I stumbled on the site DemonTales.com today.  It’s another paranormal blog, and it mostly focuses on videos.  A lot of the footage seems fake, but it’s still fun to browse and check out.  Here’s one that didn’t set off my bullshit detector:

Check out the site if you have some time to kill.  It’s pretty cool!

Everyone knows I love a good story, and apocalypse is one of the best.

It seems a preacher is touring around, claiming he is one of the two prophets talked about in Book of Revelation.

For those that don’t know, the Book of Revelation is a Christian prophecy about how the world is going to end. It is extremely hard to read, because it’s very vague and riddled with metaphors. One thing the Book of Revelation does say is that there will be two prophets who do amazing things and spread the word about how awesome God is before Jesus comes back to Earth.

And apparently one of the prophets runs the website, http://the-end.com/.

If you enjoy religious prophecy talking about how awesome God is, and how much humans are going to get bitch-slapped by him, then check out the site.  And to tell you the truth, the author sounds like he actually knows what he’s talking about!

Recently I got into an argument about whether out of body experiences were real or not.  Whenever I get into such an argument, I always force myself to be as scientific and logical as possible.  This usually pisses skeptics off, because they are used to being the scientific guy, and the other person being the religious nut job.

I insisted that scientific evidence - if studied without bias - actually supports the theory that OBEs are real.  The skeptic was quick to jump on that claim.  He stated that OBEs (and their close cousin, near death experiences) were nothing more than a brain going crazy from the chemistry.  He presented me with recent scientific studies and articles as proof:

1. Scientists Induce OBEs in the Lab - A scientist used virtual reality goggles to trick the brain into thinking it was out of body.

2. Extreme Gravity Triggers OBEs/NDEs - A report stating that extreme G-Forces will induce an OBE because of the lack of blood flowing to the brain.

3. People have NDEs While Brain Dead

Seems a little daunting at first - I mean, how could I call myself a scientific guy, when there is scientific evidence that OBEs/NDEs aren’t real?

It turns out it was pretty easy:

1. Did the scientists really induce an OBE? No. The virtual reality goggles gave a creepy illusion of being out of body, but the OBE state of mind wasn’t actually induced. It’s an optical illusion. Just because you can fake it, doesn’t mean that the original isn’t real. I can create a fake video of me walking - that doesn’t mean I can’t walk.

2. All the report states is that lack of blood flowing to the brain can induce a near death experience. Well, that doesn’t really say either way whether the experience is real or not. It just says that when you do things that might kill you, you might have a near death experience. Which is actually pretty obvious :-P. I can induce a gun shot wound by shooting someone in the leg. Does that mean gun shot wounds aren’t real? Of course not.

3. The third piece of evidence was the best. How many of you read the page? Probably not that many. It turns out that article is in favor of NDEs being real. The person I was arguing against only read the title. I read the article.

I want to point out two things: 1. I am right about the evidence supporting OBEs being real.  I may make a separate post with a list of evidence in the future.  But more importantly, 2. skeptics are full of shit.

Skeptics hide behind citing work, and long articles, and scientific studies - but they can only get away with it because it’s very rare for them to actually be challenged.  It’s a game of intimidation - not one of pursuing truth.  The strategy is simple: argue the skeptical position, and when someone challenges you, just google the topic and paste a bunch of links to scientific documents.  No real effort required, and you look smart in the process, and feel good about bitch slapping some “moron”.

And for the most part, science has figured a lot of stuff out, so this strategy actually works really well.  For example, if you were to get in an argument about evolution vs. creationism, you could just google it, and find enough links on the internet that supports evolution, and throw them in the religious guys face.  You win.

But the reality of the situation is that science hasn’t figured everything out.  And when it comes to the subject of parapsychology, they are light years behind.

The down side to this is that you have to know your stuff if you want to challenge a skeptic.  The skeptic won’t put in the effort, so if you want to sound credible, you have to put in the effort for both of you.  It is an uphill battle, and I’ve yet to see a skeptic change their mind, but it’s an important battle because it teaches us that science is far from perfect, and suffers from the same fundamentalism as any other system of beliefs.