Some people believe anything. I guess maybe I shouldn't say that. What I mean to say is, some people believe in everything. Think of all the stuff that we consider to be "paranormal": Bigfoot, psychic powers, UFOs, tarot cards, ghosts, miracles, there are just so many things.

Now, think about this:

To believe in Bigfoot, you have to believe that there is an unknown primate living in North America, even though so far no one has been able to catch one or even get a decent picture of one. To believe in psychic powers, you have to believe that the human brain is capable of doing things that no one has yet been able to prove or measure. To believe in UFOs, you just have to believe that people from other planets are visiting earth, but for whatever reason have chosen not to reveal themselves to the general public...and, along with that, most people believe that the government is covering it up. To believe in tarot cards, ghosts, or miracles (like the Virgin Mary appearing in a water stain, or things like that), you have to believe that there is a spirit world that touches ours (or at least that there are spirits in this one), and that the spirits are manifesting themselves in this way, specifically.

The thing is, you go to a bookstore, or you do an internet search, and all these things come up under "paranormal phenomena," which I don't get because none of these things has anything to do with any of the others. And what's more, there are people who believe in all of it.

I suppose it could all fall under the heading of "We don't know everything," and maybe that's what "paranormal" means. But there's lots of germs and bacteria we've never discovered or classified, but people don't write books about them. Some people are downright skeptical, which I understand. I mean, some people get told about a UFO and they immediately think it's a hoax or a weather baloon or a sunspot....which is exactly what the government does, except that when an individual person does it, no one automatically assumes he's part of a big conspiracy. I wonder why no one thinks the government has a Bigfoot conspiracy?

There's a Jamaican lady on TV who says she has psychic powers and gives tarot readings over the phone. But what does being psychic have to do with tarot cards? I mean, one would mean you have this power in your brain, and one would be like voodoo spirits talking to you through a deck of cards, so why can't you have one without the other? Why do you even have to believe in both? In fact, isn't one kind of like science and the other more kind of like religion?

See, you have to really have a lot of faith to believe in all this stuff. What I mean is, you have to believe in a whole lot of different stuff that you can't prove. I don't think it's bad or stupid to believe in things you can't prove; I'm just making an observation. It just seems that to believe in all this stuff collectively, it's like piecing together fragments that don't fit together.

With this in mind, I've reached the conclusion that some people are just believers. They want to believe in things. Not necessarilly in things they CAN'T explain, but just in things that they don't HAVE TO explain. They don't believe because any arguement or any piece of evidence has convinced them, but just because they want to.

In the same way, though, some people DON'T want to, and WON'T believe, ever, no matter what. These are the kinds of people who always want "evidence" or "proof", but there is no amount of evidence that will ever convince them. That's because these people also pretty much believe what they want to believe.

The funny thing is, these are the types of people who are most likely to argue: The ones who totally want to believe, and the ones who never, ever will. It never gets them anywhere, but they do it anyway. It's like having the Black Panthers and the KKK on "Jerry Springer". It's pointless, but people watch.

Ok, that's a bit off-topic. I was talking about how a lot of this doesn't fit together.

You see, what the paranormal people need is organization. A new religion or a single theory that explains everything. Everything would make sense and instead of explaining or defending your belief in 100 different things, you would only have to explain one.

OK, just off the top of my head, here is my theory:

Say there's a planet called, I don't know, Xanax. The planet has three different species on it: 1) The logical, scientific gree-skinned people with round heads, 2) the people made of energy, and 3) the hair-covered farmer guys who raise the aquatic sea-horse things. The energy guys are in charge, and they have an Energy Queen. So anyway there is a big war, or like an ethnic cleansing, between the green guys and the hairy guys, and the hairy guys take their sea-horses and flee to earth. The green guys chase them.

Say the hairy guys have minds that are in tune with nature and spacetime whatever, ok, and when they come to earth they teach a select few about how to read tea leaves and tarot cards and all that. The sea-horses don't take to salt water and instead settle into some freshwater lakes in Scotland and Canada. Fearing that the green-skinned guys were going to find them, the hairy guys fled to the Pacific Northwest and the Himalayas.

The green-skinned guys eventually do arrive in UFOs and, knowing that the hairy farmer guys are outdoor-types, they only look for them in remote areas and in the country, instead of the big cities. They have abducted some humans, but only to try to find out how much they know about the Bigfoot guys and to get them to help. They even seed the gene pool to give some of them psychic powers to get their help.

The energy guys also arrive to try to get the guys to settle up but every time they appear someone thinks they're ghosts.

Now, you see? This is the only possible explanation! It not only explains everything, but it requires no further proof than just what you read there. I mean that every separate thing is used as evidence of every OTHER thing and it no longer requires "proof".

What about UFOs?
Well, if there were no UFOs, there wouldn't be any Bigfoot, get it?
And how do you know there's a Bigfoot?
Well, just look at the tarot cards, how else do you explain that?

I should start my own religion. Except that I am certain that people would take it seriously and I would wind up being like the Paranormal Pope or something. And who needs that?