do you believe in EVP? spirits / ghost recordings?

[Andykev]

The wind blows from many directions..sometimes it is a blow hard.

My mother used to often tell us, "It is not WHAT you say, but HOW you say it".

Faith? I think life would be very, very dull and hopeless without faith. Science cannot explain everything.

 

[TommySalieri]

Foolish be the one who thinks he knows everything.

 

[Rick Blaine]

Foolish be the one who thinks he knows everything.

I do not recall anyone here claiming to "know everything" if fact, if the argument is that "since science doesn’t know everything (certainly true) then my unscientific claim is worthy of consideration." you are mistaken. This corollary idea is that any notion you like the sound of, that cannot be proven false, is worthy of consideration is wrong. Something is only worthy of consideration if there is a reason to suppose it is true. That requires some evidence.

If you don’t restrict yourself to things that are backed by some evidence, or if there is at least some logical reason to suppose they might be true, you will believe in absolutely anything. And I have this really great bridge to sell you. When everything has validity, nothing does.

Who is more likely to earn your respect?

A. Someone who makes mistakes, admits them, and takes measures to catch his errors, just in case he makes one,
OR
B. Someone who never admits he's wrong, makes accusations about people who point out apparent errors, and makes special exemptions to make it impossible to prove him wrong?

When, in this country where I was born in & which I dearly love, roughly 60 percent of citizens have never read a book of any kind, and only 6 percent read as much as one book a year, when one hundred twenty million of us are illiterate or read no better than at a fifth-grade level, when the majority of us cannot say what a molecule is, don’t understand that the earth revolves around the sun each year and don’t know that Germany was the enemy of the United States in World War II, when many of us cannot even locate ourselves on a world map.. . . we are facing a crisis.
In the past, ignorance tended to be a source of shame and motivation. People were far more likely to be troubled by not-knowing, far more eager to fill such gaps by learning. These days, as Trachtenberg once said, ‘It’s not that they don’t know, it’s that they don’t care about what they don’t know.'

 

[Feraud]

Say what you want about EVP but do not tell me pet psychics are fake!

 

[Matthew Dalton]

When, in this country where I was born in & which I dearly love, roughly 60 percent of citizens have never read a book of any kind, and only 6 percent read as much as one book a year, when one hundred twenty million of us are illiterate or read no better than at a fifth-grade level, when the majority of us cannot say what a molecule is, don’t understand that the earth revolves around the sun each year and don’t know that Germany was the enemy of the United States in World War II, when many of us cannot even locate ourselves on a world map.. . . we are facing a crisis.
In the past, ignorance tended to be a source of shame and motivation. People were far more likely to be troubled by not-knowing, far more eager to fill such gaps by learning. These days, as Trachtenberg once said, ‘It’s not that they don’t know, it’s that they don’t care about what they don’t know.'

You've basically just described my country also, at least the parts I'm familiar with, I was just attacked on a local forum for the second time, for using words a person didn't understand, I wouldn't call any of them "5 dollar words" either! Kind of off topic, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Spatterdash]

Color me a skeptic, not a cynic.

A cynic is as bad as a hardcore believer. They deny and scoff by habit, yet they're considered far easier to deal with. Less popular are skeptics. They don't generally engage in faith (no logical reason to do so) and they certainly don't know everything, nor do they claim everything is knowable.
All they generally say to someone making an extraordinary claim is "Okay... show me."

That's not very welcome in some circles, but it does keep the charlatans at bay.

If I was faced with empirical evidence of spiritual beings, I'd accept the probability. Right now, all I see is an extremely slim possibility. I wish those searching for real evidence the best and I respect those who use faith as a guide in the meantime. I'm just on a different train.

 

[Section10]

Does only empirical evidence justify the accuracy of a belief? I'm not much into scientific circles, yet I suspect that a good many of these men firmly believe that the day is coming when we will encounter intelligent life from some other planet. Now regardless how popular it may be, that is a belief which is strictly faith based. There is absolutely no concrete evidence that intelligent life exists anywhere outside of earth (and the jury might still be out regarding earth, too). I'm not concerned about other intelligent life right now, but I think this is an example of a faith based idea that is quite popular, yet has no evidence at all to substantiate it.

 

[Matthew Dalton]

Color me a skeptic, not a cynic.

A cynic is as bad as a hardcore believer. They deny and scoff by habit, yet they're considered far easier to deal with. Less popular are skeptics. They don't generally engage in faith (no logical reason to do so) and they certainly don't know everything, nor do they claim everything is knowable.
All they generally say to someone making an extraordinary claim is "Okay... show me."

Yeah, I find it quite amusing to see certain Atheists and Believers clash with each other. So much resentment born of their disdain for the other's belief, yet all they did was apply the same criteria to varied personal experience and rule out any possiblity of being wrong about it.

The common ones would be something like; “I KNOW there can’t be a God, because I’ve had a hard time in life and no one helped me!” And “I KNOW there is a God, because I had a hard time and I got through it with what must have been his help”.

 

[TommySalieri]

I do not recall anyone here claiming to "know everything" [/I]

Actions speak louder than words. In any case, it wasn't directed towards anyone in particular. But now that I have gone over what has been stated by Matthew, I can certainly see how one would perceive it as such.

As for you, Rick - I understand where you are coming from. American society is as ignorant as it ever was..If not worse. But I think the blame lies on human nature in general.

 

[Twitch]

Geez don't anyone get their panties in a bunch. Tommy- I read your quote as more of a philosophical observation on humankind than a poke at anyone here.

Frankly a discussion about freakin ghosts has less significance than whether Barry Bonds' dope-tainted baseball records should carry an asterisk.lol

 

[TommySalieri]

Geez don't anyone get their panties in a bunch. Tommy- I read your quote as more of a philosophical observation on humankind than a poke at anyone here.

Frankly a discussion about freakin ghosts has less significance than whether Barry Bonds' dope-tainted baseball records should carry an asterisk.lol

Well, I'm glad someone didn't take it the wrong way. lol

 

[EL COLORADO]

I have a casette tape of EVP.
So i know its real. When Ive showed it to people it always freaks them out.

 

[deanglen]

I performed a house cleansing, some would call an exorcism, for members of a church I served in Kansas about ten years ago.

dean

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I performed a house cleansing, some would call an exorcism, for members of a church I served in Kansas about ten years ago.

dean

Please tell us the details if you would.

 

[EL COLORADO]

Gotta watch out for them "entities".

 

[McPeppers]

I only believe in the pink elephants that follow me home from the bar lol

 

[Elaina]

Well, I am rather mixed on EVP. I hear quite a few that people clean up to make them sound like words, and I've heard some that are quite clear.

I once did some EVP recordings in a graveyard that had not been in use since 1912. Off the beaten path, no houses and the nearest anything to it was a farm 2 miles away. I was walking through, with a man beside me (about 20 years age difference) and we were talking low and infrequently. He pointed to a gravestone and said "You know, Lane, that's good marble." I rolled my eyes and moved on, he stayed there for a moment.

About 5 minutes later, I said "This sucks. I hate EVPs and I get stuck doing them." My friend Thom said "Yeah, not my favorite thing."

When we got the tape back and dissceted it, after the marble comment there was an audible "Stupid" (the other word I cannot repeat in polite company) and after my comment there was "I'm stuck with you Elaina" heard. No cleanup, and other then being a little softer in decibles, was plainly heard. (And at no time was my name used at the graveyard. Thom never calls me anything but Lane.) We were also the only ones in the cemetary at that time, and the nearest travelled road was well over 5 miles away. These were the clearest, and loudest, comments on the tape.

I generally say EVPs are garbage. Most of them IMO are fake or people trying to make some noise be a ghost. I've had a few I can't explain, like the cemetary one, and one I once did in a house that had a great deal of history (unbeknownst to me at that time) that all through the EVPs were "Damn Yankees" and "I wish the war was over" were heard. Repeatedly. Turned out it was a confederate war vets house. So I'm still out on them.

Elaina

 

[deanglen]

Please tell us the details if you would.

There was a woman who was joining the church who asked if I performed exorcisms! Generally, we Lutheran pastors don't have a Rite of Exorcism to follow like Roman Catholic clergy, but I said I would do what I could. She explained that her teen-age daughter had complained about sounds in her downstairs bedroom, and frightening sensing of a "presence" in a room that was now a family room converted from a garage with deep red carpet they called the "red room". (I know some of you are thinking "REDRUM! REDRUM!", right?) The mother had taken her daughter to a counselor, suspecting drug use, but the counselor was convinced that the daughter was not using, and instead sincere. The husband, the woman's second marriage, stepfather to the girl, did not accept the girl's story. He thought it was a bunch of bunk..until he had an experience walking up the stairs that scared him silly though he wasn't specfic about what happened.
I agreed to do what I could. I consulted with a fellow pastor that I knew had similar experiences. He recommended simply reading passages from the Gospels interspersed with short prayers with all family members present. We did this. Afterward the daughter claimed that she felt something "move out of the house" through wall where the garage door used to be. All were happy. No further manifestations were reported. The following occurred during the cleansing. I cannot explain them. We were in the red room. It had recessed "canned" lights in the low ceiling. A member of the church brought a video camera to record the event. These happpened:
a) The light above me went out. Just went out. I swear I heard the bulb in it turning. Somebody told me I was hearing the metal fixture expanding from the heat of the bulb as the light had just been turned on. Maybe. I reached up and turned the bulb and it came back on.
b) The video camera quit, just before that bulb went out. Camera had a new battery. Couldn't make it work.
We weren't allowed to record the event, and I'm sure someone didn't want us to follow through with it. But we did.
Items related to satan worship were later found in the ceiling of a basement linen closet of the house. The family moved a year later.
I don't take these things lightly. I have members of my church who claim to have entities in their homes they have gotten used to. I wouldn't. Ever. Ephesians 6:10-20. Anyway, I don't run across a lot of this, but if it causes a person to be afraid, afflicts them and troubles them, I do what I can with confidence in the Word and fully aware that some might question my belied in such things as a childish superstition. Nothing new there. the whole Faith gets slapped with that brush.

dean