Why are people so narrow minded when it comes to the paranormal?

Question

Just because its never happened to them,and can't be proven!There are so many people that have had paranormal experiences and are afraid to say so because of people like that!Do they ever think' hmm maybe that did happen to so many people that say so,maybe the stories are true,whats really out there How interesting'?Why so in denial that these things and experiences exist!It gets old thoughout all history people have always known that these realms exist!Its just this day and age everyone so left-brained and against it all!Why?Just because it has nothing to do with your own little worlds!How can people think like that,I don't know!Just let us be,and others like me,we want to share our stories,and get it out there!So,if your mind can't be changed who cares anyway!Science can't answer everything!

Answer 1

I think narrow-mindedness is as much a problem of the True Believers as it is anybody else. Why do True Believers tend to think the littlest accident a sign from the spirit world and dismiss the simple, natural explanations out of hand? And what is narrow-minded about needing evidence to believe in a rather unlikely claim? But we're talking in generalities here. Let's not.

What are urban legends? Stories. Unsubstantiated stories. There are seemingly millions of them, everybody has heard them, but are any of them true? Check out http://snopes.com. Not very many of them even have a kernel of truth. And likewise we have people spreading ghost/paranormal stories they heard from someone they heard from someone.... Why is this believable? How are these any different than the myriad fictitious urban legends? I've never run across ANY ghost story supported by observable, testable evidence. Where is the evidence? How come every demonstration of paranormal ability fails?

Lack of proof isn't proof of lack, so none of this proves that ghosts or the paranormal doesn't exist. But I'm not interested in proving things not to exist. Rather, I'm interested in finding evidence of things that do exist. And ghost stories always seem to be backed up with zero evidence. So why believe in them? And why have I never seen a ghost since there seem to be so many of them floating around?

Science can't answer everything, this is true, but this is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not going to jump on the "Science can't answer everything so lets get really irrational!" bandwagon. Science is a systematic method of discovery of the natural world around us, and as such it is the best method we have for learning about the world. It's worked for us splendidly so far.

Answer 2

Its not being narrow minded it is rational. You are one side of the fence and sceptics are the other - I, as I believe any proper rational person should be, am sitting on the fence.

I agree that science can't answer everything, that's why research continues, and why we have philosophy and religion. But pure sceptics will sometimes deny that "paranormal" events occur and therefore not bother to research them.

I don't have a problem with you if you want to believe in the paranormal - that's your prerogative in a free world. But don't try and force your view of things down my throat because, equally, I'm entitled to think the way that I think.

Me - I like to have evidence that something is real before I believe in it, but that doesn't make me a sceptic. I don't deny that people have experienced "paranormal" events, but I think there is probably a simple and rational explanation for many of them.

Try reading the works of Charles Fort or read the magazine "Fortean Times" as I do. This will explain how I feel about the "paranormal" and how I believe an open-minded approach is the best way - not to say I believe in something or don't believe in something.

Answer 3

Because some cannot believe what they have no experienced themselves, some feel that others are more naive and fooled easily, and mostly because there is so much faked evidence out there that people are convinced it's all in your head.

I have seen paranormal investigators web sites full of camera straps or other things out of focus, that are considered "Energy Vortexes". Not to mention, almost any picture or video taken of the supernatural can be disputed no matter how clear and convincing it is, and all someone has to do is say is "Wow that is fake!" and to them it is.

Ghosts, hauntings, and the supernatural are a touchy subject, just like religion and everyone has their own opinion, point of view, and degree of acceptance as far as what they believe or not, or will accept as concrete proof. It's called eye of the beholder, and everyone has a different one.

Answer 4

1) Because its never happened to me, and 2) because it can't be DISproved!

So many people CLAIM to have had paranormal experiences, now and throughout history, but these claims are never independently and repeatedly verified.

I have considered the possibility that these claims are correct, but I have to ask myself, what's more likely: 1) that someone has experienced or witnessed a phenomenon that defies the laws of physics, or 2) that they are either gullible, delusional or intentionally deceitful. Choice #2 is simply the most likely.

If these claims could be repeated, tested, predicted, and independently either verified or falsified, then they would fall under the realm of science and they would force us to redefine what we know about reality and the laws of physics. But these claims are always only witnesssed by a single person or a few people, they only seem to happen once or a few times, there's no observed or measureable physical effect or evidence, and the people who make paranormal claims always say things like, "you had to be there," or "you have to beleive or you can see it," or "you have to have blind faith." Well, these are not convincing to a thinking person.

It's not a matter of being in denial - it a matter of having a firm grip on reality. Science hasn't answerd everything, yet, but that's no reason to give up on it, and that's no reason to believe in something beyond reality that can't be tested by it.

There are some things that it's OK to be narrow-minded about - like things that can't possibly happen.

Answer 5

This is one of my favorite subjects. I have spent most of my life surrounded freaky paranormal stuff. I come from a long line psychics and we just except it as a gift. I have watched how others deal with it. There are a lot of those that refuse to believe. They see something and go into a sort of self defense mode to keep their brain from exploding. The worst are the supper religious ones that think everything is demonic. Give me a break! The only evil is in the minds and hearts of man. They are looking in the mirror of their own souls, and it scares the crap out of them, but instead of changing they just keep going. It's always the same, blame it on the other guy.

I have a little problem with my wifes dead mother, she never did like me. Now that she has passed on, she likes to toss things at me from time to time. While at a grocery store a while back she hit me with two boxes of cereal and this guy saw the hole thing just a few feet in front of me. He went in to brain fry mode, slack jawed, pal white and shaking. I tried to reassure him that it was all ok, that this type of thing happens all the time around me. I think he just turned it off and found it easier think that it never happened.

I guess that many people, when confronted with the truth, just can't handle it. Its not their fault, it is how they are raised and how they are influenced by the world. I don't know how many people think ghost are the Hollywood scary movie, "I'm going to eat you" bull crap. I have never heard of any of that being real.

You can't really blame people from protecting their sanity, but they have no right to cast stones either. I guess that is why I try to educate people and help. Most people who have a paranormal experience just want to know that they are not alone and not crazy. I worked for a security company doing CCTV installations and service. Security cameras pick up stuff all the time. When something happens that the client can't explain they call out the service guy, Me. They will have the video ready to show you and they always say "What the hell is that!" This is where you have to read the person right, you can say that you caught a ghost on a security camera, but its better to wait and see if they bring it up first. I will say that I don't know and give them all the stuff about glass reflections or blame it on old tapes that have been recorded over to much and offer to clean all the lens and replace the tapes. I know what I think.

If you can't move the world, try just pushing it in the right direction, that all anyone can do.

Answer 6

Your views contain WAY too many easily falsifiable opinions upon which to base much of a response. So, I'll be brief:

No body has EVER presented ANY independently verifiable, reproducible, testable proof of ANY paranormal phenomenon. Many, many have claimed they have, however. I mean really, think about it, if anyone had ever "proved" that ghosts were real--or whatever--it would've been all over the news, world wide! Scientists would've been scrambling to the source, international conventions would've convened, it would be a full-on media circus! But...that's never happened. And for good reason...right?

What is needed is proof that can stand up to scientific testing. It isn't "closed minded" to require this proof. It's intelligent. I agree with another responder who said that it appears that the "believers" tend to be closed-minded lot. I for one, will never deny anyone's right to believe in whatever nonsense they wish, BUT when they try to equate it with rational realism, there's gonna be problems.

Answer 7

Too many people are way to eager to believe and everything is paranormal. Just go to some of the websites of the so called "professionals" who post pictures on websites of ghosts and most of the time these photos are merely dust and fog. Nothing paranormal at all. I never suggest people call paranormal team of investigators simply because all of the ones I know of and have visited their websites are people too eager to believe and see ghosts.

I am paranormal investigator myself and ghost hunter, but I warn people of the deceptive practices of the modern ghost hunter.

This is not a science and just a hobby and I would feel much better if my fellow believers would admit they are believers and not skeptics and that they are not "professional" but just everyday people who read books or took a home study course or attended a weekend seminar and learned their methods and admitted to being a hobbyist. I believe most paranormal investigators and ghost hunters should STOP claiming to be "PROFESSIONALS"

Is it going to take a law suit from someone who was taken in by these people to bring honesty to this hobby? Will it take a criminal conviction of fruad? These people actually think all they are doing is just using words that are innocent but will cause people to take them more seriously. If you have to use deciptive tactics to be considered serious, then you in my opinion have no business in this hobby. When I say you I am not talking about you personally but people who do these things.

Answer 8

I'm really skeptical about claims of paranormal activity but I'm also skeptical of those who dismiss every thing out of hand immediately.

Back about 1890 some experimenters got to messing about with coils, wires, tubes of powdered metal and batteries. By 1895 they could send messages a few miles, and by 1901 hundreds of miles. Not only that, it worked almost every time, whether you believed in it or not. By now it has developed to the point where it does work every time and most people have not got a clue how. I mean radio of course.

Despite hundreds or thousands of years of claims of paranormal activity there has yet to be any similar achievement by those claiming paranormal powers.

Every claim of paranormal activity, abilities and powers has fallen to bits when decently investigated or has been exposed as fraudulent. Spiritualism was based on the ability of a teenage American girl to crack her knuckles at will. What Madame Blavatsky wrote about it and Himalayan "masters" was done from the comfort and greater warmth of Ceylon, now called Sri Lanka. Some of her scribblings became part of the ideology of the Nazi Party a few decades later. Heinrich Himmler and to a lesser extent Adolf Hitler were "New Age" guys.

The "fairy photographs" that took Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in were faked by two girls with a camera, one confessed in old age. The original crop circles were dreamed up by a couple of English jokers after a few beers in their local pub. Edgar Cayce had a few very remarkable successes but was wrong about hundreds of things. As for Nostradamus, nobody knows what he was really on about and some have suggested that most of his verses were about things that were happening in his own time.

Alchemy never produced gold from lead or the philosopher's stone but it did make a few useful discoveries about some other things. Astrology columns in newspapers have been recycled by putting the "predictions" in a bag and drawing it out. That paragraph for Taurus today, the next drawn out for Aries. A few months later they use the stuff again for different signs. The "real" astrologers who cast "real" horoscopes can't agree with each other and an investigation into "real" astrology in the 1970s revealed no connection between "real" horoscopes and the careers of hundreds of well known people.

Despite all that, there appear to have been a few cases, generally involving particular persons like Rasputin and the levitator Home where what investigation there has been, has failed to find a scientific or even common sense explanation.
These cases should not be dismissed outright.

Answer 9

I agree, I even have considered the two. they gained't awaken. in basic terms the way it somewhat is. Skeptics have not got faith except they see and adventure such issues. i'm prepared to wager that maximum of those human beings do not even difficulty to look into the evening skies. The fundies (non secular fundamentalists) have a mis theory that all and sundry paranormal interest dealing with ghosts are demons. they are actually not all demons. happy Thanksgiving.

Answer 10

I have had many "weird" things happen to me, that later had rational causes, but you do hit the nail on the head with your comment that "....they can't be proven".
Think about a court of law, if someone is accused of a crime, they do not have to prove their innocence, rather the prosecutor making the accusation must beyond reasonable doubt prove guilt.
It is up to the believer of the paranormal to prove to me that these things do exist, or take place.
It's impossible for me to prove the non-existence of something that does not exist.