Boy, I took too long writing that.
Lib, the “third party” is right here. You’re allowed to address me.
I realize that, of course. But I have nothing to address you about at this time. Based on history, however, we can reasonably induce that at some point, I will.
If anybody’s still interested:
The word “ghost” turns up in the New International Version of the Bible only in the context of the episode in which Jesus appears to His disciples after the Resurrection–they all immediately assume that He’s a ghost.
However, there is the (to me) extremely spooky story of the Witch of Endor.
The gloss on this is, that Saul, as King, was supposed to have done away with all witches, mediums, etc., because such was God’s Law, but he had grown lax and had not done so. Also, as outlined in I Samuel 15, after defeating the Amalekites, he was supposed to have killed their king, Agag, and destroyed all their livestock. However, he just couldn’t resist keeping some of those nice-looking cows and sheep, saying they would take them home and sacrifice them to God, as if that made it OK to disobey God. He merely took Agag prisoner, presumably for ransom. Therefore, to punish him for his disobedience, God took the kingdom away from him. (The next thing that happens after the battle with the Amalekites is that the Lord leads Samuel to go to Bethlehem and talk to a man named Jesse, who has a whole passel of sons, one of whom is going to be the next king.)
Saul doesn’t question for a moment that what he is seeing is, in fact, the ghost of the prophet Samuel. Samuel starts right in on him practically where he left off, pulling no punches and prophesyin’ to beat the band. “You’re dead meat, King,” he tells him. “By this time tomorrow, you and all your sons will be dead, your army destroyed, and your kingdom handed over to someone else.”
I’d have fallen down, too.
OK, who’s got their concordance out?
How many UFO’s and leprechauns are in there?
Or Easter Bunnies or tooth fairies.
Ghosts ARE a separate phenomenon.
But the Bible isn’t the only truth.
Religious inquiry didn’t start or end with King James.
Where exactly in the Bible do you find proof of goasts? Its not there. Once your dead you dont come back, with one exception which would be at the death of Christ when many people rose for a little time there. And they had bodies so they werent ghoasts. UFOlogy can very well be a cult if allowed to be. People who believe aliens from another planet are visiting us are a little crazy however UFOs are real because UFO’s are Unidentified Flying objects, and Im sure we all see something flying we couldn’t identify. But most of the time THEY ARE PLANES or even secret millitary aircrafts (still planes I know but I stated it seperately).
Eric Wilson
Your question about the nature of the confusion is at the heart of my OP question.
Yes, I have chosen one imponderable to believe, just as some Celtic peoples, I am sure, actually believed in the Little People.
And some atheist, I’m sure, believe in UFO’s but not ghosts.
What is odd is the assertion that if you take anything on faith, that you need to take everything** on faith.
7 said:
Yes, they are.
But they are equally real.
David B., addressing a comment by 7 of 7, said:
Okay, one at a time:
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UFOs are certainly a real phenomenon. And they will continue to be so until somebody comes up with a generally acceptable explanation for the last unresolved sighting. Now, as to whether they are extraterrestrial spacecraft, I’ll have to take a bye on that issue…my meal here is getting a bit krispy.
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Leprechauns? Surviving Ramapithicenes in Ireland? Probably not. I’ll defer to somebody with a knowledge of the Sidhe. I think the Tuatha de Danaan were “real” – in the sense of being a pre-Milesian Irish people that got mythologized all to smithereens. But the only supernatural entity connected with it that I’m familiar with is my friend the six-foot invisible rabbit.
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Easter bunny. I have one Easter bunny sighting to report. My wife and I attended the Easter Vigil on the eve of Easter 1984. When we left church, a cottontail was browsing on the side lawn. As he saw the congregation exiting, he stood at attention and waited until everyone had left, then went about his business. Didn’t leave any eggs, though…just these little brown pellets…
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Tooth fairy? With the increasing commonness of adoptions by gay families these days, I’d venture to guess that there are regular occurrences when a child leaves a lost tooth under a pillow or whatever at night and wakes the next morning to find that a fairy has replaced the tooth with a dollar.
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I reported my one factual ghost story on the thread dealing with ghosts. I think PLD did a pretty fair job of identifying probable causes for the incidents reported.
One quick comment on the terminology here: As I’ve pointed out on religious threads, the terms “faith” and “belief” have a variety of meanings. Nobody “believes in” the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, etc., in the same sense that a devout religionist “believes in” his God(s). There is in the latter relationship a sense of trust and commitment, not just the non-rational adherence to a concept of the entity’s existence that characterizes “belief in” the various hypothetical supernatural phenomena. In short, you are never accosted by seven-year-olds on the street who press tracts into your hand and proceed to tell you how the Easter Bunny will save you, or that Rudolph died for your sins.