Paranormal Issues

Orrologion has devoted a couple of postings pointing out the irony of atheists believing in paranormal phenomena. Here and here.

Well, it really depends what you mean by paranormal. All sorts of nonsense gets thrown into that category, you know, like Loch Ness, astrology, Sasquatch, Atlantis, and whatnot.

Let's talk about the psychical stuff. I'm an empirical person, and I'm fascinated by empirical phenomena that can't be measured.

Like human consciousness, for instance. Velocity and direction, two parameters that describe material phenomena, don't apply to consciousness. We're talking about a qualitatively different phenomenon. It exists, but it can't be measured. We have introspective evidence, and sensory evidence of affects, but none of that counts as measurement.

Once one accepts the existence of consciousness and its ability to affect material phenomena, the only remaining step to accepting an incarnational world is determining whether the survival of the personality makes sense.

Or, maybe a religion that treasures each human personality should be adopted for that reason alone.