Do you believe in ghosts?

[wwkirk]

On principle, I'm very reluctant to rule out things as impossible. So, while I do not believe aliens, Atlantis, chupacabras, etc. are (were) real, I refuse to dismiss them outright.

I'm never seen or otherwise experienced or even sensed a ghost. I knew somebody who once said a ghost had bothered him the previous night by intruding in his dreams. My conclusion was that it was just psychological. As for ghost reality programs, I found them boring and manipulated.

To summarize, I don't believe in ghosts. But, as Stanton Friedman would say, "I keep them in my gray basket."






(Flat Earth is just dumb though.)

 

[Zyklon R]

No ghosts are NOT real

 

[Fedorgasm]

On principle, I'm very reluctant to rule out things as impossible. So, while I do not believe aliens, Atlantis, chupacabras, etc. are (were) real, I refuse to dismiss them outright.

Yeah but that philosophy doesn't work. Because it's very easy for me to make up a lie about a giant penis monster that can teleport, and you can never prove that it doesn't exist.

So should you therefore always remain open-minded to the possibility that it could be real?

Of course not. That's ridiculous. And that's why the burden of proof is always on the ones that believe in this stuff. Not on those of us that don't believe.

 

[Beechwood]

I've only had one experience where I wondered what the heck was that. Overall though after having watched ghost hunting shows for a few years I never saw anything that convinced me they were real.

I suspect there are people who are haunted by ghosts though. They seem to believe in them, and I'm not going to doubt that. What they are picking up, noticing is hard to say though.

Along these lines I was reading a book over the past week about electrical pollution. It does seem there is a percentage of the population that is much more sensitive to magnetic fields, or electrical pollution. Testing has shown that. As I was reading the book it had me thinking, if ghosts are real and residual energy maybe these people can pick up on that.

 

[wwkirk]

Yeah but that philosophy doesn't work. Because it's very easy for me to make up a lie about a giant penis monster that can teleport, and you can never prove that it doesn't exist.

So should you therefore always remain open-minded to the possibility that it could be real?

Of course not. That's ridiculous. And that's why the burden of proof is always on the ones that believe in this stuff. Not on those of us that don't believe.

It’s my “private” epistemology. I don’t advocate belief in ghosts, and don’t actually believe in them. Switching to my public epistemology, my position is:

There is in no incontrovertible evidence that ghosts exist. Moreover, there is no plausible physical mechanism to explain how a ghost could even be a possibility. That said, the default rational option should be that they do not exist.

I sincerely affirm the above stated words. But I reserve a parallel private epistemology that is WAY more flexible. [Note that possessing a separate “metric of evaluation” is compatible with the last statement of my public stance.]

 

[Plissken]

Not sure, had a couple odd experiences, but they could be explained, experienced other things not related to potential ghosts though. I know people that supposedly had experienced and they are too odd and specific to completely ignore them as they aren't the usual thing that could be chalked up to something simple so I have an open mind. So I'd consider myself skeptical but with an open mind. I'd love to experience something.

 

[PBAC]

There would be countless reasons for ghosts trying to make contact or interact with the living world.

Priests and other holymen would be inundated with people trying to make contact, asking wtf went wrong with their death and why they're stuck in limbo, they'd also get taunted by smug atheists.

You'd have dead scientists trying to provide recordable data for the living. Europe would have millions of nazi ghosts who would presumably be causing all sorts of ruckus across the continent's synagogues.

ummmm

 

[Monkadelic]

No I don't, not really. I've never seen one (nor do I want to).

Though I don't think everyone that sees one is mad, lying, misidentifying either. I think there may be a small number of people who do see/experience something. But what it is I do not know.
I don't think they are dead people.

Years ago I lived in an apartment in Sydney and had a malamute at the time.

Late one night he suddenly got up and started looking at something in the centre of the room. He stretched out cautiously and was sniffing up and down like there was something/someone strange standing in front of him that he was wary of.
Obviously I couldn't see anything and I started calling him and talking to him. But he ignored me and kept sniffing and was looking at what would be approximately where a persons face would be if they were standing there.

It went on for 20 seconds then he suddenly broke out of it and happily came trotting over to me as though nothing had happened.
No idea what it was. It never happened again. He was also not a watch dog and did not have protective instincts and was not skittish either.

I have known several people who claimed to have seen/experienced stuff regularly and they told me many stories but I have caught them out lying about other stuff so I obviously dismissed it.

We had a similar thing with our dog about 10 years ago. Never saw him do anything similar, before or after.

It's very late, he's curled up in his bed in our bedroom and is very settled. Then he starts threat growling, stands up and slowly starts walking towards the open bedroom door, growling all the while. He eventually stops a few paces from the door but keeps growling, a bit more intensely.

Then he stops growling, stands there looking at the open door for a bit, then strolls back to his bed and goes to sleep.

What a div.

 

[chill doggie]

Yeah, my buddy @Fuzzybabyducks saw a hippy ghost.

 

[mozfonky]

LOL

Running out of ideas?

ok, but I was thinking how we hadn't had a good paranormal thread in awhile, i love hearing stories, even the ones that get repeated.

 

[mozfonky]

Of course not, I'm a grown adult. I live in London which has been continuously inhabited for 2000 years, so if they were real they'd be absolutely fucking everywhere, and I'm sure they'd be doing more to make their presence known than turning off light switches and pushing teacups off tables.

Nobody has ever displayed any kind of scientific evidence for them existing. I don't care how convincing your drunk grandma's story was. She was probably hallucinating from exposure to toxic fertilizers in the 1940s.

haha, i think england was in some records book for being the most haunted place in the world.

 

[mozfonky]

As a thought experiment, I assume many people who were murdered knew who did it, especially domestic violence victims. If they could become ghosts and get revenge, that's probably the very first thing they'd do, so if they could, there would be a long list of murderers dying mysteriously shortly after their victims were killed. This is assuming they don't need 100 years of training to become ghosts and assuming after dead, they don't have something much more satisfying to do than get revenge. Also victims of war bombings surely would have motivation to get revenge after they dieded.

but there are accounts of victims' ghosts leading cops to evidence and Al Capone thought a ghost from a victim haunted him, ya, i know, he had syphillis and his brains were shot.

 

[mozfonky]

Guy giving a lecture, on the paranormal.​

Guy: "How many people believe in Ghosts?"

About 60 hands go up.

"How many have seen a ghost?"

About 15 hands go up.

"How many have spoken to a ghost?"

3 hands go up.

"How many have had sex with a ghost?"

One hand goes up, Paddy right at the back.

Guy says to Paddy " I have been doing this for 40 years and you are the first that has claimed to have had sex with a ghost , please come forward and explain. "

Paddy says, "Sorry , I couldn't hear you from the back, I thought you said goats."

good one, Bobby Brown claimed to have sex with a ghost in his book.

 

[mozfonky]

I've been told they have seen shadows in my room when I wasn't home

my brother was in the hospital recently, claimed to have seen lots of shadow people out of his peripheral vision. my sister had also told me she saw them before she died. Now, my sister was an alcoholic and I was told that alcoholics have some sort of symptom with seeing shadows in the corners of their eyes.

With my brother, I looked up what I could find and the most probably answer I saw was that it was a stress reaction. He was back in the hospital a week after he got out and he didn't see them the second time, maybe he'd acclimatized to the situation.

 

[I Am Legion]

I don't believe in Ghosts in the stereotypical sense....but I do believe that animals and some people are more aware of beings from other dimensions. Sometimes energies create a thinner veil, and things can be seen or heard.

 

[mozfonky]

No I don't, not really. I've never seen one (nor do I want to).

Though I don't think everyone that sees one is mad, lying, misidentifying either. I think there may be a small number of people who do see/experience something. But what it is I do not know.
I don't think they are dead people.

Years ago I lived in an apartment in Sydney and had a malamute at the time.

Late one night he suddenly got up and started looking at something in the centre of the room. He stretched out cautiously and was sniffing up and down like there was something/someone strange standing in front of him that he was wary of.
Obviously I couldn't see anything and I started calling him and talking to him. But he ignored me and kept sniffing and was looking at what would be approximately where a persons face would be if they were standing there.

It went on for 20 seconds then he suddenly broke out of it and happily came trotting over to me as though nothing had happened.
No idea what it was. It never happened again. He was also not a watch dog and did not have protective instincts and was not skittish either.

I have known several people who claimed to have seen/experienced stuff regularly and they told me many stories but I have caught them out lying about other stuff so I obviously dismissed it.

I'd estimate maybe a third of the people I've met have seen ghosts.

 

[mozfonky]

I don't believe in Ghosts in the stereotypical sense....but I do believe that animals and some people are more aware of beings from other dimensions. Sometimes energies create a thinner veil, and things can be seen or heard.

I've heard that too, that animals are more sensitive than we are. It's certainly true in terms of animals being tuned to disaster or earthquake so who knows?

 

[Sobek]

I mean seeing as how I've seen one and had multiple other experiences... I would say yeah lol

I've had a couple of experiences I can't explain. But was it a ghost, I don't know. One looked 100% like a person I do know that much. My ex was into the Ghost hunting shows so we spent the night at quite a few "haunted places". But my craziest experience was as a teenager, and then one with her on a random weekend trip.

This is the place to share guys. It can make an interesting read.

 

[Yoricks Wisdom]

wait, are we talking about ghosts of former posters who got banned?

anytime someone revives/bumps an old ass thread, the corpses rise to the surface.

It's creepy IMO.

especially when I'm one of them.

 

[Osculater]

my brother was in the hospital recently, claimed to have seen lots of shadow people out of his peripheral vision. my sister had also told me she saw them before she died. Now, my sister was an alcoholic and I was told that alcoholics have some sort of symptom with seeing shadows in the corners of their eyes.

With my brother, I looked up what I could find and the most probably answer I saw was that it was a stress reaction. He was back in the hospital a week after he got out and he didn't see them the second time, maybe he'd acclimatized to the situation.

I had a friend who was in the hospital and supposedly a shadow had followed him home after he was released from the hospital.

My dad is an alcoholic and said he saw a shadow run away at night but I think that house was haunted hahahaa