Hello fellow sajha friends, 
      I assume most of you are educated, intelligent people. I wanted to have a discussion about paranormal claims and why do people believe these claims. I define paranormal activities as reading mind, predicting future, healing, and many other unscientific claims. I can understand people who are unaware of critical thinking believing these things but why do educated people believe these garbage. Let's have a talk about this. 

I am only trying to create skeptical thinking among us.

Jezzz at first i though this thread gonna "actually"go somewhere with logical discussions.......but then i forgot it is shjha.com where threads usually ends with abuse and fights. Carry on people, Do what we are good at....

Footyfan,

If I may. I also have personally experienced "Bir heraune" and I thought it was really mystifying at the time. But now I understand there's nothing magical or factual about it. It mostly depends upon people who believe in it. In my case, my sibling already had a pre-conceived notion about who stole the money (from our house), and it was not suprising (now) that she saw the same person in the hand. But when the pandit had me try it, it just didn't work. And he gave a vague explanation that I was not concentrating enough or I do not have the ability to see bla bla bla. It is purely a self fullfilling prophecy like any other con-artistry.

Our mind is a delicate and a beautiful thing. It has reasoning, quantitative, and qualititative powers, but it also often plays lot of tricks with us, especially if we have a weak psychology. I am not trying to reason what you believe in, but there are many simpler explanations of what you might have experienced.

James Randi is an absolute brilliant magician. To this point, noone has able to stake his 1 million dollar challenge. I think the person who should try is this con-artist in Kathmandu who claims to create miniature statues inside his mouth. But what can you do, people are all gaga over him. Sad!

 NepaliBabu, 
I am not trying to convince you that those things that you have not seen/experienced exist but there are things science cannot explain, or explained it wrong. Also there are things you have to believe without seeing. 

you never saw Apollo 11 landing on the surface of the moon , but you believe it coz you wanted to ( remember some scientists didnt accept the fact that it acutally landed in moon)
If you have gone through all the details on that journey ( including the secrets that were not told at that time) , that flight encountered unidentified flying objects which science cannot explain and it was not any thing from earth .The same astronomers who claimed to land on the mooon claimed the ecounter of UFO. This counts as paranormal too as it is beyond the expalanation of science.
About believing the things that you saw or experienced only, I am certain that you did not see or experienced any thing when you were in the womb and during the birth( and the entire process). But you believe she is your mom and her husband is your dad, coz you are ready to believe it. 

Talking about if science explains or matches any hypothesis, you cannot rely on them either. Science has gone wrong lots of time. Remember that sun used to revolve around earth and earth used to be rectangular. 

 If you believe on only what other (science) explained, you could be wrong about your concept of critical thinking.

Great points, Pulsar_beat. I guess I can't really say that whatever I 'saw' were mere imaginations but again, my experience was a tad different than your sibling's because mine wasn't a "pre-conceived" notion as we had no guesses on who could've stolen. 

Believe it or not, the thief confessed stealing money and jewellery in the exact manner as I 'saw' it. So idk what to say.

What about this one? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12tEFfVeztk

 Actually this one blew my mind... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl89y5S8hno

Footyfan,

I remember one interesting paradox from my college professor:

Apparently, many people believe that reindeers can fly. So to test this theory, if you take 10 reindeers, for e.g., and push them off the top of Empire State Building and you notice none of them can fly, can you really prove that reindeers can't fly. No, you only prove that those 10 reindeers can't fly. So in essence, the notion that reindeers can't fly may still be incorrect. You cannot disapprove a negative. I hope you get the drift.

Going back to Bir, I truly believe your experience. But I still think its a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because you saw what transpired, you believed it, but what if it didn't occur (for me for e.g.) for 99 other people. Again I quote Carl Sagan in that when you have made such an extraordinary claim, you need extraordinary evidence too to back the claim up. If UFO, GHOSTS, PARANORMAL are all too real, it would be a common place, the fact that you've to hunt for lifetime for one shred of evidence makes it pretty unreal.

If you've read horoscopes, how often we get astounded that the horoscopes really matches with your daily life. But then, if you observe closely, you quickly realize that your brain biases against things that pertains to your life and ignores facts that doesn't. That's why they appear so real.


But having said all that, nothing is absolute. I agree with the thread starter that all I am trying to use is logic, reasoning and critical thinking :). But one is free to come to their own conclusion. But then, even if billions of people believe that universe is only 1000 year old, doesn't make it true!

 Thanks Pulsar_beat I am gald to have some ally (Sajha seemed like a cold lonely place until now), I will reply to some of the comment in the last 5-6 comments later. Tonight I will do some hoomework :)