Hi! I've been visiting this site for years but only now decided to post to the forum.
While the subject of my thread appears to counter the flow of beliefs here in this forum, I wanted to hear the opinions of others.
Like many, I would say I am "skeptical" about the afterlife and other aspects of life. At the same time, certain experiences or "phenomenas" confuse me as I try to rationalize them according to current scientific development. I've followed the arguments made by the "skeptics" and at first agreed with many of their points, until I found glaring flaws., in particular the character of James Randi, noted "debunker".
Randi is famous for his million dollar challenge where he says he will pay a million dollars to anyone proving a paranormal act. Sounds great, but he puts some restrictions which limit certain kinds of evidence such as anecdotal evidence. That rules out a lot of possibilities. For example, without modern understanding of chemistry, herbs containing chemicals which are pain relievers, would be considered only anecdotal and therefore not "proof". Randi's openly admits there are more challengers then resources to test the claims, so it is possible a winner has simply not been tested. Yet if there are such limited resources, why does he waste them on testing absolutely bogus submissions like the one from dubai of two brothers who claim they make the sun rise and set? It suspiciously seems as if he only tests applicants he know will fail.
Another problem I have with many skeptics, including James Randi, is their predisposition to believe that if a belief sounds crazy, it must be false. Randi and his colleagues never put such beliefs to real tests and merely proclaim the absurdity of it all on their various rants and tirade. A good example is the myth of "talking to plants". The idea that it may be possible for plants to grow better when exposed to audio stimuli. The skeptics proclaimed it as utter nonsense, but when the show Myth Busters tested it in a controlled environment, the results revealed it was plausible. These same skeptics have grown oddly quiet about this topic now.
And there seems to be a natural tendency for "skeptics" to be hypocritical. "Skeptics" previously believed there was no such place as Angkor Wat in Cambodia, categorizing it as nothing more than an Asian atlantis myth. When it was finally discovered, these same skeptics turned around and said they always believed in its existence and laugh at former colleagues who never believed. This has been the case throughout the years. Other examples include the disbelief in dinosaurs, vitamin C helps fight colds, extinct woodpeckers, kevlar, and so on.
Far too many skeptics are no different then the extreme believers they decry: when science proves them wrong, they backpedal.
The dubious qualifications of many skeptics also come into question. James Randi, a celebrated skeptic with supposedly a high intellect, is not a professor, or scientist. He is a magician who's been trained to fool people. He's also been found guilty of slander and false statements. He has been quoted, comparing one graduate of Harvard as a quack because another quack graduated from the same university. Canada's most notorious serial killer graduated from my university. Does that predispose me to be a serial killer?
Skeptics like Randi also often turn to their "experts". It is true these experts have doctorates, but many are in psychology and philosophy. I am to 100% believe the word of a philosopher in regards to the state of quantum mechanics over a physicist? Wasn't psychology considered a pseudoscience until fairly recently?
Finally, skeptics often say we should not believe in "new agers" because ultimately they are driven by money and are out to sell books, and charge exhorbitant amounts for workshops and conferences. While this is true in many cases, the more reputable parapsychology websites and figures do no such thing. James Randi has a foundation,
www.randi.org, and asks for $10,000 donations to further his cause. His annual conferences charge a whopping $350 just for the entry fee. His colleagues write numerous books which they constantly plug on their websites. One can argue his foundation is small compared to the pseudosciences but that is a bogus argument. Consider the amputated parents:
http://www.webalice.it/cipidoc/english.htmthey are a small group and have held small conferences but don't charge $350. I don't see the amputated parents, Bruce Moen, ITC researchers asking for $10,000 donations.
But yet, there are many skeptics who do critically think in the right, rational way, and oddly enough are the ones who also believe in God. (I bring up the Mythbusters again as good examples because on many occasions, they are very skeptical about a myth, only to test it and find it true, and on even one occasion, busted a myth, only to find news coverage of an actual, verified, and very recent (within the last 3 years) case)
So not every skeptic is bad, however there is a trend towards rampant skepticism which shadows uncontrolled new age thinking. It becomes hard for me to believe in either camp.
So my dilemna is this: I've had experiences I can't explain, yet my critical mind still fails to come to terms and I am torn between these beliefs.
Who else feels this way, or once felt this way, and what happened to make you finally accept one side over the other?
How many of you have had verifiable proof of the afterlife or paranormal abilities?
I'll end with one more observation: the skeptics tend to be the first to demand polygraph exmanination of criminals, only to decry the polygraph as an unreliable pseudo science when the results are not in their favour.
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