God vs Ghosts

[pikachu69]

Can you believe in ghosts but not in God?

Ok, so let me explain a little because at first glance I think most people would say 'well yes, dont be stupid of course you can, I do'. Or something similar. But please read on.

By that I mean can you justify believing in ghosts but not in God. Obviously this is more of a philosophical question than anything else but it interests me none the less.

You will fall into one of the following 2 catagories:

1) You are not a religious/spiritual person, by that I mean a person that does not believe in a higher power of any kind etc, an athiest (in effect, you know what I mean I hope) which means you also dont/can't believe in life after death.
Birth. School. Metallica. Death Magnetic.
We live, we die.

2) You are a religious/spiritual person that either believes in God directly or indirectly. If you say 'I don't believe in God in the classical sence, I believe there is something out there but not 'God'' then you still do believe in something and still qualify as being religious/spiritual in a sence, in my eyes at least to simplify this. Just humor me.

So, If you fall into catagory 2, you are then intitled to claim belief to many things, the after life being one of them, and this then qualifies you to believe in the possibilty of ghosts/spirits as it goes a long way to explain the possibilities of the exsistance and sightings of ghosts.

But, if you fall into catagory 1 then you really are saying that when we die there is nothing. Nothing happens. Nothing. We are just physical beings going about our lives until its over then we get thrown in the ground to rot. There is no after life and no such thing as a soul that lives on.
So how can you explain a ghost?
thats not nothing. Its nothing much, but it is still something is it not?
How can you possibly explain the exsistance of a ghost (if you have seen one yourself) while maintaining the belief there is no God/afterlife?
Does this then mean seeing a ghost is proof that the afterlife is real so therefore proof that God exsists?

Im not going to say which catgory I am in, I just want to hear your thoughts.
I will say I have never seen a ghost.

Discuss.

 

[roy22341]

Fun fact: Neither exist. "Seeing a ghost" is as easily explainable a phenomena as "seeing the Virgin Mary" - there's no difference, they're both hallucinations or tricks of the mind. It's just a sad state of affairs that there so many "ghost hunter" shows on TV that masquerade their bullshit under the name of science because they have some high tech cameras.

Check out "The Believing Brain" by Michael Shermer.

Edit: I'm in category 1. When we die there is NOTHING.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

Being part of the category 1 person, I can say that I have never really had a full on ghost encounter where I have seen a full figure in my sight (not peripheral). With that I do not believe in ghosts what so ever as like mentioned in category 1, do no believe in an afterlife. I have never personally had any full ghost experience nor have I met anyone with an experience, nor have I seen video on the internet or TV that have been substantial evidence of ghosts or other paranormal activity. Most if not all incidents can be explained either by hardware malfunction or simple hallucination. You have to remember when we are in the dark we fear the idea that there may be a predator out there that we can't see, that very fear can cause your mind to play tricks on you and make you see things that aren't there for numerous reasons. Other than the fear of being prey and putting your mind on a mental alert, when you are in the dark, your brain isn't being stimulated as it normally would be, including aural and visual. Our brains do a good job of replacing a lack of stimulus with something that isn't really there, including tinnitus when you are in a quiet room and seeing flashes of light or other figures in the corner of your eye. Other things can cause hallucinations as well including land with high amounts of iron, bad electrical work, and being subjected to other forms of high levels of radiation which can cause a number of things including hallucination, depression, fatigue, anxiety, a sense of panic or danger etc.

I suffer from Migraines and typically I will know when one is on its way when I see what appears to be someone walking wearing all white or black, and when I look over no one is there. Like clock work about 10 minutes later I will start having symptoms of migraines. I don't think, oh I am being haunted by ghosts and their negative energy is giving me migraines, rather I think, I have a medical condition that causes me to see things that aren't really there because my brain is not working correctly. the human brain is very flawed and it makes mistakes quite frequently, multiple times on a daily basis. If i saw a ghost in front of my eyes, and it stayed there for a few seconds, said something and then came at me and actually attacked and harmed me, then I would believe in ghosts, but to this day, no one can say with proof of this ever happening so I will continue to dismiss seeing things in the corner of your eye when its dark and you are scared and orbs on an IR camera.

 

[~BURNY~]

There is no god nor ghosts.
There's a Batman.

 

[drew_drummer]

Both are absolute BULLSHIT. Anyone who says otherwise is delusion and needs raping by a crowd of spastics.

 

[pikachu69]

See thats the thing for me, I have never had an experience of any kind but I know several people who are very dear friends of mine (including my wife) that have had quite significant experiences, and they have nothing to gain by lieing to me. Not all happened in the dark either and many included physical harm or objects being moved. I am in two minds myself but I am conflicted. It should be obvious by now that I am in catagory 1 but I have always been curious about ghosts because of the stories I have been told by so many people with such similar experiences.

Any one had an experience they want to share?

 

[pikachu69]

Anyone who says otherwise is delusion and needs raping by a crowd of spastics.

I will let my wife know you said so. I live in a small town though so it might be hard to organise.

 

[drew_drummer]

they have nothing to gain by lieing to me

That just displays your massive ignorance of basic psychology.

 

[SocialNumb]

Nope, don't exist. Period.

 

[John_C]

Anecdotes =/= evidence => assume no God or Ghosts

 

[Mutant]

Scientific approach works best here...

The existence of both ghosts and God will be >>undefined<< for as long as there is no proof for or against their existence.

So saying that they exist is just as dumb as saying that they don't exist.

 

[Mutant]

Oh and btw.

If we are talking about the God of the Christian Bible, then we can safely say that he doesn't exist, because the book gives logically conflicting descriptions of him i.e. he is both perfect and making some silly mistakes a modern intelligent and educated man would never make.

 

[Mago]

Scientific approach works best here...

The existence of both ghosts and God will be >>undefined<< for as long as there is no proof for or against their existence.

So saying that they exist is just as dumb as saying that they don't exist.

I love your posts in these kind of threads man haha

 

[LeSedna]

As usual, you will only "see" things when you trust they can happen, like your wife. And - how convenient - it's an usual argument of believers to say "well you don't experience encounters because you're not open minded enough".

TheWinterSnow pretty much nailed it. Although I'm a fan of all ghost or alien stories because it's cool to imagine such things happen, I don't trust in them, at least not how believers present them (never scientifically explained, which should be VERY easy to do if these events were real, there are so many scientists who would apply immediately if someone told them seriously they can prove the existence of after life entities. The fact that it never happened discredits believers by itself)

+1 to drew-drummer, although I would say more than many people are not hard wired to differenciate between personal fantasy or self criticism. Many people like the attention, or actually believe they had a paranormal experience because it's easy to accept as an idea, it's comforting and it relates to the information their brains give them.

In my job, human factors are one of the most important aspects if not the no1, and believe me, the human brain can be incredibly tricky, to a point where it's astonishing sometimes and people who had an incident or accident related to human factors were like everyone and would have said before "it will never happen to me !"

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5McECUtM8fw&sns=fb&noredirect=1[/ame]

During 49 seconds, these 3 pilots did hear the "you forgot to extend the landing gear, dude" alarm, I've flown this aircraft so believe me, it's so loud it's really annoying. None of them reacted and they belly landed. It's a good book example of what the brain can do sometimes. The distortion between reality and perceived reality can be tremendous, it applies to ghosts encounters as well.

 

[Mutant]

During 49 seconds, these 3 pilots did hear the "you forgot to extend the landing gear, dude" alarm, I've flown this aircraft so believe me, it's so loud it's really annoying. None of them reacted and they belly landed. It's a good book example of what the brain can do sometimes. The distortion between reality and perceived reality can be tremendous, it applies to ghosts encounters as well.

I wonder if their old age and thousands of hours spent close to a plane engine played a significant factor in them not hearing that high pitched warning signal (about 1400hz if i am not mistaken).

I don't know french, so i don't know if they said that they heard the signal, so are you sure they heard it or are you only assuming they had to hear it ?

 

[26]

..saying that they exist is just as dumb as saying that they don't exist.

true. it's only a matter of how one defines those concepts (and that's all they are).

 

[SocialNumb]

So saying that they exist is just as dumb as saying that they don't exist.

How about Unicorns?

Or better yet, Slooshers?

 

[Mutant]

How about Unicorns?

LOL do you mean ordinary unicorns or magical ones ???

Here and on this planet ?

In this dimension ?

Heh... the extent to which we have our beloved planet Earth explored can tell us something about the tiny but still nonzero probability of their existence

Who knows... Maybe the first unicorn ever was born today somewhere in Africa ?

Species evolve and mutate, a single horn on their foreheads would be a good weapon against predators, if we have animals with 2 horns and if we even have rhinos with 1 horn...


WTF is a "Sloosher" ????????

 

[sprack]

Couldn't care less if there is a god. Hope there's an afterlife. I'd like to be able to talk to my parents, grand parents and friends I've lost again. I'm willing to live with that much self-delusion.

 

[SocialNumb]

WTF is a "Sloosher" ????????

Well you said "So saying that they exist is just as dumb as saying that they don't exist."

And I totally understand that but it can be argued that "Ghosts" are totally made up. Much like my Sloosher. So now we're at the "we know nothing stage" and we should just lock ourselves in a padded room.


I don't think it would be dumb to think that "Sloosher's" in fact don't exist. Get what I'm saying?