Hypnopompic imagery possibly combined with sleep paralyses. Extremely common source of hallucinations. No further explanation is necessary.
I’d say she’s a loon.
More precisely, my opinion would be that’s she’s a loon. But the great thing about most atheists is we have a wonderful ability to allow people to live their lives how they choose. So I’d certainly think she’s a loon, but if that’s what she wants to belive…meh, her choice.
I’m afraid that your response is unsatisfactory on manifold levels.
Red herring. Dr. Ramachandran was not addressing the issue of how color vision came about.
Bifurcation. A third option is that God endows all who desire endowment, but honors the wishes of all who do not. Thus, He is both omnipotent and benevolent.
Non sequitur. Dr. Ramachandran said nothing about wavelengths. It is a misconception that colorblindness means the inability to differentiate between wavelengths of visible light. (Cite.) By using the tool on this page, you can get an idea of how monochromates see color palettes.
No True Scotsman fallacy. Dr. Ramachandran is one of the world’s leading authorities on neuroscience, and an accomplished neurological researcher whose credentials are superb. As a scientist, he is worth his weight in gold. He exercises the proper deontic responsibility of science by refraining from drawing scientific conclusions with respect to metaphysical phenomena. He is reporting on the results of scientific experiments that have shown a definitive relation between temporal lobe activity and spiritual experience. Where you got the nonsense about positing God as a scientifically provable phenomenon is anybody’s guess.
Straw man. Dr. Ramachandran limited himself specifically to scientific data and to logical inference. I can certainly understand if you are frustrated and embarrassed by having your dismissal of religious people submarined by perhaps the most eminent scientist in the field of neurology, but to carry it further by dismissing his findings as well is only digging the well deeper.
I didn’t say he was. You obviously aren’t following the argument.
That wouldn’t fit the analogy. Once does not retroactively receive color vision because he desires it.
I didn’t say the Doctor said anything about wavelengths. Again you have failed to follow the argument. The causes of colorblindness has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Utterly irrelevant.
Huh?
Appeal to Authority fallacy.
Maybe I got it from that fact that that’s what he’s doing.
Man, you really believe that, don’t you? :eek:
Your rebutal was, “Yes, but the fact that only certain species have color vision is easily explainable under an evolutionary model.” Dr. Ramachandran was commenting, not on how color vision came to be via natural selection, but on what significance color vision has with respect to the existence of color.
An analogy is merely a rhetorical device intended to compare two things that are alike only in certain respects. (Cite.) By its very nature, an analogy cannot be a complete substitution of one thing for another. To say that a keyboard is to a computer as a microphone is to a speaker is not intended to convey that a speaker is a computational device, but merely that both a keyboard and a microphone are input devices. Dr. Ramachandran did not use the color vision analogy to explain how both mystical experience and color vision come about; rather, he used it to compare how perception of color and perception of God might each have certain prerequisites.
What you said was that Dr. Ramachandran was mistaken about his findings with respect to whether mystical knowledge was inferior to scientific knowledge and that, “we are not dependent on the subjective experience of “color” to know that different wavelengths of light exist.” In other words, you brought it up.
Irrelevant to what Dr. Ramachandran said, but relevant to what you said. It is not necessary to see color to discern that there are differences in wavelengths of visible light. Monochromates do not see in shades of gray. Gray is just another color.
Your tepid remark about “any scientist worth his salt” implied that, were Dr. Ramachandran a true scientist, he would not have reached the findings that he did in fact reach. It was a classic No True Scotsman fallacy.
An appeal to authority is not necessarily a fallacy. (Cite.) There is no higher authority in the field of neuroscience than Dr. Ramachandran.
In fact, that is not what he is doing. On the contrary, he is saying that scientific experiments with respect to the limbic system make no conclusion one way or the other with respect to the existence of God. As you can see from his quote, he says that the evidence may be argued either way.
It isn’t a matter of what I believe. Certainly, I would be quite impressed if you admitted your error and disavowed your flippant remark that “a religious person is going to say that you just aren’t tuned into the right wavelength to hear the voices and see the visions”, given that a recognized scientific authority, himself an atheist, said pretty much the same thing. Your intention clearly was to mock religious people by presenting them as ignorant and arrogant. And until you admit your mistake, the irony is rather thick.
You divorced this sentence from the rest of my argument. I would have thought that taking things out of context would be beneath you.
And I never implied otherwise.
Not exactly. He commented on how the significance of color vision with respect to the existence of color is ANALAGOUS to the significance of religious “vision” with respect to the existence of God.
I am quite aware of that. However, in this case his analogy is flawed. He is saying that the fact that not all people have religious visions is ANALAGOUS to the fact that not all animals have color vision. But it quite simply is NOT analagous, and I have explained why. The analogy doesn’t have to be exactly the same in every way, but it does have to be analagous with respect to what he’s claiming to be analagous.
Also, what you don’t seem to grasp is that if I bring up a point in refutation of his argument, it doesn’t mean I am attributing that point to him.
“Brought it up” and “attributed it to him” are not the same thing. We know color is “real” because we can empirically show how light wavelengths reflect from objects. We have no such empirical test to determine that God is “real”. Therefore, his analogy fails. It is MY argument, not his.
Still irrelevant. We can still show that the phenomemon behind the experience OBJECTIVELY exists. Quibbling over the exact neural mechanism is not germane to the argument. The reason different objects have different colors is because of the wavelengths of light that reach the eye. That is empirically demonstrable. You cannot empirically demonstrate that religious visions emanate from God.
Nonsense. The scientific method embodies certain principles. One of those principles is that objective evidence is superior to subjective evidence. If a scientist fails to adhere to this principle, he is not being as good a scientist as he can be. Had I actually employed the “No True Scotsman” fallacy, I would have said he is NOT a scientist. He IS a scientist - just a poor one in this particular case. Likewise, if I say “No president worth his salt would invade a sovereign country unprovoked”, I’m certainly not saying George W. Bush isn’t a true president. I’m just saying he’s a poor president. Please try to brush up on your logical fallacies.
But it is in this case.
Nonsense - he very clearly argues:
He quite clearly claims that involvement of the temporal lobes could be used as an argument for the existence of God. And as for it being an argument against God, that’s a strawman, since nobody is making such an argument. Like I said, it doesn’t disprove God; it only casts doubt on the positive assertion that such thoughts are evidence of God. He’s reversing the burden of proof. If nobody were claiming their visions to be evidence of God, it would be uneccessary to cast doubt on the veracity of that claim. The claim must, and has been, made first.
Wow, have you ever got a chip on your shoulder. I intended nothing of the kind. I do not consider religious people ignorant OR arrogant. I simply consider them to have different beliefs than I do. I did not make that statement to ridicule, but to present the argument that is frequently made by religious people as I understand it, and I challenged the OP, who self-identifies as an agnostic, to evaluate the argument for himself. What exactly did I say that makes you think I find them arrogant?
I actually tested in the 99th percentile on reading comprehension. It appeared to me that the sentence in question was the topic sentence and in fact encapsulated the premise that your argument was attempting to make. Otherwise, there is absolutely no reason even to raise the topic of color vision coming about as a result of natural selection. Inasmuch as the origins of color vision had nothing whatsoever to do with Dr. Ramachandran’s point, your rebuttal seemed to me to constitute a red herring. It would be like Mr. Smith arguing that Dr. Brown had determined that cigarette smoking causes cancer, only for Mr. Jones to rebut by saying that cigarettes arose from 16th century trade between the Europeans and the Indians.
In fact, you did. It was almost as though you were engaging in some sort of written stuttering while attempting to gather your thoughts. Here is your paragraph in its entirety:
Yes, but the fact that only certain species have color vision is easily explainable under an evolutionary model. IMO, it’s much harder to accept that a God that ostensibly created mankind, and desires for all of mankind to hear His message, would only endow some of us with the ability. It requires the acceptance of either a non-omnipotent or non-benevolent God.
Not one of the topics you raised was addressed by Dr. Ramachandran. He said nothing about how color vision evolved, nothing about whether God created mankind, nothing about the content of His message, and nothing about His omnipotence or benevolence. I nevertheless addressed the entire paragraph, including the non-topic sentences. I explained that your bifurcation was invalid, that indeed there might be a third requisite besides the two you offered.
Oddly, having just complained about my parsing a sentence from your paragraph, you proceeded to parse a clause from my sentence, splitting it off at the comma. I would reckon that taking things out of context is as taking things out of context does. But I imagine that you have conceived a specialized rule of exception that applies in your case. I will be interested in hearing the rationale behind it. Meanwhile, you have constructed a classic distinction without a difference. Since all you have done is paraphrase the point I made, I will assume that on that issue we are now in agreement. Dr. Ramachandran was saying nothing about how color vision came about, but was merely making an analogy between color vision and spiritual experience. Specifically, his point was that we should no more say that color doesn’t exist because some people don’t experience color than we should say that God does not exist because some people don’t experience God.
Let’s examine his analogy again so that you don’t lose track of it:
By way of analogy, consider the fact that most animals don’t have the receptors or neural machinery for color vision. Only a privileged few do, yet would you want to conclude from this that color wasn’t real? Obviously not, but if not, then why doesn’t the same argument apply to God? Perhaps only the “chosen” ones have the required neural connections.
Now, let us frame his analogy in the form of an IQ test analogy:
Neural machinery for color vision is to colorblind animals as limbic system neural connections are to…
A. …the “chosen” ones who have spiritual experiences
B. …prostitution in Papua New Guinea
C. …the hypotenuse of a right triangle
D. …the evolution of color vision
The analogy holds. Incidentally, Dr. Ramachandran specialized in visual perception for many years, so he ought to know a thing or two about colorblindness.
I grasp that just fine. What I have a problem with is your imagining that you have concocted a refutation before you have even properly summarized his argument. You wrote four paragraphs. In the first, you addressed your own concern about an apparent philosophical problem with God’s omniscience and benevolence. In the second, you went on and on about the wavelengths of visible light. In the third, you attempted to reveal what a true scientist — or, as you put it, one worth his weight in salt — would say. And in the fourth and final paragraph, your single sentence was a summary dismissal of Dr. Ramachandran’s findings as “Just more philosophical garbage masquerading as science”. I don’t know what you might think you had refuted, but it was nothing that he said.
But you are mistaken and he is not. Color isn’t “real” because of how light reflects from objects; it is “real” because of how the visual cortex interprets sensory stimuli. For quite many people, there is nothing at all “real” about color. I gave you the links to the sites on colorblindness because you apparently are familiar only with the types of colorblindness that confuse one color with another, or, worst case, see all color in shades of gray. I was pointing out to you that full-blown monochromatism does not even see in shades of gray. Gray is just another color. Their visual cortex does not discern grayness any more than blueness, or redness, or yellowness. Therefore, monochromates are living proof that there is no intrinsic relation between wavelengths of visible light and color. Moreover, since you have not read Dr. Ramachandran’s book, you can be forgiven for not knowing that it was by empirical tests that he determined a relation between limbic system activity and spiritual experience. His findings are not proof that God exists, any more than empirical tests determine that color exists. It exists for some people and animals, but not for all. But then, he never claimed that his experiments prove that God exists. In fact, he went out of his way to say that the data can make an argument either way. Let’s look again at what he wrote:
Indeed, if you are ever tempted to jump to this conclusion, just bear in mind that one could use exactly the same evidence — the involvement of the temporal lobes in religion — to argue for, rather than against, the existence of God.
Are you even familiar with Dr. Ramachandran’s experiments? Do you even know what he did? If you do not, then you should ask. If you do, then I challenge you to point out what you perceive as a flaw in his methods, keeping in mind that his experiments are repeatable and have been repeated by other neuroscientists. He has written more than 120 papers in scientific journals. (Cite.) This man is no quack, and you are attacking no particulars whatsoever with respect to his experiments, but are merely speaking in broad strokes about the scientific method without attaching to his work specifically any flaw whatsoever. Your continued insistence on tilting at windmills and your criticism of work with which you are either not familiar or else do not comprehend has moved you far beyond mere logical fallacy, and into the realm of wholesale rhetorical vice.
No, it is not. Unlike you, I gave a citation to support my assertion. Your fellow atheists say that in the context of inductive argument — such as the argument you and I are having here — an appeal to authority is not a fallacy when “it may be relevant to refer to a widely-regarded authority in a particular field, if you’re discussing that subject”. We are discussing the brain (especially the visual cortex and the temporal lobe), and VS Ramachandran is a widely-regarded authority in that particular field. Besides all that, I have not even offered his reputation to support my argument; I have offered his findings, i.e., the experiments themselves, their results, and his conclusions. The only reason I mentioned his credentials was because of your “no scientist worth his weight in salt” remark. You attacked his standing as an authority; therefore, it was appropriate that I defended it.
Yet another truncated sentence from the man who recoils at having sentences lifted from his paragraphs. Here is the entire sentence with the dependent clause intact and highlighted:
Indeed, if you are ever tempted to jump to this conclusion, just bear in mind that one could use exactly the same evidence — the involvement of the temporal lobes in religion — to argue for, rather than against, the existence of God.
In other words, if you intend to use the data to argue that God does not exist, bear in mind that the same data could just as well be used to argue the opposite.
He has, in fact and as I said, removed the burden of proof from both sides by saying that neither side can use the data to trump the other. Inasmuch as you do not even know the procedure he used, or the qualifications of the patients he examined, your musings over claims about visions being evidence of God are moot. These people have indeed had spiritual experiences, and their experiences have indeed been tied to limbic system activity, which brings us back to your original flippant assertion. Let’s review it:
Of course a religious person is going to say that you just aren’t tuned into the right wavelength to hear the voices and see the visions.
By an incredible twist of karma, it just so happened that the very imagery you invoked — of tin-foil hatted nutcases spouting things about wavelengths — coincided with an analogy made by an accomplished neuroscientist studying exactly the people you disparaged. Because I have read his book (recommended to me by an atheist, Phil Dennison, by the way), your remark was instantly familiar. It was quite funny, honestly.
You must be joking or in denial. Here is your entire post:
Right, which is why I said “ask yourself”, not ask them. Of course a religious person is going to say that you just aren’t tuned into the right wavelength to hear the voices and see the visions. But as an agnostic, do you really believe that?
You have established a dichotomy between people of faith, whom you have pegged as delusional, and agnostics, whom you have pegged as the voices of reason who ought not to believe what religious people might say. If you intended any point other than that, then your expository skills need serious work.
Lib has a point here, blow. Ramachandran is always keen to stress that the correlation between certain “ultra-synchronised” activity in the temporal lobe with ‘spiritual experiences’ cannot be used as evidence for or against the existence of God. Read this fascinating interview. (Mind you, elsewhere in the book Lib quoted he does state specifically: “We have given up the idea that there is a soul separate from our minds and bodies” and “our sense of having a private, non-material soul ‘watching the world’ is really an illusion” - p.256)
The cause of the spiritual experience, though it correlates with physical activity, might be physical or metaphysical. Similarly, the cause of the activation of the cone cells which send signals to the primary visual cortex, though it correlates with incident radiation of a certain wavelength, may also be physical or metaphysical.
Ultimately, one must choose a physical explanation for both colour perception and spiritual experience (as you or I do) or a metaphysical explanation for both (as Lib does). A dualist perspective, wherein some things have a physical cause and others a metaphysical cause, would appear to warrant a serious mauling for Ockham’s Razor.
Well of course that’s true. But Liberal, as usual, takes the ball and runs too far with it. His first post:
No, he’s doesn’t say the same thing. Lib has pulled a little bait & switch here, first saying that the good doctor supports the idea that one must be tuned to the right wavelength to get visions - then, when I disagree, backing off to the position that there’s “no evidence either way”, and then pretending as though I’m at odds with that position, which I am not.
I don’t see how this relates to my point. The two things are not analagous. Choosing one mind-set over another does not change that fact.
[yawn]
Are you being deliberately obtuse? When one is demonstrating that an analogy is inapt, it is quite appropriate to note that the 2 things being compared are different in a crucial way. I don’t know what to say - I’m stunned that you aren’t getting that.
And you were wrong. Here’s a summary:
Dr. R: “A is analagous to B.”
Blowero: “But A is different than B for reason C, therefore the analogy doesn’t hold.”
Liberal: “Dr. R didn’t say anything about C.”
I mean, DUH!
Nope, not like that at all.
No, it was more like your mental stuttering that kept you from comprehending the argument. You seem to have inexplicably fixated on the first sentence.
Why on Earth are you having so much trouble with this?
Dr. R: “A is like B”
Blowero: “A is DIFFERENT than B”
Short of putting on a puppet show for you, I don’t know how to make it any more clear.
I didn’t mean to take anything out of context. Sorry if I did.
This is delusional.
And again, I will point out that we have OTHER WAYS of knowing that color exists, but we DON’T have other ways (at least not objective ones) of knowing that God exists. I think this is pretty much English I’m writing here, but it seems to fly right over your head every time.
Let’s not, o.k.? Your usual arrogant, condescending bullshit doesn’t help your argument at all.
That’s nice for him, but it doesn’t relate to my point at all.
Yes, in a solipsist way of looking at it, all experiences are identical, simply the result of brain activity. However, there is a real, provable, physical phenomenon behind the experience of color, despite your attempt to divorce one from the other.
Wow, that’s about the worst strawman I’ve ever seen. That’s lame, even for you, Lib.
I meant nothing flippant by that. Perhaps “wavelength” was a poor choice of words. I’ll gladly retract it if it bothers you so much. My point was that many religious folks that I have had conversations with have said things to the effect that you have to be “ready”, or “willing”, or “accepting”, or “chosen”, etc. in order to receive visions from God. THE POINT BEING that only certain people can receive these messages. And I challenged to OP, given what most people believe God to be, if he really believes that such a God would make things that way.
I’m sorry that bothers you so much, but I have just as much right as anyone else to share my views here, so you’re just gonna have to suck it up.
This is utter nonsense. The portion you quoted from the book doesn’t support a theistic view at all. You and Sentient have made it abundantly clear that he is only suggesting that the brain activity in question is neither evidence FOR OR AGAINST God. And now that you have pointed that out to me, I wholeheartedly agree with that. The only minor quibble I have is that I think, to the extent that anyone argues that these visions MUST come from God, the evidence that such visions can come about without God tends to discredit that argument. But again, it doesn’t disprove God.
[quote]
You must be joking or in denial. Here is your entire post:
Right, which is why I said “ask yourself”, not ask them. Of course a religious person is going to say that you just aren’t tuned into the right wavelength to hear the voices and see the visions. But as an agnostic, do you really believe that?
Nonsense. That’s your own personal feelings of persecution talking. Of course I shouldn’t need to bring this up, but I don’t recall ever using the word “delusional”. I abhor this tactic of attributing emotionally-charged words to other people, when they never used those words. You seem to do that a lot, Lib. I mean, for crying out loud, he specifically said it’s a QUESTION FOR ATHEISTS. But you get your panties all in a bunch when an atheist gives his own personal point of view.
Are you claiming that religious people don’t believe that only certain people receive visions, and that it has to do with whether they are qualified (for want of a better word) to receive those visions? I’ve certainly heard many, many people say such a thing. I’m not trying to be flippant at all. If you have a better way to word it, I’d be more than happy to adopt that wording. If it’s just the word “wavelength” that bothered you, I will cheerfully withdraw it. I’m not a theologian, and don’t really know all the jargon for expressing these ideas.
Nope, you just need to get that chip off your shoulder.
And one more thing. Since we got so far off the beaten path, I want to concisely explain my point again.
I think it’s perfectly reasonable for an agnostic, when evaluating his beliefs, to ask himself why a God who ostensibly wants EVERYONE to receive His message, would only impart the message on some people. It’s a perfectly valid question, and implies no arrogance or hostility. But it’s NOT the same thing at all as questioning why only some species see color.
It’s a perfectly reasonable question. You may disagree as to the answer, but I have just as much right to MY beliefs as you do to yours.
This isn’t that complicated. :rolleyes:
“Deluded” and “Insane” are not synonyms, though it’s possible to be either or both.
Amidst much hysterical mudslinging and rather pittish prattle, I think I found what amounts to more or less a retraction. Please keep your wits about you in the future.
Ignoring the MtBJC debate over an irrelevant point, I’m interested in the main question. Because I’m sometimes in a similar situation. I’m an atheist living in the Bible Belt, and I end up talking often to folks whose religious beliefs are deep and sincere.
My response? They might be crazy. I might be going to hell. They might be sane, but operating with faulty information. They might be mostly right, and I still might not be going to hell. They might be dangerous lunatics, and I still might end up a-blazin away for all eternity.
I just don’t know.
Furthermore, I can’t know. Good science, bad science–science don’t enter into it. Science deals with the falsifiable, and God’s existence is simply not falsifiable. It’s not testable.
I can test different things, sure. I just tested the hypothesis that, when I say the prayer “Whippety-whap snapple, give me an apple,” God descends from the heavens to give me an apple (I disproved the hypothesis, if you’re wondering). If your mother insists that the Angel Moroni appears by her bed at 3:33 a.m. in a form detectable by a video camera, you can set up an experiment to test this.
But if she’s not so specific–if she doesn’t phrase her claims in a testable manner–then you’ve got no way of knowing whether she’s right or wrong.
My lack of belief in God is partly emotional and partly rational: I’ve seen no positive evidence for a supreme being that I find remotely convincing, and I’ve got no intuition leading me to believe such a supreme being exists. Other people obviously have different emotional responses, which I can respect; they also have different experiences, or different analyses of the evidence, which I can also respect.
A nonbelief in YHWH is entirely consistent with a respect for the sanity of the religious.
Daniel
What are you, like 7 years old? :rolleyes:
May I gently suggest that you’ve been goaded into a hijack, and that you not rise to it? There’s an interesting thread here, and I’d hate for it to get buried in increasingly aggressive back-and-forth attacks over a point that is not central to the debate.
Daniel
You’re right - sorry. Consider these my last words on the hijack.
There is? Seems to me, since “religious” does not necessarily equal “insane”, the dabate should be declared over before it started.
Hey, I think so. The central question can be reframed, how does an atheist resolve her beliefs with the reported experiences of the religious? I think this is a pretty interesting question.
Many times, when someone tells us they experienced something we consider impossible, we conclude that they’re delusional. When someone tells me (using an example from my own life) that Debbie Gibson beat him up and left him for dead, and that it was only through Bruce Springsteen’s quick action that he survived, I kinda figure the guy I’m talking to is off in lalaland.
Is that materially different from someone who tells me that he sees demons lurking over people’s shoulders, and that only through the powers of Jesus can he keep those demons at bay?
Is that materially different from someone who tells me that he hears Satan talking to him, and it’s only through the power of Jesus that he can keep Satan at bay?
Is that materially different from someone who tells me that he speaks with Jesus at night, and can hear Jesus speaking back to him?
Frankly, I don’t know where to draw the line. Realistically speaking I can’t even disprove the Debbie Gibson guy; that doesn’t keep me from considering him a lunatic. I can’t disprove the demons-on-the-shoulders guy, but I wouldn’t want to be alone in a room with him. The Satan talking guy kind of creeps me out. The Jesus talking guy doesn’t bother me much at all.
Why do I draw the lines where I do? Is my line-drawing rational?
I think that’s an interesting question.
Daniel
I think human beings are prone to illusions, and hence, delusions. Ever stare at moonlight on a lake and see strange shapes like faces reflected in the water? Ever walk into an old, creepy house and feel as if there’s a “presence”? Ever walk through the forest in the pitch dark, hear a twig snap nearby, and think for a moment a giant carnivore might be lurking there, waiting to pounce?
Well, I’ve experienced all those things. To use the latter example, I hear the twig snap, I nearly shit myself, then I wait…what’s there? Do I hear anything else? Yes! But instead of the heavy plodding gait of a bear, it’s more like the furtive rustling of a squirrel rummaging through the undergrowth. Phew! Just my imagination playing tricks on me again.
Some have conjectured we’re designed to experience things that aren’t necessarily there; it keeps us alert and in ready to fight/flee at a moment’s notice if need be. If our ancestors sallied forth into the bush, expecting no more than squirrels, ignored the snapping twids, and got eaten by sabre-toothed tigers, our species might not have been very successful. Better safe than sorry, right? Yeah, maybe you ran like hell getting away from a chipmunk, and maybe in retrospect you feel foolish, but it’s a mistake you can afford to make. If you ignore the tiger, it’s a mistake you won’t make again, that’s for sure.
It’s not hard to think of situations where this tendancy to embellish on experience could go a little overboard.
And if you’ve been raised all your life being told that ghosts are real…well, if you feel that creepy presence, in the old house, where the old guy fell down the stairs and broke his neck, maybe you felt a ghost! And hey, when you decided it was time to scram like Scooby Do, and you were headed for the door, and you saw that white shape out of the corner of your eye, well, it could have been a coat rack with a sheet over it, but maybe it was the ghost! Yeah, now that you think about it, that was no coat rack. No way. That thing had arms, and a head, and two black holes for eyes, you can remember clearly now. Yep, the old house is haunted. It’s the spirit of the old man, lurking in his old home, bereft, lamenting his fall.
You tell all your friends you saw the ghost of the clumsy old neckbreaker. They nod in wonder, cross themselves, and vow never to enter that accursed house. Nobody thinks you’re crazy. After all, they all know ghosts are real. In truth you aren’t crazy.
You’re just wrong. The house was drafty, and the chill was nothing more than a draught of air across the back of your neck. Oh, and if you went back to the foyer (which you won’t do, because you’ll be damned if you set foot in a haunted house again), you’d see a stately coat rack, about man-high, covered with a sheet to keep off the dust.
Cripes, I can niether spell nor formulate a proper sentence. My apologies for another hasty composition above.