Interview with researcher of psychic phenomena Guy Lyon Playfair

This is an interview with writer and researcher of psychic phenomena Guy Lyon Playfair. I thank Guy for accepting this interview. Enjoy.

1-Guy, tell us something about your background.

I was born in India, brought up in England, and emigrated to Brazil after a couple of years working for a property developer, which I felt was not where I really wanted to be. I spent fourteen years there mostly working as a freelance journalist, with a four-year period in the press section of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was a great learning experience.

2-Why did you get interested in parapsychology and psychic phenomena?

My mother was a member of the Society for Psychical Research, so I grew up reading the SPR Journal along with my comics and jazz magazines, and was aware of the subject since I was about ten or so and accepted it as part of life.

3-Have you had any personal, first-hand experience with some actual paranormal or afterlife phenomenon?

Yes indeed, several. I've described most of them in my various books. My Brazilian experiences are in my first book The Flying Cow, which has just been updated and reissued, as has This House is Haunted, which is all about the Enfield poltergeist case of 1977-78. And all kinds of odd things happened when I was working with Uri Geller as I described in The Geller Effect.

4-What is your opinion of Allan Kardec and the movement based upon his teachings?

Very favourable. I was very lucky to meet Hernani Guimarães Andrade, the pioneer of psychical research in Brazil, who let me work with the institute he founded. He was a Spiritist as well as a trained scientist, and a first rate field researcher who did a great job recording the cases that he investigated, notably of poltergeists and cases of the reincarnation type. He taught me everything I know about psi research and I am eternally grateful to him for that. I'm not a card-carrying Spiritist but a very sympathetic observer greatly impressed by the charitable work Brazilian Spiritists do.

5-You have written an excellent book about Chico Xavier, who was the most famous and respected medium in Brazil. However, some Brazilian psi researchers like Vitor Moura Visoni have recently argued that Xavier was a fraud on the grounds that 1)Xavier never accepted scientific controls; 2)His guide never actually existed (according to the findings of Brazilian researcher José Carlos Ferreira Fernandes); 3)There is much evidence of cold reading; and more importantly 4)Xavier's books have passages copied of others famous books. What do you think of these criticisms?

Not very much. It is generally known that 'spirit guides' are not identifiable real people, and anybody who knows anything about mediumship will know that a trance medium has no conscious control over what comes through. As for Chico being a 'fraud', all I can say is that since he donated 100% of his royalties for something like 450 books to charitable causes, we need a few more 'frauds' like him.

6-According to your research, and leaving aside cases of tricks, is there good evidence to think that "psychic surgery" is an actual paranormal phenomenon?

Undeniably, by definition. 'Paranormal' merely means inexplicable in terms of presently understood science, and there is abundant evidence that 'psychic surgeons' have been seen to do things that await explanation. I collected a good deal of evidence from witnesses and had a couple of operations myself, so have no doubts that we have a genuine mystery here. There are many frauds, especially in the Philippines, but their tricks are quite easy to spot.

7-What do you think of psychic surgeon Zé Arigó? Was he a real psychic surgeon?

Well, the president of Brazil (Kubitschek) evidently thought so, since he pardoned him after he had been jailed for illegal practice of medicine. So did Andrija Puharich, a qualified doctor who spent a lot of time with him as you can read in John G. Fuller's excellent book Arigo: Surgeon of the Rusty Knife. I include some interesting eye-witness testimony from doctors who had seen him in action in The Flying Cow.

8-Uri Geller is a controversial figure among psychics. Skeptics consider him as the paradigm of "psychic fraud" and among psi researchers the opinion seems to be divided. According to your research, is Geller an actual psychic? Does he posses actual paranormal skills?

I've been in touch with Uri since 1973 and first met him when he came to live in England in 1985. We are still in regular touch and I consider him a good friend. I think I know him better than any of his detractors do, and think he has been much misunderstood. A lot of the opposition to him is just based on jealousy. As for his skills, I'm still waiting for a normal explanation of how he managed to bend a chrome vanadium spanner (which I still have) as I described in Fortean Times (issue 250, 2009). His critics have gone all quiet about that.

9-It has been said that Geller had contact with alien beings. What is your opinion about this aspect of Geller's life?

I have questioned him about this and his reply is that it all happened (if it did) while he was hypnotised by Puharich and he doesn't have any conscious memories of this stuff.

10-What is your opinion about William Crookes' research with Florence Cook? Do you think the evidence supports the hypothesis that Cook was a fraud?

I don't really have anything to add to the volumes that have already been written about this. She was certainly caught faking, like Otilia Diogo in Brazil, but that is no proof that she was always a faker.

11-In alternative medicine exists the so-called "energetic medicines", or therapies which use "paranormal energies" (chi, prana, ki, etc) in order to produce healings. Have you researched these kinds of alternative therapies. Do they use actual paranormal energies which work independently of the placebo effect or suggestion?

This is not something I am qualified to comment on. I regularly use alternative therapies, especially herbal, and have found them often better than chemicals. I am especially interested in hypnosis, which I think should be used far more often that it is these days. In my book If This Be Magic (also recently reissued) I give many examples of what it can do when used properly.

I also had experience of non-medical healing when I had a slipped disc which made me unable to write with my right hand. I tried numerous therapies without success, and a single session with Matthew Manning produced an immediate cure. An orthopedic surgeon who was a friend of mine told me it would take two years for the ulnar nerve to recover, and after examining me before and after my session with Matthew said he had no medical explanation.

12-In Brazil and other countries, one hears stories of voodoo, black magic and similar methods of provoking spiritual or physical damage in others at a distance through paranormal means. Do you think something paranormal is operating in these cases? Is there some evidence supporting the paranormal effectiveness of these methods of "damaging at a distance"?

I've written about this in The Flying Cow. We found evidence for black magic practices on several of the poltergeist cases that Hernani's institute researched. Yet I have never come across any such evidence on any of the British cases I have investigated.

13-Do you think that, overall, the case for survival of consciousness is convincing? According to your studies, do you think the evidence for reincarnation is good?

These are different questions and it's important to distinguish between them. Survival of consciousness I consider proved beyond any reasonable doubt. The word reincarnation implies the permanent return of a whole personality, and I don't think the evidence generally supports that, although there are cases where it does seem possible, when there are birthmarks and behaviour patterns as well as memories. I'm thinking of people like Jenny Cockell, Om Sety and most recently James Leininger in which identifiable people do seem to have returned to earth, but such cases are very rare. On the whole, though, I think that what people call reincarnation is more like temporary transfer of fragments of memory, etc.

There is still much to do in establishing just what 'reincarnates'. Luckily we have a huge database of cases thanks to those who recorded the evidence, from Gabriel Delanne (whose father was a colleague of Kardec) and Albert de Rochas to Ian Stevenson, Erlendur Haraldsson, Antonia Mills and Hernani Guimarães Andrade.

14-Professional skeptics argue that the evidence of neuroscience clearly shows an extremely close dependence of the mind on the brain. So the idea of "survival of consciousness" is, at best, highly implausible; and at worst, physically impossible. What do you think of this common skeptical argument?

It may be implausible, but the evidence suggests it does happen. We should always base our beliefs on evidence, not what we are told we ought to believe, especially by sceptics who haven't done their homework or scientists who think they have all the answers. It was considered implausible once for meteorites to fall from the sky or for continents to drift, but now both are accepted as quite normal. In 1894 Albert Michelson, a future Nobel laureate, was saying that 'the more important laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered', and 'the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote'. That was before Planck's quantum and Einstein's relativity theories, and the discovery of x-rays, radiation, sonar and radio among may other things that must have seemed implausible in 1894. Don't forget Arthur C. Clarke's Law: 'When a distinguished but elderly scientist says something is impossible, he is almost certainly wrong'.

15-Do you agree with the filter/transmission hypothesis defended by writers and researchers like William James, Frederic Myers and Chris Carter to explain the mind-body connection and account for the evidence for survival?

I agree with everything Myers and James wrote, and Carter has done an excellent job in clarifying the present situation - he is also one of the best critics of the professional sceptics.

16-What do you think of the Super-ESP or Super-Psi hypothesis? Do you consider it a viable alternative to the survival hypothesis?

No, at least not until it can either be proved or disproved. Hypotheses are of no use unless they lead to testable theories.

17-Let's talk about the so-called "organized skepticism". You have written about professional skeptics a lot and perhaps our readers would like to know which is your current opinion about professional skeptics and debunkers. Do you think their overall contribution to parapsychology has been constructive and positive?

Certainly not, with rare exceptions, notably the late Marcello Truzzi who was a good friend of mine. I've said all I have to say about the others on www.skepticalinvestigations.org

18-My blog is largely dedicated to refute organized skeptics' misdirections and fallacies, and mainly expose their philosophical foundations. Do you think it is a good strategy against organized skepticism to stress a constant critical examination of them (their books, articles, lectures, "researches", etc?

I think it is usually a waste of time. People who have made up their minds don't want to be confused by facts and evidence.

19-Which is the best strategy for parapsychologists in dealing with professional skeptics? Professional skeptics seem to have so much energy and time available to debunk parapsychology, afterlife research, ufology or spirituality. Which is the main motivation behind organized skepticism that could explain that behaviour?

There are certainly many things that deserve to be debunked, and I'm always ready to do some debunking myself, as in my article 'The return of Katharine Bates' (Journal of the SPR, July 2005) where I found a highly probable normal explanation for what was claimed to be a book of past-life recall. However, there is no justification for claiming, as many do, that anything still unexplained must be imaginary or fraudulent. That's just bad science. I really don't have much time for worrying about the professional sceptics.

20-Do you think that if a guy like D.D. Home would live at the present and were consistently tested by professional debunkers like Richard Wiseman, Susan Blackmore, Chris French or Ray Hyman, he could convince them that actual paranormal powers do exist?

Well, for a start he wouldn't be consistently tested by any of those except maybe Chris French who is a relatively moderate sceptic and a very well-informed one. It's interesting that Peter Lamont, a parapsychologist from Edinburgh who is also a fairly sceptical magician, wrote the best book to date on Home (The First Psychic) in which he could not find any convincing evidence that Home's abilities were other than genuine. He would be the right one to do the testing.

21-What do you think about other "fringe" topics, like UFOs and alien abductions? Do you think the evidence for the alien hypothesis (in order to account for some cases of UFOs and abduction experiences) is reasonably good or at least worthy of serious scholarly consideration?

I don't have any experience in this area, but any human experience deserves consideration. As it happens, I had a lunch date with John Mack for the day after he was tragically killed by a drunk driver in London. I would have asked him the same questions, and I am sure he would have said yes.

22-Do you believe in God? Do you think there is good scientific evidence for a transcendent creator/designer of the universe?

Ah, an easy question at last! I find it hard to imagine how such a vast thing as the universe just happened to come into being by chance. I accept that there are things, as the noted philosopher Donald Rumsfeld once said, 'we know that we don't know' and also things 'that we don't know that we don't know'. So for me the origin of the universe is an 'unknown unknown'.

23-Which is your opinion about Jesus of Nazareth and the historical evidence commonly mentioned for his putative Resurrection (like the empty tomb and his post-mortem appearences)?

I think too much trouble in this world is caused by people's religious opinions, which can't all be right, so I prefer to keep mine to myself.

24-What books on science, parapsychology and the afterlife would you like to recommend to the readers of this interview?

The basic text has to be Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death by Frederic Myers (1903). For a highly readable and comprehensive history of psychical research and parapsychology up to 1939, I recommend Natural and Supernatural and Science and Parascience by Brian Inglis.

Two excellent recent surveys are Parapsychology. The Controversial Science by Richard Broughton, who is the current president of the SPR, and The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin. As for the afterlife, my first choice would be Is There an Afterlife? by my late friend David Fontana.

25-Do you want to add something else to end the interview? What are you working on now?

(a) Yes. I think that parapsychology has become really very boring whereas psychical research used to be really exciting when people like Myers, Gurney, Crookes, Lodge, Hyslop, James, W.F.Prince and others were out in the field chasing after the evidence. That's what I have always tried to do, and luckily I'm not the only one. The latest SPR Proceedings (October 2011) contains articles by two experienced researchers, Antonia Mills and Erlendur Haraldsson, who are still prepared to go out and find new evidence for old cases, which both have done very impressively.

(b) Most recently I have been collecting evidence for telepathy between identical twins, which has never been properly studied. Thanks to my colleagues Adrian Parker and Göran Brusewitz in Sweden, it has now begun to be studied at university level. I hope to report developments in the 3rd edition of my book Twin Telepathy, due out in 2012, which will include the very interesting results of some laboratory experiments that I helped set up. So wait for that - the first two editions are already out of date!

For a last word - if you are interested in psychical research, have a look at the SPR web site www.spr.ac.uk - and maybe think about joining us. You'll be very welcome.

New Book: You are NOT your brain by Jeffrey Schwartz

Michael Shermer and his book Why People Believe in Weird Things? (like in Shermer's own fallacious arguments)

Shermer thinking hard about weird things (like how a vedic astrologer kicked Shermer's butt in his own debunking TV show)

In his highly influential (among pseudoskeptics and some "educated readers of science") book defending pseudoskepticism, Why people believe in weird things, professional pseudoskeptic Michael Shermer wrote:

Other popular ideas of our time that have little to no scientific support include dowsing, the Bermuda Triangle, poltergeists, biorhythms, creationism, levitation, psychokinesis, astrology, ghosts, psychic detectives, UFOs, remote viewing, Kirlian auras, emotions in plants, life after death, monsters, graphology, crypto-zoology, clairvoyance, mediums, pyramid power, faith healing, Big Foot, psychic prospecting, haunted houses, perpetual motion machines, antigravity locations, and, amusingly, astrological birth control. Belief in these phenomena is not limited to a quirky handful on the lunatic fringe. It is more pervasive than most of us like to think, and this is curious considering how far science has come since the Middle Ages. Shouldn't we know by now that ghosts cannot exist unless the laws of science are faulty or incomplete? (p.27. Emphasis in blue added).

It is very interesting and "amusing" that Shermer includes astrology among the "ideas" that little to no scientific support, since that Shermer's own scientific test of an astrologer provided positive empirical evidence for the astrologer's claim (kicking Shermer's butt in the process and making look him like a fool):

But let that pass. I'm more interested in Shermer's argument against ghosts. Shermer says Shouldn't we know by now that ghosts cannot exist unless the laws of science are faulty or incomplete?

Exactly which scientific laws (assumed by Shermer to be perfect and complete) exclude the existence of ghosts?

Shermer says "Do ghosts exist? Do scientific laws exist? Is there no difference between ghosts and scientific laws? Of course there is, and most scientists believe in scientific laws but not ghosts... Ghosts can be considered nonfactual because they have never been confirmed to any extent.... Ghosts never exist apart from their description by believers." (p. 58. Emphasis in blue added)

The above is an excellent example of atheistic-skeptical stupidity, imbecility and lack of logical thinking.

How the hell the premise (assumed for the argument's sake) that ghosts' existence "have never been confirmed to any extent" implies the conclusion that they "can be considered nonfactual"? Do the lack of scientific confirmation of any entity implies the entity's nonfactuality?

Just consider microbes. Before the creation of microscopes, microbes's existence wasn't scientifically confirmed. Do that imply that microbes were "nonfactual" before the creation of microscopes and their scientific confirmation? Obviously not.

Shermer's basic fallacy is to conflate an epistemological matter (scientific confirmation of the existence of an entity X) with an ontological one (the actual existence or non-existence of some entity X).

In fact, Shemer's argument seems to be "If an entity's existence is confirmed, then it exists. Hence, if it is not confirmed, then it doesn't exist". Even the most inept and incompetent student of logic would know that such an argument is actually a formal fallacy (the fallacy of denying the antecedent).

Another way to see Shermer's intellectual incompetence is realizing that he's conflating "scientific laws" with "scientific confirmation of facts". The latter doesn't imply the former.

For example, most parapsychologists consider that "psi" is a scientific fact. But they don't know exactly which are the "scientific laws of psi". The latter is still an open and controversial question.

Shermer assumes that, since ghosts have not been scientifically confirmed (in their existence), then ghosts are incompatible with currently known scientific laws. This is why he says: "Shouldn't we know by now that ghosts cannot exist unless the laws of science are faulty or incomplete?"

This is an obvious non-sequitur.

Finally, Shermer's argument rest on the very doubtul assumption that currently known scientific laws are perfect and complete. But as any student of philosophy and history of science would know, scientific theories (in which scientific laws are understood) are not perfect nor complete. Our grasping of reality is argueably fallible and progressive, not perfect and definitive (if it were the case, science couldn't progress anymore, which is false and this is conceded, inconsistently, by Shermer himself).

Shermer's amazingly strong and uncritical credulity regarding the perfection and completeness of currenty scientific theories and laws is astonishing. Is this the proper position of a true reasonable skeptic? Clearly not. Shermer (like most pseudoskeptics) is the paradigmatic anti-thesis of a true skeptic; he's a fine example of a hard-core ideologue: a scientific dogmatist and mainstream fundamentalist.

So far, we have assumed (just for the sake of the argument) that Shermer's assumption that ghosts haven't been scientifically confirmed is true. Personally, I think Shermer's assumption is false. There is evidence, anecdotal and scientific, that ghosts and other putative afterlife manifestations DO exist (see, just for mention one example, David Fontana's balanced and nuanced treatment of the topic in his book Is there an afterlife?")

In any case, even if ghosts don't exist, Shermer's arguments provide not justification at all to think they don't.

Shermer's arguments are of the worst kind that I've read in the pseudoskeptical literature. He's a good example of an intellectual lightweight who based on a very limited understand of science and philosophy, and a strongly prejudiced ideological position against parapsychology and other spiritual matters, has been strongly influential among pseudoskeptics and "educated scientific readers".

Only hard-core atheistic pseudoskeptics accept Shermer's arguments. And they deserve a "thinker" like that.

Atheist John W. Loftus says that Nothing = Balance of Energy and concedes the ultimate absurdity of atheism

Once you have bought into the atheist mindset, even the most irrational and obviously absurd idea is accepted provided it is useful to reject the existence of God. I call this the ultimate atheistic irrationality.

The most egregious example of this is the common atheist conviction that something fundamental (=the law of gravity, the law of entropy, the quantum vaccum, etc.) is equivlent to "nothing". Therefore (so the irrational atheist reasons), if you can explain something in terms of such laws, quantum vacuum, etc. you have successful to explain something from "nothing".

Only mentally retarded, intellectually deficient, stupid and inept people would conflate nothing (=non-being) with some fundamental (and hence, something actually existing) reality. This is why only hard-core atheists buy into this idea. Normal people (even ignorant ones) wouldn't be so irrational.

As philosopher Edward Feser recently wrote in a post entitled "What part of "nothing" you don't understand?": "You might as well say: “Let me explain how this whole house is held up by nothing. Consider the floor, which is what I really mean by ‘nothing.’ Now, the rest of the house is held up by the floor. Thus, I’ve explained how the whole house is held up by nothing!” Well, no you haven’t. You’ve “explained” at most how part of the house is held up by another part, but you’ve left unexplained how the floor itself is held up, and thus (since the floor is itself part of the house) you haven’t really explained at all how the house as a whole is held up, either by “nothing” or by anything else. Furthermore, you’ve made what is really just sheer muddleheadedness sound profound by using “nothing” in an eccentric way.

The “scientific” “explanations” of the origin of the universe from “nothing” one keeps hearing in recent years are really no less stupid than this “explanation” of the house. They aren’t serious physics, they aren’t serious philosophy, they aren’t serious anything except seriously bad arguments, textbook instances of the fallacy of equivocation."

In the case of Loftus, the fallacy of equivocation regarding "nothing" is committed when he conflates this term with the concept "balance of energy". But how the hell of the balance of something actually existing (namely, energy = the fundamental property of matter) is equivalent to "nothing" in the relevant, ontological sense of "non-being"?

Again, I'm being 100% serious, honest and sincere in my opinion that only people with strong intellectual deficiences and serious cognitive impairments can be so blind as to not realize the obvious fallacy of that position.

This is another reason why I'm convinced that, as a rule, hard-core atheists are irrational (I've recently called this position Jime's Iron Law, inspired in Shermer's Last Law).

Moreover, I'm also convinced that people like that are charlatans and deserve to receive public exposing and intellectual pounding.

A similar irrationalistic position is defended by atheist apologist Peter Atkins:

This evidence provides interesting insights into the psychology of contemporary atheists.

National Geographic documentary: The Truth Behind UFOs

Lynne McTaggart on Ryke Geerd Hamer theory of cancer

Lynne McTaggart

Dr.Ryke Geerd Hamer

Noetic scientist Lynne McTaggart has written several excellent books about parapsychological matters (e.g. the Intention Experiment or The Field) and one of her lastest book is entitled The Cancer Handbook, which is about cancer and the most effective therapies to treat it.

McTaggart comments about the controversial physician Ryke Geerd Hamer's theory about cancer. It seems to me that McTaggart unintentionally gives a misleading introduction to Hamer's theory (which is highly complex and very easy to misunderstand).

She begins saying that "Unlike most other practitioners, the work of the German cancer specialist Dr.Ryke Geerd Hamer concentrates almost exclusively on the causes of cancer" (p. 129)

This is a common misunderstanding and is demostrably false. It is true that Hamer's work began examining only cases of cancer, but since 1987 (see the first edition of his book Vermächtnis einer Neuen Medizin) Hamer's theoy embraces all the diseases known in medicine (except some congenital diseases, diseases by insufficience of nutrients, diseases by wounds, radiation and intoxications).

His lastest researches focuses on dental diseases (odontology) and mental diseases (psychiatry). (Unfortunately, the literature about it exists only in German, and it is not easy to get). For a recent explanation of Hamer's discoveries on mental illnesses by an independent author, see Björn Eybl's book Die seelischen Ursachen der Krankheiten: Nach den 5 biologischen Naturgesetzen, entdeckt von Dr. med. Mag. theol. Ryke Geerd Hamer.

McTaggart continues "Once the cause is recognized and faced, the cure will follow, he argues, as the body's own remarkable self-healing processes are freeded to come into play"

This is another misleading explanation of Hamer's view. It is not enough that the cause (the biological conflict) is "recognized and faced", but that such a biological conflict has to be SOLVED definitively (and in many cases it is very hard to get).

McTaggart: "In the case of breast cancer, the shock or trauma would have occured two to four months prior to the clinical detection of the cancer if the woman is right-handed"

This is another misleading statement which, taken literally, is false. According to Hamer, the laterality (the property of being right-handed or left-handed) is irrelevant regarding the TIME in which the cancer is clinically detected. Laterality only plays a role in the connection between the conflict and the organ which is affected, not regarding the time of the clinical detection of it.

By the way, McTaggart doesn't differentiate between glandular breast cancer (which can be detected just a few months after the conflict) and intraductal mammary carcinoma (which only could be detected after the solution of the conflict... a conflict which could last for years). Both cancer are clinically different (as any oncolologist could attest) and, from the point of view of Hamer's theory, conflictually different too (in addition to being qualitatively different in terms of the phases in which each tumour grows).

For more on breast cancer according to Hamer's theory, see these videos in youtube.

McTaggart makes other comments about Hamer's theory, but I think the above ones are the most wrong or misleading.

Some months ago, I interviewed a follower of Hamer's theory which you can read here.

For an introduction to Hamer's basic ideas on the origin of cancer and other diseases, watch this extensive documentary (press the "CC" bottom in the video below to activate the English subtitles):

Spiritualism, Jesus' Resurrection and the etheric body hypothesis

I've commented before that currently I'm studying intensively the best literature (in English and German) for and against the case for Jesus' Resurrection. In addition to books on atheism, philosophy, parasychology, and UFOs, my library is becoming increasingly filled with books, papers, videos and audios on New Testament scholarship and biblical criticism (something that 15 years ago was unthinkable for me).

I've been astonished by what appear to be the fact that most people (Christians and non-Christians) who has studied the evidence for and against the resurrection of Jesus in a more or less unbiased manner (specially, without naturalistic-atheistic prejudices), comes to the conclusion that at least something paranormal (or even supernatural) happened in that case.

For example, in my interview with Michael Prescott, when asked about Jesus and his putative Resurrection, Michael commented: "I do think he was a real historical figure and that the gospels provide at least a generally reliable overview of his ministry, though undoubtedly with omissions and embellishments. As for the resurrection, I do believe that Jesus' followers witnessed his reappearance after his death. I think what they were probably seeing is what spiritualists today would call the etheric body, which can have physical attributes and yet do things that an ordinary earthly body can't do, like vanish at will. I suspect that Jesus chose his disciples in large part because they had latent psychic abilities of their own, which might have helped them to perceive the etheric body"

Michael, who is not himself a Christian, has a good command of the relevant literature and his conclusion is not only that the gospels provide at least a generally realiable overview of his ministry, but in addition that one of the facts mentioned as evidence for Jesus' Resurrection (namely, Jesus' apparitions after his death) was historical and hence explainable in terms of the "Etheric body hypothesis" (not the hypothesis of Jesus' literal resurrection).

Robert Perry, another author who is not himself a Christian, when asked about Jesus' Resurrection, comments: "I think the evidence for it is surprisingly good, and should not be dismissed on the grounds that such a thing is impossible. I have found value in the arguments of conservative scholars on this, whose work I otherwise disagree with. I have especially been influenced by the testimony of Paul in this regard, who within a few years of Jesus’ death spoke with those who were there and witnessed the risen Jesus. And I have also been heavily influenced by the Shroud of Turin, the evidence for which is actually quite remarkable, notwithstanding the (now discredited) 1988 carbon dating"

Robert is convinced by the evidence that Jesus' Resurrection was a real historical event. In addition, he brings to the debate the consideration of the Shroud of Turin as part of the evidence. I admit that previously I've considered the Shroud of Turin a fraud. Currently, however, I'm more open to the view that it could be real, but I'm still agnostic about it. This is still a topic which I haven't researched in depth.

I mentioned Michael and Robert because they're people familiar with parapsychology, afterlife research and the literature for and against Jesus' Resurrection, and they are convinced by the evidence that it was a real event, or that something real (from a paranormal origin) is the cause of it (like in Michael's case).

The Etheric Body Hypothesis of Jesus' Resurrection:

I must confess that I was sympathetic for this hypothesis, according to which the Resurrection was actually the vision of Jesus' etheric body by his disciples.

Also, I think this hypothesis is widely shared by spiritualists, since they tend to interpret the putative resurrection of Jesus in terms of known in spiritualistic circles (namely, in terms of etheric bodies and mediumship materializations).

Currently, I don't find this hypothesis convincing anymore. The main reason is that I think this hypothesis (in comparison with the hypothesis of Jesus' Resurrection) lack explanatory scope, because it only accounts for the vision by the disciples of Jesus after his death, but it doesn't account:

1-For the empty tomb

2-If Robert is right, for the Shroud of Turin

Let's stick just to point 1, the empty tomb (point 2 is even more controversial).

My current assesment of the literature suggests that the empty tomb is accepted as a probable historical fact by most New Testament scholars, Christians and non-Christians alike (by "most scholars", I'm simply suggesting more than 50% of them. I doesn't require to be an overwhelming majority).

Just consider what agnostic New Testament scholar and critic of the resurrection Bart Ehrman (in his work/lecutres The Teaching Company 2003, lecture 4) has to say about the empty tomb:

We also have solid traditions to indicate that women found this tomb empty three days later. This is attested in all of our gospel sources, early and late, and so it appears to be a historical datum. As so I think we can say that after Jesus’ death, with some (probably with some) certainty, that he was buried, possibly by this fellow, Joseph of Arimathea, and that three days later he appeared not to have been in his tomb" (emphasis in blue added).

Ehrman considers that with "probably some certainty" we can assert the historiticity of the empty tomb. This is everything what a historian needs (since a 100% certainty about historical events is almost never available for a historian).

If we follow Erhman in this sense, then whatever hypothesis we use to explain the historical data relevant to assess Jesus' Resurrection has to account for the empty tomb. The resurrection hypothesis accounts for it, for the visions of the disiciples (and other individuals) and by the origin of the Christian belief.

But the "etheric body hypothesis" accounts only for the visions of the disciples and, possibly, for the origin of the Christian belief, but not for the empty tomb (the etheric body is different than the physical body) and hence the defender of the etheric body hypothesis has to add another ad hoc hypothesis (not supported by independent historical evidence) to account for the empty tomb (e.g. to say that the corse was stolen) which implicitly concedes that its explanatory scope is inferior to the resurrection hypothesis. Or, alternatively, he has to deny the empty tomb (and in this case, he has to provide arguments for this view and show why Erhman's conclusion, shared by most scholars, is false).

There are scholars who have made tried hard to argue against the empty tomb. For example, in his amazingly erudite book Resurrecting Jesus , Dale Allison examines several arguments for the empty tomb and find them wanting. However, he admits that at least a respectably case could be made for the empty tomb but, he adds, also a respectable case could be made against it (Allison mentions just 2 arguments against it, which I found largely unconvincing).

I was even more convinced of the empty tomb, as a probable historical fact, after reading Allison's argumentation (that a amazingly erudite intellectual and sophisticated scholar like Allison cannot refute this evidence actually tends to reinforce the evidence for the empty tomb).

In conclusion, I do share with Erhman and Robert Perry that "the evidence argues for an empty tomb" as the most probable historical conclusion.

This is why I cannot accept the etheric body hypothesis, unless the evidence for it (and against the empty tomb) were stronger. And I think this evidence doesn't exist.

This is why I think, in this point, that the hypothesis of Jesus' Resurrection only could be rejected on a priori philosophical grounds, namely, appealing (like Erhman) to Hume's arguments against miracles (an argument which also has been used by "skeptics" against paranormal and afterlife claims).

But Hume's argument is unconvincing, and this is why I accept the best evidence for afterlife and other paranormal claims. Therefore, on the same grounds, I have to be open to Jesus' Resurrection if the evidence for it (as it appears) is reasonably good (better than the alternatives).

For a non-technical critique of Hume's argument against miracles from a point of view of parapsychology, see Chris Carter's chapter in his book "Parapsychology and the Skeptics" (now entitled Science and Psychic Phenomena). For a more technical critique, see agnostic philosopher of science John Erhman's book "Hume's Abject Failure" (this was the book that William Lane Craig mentioned in his debate with Bart Erhman, which destroyed Bart totally. Bart Erhman simply hadn't any technical reply at all and ineptly misrepresented Craig's argument against Hume as a "mathematical argument for God's existence" which obviously was not the case. Craig made use of the contemporary Bayesian calculus of probabilities in order to show that the improbability of a miracle is partially determined by the improbability of God's existence. Bart Erhman main reply was that a historian, qua historian, cannot claim that a miracle has happened, which is a red herring since the topic of the debate wasn't "Can a historian in his function as historian to explain a historical event in miraculous terms?" Rather, the topic was about if the hypothesis Jesus' Resurrection is the best explanation of the evidence or not, regardless of whatever are the historian's methodological contrains).

I've mentioned purely evidential reasons to think that the spiritualistic "etheric body hypothesis" is inferior than the resurrection hypothesis.

But there is another reason why I think it is the case. In the context of Jesus' teachings and religious social enviroment (which was prepared in advance by the Jewish history and the persistent interventions of "Yahve" in the Old Testament), the resurrection seems to be a kind of validation of his moral and doctrinary claims about God's Kingdom. Put simplistically, it is as if he was saying "Look, as I told you in advance, I've been resurrected, therefore believe in what I taught you and trust me. I cannot give you more details but I hope you trust me based on the resurrection as the ultimate proof that I've given to you.".

Now, if Jesus' putative "resurrection" wasn't a resurrection at all but simply the expression of his etheric body as seen by the disciples, then I see no reason why such an event would validate Jesus' teachings in particular. After all, spiritualists have given evidence that the etheric body exists, and not "God's Kingdom" is needed to believe in this (in fact some spiritualists are atheists and hence for them the God's Kingdom has to be literally false).

I simply see no comparison between Jesus' Resurrection (and its spiritual and even theological implications) with what spiritualists, by purely empirical means, have discoveried.

I suspect that Jesus was talking about something even more profound (and hard to understand to our minds) that the spiritualistic findings of the existence of an afterlife and related matters (e.g. "spirits", "etheric bodies", mediumship communications, etc.).

My conclusion is that if Jesus' Resurrection was real, then we have in presence of an exceptional and special historical event with astonishing implications, a lot more important and trascendental than whatever the afterlife research has shown or could show.

Michael Shermer's Last Law: UFOs, God and the extraordinary faith of atheists

Shermer looking at an UFO

In Scientific American, atheist and "skeptic" Michael Shermer explained what he modestly calls Shermer's Last Law. This law states: "Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God"

Expanding on this, Shermer says: "God is typically described by Western religions as omniscient and omnipotent. Because we are far from possessing these traits, how can we possibly distinguish a God who has them absolutely from an ETI who merely has them copiously relative to us? We can't. But if God were only relatively more knowing and powerful than we are, then by definition the deity would be an ETI!"

This is an amazingly inept argument typical of Shermer and other atheists like him. God having the attributes of "omniscience and omnipotence" has nothing to do with us (i.e. it is not measured nor defined by their relations with our finitude).

Shemer asks "How can we possibly distinguish a God who has them absolutely from an ETI who merely has them copiously relative to us".

Answer: Appealing to other attributes of God like inmateriality. Are these aliens material? Then, by definition, they're not God (whatever be the alien's advanced technology).

Or eternity: Have these aliens existed eternally in their current state, or do they began to exist and have evolved by natural selection? If the latter, then by definition they're not God (regardless of the aliens' advanced technology), because God is by definition an ontologically necessary (and hence eternal) being not subject to natural selection nor other contingent, material processes.

Or their creative powers: Are these aliens the "cause" of the universe's beginning of existence out of nothing, or are they an evolutionary effect of the universe's material evolution under the pressure of natural selection? If the latter, then the aliens are not God.

That Shermer's argument is plain stupid is revealed by his misconstruction of the concept of God: "But if God were only relatively more knowing and powerful than we are, then by definition the deity would be an ETI"

Bravo!!!! What amazing display of philosophical knowledge and logical thinking! Obviously, if I define God like that, then "by definition" the deity would be an ETI.

The problem is that not sophisticated theist in the history of thought has ever been so stupid as to defend the concept of God on that grounds that God's knowledge and power is simply "relatively" superior than us.

Shermer is typically superficial when he discusses whatever matter. The same sloppy arguments can be seen in his discussions about ufology, parapsychology, afterlife research or ingelligent design or any other topic. Among professional skeptics, I think Shermer is clearly the most inept. He's an intellectual lightweight.

By the way, we can criticize the formulation of Shermer's Last Law on the following grounds:

1-If Shermer's law is true, then atheists should deny (not only doubt) the existence of advanced aliens, since whatever reason they have against God's existence is a reason to deny advanced aliens too. However, a hard-core atheist like Richard Dawkins has reportdly said that "he was more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence – but one which had resided on another planet."

Let aside the fact that (for dialectical purposes alone) we can reply to Dawkins' "alien creationist hypothesis" with his own style of argument: "Dawkins, your alien hypothesis doesn't explain anything because the aliens in question remain themselves unexplained". But obviously we're not so stupid to argue like that (see more on Dawkisian arguments here).

The point is that Dawkins is open to the alien hypothesis instead of the God hypothesis, which implies the former is distinguishable from the latter (therefore, for Dawkins, Shermer's Law has to be false).

2-If Shermer's Last Law is true, then an eventual contact with ETI would imply the empirical destruction of atheism (since, in Shermer's idiosyncratic definition, such ETI would be relatively superior than us in terms of knowledge and power, and hence by Shermer's own definition would be a DEITY. And the existence of a deity implies the falsehood of atheism).

Is this the reason why pseudoskeptics also attack ufology?

3-Shermer's Last Law has other implications. For example, it provides atheists with a reason to reject whatever evidence is presented for God's existence, since they could argue that it is caused by ETI.

If God appeared to the entire world tomorrow with undeniable and irrefutable evidence, Shermer would argue that such evidence is insufficient because it is indistinguishable from the evidence provided by an advanced alien. Therefore, according to Shermer’s Last Law, God could never (even in principle) give enough evidence for an atheist to conclude that God exists. It makes atheism empirically unfalsifiable and hence unscientific!

This is the ultimate protection for atheism. It is like arguing that Jesus' Resurrection (if it is an actual historical fact) doesn't provide evidence for Christianity, or that actual physical and direct voice mediumship (if veridical) doesn't provide evidence for survival of consciousness. No unbiased researcher would accept these conclusions.

When you see a person arguing like that, you'll know for sure that her idiosyncratic and prima facie implausible position is strongly determined by what they reject. It is a matter of the WILL. In the case of atheists, what they reject is the existence of God, therefore they use whatever reason is at their disposal to protect their atheistic worldview from falsification.

In a way similar to Shermer's law, atheist philosopher J.J.Smart (who, contrary to Shermer, is an intellectual heavyweight) comments: Someone who has naturalistic preconceptions will always in fact find some naturalistic explanation more plausible than a supernatural one... Suppose that I woke up in the night and saw the stars arranged in shapes that spelt out the Apostle's Creed. I would know that astronomically it is impossible that stars should have changed their position. I don't know what I would think. Perhaps I would think that I was dreaming or that I had gone mad. What if everyone else seemed to me to be telling me that the same had happened? Then I might not only think that I had gone mad-- I would probably go mad" (J.J.C. Smart in his contribution to the book Atheism and Theism, pp.50-51. Emphasis in blue added)

Smart concedes that he prefers to think himself has gone mad instead of accepting hard empirical evidence for God's existence. This is the FAITH OF AN ATHEIST (at least Smart is honest enough to recognize it).

Another example of this is atheist Quentin Smith, who prefers a non-explanation whatsoever instead of an explanation based on God. Commenting on the origin of the universe, Smith writes: "The fact of the matter is that the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing and for nothing... We should instead acknowledge our foundation in nothingness and feel awe at the marvellous fact that we have a chance to participate briefly in this incredible sunburst that interrupts without reason the reign of non-being ." (Theism, Atheism and the Big Bang Comsology. P.135. emphasis in blue added)

Note that having for reasons the "no reason at all" and "coming from the reign of non-being" is sufficiently comfortable to an atheist when confronted with the origin of the universe. Smith prefers a "no reason at all" as a reason to hold his atheism.

This is an example of the extraordinarily strong faith of an atheist. (Even the most dogmatic religious believer would provide a reason for his beliefs: he will say that "God did it. Period." This could be dogmatic and childish but it is at least intelligible as a reason. But compare that dogmatic reason with Smith's "no reason at all" and "coming from nothing". Seriously I ask you: What position requires of more faith?)

Do you think seriously and honestly that people like intellectual lightweight Shermer, and heavyweights Smith and Smart are honestly open enough to accept even the best evidence for God's existence?

Think about this please, because it will give you amazing insights about the psychology of atheists and pseudoskeptics.

Inspired by Shermer's Law, I'd want (modestly too) postulate what I'd call Jime's Iron Law. It states: "As a rule, hard-core atheists are irrational, suffer of severe wishfull thinking and have a cognitive impairment which prevents them to think logically in general and specifically about God, parapsychology, afterlife research and other topics which tends to destroy atheism. As consequence, they will always prefer a non-explanation at all over an explanation in terms of paranormal, spiritual and/or supernatural forces or entities (even if the evidence for the latter is very strong)"

I'll have to develop Jime's Iron Law (sounds good, isn't?) in more detail in future posts.

Budd Hopkins - Alien Abduction Lecture - 7th July 2004

Science and Psychic Phenomena: The Fall of the House of Skeptics by Chris Carter (foreword by Rupert Sheldrake)

The new edition of Chris Carter's excellent book "Parapsychology and the Skeptics" will be available in March 15, 2012 with a new title "Science and the Psychic Phenomena: the Fall of the House of Skeptics".

This book is a must read for any person interested in the science of parapsychology and psychic research and how "professional skeptics" (=materialistic pseudoskeptics or materialistic ideologues) behave in order to suppress the scientific evidence which refutes materialism.

Stay tuned for more information on the new edition of this book.

Is God a Delusion? The Debate That Never Was: William Lane Craig vs Richard Dawkins? Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford (October 25, 2011)

Richard Dawkins was invited by the Oxford student Christian Union to defend his book The God Delusion in public debate with William Lane Craig. The invitation remained open until the last minute. However, Dawkins refused the challenge and his chair remained empty. Craig then gave a lecture to a capacity audience on the weaknesses of the central arguments of the book and responded to a panel of skeptical academics. The event, which was chaired by atheist Prof. Peter Millican, was part of The Reasonable Faith Tour 2011 sponsored by UCCF, Damaris & Premier Christian Radio.

Debunking the UFO Debunkers - Stanton Friedman lecture

Nuclear Physicist-Lecturer Stanton T. Friedman received his BSc. and MSc. Degrees in physics from the University of Chicago in 1955 and 1956. He was employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist by such companies as GE, GM, Westinghouse, TRW Systems, Aerojet General Nucleonics, and McDonnell Douglas working in such highly advanced, classified, eventually cancelled programs as nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and various compact nuclear powerplants for space and terrestrial applications.

He became interested in UFOs in 1958, and since 1967 has lectured about them at more than 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 U.S. states, 10 Canadian provinces and 18 other countries in addition to various nuclear consulting efforts. He has published more than 90 UFO papers and has appeared on hundreds of radio and TV programs including on Larry King in 2007 and twice in 2008, and many documentaries. He is the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident and co-authored Crash at Corona: The Definitive Study of the Roswell Incident. TOP SECRET/MAJIC, his controversial book about the Majestic 12 group, established in 1947 to deal with alien technology, was published in 1996 and went through 6 printings. An expanded new edition was published in 2005. Stan was presented with a Lifetime UFO Achievement Award in Leeds, England, in 2002, by UFO Magazine of the UK. He is co-author with Kathleen Marden (Betty Hill’s niece) of a book in 2007: Captured! The Betty and Barney Hill UFO Experience. The City of Fredericton, New Brunswick, declared August 27, 2007, Stanton Friedman Day. His book Flying Saucers and Science was published in June 2008 and is in its 3rd printing. His newest book, also co-authored with Kathleen Marden, is Science Was Wrong released in June 2010.

A brief comment about atheist Stephen Law's "the evil god challenge".

Atheist philosopher Stephen Law has written some technical and non-technical articles defending the so-called "evil god challenge", according to which the amount of good that we observe in the world is conclusive evidence that an "evil god" doesn't exist. The challenge (for theists) would be to explain why, in a similar fashion, the amount of evil that we see in the world is not conclusive evidence against the existence of a "good God".

Note that Law is not arguing for the existence of the evil god. He's simply saying that the reasons we have to reject the existence of the evil god are, mutatis mutandis, the same reasons we have to reject the existence of a good God. Therefore, the challenge to theists would be to explain why they accept the existence of a good God but reject the existence of an evil god.

In order to avoid misrepresentations of Dr.Law's argument, let's quote his own summary of the challenge: I simply take the evil god hypothesis (without arguing for it at all) and ask - is this god not pretty conclusively ruled out on the basis of the good we see? And if the answer is "yes", then I ask: "So why should we consider belief in a good god significantly more reasonable than this empirically ridiculous belief? That's the challenge I'm asking theists to meet.

Several problems affect Dr.Law's argument:

1-As Willian Lane Craig argued in his debate with Dr.Law, his challenge assumes that theists infer the "goodness" of God on the basis of an inductive survey of the good in the world. Therefore, the existence of the good would provide evidence for a good God. (Likewise, the existence of evil would provide evidence against the same good God).

But this is not the case. According to classical theism, God is by definition the most perfect being and this includes moral perfection. It implies that the notion of an "evil god" is incoherent, a contradictio in abjecto (similar to a "good Satan" or a "happy hell").

2-Dr.Law's argument assumes that the evil God hypothesis predicts a world without the amount of good we observe. Therefore, the evidence for the existence of the amount of good we observe is "conclusive evidence" against the existence of evil God hypothesis.

In the same inducitve way, the evidence for the evil that we observe is conclusive evidence against the hypothesis that God is good (because this hypothesis predicts, according to Dr.Law's implicit assumption, a world without the amount of evil that we actually observe. Therefore, the observation of such an evil is conclusive evidence against the hypothesis of a good God).

Note that Dr.Law's argument assumes that both hypotheses (the evil God and the good God) are empirically equivalent in regards to the existence of evils and goods in the world so whatever empirical reason you can pose against the evil God could be used to refute the good God too.

Again, it shows that Dr.Law's argument depends crucially on the assumption that the "goodness" of God is inferred by induction. Given that the world is morally ambiguous (it includes many evils and goods), induction cannot decide in favor of the evil God above the good God, or viceversa, and the evidence could be used both to refute the former as the latter.

3-As mentioned above, theists don't consider that the property of "goodness" is something that we infer by induction and observation of the world. Rather, God is good because metaphysically he is the most perfect being. (We could express this as a conditional: IF God exists, then he IS good. In the same way, if Satan exists, then he's BAD. If triangles exists, they have 3 angles and so forth.)

Talking of a "evil God" is so incoherent as talking of a "good Satan" or a "Christian atheist". Law arbitrarily misuses (or misunderstands) what theists conceived as "God".

Instead of talking of a "evil God", Law should talk of an "evil designer" (this is a logically coherent concept). And in this case, I agree that by observation of the world (and inductive inference from this) alone, it is not possible to discern if the designer of the world is an "evil designer" or if it is God (because the world is morally ambiguous).

4-At most, Dr.Law's challenge suggests the dificulty of using induction to discern an "evil designer" from God as the designer of the world. But his argument doesn't prove that God is in a metaphysical par with such an evil designer and therefore that the evidence for the evil is conclusive evidence against God in the same way that the existence of the good is conclusive evidence against an evil designer.

We could summarize Dr.Law's challenge in this way: "On inductive grounds, the morally ambiguous evidence that we observe in the world renders the hypothesis "An evil God exists" empirically on a par with the hypothesis "A good God exists", because the the good we observe refutes the former and the evil we observe refutes the latter".

The implication (and ultimate motivation of Dr.Law's argument) is that whatever argument we use to accept (or reject) the existence of a good God is, mutatis mutandis, a reason we could use to accept (or reject) the evidence for an evil God. He wants to create a stalemate regarding the hypothesis of God's existence, forcing theists to accept that the evidence for an evil God is so good (or so bad) as the hypothesis of a good God. Empirically they're on a par.

This is the "Dr.Law's challenge" for theists.

An again: the essential flaw of Dr.Law (mentioned by Craig in his debate and which Dr.Law couldn't refute) is that his entire challenge is based on the assumption that the moral properties of God are inferred on purely empirical-inductive survey of the evidence in the world and that given the evidence is morally ambiguous, both hypotheses (the evil God and the good God) are on a par.

Dr.Law strongly denies this. When I posed these arguments to him in Edward Feser's blog, Dr.Law replied: "Again no. I don't suppose the moral properties of god are inferred on empirical-inductive grounds. Obviously.

But I do assume that we can reasonably rule out SOME God hypotheses on empirical grounds. As indeed, does everyone, until that is, the penny drops... when suddenly they get hyper-skeptical like Craig did on the night.

Which is your prerogative too. But you'd better have a justification for that radical and highly counter-intutive degree of skepticism (that what we observe can gives us no clue AT ALL about the moral properties of god/s - good, bad or otherwise). Craig didn't. "

Note that he denies the contention that the moral properties of god are inferred by induction based on observation. But then he contradicts himself when he later concedes "But you'd better have a justification for that radical and highly counter-intutive degree of skepticism (that what we observe can gives us no clue AT ALL about the moral properties of god/s - good, bad or otherwise"

Then, are the moral properties of God based on observation (and hence, inferred by induction) or not? Which is Dr.Law's actual position?

In other words, he denies that the moral properties are inferred by induction of the observable world, but then suggest that our skepticism about the moral properties of God are unjustified because intuitively we recognize that the observation of the world (and the inductive inference based on it) DOES tell us something about the moral properties (good, bad or whatever) of God.

But our skepticism about the implications (to the moral properties of the designer) based on the moral evidence provided by the world is justified because the world is MORALLY AMBIGUOUS. The moral evidence is simply insufficient to settle the question about the moral properties of the designer (this is why theists in general don't appeal to this evidence to argue for God's moral properties. Rather, they defend different versions of the moral argumen showing that the existence of an objective, human mind-independent moral order, and hence of the evil as the antithesis and violation of that order, proves that God exists). You get a lot of good in this world, and a lot of evil too. How the hell, on pure inductive grounds, are you going to infer God's moral properties in a world with such a ambiguous evidence?

In other words, the evidence of the world actually tell us one thing, namely: that no rational conclusion about God's moral properties is possible based on such an ambiguous evidence. This is why theists don't infer God's "goodness" on purely inductive grounds, because on inductive grounds the only reasonable conclusion about the moral properties of God is skepticism. The skepticism about this point is a consequence of the ambiguity of the evidence, not an arbitrary assumption by the theist.

Let's consider an analogy:

Suppose that you're testing a parapsychological claim (let's say telepathy). And you get 100 technically correct and competently done studies, 50 of which gave positive evidence for telepathy and 50 of which gave negative evidence. Are justified in inferring that "telepahty exists" or "telepathy doesn't exist" based on such an evidence? Obviously not, the evidence is ambiguous, it includes positive and negative support alike, and from this evidence the only reasonable position is agnosticism/skepticism: we don't know, based on such studies, if telepathy exists or not.

Note that in this case your skepticism about the claim "telepathy exists" is not a purely arbitrary assumption, but a consquence of the existence of ambiguous and conflicting evidence supporting the claim.

Likewise, the the world is morally ambiguous (it includes good and evil), how the hell are you going to infer God's moral properties from this alone? Unless you assume that a good God must necessarily create a physical world in which the amount of good be superior than evil, then the ambiguous evidence would provide evidence against such a God.

But in theism, our lives are not limited to this one (the life on Earth is just a infinitesimal part of our overall existence, which extends beyond this life to the afterlife). Therefore, even if the amount of evil in this world were superior than the amount of good, it could be the case that in the afterlife the amount of good were infinitely superior to any finite evil that we experienced in this finite physical life.

This is why I agree with Craig that Law has the burden of proof regarding the claim that God cannot have any morally permisible reasons to enable the evil in this finite world. As far I know, no atheist philosopher has provided such reasons.

So, the skepticism regarding the designer's moral properties inferred by induction and observation alone is not arbitrary nor counter-intuitive, but that it is based on the fact that the finite world that we observe is morally ambiguous, so no inductive survey of the world can settle the questions about the moral properties of the designer.

Therefore, that God is good is not a matter of induction, but it is essential to the concept of God as the most perfect being. Hence, if such a being exists, then he IS good.

Hear the recent Craig vs Law debate here:

Why is there something rather than nothing? Intellectual genius Richard Dawkins responds the fundamental question of philosophy!

To be fair, you have to realize that Richard Dawkins is not a philosopher, he's a zoologist. So, Dawkins' response is completely out of his intellectual training and expertise.

What is astonishing to me is that Dawkins has not been able to recognize the fallacy of his answer (It suggests either intellectual dishonesty or simply stupidity on his part, or both). He seems to believe that has gotten a knock-down argument against the existence of God (or God as an explanatory hypothesis).

Oxford Atheist philosopher Daniel Came (being academically trained in philosophy) comments on Dawkins' main argument (which he repeats in the above video in a modified version in order to response the fundamental question of philosophy):

Dawkins maintains that we're not justified in inferring a designer as the best explanation of the appearance of design in the universe because then a new problem surfaces: who designed the designer? This argument is as old as the hills and as any reasonably competent first-year undergraduate could point out is patently invalid. For an explanation to be successful we do not need an explanation of the explanation. One might as well say that evolution by natural selection explains nothing because it does nothing to explain why there were living organisms on earth in the first place; or that the big bang fails to explain the cosmic background radiation because the big bang is itself inexplicable.

As Came's realizes, if Dawkins' argument were correct, then:

-Natural selection explains nothing because it doesn't explain why there were living organisms on earth in the first place.

-The big bang theory explains nothing because the big bang itself doesn't have any explanation.

I'd add the following couple of examples:

1-In 1983/84, when HIV was discoveried and the HIV theory of AIDS was formulated, the origin of HIV was unknown and hence unexplained. Therefore, the HIV theory of AIDS explains nothing! Or to use Dawkins' phraseology and stupid way of thinking: "Even if HIV were postulated to exist, it doesn't explains absolutely anything because you left without an explanation of HIV itself." (Is it a good scientific or philosophical objection to the HIV theory of AIDS? Do you need an explanation of HIV itself in order to conclude, if the evidence is good, that HIV is the "probable cause of AIDS" as Robert Gallo declared in 1984? Obviously not. Only atheists like Dawkins and his "fans" would accept such an intellectually ridiculous and spurious objection, what tell us something about the psychology of atheists and their intellectual powers).

2-After his debate with John Lennox, Dawkins was interviewed and asked about the origin of life on Earth. Dawkins reportedly said that "he was more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence – but one which had resided on another planet."

Now, using Dawkins' own assumptions in his argument against God, we could say "Dawkins, your alien creationist hypothesis doesn't explain absolutely anything because the aliens in question remain themselves unexplained"

Reflecting hard and in a charitable way about Dawkins' argument, I've concluded that Dawkins is stupid in the literal sense of the word (stupid = very dull in mind). He's simply incapable of sophisticated intellectual thinking and even of recognizing obvious fallacies. He's stupid. (And by extension, I assume until proved wrong that most of Dawkins' "fans" are stupid too, because it is irrational and stupid to be an intellectual fan of an intellectually stupid person).

I've found a similar stupidity in other atheists (remember the "What caused God" objection posed by some of them against the cosmological argument), and this "atheistic stupidity pattern" strongly suggest something about the psychology of hard-core atheists. This why currently I'm convinced that hard-core atheists have a kind of intellectual and cognitive impairment, which makes them incapable of thinking rationally.

Their intelligence only reach to the most superficial level on difficult topics.

I'll comment more on the psychology of atheists in future posts.

Richard Dawkins supports infanticide of innocent babies with incurable diseases

Euan Squires and the quantum mechanics arguments for God's existence

The late agnostic physicist Euan Equires wrote in his book "The Mystery of the Quantum World" two plausible scientific arguments for God's existence based on quantum mechanics (or more exactly, two technical ways in which God could play a role in quantum mechanics. A more formal argument in this line, and reply to potential objections, would require a more detailed philosophical-conceptual analysis, which I'll develop in future posts).

Squires' first scientific argument is this:

Quantum theory offers at least two possible roles for a ‘God’, where we use this term for a being that is non-physical, nonhuman, in some sense superhuman, and is conscious. The first role is to make the ‘choices’ that are required whenever a measurement is made that selects from a quantum system one of the possible outcomes. Such a God would remove the indeterminacy from the world by taking upon himself those decisions that are not forced by the rules of physics. Although expressed in nontraditional terms, this is reasonably in accordance with the accepted role of a God. He would be very active in all aspects of the world, and would be totally omnipotent within the prescribed limits. Prediction of his behaviour from the laws of physics would be impossible (note that we are not permitting any hidden variables in this chapter), although from both the theological and the scientific viewpoint we would want to believe that there were reasons for at least some of the choices; otherwise we would be back with random behaviour and the God would not have played any part. It is interesting to note that this role might even permit ‘miracles’, if we were to regard these as events so highly unlikely that they would be effectively impossible without very specific, and unusual, ‘divine’ choice. For example, according to quantum theory, there must be a small, but non-zero, probability that if I run into a wall, then I will pass right through it. This is a special case of the potential barrier experiment and the wavefunction on the left-hand side, corresponding to transmission, is never quite zero. Then, however small the probability for transmission might be, a God would be able to select it as the outcome, if he so chose. (pp.66-67)

According to this first argument:

1)God could intervene making the choices required each time a measurement is done in order to select an specific outcome (note that, as Squires realize, this would refute the indeterminism which is thought to be esssential to QM, at least in the standard orthodox interpretation. I think the refutation of indeterminism in this level is reasonable because, if God exists, his creation couldn't be dependent on wholly random phenomena in the quantum level).

2)God's essential attribute of omnipotence would be preserved (so, making full justice to the classical concept of God). Other attributes like non-physicality, consciousness, superhuman, etc. are preserved too. (Note that no one of God's attributes implied in this argument conflicts with the classical attributes that theology posits as belonging to God).

Rather, these attributes strongly suggest that we're not dealing with an human-like form of consciousness, but with consciousness with superlative attributes which have been typically reserved to God as the ultimate perfect being.

3)Even miracles would be possible, again vindicating the classical concept of God who intervenes, by his own decisions, in events in this world.

I think this argument could be developed in detail and in a logically rigurous way.

Squires' second argument (which is largely independent of the first one) is this:

The second possible role for a God to play in quantum theory is more relevant to our principal topic. God might be the conscious observer who is responsible for the reduction of wavefunctions. Whether, in addtion, he also decides the outcome of his observations, as in the above paragraph, or whether this is left to chance is not important here. What is important is the fact that God must be selective-he must not reduce all wavefunctions automatically, otherwise we meet the same problem that we met when discussing modifications to the Schrodinger equation in $3.7: the reduction that is required depends on the observation that we are going to make. If, for example, a reduction to figure 16 is made, then there will be no possibility of interference, whereas a human observer might decide to do the interference experiment. It is therefore necessary that the God who reduces wavefunctions, and so allows things to happen in the early universe, in particular things that might be required in order for other conscious observers to exist, should know about these other observers and should know what they intend to measure. God must in some way be linked to human consciousness. (pp.67-68. Emphasis in blue added)

This argument is, in my view, stronger than the first one. But Squires doesn't formulate it in its strongest version. In my opinon, the possible theistic implications of Squires' second argument are more obvious when we asked for the reduction of wavefunctions of the universe as a whole (and hence, previous to the existence of human or extraterrestial (conscious) beings).

We could argue like this:

1-Concious observation is needed to the reduction of the wavefunctions in the origin of the universe.

2-Human (and alien, if they exist) concious observers are posterior to the origin of the Universe (i.e. the concrete physical world existed before the emergence of human or alien consciousness)

3-Therefore, human (and alien) conscious observers are not the cause of the reduction of the wavefunctions in the origin of the universe (the latter is previous to the emergence of human and alien beings).

This implies that a nonhuman, non-physical consciousness is the cause of the reduction of the wavefunction of the whole universe.

It points out to a being which is:

1-Non-physical (since it is the cause of the physical world). Note that if this being were physical (embodied), then we are confronted again with the problem of which conscious observation produced the reduction of the wavefunctions necessary to the existence of his physical body.

2-Timeless (since it is the cause of the universe, and hence of physical time). Being "timeless", it is argueably eternal, since eternity has been classically understood as either 1)Existing in each point of time; or 2)Existing independently of time (i.e. as trascendent regarding to the physical time).

3-Spaceless (since it is the cause of the universe, and hence of the physical space)

4-Conscious (otherwise, not reduction of the wavefunction would be possible).

5-Intentional (since such consciousness cannot reduce all the wavefunctions simultaneously, but only some of them selectively which implies concrete intentions. If conciousness without intention were sufficient to collapse the wave function, then the selectivity mentioned by Squieres would be inexplicable. This point seems to refute some of the versions of "universal consciousness" who see it as purely impersonal consciousness, "all are one" and other argueably unintelligible slogans common in some mystical, Hegelian, Wilberian, and new age circles).

6-Personal (given point 5), since essential to a person is the property of having ends, desires, purposes and intentions (all of the which implies selectivity regarding specific ends or purposes). It is not a purely undifferentiated or impersonal consciousness (whatever it means), but a personal consciousness. We are dealing with a non-physical being which is a person with concrete purposes and intentions.

All the above properties seem to be much like the personal God as understood in classical theism. Again, crucial to the argument is the implication that it is not mere "consciousness" in any undifferentiated, impersonal, collectivistic or mystical sense, but argueably a "personal consciousness". And this cannot be human consciousness, since the concrete universe that we're trying to explain preceded the emergence of humans and other conscious beings (e.g. intelligent physical aliens, if they exist).

It could be replied that perhaps multiple spirits or souls existed before the origin of the universe; and they were responsible for the creation of the universe (this is the view of L.Ron Hubbard and some others) but who argue for this polytheistic view has the burden of proof that it is the case, and moreover Occkam's Razor suggests that positing ONE personal being (instead of an arbitrary number of particular beings) as the responsible for the origin of the physical world is more parsimonious than positing many gods or god-like entities.

So, it seems we have two plausible and very good scientific arguments for God's existence based on quantum mechanics, being the second one far better than the first one.

Atheist philosopher (a sophisticated defender of atheism) Quentin Smith comments:

According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the wave function needs to be collapsed by something outside the system being measured. The wave function of the universe, accordingly, needs to be collapsed by something outside the universe. Now most versions of the Copenhagen Interpretation regard the observer (often explicitly identified with consciousness) as what collapses the wave function. In this respect, the cosmological application of the Copenhagen Interpretation may reasonably be thought to posit God (or a disembodied person who has superhuman attributes) outside the universe. Indeed, it seems to be the best scientific argument for God which is present in the twentieth century science. (Theism, Atheism and the Big Bang Cosmology, p. 325. Emphasis in blue added)

So, if the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM (which sees consciousness as that which collapses the wave function) is true, then we have a purely scientific argument for the existence of God.

In order to deny this conclusion, atheists would have to challenge the Copenhagen Interpretation (an interpretation which they endorse when criticizing the causal principle "whatever begins to exist has a cause", because they falsely think that indeterminism posed by that interpretation implies non-causality regarding the origin of contingent substances. But this endorsement open the door to a new and independent argument for God's existence, so atheists seem to be caught in a kind of dilemma in this point).

Truth-seekers will follow the evidence whenever it leads; hard-core atheists and naturalistic ideologues will follow the evidence except when it refutes atheism (in this case, they become highly skeptical of current scientific theories... as an example, see atheist philosopher Peter Millican's skeptical arguments on contemporary scientific cosmology in his recent debate with William Lane Craig).

In future posts I hope to develop even more these arguments and consider what kind of objections (and replies to the objections) could be posed against them.