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Forums → WEPR → Ghosts/Can atheists believe in them?
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So..I'm sure this was once a thread...but I haven't seen it at all recently so I don't want o go looking for the possible previous one
Do you believe in ghosts? Why or why not? etc
"But pang..why is this in WEPR? This should go in The Tavern!"
Don't worry..I gots this covered..
Do you believe ghosts, if they were real, would be valid proof that there is an afterlife as believed by many religions? (which, I'm sure if you go deep enough, would eventually become a "does god exist argument"...but that isn't the question...so...yeah)
- 111 Replies
i'll come back when it is a hypothesis and not a paranormal hypothesis.
untill then it is paranormal i.e. not reality. i.e. false.
the whole idea fails to me. (i'm oing to send it to mythbusters. it gotta be a nice episode. scaring the hell out of them is always fun)
but anyway you said there are more explanations that does not include souls or a afterlife.
lets hear it.
I've explained some of them already, and so have a couple others. If not, there's Google for you.
Now sayonara for a week.
It sounded crazy when someone said we revolved around the Sun. There's no definite conclusion to the ''supernatural''. I'm just waiting for the pieces to fall together.
The two aren't comparable. Each time an independent went back to reexamine the claim that we went around the sun thy were able to come to the same conclusion.
Leftover emotions, EMP signals, all sorts of theories abound, rather than just the ''soul''.
I fail to see how an emotion can be left over considering an emotion is just a chemical response in the brain.
Yes EMF can create situations that get mistaken for ghost activity. This is a well understood natural effect.
I have seen enough to convince me that there is something out there at any rate.
Can these experiences be repeated? If not these experiences should be set aside.
Who knows? Science is still exploring them. And you're talking about such a hypothesis as if you know it's whole function and characteristics. Yet you claim we don't know much about them.
We have no evidence that such energy exists, we have other explanations for such events. What we have is an unsupported claim of ghosts being claimed by another unsupported claim.
Again, no one has explained all situations.
Basically "we don't know, therefore ghosts"
Just because we might not have an explanation for every case doesn't mean we should start making stuff up.
how does it absorb energy. or shell we start whit.. what energy? just energy is very wide. lets narrow down on the sort of energy 1st.
I would have to agree that this would be the place to start with this claim.
What do we have?
Personal experience, which is unreliable.
An unknown, with a made up explanation.
And another made up explanation to support the previous made up explanation.
For us to do science and research this scientifically the only thing we can keep in all that is that there is an unknown.
I wouldn't think they would want to beleieve in them they dont really believe in an afterlife so why ghosts?
Again, ghosts are popular belief resulting from certain natural phenomena. (Since atheists are also subject to those phenomena, I see no reason why they should automatically disbelieve the existence of ghosts more than others). In that light, broadening the term "ghost" to unexplained sightings/experiences in general almost makes sense, but I refuse to attach a term coming from popular belief to something we don't know what it is. As Mage said,
Basically "we don't know, therefore ghosts"
is not really conclusive.
and why are there never ghosts of animals (except a dog or cat some1 used to love) why no dinosaur ghosts or lions, giant ghost fish. if ghosts are real why dont we see/feel/smell them all the time? =S
Religious idea of only humans have souls..maybe?
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I like the explanations for what "aranormal activities" are actually most likely...so if you don't mind I have 2 more..
1) People getting scratch marks, say, on their back or neck despite nothing touching that area. And not light ones either...deep ones..maybe even ones that bleed
2) Not ghostly...but still strange and I'd like to see if a "reasonable explanation" is possible. Knew a woman who could basically tell if a grave was occupied by a child...when not seeing the dates on the tombstone. At a cemetery, going to each tombstone/grave, but looking at them from behind so that she couldn't see the dates (they were all facing the same way so she couldn't look ahead/peek at others...started from back to prevent cheating)..as we walked along she would point out which ones were occupied by children and got them all right (had had another person checking dates..she didn't skip over one or got one incorrect). As we were finishing we were walking by an area and she started to cry and asked if we could not go by there...we had figured the area was just an empty overrun small fielded area (no signs or anything about it)..but when we checked it out we found a bunch of overrun tombstones..the entire area had a bunch of tombstones, all for children
1) People getting scratch marks, say, on their back or neck despite nothing touching that area. And not light ones either...deep ones..maybe even ones that bleed
One possible explanation is that it could be a form of dermographism.
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1050294-overview
2) Not ghostly...but still strange and I'd like to see if a "reasonable explanation" is possible. Knew a woman who could basically tell if a grave was occupied by a child...when not seeing the dates on the tombstone. At a cemetery, going to each tombstone/grave, but looking at them from behind so that she couldn't see the dates (they were all facing the same way so she couldn't look ahead/peek at others...started from back to prevent cheating)..as we walked along she would point out which ones were occupied by children and got them all right (had had another person checking dates..she didn't skip over one or got one incorrect). As we were finishing we were walking by an area and she started to cry and asked if we could not go by there...we had figured the area was just an empty overrun small fielded area (no signs or anything about it)..but when we checked it out we found a bunch of overrun tombstones..the entire area had a bunch of tombstones, all for children
The first thing I would want to rule out is the possibility that she had been there before or had done research on the area prior to doing this.
I would also like to see her repeat her results under a more controlled environment.
A trick of some sort would have to be ruled out.
Derren Brown - How To Read Minds
Darren makes reference of picking up on signals from someone. It's possible for reading the headstones she was doing something similar. Your checker might have been consciously or unconsciously tipping her off.
Were the tombs decorated individually or were they all identical? Because not only the signals from you guys may have given her a hint, but also the tombs themselves, as minor as the difference may be.
1) People getting scratch marks, say, on their back or neck despite nothing touching that area. And not light ones either...deep ones..maybe even ones that bleed
Another possibility with this one is that they scratched themselves in a way that at first wasn't noticeable. This could been done intentionally or without their knowing they had been scratched.
I've had this happen to me before. I had the cat scratch my arm. At first it just looked like a few white lines (something that could easily go unnoticed), like the skin hadn't even been broken. I couldn't feel anything indicating that I was scratched either. Over a course of about 10-15 minutes the scratch became red and puffy, sore and even started to bleed. Now if I hadn't seen myself get scratched and was under the idea of supernatural explanations, how easy could it have been for me to think that these scratches just appeared out of no where?
Another possibility with this one is that they scratched themselves in a way that at first wasn't noticeable. This could been done intentionally or without their knowing they had been scratched.
Two instances to help with making explanation easier
1) For a couple of months...every monday I would have scratch marks on my neck. I never noticed them..it was always someone else would notice 'em and asked me what happened. And it was only on mondays too..no marks on Sunday...marks on monday..then they were gone the next day
2) Not sure of the reliability of this one..but one of my teachers told me of how he and a couple of friends were at a supposedly haunted house..they entered and after some time the girl of the group yelped and arched her back like something hit her there..they checked her back to see what was wrong and saw 3 scratch marks going all the way down her back
@Hahiha...they were all different for the most part...but from what I could tell none gave any indication on the age of the person. Mages theory of the checker unknowingly giving hints seems pretty sound..as well as her being there before. Though, if she was, kudos to her on the tears haha
Not sure of the reliability of this one..but one of my teachers told me of how he and a couple of friends were at a supposedly haunted house..they entered and after some time the girl of the group yelped and arched her back like something hit her there..they checked her back to see what was wrong and saw 3 scratch marks going all the way down her back
how come when i enter a supposed haunted house. that nothing like this happens =(
Energy can not be created or destroyed and as we know there are electrical synapses in the brain that form our conscies our memories our personality and so on and it is also understood that a supernatural presence can emit EMFs and the synapses retain information after the body has passed on and use energy from the sorrounding world to take shape so what this theory states is that spirits are electrical enomlies that have a personality and interact with the physical world
how come when i enter a supposed haunted house. that nothing like this happens =(
that is because most houses are not actualy haunted and also spirits will only interact with certain people for certain reasons for example i have a and she is constantly tormented by spirits she is small and has emotional problems spirits will see that weakness target her and attach to that emotional energy
and it is also understood that a supernatural presence can emit EMFs
and who said supernatural presence do even exist? leave alone emit EMF's..
why not the tv or airco.
after all it's still supernatural. i.e. no scientific evidence whatsoever.
there are electrical synapses in the brain that form our conscies our memories our personality and so on
Yes and no. These synapses aren't purely electrical, but biological.
This is what you're talking about.
it is also understood that a supernatural presence can emit EMF
That's not really "understood" but "commonly believed" as there is no evidence for supernatural presences to begin with.
the synapses retain information after the body has passed on
Here's where your reasoning breaks down.
use energy from the sorrounding world to take shape
How would that even work?
this theory states is that spirits are electrical enomlies that have a personality and interact with the physical world
Basically, A + invalid B + C with an unknown component = ghosts? Either way, you're making a lot of jumps.
also spirits will only interact with certain people
Which just makes the claim of them existing even more unbelievable.
for example i have a and she is constantly tormented by spirits she is small and has emotional problems
Have a...what? Daughter? Sister? Either way, don't you think being tormented by "spirits" she sees is more likely to be signs of some psychological illness...especially in light that no one else around can see them?
attach to that emotional energy
Emotional energy? What is that? Do you mean like an aura, because those are just as unproven as ghosts.
I just tried to make a scientific explination for ghosts of course it sucks
Have a...what? Daughter? Sister? Either way, don't you think being tormented by "spirits" she sees is more likely to be signs of some psychological illness...especially in light that no one else around can see them?i didnt say no one alse could see them did I ? also i meant to type freind not important though
Emotional energy? What is that? Do you mean like an aura, because those are just as unproven as ghosts.
pretty much yah
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