Advocatus

There is a relatively new program on the CW channel called “Mysteries Decoded”, hosted by actress Jennifer Marshall (who is actually a licensed private investigator in real life).  There have apparently been five episodes so far, but I only had the good fortune to catch the latest, on the “Montauk Project”.  Watch it quickly because I doubt if i…[Read more]

You say that you can sense things about your friends and that you’ve have visions of spirits.  I just want to ask what makes you so sure that this gift has anything to do with what’s happening with the stove?  How do you connect these two completely separate things?

One good thing about Trumpkochka is that he is teaching me self-control.  Every time I see his face on television, I have this very strong urge to slap him.  But he’s just an image on a screen, so I have to rein in the impulse.  I thank him for that.  🙂

Player wrote:  “Advocatus  – i am asking you what do you mean by Warren being to shrill and arguementative?”

I don’t really mean anything by it except maybe that it should be possible to get your point across without attacking your opponents.  But it was a debate format after all, so that I really shouldn’t complain about that.  I guess the point…[Read more]

If you had actually read the article, you would see that the author is not saying that sleep and sex are “false”, he is merely coaching the initiate on how to avoid being distracted by sleepiness and sexual desire while meditating.  Oh but wait.  Now Xain will be along to tell me that I read it wrong.  Whatever you say.  🙂

Player wrote: “Advocates – too argumentative ? Thats your decision making criteria on this? Can you make a case at the policy level?”

Exactly which part of “I’m far from decided” didn’t you understand?  🙂

Correction:  “I’m far from decided.  I like Lieberman, but he just seems too old.  Warren comes off as too shrill and argumentative.  I’ve seen her on The View a couple of times too, and she seems like someone you’d want to have in your Cabinet, but I don’t know if I’d want her in the big chair.  I heard a lot of good ideas in the debates, but n…

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I’m far from decided.  I like Lieberman, but he just seems too old.  Warren comes off as too shrill and argumentative.  I’ve seen her on The View a couple of times too, and she seems like someone you’d want to have in your Cabinet, but I don’t know if I’d want her in the big chair.  I heard a lot of good ideas in the debates, but nothing that rea…[Read more]

Xain wrote:  “I’m not entirely sure this is what a genuine life is. I don’t believe we humans have a true nature like it says and what they mean by a genuine life sounds like more of their own opinion rather than what actually constitutes it.”

Xain, you keep going back to these Buddhist sites as if deep down inside you truly feel that they have…[Read more]

But you are definitely closer to the flagpole in the second shot, and it looks like you turned your phone from landscape to portrait.  Couldn’t that have made the reflection move?

When I read the article you cited, it seems to me that the author is not saying that thoughts aren’t “real”; she is merely cautioning us not to get obsessively caught up with them to the point to the point that we ignore the reality around us.  We’ve all known people who get caught up with one idea (whether it be global climate change or some…[Read more]

Here’s a link to a Skeptical Inquirer online column by Kenny Biddle which might answer your question.  Scroll down to the one titled, “Groundbreaking Experiment Breaks No Ground”.

https://skepticalinquirer.org/authors/kenny-biddle/

You mention an “exhaust leak”, but it’s not clear from your post if you were driving that same car.  The symptoms you describe — “I kept falling down like I was drunk” — do sound like the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.  I don’t know how you would have gotten back into your car and driven home again, unless you just did so and then f…[Read more]

True; the argument from personal experience is probably the most compelling to the person making it, but when it comes to convincing others, it’s the weakest.  Consider that when the first European explorers in Australia discovered the platypus, naturalists back in Britain and America didn’t believe them. They thought it was a hoax. Photographs…[Read more]

Not as far as I’m aware of.  There is a toy, the Ouija board, which can give the illusion of contact with “other voices”, if you enjoy that kind of thing.  But it’s a trick.

Marcello Truzzi defined a skeptic as someone who was 100% Neutral, 100% Agnostic on the paranormal. A believer can believe in the paranormal, but a skeptic who doesn’t believe in the paranormal isn’t really a skeptic according to him; he’s a “pseudoskeptic”. That sounds good in theory, but in practice if you study a topic for long enough, you come…[Read more]

Sofista wrote:  “From time to time, science discovers that something is trustworthy and
true, even if scientists do not know precisely how or why
it works. Let’s consider the law of gravity. We experience it all
days when we jump from a vehicle or down a ladder. Physical and
engineers made tremendous progress in studying the effects of gr…

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I would go along with the conclusion that the “cause” is more psychological than hormonal, but I would hesitate to use the word “illness”, unless you’re willing to say that nearly EVERYBODY is psychologically ill to some degree or another.

Although I am trying to accept transgendered individuals, I am old-fashioned enough to ask them to cut us…[Read more]

Ah, so you’re a disciple of Marcello Truzzi!  Sofista, I have a funny feeling that you have a point to make with this, but you’re doing it in a roundabout way.  Please just come right out and say what you think.

Skeptics in general are not very much interested in a person’s religious beliefs.  If it comforts you to think that the spirits of your loved ones continue to exist on some other plane, that’s perfectly fine.  Some skeptics — most notably Harry Houdini — have looked into séances, mediums, and other physical manifestations, and have generally co…[Read more]