Are There Any Atheists Who Believe in Rushes?

[Mama Poker]

Scientologists are theists, part of their belief system is based on a supreme being and a soul.

I just read this after posting my response on Scientology being separate from religion. I read that they believe that a PERSON is a spiritual being with a soul and that they allow for free belief in a supreme being. So I guess I if what you say is true, I need to revise my stance. No I do not believe in Scientology. But then again, it never effected my life one way or the other.

[jogger08152]

This is a true story.

A good friend of mine (his name's Brian) and I were driving his pickup in a hilly, wooded, curving-road area one summer night about thirteen (?) years ago. (He was driving, I was riding shotgun.) Don't know what the speed limit was, but he was doing around 45 or 50 mph on the straightaways and taking the curves pretty fast as well.

Starting around a longish curve that became pretty sharp at the far end, Brian said, "[censored] dude, something's not right." He sounded and was visibly upset, squinting, scrunching up his eyes, and slowing down the truck. His body language was very tense, hunching down and tightening up basically. This reaction was abrupt and quite dramatic btw - we had just been talking about sports and a movie we had seen, and he'd been fine/completely normal up to that point as far as I knew.

Anyway I asked what was going on; I was thinking he'd become (suddenly) ill or something.

I can no longer remember his exact response, but he indicated that something felt threatening to him, (I believe he used that exact word), and also I think shook his head gestured forward, something like that, because I know he got me looking away from him and out into the road again. Meanwhile, he's hitting the breaks pretty hard, and we're coming down from 40 to like 10 in a second or two. We round the sharpest part of the curve (greater than 90 degrees) still decelerating, and standing in the middle of the road is a good-dized deer, at least 125 pounds. Brian had the truck almost completely stopped, and damn close to the animal, before it bolted.

My reaction was appropriately freaked. "What the hell just happened?"

He couldn't explain it other than to say he felt something wrong and knew he had to slow down.

A few points:

A) Brian is a solid, smart dude who graduated Tulane in 4 years with a triple major in history, geology and Russian language, and I've known him since we were both 5-year-olds. (We're now 33.) I put the chance of him lying to me about anything of interest or importance (EG, somehow he saw the deer run around the bend through the trees up ahead or something) at almost exactly 0%. This would be true under any conditions, and is reinforced in my mind by his visible reactions both during and immediately after the incident.

B) Based on the terrain, there is no physical way he could have known the deer was there. (And this would be equally true in full daylight.)

C) Brian was home from college for the summer at the time, staying with his parents; they had moved to this location within the last 12-18 months, and Brian was not intimately familiar with the area by any means - obviously an encounter with a deer wouldn't be unprecedented by any means, but at the same time I'm quite sure he hadn't driven through the area enough to have any particular concerns about this specific stretch of road.

D) Most importantly from my standpoint, I was personally there. We've talked about this occurence as recently as last year, and his recollection is pretty much the same as mine. Whatever else it was, it was weird.

Finally and for the record, both Brian and I were sober that night. (No chemicals other than cigarettes for me and none at all for him.)

So, do I believe in psychics or premonitions? Not necessarily, but I don't rule 'em out. I will say I've never been able to figure out a satisfactory alternative explanation for the above.

-Jogger

[Lestat]

I doubt it, but I have to admit there have been times where no matter how often I reminded myself, "cards have no memory", I could swear they KNEW I was running bad!

[jogger08152]

Astrology: "Tonight is a bad night for financial matters but a good night to explore new dating opportunities, but you should avoid inter-species relations, especially where business and pleasure begin to mix."

Astronomy: "Pluto is no longer a planet."

Astrology, bad. Astronomy, good. Except for pluto.

[George Rice]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm more agnostic than atheist, but I've personally have had experiences with precognition.


[/ QUOTE ]

LOL confimation bias FTW .

[/ QUOTE ]

You're jumping to conclusions.

The first incident I cited can possibly be explained that I frequently imagine such things and sooner or later one will come true. And that I remember the ones that come true and ignore the times it doesn't. Unfortunately, I don't usually imagine such things. So I can't explain it away so easily.

The second incident can be explained away by assuming I saw one of the wheelchairs, maybe both, before I got in my car, but didn't realize it.

The third incident I can't explain. I'm not in the habit of stopping at green lights, especially when traveling at high speeds. I can't explain that.

Not withstanding any of the above, I don't believe in precognition. Nor guardian angels. But at the same time I can't explain the first and third incidents.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
Finally and for the record, both Brian and I were sober that night. (No chemicals other than cigarettes for me and none at all for him.)

So, do I believe in psychics or premonitions? Not necessarily, but I don't rule 'em out. I will say I've never been able to figure out a satisfactory alternative explanation for the above.

-Jogger

[/ QUOTE ]

Several times in my life I've answered the phone and "...blah, blah, everything ok with you?"
"yep, why"
"oh, I just had this strong feeling that you were in trouble/sick/hurt.."
You'd think they would have been right once by now, and you can be sure they'll be walking on air the one time they finally are and won't count ( or likely remember) all the times they were wrong.

Our minds throw all sorts of emotions/feeling our way for reasons sometimes based on cheese. The times something occurs that connects in some way to the feeling seems significant to us.
There are a variety of ending to your friends experience, all of which would have seemed related. You may have gotten to his mom's and she was sick, his slowing down may have caused some drunk kid to rear-end him, a tire may blow ( he may have felt that unconsciously), there could have been a car stalled around that curve partly in your side, he may have glimpsed a stump that looked like a deer near the road and realized the danger that corner posed for the unexpected,etc.

There are times I'm going to feel lucky, there are times I'm going to feel down for no apparent reason. It would be bizarre for no good news or bad news to ever arrive around the time of such a feeling.

It's similar to how cold-reading works for the psychics -
"I see an M near you..."

luckyme

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
The third incident I can't explain. I'm not in the habit of stopping at green lights, especially when traveling at high speeds. I can't explain that.

[/ QUOTE ]

I tried to explain why I took the cube in a rare tough spot in a backgammon game. "well, if that situation came up 36 times.."
friend, " that position will never arise again."
"ok, I guess you're right." sigh.

It doesn't matter if you never heard of a green light. We do the damndest things at the oddest times, 1000's of them a day. Some other unexpected event has to occur with some of them or we'd be living in a very strange universe with weird non-happenings.

luckyme

[-moe-]

[ QUOTE ]
Spence: It's interesting to me that in death the energy that was used in brain function and all other functions of the body do not simply dissipate (being physically impossible to do so), but most likely changes form.

[/ QUOTE ]

You seem a bit confused on this matter. The fact is that the energy does dissipate.

That is, as heat from the dead body to the surroundings.

(As the molecules making up the body slowly transfer their kinetic energy to whatever external molecules is in contact with the body (air molecules, usuallly) at the time after death, until the body is at the same temperature as its surroundings.)

I fail to see how that could in any way be a basis for believing in Deepak Chopra-style Lala-land ideas. What do you find so mystical about this process?

Could your view be colored by not really understanding the concept of "energy"? You seem to use it more like silly middle-aged women in brightly colored clothes do, than like physicists does.

[seemorenuts]

This is a true story.

I've never had any nightmare so bad, so terrifying, that I had to tell someone about it with one exception, the following:

I dreamt that my brother was in a serious car accident, it was horrific, he died in great pain. This nightmare occurred 20 years ago.

When I woke up, I immediately phoned my mother, asking her to warn my brother to drive carefully. She never contacted my brother, so there was no possibility of suggestion.

My brother, who lives in another city, had his car totalled that night. He was not injured but he's never had his car damaged in an accident until that day, and he's never since.

I've never come close to wanting to report a nightmare except that one time.

Premonition???


BTW, I have trouble with the phrase "believe in ____" ...

If you are an airforce pilot and you've seen a UFO, what's to believe in? It's unidentified, it's flying, and it's an object.

When you report it to civilians, what's the issue re belief?

I realize UFOs are slightly different... but you "know what I'm sayin'?"

Someone please give me a link to a great UFO thread!?

[seemorenuts]

Two more true stories, bear in mind I don't think they're special, so I guess you can say I don't believe in premonitions:

1.

I once played a card game with my best friend's sister while we were both of high-school age.

Remember the TV gameshow Concentration? This was the 52 card variation. I had been beating her consistently as usually with my smarter friends we essentially played a perfect game--no lapses. The object is to collect the most pairs. Players take turns flipping two cards from all the face down cards, if they pair he tries again after removing the paired cards, if he fails to pair them the other player(s) get a turn.

Anyhow, she got so fed up from losing that she started the next game with the cards laid out in a non-matrix formation, giving a random chaotic appearance. I was to go first--which is considered a disadvantage.

I succeeded in choosing 4 pairs without any misses and I was laughing so hard that before I could attempt the 5th pair she messed up the cards in disgust (she never accused me of cheating). I didn't cheat, I could not tell which cards were which by viewing their obverse sides.

Okay, this is no big deal, someone would come up with an improbable tale, since probable ones don't rate... I get it--we have thousands of posters with millions or billions of events.


2.

I started using a phone dating service back in the late 80s. I remember the very first woman I spoke to on the phone ever, she was a Quebecois and she spoke very reasonable English. This was the only pertinent clue to the following:

As the conversation passed the one hour mark, I told her I could guess her surname by a series of questions answered only with a 'yes' or a 'no' and she agreed to play along.

Without a SINGLE error, I asked two types of questions:

a) is the nth letter a consonant/vowel? (I CHOSE ONE, NOT 2)

b) is the nth letter ___? (I CHOSE ONE of 26 letters)

I guessed her surname using fewer than 2x questions, where her surname was x letters long--WITH NO ERRORS, THAT MEANS SHE NEVER ANSWERED A QUESTION WITH 'NO.'

I felt that this had absolutely nothing to do with premonition, but my sheer unmatched genius.

What do you think, premonition or genius?

Try guessing her name yourself, I'll pm you correct answers to guide you, once you fail, we stop communicating.

P.S. we dated for a bit... [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]