Believers vs. Skeptics

Back years ago when I first heard about Bigfoot it always was associated in the Pacific NW where it seems that because of the density of the land and that people had disappeared there and airplanes the crashed and never had been found, it seemed like if there was a place ideal for the creature it would be there. But then I started to hear Illinois and some place outside of Canton OH and somewhere else near Baltimore Maryland it seemed that espacially with population growth throughout the years in the United States that some form of evidence would pop up. Would I like to believe there is a Bigfoot? Of course I would. I'd like to believe there's a chupacabra, mothman, dogman among others. It would be incredibly cool if they did. But realistically how could anything like those named be able to exist without the natural resources to survive? espacially since so much throughout time have been depleted, much less that if they did exist there would be more physical evidence. Plain and simple. I'm always gonna be a sucker for this stuff and will always want to believe. But for anyone who puts too much stock in any of this to be real, they're only setting themselves up for a big dissapointment and a waste of time as well. Still I hope to hear the other side, and hear their rationale as well.

CHICAGO ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

How is it that we find ANYTHING in your world?

How is that deer and bear are not cryptids when "Bigfoot" is? Why are some creatures magical and able to evade detection and leaving evidence while some are not?

The difference is between imaginary creatures and real creatures...but if you don't understand those distinctions you are kind of lost.

Hmmm, well, I'll try to make sense of your statement here, which consists of several unsupported assertions.

1.There are videos and photos of unknown creatures Better stated, there are videos and photos of creatures that cannot be clearly identified from the images themselves. True enough, but this proves nothing, as cameras record exactly what they see and nothing else. I've seen photos and videos of myself in which, if I didn't know for sure who the subject was, I would not recognize.

2.People always say we need physical evidence but how can we look for something if we don't know what we're looking for? I'm not sure what you mean by this. There's a whole herd of people looking for Bigfoot, or looking for UFOs. They can't find any clear physical evidence in spite of the fact that they've been explicitly looking for it for a period of at least twice my own lifetime.

3. We can find skeletal remains and fur or hair in forests and other places, but if we walk by it we would just assume they're from a dead animal. You're absolutely right. What was the point of this again? Unidentifiable bones or fur are just that, unidentifiable, and are irrelevant to the hunt for cryptids. This is the classic "argument from ignorance" logical fallacy: because there are bones and fur that we don't immediately identify, that means that creatures unknown to biology must exist. As the saying goes, if you hear hoofbeats, it's more likely to be horses than zebras. If you find unknown bones or fur out in the woods, it's more likely to be bears, rabbits, foxes, wombats, etc., than to be sasquatches or chupacabras.

4.I never have seen a buffalo in real life. Does that make it less real because of it? Ahem.....not far from where I live is a buffalo ranch, where you can go out and pet the cute animals, then go into the retail sales outlet and buy buffalo steaks, roast, hamburger, etc. I assure you, buffalo are definitely real. And this brings me to my point: it's not just what you know to be true, but what is known to be true by other people who know what they're talking about. I made the point a little further down, but the standard is not what you yourself have seen, but what other people have seen and described more or less the same way, and what you yourself could see if you wanted to make the trip. I used the example of a platypus, you use the example of a buffalo. I could easily give you the address of the buffalo ranch, and you could see one for yourself. I could go see a platypus if I wanted to. Where, pray tell, would either one of us go to see a sasquatch or a chupacabra?

4. I don't think we would think about it being a cryptid one way or another. Again you are absolutely correct. And again, so what? The "principle of parsimony", also called "Occam's razor", assumes that if we find unidentifiable bones or fur in the woods, it's more likely to be from a known animal than from an unknown one. Bones or fur out of context means absolutely nothing. You are correct in saying that they might be from a cryptid rather than a known creature. But again, if you're in the middle of New York City, and you hear hoofbeats, it might actually be a zebra running down the street. I can't argue with your assertion that we might be walking past physical evidence of cryptids all the time, but unless it is recognized and identified, it mean absolutely nothing.

Reading through your posts, your argument mostly seems to be that cryptids could exist, or might exist. I don't think many of us disagree with you on that point. To extend this assertion into the "argument by ignorance" logical fallacy (what cannot be proved not to exist, must therefore necessarily exist) is quite a different matter, and as Garrison Keillor might put it, "and you know that ain't right!"

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"Oh, well" said Zanoni, "to pour pure water in the muddy well does but disturb the mud !"

To me it boils down to if it exists it would have already been found. Sea Creature are more of a possibility because of the depth of the sea, but if they're dinosaurs that survived the last 160 million years or so, then it seems highly doubtful. Like you I would be thrilled if cryptids existed. I like the stories but they are still stories. But I'll be intriged nevertheless. I'm a sucker for anything unknown!





CHICAGO ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[deleted]

how is that a good article? it makes it sound like skeptics are abunch of depressed people that need to join some AA meeting. It's a terrible article written by someone that doesn't seem to know much about psychology or anyone that should be talking like they know what they are saying

with no power comes no responsibility

Basically I personally don't think it's that much about psychology as it's about finally getting some sort of physical proof. I mean let's face it for centuries people have talked about the existence of Bigfoot, UFO/aliens, ghosts, sea monsters, chupacabra, mothman among numerous others. After awhile how can anyone take any of that seriously? As I've said a number of times before on this board is that I'm fairly open-minded and certainly am facinated with the unknown but I still try to look at things with a certain logic. If something hasn't been discovered before or proven in any scientific way it just seems that it probably doesn't exist. Now that doesn't mean I haven't had things in my past that I couldn't explain and still puzzle me even today.

When I was a kid, probably about 6-7 yrs. old, I remember a number of times waking up to three voices from the living room. The bedrooms were upstairs and up ot the top of the stairs was one of the gates to protect the kids cause there was three of us who were seven and younger. So I could never go downstairs and see if there was anyone down there and I'd check in my parents bedroom and they were always in bed asleep. There were three voices, two men and one women and it sounded like they were having a regular conversation and it was never creepy or scary, it was just strange to me who was downstairs and it seemed like I was the only one who heard the voices. There was one particular evening when I got in trouble for not wanting to eat my dinner and I actually heard the three voices talk about how I'm such a nice boy and that they were disappointed in me for that. No joke! So I can't say what it was or wasn't. I don't know if I had been dreaming or had just an overactive imagination as a kid. I understand if people are skeptical about it cause I can't give any real proof but I remember it very vividly and will always wonder what all that was about. In other words, it was all very real to me.

But that's not the main one that will always baffle me. Before I get to the jist of the story, to give a little of my family background when about the same time when I heard the voices, my mother gave birth to a baby girl named Elizabeth who had only lived about a half-hour after she was born. She had a deformed lung and wasn't strong enough to survive. It was of course a hard time for all of us and we always wondered what she would have been like if she had lived. Well fast forward to 2002. Around my daughter Monica's second birthday, I had came home from work and she ran up to me so excited that a girl she called Baby Ela came to visit her and take they danced and had fun together. When I asked my, at that time, wife who Baby Ela and was she said that it was our daughter's imaginary friend and I didn't think much of it after that. By the way, my ex-wife came from Poland and Ela is the nickname for Elizabeta which is Polish for Elizabeth. So anyway after a couple weeks she talked about Baby Ela and told me about all there funs times and didn't have a second thought about it until one day we were driving home from a party, and when we came to a stoplight, the cemetary were Elizabeth is buried is on the right side and Monica started saying "Ela's home, Ela's home, Ela's home". My ex and I looked back and she was saying this and pointing towards the cemetary. We looked at each other and both our eyes were as big as dinner plates. I got goosebumps at that moment. I'm getting them while I'm typing this right now.

But THEN we decided to stop by the cemetary and when I was looking for her headstone and had gotten to a tree so I knew I was close but when I turned around I saw my daughter looking at a gravesite and started saying "Ela". So she ended up finding it before I did. We said a prayer and had a moment of silence. As we left, Monica turn around waving and saying "Ela go ninight, Ela go ninight". The whole event was quite surreal. Now as I said I try to look at anything with a certain amount of logic. I've told people this story many of times and when most people don't know how to respond to it. Even die-hard skeptics can't figure out this one. So while there somethings I am skeptical about, the only explanantion is that somehow my daughter was able to meet her aunt and was able to have some sort of relationship with her while she was still very young. Maybe somehow she was my daughter's guardian angel, or just wanted to know she was loved by her aunt. Maybe there are things that can't be expalined and we just have to keep an open-mind about. Maybe not so much with Bigfoot, aliens, mothmans and whatever but this time there isn't an explanation. Not sure how else to look at it, but maybe that's the only thing I can do. At least on this particular event.



CHICAGO ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!