth'. Is it possible that I am wrong about God? Certainly. There's no absolutes we can properly grasp as being flawed creatures. At the same time, it's also folly for anyone to say there's no possibility for a God in existence. I think the best way of summing it all up for me is the prayer a man had while encountering Christ in scripture: "Lord, I want to believe, help my unbelief." j.p.

[Terran]

At the same time, I accept that yes, there's always a possibility that my faith and ideology are not accurate. Is it possible that it's all a shame? Sure. Dude your like totally breaking a few commandments right there! Really not intending this as an attack or anything else detrimental to you....just goofing around. Thus far I am very proud of everyone maintaining a reasonable level of civility in this discussion

[EvilNed]

At the same time, it's also folly for anyone to say there's no possibility for a God in existence. Right, I understand where you're coming from with this. But what if I were to say that there is no possiblity of a god in existance as he is described in various religious texts? Not pinpointing one god in particular, but I do know without a shadow of a doubt that some religious texts portray an impossible god.

[darth los]

Dude your like totally breaking a few commandments right there! Really not intending this as an attack or anything else detrimental to you....just goofing around. Thus far I am very proud of everyone maintaining a reasonable level of civility in this discussion Well, these definitely aren't the boards you remember. The mods have done an exemplary job of weeding out the knuckle heads. There are lots of discussions like this now days.

[JDFP]

Right, I understand where you're coming from with this. But what if I were to say that there is no possiblity of a god in existance as he is described in various religious texts? Not pinpointing one god in particular, but I do know without a shadow of a doubt that some religious texts portray an impossible god. Great question, Ned. Back when I was highly agnostic back in high school and my first year of college and I was really seeking after God I had the same question. Christianity? Buddhism? Hinduism? Who is right and who is wrong? IN MY OPINION... As a Catholic I believe there is a level of truth within religious ideologies/scriptures (the Vedas, Holy Bible, Koran, etc.), and that God works through individuals in these different religious ideologies. In fact, Vatican 2 (the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council) stresses that there is truth found within all major religious ideologies that can ultimately lead to God (it's like attempting to hike up a mountain using different pathways to lead all to the same place, you'll eventually get there, it's just a matter of how long and how much difficulty it is to get to the same place). As humans we can't truly comprehend God. Thus, God attempts to make Himself evident to us -- and this making evident can be through different forms of scripture, different paths, different ways. So, while I believe that Catholicism is the most accurate way of understanding the teachings of properly following God through Christ, I don't doubt that God also works through other religions to make Himself evident to other people everywhere. j.p.

[krakenslayer]

Yeah, when I was a little nipper. Nothing happened, of course. Although I heard a story from my aunt who did a seance with some pals, and apparently the door to the room they were sitting in suddenly slammed shut. She swears it was a ghost but I'm more inclined to believe a window was open somewhere. Yeah, as a sceptic (not a cynic ), I'd suggest that a big, big part of such "anecdotal" evidence can down to bias. I don't say this because I want to disprove all claims, but because I'd like to get to the bottom of such claims and sort the wheat from the chaff (and find out if indeed there is any wheat to sort). Here's an example: you're sitting in the house, you're thinking about someone, and the phone rings and it's that same person and you think "OHH! CREEPY!" It might seem like it happens to you a lot. It does seem creepy until you think of it as a numbers game. How often does that happen? Once a month? Once every two months? How many phone calls do you get within that time? Dozens and dozens of calls. You don't remember all the other times when you're thinking about someone and the phone rings and it's NOT them, because it's not memorable, it's a non-event! You only remember the times when it's "creepy", so in retrospect it seems like weird shit happens to you all the time, when in fact weird shit only happens rarely (well within the statistical likelihood of such an event occurring) but you're more likely to remember it over and above all "normal" events. I'd be interested to find out how often doors and windows rattled and slammed due to drafts in your aunts house when there was no seance taking place. Of course, it's difficult to know because people's memories of such things are so selective: when a door slams in the middle of a bright spring afternoon you think "shoulda closed that window" and then forget the incident forever, when the same thing happens during a seance at midnight you will undoubtedly remember it for the rest of your life. Bear in mind, I'm not saying your aunt is wrong - I certainly can't disprove the existence of ghosts and personally think it would be pretty cool if they did exist - but even if they do exist we can never prove that unless, after testing various other possibilities as well, the presence of a ghost remains the most logical explanation.

[Wyldwraith]

This evidence points towards one thing, whereas the lack of any evidence points towards something else. And that is why I don't believe in spirits. If they exist, they've been around for 50,000 years. Plenty of time to leave something behind... Yet nothing? Sorry, not buying it. I can sum up the inherent absurdity of your statement with an old maxim. "The Absence of Evidence is NOT Evidence of Absence" In other words, you cannot make a persuasive statement "that holds water" based on a current lack of evidence one way or another. Pretty much the basic crux of the differences between Atheism and Agnosticism as well. You are entitled to your opinions and beliefs EvilNed, but that's all we have here. A statement of what you don't believe in. There is literally/factually nothing else here.

[Wyldwraith]

Here's the thing, None of us here are members of completely ignorant prehistoric tribal units, forced to adopt a crude Animist belief structure to lend the illusion of them possessing the minimum amount of control over and knowledge of their surroundings in order to function. We are separated by an uncrossable gulf from the origins of belief without evidence. That's a good thing, as it indicates growth on our part as a species. Belief may still play a superficially similar role for the modern believer as it did for the ancient believer, but these days the vast majority of individuals are capable of opening their minds enough to consider possibilities beyond what we know and believe. In other words, we can travel beyond our intellectual comfort zone should we choose to do so. It's what separates most of us from the tiny minority of inflexibly zealous fanatics. Again, a GOOD THING. When I speak about the supernatural I speak from an assumption that there IS a rational, comprehensible cause for each and every one of these events. However, I DON'T believe that these rational and comprehensible causes for "supernatural" activity are necessarily mundane explanations, or even currently comprehensible with our present understanding of what we consider reality. Yes, no doubt a % of these strange and creepy happenings are simple coincidence, simply a rare improbability occurring, and/or all the very reasonable possible explanations offered by the skeptic. After all, sometimes strange things happen. HOWEVER, what I take issue with is the incredibly arrogant assumption that we understand enough to confidently, boldly proclaim that these strange events are nothing but simple natural phenomena. How do we know whether or not benign, malevolent or indifferent extra or trans-dimensional entities exist? How do we know whether or not one or more extraterrestrial species capable of interstellar flight have visited, or are visiting the Earth? How do we know whether or not this or that ancient civilization discovered a means of affecting reality that had nothing to do with conventional tool use or "science" as we know it? How do we know what happens to the sum of our being after physical death occurs? -Then how do we know whether or not the now incorporeal essence of a deceased human being may intermittently interact with this dimension? These are serious questions. The answer to any one of them possibly holding the potential to redefine life as we know it forever. Is this the sort of subject matter anyone SHOULD feel comfortable or confident in smugly dismissing? It isn't necessarily about what any one of us believe. It's about the Truth. How one defines it, seeks it, and what one finds. Pretty much my point, for whatever it turns out to be worth.

[Terran]

Ahhh this mostly derives from the music thread but is relevant here... Jeeze, They Might Be Giants, you guys are such rapscallions....