missing forums...

[gabriel]

For example, members of this forum can (and frequently do) react sceptically to all sorts of ideas/phenomena, but if they just adopt a broad-brush scepticism and make disparaging references to 'woo' then Alex or I step in. Banning is, however, the ultimate sanction.

The problem was this site became increasingly prescriptive about what ideas represented genuine scepticism, and what were bundled together as varieties of fundamentalism. This is a common problem with sites that aspire to equal opportunities scepticism. As example Fortean-ism was popularly defined as an interest in strange phenomena and a suspicion of official explanations of any kind. While that is an admirable aspiration, its public face has become a studied cynicism towards the weird and an assumption that any anomalies are in perception, not "reality". It foregrounded Charles Fort's wryness and viewed it through the prism of general scorn.

If enough people don't get something, the not-getting becomes the new orthodoxy and the original notion becomes transgressive. In this way funding for the academic study of strange phenomena is converted into the study of why people believe in such phenomena, which is obviously a different kettle of fish. It plays to the standard assumption that people are intrinsically flawed, and it's various ideological corollaries. Encompassing challenges is clearly a very good thing, nudging people from complacent assumptions of all kinds. However it doesn't take long to recognise lifestyle scepticism as less applied rigour, and more directed sophistry, a rhetorical deconstruction, not an attempt at finding the truth, even conditionally. the opposite also holds true, and dots can be joined over any distance and Rorschach blots become a detailed topography.

 

[David Bailey]

The problem was this site became increasingly prescriptive about what ideas represented genuine scepticism, and what were bundled together as varieties of fundamentalism. This is a common problem with sites that aspire to equal opportunities scepticism. As example Fortean-ism was popularly defined as an interest in strange phenomena and a suspicion of official explanations of any kind. While that is an admirable aspiration, its public face has become a studied cynicism towards the weird and an assumption that any anomalies are in perception, not "reality". It foregrounded Charles Fort's wryness and viewed it through the prism of general scorn.

If enough people don't get something, the not-getting becomes the new orthodoxy and the original notion becomes transgressive. In this way funding for the academic study of strange phenomena is converted into the study of why people believe in such phenomena, which is obviously a different kettle of fish. It plays to the standard assumption that people are intrinsically flawed, and it's various ideological corollaries. Encompassing challenges is clearly a very good thing, nudging people from complacent assumptions of all kinds. However it doesn't take long to recognise lifestyle scepticism as less applied rigour, and more directed sophistry, a rhetorical deconstruction, not an attempt at finding the truth, even conditionally. the opposite also holds true, and dots can be joined over any distance and Rorschach blots become a detailed topography.

Sorry, I am probably too dense to relate what you have written to what actually happened last summer, but perhaps we could continue this discussion via PM.

David

 

[Typoz]

It is certainly intriguing to read the different ways in which history is rewritten.

 

[tarantulanebula]

T_T I'm sorry I confess. I learned a lot from here and also had been helped by many people here. But what I had done:

1, I posted my personal affairs which I felt anguishing about my life which is irrelevant to herein mainstay intelligent discussions, a deviant topic. I posted those my personal mundane life affairs because I wanted to say that, according to my life experiences, bad people often win money, love, respect and joy, so there can't be a loving God or hyper judgment or something. But I posted too many in too many threads, causing a pollution to the forum's pertinence.

2, I often remain inactive, or do not know how to respond and thank to the other people who gave me some replies. When I remain inactive, that's not because I do not love these discussions here any more, but because that I'm in severe depression so I'm inert on joining any social activity.

3, My English language has some problem, sometimes I can't express my meaning clearly and precisely, and I can't understand the others' meaning, causing misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Perhaps some of my writing are impolite, pretentious, or verbose, repeating the same meaning with different words and phrases stacked, thus annoying the other people who are kind to read my writing. I stack several words to express the same meaning again and again because I don't know which word should I use. I learned English language mainly by myself without formal education or instructions so I can't catch up with the intelligent sentences made by many people here.

I confess I didn't play a good role in this forum and perhaps contributed some of the reasons why dear Alex decided to close some forum zones T_T. Although dear Administrator David Bailey kindly told me that it is not me who said something harsh to other people and offensively irritated the other people thus violated rules in this forum. I definitely felt feeble about myself. Also I'm guilty in my mundane life, lazy on works, low reaction speed, greed and inability to achieve what I want, bad habits, body and mind defect, quarrel with people I shouldn't hurt, stupidly getting along with friends, vendors, colleagues, clients, bosses and rivals, and many many more. I confess I don't know the rule to this world what we supposed to do here on earth. It seems every choice I make could potentially lead to no avail or even bad consequences even if I didn't mean an ill and malicious intention T_T. Also I don't know, and want to know where I came from or where I would go, which is also one of the reasons I want to join the discussions on extraordinary paranormal things here T_T.

 

[David Eire]

None of us know where we come from or where we will go after. Those who say they do, dont; they only believe.
As you say a forum like this can help us all think and wonder and perhaps even reach something better than mere belief while we live our lives.
We all contribute in our own ways to the conversation

 

[tarantulanebula]

You said what I thought. I totally agree with you.

I forgot to add, besides where I came from and where I would go, I extremely want to know how our lives are arranged, by who, why.

One thing that is very intriguing to me, is that:

under any reasons conceivable, "the universe is only physics and biology, nothing beyond so we are born and live and then die, rule is rule, law is law, no reason for a purpose or meaning", "we are sent by a good God to earth to learn love", "we are sent to earth as prisoners by extraterrestrial lives with our memories erased",

the force who created us and sent us to earth, or generated and incubated us on earth, could have encapsulated each of us in an isolated small space, with no one to talk to, nothing to explore, we just exist for a while then disappear.

But they give us a vivid world, give us companions (relatives, friends, strangers, pets, etcetera), give us ethnic groups, nations, societies, entertainments, duties, purposes, etcetera. For what? Why? Some lives are extremely torturing while some are extremely glamorous, joyful and wonderful, and some are plain and drab, why?

I don't ask any specific person, because I know probably no one knows. I ask myself or a nonexistent figure, that's it. Myself always answers: "I don't know" to me. That nonexistent figure always gives me no response. Every moment I suffer.

 

[David Eire]

I was thinking after I wrote my comment that some people do have something like knowledge of where we go. I mean NDEers. They have something which seems like knowledge, but is not so much knowledge as an experience. They have an experience that suggests there may be something after the death of the body; and in many cases the experience also suggests a functioning of consciousness independent of biology in this world. IMO these experiences are valuable data and should be scientifically investigated - like NDE researchers such as Penny Sartori endeavor to do. Unfortunately at this time there is an overwhelming materialist reductionist bias in the scientific community. Hopefully that will shift in future time.
(When I refer to the NDE experience as data I am mean its significance to a scientist, not its personal significance or meaning to the individual who had the experience)

The traditional problem of evil in the world - eg how can a loving God permit a child to die tragically etc - is not an issue for me at all. Not because I believe there is no God or Divine (whatever That may be) but because in my opinion the Divine is not a ruler who determines what happens in the world; the Divine does not interfere in the world. The evil (the bad stuff) that people suffer here is either caused by natural events (the laws of Nature) or the actions of humans. And overwhelmingly the bulk of human suffering is caused by human beings. I have a problem with human evil, but I dont blame it on the Divine.

My opinion is that at a spirit level we choose to come here; and before we do we understand the conditions of the realm, the rules of the game, and we accept them. Of course one of the conditions is that in the process of incarnating we will forget who we really are. I also think that when we commit to take human birth we are aware that we are commiting to a series of human lives - not just one life. In other words death is not necessarily the end of our human adventure. In my philosophy the human afterlife realm is part of the complete earth realm. Where we originally come from and ultimately return to lies beyond both the physical and the afterlife realms of the Earth.

These are just my opinions. They are not knowledge and they are not beliefs; just my best estimation on the basis of the data of my life thus far.