# Meenie7's invisible friend **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 22, 2008, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409 "2008-07-22T19:38:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/141 "2008-07-23T15:43:31Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Nah. That remains your opinion. I have no idea whether there is an actual phenomenon that results in people believing that they have had encounters with ghosts, but given that every single culture of which I have heard includes ghost stories, I would not find it improbable that there is some sort of phenomenon (aside from insanity) that causes people to have experiences of “ghosts.” Your absolutist declaration that there can be no such phenomenon with its corollary that anyone who talks about the subject is deluded or lying, is not a “fact”; it is your opinion. [/QUOTE] I assume you don’t accept anything someone says no matter how stupid or far fetched, right? If your kid tells you a ghost ate all the cookies while his fingers are smudged with chocolate you don’t give him the benefit of the doubt, right? No, because you have common sense. If meannie’s bullshit story were true it would be the most significant thing that has ever happened on the surface of this world. What if she was claiming to have invented sustainable cold fusion? Or have intimate knowledge that 911 was a government conspiracy? Or have a symbiotic alien living in her ass? All of those things are way more likely than having an emo spiritform fingerbanging an intarweb nerd. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/142 "2008-07-23T15:59:58Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] Nah. That remains your opinion. I have no idea whether there is an actual phenomenon that results in people believing that they have had encounters with ghosts, but given that every single culture of which I have heard includes ghost stories, I would not find it improbable that there is some sort of phenomenon (aside from insanity) that causes people to have experiences of “ghosts.” [/QUOTE] Will this be posted in a sticky as the new SDMB standard of scientific proof? ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/143 "2008-07-23T16:05:25Z")
[QUOTE=Q.E.D.] :rolleyes: That’s right up there with “I know you are but what am I?” [/QUOTE] Well, I thought it made sense. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/144 "2008-07-23T16:18:41Z")
[QUOTE=Terrifel] Well, I thought it made sense. [/QUOTE] It does, now that I see you’ve explained it. At the time, it wasn’t at all clear and I thought you were saying something else entirely. Comment (and emoticon) retracted. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/145 "2008-07-23T16:22:06Z")
[QUOTE=don’t ask] Will this be posted in a sticky as the new SDMB standard of scientific proof? [/QUOTE] Why not? Whatever your feelings on the subject, he might very well be right. They have, after all, identified a very specific brain region which when electrically stimulated triggers intense religious experiences. [Cite](http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=searching-for-god-in-the-brain&ref=rss). ---
**Author:** ![Mellivora\_capensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mellivora\_capensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellivora_capensis)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/146 "2008-07-23T16:22:39Z")
[QUOTE=Cisco] Your post is your cite? I have no idea who Mister Wang Kan is. [/QUOTE] Mister Wang Kan? Mister Wang Kan? It’s His Royal Highness **Master Wang Ka** , Purveyor Of Fine Yarns, Lord of Tales, Supreme Commander of Tall Stories. Kin hell, kids these days, no respect… ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/147 "2008-07-23T16:23:18Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] I do not see the initial lack of attacks on her or her story as credulousness on the part of the **GD** denizens so much as curiosity. [/QUOTE] You are correct, at least where I was concerned (although the thread had not yet been rezoned as a Great Debate when I posed my initial questions). I was curious of the details of her claim, which **meenie7** mentioned very matter-of-factly. I also think she is either lying or deluded, but I didn’t see the point in berating her, on the off chance she truly believes what she says. The worst thing about her post is that it attracted the interest of **lekatt** , whose return from the light is one of the most unfortunate things ever to happen to this board. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/148 "2008-07-23T16:41:08Z")
> [@OP](#): > > Do you believe in ghosts and the paranormal? > Ghosts, poltergeists, ouiji boards, voices from beyond the grave. > > Whats your opinion? Ever seen a ghost? Has anyone ever taken a genuine photograph of a ghost? Has there ever been evidence that we can communcate with spirits from the “other side”? Do you want to know why I moved it from IMHO to Great Debates? If the OP had stuck with just the first two questions, it might have made a decent poll(with proper supervision, of course). Unfortunately, the last two questions guaranteed that debate would ensue, and since debates on the afterlife usually get hot and heavy, I moved it to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/149 "2008-07-23T16:42:50Z")
[QUOTE=Frank] Is not. It’s actually quite mild. After all, he’s not wishing that **meenie7** die a horrible excruciating death for her different beliefs. [/QUOTE] He never did that. He attacked Snow for his actions not his beliefs and you know that as it was said over and over in the thread. I’m not saying I agree with Dio on the Snow thing but the least you could do is actually try to be fucking honest about his position. ---
**Author:** ![jbstarr10](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5ac83/32.png) [@jbstarr10](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbstarr10)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/150 "2008-07-23T17:22:30Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] but given that every single culture of which I have heard includes ghost stories, I would not find it improbable that there is some sort of phenomenon (aside from insanity) that causes people to have experiences of “ghosts.” Your absolutist declaration that there can be no such phenomenon with its corollary that anyone who talks about the subject is deluded or lying, is not a “fact”; it is your opinion. [/QUOTE] I agree that it is a false dichotomy. But AGAIN - she is not just claiming to experience a ‘ghost’ as we do see in many cultures. She is claimng that a ghost is her BEST FRIEND THAT NOBODY ELSE CAN SEE OR HEAR. I don’t give a hoot what forum it is in, that deserves investigation. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/151 "2008-07-23T17:29:49Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] There are only two options: Lying or crazy. [/QUOTE] How can no one have referenced [this Simpsons classic?](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/7F19.html) Miss Hoover: You see, class, my lyme disease turned out to be [spells it on the board] psychosomatic. Ralph: Does that mean you’re crazy? Student 2: No, that means she was faking it. Miss Hoover: No, actually, it was a little of both. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/152 "2008-07-23T17:30:29Z")
[QUOTE=Labrador Deceiver] Various levels of aggression, when dealing with people who may or may not have certain mental disorders, are functionally different from one another. [/QUOTE] Perhaps, but let’s look at just how aggressive **Dio** has been. In the OP he said: > [@](#): > > I think he’s just making shit up. If I’m wrong, though, he needs help, not humoring. Not all that aggressive, at least the part about seeking help. More of the same in Post 11: > [@](#): > > I debated with myself on starting a pit thread, but if Meenie is making it up, she deserves to be pitted. If not, then she needs medical attention not half-baked “testing.” I suspect that she’s making it up, but if she really believes in this, she should not be encouraged to think it’s real. And in Post 15: > [@](#): > > There are only two options: Lying or crazy. There are no other possibilities. There is no reason to “see where it goes,” because there is no possibility that what she’s claiming has any reality to it. The only thing to determine is whether she needs to be called out for trolling or encouraged to seek help. Humoring her is pointless either way. It certainly doesn’t help her if she’s ill. Stepping up the rhetoric in Post 17: > [@](#): > > Poly’s theory at least has some small naturalistic plausibility to it. An invisible ghost friend does not, and even if you think that Poly’s belief was crazy, it’s certainly no MORE crazy than a ghost friend, so if Poly merited mockery for it, why not meenie? And so on. Nowhere did I find **Dio** demanding, “Hie thee to Bedlam, foul lunatic wench!” Y’see, **Dio** has NOT been particularly aggressive, though that hasn’t stopped some, like **Frank** , being totally out of line with him, so any accusations of his aggression are baseless, at least as far as this thread is concerned. This is not to say **Dio** has not been a total dick in the past, nor is it intended to imply my support if he were to be a total dick in the future. I mean merely that he is not the dick in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/153 "2008-07-23T19:16:36Z")
Now that we’ve established that Dio was only kindly and generously seeking to remind meenie to seek professional help for her own good, I can’t help but wonder _how many times_ he intends to do so. I roughly estimate ten to fifteen posts of his in this thread alone in which he expresses variations on this intent. This is starting to seem like obsessive-compulsive disorder to me. Maybe _he_ needs help. And I promise not to harp on it - one such suggestion is enough. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/154 "2008-07-23T19:23:39Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] And, like **Diogenes** , I don’t believe that any of that stuff happened, any more than I believe that a 900 foot tall Jesus actually confronted Oral Roberts. Such beliefs are foolish and dangerous, and do not deserve respect in any way. [/QUOTE] You know, this thread has inspired me to take another look at the replies to my [“At what point does a person not deserve any respect because of their POV?” thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=475681) In fact, some of the major players here posted there. Which makes me wonder: is calling someone crazy to their face in “public” civil? I assume this is because they believe that the person in question is trolling, and because they don’t know enough about her to counterbalance her (frankly unlikely) story? Though to be fair, **Diogenes** did not dismiss entirely the possibility that he would lose respect for a person entirely because of one belief, just that he wouldn’t _necessarily_ do so. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/155 "2008-07-23T19:26:49Z")
We’re not talking about a belief in this case, though. We’re talking about a factual _assertion_. It’s not somebody saying, “I _believe_ in ghosts,” but “I _talk_ to ghosts.” That’s not an expression of an opinion, but a declarative statement about reality. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/156 "2008-07-23T19:31:53Z")
Hmm, seems a little borderline to me. I see what you’re saying, but I somehow feel like there’s not that much of a line between “I believe in ghosts” and “I believe in ghosts, and there’s one right now!” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/157 "2008-07-23T19:33:38Z")
[QUOTE=Leaper] Hmm, seems a little borderline to me. I see what you’re saying, but I somehow feel like there’s not that much of a line between “I believe in ghosts” and “I believe in ghosts, and there’s one right now!” [/QUOTE] Is there a difference between saying, “I believe Bush was behind 9/11,” and saying “Bush _told_ me he was behind 9/11?” ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/158 "2008-07-23T19:36:42Z")
Yes, but the first thought that strikes me is that the two aren’t totally analogous. But I’m afraid I can’t really express why I feel that way, or if my feeling is actually supportable by logical argument. I’ll have to think about it and get back to you. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/159 "2008-07-23T20:01:28Z")
[QUOTE=Cisco] Your post is your cite? I have no idea who Mister Wang Kan is. [/QUOTE] Sorry, I thought everyone who’s been around since 2002 is familiar with [him](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php?userid=28045) and his stories, virtually all of which he later revealed to be works of fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2008, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409/160 "2008-07-23T20:12:33Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] We’re not talking about a belief in this case, though. We’re talking about a factual _assertion_. It’s not somebody saying, “I _believe_ in ghosts,” but “I _talk_ to ghosts.” That’s not an expression of an opinion, but a declarative statement about reality. [/QUOTE] You’re still excluding the middle. Is it not possible that she’s been conversing with an actual person for the past 8 years but, being unable to find where this person’s voice is coming from, has identified the origin as a ghost? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/meenie7s-invisible-friend/457409.md?page=9)