I know ghosts can travel among us, since there are plenty of proofs in the Bible, but I have friends who try to extend this to all “odd sightings”. (For some reason they are willing to admit that the tooth fairy and Easter bunny aren’t real.)
Is it me or does Sunday have a flavour all of its own on the MB ?
(flavour = UK spelling)
London: ROFL!
7: There are “proofs” in the Bible, so you “know” it’s true, eh? I don’t suppose you might require anything more than that? Ya know, like, um, evidence?
Anyway, in answer the question that is this thread title – are they all the same thing? More or less. None have any decent scientific evidence. All have staunch True Believers. Is it good religion? Well, I’ve always felt that many UFO True Believers act like it’s a religion already. And you seem to be basing your belief in ghosts on religion. So I guess the answer to that is “yes” also. (Well, I dunno if it’s “good” religion, but it could be religion.)
No! say it ain’t so! :eek:
At least they didn’t include Santa Claus in that group. Phew!
I know that pi equals three precisely. There are proofs in the Bible. :rolleyes:
That’s the problem with accepting the supernatural without question–once you accept one you sometimes end up accepting them all.
Yes, [n]7o7**, UFOs are angels, leprechauns are demons, Elijah went to heaven in a spacecraft.
Did you have something to debate?
The whole point of religion is believing things you can’t touch but have to feel inside.
Sure, some unesplained things are true, but that doesn’t mean that every unexpained thing is true. That would be absurd! How can you think that?
To say all mysteries have equal claim to gravitas is also absurd.
And yes, I ignored Saint Nick. I do believe in saints, like about a billion other people. And I don’t believe in “Latter Day Saints” or Jim Jones or David Karesh being “connected” to God.
Not to imply Saint Nick distributes gifts. That’s wrong. But there are plenty of saints who are real and help regular people with daily problems. There are some saints that are claimed to be myths, but I’m sure at least some of them are actual people, where some of the background has been muddied, but just because the Pope of Rome can’t confirm a saint doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist in the Othodox list. Religious scholars cannot know the whole truth and disagree, but they know a great deal of the truth and do agree on that. There is more truth to be found, and that is the whole point of religious inquiries.
What is supernatural about a book?
I can’t touch my spleen, but I can feel it moving around inside of me sometimes and believe it’s there…wow, it turns out I was religious after all. I’ll be damned. 
You might care to give us some references on the “Bible tells me there’s ghosts” thing–it generally helps for all us heathens to actually see the quote, since we haven’t read it ourselves.
Though it strike me as funny–I bet if Jesus decided to come back today, he’d probably be crucified again (figuratively) by some of the Christina groups, without them even knowing who it was…ahhh well.
That, and the guy couldn’t be comfortable coming back to find the instrument of his “death” on top of 10,000 different buildings, and around the neck of millions of people.
“hey guys, you know, I’ve kinda had some not-so-fun experiences with those things before–you mind putting them away?” 
Are they making the point that if a person believes in the Bible, with it’s miracles and unproven events, then it’s hard to rule out other unproven things like ghosts or UFOs? I can see their reasoning. Though, I don’t think it’s required that to believe in one, you must also believe in the other.
In other words, taking the bible on faith is viewed as “truth”. So why can’t people take lepracauns or goddesses on faith and have it also be “truth”? Neither have been proven and both seem rather fanciful to modern-day sensibilities. So how do you know one is right and the other isn’t.
Sorry, Lib, there was a bit of a disconnect there.
Beakerxf said it well–once one accepts the “ghosts” of the Bible, the demons, the fiery chariots, what’s to keep them from accepting you-fos, the tooth fairy, and those oh-so-touching angels?
For those who see the contents of the Bible as supernatural, any supernatural belief can be justified.
To the OP, Yes. Belief in ghosts, leprechauns, and UFOs is in my mind all the same thing. As a religion it’s neutral. Is it “good” Christianity? AFAIC, that’s between you and your God.
-andros-
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Must… lay… down…
Ouch…
Yer pal,
Satan
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Andros
Why is that not a slippery slope assertion?
Because I stated that I didn’t believe that faith in the bible thereby required faith in other things. I merely stated that I see faith in the bible and faith in alternative religions as being equal, especially since none has been proven to be better than other. I feel that it’s not “unacceptable” to have faith in a goddess, multiple gods, or even lepracauns.
So there was no slope to go down in my point.
7 said:
Yeah, and? Are you making the claim that this is the whole point of ghosts, too?
You apparently are living in a mirror universe in which you somehow read my message and got a meaning exactly the reverse of what I was saying.
beakerxf
Then I submit that your point was (not doubt inadvertently) misrepresented.
There is a difference between A “…once one accepts the “ghosts” of the Bible, the demons, the fiery chariots, what’s to keep them from accepting you-fos, the tooth fairy, and those oh-so-touching angels?”, as stated by Andros, and B “I merely stated that I see faith in the bible and faith in alternative religions as being equal…”, as state by you.
A = “If X, then the next step is Y”
B = “X = Y”
There is an IF THEN quality to my post, however you are assuming that the other belief are “unacceptable” thereby making it a slippery slope.
IF belief in Bible is “truth” without proof THEN belief in a Goddess has an equal chance of being “truth” without proof.Both rely on faith and unsubstantiate writings and theories. To me the two belief systems are equally acceptable because neither do harm (unlike pedophilia or bestiality which are the always favored slippery slope arguments.)
So what I posted was an IF THEN statement, but not one that went down an ever worsening slope.
However, if I had posted: "IF belief in the bible is “truth” THEN belief in human sacrifice is “truth”
That is a slippery slope argument.
Also, I was disagreeing with the OP’s friends who claimed the IF THEN meant that to believe in the bible meant that belief in non-biblical things were then required. That is not a viable IF THEN statement. The belief systems are completely separate from each other.
Thanks for the clarifications. I should have read your original statement, and not a third-party representation of it.
Well, no, Lib. While I might well have misrepresented beaker slightly (sorry if I did, cap’n), there’s no slope to slip.
From your link, “In order to show that a proposition P is unacceptable, a sequence of increasingly unacceptable events is shown to follow from P.”
IOW, it’s only a slippery slope argument if the events are increasingly unacceptable. I really intended no judgement on the acceptability of the events themselves, and was indeed simply presenting them as being (to some people) equivalent.
Many people, as we see from the OP, cannot differentiate between the ghosts in the Bible and Casper, between Elijah’s chariot and a You-fo. You might see a slope–that is, you might see the demons and spirits of the Bible as true while believing Hill House-esque spooks to be untrue (increasingly unacceptable).
As I was trying to say from the beginning, for the willfully ignorant, there is no real difference between supernatural entities. You know the difference between a Biblical ghost and the Tooth Fairy. Some do not. Unless the distinction is taught, folks will continue, once they believe that “ghosts can travel among us,” to “extend this to all ‘odd sightings’.” And those folks will swear that UFOs and knock-three-times poltergeists are Biblical.