Do you believe in ghosts?

The sensations a person goes through in a near death don't in any way serve as proof that ghosts exist, or even increase the likelihood. I've had an out of body experience that lasted nearly an hour. I was awake during the whole thing. It was caused by a mixture of ketamine and LSD (don't try this at home!). I didn't wonder until much later why it was I couldn't see my neck during the experience, even though I had the vivid sensation that my head was floating a few feet over the rest of my body. Did I have an experience caused by altered perceptions due to chemicals in the brain or did I stumble onto proof that the proper combination of ketamine, lsd, and blue freezer pops causes necks to mysteriously elongate?

The desire to see a connection between out of body experiences and the notion of a soul is cultural, based on (in this case) judeo-christian ideas about the nature of death and what happens afterwards. I assume when you speak of ghosts you mean a disembodied soul that lives on after a person's death? Others might define it differently, but ask anyone to define what a ghost is and the answer you get will be based in their religious belief system (traditional or new age). You can't seperate religion from life after death, spirits, or souls. They are part and parcel in my opinion.

Thank you for suggesting this is an opinion, and not proven fact.

When I asked about believing in ghosts in this poll, I wasn't trying to verify their existence. No matter what others think ghosts are isn't my interest in this thread. I want to get an idea of where people are in their beliefs. That's why I choose to show the names of those who voted. This gives insight into other debates. Now, when I read someone's opinion(who participated in this poll) I get a better understanding of their regard to other possibilities yet unexplained.

Those who outright regard any possibility of ghosts as silliness would not be open to any unproven hypothosis until much evidence is compiled, imho.

Another thread on the perspectives of faith and science.

I would like to point out that you are all ghosts to me. You are incorporeal inhabitants of a strange, "not-life" medium, text that emerges on my screen whenever I go to a certain place in a land called "internet", where the rules I am used to simply don't apply. Reading the texts, it seems like there are entities of some sort behind it. But I really don't know, because I've never actually seen or touched anyone here - and made the material connection. And some of the ideas expressed are so strange, they seem hallucinatory....

What's really frightening is to go into a world called "Second Life" and see the makers of these strange texts turned into stiff, inhuman, insubstantial avatars that appear and disappear at will. It's enough to make me lose faith in science....

This is a false statement presented as if it were fact. It's unrepeatable anecdotal data at best and an urban legend repeated as fact at worst.

~Ulrika~

There are books that study the fact of the data spoken of. Read some of the books that study this issue. Rather than rejecting it out of hand, wouldn't it be scientific to explore the possibilities?

Or would the possiblity of it being true cause a hardship in the people who reject the notion of spirit?

To say one is scientific is to say one is always learning, and nothing is impossible until proven to be impossible. To suggest one has the absolute truth, and that truth is there is nothing more than what we currently know, is to stop learning and investigating our environment. Once we stop learning, we are no longer taking a scientific approach. If we say "there is no spirit" we have closed our minds to what is possible.

Scientific tests of your anecdotal data have been performed ad nauseam and shown to be unrepeatable every time. Visit this great site for information.

One can tell this is an urban legend simply because the state of the art in the field remains fixed at the level of anecdotal data. Whereas fields that are scientifically valid expand over time (neurology, physics, psychology, pharmacology, biology, chemistry, etc.) this field has not changed. It persists as an urban legend propagated by untestable anecdotal claims, nothing more.

~Ulrika~

This I highly doubt. In fact, *any* reproducible, testable evidence would be enough to convince most atheists and make converts of them all.

Recall that most atheists already believe in such fantastic, unseeable things like electricity, thermonuclear fusion, and software upgrades. The question is this: are all truths testable?


Critical thinking skills are one thing, but it's the starting point of the atheists that I find surprising. There *is* a spiritual nature to this universe, at least for anyone who has self-awareness. Whatever the underpinnings - gods or atoms - I can't say.

It's the abject pessimism of classic atheism's starting point that surprises me most. The universe has been a constant source of wonder. A vast complexity full of a trillion trillion stars (or more) - the wonders of chemistry, biology; from entangled states of particles to our very selves.

If anything, Occam's Razor regularly fails us on a cosmic level. Sure, in the classical limit, hoofprints mean horses not zebras. But on a regular, consistent basis the universe is found to have zebras. Perhaps we are living in an era with a Uniformitarianism hangover.

Overall it seems that for hundreds of years, even within science, the rule is to expect the unexpected. While "prove it" may mean that you get good results in the end, it says nothing about basic presumptions beforehand. General scientific consensus has been utterly foolish in more than one century.


And for those with unshakable faith - the 'truth' may be even more unsettling.

Would anyone disagree that there are at least 3 billion believers on earth? If one dogma is true, all the rest are unshakably dead wrong.

Where everyone gets their absolute surety is a complete mystery to me. In a way, I am envious.

One thing I've noticed about ghosts is that they tend to argue both sides of an arcane issue in the most nebulous terms, desperately trying to lend substantiality to ephemeral and passing things. Their passion is only matched by their lack of weight - a condition of the irreality of their existence, I suppose.

What we have here is a thread full of ghosts screaming: "I jes' wanna be real!"

What if atoms are really an elaborate conspiracy propagated by the masonic lodge and the world really is made up of tiny angels? Woahhhhhhhhhhh.

Is it pessimistic to find plenty of awe, wonder, and inspiration in nature as it is, without having to embellish it with invented tales of souls and ghosts and gods? To me, it's those who feel that life isn't grand enough for them without having to profess belief in the supernatural that are the true pessimists and cynics. These kinds of anthropomorphic decorations that people try and tack on to reality are like those embarassing little sweaters that people force their otherwise cute dogs to wear. They don't change the nature of the dog. They just make it look rather silly.

I can appreciate that view. That's not my issue. I'm focusing on the fact that everyone is so *sure* of their viewpoint even in the face of incomplete evidence.


The presumption by many of the atheists (it seems) is that all truths are testable. Must I deny my own sense of consciousness because it is not measurable?

I suppose though, I should at least for discussion's sake 'pick a side'. Toss me in with the spiritualists.

I observe that we are 'ghosts' within ourselves, a profoundly obvious, personal, unquantifiable experience long defying any straightforward proof.

If there is a starting point for rational thought, it had better well include the common everyday experience of us all. What else is there? Rejection of a god is one thing; rejection of one's very sense of self (apparent only to the self, perhaps?) seems... silly.

Afterlives, ghosties, deities and such notwithstanding - I'll confess extreme doubt with regard to some of the wilder tales, but denying the existence of spirit within the universe doesn't add up to me. It's like trying to define a dog by way of the gas laws, technically flawless perhaps but really missing the concept entirely.

- Desmond "Spook" Shang

Actually....I don't know how much I agree with the whole near death experience bright light visioney thingey. Here's why.

Have you ever had a local "haunted" place? I.e. the graveyard where the old man walks around? Or the Black Angel? Or the witch hung during a witchunt? Or the old deserted house that the family all got murdered etc etc? Well I can almost guarantee that if you go there late at night, you're going to see, hear, feel something. Why? Because you are expecting to.

Sooo, if I almost die, and I have heard stories of the white light over and over and over, wouldn't I be almost expected to also see the white light?

Is it so hard to conceive that consciousness is a product of the brain through purely natural processes? I think leaping to the supernatural for explanations of things we don't fully understand stems from a lack of imagination and patience, a closed rather than open mind, and a thorough selling short of the true complexity of the natural world.

See, even with this, sorry, I can't buy the whole light, warm welcoming yadda yadda experience. Because, well, our brains are capable of a lot more than we give them credit for. This _has_ been proven. What's to say that at certain levels of consciousness, we can hear and remember what is said far away? I mean, while conscious we filter out all sorts of noises and sounds and overheard conversations.

I can't even support the near death experience biblically, for the simple reason that if God/Christ wanted us to know what was going to happen upon death, in detail, it would be in the Bible. It's not. Therefore *shrugs*, when I think solely from only my Christian perspective, I still can't buy it.

*pats Seth on the head* aww, you're real, I believe in you.

I disagree everything God wants us to know is found in the Bible.

Unless your God communicates with you directly (which it does not because it does not exist), you're fabricating your religion on the fly to answer unanswerable questions.

~Ulrika~

Okay. To further explain, I also believe that when a person dies, at that point in time (because God's time is different than Man's time, etc etc), it is Judgement Daaayy *cue ominious tones*. Now Christ in Matthew says "Many will tell you that they know the time, the place, the why of the end. But no one but my Father knows" (this is paraphrased as I am at work and do not carry my Bible with me everywhere). Now, if this is the case, and death is the end, the finality, Judgement Day, so to speak? then the white light and stuff, directly contradicts what Christ says in Matthew.

I also don't believe that everything God wants us to know is in the Bible, and had you read any of my other posts, you would have known that as well. It was a statement with more behind it, as explained above that I didn't explain at the time.

This can further highlight what I was saying in my previous post.

I know this game. I call faker on you.

Game? Faker? ok, dang it, ya got me...

I think I found a good religion for you, Chip.

-Ghoti

hehe, everyone needs a hobby I guess. The only thing more annoying than believers, are non-believers who turn their disbelief into a religion!

No, you don't.

Actually, none of you believe in "God". Now, you may believe in

Your own personal jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there....

Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver

.... But your concept of God (or a Christlike "forgiver", my concept, his concept, her concept, are radically different, no matter what religion, ideology, professional ethic, or skeptical regime you think you are a member of. Subjectivity invades this topic like no other, because it literally provides the foundations of hope, self-definition, and the will to survive for all of us.

We all have a God, and none of us have a God. My God is not your God, and yet all of our Gods are the same God, believers or no.

One indication? The fact that in these threads the definition of God is so narrow, and yet so flexible, as to render any argument or conclusion absolutely meaningless - whatever the side, whatever the point being made. We seem to accept the rather rigid, simplistic Christian definition of God as the starting point, but even Christians cannot agree on a characterization; the differences between the Catholic, Coptic, Baptist, and Mormon Gods, for example, are profound - to say nothing of the eastern idea of a "one animating spirit", or the concept of dynamic creation as God ("God is in the details", or any one of a thousand other perceptions.

So what can we say about these kinds of topics? Very simple, actually: "Belief is God." Pure, simple, elegant... and scientifically testable.

There. Done. As I've stated before, I do not accept donations.

Actually the Bible says the dead in Christ are waiting, and they are told to wait.

That would suggest they haven't arrived at Judgement day yet. I find nothing within the Bible to suggest the end of the fleshly body is judgement day except for where Paul says to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord. And my understanding is that isn't evidence of judgement day. The idea people see Christ upon death is verified by many who are revived from death. However, no one has come back suggesting they were going through judgement. Paul never says judgement day follows death of the flesh.

The way I understand scripture is there will be tribulation as never before seen on Earth, then there will be the a gathering of those who will participate in the battle of Armagedon(sp). Christ wins the battle and throws satan and his minions into the bottomless pit, where they spend nearly 1000 years. During the 1000 years Christ is to rule the Earth in perfect harmony. Then Satan is loosed again, gathering his supporters for the battle of Gog and Magog. In this battle the saints are nearly defeated, when God comes down and wins the day.... etc etc..

This is what I have gleened from my personal reading of scripture concerning the end times.