Do you believe in Ghosts or ghosts of deceased relatives?

[milhouse24]

Has anyone had any encounters with ghosts or the supernatural?

Has anyone had any encounters with ghosts of "deceased grandparents or other relatives"?

Its easy to laugh, scoff, and doubt the ability of the deceased to influence the physical world. 

But I had a weird experience with some money belonging to a recently deceased person I knew. 

i can't help but wonder that the deceased person's spirit can remain in objects he/she owned.  It reminds me of the "Horcrux" in Harry Potter. 

[Tender Branson]

Hopefully they don't exist.

I don't like the thought of my ghostly relatives being around when I watch porn or masturbate for example.

And if they exist, hopefully they have other stuff to do in the meantime.

[Joe Biden 2020]

I do not believe in ghosts.  The only "ghost" I believe in is the Holy Ghost.

[Franzl]

No.

[King]

I'd have to see it to believe it, but I think it could be possible.  However, I don't think it has anything to do with real spirits.

It wouldn't surprise me if there was some sort of leaky universe phenomena where something that happened in the past could break into space/time and show for an instant appear as a vision of something from that exact location at a different moment in time.  Kind of like a wormhole on a minor scale. It's pseudoscience, I know, but I'd like to think something like that was possible.

[Simfan34]

Hopefully they don't exist.

I don't like the thought of my ghostly relatives being around when I watch porn or masturbate for example.

And if they exist, hopefully they have other stuff to do in the meantime.

Too much information, Tender!

[Frodo]

Yes -which is why I prefer not to dabble with Ouija Boards, or join in ghost hunts.  A truly haunted house is not a zoo, folks, and I am sure the spirits within don't appreciate the intrusions.  I have heard stories of ghosts following you home, and I don't want to end up in that situation. 

[Lief 🗽]

What is the distinction between believing in "Ghosts" and "ghosts"?

[Frodo]

Yes -which is why I prefer not to dabble with Ouija Boards, or join in ghost hunts.  A truly haunted house is not a zoo, folks, and I am sure the spirits within don't appreciate the intrusions.  I have heard stories of ghosts following you home, and I don't want to end up in that situation.  

This is the second most ridiculous thing I've ever heard from you, after liking black women.

What's wrong with liking black women?

[rejectamenta]

Supernatural tales are undoubtedly fun to hear and pass along, but that's all they are. Fiction.

[Frodo]

Supernatural tales are undoubtedly fun to hear and pass along, but that's all they are. Fiction.

Until you experience them yourself -that's how skeptics become believers. 

[John Dibble]

Supernatural tales are undoubtedly fun to hear and pass along, but that's all they are. Fiction.

Until you experience them yourself -that's how skeptics become believers. 

The problem is that the believers can never sufficiently demonstrate that what they believe in is actually real and not just a figment of their imagination or something real they have just misinterpreted, whether they are former skeptics or not.

[Frodo]

Supernatural tales are undoubtedly fun to hear and pass along, but that's all they are. Fiction.

Until you experience them yourself -that's how skeptics become believers.  

The problem is that the believers can never sufficiently demonstrate that what they believe in is actually real and not just a figment of their imagination or something real they have just misinterpreted, whether they are former skeptics or not.

Dibble, for all your crowing about scientific proof and the scientific method (and not believing what's in front of your eyes), the moment you experience the supernatural, you will instantly become a believer, whatever your denials to the contrary that you offer to me tonight.  You will never be able to prove to a skeptic that you saw a full-figure apparition with your own two eyes, but you will know it in your heart that what you saw was real -whatever science may say you actually saw.  Who are you really going to believe?  Yourself, or someone who wasn't there when you saw it?

  

[John Dibble]

Supernatural tales are undoubtedly fun to hear and pass along, but that's all they are. Fiction.

Until you experience them yourself -that's how skeptics become believers.  

The problem is that the believers can never sufficiently demonstrate that what they believe in is actually real and not just a figment of their imagination or something real they have just misinterpreted, whether they are former skeptics or not.

Dibble, for all your crowing about scientific proof and the scientific method (and not believing what's in front of your eyes), the moment you experience the supernatural, you will instantly become a believer, whatever your denials to the contrary that you offer to me tonight.  You will never be able to prove to a skeptic that you saw a full-figure apparition with your own two eyes, but you will know it in your heart that what you saw was real -whatever science may say you actually saw.  Who are you really going to believe?  Yourself, or someone who wasn't there when you saw it?

Considering I know that the human brain, including mine, is flawed and subject to error I would doubt I'd be inclined to believe it just because I saw a supposed full-figure apparition. The human brain can pattern match incorrectly all the time, like when people see the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich or faces in any number of objects. I don't deny that people might see things, I just don't have any basis on which to conclude that what they claim to have seen is described accurately in correspondence to reality - "dead person" just doesn't seem very plausible, especially in light of the fact that even after literally millennia of people claiming to have experienced spirits of the dead we don't have one iota of empirical evidence that they actually exist.

If your best argument is "you'll believe when it happens to you!" then you might as well just give up trying to argue anything since you know arguing is pointless.

[milhouse24]

Does anyone have a deceased parent or sibling they were close to?  Do you ever look for signs from a dead mother or father?  

If you believe in heaven or the after-life, then you have to believe that a person's spirit can live on beyond their physical body.  

I was at a wedding for a friend, who's brother passed away a few years ago.  The weatherman said it would rain that day, but when the living brother came outside, the clouds disappeared and it was sunny.  He and his father spoke about their "dead brother/son" being there in spirit and moving the clouds away.  

It may sound silly, or emotional, but if you believe in the after-life, then you can feel the presence of deceased loved ones.  

[Antonio the Sixth]

Dibble is right, to put it short.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

What is the difference between "Ghosts" and "ghosts"?

[Frodo]

Supernatural tales are undoubtedly fun to hear and pass along, but that's all they are. Fiction.

Until you experience them yourself -that's how skeptics become believers.  

The problem is that the believers can never sufficiently demonstrate that what they believe in is actually real and not just a figment of their imagination or something real they have just misinterpreted, whether they are former skeptics or not.

Dibble, for all your crowing about scientific proof and the scientific method (and not believing what's in front of your eyes), the moment you experience the supernatural, you will instantly become a believer, whatever your denials to the contrary that you offer to me tonight.  You will never be able to prove to a skeptic that you saw a full-figure apparition with your own two eyes, but you will know it in your heart that what you saw was real -whatever science may say you actually saw.  Who are you really going to believe?  Yourself, or someone who wasn't there when you saw it?

Considering I know that the human brain, including mine, is flawed and subject to error I would doubt I'd be inclined to believe it just because I saw a supposed full-figure apparition. The human brain can pattern match incorrectly all the time, like when people see the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich or faces in any number of objects. I don't deny that people might see things, I just don't have any basis on which to conclude that what they claim to have seen is described accurately in correspondence to reality - "dead person" just doesn't seem very plausible, especially in light of the fact that even after literally millennia of people claiming to have experienced spirits of the dead we don't have one iota of empirical evidence that they actually exist.

If your best argument is "you'll believe when it happens to you!" then you might as well just give up trying to argue anything since you know arguing is pointless.

Then it is only logical that you're an atheist, since anyone who doesn't believe in ghosts and yet continues to believe that they have a soul, and in God (not to mention Creationism) is a hypocrite.  You can't prove the existence of any of these with any passable empirical proof that you demand.  

Not that I take you at your word that you won't be a believer after an experience, of course. 

[courts]

in all seriousness, yes. in our house we have something that makes foot steps around 3-4 in the hallway outside of my room. nobody is ever up at that time and nobody has a history of sleep walking or anything like that. sometimes i can hear those sounds in my room. it also has a tendency to open my closet door and turn on my light late at night while i'm away at school. or at least that's what my parents and my sister's boyfriend have told me.

[Lief 🗽]

What is the difference between "Ghosts" and "ghosts"?

dude

[rejectamenta]

Then it is only logical that you're an atheist, since anyone who doesn't believe in ghosts and yet continues to believe that they have a soul, and in God (not to mention Creationism) is a hypocrite.  You can't prove the existence of any of these with any passable empirical proof that you demand.  

Not that I take you at your word that you won't be a believer after an experience, of course. 

I don't see why. From an outsider's point of view, I agree that it would be a comical oversight for a religious person to dismiss the possibility of ghosts on the basis of their scientific unverifiability, but they ultimately have no obligation to believe in them.

That's the problem with beliefs that cannot be quantified - you can choose to believe one improbable, supernatural thing and not the other because there aren't any standards to abide by. It's a lawless land where people "know" things to be true or false on whatever basis they deem fit.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Absolutely not.  Its a silly notion that can be rationally explained in any instance of "paranormal encounters".

And as a previous poster pointed out, i would consider dimensions crossing over or a space-time shift allowing a temporary glimpse into another reality as rational. 

As for ghosts as in, visible manifestations of spiritual energy.... Possible, as anything is.  Evidence for it?  Zero.  So no, not a believer.

[Frodo]

Absolutely not.  Its a silly notion that can be rationally explained in any instance of "paranormal encounters".

Are you an atheist?

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Absolutely not.  Its a silly notion that can be rationally explained in any instance of "paranormal encounters".

Are you an atheist?

See modified post; but yes, I am what you would call an agnostic atheist.

Best way to put it is, i dont know... But take me to Vegas and ill put everything i own on "no", same goes with ghosts.

[dead0man]

If they exist they are really good at staying hidden even when "experts" come looking for them.

No, ghosts probably don't exist.