$5m grant to probe immortality

Here are two contrasting views, the second one really highlights the problems we will always have convincing epeople with extreme opinions
http://www.paranormalreview.com/articles/20120731
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/templeton-gives-a-philosopher-5-million-to-study-the-afterlife/

It seems to be a case of 'when the pupil is ready- the teacher will appear'

What is apparently the clear and obvious truth to one, is utter nonsense to another. This may well be the reason for religion abandoning reason and adopting the bull-dozer method of indoctrination to 'inform' their adherents, preferably carried out while they are too young to comprehend.
That the same reasoning can result in entirely different conclusions is a source of wonder.

It is easier to be resolutely sceptical when one hasn't examined the evidence.

mikeb
Posted August 2, 2012 at 8:19 am | Permalink
I think it needs to be pointed out, that in the history of human civilization, there has never been a verifiable – much less repeatable – occurrence of a supernatural event.

Reply

This kind of ultra -sceptical comment, in different forms, I've seen and heard many times. I always wonder how they've managed to avoid all the evidence available, because only one verifiable supernatural event, or paranormal if it means the same thing, would disprove that statement.

Well it's arrant nonsense isn't it? It can only be because the poster hasn't looked at the evidence. I wouldn't even call it scepticism, it closer to ignorance.

One does wonder how much evidence a person needs in order to accept there may be something in survival. I am thinking of the record of people like Alec Harris, Leslie Flint, George Chapman, Isa Northage, Whymant’s conversation with Confucius for example.

I am not expecting that anyone would read this and simply become a believer (as I have not either), but to read these and still insist there is nothing in it, or worse, to insist there is nothing in it without having even read these accounts or similar, doesn’t make sense to me.

Well said Obi, I totally agree with you. Obviously the evidence I have had and my personal experiences (including those as a medium) have convinced me. To ignore all the indications is absolute nonsense to me.

The same people deny all paranormal experiences too. Yet whenever I do spoon bending as an exercise in the use of natural forces, not Spirit involvement, one third of the people present bend their spoons. In dowsing the hit rate in map dowsing is even hiher never less than 75% and often 100%.

If we got past a denial of these ideas maybe we could seriously reach the right answers.