# Why do so many people believe in ghosts (and other paranormal)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 29, 2013, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802 "2013-07-29T10:55:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/21 "2013-07-30T02:18:07Z")
[This is a video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12rP8ybp13s&list=PLA0C3C1D163BE880A&index=3) from a former Christian-now-atheist. (By the way, it’s a great series and you should watch it from video 0 – Overview) Why bring that into this thread? Because I think what that video says for God applies to ghosts and paranormal things as well. There’s no “magic bullet” that defeats the concept of “ghosts”, and people don’t operate on a strictly rational level. Even if you attack all the logical concepts, there’s still the problem that people they know, love, and trust believe it. People, like parents, who have been authorities in their life that they want to trust believe it. Basically, as the video says, belief in the paranormal is a “mega-belief”, it’s not as if people reasoned their way to beliving in ghosts (most of the time), their entire life and state of mind is constructed in such a way that it takes a large number of attacks on the belief from many directions over a long period of time to really stick. And oftentimes, some of these “nodes” of belief are things like the belief in God and souls and heaven, and at this point you’ve got a belief that requires defeating an even bigger belief to get rid of (because now you have to make them question their belief in God, souls, and heaven **and** their belief in ghosts). ---
**Author:** ![Werekoala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7993a0/32.png) [@Werekoala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Werekoala)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/22 "2013-07-30T03:05:54Z")
It’s deeply ingrained in our subconscious. Maybe a survival mechanism from bygone days - see or hear something you don’t know, fight-or-flight! But I’ve seen or heard things in the past that set my heart to racing and the hairs on my neck standing as surely as if I were the most superstitious of primitives, and that fear/alertness/fight-or-flight instinct kicks in hard, regardless of how “rational” we may believe ourselves to be. Skepticism is easy on a keyboard, or in a brightly lit room, but when your instinct and your body tells you strange things are afoot at the Circle K - you can’t avoid the reactions. I’ve seen ghosts. I’ve felt them. I’ve heard them. As said above, though, which side of the skull where they on? Something to ponder when you remember that your entire perception of reality is utterly subjective and dependent on your senses and your ability to reason based on their input. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/23 "2013-07-30T03:28:48Z")
We’re not that sophisticated. We’re just clever monkeys that figured out how to wear pants. People lie a lot, even just to spice up a mundane anecdotes, let alone supernatural stuff. Have you ever caught someone lying about something totally stupid? Did you ever try to confront them? Probably not a pleasant experience. And that’s just for some random bull. No way they’ll budge on seeing Casper in their kitchen. Plus it’s something to extrapolate to when you’re scared or creeped out. Haven’t you ever felt like you were being watched, even though you know you’re alone? Or you’re in a dark place and it just feels like there’s a presence nearby that you can’t quite reach, just beyond the fog of darkness, or maybe around the next bend? ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/24 "2013-07-30T04:56:04Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > We’re not that sophisticated. We’re just clever monkeys that figured out how to wear pants. Maybe **you’re** just a clever monkey. I, on the other hand, am a canny ape thankyouverymuch! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/25 "2013-07-30T10:27:52Z")
> [@Werekoala](#): > > It’s deeply ingrained in our subconscious. Maybe a survival mechanism from bygone days - see or hear something you don’t know, fight-or-flight! But I’ve seen or heard things in the past that set my heart to racing and the hairs on my neck standing as surely as if I were the most superstitious of primitives, and that fear/alertness/fight-or-flight instinct kicks in hard, regardless of how “rational” we may believe ourselves to be. > > Skepticism is easy on a keyboard, or in a brightly lit room, but when your instinct and your body tells you strange things are afoot at the Circle K - you can’t avoid the reactions. > > I’ve seen ghosts. I’ve felt them. I’ve heard them. As said above, though, which side of the skull where they on? Something to ponder when you remember that your entire perception of reality is utterly subjective and dependent on your senses and your ability to reason based on their input. A few other people have said something like this too. I get this. I’ve been freaked out a little by things. When my brother told me he broke into an abandoned asylum, my first thought was “fuck that”. But that’s at the time. A day, or more, after the creaking floorboards and torrent of blood in the elevator, I can’t see myself believing it was anything other than my own fear and imagination. But perhaps this is because I don’t want to believe in ghosts. I’m quite possibly as stubborn in my refusal to believe in them as anyone else is stubborn in their insistence that they exist. In the case of the parents I mentioned in my OP, I can only assume they encouraged each other, to some extent. I don’t think they’re lying. They reported a lavender smell accompanied by at least one of them suddenly feeling sad. I think there was something about some stuff disappearing and reappearing. I suppose if you live in one house and a few unusual things happen, it’s much easier to blame something about the house than recognize that these are all happening in the same place because you’re there all the time. And there’s the usual embellishment older people seem to like. Plus if they tell the story together, details are probably going to change even faster and they’ll each start to think they remember parts of the other’s story, even if they never witnessed it. The other anecdote was from his sister. Her daughters were playing some kind of game in a bedroom, as kids do. Later, at dinner, they mentioned they’d been playing in their rooms with some little boy called Johnny.\* Turns out there was a kid called Johnny who used to live in the house and broke his neck on the stairs! :eek: Mostly embellishment/lying there, I expect. \*I don’t remember the name. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/26 "2013-07-30T15:01:48Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > So you think the majority of claims are simple lies? > > I originally started thinking about this because I wondered why almost any somewhat interesting fact or story I hear turns out to be a myth, or at least an exaggeration. I barely believe anything interesting I hear now, until I’ve had a chance to ask the internet. People believe in ghosts because they have seen ghosts, the same with other paranormal phenomenon. People have experienced these things and that makes them real. No thousands of people do not lie or misinterpret, they just experience. Now the materialists think no exists but materialism, count them wrong. I have been amazed at the Long Island Medium show on TV. She is dead on and her metaphysics is the same as what new death experiencers experience. If you don’t have an open mind about the world you live in you are missing more than half of what you see. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/27 "2013-07-30T15:15:17Z")
That is Poppy cock from credulous sources **lekatt** , virtually all ghosts tales point to untimely, unfair deaths. Tales of love also cut short in a seemingly unfair way. There is no place, in the developed world at least, so full of those deaths as the freeways and roads of places like the USA. In Phoenix, for example, a few roads have the nickname of “highway of death” **they should be spook central**. There are no nicknames related to spooks there as cases of reported ghosts are virtually absent. ---
**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:** [July 30, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/28 "2013-07-30T15:20:55Z")
People believe in ghosts because ghosts are real. Not real in the sense of a physical presence, but real in that the souls of the departed that live on in the minds of those still inhabiting the earth. So for those who still hear and see those who are no longer physical beings (or in some cases never were) it’s easier to believe they have some independent reality outside of their own minds. That, and some people will believe just anything. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/29 "2013-07-30T15:31:29Z")
Ghosts do not exist the way people describe them. They would violate the laws of science. How could a ‘ghost’ see or hear without eyes/ears, neural pathways and a physical brain to process the info? Why isnt Auschwitz or the city of Berlin a ghost orgy obvious to everyone? What exactly is it about an asylum that would draw ghosts but not an ordinary hospital where people actually die? ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/30 "2013-07-30T15:52:26Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > One time, when I was laying in bed on the boat out here where I work, I heard my father, clear as crystal call my name “Drew!” Even just typing that gave me shivers because the experience freaked me out so badly at the time. Was my father astral projecting to me, calling out to me in some spiritual/supernatural sense from Oregon where he lives? Or was it just me laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, and I had a very intense auditory hallucination? I have frequently heard my wife calling my name from out in the kitchen or elsewhere in the house while I was lying in bed not quite asleep, despite the fact that she was in bed asleep herself. Auditory hallicination, not astral projection. ---
**Author:** ![Pixel\_Dent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@Pixel\_Dent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pixel_Dent)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/31 "2013-07-30T15:56:07Z")
Obligatory XKCD reference [Settled](http://xkcd.com/1235/) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/32 "2013-07-30T16:00:36Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > Maybe **you’re** just a clever monkey. I, on the other hand, am a canny ape thankyouverymuch! :mad: [Pratchett, Stewart & Cohen](http://www.amazon.com/Science-Discworld-Terry-Stewart-Pratchett/dp/B003T3Y10U/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1375199984&sr=8-2&keywords=science+of+discworld) would say, “storytelling chimpanzee,” or _Pan narrans._ ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/33 "2013-07-30T16:16:21Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > [This is a video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12rP8ybp13s&list=PLA0C3C1D163BE880A&index=3) from a former Christian-now-atheist. (By the way, it’s a great series and you should watch it from video 0 – Overview) Why bring that into this thread? Because I think what that video says for God applies to ghosts and paranormal things as well. There’s no “magic bullet” that defeats the concept of “ghosts”, and people don’t operate on a strictly rational level. Even if you attack all the logical concepts, there’s still the problem that people they know, love, and trust believe it. People, like parents, who have been authorities in their life that they want to trust believe it. > > Basically, as the video says, belief in the paranormal is a “mega-belief”, it’s not as if people reasoned their way to beliving in ghosts (most of the time), their entire life and state of mind is constructed in such a way that it takes a large number of attacks on the belief from many directions over a long period of time to really stick. And oftentimes, some of these “nodes” of belief are things like the belief in God and souls and heaven, and at this point you’ve got a belief that requires defeating an even bigger belief to get rid of (because now you have to make them question their belief in God, souls, and heaven **and** their belief in ghosts). I am about half-way through this video set. I feel the author is humble and honest about his feelings. I will finish the series, but I can see a parallel with my own life and I have been shown a different path in this world. Christian into atheist into spiritual knowledge of love. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/34 "2013-07-30T16:21:31Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > That is Poppy cock from credulous sources **lekatt** , virtually all ghosts tales point to untimely, unfair deaths. Tales of love also cut short in a seemingly unfair way. > > There is no place, in the developed world at least, so full of those deaths as the freeways and roads of places like the USA. > > In Phoenix, for example, a few roads have the nickname of “highway of death” **they should be spook central**. There are no nicknames related to spooks there as cases of reported ghosts are virtually absent. Not all people become ghosts when they die. Only those who have an irrational attachment to someone or something still in the physical. The percentage of ghosts to those who die is very small. ---
**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:** [July 30, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/35 "2013-07-30T16:27:45Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Only those who have an irrational attachment to someone or something still in the physical. Almost, except it’s those in the physical with the irrational attachment. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/36 "2013-07-30T16:35:25Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Ghosts do not exist the way people describe them. They would violate the laws of science. > > How could a ‘ghost’ see or hear without eyes/ears, neural pathways and a physical brain to process the info? > > Why isnt Auschwitz or the city of Berlin a ghost orgy obvious to everyone? > > What exactly is it about an asylum that would draw ghosts but not an ordinary hospital where people actually die? I don’t think ghosts care about the laws of science. > **[Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=ghost%20picture%20car%20wreck)** ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/37 "2013-07-30T16:39:19Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I don’t think ghosts care about the laws of science. > > [Google Search](https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=ghost%20picture%20car%20wreck) Predictably, this is turning into a hijack. The OP asked why people believe in ghosts. Stick to that subject. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/38 "2013-07-30T16:43:05Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Almost, except it’s those in the physical with the irrational attachment. Sure, but, what can you do? Or, put another way, who you gonna call? ---
**Author:** ![Shearer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/57b2e6/32.png) [@Shearer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shearer)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/39 "2013-07-30T16:43:58Z")
1. a lot of people are paranoid 2) a lot of people are bullshitters Surely if there were ghosts they would be everywhere you look? and animal ghosts too ---
**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 30, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802/40 "2013-07-30T16:47:12Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Sure, but, what can you do? > > Or, put another way, who you gonna call? [Ghostbusters.](http://zerobs.net/media/james-randi.jpg) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-believe-in-ghosts-and-other-paranormal/664802.md?page=3)