Isaac Asimov

ratticus

"Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.” - Isaac Asimov

Riamfada

?

krd

Chinese Lanterns.

Yeah Yeah Yeah

This Asimov fella sounds like a right bunch of laughs.

MrMojoRisin

There are loads of things I don't believe in, but I still have a passive interest in them; werewolves, aliens, UFOs, bigfoot, banshees, demonic possession, faith healing, fairies, witchcraft, vampires, to name but a few.

I mean, if there's a documentary on TV about UFOs, I'll usually still sit down and take a look at it.

I'm not too bothered about not believing or believing in things, but I'm always open to either stance changing, depending on my encountering any new information (or 'evidence'). I often find my perspective changing on different things as a result of what I read, see on TV, experience, etc.

For example, I was reading an interesting interview with Eamon Holmes, the TV presenter, recently and, in it, he recounted a few stories.

He was going on about tracing his ancestry for the programme 'Who Do You Think You Are?' back in 2008, and the episode in which he was involved was to commemorate the end of WWI. He said his grandfather fought in that war and that they started tracing his (Holmes') roots from the ITV building behind Stamford Street in London, where he was working at the time. He said they discovered via the war archives that his grandfather was badly wounded in action and had ended up in a hospital on that same Stamford Street. For 20 years, Holmes had been working just a stone's throw away from where his grandfather had recuperated for six months.

Then he was talking about a friend of his, who said he once saw an apparition of a nun walk through a wall into the hotel room he was staying in in Jersey before, and it/she walked out through another wall again. His friend later found out that the hotel used to be a convent.

Holmes was telling another odd story about his friend, the actor Brian Blessed, who told him that the Dalai Lama, whom he met, told him that his (Blessed's) deceased brother had been reincarnated and was now living in Vancouver in Canada. Holmes said Blessed visited the guy in Vancouver and was apparently in no doubt that, indeed, he was his brother.

He was also discussing the possibility of fate, and how he thinks that played a part in getting his beloved dog. Holmes said he was never into animals, but he was persuaded by two friends at Sky News to attend a charity event at the Dogs' Trust in London last year. He saw a little black dog looking up at him there and fell in love with it. His son really wanted a dog, so Holmes called the dogs home after the event to ask if the dog was still there, but was disappointed to find out the dog had been adopted by someone else.

Nevertheless, himself and his son returned to the Dogs' Trust to enquire about taking dogs for walks and, as they were about to leave the Trust, a little black dog ran up to Holmes' son and licked his face - the same dog Holmes had seen before and wanted. It turned out the dog's new owner had brought her back that morning after realising she wouldn't be able to care for her after all.

So there were a few interesting stories from him that would make you think..

Yeah Yeah Yeah

MrMojoRisin wrote: »

So there were a few interesting stories from him that would make you think..

It does indeed; such a great share Mr Mojo, thanks..

briany

I try to avoid the word 'belief' where evidence is concerned. I just like to think of something being probable based on the observed evidence. Belief and faith tend to be confused sometimes because they're often used interchangeably so it cause problems when applied to things like UFOs or ghosts.

I don't 'believe' in ghosts or aliens really. I think that they are products of what we don't know, how we view the world and ourselves but I think they serve an important role in firing our imaginations and they help us to question the world and universe around and maybe through that make some important discoveries.