Quite often actually. But of course unless you've experienced it first hand then they're all just anecdotal stories. How do you really go about convincing anyone of an experience that the modern naturalistic framework by default says is impossible?
With evidence and reason. "The modern naturalistic framework" has incorporated all sorts of new ideas over time. At one point, ideas from quantum physics to plate tectonics weren't included, but these ideas were explored and evidence for them found, and they were found to be so well-supported that they came into general acceptance.. "The modern naturalistic framework" isn't some arbitrary dividing line that someone pulled out of their butts; it just marks the dividing line between ideas that have good support and ideas that don't.
I agree that the majority of paranormal experiences that aren't consciously fraudulent are probably misidentified natural occurrences. Secondly, the fact that fraud is rife in everything paranormal speaks to the opportunistic nature of certain people exploiting the credulity of others. That doesn't mean that actual cases of any given phenomenon themselves have no reality however.
No, but it does mean that we shouldn't assume right off the bat that any particular paranormal claim is genuine. Instead, we should look at the actual evidence for the specific claim and rationally consider whether ghosts are the best explanation. Have any claims of ghosts passed that hurdle?
Of course not. An example would be the psychological testing required by the Catholic Church before the possibility of an exorcism is even considered.
Has the Catholic Church actually performed any licit exorcisms since this requirement was put in place?
Of course. But you also run the risk of putting yourself in a framework where you end up assuming that anyone who reports seeing things must have some 'undiagnosed condition' out of an unwillingness to even consider the possibility that said person may actually be seeing things.
I disagree. The existence of the paranormal and the validity of paranormal claims are two separate questions. I can rejecta claim that someone is communicating psychically with Dustin Hoffman without rejecting the existence of Dustin Hoffman.
There's a saying among doctors: "when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras." Even if a patient is presenting with the symptoms of some exotic and rare disease, it's often more likely to be an atypical presentation of a common disease or two common diseases presenting together. Even if ghosts were real, which would be more likely: that the witness is lying or mistaken, or that the ghost is real?
My uncle once told us a story where when he was young he and a few of his friends were playing with a ouija board on a beach. (of course, you could argue that we're dealing with a case of suggestion and ideomotor effect)
Absolutely. Why would we reject it?
However, after some time on the board the surrounding beer bottles instantly shatter scaring the hell out of everyone there.
What do I make of such a story in your view? My uncle must be lying or he just wasn't judging reality correctly? Of course, I wasn't there so I don't make anything of it myself but hypothetically how would you even begin to talk to someone about such an event if they insist such event must be replicable? (because such forces should they exist seemingly don't want to be too overt as to be widely validated. I think there's reason for that too if the intelligences behind a lot of this are what I think they are.)
The fact that there were beer bottles around to be broken suggests a fair bit of drinking. Yes, I think it's reasonable to suspect that a drunk teenager at a bush party might not be judging reality properly.
I also think it's reasonable to suspect that your uncle's memory of an event from decades earlier might not be perfect. Memory is mutable - it's very common for our memory of an event to change over time, especially as we re-tell the story or hear others re-tell their version.
There was a neat study that I heard about a while back; I'll have to find the link again: shortly after the Shuttle Challenger blew up in 1986, researchers interviewed a number of people and had then describe how they heard about the disaster: where they were, what they were doing, etc. Decades later, they re-interviewed the same subjects - the accounts were often very different. Even more interesting, when they heard their original intervuew played back to them, many maintained that their revised version of what happened was the real one.
So... eyewitnesses are unreliable, especially ones that have bern compromised by alcohol, drugs, fatigue, etc. And memory is unreliable, especially old memories. Put that all together (along with the possibility that your uncle might just be lying) and I don't find your story compelling.
