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Dr Shari
Skeptic Friend
135 Posts |
 Posted - 01/28/2002 : 00:18:47
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Being a lover of sci-fi and supernatural movies (good or bad, it doesn't matter)I decided to kill a few hours this weekend seeing a movie and the title The Mothman Prophacies drew my attention(so did the name Richard Gere but we will save that for later). For those of you unfimliar with the Mothman Prophacies it is ( my husband would insert the term loosley here) based on worldwide sightings of what can only be described as a large creature similar to a angel only dark with red eyes( a moth man) that shows up to warn in a cryptic manner of impending doom. The movie deals with the area sightings around Mt Pleasant WV where he warned numerous people, including a reporter, drawn there against his will, from Washington DC, that a disaster on the Ohio River was about to happen in the town. As it would have it the bridge there did collapse killing 36 people shortly after in December 1967. Despite trying to had by the makers of the Blair Witch Project I believe that this movie is at least somewhat based on fact.
I am all for spending a few hours in the state of suspension of disbelief and am open to idea that there are more things in heaven and on earth then are found in my philosopy so I found this an entertaining movie and am opening up for discussion the idea of the planes of existance beyond what we normally perceive.
Does being an agnostic or atheist preclude us from believing that all other forms of the preternatural do not exist?
In the film Richard Geres character asks, as did my husband, why with all their supernatural powers these thing are so hard to understand. Why be cryptic at all? Why not just come out and say it?
The other character responds "Try sitting in a room and explaining your self to a cockroach." Try indeed. He also points to window washers on the 10th floor of building and suggests trying to have that vantage point of an accident blocks away and tell a person standing directly below on the ground.
I guess I believe that our realm occasionally connects with others and some spots and some people are more prone to be sensitive to them. Which is why I also watched Steven Kings "Rose Red" on ABC last night and will watch it and all other mythical, mystical, mind-bending movies. Sometimes the seemingly absurd just makes some sense.
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Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 02:33:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
I guess I believe that our realm occasionally connects with others and some spots and some people are more prone to be sensitive to them
You hit the nail on the head, Doc. That's my theory. Only it's not a 'them' that some people are sensitive to it's the people themselves that are sensitive.
Let me explain:
I have long thought, not believing in ghosts and the like, that what people think they see can be explained in a logical or scientific way.
My mother used to say that she was phsyic, in a joking way I think. She and I, possible because we had the same birthday(not year, ha ha), used to think we had some kind of 'connection', often she would 'know' what I was going to say before I said it. My room mate can 'read my mind' that same way.
LOL, Kil would just say I'm transparent. That aside, my theory is that people, knowningly or not, are more or less perceptive than other people.
I hear and see and feel things before others do. Sometimes others don't even hear, see, etc. the things at all. Doesn't mean I have supper powers, just more sensitive.
For example, I hate smokers, often I will complain of the smell when no one else is aware of it. I say to the person I'm with, 'do you smell something awful?' They don't, then a moment later, sure enough we see someone with a cigarette. That's just one example of how some people have hightened senses, nothing mystic about it.
I didn't see the movie you refer to, but in the case of a bridge collapsing, perhaps someone heard the noise of the cracks happening or there was some other physical sign that signaled something was about to happen. Sometimes we see or hear something and don't at the time realize what it means. That also doesn't mean it's suppernatural.
To sum it up, there are things, in nature or around us, not things of another world, that we are consciously or unconsciously in contact with. Some people sense them more then others, there's nothing weird about it.
Rap Crap is to music what Paint by Numbers is to art!
Yes, I am NormaL!!
Carabao forever!!! |
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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 09:08:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
For those of you unfimliar with the Mothman Prophacies it is ( my husband would insert the term loosley here) based on worldwide sightings of what can only be described as a large creature similar to a angel only dark with red eyes( a moth man) that shows up to warn in a cryptic manner of impending doom.
IIRC, these stories are just centered around those areas. I used to have a book on creatures like these. All I remember is that, I think, this Mothman was supposed to attack and after it had left, there would be this incredible stink. Now, granted, I don't recall all of the details, I may be getting it confused with the Dover Demon, but I do remember reading about it. Anybody else have info on these creatures?
quote:
In the film Richard Geres character asks, as did my husband, why with all their supernatural powers these thing are so hard to understand. Why be cryptic at all? Why not just come out and say it?
Maybe the Mothman has some sort of restrictions on it. Since you say it's supposed to be an angel of sorts, maybe it's a person who died unexpectedly who is "sentenced" to warn people...Ah, but what do I know?
quote:
Sometimes the seemingly absurd just makes some sense.
Beautiful. 
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." -Buddha |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 09:15:14 [Permalink]
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This might seem off topic, but I think it pertains.
This weekend was one of those exceptions when I attended catholic mass. I recall one line from the priest's homily, and one line only:
"Jesus could perform miracles for those who had faith."
Which brings two comments to mind:
1. So Jesus' abilities were limited by mortals?
2. This describes exactly the milieu in which hucksters huck and believers believe today.
IIRC, and I've not done my research to refresh memory, the Mothman stuff involved no one dying, and very little about prophecies. I suspect this movie is based on the mothman sightings in the same way that the old series "Desert Rats" was based on WWII; there was a WWII, there were Limeys and Yanks fighting Jerries in the desert, and there were battles when people died. All the plot stuff, however, was spun from whole cloth. Without knowing it for a fact, I would suspect the same of this movie.
My kids still love me. |
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chee
New Member
USA
35 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 10:25:12 [Permalink]
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There are ten or twelve websites devoted to the Mothman Prophecies: history, sightings, the coverup... Just search "mothman". More than you ever wanted to know.
A colder place I've never known, than with someone but yet alone. |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 10:38:32 [Permalink]
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Why it just some happens that Mothman appeared here and predicted that something awful would happen. And sure enough all of my nice wool sweaters had holes in them.
Mothman prophesies? Moth Balls, I say. Sounds like a standard folk tale to me. He might be a cousin to the "woman in white" who hitch-hikes to her home--only for the driver to find that she had died in an auto accident years before.
Come on people lets get real here.
An awful event is perdicted but the listeners don't understand the prediction? Am I the only one here who is old enough to have a classical education? Remember Cassandra in the Iliad? A basic folktale motif.
quote:
Does being an agnostic or atheist preclude us from believing that all other forms of the preternatural do not exist?
No, but being a Skeptic is supposed to put a block to your jumping to conclusions.
Preternatural? Supernatural? Subnatural (I made that one up)?
In the two hundred years that these things have been tested we have never found anything that existed outside of nature. Not one thing.
Being an Atheist may not preclude you from beliveing "camp-fire stories" but being an adult should.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 01/28/2002 : 18:19:12 [Permalink]
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quote:
Preternatural? Supernatural? Subnatural (I made that one up)?
In the two hundred years that these things have been tested we have never found anything that existed outside of nature. Not one thing.
I agree. If there were any examples at all of anything outside of nature, then it would be reasonable to include that possibility when we here stories such as these.
But there aren't. Therefore it is unreasonable to seriously consider anything being "preternatural".
There is no excuse to not assume that all of this talk of "Moth men" are not just figments of imagination, or outright lies and hoaxes.
Because stories like these have always been.
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Sum Ergo Cogito |
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Hook
Skeptic Friend
USA
79 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2002 : 09:22:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
There is no excuse to not assume that all of this talk of "Moth men" are not just figments of imagination, or outright lies and hoaxes.
Well, careful. I think Shari is taking an empiricist stance and, as a pretty hard-nosed empiricist I have to qualify what you have said a bit. The emprical stance is that there is nothing outside of nature, but that is not the same as saying that we know what "all of nature" is.
This is the reason that science is in the business, not of proving theories, but of falsifying them. There is always the possibility of some new observation not yet made, possibly enabled by some new technology, that may change the way we look at things.
My only point is, the supernatural is not a hoax, it is empirically intractable and therefore empirically irrelevant. Claims made for the supernatural without empirical evidence are hoaxes (psychics, etc). Claims made of supernatural experience, personal accounts, might be hoaxes, but they are simply empirically irrelevant so long as they cannot be replicated.
One should keep an open mind, but insist on evidence that meets the empiricist criteria.
Just my $0.02 
(P-)>
"I don't care whether my neighbor believes in zero gods or 20 gods, I care whether my neighbor believes in democracy."
--Bill Moyers |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2002 : 10:59:58 [Permalink]
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Well, careful. I think Shari is taking an empiricist stance and, as a pretty hard-nosed empiricist I have to qualify what you have said a bit. The emprical stance is that there is nothing outside of nature, but that is not the same as saying that we know what "all of nature" is.
I agree with your argument, but I think that you have aimed it in the wrong direction. It gets back to that old chestnut about the burden of proof being on the person who is making the claim. Here a claim of the "supernatural" is made. It is the claimant who is saying that they know "all of nature" because they are making a claim that something is beyond (super) nature. One would have to know every last thing in nature to see if it were on the list.
This is the reason that science is in the business, not of proving theories, but of falsifying them.
Actually the business is testing theories. A "perfect scientist" (or a boring one) should have no emotional investment in the out come of their experiments
There is always the possibility of some new observation not yet made, possibly enabled by some new technology, that may change the way we look at things.
True. BUT until that observation is made and confirmed you can't treat it as a fact. You have to go with what you already know are facts, and make your decisions based on them.
My only point is, the supernatural is not a hoax, it is empirically intractable and therefore empirically irrelevant.
Claims made for the supernatural without empirical evidence are hoaxes (psychics, etc).
Since the existence of "the supernatural" itself is nothing more than one of these claims it too would count as a hoax.
Claims made of supernatural experience, personal accounts, might be hoaxes, but they are simply empirically irrelevant so long as they cannot be replicated.
One should keep an open mind, but insist on evidence that meets the empiricist criteria.
Personally I define "an open mind" as a mind that will change its opinions when presented with sufficient evidence. Not as a mind that ignores all the available evidence and staunchly forms no opinions at all. That I call a blank mind.
There has been legitimate scientific investigation into the "supernatural" going on since the late 1700's. Over two hundred years of research has turned up nothing. No supernatural realms have been found. If you don't wish to use the word hoax (meaning a willful deceit, which it surely is) then perhaps you'll accept "literary conceit". Because it is a work of pure fiction (the very lack of empirical relevance is a hallmark of fiction).
Since there is no evidence that is available to those who have done the testing that is not available to those who are making the claims, and vs. versa, then it can only be concluded at this point that all the claims are fiction.
Will there be different evidence in the future? We have no way of knowing-that's why they call it "the future." But from all the considerable evidence we have at present, both empirical and circumstantial, the only informed opinion one can hold is that it is a hoax.
To decide to ignore all the tons of research that has already been done in favor of contrary findings (that haven't yet been found) to experiments that haven't been done is bizarre (We're talking about a giant fortune telling moth here--awwh, come on!)
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Hook
Skeptic Friend
USA
79 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2002 : 12:28:52 [Permalink]
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Slater,
Your points are well taken and as far as I can tell we are in agreement. I think you slightly misunderstood what I meant when I said "The supernatural isn't a hoax..." and "Keep an open mind..." (I wasn't as clear as I should have been). I am perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that there are aspects of nature that are beyond our capabilities to measure, but would consider anyone who claimed that such possibilities actually exist a hoaxer.
I think we pretty much agree, aside from semantical mismatches.
(P-)>
"I don't care whether my neighbor believes in zero gods or 20 gods, I care whether my neighbor believes in democracy."
--Bill Moyers |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 02/01/2002 : 15:53:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
I am perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that there are aspects of nature that are beyond our capabilities to measure, but would consider anyone who claimed that such possibilities actually exist a hoaxer.
Ah see, now we are talking about "possibility". There is a big difference between a possibility and an actuality.
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The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2002 : 21:08:39 [Permalink]
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Mothman: http://www.csicop.org/list/listarchive/msg00317.html
I think that about settles it.
Now, as for
quote:
Does being an agnostic or atheist preclude us from believing that all other forms of the preternatural do not exist?
'Course not. Athiesm is merely the lack of belief in God. However, we often come to that conclusion because there is no evidence for His/Her/Thier/Its existance. It would be hypocritical for me to deny the existance of God on these grounds, and then run off to be abducted by aliens.
However, if I conceded the irrationality of said aliens.....
But, as skeptics, we can believe in the pre-eternatural all we want. However, we'd be piss-poor skeptics if we didn't examine evidence.
Xev -Ad astra!- Bellringer |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2002 : 10:19:19 [Permalink]
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Thanks for the great link, Xev.
It reiterates my point above. So-called "supernatural" events are products of the imagination, or outright lies and hoaxes.
There are thousands and thousands of stories such as this, that have been investigated and found to be natural occurrances.
There hasn't been one single event that has been shown to be supernatural.
What more evidence does one need to make a prejudgement on all future claims of so-called "supernatural" phenomenon?
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Sum Ergo Cogito |
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