Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Alex Stroup
it is hard for me to talk since I've never experienced anything that seemed the slightest bit spiritual or religious or supernatural. If such exist, they apparently have no interest in me.
|
Ah, but is that simply the result of the supernatural vicious circle? Do ghosts leave you a wide berth only because you have no interest in them, while they feel affinity with, and gravite to, people who hold seances?
I don't think you necessarily need to have personal experiences to convince you of faith-based ideas. Outright denial, however, can "push" such things away from your experience, as can plain old disinterest. But it needn't actually "happen" to you.
Example 1 -
Ghosts: At one time, I did not particularly believe in ghosts. I thought it was an absurdly silly concept. I still do. Yet, I was not in such steadfast refusal about it that I bent over backwards to avoid ghostly supernaturalisms. Then I lived for a while in a haunted house. Ghosts exist. Either that, or something exists that humans have, throughout history, interpreted (reasonably so, imo) as the spirits of dead people.
If I had been steadfast in my refusal to believe in ghosts, I could have twistedly rationalized my personal haunting experiences to be caused by sunspots. But since I remained open to it ... I more rationally interpreted them to be what people call "ghosts." And have acknowledged that all rational signs pointed to the improbability of dead-people-spirits, absurdly silly as that may be.
Example 2 -
Space Aliens: I have pretty much never believed in UFOs or little green men. I think it is an absurdly silly concept. And I have never personally experienced anything to sway me otherwise. Yet, a decent amount of personal research on the subject has convinced me that something legitimately weird is going on vis-a-vis the subject of space aliens, and that mass delusions are not the simple answer. Rather there is something going on that people, reasonably imo, are interpreting as "space aliens."
These are two supernaturalistic belief systems I now buy into; one through personal experience, and one through mere information. In both cases, I let whatever happens in my life determine which stuff I will be open to, and thus may or may not come to believe in or ascribe to. For all I know, stygmata may be a legitimate phenonmen ... but nothing has happened in my life to bring it to my attention. I remain skeptical, but not closed-minded, about it ... and about pretty much all outlandish or supernatural phenomena.
But I don't drive such phenomena away by refusing it or ignoring it.