Do you believe in Ghosts? (1 Viewer)

Well boys and gouls, my all time favorite holiday is coming up, i'm speaking of course of Halloween, "The night HE came home!". And all these threads popping up on horror films has got me in the spirit a little early this year, so I thought i'd begin a "spirited" discussion about the exsistence of ghosts, and more to the point, whether or not you believe in them.
Me personally, I do. There has been too much evidence to say with any degree of certainty that they DON'T exsist. I mean why is it so hard for people to believe that a part of our being sometimes can "hangaround" so to speak after our physical bodies are gone? To me, ghosts are not "paranormal", they are just normal, by that I mean that I think they are just another part of nature, like tree's, stars, the sun that rises every morning, and the last raindrop that falls on a cloudy day. Point is, SOMETHING'S got to be behind the wheel of these bodies of ours, and I for one think they are very real.
How about you?
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"How can I heal, when I can't feel time?"
Leonard from Memento

Negative. A product of our culture and our superstitions.
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Bombardment Society - Member

Another negative here.
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He thought on homeland, the big timber, the air thin and chill all the year long. Tulip poplars so big through the trunk they put you in mind of locomotives set on end. He thought of getting home and building him a cabin on Cold Mountain so high that not a soul but the nighthawks passing across the clouds in autumn could hear his sad cry. Of living a life so quiet he would not need ears. And if Ada would go with him, there might be the hope, so far off in the distance he did not even really see it, that in time his despair might be honed off to a point so fine and thin that it would be nearly the same as vanishing.
-- Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

I'd like to think they exist - it implies life after death. I am afraid, however, that I believe ghosts, and many aspects of organized religion (no offense intended) were devised in order to ease our fear of death, and help us cope with mortality. The people on these Discovery Channel programs who provide us with "case histories" of haunted homes, etc. I suspect are all seeking that elusive fifteen minutes of fame Andy Warhol said we'd each have. I just need a whole lot more evidence than anyone yet has been able to provide. Why SHOULD I take it on faith? That's a cop-out on the part of those who would encourage me to believe.

I do. But, would I call them our deceased spirits? I don't know. There are alot of variables at work here. I also believe there are a multitude of alternate realities, each "invisible" to each other but at certain spots, the walls that keep our realities seperate become thinned and allow us to catch a glimpse of "something" in the other reality. That could be ghosts. Or maybe it is our aura. Whichever, I do believe they exist. But, on the subject of proof...I seriously doubt that proof is possible. I don't know if we can use quantitative equipment to document non-quantity events.
Bruce
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Welcome aboard the Satellite of Love

If there is such a thing as "life energy" then I have to believe in ghosts. I have no problem in my belief some energy can be left behind when a person passes on.
Brent L

I think that ghosts exist, and that we don't have the fundamental understanding needed to know what they are.
Every legend has some basis in fact, after all, and why should this be any different? I think it's safe to say that the phenomenon we call ghosts are connected with the released life energy of people no longer alive (after all, energy doesn't just disappear; it's always converted...we just don't always know what it converts into).
I think it's also safe to say that this phenomenon is manifested in different ways, so that some ghosts "roam" and others are connected to one site. Some are "quiet" and others are "poltergiests". And on and on.
Some day we may have the knowledge base to understand exactly what ghosts are. I'm sure that superstition has blown it all out of proportion. I'm sure that much of it is imagined, much of it consists of pranks, and a chunk of it is just people bein' crazy. And then there's the tourism trade!
But, like Alien life, we can't dismiss out-of-hand that they do or don't exist...because we can't prove it one way or the other. Like with God, you have to have faith to believe in that something may exist, but just can't be proven by a hard-and-fast set of rules we apply today.
And, for those of you who WANT to believe, and just are too embarrassed to admit it here, check out the GhostCAM!:
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Another no vote.
It is my opinion that these beliefs and most others, are solely a by product or consequence of higher brain function, and ignorance, manifested by Man's need to explain everything, including the unexplainable.
"There is no spoon"

Absolutely not.

I know that each of you has walked into a dark room and felt someone else was there. Maybe you thought it was a burglar, you didn’t know, but you became very cautious. Your senses became heightened, (and like Cole said in The Sixth Sense, "You ever feel those prickly things on the back of your neck?) …and the hairs on your arm stand up?" That’s them!
How often have you lost something and looked all over your house for it. Then you find it in a place where you know you had looked. They borrowed it! How about when you can’t find your keys. They moved them! You put something in a pocket, but it’s not there and you check all of your pockets then find it in same pocket you put it in. They love that trick, and LTFAO while your looking in all your pockets! How many gloves and umbrellas have you lost? They collect them! Did you ever go to the fridge and wonder what happened to all the beers you had? They drank them!
Yeah! They’re around…
[Edited last by Eric Scott on September 09, 2001 at 10:41 PM]

That font is creeping me out.
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Bombardment Society - Member

I'm not sure. As a believer in the Christian faith I have to say no, because a soul either goes to heaven or hell. But being a believer in that faith does let me believe in the possibility that lower class demons and other assorted supernatural beings that do walk the earth. Do I believe in "ghosts" as left over souls, no. Do I believe in other worldly presences? A big YES.
[Edited last by Travis D on September 09, 2001 at 10:51 PM]

I believe in them. I've heard enough stories about them, most of which have common elements, to realize that it's not just a figment of one's imagination. Actually, there are two basic types of "ghosts": one type is basically an "imprint" of an event (usually someone's death) that gets replayed over and over, like a video tape. Then there's the other kind, the ones that interact with their environment, these are the "spirits" or whatever you want to call them, and are often those of people who don't realize they're dead, or have some unfinished business, etc.
Although ghosts are commonly believed to be the spirits of the deceased, I think there is more to them than that. There are many stories of ghostly objects that are associated with the ghosts, such as ghost cars, ships, or even the fact that ghosts are usually seen in clothes. Somehow objects associated with the person's death get imprinted along with the spirit. Perhaps the energy form of ourselves takes on the properties of our surroundings when we die, and that's why ghosts "look like" the person who died, and are usually seen in the clothes that were worn at the time of death, etc.
But that's just my 1.5 cents after taxes on the matter, no one really knows what they are. But I do believe they exist.
KJP

Well, I've actually seen "ghosts" and I still don't believe in them. I'm willing to accept that my brain is more than capable of producing images like that under certain circumstances.

Nope.

I mean why is it so hard for people to believe that a part of our being sometimes can "hangaround" so to speak after our physical bodies are gone?

Lack of specifics. What are they made of? Why would they arise in some circumstances and not others? I don't believe that there are things which cannot be explained or understood, so until ghosts fit into that category, I'll view them with no small amount of skepticism.

Click to expand...

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My great aunt died recently.
I was alseep 3000 miles away and knew when I awoke she was dead without a doubt. My sister called a few hours later and confirmed my 'dream'.
Is that a ghost?
I don't understand it and being an engineer I tend to question the hell out of everything I don't understand.
All I know is she said good bye and at the time she was dead.
So if that fits the definition of ghost, I would say yes.
White Martha Stewart sheets going 'boooooo'......Nope,

I believe in ghosts. I also agree with Eric. There must be ghosts in my house because I swear I find things later in the exact same place I looked previously. We actually have the "ghost in the house" excuse when we cannot find anything.
Also, when my father in-law passed away, we were there and I looked up the stairs and saw an apparition that appeared to me my father in-law. Kind of creepy, but I believe he was looking at us.
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------ Dave ------
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Have NONE of you even SEEN Ghostbusters! ?!?!?!
I don't entertain the idea much, but my roomie does. He has had to house sit his parents house a couple times when they were out of town. His dog started growling and woke him up one night. She was starting in the doorway to his room, and he swore he saw an "old lady". Another time he heard a crash in his parents bathroom. The shelf on the wall was on the floor. The supports hadn't moved, and the shelf was on the other side of the room. No way it could have fallen like that.
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Crash
"I don't even own a gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack."
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IMO, ghosts are like that small tiny voice in our mind telling us things. Our minds want to believe that those who've gone before us have something to say especially a loved one who died suddenly and our mind cannot turn lose of their living spirit.
I believe there is an active something that lives on in our minds concerning departed souls and we yearn to hear something they may say.
More times than not, these "ghosts" come to us in dreams. Personally experiencing these visits, I love to walk and visit with long lost loved ones. These occasions are rare but significant.
Therefore, I have deducted that there are ghosts....
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"I am part of all that I have met, yet all experience is an arch wherethru gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades forever and forever...."