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    Once a hoaxer always a hoaxer?

    I guess we have to distinguish between Psi on the one hand and UFOs and hauntings on the other. Sciborg is probably right that for Psi we should just concentrate on the controlled scientific experiments and not bother too much about all the other stuff, but with UFOs and hauntings it seems we...
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    Once a hoaxer always a hoaxer?

    Here's another interesting example. There's a guy called Ray Stanford, and according to Chris O'Brien he has some of the most important UFO videos and photos ever taken. However, as teenagers back in the 50s, Ray and his twin brother were involved in some UFO hoaxes and fakery. Should we hold...
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    Once a hoaxer always a hoaxer?

    No, of course I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that if someone has been shown to have faked UFO photos and videos or to have faked some kind of paranormal ability, then it's probably quite reasonable to say, "I'm not going to bother investigating that person on the off chance than one or...
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    Once a hoaxer always a hoaxer?

    The guys on the Paracast often speculate that contactees like Adamski may have had genuine paranormal experiences at the beginning, but that they then found themselves enjoying the fame and money so much that they started faking stuff to try to keep it going. For the skeptic, of course, we...
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    Mod+ 258. JOHN MICHAEL GREER ON OUR MYTH OF PROGRESS

    David, you might be interested in this critique of the mainstream environmentalist movement by the writer Paul Kingsnorth. Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6599/ As for capitalism, I want to quote a passage from the...
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    Mod+ 258. JOHN MICHAEL GREER ON OUR MYTH OF PROGRESS

    I'd like to know whether Greer is familiar with the work of the British philosopher John Gray. In books like Straw Dogs and Black Mass, he argues that while progress in science and technology is real, moral progress is a myth. Gray points out that many believers in moral and political progress...
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    Mod+ 258. JOHN MICHAEL GREER ON OUR MYTH OF PROGRESS

    This is so obviously the right thing to do, but corporate capitalism is all about built-in obsolescence and about using advertising to get us to buy more and more things we don't really need. And yet if people ever do successfully ban corporate advertising, or if there is an education system...
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    Mod+ 253. SUZANNE TAYLOR, THE SCIENTIFIC MYSTERY OF CROP CIRCLES

    Yeah, but sky scrapers and sports stadiums also appear, but we don't hear anybody suggesting that mysterious paranormal forces may have been involved there. The fact that crop circles exist and paranormal phenomena exist doesn't give us any reason to think there's any connection between them...
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    Mod+ 253. SUZANNE TAYLOR, THE SCIENTIFIC MYSTERY OF CROP CIRCLES

    I always enjoy listening to people like Greg Bishop and Nick Redfern speculating about whether the circle makers/hoaxers are themselves being led by some paranormal force to make the circles. This is a wonderful example of people making their theories unfalsifiable. No matter how much evidence...
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    The Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis

    This is where the ETH becomes very much like a religion. These aliens behave in 'mysterious ways' and 'their ways are not our ways', and it sure as hell doesn't seem like they're advanced extraterrestrials thousands or millions of years ahead of us, but hey, we're just going to keep on believing...
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    The Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis

    Yeah, aliens might well disguise their true appearance and present themselves in a form that we can understand and relate to. But that doesn't explain why their super advanced medical technology leaves scars, why they apparently can't erase our memories of what happened completely, or why they...
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    Mod+ 256. DR. DONALD DEGRACIA, WHAT IS SCIENCE?

    Don, this is a great story and I enjoyed reading it, but the question about freedom is whether we have it now in this world. It doesn't help me to know that I have the essence of freedom within me or that in some other world I will have absolute freedom. We need to get more real-world about...
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    The Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis

    What do you mean by 'weird crap'? Are you suggesting that the skeptics could be right that the UFO phenomenon is all just about human psychology, culture, unconscious desires, mass hysteria and all the rest, or do you mean that there is a genuine force outside human beings involved in all this...
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    Mod+ 256. DR. DONALD DEGRACIA, WHAT IS SCIENCE?

    Don, in the interview you said the following: I gave my two cents worth about freedom in the book; I’m so steeped in yogic thought now that the idea makes no sense to me whatsoever. It literally makes no sense, we’re in a world of relative existence where everything conditions everything...
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    The Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis

    I think this is a slightly desperate response. You're essentially saying, "Yeah, but it's still POSSIBLE that these are highly advanced extraterrestrials doing these things." Yes, it's possible, but is it probable? With abductions in particular, it's not just that the technology doesn't seem...
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    Mod+ 256. DR. DONALD DEGRACIA, WHAT IS SCIENCE?

    Take a look at this passage from the interview with Degracia and imagine if it had been a 'materialist' guest who'd said it. Dr. Donald DeGracia: I gave my two cents worth about freedom in the book; I'm so steeped in yogic thought now that the idea makes no sense to me whatsoever. It literally...
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    Mod+ 256. DR. DONALD DEGRACIA, WHAT IS SCIENCE?

    When I use vague terms like 'other people' I'm almost always referring to Alex and his many apologists on this forum. Another example I would use is Timothy Freke. It's fine for him to talk about many or all of our 'common sense' ideas about the self, freedom and morality being 'illusions'...
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    Mod+ 256. DR. DONALD DEGRACIA, WHAT IS SCIENCE?

    Sciborg, it seems to me that you are a lot more consistent in your views than others on this forum. You want to hang on to our 'common sense' ideas about free will, the self and moral responsibility, and you will defend these ideas against anyone who attacks them, whether they be scientific...
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    The Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis

    I think Vallee's critique of the ETH in his book Dimensions is one of the best. In the chapter 'The Case Against ET' he ridicules the idea that these are super advanced extraterrestrials coming here to observe and experiment. If they're so advanced why are they leaving scars on people? Why don't...
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    Mod+ 256. DR. DONALD DEGRACIA, WHAT IS SCIENCE?

    Another interesting part of the interview was where the discussion turned to free will, and it was obvious that Alex believes in it (whatever 'it' is) and Don doesn't. It was a very awkward moment, and Alex was desperately trying to get out of it by making out that the two of them really did...
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