I'm curious as to how many of these things theists believe in. Please state your religious affiliation and answer Y/N. Explanations for why you answer Y or N would be great if you feel like it.

Do you believe in...

1. Horoscopes/astrology
2. Palm reading/Tarot card reading
3. Other forms of divination of the future -- I Ching, etc.
4. Voodoo/curses
5. Amulets/crystals with the power to protect or heal
6. Ghosts
7. Vampires
8. Werewolves
9. Zombies
10. Loch Ness Monster
11. Big Foot
12. Yeti
13. Chupa Cabra
14. UFO sightings
15. Alien abductions of humans

What do these things have in common?

All of these are either of witch craft or make believe.

they all highlight man's willingness to believe in things that do not exist.

They're things that some people believe are real and other people believe are made-up because there is no concrete proof. I left off things that are generally agreed upon as fictional, like a unicorn or a pegasus.

Religious people also believe in something that some believe in and others reject because of lack of concrete proof. So I was curious if any theists believe in any of these things as well.

Which are witchcraft and which are make-believe? And how do you know?

Then you omitted what is probably the most popular thing to believe in without concrete proof: mathematics.

Did you want to answer if you believe in any of those things I listed?

UFO sightings, since it seems extremely improbable that everyone claiming to have seen a flying something they can't identify is lying.

Also, a write-in: mathematics.

wait, what?

Mathematics?

If you want to be really pedantic then nothing can be conclusively proved, but comparing belief in mathematics and belief in werewolves or ufo's??

On a list of things people believe in without "concrete proof"?

Absolutely.

if the definition of UFO used here extends no further than "alien aircraft", then 15 times no

Concerto makes another funny ITT.

1-5 are witch craft.

The rest are make believe.

lol, UFOs. good god i wish there was a way to bet my entire net worth that aliens aren't visiting us.

people who believe in UFO's (from non earthly origins) seem to not grasp just how big the universe is.

in essence, if you think aliens are visiting us, then they must have wormhole technology, or be unbelievably devoted to missions lasting hundreds of thousands of years to far off planets and be able to go the speed of light (lawl.)

either way you slice it, if they have the ability to create wormholes, or go the speed of light, then they would easily have the technology to visit us without us knowing. and further, easily have technology to create spacecrafts that don't look like a 5th graders science fair project.

Why must aliens be from an entirely different galaxy?

I am a theist and am Catholic although I do not believe that any religion (Catholicism included) is exclusively correct. I am comfortable with the tenets of Catholicism and familiar with the rituals.

1. No. The predictive value does not seem to exist as far as I can tell and the mechanism of action as explained by proponents is not valid. I have not been able to devise a valid explanation. My opinion would best be described as active disbelief.

2. No. See 1.

3. Overly broad. I am not aware of the details of any other system but am in general not a believer in any others.

4. This is very broad. Voodoo specifically I would say no to a magical effect but the concept of a curse and the psychological effect of a curse would need some thought.

5. No. I am pretty strong in physical chemistry and chemical physics so the detailed nature of crystals is well known to me. This would be active disbelief.

6. I have never seen one or any convincing evidence that they exist. On the other hand, this might be a phenomenon that would be difficult to detect. Call me agnostic on the issue but highly skeptical of any specific claim.

7. Not sure why this is different than the pegasus. I was not aware that anyone actually believed that vampires were real. No, active disbelief. Although I read somewhere that there is a psychological abnormality in which people believe they need blood to live, so there is that qualifier.

8. No, see 7 minus the psych comment.

9. See 8.

10. No, active disbelief. Although there may well be animal species still undiscovered, a creature of the size of Nessie in that body of water could not remain undetected. It would leave partially eaten carcasses, it would die and sometimes bloat and float to the surface, etc. You would need a stable population to procreate. Just not possible.

11. No, active disbelief. After all these years someone would have shot one, even if by accident.

12. See 11.

13. Had to look that one up. I do not know much beyond the wiki entry but people may have found strangely mutilated corpses. There may be a number of causes but for an undiscovered species my answer to 11 is probably best.

14. Certainly there have been sightings of flying objects that are unidentified. The whole alien explanation seems somewhat unlikely but not impossible at some level. Agnostic in general but highly skeptical of any specific claim of an encounter.

15. Again, highly unlikely. Aliens could snatch someone but if they were hiding then why put them back? If they were not hiding then why avoid us at all. Just grab someone off a NYC street in front of everyone. This falls just short of active disbelief.

To answer the unasked question, I was waiting for a phone call and had some time to kill.

Even if they are from this galaxy the distances are still huge. The voyager spacecraft travels at what, 30,000-40,000 miles per hour, even if we could travel a million miles an hour if will still take over 2,500 years to reach nearest star.

Yet aliens seem to be popping up most nites somewhere !!

1-5If by 'other means of divination' you include God speaking through the prophets, then yes. But most forms of future-telling using 'magic' are psychology tricks, and I would get a very few use the help of fallen angels - this threat is one reason why Christians should not participate in divination of the future by such means.

6Ghosts could be real - maybe it's a form of purgatory.

7-8 These change the humanity of a person and I don't believe in them.

9 I have my Zombie Survival guide and am every ready to smash my staircase and turn on my bathtub. (I kid)

10-13 I don't believe in them particularly but I wouldn't count them as false.

14-15 Yes, people have seen UFO's, but I don't think aliens are the culprit. Though aliens are one of my worst phobias.

TexArcher -

A (more?) interesting addition would be Christian-specific:

16. Demonic inspiration of non-Christian religions.

Offhand I recall NotReady ("I don't think any serious religion is JUST superstition.") and Jibninjas ("I hold the position that just about every 'god' in history is plausibly...based on a real being.") advocating this line.

Man, how the hell did you pull that one out? I mean that was a long time ago, how long did you have to search for?

I would add

16. excorcism
17. speaking in tongues

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I don't want to get into a 'do aliens exist' debate, but I would say that given the Drake Equation, there is a non-zero chance that they do ... unlike everything else on the list

Whoa, you managed to find a vicious looking kitten.

Good luck with your issues.

sub's like an elephant...never forgets a thing