Politically charged Quote of the Day (and ... The Meaning of Life)

[Alex]

Yes, but are you sufficiently open to finding suprenatural explanations that you are too quick to overlook natural explanations? Or perhaps fallen into the common form of egoism that because I can't think of a natural explanation there must not be one?

This isn't meant as criticism, but simply as an expression of the gulf between the way you think and the way I think. I read what you just said and it is like a snake eating its tail, it just twists on itself to use itself as evidence of what it postulates. To you (and billions of others, certainly more than think the way I do) it makes perfect sense.

But still the question remains how do you differentiate what you will believe from what you won't? I once thought I saw a chimpanzee dead on the side of the road while driving up to Mt. St. Helens. My friend saw the same thing, but we were driving too fast to stop for a better look. As we talked about it throughout the day it transformed from "was that a monkey?" to "can you believe we saw a monkey?" to developing theories on how a monkey came to be dead by the side of a mountain road in Washington state.

When it was time to return home we had planned to do so by a different route but changed that just so we could go back and take pictures of the monkey. For half a day we had even started to believe that maybe Bigfoot wasn't so far fetched after all and maybe we'd seen a juvenile one. We were going to be rich and famous. My point is that we talked ourselves into believing it. Based on a moment's observation that lasted no more than a second as we drove around a mountain curve at 50 miles an hour we quickly convinced ourselves of a most unlikely answer.

When we got back to the monkey it turned out that it was a dead porcupine. We have no idea how we could ever mistaken it for a chimpanzee or a young bigfoot. But if we had taken our originally planned route, to this day we'd both believe with all our conviction that on May 27, 1994, a bigfoot had died on the side of a road in Washington state.

Another example comes from a cross country trip with a different friend. I was driving from Kansas City to Denver over night on a backroad through flat land. My friend was asleep and eventually I noticed two lights a couple hundred feet in front of us and to the right. These two lights moved in formation and would zip up and down, moving slightly farther forward, or more to the right. They'd suddenly disappear and then a couple miles later just as suddenly reappear. I thought they might be really far away but they always appeared roughly at the same angle in front of us and to the right. I could think of no explanation for this. Was I seeing some kind of UFO? As the miles passed I became sure of it. I woke my friend (it was something like 3 in the morning) and asked him if he saw what I saw. He did. He couldn't explain it either. He took pictures but we knew they wouldn't come out as the lights weren't very bright and everything else was black. We stopped the car a couple times but both times the lights disappeared.

Finally, around 5 a.m. I was too tired to drive and we pulled over to sleep. But I was excited and couldn't sleep. I had seen a UFO (and this is when I was much more willing to accept such things that I'd be now) and quite possibly an alien UFO because why would a terrestrial aircraft have followed us? Then suddenly the lights appear for just a second, moved a little bit and then disappeared. A little while later they did the exact same things. Same location, same movement. A third time, a fourth time. Then I noticed the pattern. The lights were only appearing when another car was driving by on the road. I was confused. I had doubts again.

Slowly the sun came up and revealed what had been going on. About 200 feet off the road, running parallel were electrical and telephone wires. The lights I had been seeing were a reflection of my headlights whenever the angles were just right. And the repeated pattern once we'd stopped was because passing cars hit the same angles and caused the repetition. But for a couple hours I believed I had seen UFOs and I was beginning to convince myself that had to be extra-terrestrial. If I hadn't grown tired of driving I would probably still believe it to this day.

So, again, how much rational examination of events is enough to prevent believing the wrong thing and how much is so much it prevents you from experiencing the intangible?

[Alex]

I'd also add that in both cases I was left feeling kind of foolish. But a common response I see it not a foolish admission of error but an automatic reliance on conspiracy.

When recounting the monkey story to one friend he jokingly suggested that the Forest Service probably found the baby bigfoot and replaced it with a dead porcupine to discredited anybody who saw the bigfoot before they could hide it. He was joking, but if you listen to Art Bell you see this thinking all the time.

Or in the recent stories about "the healing power of prayer" having failed a study. While a positive result would have been touted a negative result produced conspiracy theories to explain away the failure (well God wouldn't let himself been shown through such a study so he just let those people die rather than help).

[innerSpaceman]

Well, when I say I'm open to the supernatural, I didn't exactly mean I'm open to being easily fooled by nonsense! There's a difference, heheheh.

As an example, the kitchen cabinets that flew open with foodstuffs spewing all the way across the room as I watched could have been an earthquake that I didn't feel and that affected nothing else. It could have been earthquakes each of the three times I saw this, and the two times I saw other cabinets open seemingly by themselves (but with no tossing spillage).

The footsteps and voices constantly heard through this apartment could have been sounds from other parts of the villa, moving through the heating vents or something. And the creaks moving up and down the stairs heard plainly emanating from the very wood of the stairs could have been some combination of settling and sound transferrence. Uh-huh.

But the letters E V A being drawn by an invisible finger in a steam-clouded mirror as I looked on in wonder would have been very difficult to rationalize away. And so I didn't.

The case for ghosts was later bolstered when I learned that a previous occupant of the apartment was named "Eva." But that was not necessary for my new belief in "ghosts;" the evidence of my own eyes was enough.


Where to put that threshhold is different for everyone. I can't exactly jeer at lights in the sky freakouts or juevenile bigfoot speed sightings when I myself have taken to "belief" in certain spiritual energies that I have only felt internally.

But of the things I have taken to believing in, nothing has since happened to make me feel the fool or recant my beliefs in many things quite supernatural and metaphysical.

[Alex]

But again, that is my point. You aren't accepting it on faith, your just accepting it on evidence that I can't accept. Democritus's belief in atoms 2,600 years ago was an act of faith. Your belief that what you saw is a ghost is not so much, it is a response to evidence. Evidence I discount as insufficient, but evidence nonetheless. I see this as fundamentally different than "I have faith that god exists because that is the only way the world makes sense to me."

But again, you may not be willing to completely rule out any article of faith but I have to assume you don't consider them all equally worthy of serious consideration. On what basis does that happen? Personal perception and experience is an amazingly frail vessel. Frankly I don't see why anybody would rely on it.

But again, that is just the huge gulf between the way I look at the world around me and the way you (and Kevy and billions of others do). I think you're all wacky and you all think I'm rigid and hollow. Viva le difference and joie au cours de la discussion (if babelfish is to be believed).

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

troublemaker's note: For fun, I just changed "I" to "robot pirates" in iSm's post.

There is not enough mojo in the world to give GC all the mojo he deserves

[Kevy Baby]

I hate when I pick a fight and then can't participate

ISM did a fairly good job of saying a lot of what I would have said. I am far too exhausted to post anything further of relevence.

I actually do feel a bit guilty for bringing this up and then not responding I really wish I had the time and energy to participate.

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

But again, that is just the huge gulf between the way I look at the world around me and the way you (and Kevy and billions of others do). I think you're all wacky and you all think I'm rigid and hollow. Viva le difference and joie au cours de la discussion (if babelfish is to be believed).

I don't think you're rigid and hollow at all. Everyone has their own belief (or non-belief) system and if it works for them, fine, so long as it's not infringing upon my beliefs. I don't need you to believe to bolster my faith, and I don't feel compelled to explain why or how I think the way I do.

I do think you're wacky, though.

[Tramspotter]

[Gemini Cricket]

^ Both NA and €uroMeinke do not believe in that picture for two different reasons.

[innerSpaceman]

And Lisa won't even know why she can't believe in it.

Kinda reminds me of how people see owls when they behold something they can't comprehend. The brain plays funny tricks. I wonder what Lisa sees when she gazes at that pic.