# Post your ghost stories here, and I will debunk them **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674 "2010-06-18T14:53:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/221 "2010-06-19T01:12:00Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > There are no anecdotes in the research, just good science. Just because the mods called me names and insults, doesn’t make it less real. Do you really think a hundred scientists working at over a dozen universities, publishing their research in scientific journals would do so for over 35 years if it was just crap? It is because it is good research that makes skeptics and atheists so mad at me, and remember I didn’t do the research just posted about it. Speaking as a scientist, I have to comment that a hundred scientists at a dozen universities doesn’t make something crap or not crap. The science can be bad. The results can be a dead end. The theory can fall to bits. They can find nothing. Or the science can be excellent, and there can still be nothing worthwhile at the end of it. Science involves going down a hell of a lot of blind allies, sometimes for years - even decades. So just because it is being investigated doesn’t mean it’s true, or valid, or anything really. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/222 "2010-06-19T01:25:14Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > What would prove that your god doesn’t exist? I don’t know. Seriously I have tried to prove or disprove the existence of God for 20 years now with no luck, let me know if you do any better. > [@](#): > > There is evidence to that effect gathered every moment of every day. Good people die. Good people suffer. Evil people prosper. Disease wracks the innocent. Prayers go unanswered. Churches burn. The sick die. Yeah this is a sticky problem because if God has a morality that distinguishes between the baby born with original sin and Charles Manson’s level of sin then why do babies die of starvation while Charles Manson gets three hots and a cot in prison? Then is this a God we can rationally love or one that we can only rationally fear? Sure it might all even out in heaven and hell but if God’s ways are so mysterious then how can we say we know anything of God’s will at all. Perhaps he wants us to abort babies to fill up heaven faster, who the hells knows. I didn’t reach my faith after studying the issue and deciding that I would believe in God and the Christian God in particular, it was kind of thrust upon me. > [@](#): > > There is nothing that actually supports the existence of your god except self delusion. That might be right. If I could provide concrete proof of God’s existence, I wouldn’t need faith. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/223 "2010-06-19T01:29:48Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What would lead you to believe that your deity doesn’t exist? Maybe i need to say this slower… I…don’t… know. I suppose if it could be proven man and life on earth was created by aliens tampering with the primordial soup and then periodically dropping by to tweak the genes of a species of a hairless monkey to make them sentient enough to become servants or allies in the future, then I think it would shake my faith. I really don’t know. If you come up with anything, let me know. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/224 "2010-06-19T01:31:47Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Look, Damuri, about your talk with Jesus. > > You were being a dick. > You were tired of being a dick. > You went to a church because you were so tired of being a dick. > While you were in the church, you told yourself to stop being such a dick. > And you believed yourself. > And since you stopped being such a dick, your life has been much better. > > It’s a pretty simple story. What is there to explain? What is there to debunk? Jesus in your story was like the Wizard of Oz handing out courage and heart and brains. You had the power to stop being a dick all along. You think I haven’t thought of that. I thought perhaps I took some religious references out of my childhood and had a hallucination that my sub-conscience felt I needed to have (kind of like a psychotic break with reality that was disturbed by someone tapping me on the shoulder). I tell myself that all the time but like I said, I was pretty hedonistic in my youth and I have had vivid hallucinations before and it was never like this. ---
**Author:** ![starryspice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@starryspice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starryspice)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/225 "2010-06-19T01:32:38Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Yes they are. They are the arrangement of pigments on a canvas. > > You can if you arrange it right. I’m really not following you here. > > It didn’t come from anything. It was constructed and arranged from existing materials. I’m addressing the consciousness=brain issue, this post has nothing to do with ghost stories. I don’t have time right now to read the rest of the thread, but I think that you’re misunderstanding the question, Diogenes. I could be wrong, but I think Cisco is asking, where does the _concept_ of art come from? Yes, from a bunch of raw materials, you can make a painting. But where did you get the idea for that painting? Your response will no doubt be along the lines of, synapses fired in your brain. But the point here is why did those synapses fire the way they did? Where does the inspiration for an artistic/musical/scientific idea come from? I think the answer is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Individual synapses fire, sure, but their firing is organized somehow on a higher level. Meditators often say that they “watch” their thoughts, which implies that there is something in our consciousness or soul or whatever that is not just the mind. I would agree with you that the mind is purely in the brain, and it is perfectly possible for the mind to go away. But the watcher? I’m not so sure the watcher goes away. By the way, while it is perfectly possible that some of the “ghost stories” are imagined or made up, I really don’t find “you imagined it” to be a convincing debunking of a story. Not if we use debunking as it is defined in the dictionary. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/226 "2010-06-19T01:38:09Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > How is God an explanation for anything? That is, how does “God did it” actually explain anything. I’m having a bit of trouble here. So let’s say that you believe that God explains the origin of the universe. What exactly do you mean by this? God _caused_ the universe to _be_? Like through sheer force of will? I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but mostly I think God is an explanation for an experience I once had. > [@](#): > > If so, that’s not really an explanation - it’s an assertion about the cause of something. There is no elucidation on how God _created_ the universe on any basic level. I suppose that a zippo lighter might look like magic to primitive man, an airplane might look like magic to mideival man, does the fact that we can’t explain it mean that it didn’t happen, of course not. But I am not as committed to the creation myths as I am to the notion of deism. I don’t understand why everything is the way it is. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/227 "2010-06-19T01:43:16Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > There was a time it did, since many early scientists worked under church auspices and felt they were glorifying god by learning more about god’s creation. They don’t have to be adversarial, however, because religious people can still do what I just desribed. But at the moment that’s not where most of the discourse is. The religious right does not represent religion. Other than the abortion issue, I don’t see a whole lot of daylight between the Democratic Platform and Christianity. The Democratic party is much more in line with Chirsitan values than the REpubican party (if we ignore the abortion issue). I live in DC and I know a lot of folks at the National Institute of Health (a pretty scientific group) and I would say that most of them are religious. When I lived in Los Angeles, I lived in Pasedena and JPL had a pretty active Christian contingent. I think science is wholly compatible with religion (not just Christianity but all religion). > [@](#): > > From the story we’ve been told, I don’t think the evidence supports the idea of a set up. Didn’t that poster come back and reveal that his brother admitted he set it up when he was confronted? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/228 "2010-06-19T01:49:29Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I do this all the time - it’s the first step in a proof by contradiction. > > Axiom 1: assume that God exists. > Axiom 2: assume that if God existed, 90% of people would believe in him. > Step 3: from 1 and 2, it is the case that 90% of people believe in God. > Step 4: note that no single religion controls more than about a third of humanity, and that’s taking very big-tent views of religion. > Step 5: from 4, it is not the case that 90% of people believe in God. > Step 6: 3 and 5 contradict - therefore at least one of our premises is wrong. > Step 7: since Axiom 2 is incontrovertable (heh), we have just proven that it is not the case that God exists. > > Obviously in real life nobody believes that 90% crap, but this is the argument form of a proof by contradiction, and arguments of this type like the POE do indeed disprove the existence of God. (For some definitions of God, anyway - the Flying Sphagetti Monster remains undisprovable, and is in fact the most plausible god ever imagined.) Where do you get axiom 2 from? I said that 90% of humanity believes in higher power, not the same one and they may all be wrong but between 90% of humanity that believes in higher power. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/229 "2010-06-19T01:54:21Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > Not for me it doesn’t. Mostly it makes me wonder if our reality is in fact a computer game. Leading to the question “How should I live my life if this is a computer game?”. Don’t the Hindu’s believe we are all part of Vishnu’s dream ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/230 "2010-06-19T01:55:57Z")
Why do spiritual manifestations never appear to non-believers? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/231 "2010-06-19T01:59:11Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Can I say that it’s impossible to fly by flapping your arms, is that dogmatic? Can I say that anything at all is physically impossible without being dogmatic? I see no reason to be namby-pamby. If someone says they’ve invented a perpetual motion machine, I know they’re either mistaken or full of it. There is no chance that they’re right. We know that some things are reasonable possibilities and some things aren’t. Ghosts are not. Why pussyfoot around about it? Well we know enough about aerodynamics to know that you can’t fly by flapping your arms. We know that perpetual motion machines require the absolute elimination of friction which we can prove is impossible. We know that ghost (the disemodied essence of a once living human being) cannot exist because…? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/232 "2010-06-19T02:02:09Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > We know that ghost (the disemodied essence of a once living human being) cannot exist because…? …there has never been any objective, falsifiable evidence produced to support their existence. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/233 "2010-06-19T02:05:44Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Believing in God is _exactly_ like believing in Thor or Zeus. Yeah, like I said, I wonder that sometimes too but you seem to leave no room for the possibility that you are wrong. > [@](#): > > There is **literally no difference** between the two of you, except that your god makes less sense than theirs. I think that the closer we get to understanding God, the harder he becomes to understand. > [@](#): > > Believers in God are so unable to make sense of their diety that they have started taking _pride_ in its ineffability. To some extent this is true. One of the last lessons of Jesus Christ was when he appeared to his disciples after his resurrection and Thomas stuck a finger in his wound (hence the phrase doubting thomas) and Jesus exhorted faith without proof. > [@](#): > > It’s not. You may go home and mind your own business without trying to convince anybody of anything, if you like. But if you want us to stop thinking that you believe in fairy tales then yes, the onus is on you to convince us, because why should we just take your unsupported word about something so ridiculous? I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I mentioned Jesus and got ganked by half a dozen folks who seemed ot take it as a personal insult that I have faith. ---
**Author:** ![Blut\_Aus\_Nord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Blut\_Aus\_Nord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blut_Aus_Nord)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/234 "2010-06-19T02:06:17Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > We know that ghost (the disemodied essence of a once living human being) cannot exist because…? Because the government would have found some way to tax them by now. ---
**Author:** ![Strinka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/strinka/32/512_2.png) [@Strinka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strinka)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/235 "2010-06-19T02:13:39Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > You think Rivendell actually exists? I still don’t get your point. You can discuss things that are imaginary. So what? That doesn’t mean they exist. > > You think it doesn’t? How are we even talking about it? How about this? Trees (or whatever, it doesn’t really matter much what) exist. Our abstract mental representations of trees (including the word “tree”) exist. They exist as structures and processes in our brains. But the abstract mental representation of a tree is not the same thing as a tree. Nor does the existence of a representation imply the existence of the thing it represents. We have mental representations of hobbits, but hobbits don’t actually exist. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/236 "2010-06-19T02:14:42Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Of course they do. But your post illustrates that it’s still a problem theists have to explain because if the universe didn’t exist, what was god existing in? > > And please notice that I’m trying to steer this conversation back toward ghosts. I’m not going to forbid discussion of god but I would appreciate it if you’d stick toward the general topic rather than continuing to this into a debate about religion. Yeah, I only got off on the religion tangent because I was wondering if Jesus counted as a ghost. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/237 "2010-06-19T02:17:41Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Why do spiritual manifestations never appear to non-believers? Most of them become believer afterwards? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/238 "2010-06-19T02:30:23Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > …there has never been any objective, falsifiable evidence produced to support their existence. So we know that intelligent life does not exist anywhere in the universe except here on earth as well right? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/239 "2010-06-19T02:43:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So we know that intelligent life does not exist anywhere in the universe except here on earth as well right? There is no evidence that it does. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/240 "2010-06-19T02:49:16Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > There is no evidence that it does. Not all that much evidence of it here on earth either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674.md?page=13)