Do you believe in ghosts?

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  • Posts: 1,314
    How come ghosts are always like something out of a Charles dickens story, or look like Walter Raleigh, or a grey lady, whatever

    You never see a ghost dressed as a clown do you. Or hear about a haunted bouncy castle. Or a body builder ghost.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 17,728
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Ah why must you resurrect this thread? Let the dead sleep. ;-)

    Why not resurrect it?

    I believe it has been my most successful thread ever on this community, so I have no problem with it at all!

    What can I say? I read the Fortean Times. Guilty as charged!

    I do need to share some of my own stories from my family at some stage in the not too distant future. That, in the end, is why I do still believe that ghosts and other paranormal activities do indeed exist.

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Ah why must you resurrect this thread? Let the dead sleep. ;-)

    Why not resurrect it?

    I believe it has been my most successful thread ever on this community, so I have no problem with it at all!

    What can I say? I read the Fortean Times. Guilty as charged!

    I do need to share some of my own stories from my family at some stage in the not too distant future. That, in the end, is why I do still believe that ghosts and other paranormal activities do indeed exist.

    Must I unleash @TheWizardOfIce on this thread? Must I? ;-)

    Dragonpol, I'll be happy to read your stories, my good friend, and I will try to suppress all urges to convince you that plausible explanations within the physically possible no doubt exist. :)
  • ThunderpussyThunderpussy My Secret Lair
    Posts: 13,384

    Time for another ( Totally Real and not Faked in any way ) Ghosts
    caught on camera videos.
  • Posts: 1,386
    My wife and I noticed a little oddity when moving into our first apartment together that must have slipped past us both when we were looking the place over. The door leading into the only bedroom in the place had clear markings left over from a sliding lock installed by the prior occupant on the outside of the door to keep something (or someone) inside that room. I'm not sure I believe in ghosts but I can't deny I would get any uneasy feeling in that room. Late at night with the darkness creeping in I would reassure myself someone had just been trying to hide a pet, but I've never seen a dog open a door they'd have to pull. Even now that we've left that place there's something very unsettling to me about that door--something very unsettling about all the unanswered questions I have and the morbid possibilities that sliding lock leaves me with.
  • edited July 2017 Posts: 12,242
    I doubt anyone will believe me, but something unexplainable happened to me one time when I was just sitting in my bedroom.

    My door was completely wide open (basically touching the wall), and if you are inside of my room opening the door, it opens towards you. Absolutely no one was there, no open windows/vents are near there (so couldn't have been that kind of force), and the door just slowly closed itself almost all the way. Most paranoraml-ish thing I have seen personally, and since then (been at least a year ago now) nothing has really been odd in my house like that. I have absolutely no explanation for that but it was totally bizarre and scary to me. It did happen - but unfortunately, I have no proof.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Matt007 wrote: »
    How come ghosts are always like something out of a Charles dickens story, or look like Walter Raleigh, or a grey lady, whatever

    You never see a ghost dressed as a clown do you. Or hear about a haunted bouncy castle. Or a body builder ghost.

    That wouldn't help tourism of bouncy castles, though. The trick is to start a business in a town that's old, or that's near a "spooky" castle, then create ghost stories to flock people there for mondo $$$. Which isn't hard, considering some folks will walk into a centuries old house with dying foundation and say they hear a ghost when the floorboards creak or the wind slips through crevices in the walls to create the sound of a voice from beyond in the spiritual plain. Flickering lights isn't bad wiring, but the ghosts playing tricks, and feelings of fatigue are signs a ghost is feeding off your energy and not because your body is being manipulated by electric fields in the area. It's 100% foolproof science.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449
    Three steps to becoming a ghost fearing ignoramus:

    1) Oh no, I've heard or seen things I can't immediately explain.
    2) Now I have to think and I prefer not to.
    3) Hey, there's an easy way out of this: ghosts!

    But didn't you get the memo? Ghosts are so pre-1900. Ever since we've been talking about Mars and such, aliens ("UFO") are much more in vogue. And don't forget possession. That always works too. And if you're American, you're in luck. You will actually find a larger-than-average amount of fellow countrymen who will no doubt agree with you. (Land of the brave!)

    I'm so sorry if I come off as arrogant or anything but this is ridiculous. We've been hunting ghosts for thousands of years and not once has a decent case been built to confirm any of it. Science has built satellite networks, sent space probes to beyond the solar system, probed the atomic nucleus to smaller regions than a billionth of a billionth of a meter, demonstrated the existence of creatures smaller than a µm but responsible for many plagues and demographic recessions (unlike an act of god), ... Ghostbusters have only hearsay, suspicious youtube films, optical illusions and the ultimate of proof: a gut feeling. It could be harmless were it not that entire massacres are justified from the belief in some of the most self-indulgent ghosts the world has never actually seen, going by the name of J and M.

    The very concept of ghosts is ludicrous. The dead come back as transparent spectres from a realm which escapes all our senses, our technology, our probes, ... yet if they want to, they can manifest themselves as something we can hear or see or "feel"--yes, the eternally trustworthy "feeling" people have--requiring a physical reality or else that would be impossible. Unless of course when it's convenient to pretend they are somehow disconnected from our physical reality, and so on and so on.

    A word of advice for the ghost fearing ignoramus: you'll have to come up with much more than 5 minutes on youtube or some old picture to convince those of us who are actually educated in the laws which govern our physical reality. Also, the joke's on you. So grow the hell up, you're too old for santa or the tooth fairy!
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    FoxRox wrote: »
    I doubt anyone will believe me, but something unexplainable happened to me one time when I was just sitting in my bedroom.

    My door was completely wide open (basically touching the wall), and if you are inside of my room opening the door, it opens towards you. Absolutely no one was there, no open windows/vents are near there (so couldn't have been that kind of force), and the door just slowly closed itself almost all the way. Most paranoraml-ish thing I have seen personally, and since then (been at least a year ago now) nothing has really been odd in my house like that. I have absolutely no explanation for that but it was totally bizarre and scary to me. It did happen - but unfortunately, I have no proof.

    Dimi wants to know if you think it was Santa or the Tooth Fairy who did it.
  • Posts: 14,799
    @FoxRox This "experience" is at best equivocal. A door closing or opening is not exactly conclusive evidence of a supernatural activity, let alone that the spirit of a dead person took the fancy to play with the door for some reason.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    @DarthDimi, as I've stated before, I think it all connects to hopefulness and warm thoughts, for both ghosts and religion (which interconnect).

    It's not only cool to imagine that ghosts are real, making life seem like the craziest and most mind-boggling experience known to man where nothing ever ends, but it's also comforting for folks to imagine that when people they love die, they can come back. That is the basic and really only worthwhile function for a heaven, as well. Life is rough and often throws dark things at you, so why not tell oneself that in the end it's all glory and white clouds and pearly gates where all the people you've lost will be yours again?

    For those like you and myself who prefer to be realistic with our expectations and choose not to be manipulated by flights of fancy or delusional idealization, it becomes important to live life with clarity. A life spent in the service and search of true knowledge and cold hard reality is all the better than one in which that knowledge and reality is foregone or ignored because one is too afraid to take the human experience as it really is, warts and all, accepting that our time is limited and there are no retries.

    I think there's a far greater comfort in awareness and truth than there is in seeking sanctuary in ancient ideas and symbolism that demand one doesn't think about them, lest they collapse in on themselves. Better to go to a doctor for surgery when one has cancer than to hope you can pray it away. More advisable to live your life in the service of your own freedom of choice than to worry what a man in the clouds thinks of your every decision. Probably a more humane idea to help someone in need than to simply keep them in your prayers when they face a tragic time.

    It's amazing that, in 2017, these arguments still need to be defended. And with reality TV and the public fixation on meek entertainments (bread and circuses in the modern era), I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Reality television has eroded whatever reality the bible hasn't.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I went to college. That should answer the question posed by the thread's title.

    I dunno, @Birdleson, it could be pretty ambiguous. If you went to a haunted college your answer would be different than if you went to an non-haunted one.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I forgot about that.

    I know my old college's library is haunted by the screams of all the kids who failed out in their last year after being unable to successfully research their dissertations. That's why dreaded red "F" grades are called "The letter of Death" there. As a failing student thinks of all their years' work going down the toilet and the promise of their rising debt in the face of a poor final project, they die through the grief alone.

    I got straight As for my last projects, so I can't comment on this theory, but I do remember hearing someone say, "It's an F!" in a spooky voice from between the bookcases as I returned a library book once. I wish I'd have recorded it; I'd be a viral YouTube sensation.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    edited July 2017 Posts: 23,449
    @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 and @Birdleson
    Discussions with ghost believers always remind me of that line Chuck Heston spoke in the original Planet Of The Apes:

    "If this is the best they've got around here, in six months we'll be running this planet."
  • QuantumOrganizationQuantumOrganization We have people everywhere
    edited July 2017 Posts: 1,187
    Only ghost I believe in is @TheWizardOfIce.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449
    @TheWizardOfIce is a god in his own way, sir.
  • QuantumOrganizationQuantumOrganization We have people everywhere
    Posts: 1,187
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    @TheWizardOfIce is a god in his own way, sir.
    Sound like something a cult follower would say.

  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Only ghost I believe in is @TheWizardOfIce.

    He is known to haunt the patience of many an MI6 member. I've still got scars from our many encounters, and he's known to possess members to make them seem like trolls, leading to the mods banning them. Cruel business. I was going to call the Ghostbusters to take care of him, but they're all a bunch of obnoxious goofball feminists now.
  • Posts: 19,339
    Only ghost I believe in is @TheWizardOfIce.

    He is known to haunt the patience of many an MI6 member. I've still got scars from our many encounters, and he's known to possess members to make them seem like trolls, leading to the mods banning them. Cruel business. I was going to call the Ghostbusters to take care of him, but they're all a bunch of obnoxious goofball feminists now.

    We could try hiring a priest to exorcise him maybe ?

    imgres-1.jpeg

  • QuantumOrganizationQuantumOrganization We have people everywhere
    Posts: 1,187
    Only ghost I believe in is @TheWizardOfIce.

    He is known to haunt the patience of many an MI6 member. I've still got scars from our many encounters, and he's known to possess members to make them seem like trolls, leading to the mods banning them. Cruel business. I was going to call the Ghostbusters to take care of him, but they're all a bunch of obnoxious goofball feminists now.
    Lol.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited July 2017 Posts: 17,728
    Birdleson wrote: »
    I went to college. That should answer the question posed by the thread's title.

    I did too - twice and for five years in total. I have a Masters in Law, yet I still believe in the unexplained and that science does not have all of the answers.
    Only ghost I believe in is @TheWizardOfIce.

    Well, he's a wizard anyway.
  • Posts: 4,599
    How can anyone "beleive in the unexplained". Its simple fact that there are many things that the humns species has yet to explain. Science does have all the answers. Its just that we have not learned to use science well enough to find the answers or we have massive disadvantages (re time and distance) regarding fact finding.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited July 2017 Posts: 17,728
    patb wrote: »
    How can anyone "beleive in the unexplained". Its simple fact that there are many things that the humns species has yet to explain. Science does have all the answers. Its just that we have not learned to use science well enough to find the answers or we have massive disadvantages (re time and distance) regarding fact finding.

    Or that science is an inadequate means to explain everything. What's to say scientific theories are right for all time? They're right until someone else comes along and disproves them. They were thought up by man, hence they are fallible and subject to change. It's therefore not something I would have 100% faith it, yet many treat science as the Gospel used to be treated.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 23,449
    Correctly put, @patb. And the intellectually lazy thing to do would be to seek solace in the arms of ancient, Medieval superstitions.

    There are
    1) things we know
    2) things we don't know yet

    but the latter provide no excuse for superstitious, magical, religious, ... thinking; they demand patience.
  • edited July 2017 Posts: 4,599
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    patb wrote: »
    How can anyone "beleive in the unexplained". Its simple fact that there are many things that the humns species has yet to explain. Science does have all the answers. Its just that we have not learned to use science well enough to find the answers or we have massive disadvantages (re time and distance) regarding fact finding.

    Or that science is an inadequate means to explain everything. What's to say scientific theories are right for all time? They're right until someone else comes along and disproves them. They were thought up by man, hence they are fallible and subject to change. It's therefore not something I would have !00% faith it, yet many treat science as the Gospel used to be treated.

    Gravity existed way before Newton found a way to express it, evolution existed before Darwin found a way to express, DNA existed before etc etc..all things exist before humans show an interest. There were theories that the World was flat, those theories were wrong and we move on to better ones. Our expereince of science is to come up with theories and do our best to prove or disprove (unlike religion) we do this by research and gathering more facts. Nothing wrong with disproving theories, its part of growing up. We should embrace this as its a sign we are moving forward. History tells us that scientists are far more flexible in dumping bad theories and moving on compared to those who abondone science and look to hocus pocus junk.

    PS you dont have to have faith in science, its just there.
  • 0BradyM0Bondfanatic70BradyM0Bondfanatic7 Quantum Floral Arrangements: "We Have Petals Everywhere"
    Posts: 28,694
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    patb wrote: »
    How can anyone "beleive in the unexplained". Its simple fact that there are many things that the humns species has yet to explain. Science does have all the answers. Its just that we have not learned to use science well enough to find the answers or we have massive disadvantages (re time and distance) regarding fact finding.

    Or that science is an inadequate means to explain everything. What's to say scientific theories are right for all time? They're right until someone else comes along and disproves them. They were thought up by man, hence they are fallible and subject to change. It's therefore not something I would have !00% faith it, yet many treat science as the Gospel used to be treated.

    Science never declares itself as the absolute decider of truth, however. It's all about asking questions over and over and finding ways to answer them, as well as reevaluating old answers to see if they stand up to the tests of time. The ever questioning scientist is the polar opposite of the man of faith, who thinks little and clings to the hope of something being true without supporting it. A scientist can get nowhere without fact or data that supports their end goal or hypothesis.

    "They were thought up by man, hence they are fallible and subject to change. It's therefore not something I would have 100% faith in."

    Are we still talking about science here, or every religious text known to man? ;)
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited July 2017 Posts: 17,728

    "They were thought up by man, hence they are fallible and subject to change. It's therefore not something I would have 100% faith in."

    Are we still talking about science here, or every religious text known to man? ;)

    No, as religious texts are thought up by the Deity the said religion worships and has faith in, not by man, though he may be responsible for its transcription.
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,371
    I've always said I'll immediately become a religious, God-fearing man for the rest of my days if someone can give me factual proof that God exists, but nobody has taken me up on the offer!
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited July 2017 Posts: 17,728
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    I've always said I'll immediately become a religious, God-fearing man for the rest of my days if someone can give me factual proof that God exists, but nobody has taken me up on the offer!

    Christianity as a religion that depends on faith. it is why the Christian life is so difficult to live up to. If it was that simple, everyone would follow it. I think that these two passages from Scripture sum it up best:

    Hebrews 11:1King James Version (KJV)

    Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.


    John 20:29 (KJV)

    Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
  • Posts: 19,339
    Dragonpol wrote: »
    Creasy47 wrote: »
    I've always said I'll immediately become a religious, God-fearing man for the rest of my days if someone can give me factual proof that God exists, but nobody has taken me up on the offer!

    Hebrews 11:1King James Version (KJV)

    11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.


    John 20:29

    Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

    I believe.
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