God dreams

Rather recently, John Loftus shared with us a blog post titled: The Power of the Delusion is Maddening. Experience Reigns Even Over Former Skeptics. The post is about an Atheist (herien refered to as A) who converted to Christianity after having an experience I refer to as a "God Dream". To put it bluntly, God Dreams are dreams in which the dreamer suddenly feels as though they are "experiencing God". The dreamer will see a white that is "brighter than white" and will feel a sense of powerfulness and pleasure beyond anything they have ever felt before.

I first started taking interest in the phenomena of God dreams about six months ago, on one dark and stormy night. If you haven't guessed it already, the reason why I'm into them is because I myself had one of these dreams. My God dream was very similiar to A's- except that I had no feeling of physical pain afterwards. I did, however, have a lingering feeling of awe for several minutes after the dream. Hell, I think it took me about week to finally forget about it entirely. Much like the aformentioned case, I considered converting to Christianity during that week. Unlike A, however, I did not convert.

I did, however, grow interested in why it may of happened. So I sent out emails to a few Psychologists and laymen alike, and was surprised by how little I got back. Finally, I decided to start from the ground up and use google. Anyways, after a short and lousy set of results, I found another guy who, like me, was an atheist  who experienced a "God dream" here (although I haven't been able to find the article since).

Anyways, since I couldn't find much of value on the web in terms of "God dreams", I instead decided to look into regular dreams. My brother (which I mention far too many times on this blog), has done some research into dreaming, and I intend to check it out. I wish I could give you a comprehensive debunking of the phenomena- but at this current point in time I simply do not know enough to. I hope to be able to provide a follow up on this post in a few days/weeks.

Miracle apologists

I don't have a clue at what the hell this guy is talking about. The only people who take miracle claims seriously are Parapsychologists- and it as a discipline has been on the decline since the 80's. Plus, even if we were to include their findings as evidence for the supernatural, we'd have to deal with contradictory claims that seem to be incompatible, such as Reincarnation and NDE's. Plus, many Paranormal enthusiasts cite angel encounters as evidence for new age beliefs, and don't even believe in exorcisms.

Anyways, out of curiosity, I visited the website they were affiliated with to check out some of their miracles claims. I'll admit, they have some interesting claims. I found this one in particular somewhat impressive, but that's about it. As usual, they put heavy emphasis on healing miracles and miracles from third world countries. In the end, I felt like I wasted my time. But then I had a valuable revelation. If these Religious miracles are so great, why hasn't anyone bothered to carefully document them. For christsake, the recipients of the supposed "miracles" would pretty much write it down for you themselves (or orate it if they're illiterate). Christians love miracle stories- especially in Charismatic denominations. All the missionaries would have to do is store the documents they receive in a sort of encyclopedia.

After that, we could subject these claims to all sorts of scientific tests. We could tell, for instance, whether the rate of miracle cures matches the rate of spontaneous remissions. We could tell whether or not most angelic encounters occur when the recipient is in a hypnogenic state. Hell, if we increase our efforts we can at least get some insight on the psychological profiles of these miracle recipients. All these miracle apologists have to do is organise their resources a little better. Just some paper and tape recorders should suffice. A few digital cameras wouldn't hurt either. They could really give a skeptic like me a run for his money- if, that is, these miracles really are going on everywhere.

Suddenly, I had another thought- what if the miracle claims just aren't that impressive. Maybe eyewitness testimony is more rare than apologists lead on. Maybe healing don't happen at an abnormal rate. Maybe a part of them knows that, if they try to organise, they will be wasting time and money. Or perhaps not- after all, Craig keener recently released a book documenting modern day miracles. I have heard of some rather impressive miracle claims myself just by using the Internet. For example, here are two cases in which a person not only claimed to have had witnessed a deceased person, but also were given a service by them.

A skeptic could say that these two cases were strange coincidences coupled with theistic expectations and invented memories as the experiencers retold their story. In the first case, the pastor may have just assumed the taxi driver was the father due to his emotional investment- for all we know, he could've been a family friend, or a bystander who had heard of the story and wanted to do a kind deed. Even more humorously, the cab driver could've given the preacher the wrong room number, causing him to enter another childs room instead. Perhaps in the second case, the mother merely told the doctors the name of the wrong hospital. After all, how well could she have known it if she wasn't aware that it closed? Or, again, it could've simply been a matter of getting dates wrong. What if the hospital closed down and the nurse died only a few days after the child used it, and a few days before the kid went to the hospital? I mean, most stiches are removed ten days after they are added- more than the "couple days" the man claimed. It seems a little far out to claim that 2 years may have been 2 days, and several months may have have been several days, but I'm just saying it's a possibility. Besides, this account came from when the man was 8 years old- hardly a reliable source.

Any of these alternate theories is certainly possible. It's just a shame that the recepeints never give us strong enough evidence. They never mention how long they spent looking for the Taxi driver after he "vanished", or whether the mother returned to the clinic and discovered it was, in fact, closed. Miracle apologists just never inculde important details like these- they just assume they re correct. And this really irritated me. So, in conclusion, I think it would be very interesting to see more apologists do what Craig Keener did and document these phenomenal events. I seriously doubt they will- but I hope they at least try,

Christmas and the Virgin Birth

I apologise for being late, but merry Christmas/ Happy Holidays to you all! This year, I got to enjoy spending Christmas eve in a Pentecostal church watching a (rather bad) Nativity play. While I was watching it, I was thinking about the Virgin Birth- a topic I hadn't really put much thought into. I mean, it is one of the most Theologically important parts of the bible, yet it appears in only two Gospels. Plus, to make matters worse, there are quite considerable discrepancies between the two accounts. Today, I was planning on doing a post on why I didn't believe in the Virgin birth. However, as I began typing, I started asking myself "why"?  I'll put it this way: even Robert Turkell doesn't think he can prove it. If you ask me, that's pretty good evidence against it's historicity.

Now, Skeptics and Religious Liberals have always used an array of arguments to undermine it's literal history. Likewise, Conservatives usually retaliate with some sort of "you can't say it didn't happen" shtick. In the end, neither side gets any closer to the truth of the matter. Want to see what I mean- here is an example.

A popular argument against the virgin birth is that it only appears in two of the Gospels. Conservatives argue that, because each of the stories were intended for a specific audience, blah blah blah. If you want to see an example of a Conservative answer, you can find one from JP Holding here. Now, I can understand certain miracles not being mentioned for this reason, but not one as significant Virgin Birth! By this logic, should we be surprised that the Resurrection was included, considering that everyone already knew about it? Furthermore, I don't think it really explains why Paul never mentioned it, even when he was evangelising. I am no Pauline scholar- but I am highly skeptical of anyone who puts politics before evidence of the miraculous. After all, the Gospels do include a particular story of women finding a particular empty tomb, remember?

As we can see, they are arguing that the Virgin birth possibly happened, not probably. They will say that, because so much of the Gospels are reliable, we ought to believe the parts in which there is little evidence, even when we'd expect more. But this is clearly pulling the cart before the horse! These stories should indicate the exact opposite- that we should be less trusting of our source, because they are willing to include things so obviously false! Anyways, at the end of Holdings essay, he makes an interesting and revealing remark.

"Objections against the validity of the virgin birth are based mostly on preconcieved notions - in the main, that the miraculous is impossible. There is no reason, other than pre-conceived notions, to reject it as historical; and to be fair, no reason other than own's own perceptions to accept it as such. It simply depends on our starting point.
-JPH"

The reason I point this out isn't because of his spelling error (the "E" goes after the "I" in Preconceived). No, I point this out to show the reader what this is really about- that we atheists don't believe in miracles. It's never about whether or not their is sufficient evidence- it's just about having a philosophical prejudice against them. Now, I'll be the first person to admit that the Resurrection is usually denied due to philosophical prejudice. However, I hardly see how this relates to miracles like the zombies of Matt 27, of which there is no confirmatory evidence for. This just seems to me to be philosophical prejudice against Naturalism.

JP Moreland's angel encounter

As many skeptics are probably aware, JP Moreland has recently claimed to have had an angelic encounter. Although never actually saw the angles (and still hasn't, page 157), he has a little story about how he now "knows" they are real. According to his book and this report, he claims that an old woman at his church saw 3 angels around him. At first, he thought the woman was crazy. 8-10 months later, however, Moreland experienced a tragedy of some sort and decided to pray not only for the angels to protect him, but for God to verify the angels' existence to him. Less than a week later, a student claimed to have seen 3 angels hovering around Moreland in, apparently, the exact same manner described by the woman (pages 155-156). Hallelujah!

Now- what could've happened? Well, I'm sure even Moreland would agree that it could have been a very large coincidence. However- I think that, if we properly scrutinize the story, the coincidence in the end will not be that impressive. we'll begin by breaking the miracle claim into 3 separate parts- the Old woman, the prayer, and finally, the Student.

First off, lets keep in mind that he thought the old woman was crazy. Why was that, a skeptic will rightly ask? Could it be, perhaps, because the old woman was slightly crazy? It's not like it's hard to tell the difference between a crazy person from a sane person- they just don't look right. Also, we don't have evidence that the angels were in a sophisticated position- one that could not otherwise be guessed. According to the book, one angel stood by each of his sides, and another behind him. This position doesn't sound that complicated. In fact, it's really the only photogenic way three angels could huddle around someone! The only thing that seems strange is that the angel behind him was taller than him. Then again, it would look kinda funny if the angel behind him were shorter than him- since you wouldn't be able to see him! Plus, Moreland appears to be fairly  average height, at least according to this video (The first few seconds). Therefore, I doubt the backmost being taller is really that implausible to guess.

Moving on, lets look at part two of the miracle- the prayer. Now, it does seem somewhat odd that Moreland would think of the angels in his prayer- after all, he did say that he was experiencing a hard time. And remember, the first part of his prayer was for the angels to help him. Only later did he decide he wanted proof. In addition, keep in mind that Moreland only prayed that God would verify the angels' existence. He never instructed God in how this would happen. Moreland could've accepted anything as evidence for angels, as he never set up any limits.

Finally, we get to the icing on the cake. Why that student say 3 angels as opposed to two or four is beyond me. However, we must keep in mind that the old woman told Moreland of her vision 8-10 months ago, remember? For all we know, she could have seen two or five angels, and Moreland ended up changing the numbers in his head. She could have also said something ambigous, like "a few". Same thing for the details. Ten months is a lot of time to change the details- and he never mentions anything about going back and verifying what the old woman saw. He let 8-10 months pass, and thought very little of the experience, admitting that he "wasn't even sure if it was real". The details, like the angels height or even numbers could have been retrofitted. We do have precedent for this sort of thing happening- and 8-10 months is a hell of a lot of time.

I admit, this is all speculation, of course. What I do know, however, is that sane people regularly experience hallucinations. They typically occur when the person is tired or stressed out- conditions not uncommon in a university classroom. However- even sane people can and do experience hallucinations of strange things they don't even understand. Now, keep in mind that most hallucinations are of faces or humans. We all have an innate ability to detect patterns- and the most common ones tend to be faces. This is why we see faces in toast and why we see other people when we hallucinate (I will add a relevant link later). Interestingly enough, the angels all looked like regular people. Also, at least in the case of the student, the vision only lasted 5-10 minutes. Now, if we consider how bad human memory is, we can probably say the vision was closer to 5 minutes. Sound like a Hallucination to you? It does to me. Also, curiously enough, in this video, he claims that the vision from the student was "10-15 minutes", as opposed to the original "5-10 minutes". We can clearly see him changing the numbers.

So, I would like to conclude by saying that this case is an interesting one. It is the only angel case I have seen in which different people see the same entity(s) at different times. It is also rather strange that the student's angel appearance occurred at such a similar time to Moreland's prayer. According to Moreland, the student's vision occurred a few days prior to his sending the email to Moreland, which happened less than a week after the prayer. This means that, if Moreland can be taken at his word, the student saw the angels 2-4 days after the prayer. Although the angels's and their details don't impress me at all, it's the timing of the second prayer that makes me feel bad about dismissing the case entirely. Of course, I find it very strange that Moreland doesn't give out any numbers at all. All he says is "less than a week later", and "a few days earlier". I don't know why he wouldn't just give us hard numbers as opposed to estimates. It could be because, although he knows when he got the email, he forgot when he made the prayer request. If this is true, than the students email could've occurred much later, and, once again, Moreland was just retrofitting his memories to suit his expectations. It seems possible to me. According to Morelands "Closer to the truth" interview, the visit with the angel happened "2 years ago". Therefore, the miracles would have happened at least a year prior to the filming of that episode. I don't know when the episode was released, but I think it would be safe to say that the reports of his "miracle" came in about a year after they occurred- more than enough time to polish them off for apologetic purposes.

By the way, sorry for not doing a post on the OT. I was going to post a link to the  documentary "Unearthing the bible", but found that the video was removed from YouTube. I'll try to get a copy of it at the library.

Kevin Brown's miracle claim

For the last few weeks, I've been looking for impressive miracle claims. Events that, if true, would totally shatter my deeply held world-view. I looked all over the Internet- I honestly have. But so many of the stories are just lame. The vast majority of them are miraculous healings that could easily  be explained by spontaneous remissions. There are some nature miracles- but they are far and few. For the most part, I haven't seen a single miracle that CANNOT be explained naturally. Now, I am agnostic as to whether the best explanation for the combined sum of miracles leans toward Atheism or not- but I think it can at least explain them all away. Well, all except one...

One of my favorite Christian bloggers Kevin Brown (AKA Diglotting) made a rather large claim in the comments sections of one of this posts. He claimed that only himself, but his entire family witnessed a supernatural entity on not only once, but several occasions. When I first read it, I immediately responded by saying that perhaps, in the future, a naturalistic explanation will be discovered. A few days later, however, I just couldn't keep it on the back of my head. I knew that this claim was different than the other ones. For one thing, he is an eye-witness- rarely do paranormal investigators and skeptics get the privilege of speaking directly to the ones who were involved. Secondly, I know that Kevin isn't a primitive, superstitious African tribal prone to hallucinating due to lack of food and clean water. Thirdly, there isn't much of a reason to lie.

All these factors made me want to investigate the claim further. I mean, I only have my immortal soul at stake, right? So, I commented on Kevin's post under the alias of "Darwinfish" in order to get some information out of him. Yes- I know the employment of alternate accounts is seen as dishonest in the bloggerspere, but cut me some slack, will you? I wanted to know the truth- even if it meant getting dirty and forcing it out of him. And so, I didn't want to stain my reputation with what I was planning to do to extract information.

Anyways, I waited for a few days; He didn't respond. Frustrated, I sent him two other comments, just to make sure he got the first one. Again, I got no response. Finally, I sent him a longer comment, accusing him of withholding valuable information that, according to him, could save my soul. At this point, I was extremely offended. How dare he let someone suffer for an eternity due to their ignorance. What kind of messed up, holier than thou attitude is that? Anyways, this time he deleted my comment, as well as every comment made under my alias of "Darwinfish".

Even when I pointed out the consequences of his actions, he still chose to ignore me. What the hell. At this point I am debating in my head whether he really did see a "supernatural entity". Did he make it up? Did he exaggerate his story so that he'd have something to fire at Papalinton, who he was debating in the comments section? I don't know- and I doubt I ever will. But this unproductive attitude isn't uncommon amongst miracle believers.

One middle aged woman claimed that her mother in laws arm miraculously grew one and a half inches longer right in front of her eyes. However, when one commenter suggested that she report the event to a skeptical investigator, she stated that she "didn't want to test God". Really? If God doesn't want us to be convinced by his miracles, why the hell does he permit them? The New Testament puts heavy emphasis on Jesus' faith healings, so I see no reason why Jesus would all of a sudden change his mind. To me, a better explanation is that people like her just don't want to challenge their beliefs. They'd rather believe in a miracle than admit to being mistaken. In the case of the woman, I found this video from Randi, explaining how faith healers do the elongated limbs trick.

Now, this whole preference to supernatural explanations seems innocent at first- I mean, I'm sure that old woman is enjoying thinking she's been healed out of what is obviously a sham. However, when you consider how many people like may change their minds- you realise it's a cruel, cruel thing they are doing. They are maintaining their comfort at the potential expense of other peoples eternal suffering. This attitude insults, degrades and belittles my worth as a human being.

So Kevin, if you are, by some miraculous coincidence reading this post, I am not accusing you of putting your feel-good beliefs before of my eternal soul. All I am saying is that it looks an awful lot like that from this perspective. Also, I don't really care if you find out that "Darwinfish" was me this whole time. Why should I? I just wanted answers. Your the one possibly sending me to hell. Something tells me I'm not visiting your blog anytime soon. And finally, thank you to the anonymous gent who asked me to blog thru the Old Testament. I would love to crack open the history books and look at a few of the sillier parts of the Bible in greater detail.

HT James McGrath for the picture


UPDATE

The information in this post is now outdated. Read this for more. I will keep this post up to serve as a lesson on how powerful coincidences can be.

Pitting incompatible Supernatural beliefs against each other, Part 2

Religions, other than Christianity, have made miracle claims. This fact is unavoidable. Even Christians acknowledge that miracle claims are often made from members of other Religions. Some examples of miracle claims in the names of Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism can be found here, here and here. New agers have a substantial amount of miracle claims, so I wont bother linking to any. So, how do Christians deal with this diversity? Well- some of them just throw their arms in the air and claim agnosticism. During a discussion on miracles at Victor Repperts blog, one commenter claimed that miracles done in the name of other Religions can actually be proof for Christianity, since, apparently, God had no quips about deceiving people into the wrong faith. And of course, many Christians will just outright deny the validity of other Religions' miracle claims, and happily affirm their own.

Now, I am not a trained theologian, so I can't really conclusively comment on the success of any of these strategies. However, that doesn't mean I can't hold a inconclusive opinion. For one thing- how can we determine which Religion is correct if they all make similar claims? If every miracle ever documented were done for and by Christians, than that would be good evidence that Christianity is the true faith. However, what we see instead are many miracles being claimed by many religions. The only possible scenarios I see are that, either God allows miracles to happen that inevitably draw people away from Christianity, or that these things all have natural causes. Well... I guess one can argue that there exists an all loving, Universalist God that does miracles for everyone. But even this scenario doesn't seem to fit in with the Christian concept of hell and atonement, does it? In the end, it just seems intuitive that all these miracle stories are false.

Also, even if we granted that miracles occur in Christianity alone- one would have to ask why they even exist in the first place? What is the criteria in which someone is allowed to witness a miracle, and someone is denied that opportunity? Because it seems to me that the person who witnessed a miracle will have a better chance of being/remaining a Christian than the person who does not- giving them an unfair advantage. A Theist could claim that God works in mysterious ways, or that he rewards people who would've believed anyways, using his Omniscience. Answers like these are clearly sound- but that doesn't mean they are good. For one thing- they are both unfalsifiable, and cannot ever be tested or proven false.

Just to conclude, I wanted to mention NDE's again- since they are generally considered the best evidence for an afterlife. I have argued before that, since NDE's occur to members of other faiths, they are probably of naturalistic origin. Ed Babinski argues this at length during the conversation about miracles he had on Victor Repperts blog.

"Same with Near Death Experiences, the majority of which are positive, even for people who do not become orthodox Christians. In fact Mormons have a journal devoted to recording and studying the Near Death Experiences of Mormons (some of them saw Lincoln in the afterlife, and guess what, Lincoln converted and became a Mormon after he died), which sometimes are quite detailed and involve a trip to a very Mormon-looking heaven. Betty Eade wrote several books about her Mormon NDE that were on the bestseller lists about ten years or so ago. "

Surprisingly, many commenters agreed with him that Miracles can't be used as evidence for the existence of God! I chalk that up as a victory for Atheism.

HT to Russ, Ed Babinski and the many other anonymous commenters

Pitting incompatible Supernatural beliefs against each other

Supernatural claims are a dime a dozen now adays. Many of them can be consistent with Christianty, like NDE's, Apparitions and Poltergeists. However, many aren't as adaptable, such as Reincarnation and Alien sightings. Furthermore, amonst the phenomena that are consistent with Christianity, I think that many cases can be shown to be incompatible with it as well- such as non-Christians having NDE's featuring members of their Religion. I have used this strategy in various posts, such as this one, this one and this one.

Here is an interesting article I discovered recently that illustrates my point. What makes it interesting, however, isn't the story itself- but the couple starring in it- Sarah & Michael Feeley. These two claim that they experienced  angelic visitations. Now, angelic visitations aren't incompatible with the truth of Christianity- as a matter of fact, they are what we'd expect if Christianity were true! Therefore, this couples experience serves as evidence that Christianity is true, right?

Wrong! In addition to the beliefs they hold that support Christianity, they also hold many absurd claims that don't gel as well with it- such as that they experienced ascended masters, energy meditations and even alien encounters. They also believe that  they had past lives in Egypt and Atlantis- a claim that is completely in conflict with most forms of Christianity since it removes hell from the picture.

So- if we were to assume that an angel did, in fact, visit them- one would have to ask why they hold all these absurd beliefs- some of which are irreconcilable with Christianity. Perhaps a demon disguised as an angel decieved them. That's a possible explaination- but than, how can ever we know whether "genuine" religious experiences are authentic? After all, they have just as much evidential merit as this couples experiences, don't they? Plus, the demon hypothesis can't be disproven, so it's on quite shaky ground. Only two other possibilities stick out in my mind- that they are all correct beliefs, or that they are all incorrect beliefs- and I think we all know what the answer is.

Now, as well as a being a good example of pitting incompatible beliefs against each other, this couple should also shed light on the power of belief. For those that have read the article, you'll know that these two aren't just superstitious tribals- their ex-police officers! This should demonstrate how even the most credible of witness' could be utterly, utterly deluded.

The incredible Gef

On September, 1939, the Irving family had started hearing strange sounds. At first, they thought they were the victims of a horrible Poltergeist! However- they later discovered that the source of the commotion wasn't a scary ghost- but a cute little Mongoose named Gef. Now Gef wasn't your average, ordinary Mongoose- oh no, he was far more special than that. You see- Gef was a Mongoose that could talk! Don't believe me? Well, to all you nay-sayers, we have tons of evidence that Gef not only could talk, but did, in fact, exist!

Firstly, we have the eye witness testimony of the entire Irving family that they did, in fact, see and communicate with Gef. Also, in addition to this testimony, we also have the testimony of five outsiders. The first being their neighbour, Charles Northwood- who claims that he personally heard Gef talk- and that his voice was definitely not of natural origin. Two local Teenagers, Harry Hall and Will Cubbon, also heard Gef speak, as well as a nameless reporter and Government official which all claimed the same thing- that Gef's voice was too high pitched to be natural. The only people to have heard Gef's voice and not be convinced were two journalists, who visited Gef for the sole purpose of hearing him speak.

"Suddenly there was a shrill squeak from the corner of the room where Voirrey, the daughter, was sitting. Mr Irving, in great excitement, gripped my arm and pointing to the opposite side of the room, whispered: 'He's there! Did you hear him?'"

"Evans and I gazed at each other in sheer amazement... We were again conducted to the door and the squeaks at intermittent intervals continued. Each squeak was kindly translated by Mr Irving to mean: 'They don't believe' or 'I want to back a horse', etc. The squeak in every case was of a particularly short duration"

"On our way down, I noticed Voirrey had a tendency to hang behind, and once again we heard a piping squeak with Mr Irving again wildly gesticulating and pointing to the hedge and whispering: 'He's there, I tell you. He's there!'"

Now obviously. the Irvings faked this one. But come on! Just because they faked one doesn't mean they faked them all! I mean, we have a Government official that heard Gef's voice! They are highly educated in science and stuff, aren't they?

Anyways, in addition to testimony, we also have a sample of Gef's hair and of Gef's paw prints and teeth made in Plasticine! Now, I know what you're thinking- obviously the Irvings could've used any old Mongoose's teeth, paws and hair, right? Wrong! We can tell these samples are authentic because, according to tests carried out by scientists Reginald Innes Pocock and F.Martin Duncan - they don't match those of any known species of Mongoose! As a matter of fact, the only type of animal that these samples even come close to matching is a that of a Sheepdog- coincidentally the same type of Dog as the family pet. However, not to stray away from the point- the paw print is unique and, therefore, must be proof that a unique animal made them.

Now to conclude this post, I must say that, although we all know Gef is real, some will look at the story of Gef with doubt in their heart. Some will say that the people who heard Gef speak must have been mistaken since two reporters didn't believe it. They'll say that the hair and paw prints matched the families dog because it was from the families dog. They'll even say that the daughter, Viorrey, caused the whole thing, perhaps with the help of her dad, since most of their neighbours suspected that was the case. However- these charges do not belittle my faith in Gef- and they shouldn't belittle your faith in Gef, too.

A very personal Poltergeist case

Poltergeists, as well as any empirical evidence for the supernatural, fascinate me. Although I don't believe in any of that stuff personally- I've always found it more interesting than, say, philosophical arguments for the existence of God. There just seems to be more of an evidential pull with flying utilities than there is with an unmoved mover. For that reason, I have been looking more into the case for the supernatural than I did at the beginning of this blog. If you'd rather I post about the historical Jesus more- just tell me. I have some interesting posts relating to the Old and New Testaments that I can't wait to post.

But to get back on track- I have a Poltergeist story I would like to share with you. Than, I will analyze it and demonstrate why I think it, as well as many other poltergeist stories, are obviously false. This story begins with a family that all start to experience strange phenomena. Their son starts having horrible dreams, often about death, hell and a possessed knight statue. The mom starts losing things at a high rate- claiming that the objects must of "moved by themselves" while she wasn't looking. At nights, she reports hearing things bump and bang against the floor. Now, the dad is a genius- with an IQ of 140. He doesn't believe in any of this stuff. However, one day, while half asleep, he sees a ghost, sitting on the side of his bed. He suddenly turns white, as the ghost disappears. Eventually, after a few years, they move out, as the dad has been saving up and can now afford a bigger house. They never contact the family that moved in.

I can testify, however, that the family was never haunted in the first place. This is because I was the son in this family. My old house, located on Harlow Road in Mississauga, Ontario, was believed by my family and I to be haunted. However- I stopped believing that it was a while ago, most probably since everything that we experienced could be explained naturally. For instance, my mother is a klutz that still loses things frequently. When we lived in the old house, she was  a new parent who had more responsibilities than she was used to. My belief is that she simply couldn't keep track of everything as well as she usually could due to the new heads. Also, my brothers and I had probably moved things from time to time. When it came to the supernatural noises- we did have a dog. Also, there are drafts, rats, and even cars and trucks outside. My fathers experience isn't that hard to explain either. He was groggy by his own admission, and when he saw the apparition, his vision was unfocused. It seems to me that he could have just saw something that looked like a ghost and experienced Pareidola, perhaps due to a shirt hanging on the doorknob, or some such thing.

My experiences, however, were the most strange. I was terrified of even leaving my room at night to use the bathroom. Although I never heard or saw anything supernatural at all, I had these bizarre hell dreams. Once, I dreamed of sliding down a slide to hell with my brother. Most often, however, my dreams featured a living knight statue, that would trick me into being all alone, and than would chase me. These dreams left me feeling terrified, even after I woke up. However- I do not regard these as being supernatural at all. The reason why I don't is because, even after the haunting stopped, I still had them occasionally. You see, although it's embarrassing to admit- I had a small speech impediment when I was a kid. I still speak too speak fast, and I can barely pronounce the "r" sound. As you could imagine, I was teased a lot for it, and this caused me a lot of anxiety when I was young. When the dreams started, I was in 5th grade, the time when most of my friends started teasing me. I stopped having the dreams when I was in the 8th grade. As time progressed, I had less and less of them, until they eventually reached a full halt. Humorously, in one of my very last "scary dreams", I punched the knight statue in the face after I realised I was dreaming. I think at that point I stopped believing they were anything other than a nuisance.

It seems to me that, at least in my own poltergeist case, the evidence looks strong at first since we have no background information. However, once we start to dig a little deeper, my case, as well as every other reported case, all of a sudden looks a lot weaker. For example, my hell dreams look more normal when you consider the fact that they persisted long after everyone else's experiences. Also, my whole family, including myself, were devout Catholics, who attended church regularly. I went to a Catholic school, and in it, I thought about God all the time. It was our expectation as Christians that this sort of thing occur once and a while. Also, my mom was very superstitious back than. For instance, she believed that the Ghosts came because she and a friend once played with an Ouija board in the living room. Nobody else in the family believed her, and eventually she stopped believing it as well.

In conclusion, I think the reason we stuck around with the house so long was because we were so fascinated with the possibility of it proving God 's existence. If any of us really believed the house was possessed by spirits or demons, we would've ran the hell out immediately. But we didn't. We acted as if we were the hero's in a horror film. It made for great conversations at social gatherings, with other superstitious people would recall stories they heard about exorcisms and the like. In conclusion, we believed in the poltergeist so long as it benefited us, as I suspect many other superstitious people do.

Do Poltergeists exist outside of the movies?

To start this post off- I'd like to say happy Halloween to all my readers. If you are going out for Halloween, or assisting someone else in going out, than I salute you. Not enough people are celebrating this truly brilliant holiday anymore, and that makes me very sad. On the upside, I'll be able to dress up as Elder Price this year, since it's not like any kids will see me.

Anyways, to get back on track, this post is about Poltergeists. Poltergeists, which translate to "noisy ghosts" in German, are pretty much just that- evil ghosts that have nothing better to do than screw around with the living, by lingering around their homes and breaking things. Now, haunted houses have always been great settings for horror movies- from classics like Poltergeist to, well, The house that drips blood on Alex. Of course, the purpose of this post isn't to talk about my favorite horror films. The purpose is to determine whether Poltergeists are strong evidence for the supernatural or not.

Now before I begin, I'd keep in mind, as the Skeptics dictionary does, that there are too many of these events to look into- so don't expect a comprehensive debunking of every Poltergeist ever reported. However, we can certainly look into the similarities of each Poltergeist case, and see if plausible natural hypothesis can be administered to each and every one of them. Anyways, here are the three most common things that occur during Poltergeists: Objects moving on there own, Supernatural noises and Cold spots.

Now, we all know that cold spots are common, and often caused by completely natural phenomena. For instance, old houses often have drafts. This theory works well since the vast majority of Poltergeist cases happened at least 100 years ago, thus in old houses. Of course, someone could also have left a window open, or just had the placebo effect due to the fear of being in a "haunted house". The same applys to the supernatural noises. We must not forget the power of the imagination. Of course, people could hear strange sounds from outside their homes, and interpret them as being from paranormal agents inside. We must keep in mind that laymen and paranormal investigators usually lack the scientific expertise to properly identify strange sounds.

This bring us to our final occurrence- the moving of furniture "on it's own". Various alternatives have been given- such as strong drafts, electro magnetic feilds, high-frequency radio signals, and even simple explainations like loose bolts and phone cords. Hallucinations are often commonly associated to these experiences as well. Others think that they are caused by some kind of negative psychological energy like Dr. William Roll- although this view seems to be rejected by most Ghost hunters and scientists alike. However- I think the best explanation for most cases of this phenomena is usually fraud. For one thing, one has to wonder why the families experiencing these events are so contempt to stick around for the show. I'd assume that a rational person would run the hell away, and call a paranormal detective after they were a safe distance away. After all- some Poltergeist victims claim the Poltergeists were trying to kill them!

Of course, this reason alone isn't why I think most cases are frauds. It's also the fact that so many cases actually were frauds. The Amityville Poltergeist and the Columbus Poltergeist are good examples of very popular Poltergeists that turned out to be frauds. Even the Amherst Poltergeist and Enfield Poltergeist are now considered to be frauds by many Psychologists. Keep in mind that all these Poltergeists were, at a time, considered the best cases ever documented. One of the reasons why these people are motivated to do what they do is because of the media attention- although historically there have been many strange motives behind these events. In the case of The Columbus Poltergeist, the teenage daughter, Tina Resch, was caught on tape hoaxing the investigaters. James Randi investigated the case, and discovered that Tina was not only adopted, but using the media coverage to find her long lost parents. She was also arrested for killing her own children several years later.

Of course, Paranormal enthusiasts have always claimed that these were perhaps only partially faked. It seems possible. However, we have to ask ourselves- why did these families find the need to exaggerate their claims? Could it be because, perhaps, their original claims just weren't that good to begin with? Also, keep in mind that the media also exaggerates an awful lot in order to make these cases more marketable. For instance, only a handful of people could testify for all the huge claims that were made during the Amherst Poltergeist- and of them, I don't think any one claim had more than one witness. I know that Amherst happened over a hundred years ago- but really, we are talking about a case in which a church got possessed at one point. The whole thing had been all but invented by the media and a few unreliable witness'.

As a final thought, many Poltergeists may also be caused by a phenomena called Dissociation. Dr Walter F. Prince, for instance, makes the case for Dissociation as the cause of the Amherst Poltergeist. Dissociation is an altered state of consciousness in which you act without having any memory of it. In a way, it is kind of like amnesia- and often goes hand in hand with it. And of course, other explanations most certainly exist that I haven't looked into, and more will come into existence in time. Keep in mind that most serious Scientists and Psychologists still haven't reached a view in favor of these being authentic. As a matter of fact- paranormal studies as a whole have been on the decline since the 80's (see here), due to the criticism it's recieved by other, real scientists. Most of them believe that the evidence for the paranormal is most certainly bloated by the media, by the victims' active imaginations, and by mankinds supernatural expectations- just as I do.

Should we pay attention to miracle claims?

In my opinion, yes. It is a shame that miracles claims aren't investigated more vigorously. Most Atheists set their "skeptronimers" to 11, and most Christians don't even have one. In other words, Atheists ignore them, and Christians accept them totally uncritically. Here is a small example of what I mean. In this article on faith healing, the author mentions a few cases in which patients were cured, seemingly by prayer. The author than lays out the two strongest possible scenarios:

"Only two explanations appear reasonable - either they were spontaneous remissions which coincidentally occurred after prayer, or they are genuine healing miracles. "

Spontaneous remissions which coincidentally occurred after prayer- really? Did the author forget that most Medical Doctors are Religious? This means that most Doctors, like most Religious people, will most likely pray for their patients to get better. With that said, I think we should really focus on how many of these prayer recipients died, not how many survived. For according to the "spontaneous remissions theory, a relatively small group of patients will always resuscitate! It seems to me, however, that with the "miracle theory", we should expect more people to survive.

Now not all cases are the same. In one case, a doctor named Chaucy Crandall claims that he heard a "voice" in his head, telling him to pray. Firstly, I'd like to know what he means by "voice". If he means a sort of intuition, I can relate to him. On several occasions, I have felt a strong need to do something- often mundane, and often with no reward. Also, according to this news report, he prays for every patient he sees. Now with that in mind, doesn't it seem at least plausible that he just panicked at the sight of his patient and prayed out of desparation?

In addition to healing miracles, there are also miracle claims regarding dreams and visions. A particularly unimpressive one can be found here. In it, a Muslim man sees Jesus in a dream and converts to Christianity. Why do I think it's unimpressive, you ask? Well, according to the video, the guy already doubted his own Islam, as he said he wanted to know the "true God". Also, he started attending Christian mass prior to his dream. And if that isn't enough to cast doubt on this miracle claims authenticity, the physical description he gives of of Jesus doesn't even match what a first century Jew would look like. If anything, it sounds like it was influenced by the Christian paintings and popular media so common in the modern day! The only miraculous part of the story was when his children claimed to  see Jesus. However, their two visions were private and they occurred at night- so it seems like this is a case of "waking dreams"- a type of hallucinatory experience that is caused due to just waking up. Another possibility is that the visions were nothing more than dreams as well. This claim, like most miracle claims out there, is just not very well testified.

Now, despite my strong opinion of the last few cases, I do believe that there are some miracle claims that are difficult if not impossible to explain without appeal to the divine. Look at this one for example. Now how the hell can an Atheist prove this one false? I think CS Lewis' liar, lunatic or lord scenario sums up the skeptics dilemma quite well. So, what do I make of it? I think the liar branch is quite plausible. His crying was a bit over the top, if you ask me. Plus, psychic powers are empirically testable. He could easily force choke a grip if he really wanted to convert people. Not supplying us with evidence when you can is either being lazy or disingenuous with your supposed "gift". Also, I'd like to know whether there are other Muslims (like he was) that believe they have psychic powers given to them by Jinn. I mean, lets look at it this way- there are a dozen Muslim psychics. One of them becomes a Christian. Does this mean the eleven other Muslims are being deceived by Demons- or perhaps the one Christian? Either way you look at it, this miracles seems just too strange to believe.

Christian entity encounters

There are some Christians out there who claim to have experienced miracles. Well, the Christian understanding of a miracle has always been that it is an event that brings the recipient closer to God. No, when I say a miracle, I mean an event that is far harder to explain in naturalistic terms than by an appeal to the divine. Anyways, these miracles usually involve seeing and/or communicating with Angels, Demons, Jesus and Apparitions. Skeptics usually label these visionary experiences as entities- and usually group them together with UFO's, Bigfoot, and other strange, supernatural beings.

However, despite the popularity of entities amongst laymen, intellectuals rarely mention them, if ever. Really, the only ones I have ever heard even mention these kinds of events are Gary Habermas, Mike Licona and JP Moorland. And even they say little of value about them. I suspect the reason why they are unpopular in academia would be because, sadly, these events rarely have any evidence other than bare testimony. Even Habermas, who has argued in favor of these Miracles, admits this here.

"In my own study of apparition cases, in spite of my very positive mindset, I hardly ever saw a case for which there were not several potential alternative theses. In fact, when even the best cases are studied, something regularly seems to be lacking"

Usually the problem with entities are that they never interact with the environment (ie: leave footprints) and that they are usually experienced using one sense (usually sight, but they are sometimes heard, see here). However, there are exceptions, such as cases in which the supernatural entity is seen and heard, and/or appears to multiple people. These experiences are challenging to fit into a naturalistic worldview, but they are not impossible. Many explanations have been put forward from skeptics, such as Pereidola and false memory recalls. Personally, I think that some cases can also be explained by some form of group hallucinations. The experiences themselves tend to be very simplistic and short, so it seems plausible that many Apparition reports can be explained with them. Also, don't forget that Christians of all creeds- and even non-Christians (see here and here) claim to have these types of experiences! Dale Allison is certainly open to the possibility of group hallucinations- and he supposedly experienced one himself!

Just as a final thought, I'd just like to say that, if there really were supernatural entities out there- why haven't they ever been photographed or caught on film? Bill Nye makes an excellent point in this video that, only a little while ago, car collisions were considered impossible to catch on film. Nowadays, there are so many traffic cameras out there that they are captured regularly. So, my question is simple: why do so many of these entities appear when no one else is looking? There should be far more entity reports than there were several years ago, simply because of the fact that we now have the means to record them. Yet nothing unexplainable has turned up. This is a real problem for believers indeed.