Coincidences

Hi there guys.

What really happens when we say WHAT A COINCIDENCE!

Is this some act of god?
Is this some sign.

I have heard that when we experience a Coincidence we should explore this much deeper. Some how this Coincidence has some sort of significance on our lives. Maybe we are all linked in some sort of spiritual manner.

Am I making something out of nothing?
Is this related to paranormal activity?

Or perhaps the most obvious is that aliens are bored and that they want to mess with us a bit by scrambling our brains so that we can't recognise that person or instance...... Yes I go with the aliens.

There's a story that's been going around that a guy met this girl on the roadside at night (a story like this always occurs at night) and she was hitchhiking her way home. He stopped and spoke to her for a while. She then jumped into the car and they drove off. It was a bit cold so he lent her his jacket. As they approached her house he (as any guy would) tried to get some but she just jumped out the car and ran into her house.

The guy tried to get her back for his jacket (yeah right) but it was too late. The next day he was back for his jacket and he spoke to some old lady who said that she lived alone and that the only other female that did live there died a long time ago hitchhiking her way home. Her name was Sheila.

A few days later the man died at the same place where he picked up Sheila.

Now this could be false or it could be true.

Oh my God, our receptionist just phoned someone and asked for Shelia. Something is spooky here.

If you guys has had a weird coincidence happen to you let me know.

I dunno if what you mentioned is coincedence.... more of just a ghost story/urban legend. Robert A Monroe had a good quote on coincedences, but I forget it and I can't find it in google at the moment. Anyway, essentially after you have so many "coincidences", you can't simply brush them aside as coincidences any more. I'll go find the quote and get back to it.

Yeah, I would have to agree with Yarcofin.. This sounds more like an urban legend then actual signs of paranormal activity. It does not even have the hints of a paranormal experience.. Weird.. But nor paranormal..

As far as coincidence..
That is always going to be a possibility for anything...

If you have a bad dream about falling and then decide not to go to work in the morning, and the bridge falls people say coincidence.. others say precognitive ability... some say God... etc etc..

It is up to the researcher to say if it is indeed coincidence or something else..

And how we do that is usually by analyzing the situation and the variables involved.. Coindences are usually flat when it comes to what happened..

For example...
I sneezed and the sniper's shot missed me..

Thats an aparent coincidence..

Something more indepth like a dream is subject to interpretation by the researcher..

By usually the primary way to shoot down coincidence is simply looking at how many times it has happened... If something has happened numerous times, then the possibility of coincidence goes down..

What's coincidence and what isn't often boils down to perspective.

To an outsider, three deadly crashes at the same junction over a 7 day period might seem to be a terrible (if not outright supernatural, or "fated") coincidence; but to an accident safety inspector, who has much more "inside" knowledge of both the area and the crash details, it's nothing more than a random happening - perhaps because the holiday season is upon us, and more traffic automatically implies a higher chance of an accident.

Urban legends are bountiful, too - I really do suggest "Thou Shalt Always Google, And Check Snopes First" as perhaps an ATS "commandment", you know?

"Sheila" isn't an uncommon name. If someone with that name works there - isn't it a probability that someone will call asking for her, at some point? No coincidence there - you're just more aware of it, because it's been on your mind.

I think there's a real danger that we're becoming too obsessed with seeing patterns or meanings where there are none. Perhaps Ockham's Razor might be more prudently employed here





[edit on 22-7-2005 by Tinkleflower]

I've heard that story too and I'm sure it is an urban legend

I agree with Tinkleflower too that coincidence is a matter of perception, while one person might view an event/happening as an amazing coincidence another person may not even give it a passing thought.

Recently two of my friends discovered they had the same birthdays although in different years and couldnt stop talking about this "amazing coincidence", what!? I mean hundreds of people share the same birthdays, its hardly a coincidence in my opinion but there again its down to personal perception

*Scrambles through his post* Don't think I ever said that coincidence was not a matter of perspective as a matter a fact..

It is up to the researcher to say if it is indeed coincidence or something else..

But the debate is not one's prespective, but Coincidence vs Spiritual/Paranormal Intervention is what I was trying to get at..

Maybe there was a misread somewhere..

And ultimately, logic can be applied in many situations as to where something is simply a coincidence or something far more deep.

-Jago

I'm a big fan of seeing the deeper side to conicidences. Most often, my coincidences happen when I haven't seen or talked to someone in a while. I will think about them or talk about them to someone else, and then shortly thereafter I almost always get a call from that person. Perhaps this is part of some sort of ESP connection, and it's not relevant to this post, but I don't think they happen for no reason.

Some fun info in coincidences:

Obligatory skepdicky site

Online forum about coincidences

Submit your coincidences!

Another list of coincidences

And for balance, another skepticky site

Personally...I find it difficult to actually go along with the things most people call coincidences; sometimes, things really do just happen for no reason at all. Furthermore, if we look hard enough, we'd probably be able to see patterns in virtually any and every given situation - even where no real pattern exists. That's going beyond plausibility to me.

The question of "coincidence versus. spiritual/paranormal incidence" is something of a misleading question, isn't it? That suggests there's only two possibilities - either a true coincidence, or a paranormal event. I see more than two available possibilities - there's always the third option: No pattern, no coincidence, just something happening.






[edit on 23-7-2005 by Tinkleflower]

Here's a good example of a coincidence or act of god. Happened right here on ATS this week.

I made a banner for a ATS art competition.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
I decided to take Michael Angelos painting titled "Creation" and put the ATS logo between the finger of God and adams finger, which represents god creating adam. Then I added gods hand and arm to show that he is stopping or saying no to the idea of aliens creating man and then I added aliens. They have their fingers in the same position as gods, as if they were creating.

The coincidence comes when I upload the image to post it. The number given to the image file was 24241.

Most of you are probably not familiar with strongs greek concordance.

The number 2424 is Jesus, God incarnate.

www.bju.edu...

2424. Ihsou Iesous, ee-ay-sooce’; of Heb. or. [3091]; Jesus (i.e. Jehoshua), the name of our Lord and two (three) other Isr.:--Jesus.

The question is....is it just a coicidence that numbers representing God came up for this artwork I did or is it an act of God?

Most of you that don't watch numbers will say it's just a coincidence. Those of us who see numbers all the time like 11:11, know it is not a coincidence.

this is the image url with the 24241 in it
files.abovetopsecret.com...
and here is the image


PS for those that know me, guess whose site was listed first when I did a google search for 2424 Jesus?