Elves in Iceland

This article from the wonderful Austin Cline made my day. Cite it next time you debate a Christian!

How many professors believe in the Paranormal?

Want to know? Click here to find out! It's my first entry on the James Randi Educational Foundation fourm! Whenever I add something new, I'll be sure to cross post it!

The strangest thing I've seen in a while...

This is just surreal. Bob Larson, the exorcist guy, saying that Magic underwear is superstitous?

Andyman409 miracle detective: A real life exorcism!

Here is an interesting little thing I found online a while ago. According to the article, a trained Psychiatrist and a team of Catholic priests and nuns actually witnessed a real life exorcism! That's right- not one of those phony baloney ones done by those protestant nut-cases; but a real, true blue one! Just like the film the exorcist, the team reported several strange phenomena including: Levitation, Super-human strength, clairvoyance, Xenoglossy, and psychokinesis.

Amazing huh. The only problem is... they recorded none of it! That's right- all these crazy things happened, and nobody ever thought, just for a second, to actually use a video camera. Furthermore, the only two news sources I was able to find this incredible story on were "New Oxford review", an exclusively Catholic magazine, and "World Net Daily", a bunch of hyper-conservative right wing Birthers. Beyond these two very questionable news sources, we haven't a shred of evidence that any of this actually happened.

Furthermore, even if we were to use these sources, the pertinent details are severely lacking. They briefly mention some of the supernatural happenings in passing, but that's all. For example, they report that objects "flew off the shelves on their own"- but they never tell us any of the details, like exactly which objects did so, or how they could tell there where no naturalistic alternatives. The worst part, however, is that these articles never even tell us the identity of the woman being possessed. If this case were to have had no paranormal phenomena, than I could imagine her being afraid of accusations to her sanity. But supposedly psycho-kinesis and levitation occurred! Surely any un-justified criticism by pseudo-skeptics would be deflected by eager parapsychologists. Super-naturalist friendly America would have embraced her- not ridiculed her. But, once again, the biggest problem with this case isn't the lack of evidence per se, but the fact that, had this event actually occurred, we should expect the evidence to be a lot better. The fact that the details are so sorely lacking is either the result of very poor scholarship- or very deviant fraud. Or perhaps both.

After all, naturalistic explanations can be applied to several of the purported "supernatural occurrences". Tricksters have been known to move objects in order to deceive others- which is the cause of many poltergeist cases. Furthermore, Pseudo seizures sometimes produce violent movements that can be confused for levitation (a short discussion on this can be found here). Furthermore, the intense emotional stress these types of events generate often lead to mass hysteria, in which strange collective delusions can form. Michael Cuneo, a skeptical sociologist, sat in on over 50 exorcisms while he was writing his book "American exorcism- Driving out demons in the land of plenty". During the events, many strange things would be reported, such as levitation. Cuneo, however, would be unable to see the phenomena, even though others present could (see here and here).

So in conclusion, I think we can safely say that, even if exorcism does work and demons do exist, we simply have no way of finding out until more serious research is done. It's just a shame that it will most likely end up yielding no results.

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,

Andyman409: Miracle detective- 3 demons, an angel and Satan himself

Yeah, I know. I've written so many posts about the Paranormal I'd might as well make an entire series devoted to debunking them. So, here is my brand new series, Andyman409: Miracle Detective. It will not be periodical like Resurrection Sundays, but it will occasionally appear.

Todays story (here) is about a guy who calls himself Tassadar who claims to have spoken with 3 demons, an angel and Satan himself. He claims that the demons told something he couldn't have possibly known- their names. You see, they were named Cefwyn and Tiskrel- which are the names of two satanic princes according to the Catholic church. He also mentions that the demon made a Holocaust reference "Kristenalcht was only the beginning" (Kristenalcht being the first Jews to be gassed), but never states that he could've have known it, so I don't really count it as evidence. Anyways, after analysing the case he made, I have come to a conclusion: this guy is either extremely gullible, extremely crazy, or both. In a later post  specified one of his visions:

"Yeah dude but it wasn't an alter ego because like the 3rd demon that visited me visited me at 3:15 when i was at a park by myself an he tried to get me to go to the Jewish Community Center and give some of the kids a ride home... He even took me there and showed me the kids and at least 20 minutes must've passed while we were arguing over theological issues.. Like I asked him why he defied God because he must've known it wouldn't work. and he/it said "I had faith my Lord Lucifer, The Prince of Your World" I made a mistake by threatening him 'cuz i lost my temper and started cussing him out and he showed me 30 ways he could kill my family and friends and i got really angry and told him "In the name of my Lord and your Creator Jesus Christ of Nazareth leave this place and never return" Again, like Tiskrel, I never saw him again but i didn't get his name... definetly a Cheribum though, four wings and a big sword. The freaky thing is that after all fo that it was still 3:15 and i was sitting under the same tree at the same park and no time had passed and instantly i had this giant memory, i ran home, wrote it down and called up my pastor.. WE talked for liek 3 hrs. thatz it 4 that time"

Funny he should mention that bit about no time passing at all. This is exactly what we'd expect if he'd just been dreaming, wouldn't it? Elaborating on the dream hypothesis, we also know that this guy saw Satan himself and the angel during the same night, so it seems possible that these two cases were the result of either lucid dreaming or Sleep Paralysis induced hallucinations.

Of course, another explanation could be that his Youth Pastor did what many Psychoanalysts do and made him recall fictitious memories. We have much precedent for memories of UFO abductions to be "created" by the patient, due to the influence of the Psychologist. Now, I suppose if we knew what he had actually written down, it would help us alot; and luckily enough, he did promise his readers that he'd write it down. But he didn't- and I searched the whole damn site using their search engine too (just type in "Tassadar" and see for yourself).

Although this explanation covers the first experience, it doesn't do much to explain his other appearances. That's why I hesitantly lean towards a different hypothesis- that he is insane. It doesn't make me happy to make such an accusation, but I feel I must. I mean, his writing style and bizzare attitude towards the events is certainly evidence in favor of the crazy hypothesis. Also, the private nature of the revelations and the distances in between them also adds to my suspicions that this guy is just a loon. His episodes seem like those of a schizophrenic- they just kinda come and go, and never really personally effect him. The details and stuff he "couldn't of known" could be the things his priest "suggested" that he saw, later causing him to believe them. I mean, the only ones he mentions are the demons names. For all I know, the Youth Pastor could've been familiar with the names, suggesting them to Tassadar, and only later asking his Vatican friends to verify them. Obviously I can't prove that he's insane- but I can point out that, throughout this conversation, he never once mentioned seeing a Psychologist. He just says "btw im not crazy lol" once, and expects us to take him at his word. He also briefly stated that he was also "into the the hwole destroy the NWO and kill the aliens thing"- make of that what you will.

Of course, we don't have to go to this extreme. It's also possible that all of his encounters were just the result of false memories being recalled in a similiar manner to those of alien abductees. Personally, I think a bit of both were involved, mixed in with a bit of a hyper active imagination. Sadly, we'll never know for sure, for he gives out no contact information. All I can say is that this doesn't even match our standards for ordinary evidence, much less extraordinary evidence.

An open letter to Kevin Brown (AKA: Diglotting)

A while ago, I ran into a post from Kevin Brown (AKA: Diglotting) where he reviewed Loftus' book The End of Christianity. During the review, he stated that he experienced a genuine miracle. Intrigued, I scrolled down into the comments to look at the specifics. Sadly, Kevin didn't really say anything specific about it, other than that he and his family had "visual and audio manifestations of the same entity". When I first read this, I thought he said "at the same time". He did not. So I commented a few times on his blog, hoping to find out more about his experience. After all, if multiple people really did have the same visual/audio manifestations of the same entity at the same time multiple times- I think that would be almost conclusive proof that the supernatural exists.

Anyways, I commented on his blog a few times under the alias "DarwinFish", so that I wouldn't give away my identity. I know it sounds immature, but cut me some slack! Diglotting is one of my favorite Christian Bloggers. I didn't want to potentially make an ass out of myself for asking him about something undoubtedly personal.

Anyways, Kevin didn't respond to the posts. A few days later, The review of "The End of Christianity" was removed from the "reviews" section of his homepage. This coincidence convinced me that Kevin was intentionally ignoring me- so I sent him a rude comment and than wrote up the blog post "Kevin Brown's miracle claim". A week later, however, Kevin commented on my blog, informing me that the whole thing was a misunderstanding. He ignored the first few comments because they were anonymous and looked insulting. The later ones that were more serious ended up in his spam folder, so he never read them. He also informed me that the review of "The end of Christianity" was removed from the front page since it was rotational- and he was reviewing another book.

This whole experience shocked me. I was so certain that he was ignoring me that I was willing to write a blog post about it. publicly accusing him of deceit. And why? Because of a coincidence. I know that I like my blog neat and tidy. I also know that emails and comments go into spam all the time. Hell, one of my long-time readers had the same thing happen to his comment! I guess I just put two and two together.

Anyways, To anyone that's interested, Kevin responded to my question in the comment section. I'll let the reader decide whether it constitutes as powerful evidence for the supernatural or not. I have a few ideas of how I could explain away most of the phenomena- after all, I also believed that I had lived amongst evil spirits. However, as Kevin rightly says, I wasn't there, so I can only offer possibilities at most. Fortunately, because I know at least some of the details, I can say that something else possibly happened- before I could not.

I would also like to thank Kevin for being so open about his experiences, and would like to apologize for the rude remarks. Unlike so many Atheists- I care about truth. That is why, unlike many Atheists I have ever met, I will investigate these types of claims, to see if naturalistic explanations are at least possible. I hope there are no hard feelings about this misunderstanding.

Demons of stupidity

I know one of my readers is gonna hate me for it, but today I am gonna do a post on exorcisms. Exorcisms, while rightly frowned upon by Psychologists, are maintaining their popularity amongst the masses. Hell, even some Religious intellectuals like philosopher JP Moreland and Biblical scholar Clint Arnold claim that not only are exorcisms real, but that they can prove them. Believers will usually state that, although most exorcisms are frauds or psychiatric- a small few are genuine. According to Moreland, genuine exorcisms are ones in which the possessed has Clairvoyance, can levitate, can toss objects with their mind or exhibits other supernatural powers. In other words- the only real exorcisms are the ones where the possessed act like the girl from The Exorcist.

Honestly- I'm amazed at how arrogant some of these demon believers are. To say that they are certain of it should entail some pretty strong evidence. But that's not what we get. We get testimony. Oddly enough, no one ever thinks to enter an exorcism with a video camera. I remember reading an article from Joe Nickell in which, during one exorcism that was filmed, four priests were holding down a small girl claiming that, if they let go, she would've levitated! It makes me wonder why they let go of very good evidence when they had the chance to use it, doesn't it? Of course, these could be cases of mass hysteria, in which the small group of people become extremely excited and misinterpret mundane events into supernatural ones. This is well documented and, surprise surprise, scientifically verifiable through experiments!

Of course, Moreland is correct in that some very smart people not only believe in exorcisms, but also claim to have seen the supernatural side-effects of them personally. What he doesn't do, however, is give a comprehensive list of psychologists that believe in them. You see, Moreland seems to believe that anyone that's gone to college can be a credible witness to a supernatural event. He is wrong. And to make matters worse, the above study was actually done on college students who would, by his criteria, be credible witness'!

Now, I'd expect psychologists to take claims of exorcisms less seriously than, well, a Philosopher like Moreland or a historian like Clint, since they are aware of the limitations of human memory- and the capacity for invention, exaggeration, etc; Non-surprisingly, even a simple visit to Wikipedia reveals that:

"Demonic possession is not a valid psychiatric or medical diagnosis recognized by either the DSM-IV or the ICD-10."

So professional Psychologists say no. Now, I'll grant supporters that maybe, just maybe, these Psychologists just haven't seen the evidence. I don't know. What I do know, however, is that emphasis on cases that defy the psychological explanations should be given. I have read some of 3 Crucial Questions about Spiritual Warfare and Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian mind, Renovate the Soul Restore the Spirit's power, so I know what kind of cases they make. They'll claim the demon could see into the exorcists past- but they don't like to share how accurate or vague the claim was. They will also say that objects flew, yet not even bother with corroboratory testimony to ensure the witness' saw the same thing. Overall- they just don't demonstrate a strong understanding of the Psychology necessary to deem something a miracle.

Now to conclude, I just want to point out that exorcisms are not exclusive to Christianity. According to that Wikipedia entry I quoted earlier, they occur in many of the world Religions- especially in Africa, where they are healed by Shamans. Most reasonable exorcist apologists, however, avoid this by stating that 99% of exorcisms are "true" exorcisms, while the rest are fantasies. All I ask is to go 1% further.

Resurrection Sundays: The historicity of 1 Corinthians 15

A little while ago, I promised to do a post on 1 Cor 15. Well- that promise has come true! However- before I do so, I would like to justify myself on the lack of attention I've given to the empty tomb. You see... I just find it hard to care about it. I mean sure, 75% of scholars think it's historical- but so what. In a field filled with very conservative Christians (Like that one I make fun of here regularly), 25% is a fairly impressive number. Plus, even if the empty tomb were most certainly historical- that still doesn't prove that God raised Jesus from the dead. There are theories on how the body could of been moved or stolen. Anyways, I'll blog about the empty tomb on another Sunday. For now, I will discuss the historicity of 1 Cor 15.

For those that don't know, 1 Cor 15 is our earliest historical source that documents the Resurrection appearances of Jesus. However- most skeptics are rather uncomfortable with the fact that of all six appearances Jesus made, three include more than one witness. Most NT scholars take them pretty much at face value. I, however, have recently become very skeptical. My skepticism of the creed, however, did not occur when I started researching this passage; on the contrary- I found out that the passage could be as early as a few years after the event! No- my skepticism of the creed actually started to develop a week ago, when I started to research the Paranormal.

The first thing I noticed when doing my research was that most people who believe in "entities" (ghosts, angels, etc) relied on the testimony of witness'. They would spend most of their effort writing down witness reports, in order to validate their claims. However- most skeptics, like the members of CSICOP, have a far better approach- they investigate the origin and development of the belief. See, unlike in biblical studies, psychology plays a major role in investigating supernatural "appearances"- and if there is one thing psychology has proven- it's that humans are lousy witness'.

For one thing, we almost always interpret our evidence in accordance to our worldview. For example, if one already believe in ghosts, than a cold spot will be interpreted as evidence for a ghost. Also, in accordance with the above point, we also tend to alter the evidence we have in our heads to match the phenomena we are trying to prove. For example, Person A may see something fly in front of a window very quickly. Later on, when they recall that moment- they may recall it as an angel instead of, say, a bird. Perhaps they do this because they are long time angel believers- that are looking for evidence to prove their already held belief.

In addition to this- one may come to the false belief that other people near him also saw the entity. Although it sounds odd to say it- there are many paranormal cases in which many people will claim to see the same thing when they, in fact, did not see the same thing. This can be determined by interviewing the witness' individually, and seeing how similar their combined testimonies actually are. One example would be the "Timor revival", in which many miracles were reported, many of which including multiple witness'. However- when the witness' were interviewed independently, it became obvious that they had observed no such thing. Many other excellent examples can be found in Joe Nickell's book Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons and other alien beings.

So, my critique of 1 Cor 15 is that, even if it accurately preserves what the witness' claimed to have seen- it says little about what they actually saw. As mentioned earlier, multiple people have claimed to see the same thing, even though they did not. What makes the disciples any different than these cases is beyond me.

HT to Richard Carrier for the story of the Timor Revival

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.

Wait a second... there's evidence for Reincarnation?!

Are there intelligent people that believe in Reincarnation? Well, according to this very interesting blog post, yes. And not only that- but they do research into it, too. And I would read that research too- except that, as I have said before, Reincarnation really isn't a problem for Atheism. Christians are the ones with specific beliefs regarding the afterlife, not Atheists. Of course, that doesn't mean a belief in Reincarnation can't be reconciled with Christianity- it just means that it isn't my problem. In addition to the book mentioned in the above post, this webiste also has valuable information in support of Reincarnation.

NDE's and universal salvation

Remember my post on Apparitions? Well, everything I said about them can be applied to NDE's. Also, we just so happen to have an NDE report from a member of the Baha'i faith. I wonder how Christians will respond to this?

Apparitions of the dead: Can they disprove Christianity?

I was thinking about Apparitions of the dead. They are an interesting phenomena that can very adequately explain away Jesus' resurrection in natural terms. However, they are also a double sided sword. For if they can be proven to be veridical- than that not only becomes evidence in support of the Resurrection, but against Naturalism itself! So, I think that before we cling to apparitions data for support, we better first try to prove, at least to ourselves, that the apparition data fits a naturalistic worldview. Sadly, most atheists scientists just ignore apparitional data; hell, according to Dale Allison, Theologians do too!

"Now I share Gary's fascination for NDEs, and I am nonplussed that theologians by and large seem content to ignore them"

However, these scientists may have good reason to ignore them. Here is a great article on this sort of phenomena here. As Gary Habermas admits in his essay here, may of these events do not have very good evidential merit.

"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."

So it seems to me that, by Gary's own admission, the burden of proof lies on the Theist to explain why they think that these apparitions constitute as proof of an afterlife, and not of vivid Hallucinations. However, I think that, even if one where to concede that apparitions are strong evidence in support of an afterlife, that they could still turn around and mount a powerful attack against traditional Christianity. To do this, one has to show that the apparition data is inconsistent with the Bibles teachings and thus, Christianity. The doctrine that stands out most quickly to me is the doctrine of hell. Traditional Christianity has always taught that not all will enjoy salvation. However, if within the vast amounts of apparitional data we find at least one case of a non-Christian enjoying his/her stay in the afterlife, than that should constitute as damning evidence against the doctrine of hell and, by extension, traditional Christianity as we know it.

Now, I'm not sure what Theologians would make of this sort of argument- perhaps they would find it convincing. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is why they are so hesitant to embrace the data in the first place! Personally, I see apparitional data as being, if anything, quite relieving to the atheist, since it offers some hope of an afterlife, even if we don't believe it.