Paranormal abilities.

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Lmale's picture
Paranormal abilities.

I could use some help a theist is arguing that psychic powers prove atheism wrong so atheist scientists are tampering with test results.
The way i see it is psychic powers have nothing to do with god nowhere in the bible does it say 'lo i giveth unto you special abilities yet thou shalt be unable to proveth them' lol
If we have any proof of them it would be amazing no true scientist could bring himself to lie to deny they exist.
Im pretty sure theist scientists have also tested them and found them false i could use a link to a report from one.
I know this if this was the past christians would be killing anyone accused of having psychic powers so how can this fool claim they are from god.
When i argued he claims psychic abilities are spiritual now i said thats a baseless assumption we have not proved they exist and you claim you know where they come from.
I would love for psychic powers to be real and i feel certain there would be a natural explanation not a spiritual one.
Ive been arguing with him for weeks showing everything he claimed to be wrong he's desperate. And still asserts atheism is religious!!!
Whoch is funny he claims atheism is religious and claims psychic powers are religious then claims they disprove atheism.
I could use any suggestions I'm not getting through to him.

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mysticrose's picture
Paranormal stuffs has nothing

Paranormal stuffs has nothing to do about theistic or atheistic belief because both party denies it. The bible is against the belief in sorcery and other mysticism acts because they insist that god should be the only one who has the right to be mysterious and unexplainable, other than that are the works of pagans and demons. Atheists don't believe in the mystery of god, so how much more with paranormal abilities. I guess paranormal topics belong to other types of discussions.

SammyShazaam's picture
Agreed. Sciemce has explained

Agreed. Sciemce has explained many things previously thought of as miracles, and as technology advances the paranormal is on its way to becoming quite normal. The way I see it, these phenomena are more aruments for atheism than against.

Lmale's picture
I think many atheists would

I think many atheists would be happy if paranormal abiluties were confirmed on their own they would not deny atheism. They could simply be a product of the brain that we know we dont fully use.
I for one would love to have teleportation or telekinesis abilities :)

Jeff Vella Leone's picture
Paranormal stuffs (the term

Paranormal stuffs (the term Paranormal) in real life, it does not exist.
It is a description for fictional things not deemed to be normal in real life.(fiction invented it)

If anything appears to be 'Paranormal stuffs' in reality we call these, 'things that we have not scientifically explained yet'. They are still NORMAL.

So teleportation or telekinesis abilities might be technologies or abilities not yet discovered.
Of course the theist would change their mind and say that god wanted to give us those abilities just if and wen we discover them.

So there is really no point in arguing about it. Theists just change their mind about every single argument and it is very hard to find a theist that has the same idea about god that agrees with an other theist.

doniston's picture
I am dedicating this to you

I am dedicating this to you because you don't seem to believe in anything even slightly out of th normal

I have had a great number of strange things happen to me during my life, I have been visited twice by people from beyond the grave, In my younger years, I have had a mental telepathy connection in one direction or the other, (never 2 way) with 7 different people. One lasted for about 4 years and was very prominent.and she was always at my beck and call without her ever accepting that it was happening.
The greatest mystery of my life occured in 1956 when I apparently teleport ed 4½ miles in the blink of an eye , and which put a whole airforce base in an uproar. It has never been explained and even I find it hard to believe.
It was also in 1956 when I met Anthony Marlow, a then world renouned Hypnotist and psychic. Becase he couldn't hypnotize me,we got to talking about the odd things which had happened to me up to then. He told me that I had a form of ESP, combined with an ability for astral projetion or travel. And since that time, I have never met anyone who has had the same odd capacities as I.
In a nut shell, I have the very odd facility of looking at myself from outside. I can see myself walking down the street, or siting in my chair , in full color, amd wearing the actual cloths witch I am then wearing. Like at this moment, I can see myself sitting in my chair with the keyboard in front of me a'typin away. This is not the usual textbook form of astral projection because it seems just my thoughts leave my physical body and look back at me. You may call it a vivid imagination, I can't really explain it, but I know it exists. And I have had this ability since I was 17 and in the navy

Jeff Vella Leone's picture
don, I believe in many things

don, I believe in many things which are considered out of the normal.
i do not believe they are paranormal activities though, they MUST be still Normal but for us they appear not normal because we haven't discovered them yet.

The magnet was a supernatural thing until we discovered it's mechanics.

You have to understand that just because you perceive something as not normal it does not mean it is not a natural thing.

When I was a kid I had a much more vivid imagination then now, at the age of 7 I could see myself from the outside with the power of my imagination. I called it vivid imagination, though after doing it for a few minutes my brain gets tired. The amount of detail was too much to handle I bet.
So nowadays I just focus on my face when I try to do it.

Do I think it is supernatural?
Of-course not. It is just part of the natural order, maybe an undiscovered science. I always had a very good imagination.
I can create an entire work of fiction in my mind and actually experience and make my body experience those situations.

I had several deja-vus in my life and funnily enough I remember incredible amount of detail of them since they traumatized me at start.
Does that mean it is a supernatural thing?
No, it is still a natural thing because it happened to me, even if it was a delusion altogether , the delusion itself MUST be a natural thing.

But this is all about my personal experience.

When you come here you need to provide evidence, if you even expect that someone will take you seriously.

It is useless talking about personal experience here.

You seem not to distinguish the difference between what you can show and what is better to keep for yourself since it is all related to your mind and thus you cannot support it with evidence.

I have enough evidence to show that our history is a suppressed history and we are far older then the Sumerians, and the more we go in the past, the more technology seems to improve rather then not.
That I can provide evidence for, thus I can speak about it openly.

I believe UFO's are real but that is my personal belief in most claims about them.
I cannot actually provide evidence which is strong enough to convince someone which does not study the subject as much as I do, so I do not talk about it.

This is not a place where your thoughts can go wild, it is a place for debate, you currently have provided nothing that is compelling enough for debate.

That is why most people ignore you.

Zaphod's picture
I like Donsiton's posts I not

I like Donsiton's posts I not only believe in, but have experienced many of the things he talks about. I do not understand enough about these experiences though I would like to know more. Unfortunately I don't understand enough to contribute to the conversation in what I feel is a meaningful way which is why I private messaged him when the ability to do so came back. This is a place for not just debate but also for asking questions and discussion on any topic which debate in some forms does all of. Just saying though, just because people do not respond on high frequency does not mean people ignore him or are not interested in what he brings to discussion.

On the UFO thing and because it has to do with what your saying to Doniston, when I was a child I used to try and keep my UFO sightings to myself because the initial reaction I got from people was "Don't talk about that shit, people will think your crazy. Well three things happened that have changed my attitude on the subject, they are:

A friend witnessed a UFO with me when I was a kid.

I came to realize everybody is a bit crazy and so generally crazy is normal and anyone who does not thinks so is exceptionally nuts.

And there were mass sightings of the same type, possibly same UFO me and many friend saw as a kid. this last one cased me to look deeper into other siting I had had and found out some could be identified and the others I had seen were also seen by others at different times and in different places. So I was was not crazy at least when it came to the UFOs I saw.

Now, when I started to openly talk about them as a kid many people would try to rationalize the siting by saying well you do live close to a military airbase and sometimes weather balloons and satellites can look unconventional. Some of what I considered UFOs were later determined to be weather balloons and satellites. Some however were not and the one me and my childhood friend witnessed as kids turned was just not able to be rationalized by either of those two statements. However all of them were UFOs to me until I could Identify what they were at which point they be became IFOs.

The one my friend and I saw makes no rational sense with common everyday understandings of science unless the government was using or experimenting with lighter than air vehicles with what appeared to be long massive cylindrical structures with lights running lengthwise not like a blimp with the ability to move both fast and slow. Its entirely possible they were, even more so considering it was heading in the direction of the airbase. Recent research into the matter has indicated and convinced me this may in fact be the case. But with the universe so big I think you would have to be a tad bit more insane than normal not to think there were a high likelihood that somewhere in the cosmos there were other intelligent lifeforms that have adapted technologies far beyond our own. Even if all the UFOs I saw before my vision went worse can be explained or accounted for today.

Lmale's picture
I have never seen a ufo but

I have never seen a ufo but considering the staggering amount of stars planets and time the chances that only humans have sentience are exceedingly remote.
However considering the human race with its petty wars i dont think a race advanced enough to find us would consider us worth communicating with, they may be observing us it is a possibility that they may consider studying our primitive culture to be a way to learn more about their past primitive culture much like our anthropologists study our past. So i would be prepared to consider the possibility of ufo's.

Zaphod's picture
UFO exist simple fact.

UFO exist simple fact. Whether any of them ever seen on this planet are from alien lifeforms that's another subject entirely. I highly doubt were the only sentient lifeforms on this planet never mind all the stars and planets in the cosmos. But my point was, I also highly doubt that with the vast cosmos there are no other lifeforms who have adopted technology and sought space travel. Some people believe they have been in contact with our planet for some time.

Jeff Vella Leone's picture
zap I have sent you a mail,

zap I have sent you a mail, have a look when you get some time.

Mardze's picture
True. God give powers

True. God give powers/abilities for those who deserves it... abilities bestowed for those believers ONLY... :)

doniston's picture
Jeff for the first ime,

Jeff for the first ime, Your post is of sufficient interest to comment upon, Had you posted + a personal idea before, I would have had an entirly different take on you.

You say I am beong ignored. Thts seems also to be your problem, even I ignored ypu. as it is, after rereading the prologs of this forum, I don't see how you ebleive this is simply a debate formrum, It appears it is well sited for discussion, and therein you need not present proof at it is based on personal opinion. I doubt very much that you willm find anyone who has proof of his or her opinion. if they did, they wod describe it as FACT

. As for myslf, My posts are usually sufficiently controversial that there are those who agree and need not comment, those tha ttink I'm nuts, and don't comment, and those who disagree and have something to say. I am used to that, and expect nothing more.

Nyarlathotep's picture
The James Randi Educational

The James Randi Educational Foundation has offered a million dollar prize for anyone who can demonstrate anything supernatural for almost 20 years (the contest itself is about 50 years old, but hasn't always been 1 million dollars). The believers in supernatural abilities will go to some pretty funny lengths to try to explain why no one seems able to be able to win the prize (often time lying about the contest itself). I wouldn't be surprised if we get to see some of that in this thread.

Anyway it seems that no one can produce these abilities when it really counts.

CyberLN's picture
Why should they bother? Many

Why should they bother? Many of them make exponentially more than that 'demonstrating' their abilities on tv shows. :)

Nyarlathotep's picture
Of course a faker has

Of course a faker has absolutely no reason to try to win the prize. They know they won't get any money and ruin any credibility they have with believers. The only people who really ever apply and are tested for the prize are people who genuinely believe they have this ability and have nothing to lose by being tested (and are often shocked and sometimes even relieved when they fail) I do have some respect for those people. I have no respect for the fakers.

doniston's picture
do you really elieve that

do you really elieve that just because a person realizes that they can't prove something happened that they are fakers? That appears to be what you rare implying

Nyarlathotep's picture
Who said anything about proof

Who said anything about proof? We are asking for a demonstration. If a person successfully does the demonstration, they get they money. If they fail, they don't get the money. If they refuse to do the demonstration, they don't get the money. If you look at the number of people who claims to have supernatural powers, you would think people would be beating down the doors to try to do the demonstration. In reality almost no one tries. That alone should give you great pause.

doniston's picture
Nope you are wrong, and I am

Nope you are wrong, and I am a pefec texaple of that. but you can't accept that because I can;t demonstrate it.

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