Do you believe in ghost?

[DavisModerator]

There most certainly is a level of evidence that skeptics would accept. Ghosts appearing in public, immune to any attempt to explain them (trickery with light and smoke or holographic technology or some other deception), doing things that are impossible to explain. Behaving in the same predictable way in many different places…all recorded independently of each other. Ghosts predictably showing up in the same place and behaving in a similar way, regardless of who is observing them, preferably with them doing incredible things which are impossible to explain.

throw us something like this and you’ll be taken seriously. no human being has ever presented evidence like that. it’s all crappy quality recording, tricks of light and smoke, easily explained phenomena that only appears strange, folk-tales, the “convincing” testimony of a couple people, the narratives from ghost prone societies (Canada, Japan, Scotland, China), random events that don’t repeat, ghosts who don’t show up when skeptics are observing them or being recorded. Etc.

As for alien astronauts…zheesh. Talk about some pseudo historians putting together a ridiculous story and yet people taking them seriously on cable tv. the moral is: people will believe absolutely anything…including atheists who are skeptical of religion.

[DavisModerator]

Steve wrote:

Could a ghost be a pattern of energy that does not dissipate fully after the body that held it together ceases to live? Could reincarnation be a pattern of energy that merges with a newer body?

No. There is not even the slightest evidence which demostrates that people have an essence, an immaterial being separate from our physical self. We don’t have patterns beyond how our bodies are organised via our dna structure and events that happen during our lives. when our material body degrades….so does the pattern (just as with a tree or a rock or a cloud). We are made out of complex lego and these pieces of lego have no memory, no built in historical trace of what it was once part of.

our ability to somehow hang on in some strange way once our material bodies are gone, somehow transferring our consciousness or memories or personality or whatever…is absurd. It is about as likely as a building keeping its essence all its bricks have been knocked down. your essence surviving and transferring into a new body is as likely the new york twin towers holding onto their essence after falling and somehow merging their essence or pattern into some new building constructed somewhere in the world. Just because we are sentient self aware beings…doesn’t make our “pattern” more transcendent than a plant or a block of ice or a building.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by  Davis.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

@davis – It is about as likely as a building keeping its essence all its bricks have been knocked down.

I am sure you were thinking of the Ship of Theseus when you wrote that line.

[BenjieParticipant]

Steve wrote:

Could a ghost be a pattern of energy that does not dissipate fully after the body that held it together ceases to live? Could reincarnation be a pattern of energy that merges with a newer body?

I think that you got a point there, it’s a form of energy that was left behind by a strong emotion that made the molecules bump into each other into a certain space that made the image of a person. 😉

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@robert – surely there’s a difference between proof and evidence.  If you’re a police officer, I’m pretty sure you go around looking for evidence that leads you in a certain direction, and then you look at all that evidence and see what adds up and what doesn’t.  Then, in a court of law, the result is decided either on the weight of evidence, or on proof.

This BBC programme isn’t proof.  But to me, there’s a lot of good evidence that stacks up well in the favour of it being true.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@benjie – “I think that you got a point there”

– who knows?  Have you ever considered how moral actions can seem to arrange reality in their own favour?  How does that work?  On the strength of that – small human actions indirectly arranging reality – I’m not ruling out any way in which humans can interact with the universe.

Have people not considered how narrow the modern human view of this universe must necessarily be?  Even with scientific instruments, physics, maths etc.?  In times gone by, they believed in all kinds of things on no justification whatsoever, but that doesn’t rule out things existing beyond of modern scientific expectations.

FOR EXAMPLE.  Tarot cards.  I do not care what anyone says.  If you go and get your readings done every six months by S. (megastar) in the next town, whom I would be happy to recommend privately, she can do phone readings, she can do readings for people who are not there, which is usually unethical – you can see the same events coming up time and time again in your future, and then they come to pass.  The only difficulty is that you don’t really know what’s going to happen, you only know details of events, which is a bit different.

The point of that is that what she seems to be doing is “standing on a hilltop” and looking out over a landscape – a 4-dimensional landscape, not a 3-dimensional one.

She also uses: crystals (don’t work), numerology (doesn’t seem to work), and classical astrology (very surprisingly, works).

[David BootsParticipant]

It is true that we dont know everything. Knowledge is finite and ignorance is infinite.

AND if you had told someone prior to the discovery of xrays that we could ‘see’ into a body they would have laughed at you or lynched you.

We discovered xrays by the application of the scientific method. Testing evidence, developing and modifying a hypothesis and so on. This method gets you technology, physics, medicine, materials and pretty much anything you care to name that is useful. What did astrology ever do for you?

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

“What did astrology ever do for you?”

– divination.  Confirming my past (which obviously I already know) and telling me my future.

I don’t mean the newspaper columns, which I ignore.  I mean when a professional astrologer draws up my chart and then what she says comes true.

[NoelParticipant]

Buddy of mine passed away. Biker friend actually, from Arizona. Flew down to his wake, which was held in the backyard of his home. Bikers from all over the country came to celebrate his life. This man was special. See a group of my fellow riding buddies in a circle talking. Walk over and ask what’s up? One of them starts to tell me that our departed friends windows opened by themselves and that his tools, on his workbench, were moved, and that this constitutes proof that he is still with us and is trying to communicate with us. One of them ask me what I thought. Without giggling my ass off, cause after all these are burly freakin’ bikers, I told them I didn’t believe in the supernatural and casually walked away.  These are fairly intelligent people, Shit, one of them was an air traffic controller and yet they strongly believe in all this hocus pocus. I think it’s the mind trying not to let go. Trying to not believe that this person is gone. Not letting go, for me anyway, leads to all types of destructive behavior. Wonder if it’s the same for them.

[WayneManParticipant]

As an atheist, I have to say no. Since most atheists I know, self included, do not believe in any unverifiable supernatural realm, believing in ghosts is a bit inconsistent. I thought I saw a ghost in the window of an old “haunted house” as a kid, but was scared and expecting to see a ghost. It was likely just a reflection on the glass. There have been no scientifically verified ghosts sightings that I am aware of, although it is fun to put reason aside and get scared watching a good ghost movie (The Entity, The Shining, …).

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by  WayneMan.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I mean when a professional astrologer draws up my chart and then what she says comes true.

 

[_Robert_Participant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

“What did astrology ever do for you?” – divination. Confirming my past (which obviously I already know) and telling me my future. I don’t mean the newspaper columns, which I ignore. I mean when a professional astrologer draws up my chart and then what she says comes true.

Simon, If we go into a large hospital with a busy maternity ward, according to astrology all the babies born around the same time and place will have similar personalities and we can make predictions about their lives based on that alone regardless of who their parents are and what their genetic makeup or environment is. And you believe this? All the babies that were born in Hitler’s wing on that day were pretty much also Hitler types?

The ancients used the constellations to navigate across the water, desert and countryside. It’s only natural they attempted to navigate their lives this way as well. It has never stood up to scientific scrutiny. Not one time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dp2Zqk8vHwy

 

• This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by  _Robert_.

[BenjieParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

“What did astrology ever do for you?” – divination. Confirming my past (which obviously I already know) and telling me my future. I don’t mean the newspaper columns, which I ignore. I mean when a professional astrologer draws up my chart and then what she says comes true.

I’m not sure about divination but there are some proofs that it is real and some are not. Well it’s like a Deja Vu, you are dreaming of somthing that may happen in the future.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I could give people all kinds of proofs from my own charts I’ve had done by S., but they all involve other people so it’s just not possible on a public forum.

@robert – “All the babies that were born in Hitler’s wing on that day were pretty much also Hitler types?”

– I’m no expert, and I don’t know exactly what a chart is supposed to tell us.  Mine has a Grand Trine in Air, which is supposed to show that someone is an analytical thinker.  The other things I learn from S. are the influences on my life at particular points.  Right now mine has the Sun at Midheaven which is good for communicating with the public and being in the public eye.  Who knows?  Nobody tells me these things.

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Steven Hawking – this might sound goofy, but it’s a serious question.  If there’s an afterlife, which I tend to believe, does he still have motor neurone disease?  I like to think of him skipping around like a bunny as soon as he shed his earthly restrictions.  The most I can say is that in the BBC programme, it states that there’s someone who died as a baby, and he’s learned to talk as a baby.  So, he’s still a spirit baby, but he talks ve-ry slow-ly like a grownup.  Maybe SH will “unbend” and heal from his illness over time, or maybe he’s free as a bird already.  Who knows.

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