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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/19/2008 1:01:53 PM |
The comfort people derive from spiritual beliefs is usually a positive thing except when they try to impose those beleifs or derivitives of those beliefs on others.
And that, I think, is the most important point of the whole discussion. The realization of our own mortality is behind a lot of how our psyches manifest themselves. The idea that there might be "something" beyond is certainly a comforting one.
At the same time, I count myself among those who have had experiences that I cannot discount entirely. Having been raised by parents who were "New Age" before it even became a trend helped further colour my beliefs. However, a tendency to appreciate science and the natural world further complicated and added a level of doubt.
One incident, however, has always stuck with me. When I was younger, we lived in a house which had been owned by someone who died in a garage accident. We had some indications of something weird going on but, in my bedroom, I had a closet door that kept opening the same amount each time.
Then, one day, I finally complained to my mom and she said "Well, just ask him to stop." So, the next time the door opened, I did. And the door stopped opening. Not definitive proof and always other explanations, but, like I said, it stuck with me. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/19/2008 4:53:46 PM | My neighbors and I were having a morning chat about our incredible dogs past and present and I told them the story of Muttsy.
She was a Benji kind of dog, more white than gray. My father had just gotten rid of a dog that looked exactly like her- we found out that she had been hit by a car by a neighbor who hated dogs and he had her put down but told us she ran away. I was walking home and this dog followed me home. My mom thought it was our other dog, just dirty, until she realized the brown spots were fur colors. Muttsy stayed by me through thick and thin, along with our Weimerauner (sp?), Lily and both rescued me from many situations including two kidnappings and an assault and an edge of cliff moment and more (I was just one of those kids who wandered far and into things I shouldn't) and we all went from Santa Fe to Tennessee where we moved into the Looper Mansion with our grandparents. My grandpa was horrified at the thought of a mutt in his home and he took Muttsy far away and did her in. Muttsy came back. He got rid of her again. He killed her THREE TIMES. Then she came back again, waiting on our front door. He was on his knees, begging God forgiveness and crying and humbled and he became a very different man after that. Muttsy watched him cry, then she just turned around and walked away and us kids all watched her disappear. Seven witnesses. Interpret it however you want. And that's not even the most amazing story I have to tell. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/19/2008 11:28:27 PM | I have infact seen a ghost, when I was about 9 years old and so did my brothers and play mates. So they do exist. All this male ghost prescence did was to stare at us and
it was so, shocking ! We had a neighborhood fight shortly after. So as I have read in a
book some time ago. Ghosts sometime come to warn us or to bring some negativity to the surface. I don't know if it was to warn us, but we did have a huge neighborhood fight, that was written up and on the front page of the newspaper. Strange but true. I will remenber that day forever. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/20/2008 3:43:06 AM | Okay...from just pretty much everything I've read I got a few words to say. First of all, INTOART...you're the kind of person who thinks they're right no matter what aren't you? Skeptics DO NOT have the proof that ghosts don't exist just like believers DO NOT have the evidence they do. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
As far as stories go though...I can't believe. If someone just tells me "Oh, I saw a ghost" it gets hard to believe or there's some kind of explanation. The story of the puppy ghost before seems intriguing though...usually in "haunts" there is some attachment to where the haunt is taking place whether it's a person who died in the house or was there so long that the energy from that person didn't want to leave. It usually doesn't just happen in some random place out in a street.
Like I said in my first post though, I'm halfway into believing. I like having the evidence. I use thermo cameras, digital voice recorders, electromagnetic field readers and just regular cameras. I know a lot of the stuff I have caught in the past can be explained and with most of them I could find a logical explanation into why things might have happened. But how would people explain EVPs? I know with a lot of the ones I got I know I did not hear those voices when I was investigating but I come home to hear something talking to me? With thermo cameras also...like I previously said, a human looks a lot different then a "ghost" does...even if it's a shadow of a human there still usually is some sort of heat signature that reflects...it doesn't just look like a human figure with no heat signatures at all.
I have also recently come to find out that sometimes rocks (I believe it was either granite or limestone) can actually work like a camera. It can replay events so that could possibly explain a lot of the hauntings out there. You really do have to do a lot of research before saying something is haunted because there are instances like this that many people do not know about. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/20/2008 5:27:45 AM |
Skeptics DO NOT have the proof that ghosts don't exist just like believers DO NOT have the evidence they do. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
This is the same point that all anti-scientific types keep getting wrong. The reason that we know ghosts cannot exist is NOT because they haven't been observed under controlled conditions. We know that they cannot exist because they violate the laws of physics and biology! An "object" that does not have a physical form cannot have a physical effect, whether that effect is something as major as moving objects or as minor as being visible.
Also, consciousness requires an infrastructure, and the only one for which any evidence exists is the brain. Those who wish to claim that consciousness somehow "survives death" must not only prove that there is some object of sufficient complexity to contain it, but also (this is even more difficult) provide a rational explanation of how consciousness gets transferred FROM the brain INTO this object at the time of death.
Finally, a mechanism must be demonstrated which allows this "being", now living in some sort of substitute for a brain, to project an image of a body, make sounds, etc.
Is all of that really easier than just accepting the fact that ghosts are bullsh*t? All alleged "sightings" have a rational explanation (either external or within the mind of the individual reporting the experience.) | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/20/2008 7:01:51 AM | Do we know all the laws of physics?
Do we know all there is to know about biology?
When we discuss the chance occurances that drive evolution, we relate that science to time and statistics, not absolutes. Can you even describe time itself? Can you even describe time in a single dimension? How about the effect of relativity on time? When you reduce chance down to the quantum level, do you really have chance or is it now a predetermined outcome? Is there a sub-atomic entity or entities that transends time and/or space thus changing the quantum level absolute from another time, location, or even universe? Sorry to burst your comfortable bubble but what we think we know about science pales in comparison to what we don't know. The attitude that something cannot exist based on some limited knowledge is virtually identical to a fundamentalist religion denying scientific conclusions such as the theory of evolution. Such an attitude is anti-scientific. If you are no longer open minded to something existing, you are too biased to truely follow a scientific method or even be a trusted observer.
A truthful rational explanation requires an open mind, not a forgone conclusion.
For myself, I have no evidence or observations that indicate there is some form of ghost so I remain open minded. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/20/2008 7:33:28 AM |
The attitude that something cannot exist based on some limited knowledge is virtually identical to a fundamentalist religion denying scientific conclusions such as the theory of evolution. Such an attitude is anti-scientific. If you are no longer open minded to something existing, you are too biased to truely follow a scientific method or even be a trusted observer.
A truthful rational explanation requires an open mind, not a forgone conclusion.
Couldn't have said it better myself, Dave. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/20/2008 7:44:53 AM |
Do we know all the laws of physics?
Do we know all there is to know about biology?
Ah yes. The classic (and wrong) "we don't know everything" argument.
Of course we don't know everything. We DO, however, know ENOUGH to rule out ghosts. (We also know enough to be certain that the only possibility for an afterlife is if someone can demonstrate a mechanism such as I described above.)
Those who think they have experienced a ghost have either: a) experienced something else, with a rational explanation, b) had a hallucination, or c) some combination of a & b. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/20/2008 8:34:15 AM |
Of course we don't know everything. We DO, however, know ENOUGH to rule out ghosts.
Sorry, Intoart, but the statement does not follow logically. If we don't know everything than, logically, we cannot rule out anything, or at least nothing so ephemeral as "ghosts."
The only thing we can talk about is probability. Something probably does or does not exist. And given we live in a universe which, presently at least, appears to operate on two separate and mutually exclusive sets of rules (QM and Relativity) only points to the likelihood that our understanding of the mechanisms for the universe are woefully inadequate. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 12:25:58 AM | >>> Such an attitude is anti-scientific.
What??
We've got two sides- one side presents the fact that all life everywhere we have looked, from the bottom of the ocean to the peaks of Everest, consist of a physical existance. There is evidence everywhere of this. There has never been witnessed or recorded a being that defies this fact.
The other side contends there is a being that exists beyond physical existance, and can choose to fade back and forth between the two.
There is no scienfitic evidence of the latter.
And you're saying to believe the former is non-scientific??
Dude, science isn't about blinding following any belief, and claim that anyone who disagrees is being anti-scientific. If that were true, then I could contend that the worlds cloud movements aren't done by ocean undercurrents- but that theres an invisible, spectral Superhighway for Giant Spaghetti Monsters- flying through the skies, and all that movement pulls the clouds along. I saw it one day, when looking out my backyard- you got to watch out for it, but on rare occasions, it seems to appear. I mean, the Sun was right in my eyes, and I only saw it in the corner of my eye, but I know what I saw! I have no further evidence of this, but if people question my belief, I can simply accuse them of being closeminded- that not everything is known, and in time, maybe we can conclusively prove that the clouds are moved by Giant Spaghetti Monsters. Until then, its closeminded to express thoughts on the phenomenon
.....Well, closeminded to express a contary opinion.....
Wow! I just made up a new fact of reality! Hurray for Science! | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 2:13:06 AM | The way I look at it, if a thing or person needs a lot of belief by others or by anyone to acknowledge its existence, then chances are the dearly believed is not there at all. Belief is a vehicle for knowledge that does not require much or even any evidence, physical or logical, and therefore it is less likely to be truthfully something that's out there.
It all boils down to likelihoods and probabilities, as basically the only thing that can be empirically proven to exist to a person is his own mind; beyond that, everything is a question of belief. But there are things that we are conditioned to give more credibility for accepting a belief or faith, for instance the senses. The senses can lead us into inferring that something insensible exists, like hate or logic. But there is a point beyond which the evidence is so slim or even non-existent, that belief is the only evidence that can be relied on to accept the existence of something. I draw the line, personally for myself, right there.
This brings us to the question of God -- many believe in it and insist it's the truth, many others believe it's a complete fabrication. The concept of God or Creator is not one like pain or strength, which we also can only accept by inference, because everything is explicable without the assumption that there is a God out there, whereas pain and strength and other such like constructs are an integral part of our weltanschauung. Why believe in God, then? I find the answer to this a highly personal decision. Just like ghosts and the life force and other things that are easy constructs inasmuch as they offer a short-cut toward a needed explanation for something.
What baffles me, though, that there are really smart and serious people who believe in God, despite their full ability to not have to rely on that concept to explain the universe to themselves. The triple nine society is full of believers, and the pope I am sure has a genius IQ. The Dalai Llama -- does he fully believe in himself? At least he has some physical, tactile evidence to know that He exists. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 4:38:54 AM | When i was around 8, i saw a wooden puppet running in the ditch, trying to keep up with our station wagon. I also saw a ufo over my house. I had a wild imagination.
Much later in life, i'd hear noises around my house. It sounded like someone was walking in my attic. It was 2 raccoons. Even a rat walking can be very loud with loose boards. Also, when my house heats up, the walls crack. Out of the blue, one of my mom's doors looked like it was covered in blood. It was sap.
I am very comfortable in believing that ghosts are in the mind, or have a physical explanation. For those who believe in ghosts, I'm curious to know what you think of those who believe in bigfoot, chupacabra, and clarence the donkey who stays on my roof and protects me. Don't question me, I've seen him!  | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 12:45:41 PM | I can’t believe science or religion as a stance for categorical proof Ghost don’t exist.
Every-- religious and scientific institute has something in their books describing a
-- perceived energy – that is-- beyond our present physical explanations..
be it, Spirits, Ghosts, Photons, Black Holes, Dark Matter—
Always amazing how every step in history we think we have all the answers..
The world is flat, iron can’t float, no way we could see through a solid object.
So-- is it possible to perceive energy that we don’t have an explanation for--- as in Ghosts-- of coarse it is..
Don’t be so daft.. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 1:54:23 PM |
An "object" that does not have a physical form cannot have a physical effect, whether that effect is something as major as moving objects or as minor as being visible.
Wind doesn't have a physical form. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 2:14:44 PM | For myself, all I can say is that I do believe in some sort of ghosts, spirits, whathaveyou. I also believe in God - though my interpretation of God tends to vary from the traditional Christian one; I believe in afterlife, and I believe that there are so many things we as humans have yet to discover that I could never accept something with total absolution, proven or otherwise. I accept certain concepts, what *feels* right to me, and am open to those concepts changing. And what feels right to me with regard to ghosts is that something absolutely does exist beyond what we can see or measure. Several years ago I would have been one of those to scoff at stories of hauntings or ghostly sightings and to pass judgement on others' views; but so many things have happened to me over the course of my lifetime that I now realize how important it is to be open-minded.
I would not attempt to sway those who do not believe in the existence of ghosts into believing, just as I would not attempt to tell someone who does believe in ghosts that they are wrong, if I did not believe in them myself. I simply state my beliefs and/or share my stories, which are mine alone. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 3:17:01 PM | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^...............................................
Concertina..
... and neither does warmth.. or cold. Ever heard of cold or warm spots in a room where there's no het on.. fan blowing.. or a/c on? I have.
I do agree with those that state it's a spiritual belief (no pun intended).. and not one that should be "pushed" on.. or "shoved" down anyone elses throat. It's very personal. IMHO | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 3:46:35 PM | Alright now, don't confuse "wind", "warmth", "cold" and even "spot", for being objects, these are descriptions of states of being, conditions, and place/time. while they fit in our language as a *noun* and *thing* and can be objectified, they are not objects. However, more to the point, a ghost or spiritual entity may be, if existing, also *not* an object. Perhaps it is an experience. Perhaps it is the mind communicating with us. Perhaps it is a manifestation of emotional energy. A possible explanation of my dog story, above (though we are inclined to believe Muttsy was a guardian angel) is that us kids, and other adults, a bit perturbed about losing our dog, may have been collectively creating a poltergeist phenomena. Mass hallucination is also documented now and then due to emotional states of being.
I've had many *ghost* experiences, including a recent house, that could be very hard to explain, but two possible notions strip the ghost of *existing* per se. One is the Einsteinian tradition that past present and future all exist at the same time, they aren't ghosts, but time connections, perhaps high emotions in humans makes these moments notable. Also going along the high emotion theory, as a hobby hypnotist, I've learned that people bottle up extreme emotions and it works like a knot in their time line and when untangled in their subconscious it sometimes creates an emotionally explosive experience. Others don't bottle this up in themselves, but leave it behind where it occurred. Many people with empathic senses can pick up feelings that are left behind on objects and places. I'm one of these people. How I can describe an emotion, the persons, the actions of something in the past and find out the accuracy later, I don't know, except that I may be connecting, due to high emotional energy, and connecting through/to/with the past as it just happens to still exist, according to Einstein.
When it comes to spirits speaking to a person, delivering a message, relating to others, I just think we have a lot yet to learn about consciousness. For instance, in hypnotherapy, a lot of people use it to prove that past lives exist. Go through regression and it's a fascinating ride- the thing is, the hypnotist will explain to a person that, as a therapy, it doesn't have to be true to work. It can be pure imagination. It can be connectedness in consciousness to others past, present, future, it can be something very unexplained, or it can be exactly what it appears to be.
All that said, my family is infamous for successful ghost hoaxes on each other and neighborhoods and there's a famous UFO experience that was one our backyard projects when I was kid and I'm not telling which one. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 3:50:40 PM | ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^..........................................
Perhaps.. hereshecomesagain..
It's just a "personal" belief. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/21/2008 7:01:09 PM |
We've got two sides- one side presents the fact that all life everywhere we have looked, from the bottom of the ocean to the peaks of Everest, consist of a physical existance.
I am quite convinced love and hate exist without any "physical" existence. Are they real?
In the physical world, we see matter as solid when in fact it is mostly empty space. Each atom occupies a volume far bigger than its component parts. There is a great amount of apparent randomness in the energy distribution among the atoms of matter. It gets even more interesting when you consider phase changes between solids, gasses, and liquids. Assuming there is some yet undiscovered "energy" behind randomness itself, could that "energy" be a some set of dimensions where a "life force" that results in say physical humans with a whole array of other non-physical characteristics such as love and hate, reside?
So how's that for some non-physical ethereal food for thought? Maybe your tastes are too picky for non-Newtonian cuisine. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/22/2008 9:13:43 AM |
We've got two sides- one side presents the fact that all life everywhere we have looked, from the bottom of the ocean to the peaks of Everest, consist of a physical existance.
I am quite convinced love and hate exist without any "physical" existence. Are they real?
Actually, to continue to play devils' advocate (because my experiences say that ghosts are real) love and hate are chemical reactions in our brains and lately, they've proven that there is also a kind of "brain" in the gut, where more reactions and chemical leftovers of love, hate and other emotions *do* exist and present a physical manifestation. So these are also not good examples in the argument and have a great deal of physical existence. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/22/2008 1:43:11 PM | >>> Assuming there is some yet undiscovered "energy" behind randomness itself, could that "energy" be a some set of dimensions where a "life force" that results in say physical humans with a whole array of other non-physical characteristics such as love and hate, reside?
I think the key word in that statement is "Assuming"- because you are- your notion that ghosts exist is based on an assumption- I have evidence that life, all life, needs to meet some basic rules to exist- they need to take in materials,such as breathing, and/or eating- just as they need to eject waste- they need to reproduce, and throuh that fact comes the obvious fact that they would need to be born, and are capible of dying- They need to be made up of a phsyical existance, and cannot hover or trade back and forth between physically existing and not.
You say there is a lifeform that can exist without being born- that doesn't reproduce- doesn't eat or breath- is unaffected by the surrounding tempertures or anything phsyical at all, including walls- it cannot die and can appear and disappear at will- and the only evidence is your own assumptions. And I'm too "picky" for siding with the belief that has been consistantly proven true in every living thing in existance? Dude, making the assumption that there exists more with absolutely zero observable evidence isn't scientific- it isn't observing the world and attempting to make sense of it- its projecting the world as you wish it would be- as you think it should be- without taking in effect the fact that this is how it is.
You want us to do the opposite of science, and call it scientific. Your beliefs have no more validity than my Flying Spaghetti Monster hypothesis. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/22/2008 4:25:35 PM | Wow that is the most blatantly narrow assumption I have read in a while.
Much, much more to the equation. You are not up to speed my friend!
Consciousness is much more likely a continuum, many in new science disciplines agree. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/22/2008 4:29:19 PM | "We DO, however, know ENOUGH to rule out ghosts"
No, "we" do not.
Whew. My personal, direct, experiences notwithstanding, the evidence increasingly points much more often to the mystical than the material.
You need to get out of your own way, especially if you are truly "Into Art"--lighten, loosen and LEARN. | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/22/2008 4:52:26 PM | ... my Flying Spaghetti Monster hypothesis... Excuse me? Are you trying to claim that you formed the wonderful and hilarious Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? (http://www.venganza.org/) Please... you may call us who believe in ghosts gullible or naive but we're not stupid or illiterate and we do have access to the internet, too, ya know? You are not half as clever as you fancy you are. How's the air up there in your ivory tower, by the way? | |
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| Do You Believe In Ghosts?
Posted: 11/22/2008 6:13:23 PM | >>>Are you trying to claim that you formed the wonderful and hilarious Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
Nope! I just ripped off their savior and applied it to my own nonsense theory- about 10 posts above I postulated that the "We don't know everything, so ghosts are possible" line of thinking was flawed because we could claim that global cloud movements were caused by an invisible superhighway in the skys driven on by invisable Spaghetti Monsters
The actual Spaghetti Monster theory was meant to challenge the belief that all creation theories should get equal time in science class,leading some satricists to claim that existance was created by a flying spaghetti monster, who, with his great Noodly Appendage, created mountains, and midgets- and since all beliefs should be granted equal time, these people demanded the Spaghetti Monster be taught in science class.
So while the character is not of my own creation, the hypothesis is. | |
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