have you ever seen something weird

[Brian37]

And to understand why there is nothing to what you observed. This also cuts to sample rate error. How many times has this not happened to you? I'd find it really freaky if it was happening to you every day. If you claimed it was happening to you every day, I'd wonder if you'd need meds.

Yeh thats fair enough, but im 28 years old and ive never seen a rain cloud that covered only a few meters in length but was very long in width, length and width being from my perspective i mean, the rain when it passed over us only lasted for a few seconds but i looked to either side and it seem to be quite far out, as i said like a wall of rain. And for me to have never seen anything remotely like it, ive felt rain suddenly but never heard it progress towards me then moments later see a wall of it going right past me.

---

was not "following" anything, it was a result of natural conditions.

Again dont take this word too literally either, i say follow to give a description of what the rain was doing, it reminded me of the cartoons when you see a depressed person and the rain follows them, but it didnt even exactly follow us because it went right past us then came back towards us again then just wasnt there anymore.

---

But the more I think about it, I just found another word I hate "Weird". It merely is a stupid way of saying "it caused me awkward pause".

Basically it is feeling sudden unsureness or uneasiness. Part of our evolutionary fight or flight mechanism.

All of your definitions assume some emotional relationship with what was seen.
None of these things are a definition of what "wierd" means, all your definitions are definitions of how it is to feel weird, emotional responses, and even these definitions are vague.
Weird is just something, somone out of the ordinary nothing to do with a flight or fight mechanism and you can feel unease or unsureness about things that arent weird and you can pause awkwardly at things that arent weird. Obviously somone can feel weird aswell, it can be an emotional response but that wouldnt be an overall better way of putting things than saying weird.
If i would have called this thread "have you ever seen something that you couldnt explain that caused you to pause awkwardly" why would i make the assumption that seeing something weird would cause them to pause awkwardly?

I am not talking about you. I am simply adding on to what you described as an explanation as to why we use the word "weird". You do understand that others without an explanation, can and do take any description such as yours and read things into it that are not there.

I've told people stories of things that have happened to me and had them respond "see, God is telling you something", or they offer up some other superstitious nonsense.

I am making a general statement for the reader in addition to what you said as a supplement. Like a flu vaccine, for woo lovers, not you.

[Brian37]

That really can be anything(accept little green men).

Most of the time it is simply some sort of aircraft.

There was a case in Az that was reported by several people about "lights" in the sky a few years back. Again, I would never in good conscious fill that gap with green men woo.

And you can perpetrate a hoax and if cleaver enough do it on a huge scale.

Just like stage illusionists can get tons of stage hand or the audience in on the trick.

It still amounts to if you are stupid enough to fill in a gap because you don't know what naturally happened or know how a hoax was concocted, if you want to believe something badly enough, you will.

"Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer is a book I intend to read at some point. Although I'd suspect it would not be anything new to me, even if still entertaining.

I do find how the human brain ticks fascinating. Knowing biology and psychology is important in knowing how our perceptions can be flawed.

Yeah, it's kind of funny the difference in the discussion that I had about the lights with my Atheist friends and with some other hippy types who were hanging out. If it was such an amazing contrast how we all looked for logical material explanations and the spiritual types thought it could be anything except those.

You know, even to our non Abrahamic friends here who call themselves spiritual, I really like to think that I am fair to everyone. I have gone after other stuff, such as si fi woo, and even blasted Sam Harris whom I love when he calls himself "spiritual".

One of my best experiences was the Unitarian Church I attended. It was right at at time when I was feeling like an outsider, and if you want to talk about a huge collection of oddballs, a UU church is a great example. We had every stripe of religion, and several atheists too. But still, as much as I loved them, It did not mean I liked everything they claimed.

My two deerest friends back then was an an old guy name Ben who served in Europe in WW2 as an atheist, he has passed away. And a Wiccan named Heather who has unfortunately died from cancer since, left 3 kids behind.

I have outgrown the need for that socializing, I get enough now at work, and even my believing co workers I love, but as will all believers and claims I find absurd, it still drives me nuts, even if I love the person or like the person.