Dissappearance of rationalism in pop culture

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Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on February 24, 2011 at 9:58am

Well, first of all, let's not treat it like a modern phenomenon. A hundred years ago people were having seances and going to health resorts for yogurt enemas. We've changed very little, and it is discouraging. People want to believe the unprovable, and disavow the provable (like evolution).

 

If you want good info on pseudosciece, check out the group No Nonsense.

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on February 24, 2011 at 9:59am

Like the creepy avatar, btw. You might like Oh, the Horror, too.

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on February 24, 2011 at 10:23am

My point was that nowadays, with the internet, people have the ability to look up the facts and analyze them in a mathematical objective manner, but they still insist in believing things that just aren't true.

 

That's true, but that may also be part of the problem. Are there more natural disasters now than there used to be? Not likely. However, every time we go to yahoo.com you can find an "earthquake in..." or whatever. We're so plugged in that we are, perhaps, more aware of these things than we used to be.

 

Another problem with all the info is that there is just so much of it. It is overwhelming, and if you're critical in your approach to gathering info, you'll know that just because it is on a website, that that doesn't make it necessarily true -- so you need additional info/statistics to corroborate it, and that takes time.

 

I totally see what you're saying, but it seems to me that it is a mixture of both good and bad.

 

I wasn't calling you creppy, btw. : P

Permalink Reply by Dallas the Phallus on February 24, 2011 at 10:34am

Oh, the Horror is the horror movie group on this site. Not much activity, besides me though.

 

I totally know what you mean. I know people who completely believe every bit of nonsense that is forwarded to their email. Then we have things like Fox News and the idiots who swallow that BS lock, stock, and barrel. It is disgusting and frustrating. Critical thinking is not valued at all.

Permalink Reply by Apeman Jim on February 24, 2011 at 10:48am

Is this the age of reason or the edge?

Permalink Reply by Christopher Baughman on February 24, 2011 at 11:44am

http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-is-pseudoscience-...

Permalink Reply by Hollyn on February 25, 2011 at 11:53pm

All I can say is that I have a lot of questions about some crazy shit that I've seen I cannot logically explain.

I don't believe people have souls that remain on earth after they die, and I don't believe that bad energy in a house when someone dies will make that person haunt the house. Or any of that Casper bullshit.

But I have seen, first hand, some things that remain a mystery to me. I find it difficult to ask anyone about similar experiences because I'm always met with someone who believes in some really, really crazy shit. I can't deal with that.

I'm comfortable saying that I don't believe in gods or devils or angels or sins. I'm comfortable saying that I don't prescribe to belief in karma, resurrection or an afterlife.

I would love to meet someone who could logically explain away my experiences. It's kind of shitty that anyone who IS interested is usually adorned with cosmic clarity crystals to open the healing channels of the earth. - I would really like some explanations.

Well. That was my 2 cents. Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Hollyn on March 17, 2011 at 7:49pm

I've been meaning to reply to this for weeks!!

Of course I'd be happy to share. Invariably, the recap of the event(s) sounds pretty cheesy.

Like most weird or shocking things that happen, it's always more intense when you're there experiencing it first-hand. Sensory overload!

 

So a little background, my mom, her new boyfriend, my brother and I had moved from one house to another after my mom's divorce from my dad. Nicer house, better neighborhood, big back yard. Awesome. We stayed in this house for approximately 7 or 8 years. During that time, a fair amount of "unexplained" and "strange" occurrences were experienced by mostly me and my mother, not necessarily at the same time.

 

I would not describe these experiences as negative or scary. It was just something that would happen sometimes, without explanation or merit.

But I always felt like there should have been a reason, or there should have been a way for me to figure out what caused it. - I'm going to tell you some things I recall that I've not been able to rationalize away. I assume a lot of the things are going to sound pretty lame, and believe me I have, to the best of my abilities, tried to determine what caused these things to happen. For the most part, it was minor things; there are 2 instances that stand out the most, which leave me the most baffled, I'll get to those last.

First things first, about a year after we moved in, during the day and night I could hear what sounded like heavy boots walking through the kitchen (I've assigned these experiences to house noises like settling or pipes being worked on, etc.) But still, it happened enough to seem a little odd.

On one occasion I was in my room, home alone, with my bedroom door open watching TV when I did a double-take after I saw "out of the corner of my eye" a "figure walk from the bathroom" and go down the hallway towards the front of the house. Immediately after this supposed sighting, I could hear the "footsteps" in the kitchen. 

 

One or two times I watched a magazine on our couch open and very slowly flip about 3 or 4 pages before settling into non-movement.

A couple of times while I was by myself watching TV and once with a group of friends, in a different room, with a different TV I sat and watched as the channels began to cycle through all 50 or so channels, stopping briefly only on stations broadcasting a cartoon or children's  program. It cycled through about 3 times as I got up and inspected the cable box to make sure a button was stuck, I made sure all of the remotes were where they had been the whole time: on the coffee table, untouched. I watched this happen for another minute before I decided that I should call my mom and let her know what was going on. 

The moment that I stood up and approached the telephone the cycling stopped and it didn't happen again for months.

The 2nd time, I was in my bedroom with 2 other girlfriends. The remote was on my bed stand. We would have been watching Nickelodeon, so there wouldn't have been a reason for us to surf, anyway. So the TV in my bedroom began to do the same thing the TV in the Family Room did months earlier. It just started changing channels, cycling and ONLY stopping on a kid's show. At first we all got up and made SURE we were not touching the remote. My mom was just in the other room and I wanted her to see it; I stood up to go get her and the cycling stopped. I said "damn it!" and sat back down on the edge of the bed. When I sat back down, the channels started changing again. So I tried it again. It stopped again. I sat back down, it started again. My friend tried, she stood up and the channels stopped changing, she sat back down, it would start up again.

I didn't think to shout for my mom, I guess. I wasn't scared, just more... " O_o? "
It stopped less than a minute later, but we all decided to leave the room and do something else. I don't think we talked about it anymore.

I don't doubt that the wiring in the house had something to do with both instances, I just don't know anything about faulty wiring, so it remains a mystery - magic.
One time I remember a scream so loud while I was on the phone with my friend I slammed the phone down so fast, my heart was pounding. - I don't suspect this to be "paranormal," just case for old electronics. (The house was probably built between 1965-1970, this all was taking place between 1992-1995.)

 

On a fairly regular basis, we would find bedroom and bathroom lights turned on or off. For a time we blamed our forgetfulness, but after a while it became a little absurd to think we were leaving the lights on that many times after leaving a room.

I blame sleepwalking, but a few times I would go to sleep with a particular object in my room, to wake up with it being on the kitchen counter, or set on top of the china cabinet. 

On two different mornings, while I was getting ready for school, a tiny stuffed koala sitting in a book/toycase seemingly ... ejected itself off the shelf, therefore falling to the ground. This thing was NOT at the edge of the shelf, I didn't like it that much, it was further back than my other toys and crap in there. Nothing else on the shelf was disturbed.

After all the shenanigans I'd been exposed to, I wanted proof. I put the koala back on the shelf. All the way back against the shelf. It was a few days before it happened again. But it did. And it was the last time I ever noticed it happen.

 

Finally, the 2 most significantly confusing things to have occurred in that house.
Like a cliche, it was just a few weeks before Halloween. On our kitchen table sat a porcelain ghost statue. It stands on black base, about 9 inches tall. Its arms are outstretched and flow-y white sheets drape around its body. It's a hollow sculpture, but since it was kiln fired, the ventilation was achieved by sculpting out mournful, ghostly eye-slots and a woeful, moaning mouth. (I'll upload a picture!)

Anyway, one night we were eating dinner and one of us decided to stick a pair of chopsticks down into the ghost's eyeholes. Whatever, it was funny for some reason. So we left them there. Thought nothing of it.

One night, maybe a week later, I'm helping my mom set the table for dinner, as we're walking toward the table, one of the chopsticks literally just jumps out of the ghost and lands on the table. It was like something from underneath the chopstick had flicked it out.
We left the one remaining chopstick in the ghost, and didn't put the 2nd one back in until the next day.
It stayed in there, it didn't pop out again for a few more weeks. This time, it was after Halloween and we left the statue on the table because what happened, we felt, was really cool and we wanted to see if it would happen again. This time, I was already at the kitchen table, but I was doing homework. My brother came in and started pestering me, I was trying to get him to leave me alone when the chopstick popped out again.

 

Finally, the most baffling experience was one summer night when I was goofing off around the house. My mom was in the back of the house and my brother was getting in trouble for something. I stayed in the front of the house, hanging out between the kitchenette and the living room. There were these neat shutter doors that separated the kitchenette from the front entry way of the house. These were superfluous doors - decoration - they latched together magnetically. I had them closed and I was eavesdropping on my brother being scolded. As I stood behind these shutter doors I felt a resistance on the other side. It was very slow to open at first, but it quickly turned into a very cold breeze pushing the door open. The breeze swept past my face and the door stopped moving. So I closed it again. Only seconds later the entire thing happened again, but the 2nd breeze was a lot stronger and equally as cold.

It was summer. There's no way my mom would have had on the air conditioner, I checked doors and windows. The only window that was open was the living room window, and it was too hot and still outside for breeze of that strength and that cold of a temperature to pass so deliberately through the doorway and past me.

 

So there you have it. As for my mom, she experienced mostly the footsteps and cabinet doors opening while she was in the room, but not near the cabinets, she was there for one of the chopstick instances, but that's about it for the most part. Overall, I had the most experiences of anyone in the house.

After we moved out of that house, I've never experienced anything remotely close to what it felt like to be around when that stuff was happening.

 

Anyway, I don't know what to make of all that. I don't believe in ghosts or spirits or souls, but I do believe in energy. And I do think there's a lot that we just don't understand. But I don't think there's anything mystical behind it.

Thanks for making it this far, sorry about grammar and spelling errors...I didn't feel like going through with a fine-toothed comb. :)

 

Cheers.

Permalink Reply by Hollyn on March 17, 2011 at 7:52pm

I forgot to upload the picture!

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on March 30, 2011 at 5:57pm

There's a rule about writing fiction, it's EASIER to make up crap that's interesting than to write within the bounds of reality. It's just so cheap to churn out quantities of dramatic hokum, no fact checking required. You could probably make up a dozen stories yourself, in ten minutes. Audiences are suckers for interesting stories that violate everyday reality.

Permalink Reply by Harry Meyer on March 30, 2011 at 9:56pm

It has always been this way. Humanity by and large is still primative, it's in our genes!