[Discussing the film The Conjuring 2]
The facts in the real life case, as in the film, are that a young girl and her family experience strange phenomena in their North London home after she plays with a Ouija board.
Obligatory pneumatology PSA: legends, folklore, and old wives' tales often contain a kernel of truth. The universally negative portrayal of Ouija boards and other methods of communicating with spirits is one nut that Hollywood's blind squirrels reliably manage to find. DO NOT play around with this stuff.
And to head off the skeptic's favorite sophomoric objection: it's not that a mass-produced toy is magic. It's that the chosen end of seeking undue power over preternatural beings and phenomena is inherently evil; not the specific means used.
22 comments
"Obligatory pneumatology PSA: legends, folklore, and old wives' tales often contain a kernel of truth."
Yeah. It's that people are fucking dumb and will earnestly believe any stupid shit you can come up with if they want to. If they want to believe in leprechauns, they'll believe that you saw a one foot tall man dressed in green counting gold coins at the end of a rainbow. If they want to believe in a flat Earth, they'll believe that every government, business, university, cartographer and explorer has been engaged in a billion person conspiracy to fake a round Earth for no discernable reason whatsoever for the last thousand years. If they want to believe in a god, they'll believe that he told you to ask them for their bank number and all of their identifying information as long as you say he mentioned them by name or described their face reasonably well.
"And to head off the skeptic's favorite sophomoric objection".....
Are you going to provide evidence of ghosts that can be repeatedly verified to people who aren't already prone to believing it and are able to subject it to scrutiny?
"it's not that a mass-produced toy is magic"
Well, I guess that was one of my objections as well, but it wasn't the first.
Used Ouija board before
I'm still perfectly fine
...and that's why Hasbro are so powerful today.
For when they can get the US Military to co-operate with them for the second "Transformers" film - including all those M1 Abrams & MLRS Iron Chariots - then they can even have power over your 'God'...! >:D
Look, if everything that was ever used to try to summon spirits was actually inherently evil, we'd all be screwed.
No playing cards, no candles, no mirrors, no books ...
Arguments that it's real or not aside, anyone who's ever even remotely dabbled in the occult will tell you it takes intent to use one of those things. Simply having one around is no more dangerous than a game of Monopoly.
On second thought, Monopoly is more dangerous since actual fights have broken out over that game.
legends, folklore, and old wives' tales often contain a kernel of truth.
No, they don't. That's why they're called legends, folklore, and old wives' tales.
@Liz_7
"On second thought, Monopoly is more dangerous since actual fights have broken out over that game."
image
Oh, teh irony. [/Hasbro] /)^3^(\
@pip
'It's the bloody Parker Brothers! ' This week, on Cocksack References...! [/Dr. Stuart Ashen] X3
I agree with most of the response comments but legends and myths do have some truth to them in that people supposedly see the creature or whatever in them, none of them were made up out of whole cloth.
and there are examples of people previously not believing in such things having paranormal experiences.
@Anon-e-moose :WANT.
@#1996384
The closest most myths come to truth is the people spreading them convincing themselves that they saw whatever it is they came up with. Hence why they're still myths hundreds and thousands of years later. Some guy seeing a large snake and convincing himself that it was 200 feet long and roared at him, and his friends and friends' friends retelling the story and tacking on extra heads over time, doesn't equate to there being any truth to the myth of the hydra. And some myths are , in fact, purposefully created from wholecloth. Ghost stories made up to scare each other or wild stories meant to impress. The Slenderman is a recent example. There are people who take that shit seriously and even believe that they've encountered him.
As for that last bit, there are cases of people claiming to have had paranormal experiences. They're curiously never experienced while there's any kind of camera around. Rather amazing given the fact that there's almost always a camera or twelve nearby these days.
Our brains are notorious for their predeliction to editing sensory information and memory even as it's being processed. That's why we demand harder evidence for things. Play a random record backwards and ask people what they heard and half will say gibberish while the other half comes up with a dozen different things, some of them from the same point in the recording. Suggest that there's a particular phrase or sentence in there and suddenly it's not only there but, what's more, some will swear they kind of heard it first time. It's the drawback of having a social mind that's exceptionally talented at pattern-seeking. On the one hand, it makes us quick learners. On the other hand, it begins to obstruct further learning as misleading biases pile up.
@#1996384
"legends and myths do have some truth to them"
Then I'm sure that North Korea is right when it says they've found a Unicorn Lair; why, you'll even see at the excavation site a skeleton of one surrounded by books.
That next Air Koryo flight to Pyongyang awaits...!
...and you must be having an Out Of Your Mind experience, if you think that what drug addicts and/or retards say is fact .
You'll see statues of Kitsune at certain Shinto shrines in Japan. Do Werefoxes exist? Because I've yet to see a Barghest here in Yorkshire, so how can one - in a maid's outfit - appear in a Japanese anime series, "Macademi Wasshoi" ? Unless you can prove that they do exist...!
Rainbows don't physically exist, but can be seen: by more than one person. Is that 'supernatural'? If your answer is the only one possible, then thank you for admitting that the so-called 'Spiritual'/'Supernatural' doesn't exist, and a simple - and easily replicatable and explainable - optical phenomenon destroys the concept of the 'Supernatural'.
Can Komodos breathe Fire? Are Narwhals Rhinoceros...?!
No one tell him about Cthulhu Monopoly, Call of Cthulhu RPG, the White Wolf World of Darkness RPGs, the Mansions of Madness and Arkham Horror games. He'd probably bring Satanic panic back
To be fair, he is saying that it's the intent not the utensil.image
FYI I remembered this picture from the cover of Master of the Five Magics , a book I highly recommend.
but again, I still agree the original post is fundie, like was already said, if the this stuff is real, it's about intent.
but to add further to the other side of the argument, there also our credible eyewitnesses to the paranormal like police officers and some video footage witch, unless we know for a fact, it's a hoax or there's a wire in the video, you can't disprove at this point in time.
@#1996593
"but to add further to the other side of the argument, there also our credible eyewitnesses to the paranormal"
But to detract further from the so-called 'argument' for the 'other side' (which doesn't exist, otherwise dimensional portals would've been built by 'belie vers' so the living could enter the 'Spiritual' dimension & return to this one, thus prove that it exists), the doors of James Randi's JREF remain unknocked off their hinges to this day, and another $500,000 has accrued in interest to the $1 million prize to anyone who can prove their 'claims': but only under stringent scientific conditions.
When eyewitness testimonies are notoriously unreliable in courts of law...!
Yeah, y'see that kernel you find in ghost or demon stories from the past "legends, folklore, and old wives' tales ",,?
They're all bullshit stories too.
This is connected to the claim from your camp that we can't disbelieve or must believe because we can't prove it isn't true.
legends, folklore, old wives' tales, Greco/Roman Gods, Nordic Gods, Hindu Gods, Wise Chinese dragons and all the baggage connected to all these stories,,,
Right?
I've fucked around with Ouija boards years ago, there's always someone playing spook.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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