Reading this thread got me wondering, is there actually anyone who posts on here who thinks there’s the possibility of ghosts existing?
Seems to me in every “ghost” topic on here, there’s one of two kinds of people:
People who, at least, say there is a possibility that ghosts may exist in some form, in some way, maybe.
People who say ghosts don’t exist, at all, period, with 100 percent surety.
What say you? Are you a 1 or a 2?
I’m leaving out “3. People who actually do believe forms of ghosts exist for the most part” since I wouldn’t expect anyone to actually outright admit to it on this board.
Me, I’m a 1 myself. I throw “ghosts” in with life somewhere else in the universe, the idea of a god, and other unexplained phenomenon: It COULD be. Who knows? I’m not one to ever say anything is totally impossible.
I don’t understand people who say “Oh, yeah, it exists” with any degree of certainty…but I don’t understand people who say “No, it doesn’t exist” with certainty either.
Keeping in mind that nothing is objectively impossible, I’d say there’s no reason at all to think there is any plausibility to ghost stories as they are usually told and understood. If there were any nonphysical component to people, the idea that it would just hang around places the person liked to visit or where they died or that it would try to finish the good old unfinished-business-from-life is kind of ridiculous and it’s a sign that these are stories we tell ourselves because we’re looking for a way to deal with the concept of death.
Let me state clearly right now that I’m not one to say ghosts exists. I just am not one to say they don’t exist, for sure, either. I’m more of a “eh, who knows?” guy.
That being said, one thing I always wondered about those people who say with 100 percent surety that the supernatural things don’t exist is: What would they consider as evidence to the contrary, then?
I mean, really, what couldn’t be explained away, every time?
Pictures? Tricks of light! Double exposure! Or even a doctored, photoshopped fake.
Videos? But videos can be altered too and faked.
Eye witness account from someone else? Meh, people hallucinate and dream and are just plain crazy. Oh, and they lie, too.
Personal eye witness account with another person or in a group? Okay…who’s pulling a fast one? Someone’s trying to pull everyone’s leg with a trick.
Personal eye witness account alone? “Wow, I must be more tired than I thought…I’m seeing things”. Days later: “I couldn’t have seen what I thought I did. My mind was just playing tricks on me.”.
See what I mean? To people who are so sure that supernatural things don’t exist, nothing would ever BE considered factual evidence. There would always be a way to explain what happened.
So I guess I’m wondering…to those who are so sure the supernatural doesn’t exist because it “hasn’t been proved”…how WOULD one go about proving it scientifically factual it if all you’re going to do is explain away anything they ever offer as proof?
I dunno, I think that “It doesn’t exist…FOR SURE!” is just as crazy-sounding as “It does exist…FOR SURE!” in regards to things we just don’t know about.
Yep.
So my next question is…what would be evidence to you?
Actually, since I don’t own a car, I can say no for sure. : p
And I said:
Bolding mine.
Things we don’t know about not being things like “Will there be an elephant waiting for me when I go into my bedroom?”. That is something people would know about since we know elephants can’t fit through a small window and hippos couldn’t fit into a car.
Things people, worldwide, don’t know about–for sure–would be “Does life exist somewhere on other planets?”
I’m a 1.
It’s a great big noisy beautiful universe, people who claim that if it’s not in their book it doesn’t exist make me nauseous. It doesn’t matter if they’re waving a science book or a religious book.
The power of hallucinations, hypnosis, mass delusions, and deja-vu confusions are very great and may explain many ghost sightings. So count me as one who thinks the likelihood of real ghosts is less than 0.0001%.
(But although I think Jesus was only human, I am inclined to believe the stories of his healing “possessed” people. In those days, hallucinated illnesses were common and the Gospel stories are just what one would expect if he were a particularly adept hypnotic healer.)
I have my own personal ghost story, though it didn’t involve a sighting. Rationally, I assume it was just a coincidence, but the odds against the supernatural-seeming response I witnessed seem to be a trillion-to-one.
This forum is dominated by liberals and they are known believe in such BS, so I’m sure you will find some that do (but will they admit it here?).
“Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics.” The liberals also more often believe in astrology. Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths | Pew Research Center.
I think there’s an inherent problem in asking this kind of question. It’s like asking ‘Does magic exist?’ The only framework we have to answer it is a scientific one, even if perhaps in a broad sense of simple systematic observation. However, most people would probably agree that the question isn’t amenable to scientific study – magic isn’t supposed to be scientifically explicable; if it were, then it wouldn’t be magic (and that’s the reason magic generally disappears in the lab…). So, we can answer this question – at least in any kind of systematic, objective manner – only if its answer is ‘no’!
It’s like trying to find an unfindable thing: you can of course go looking for it, but if you find one, then it wasn’t really unfindable.
I believe that there is something we call ghosts which we haven’t managed to explain yet. Maybe it’s like a quantum thing and the act of trying to measure it nullifies what it is you are trying to measure?
On a scale of 0 - 10, where 0 is “Gollum is a real person” and 10 is “I am typing this post”, ghosts would be about a “3”, God, as depicted by all major religions, would be a “0”, Bruce Lee being killed by Shaolin Monks would be a “1” and that we are not the most sentient creatures in the universe would be a “10”.
I hope that clears up this matter once and for all.
Translation: the Republicans are overwhelmingly rabidly Christian and will shoehorn any goofy beliefs they have (mystic or otherwise) into their version of Christianity. Which is itself “BS”. While the Democrats, not being as fanatically Christian, are more willing to treat non-Christian BS as just that, non-Christian.
I disagree. There’s no reason to think that magic or ghosts would be immune to scientific investigation - if they actually existed. Science hasn’t tried to figure them out and failed; it simply hasn’t been presented with an example of either to study at all.
If they’re defined as being impervious to scientific reasoning, then of course they are; and I think that in general, either explicitly or implicitly, that’s exactly how they are defined. Think about stage magic: for each seemingly impossible feat, there is a good and sufficient explanation; that’s precisely what sets it apart from ‘real magic’. Now if anybody gives you an example of supposedly real magic, and you manage to find a good explanation, do you think they’d still call it magic?
Magic disappears when you explain it, which of course only means it was never there in the first place. If you explain the inexplicable, then well, it couldn’t have been inexplicable in the first place, could it?
Some would, yes. Just look at the popularity of stories that contain both magic and an attempt to explain it. “Science can’t explain it” is mainly an excuse to handwave away the fact that there’s no evidence for magic; if someone really could summon up demons or throw lightning by mumbling some words few people would mind if science could explain how it was done.
Is “magic” another catch-all term for something that science cannot account for? I consider the acts of Penn And Teller, Kreskin, Derren Brown, etc, as entertaining deception.
Well, maybe not Derren Brown… he’s a spooky geezer!
I think that feature of ghosts makes them somewhat more plausible.
They’re reported as though they are just some sort of after-image; not a sentient being.
In the linked thread, the woman’s recently-deceased husband is sat in a chair apparently doing nothing. That woman must realise that if her husband had visited her, he wouldn’t do that.
To be clear though: I am a skeptic and even if I saw a ghost I’d assume I was mistaken/hallucinating. It’s the much more likely explanation.
My personal experience: I have talked to maybe 2,000 people over 10 years about their experiences with ghosts. Roughly 3 out of 10 will admit to seeing one. Out of those, 100% of their experiences occurred:
in the bedroom, coming out of the bedroom, or on the bed
at night
while sleeping, being woken up, or while falling asleep.
The only conclusion I can make out of these conversations is that they must be dreams.
Also, children tend to believe in ghosts more than adults. Every single elementary school in the world has a haunted bathroom. This number drops for middle schools and high schools.
However, I did meet a real medium. Her explanation is that it is a gift that runs in families. Those who have the gift cannot teach those who don’t. I don’t.