For Believers

hello.
i'm not here to try and get you stop believing or anything, i just have a couple of questions for ya.
first i just want to say that i do believe that most people who say that they had a paranormal experience are simply lying and those who are not lying are sincerly mistaken.
however, this is only my opinion and if i were to be presented with evidence that suggested that the supernatural could exist, i would immediatly change my mind.

my question is: why exactly do you believe in ghosts? i know most replies will probably be someone who claims to have had a ghostly experience, so i will obviously not believe them about that lol

im just really curious as to how any reasonable and intelligent person could believe in ghosts and the paranormal.

this isnt supposed to sound offensive btw. this is just strictly my opinion. im trying to be open minded but in my eyes believing in ghosts is like believing in santa.

but i am a lot more open minded than i used to be. until a few months ago i wouldnt even socialise with a believer lol

can anyone give me any scientific evidence that ghosts could exist?

thanks for your time and i hope that nobody will be offended by my opinions

ps: i really hope you wont send me abuse as whenever i tell a believer that i dont believe, all i get is abuse. i really dont want any abuse. i just want a friendly conversation.
thanks everyone

[edit on 29-5-2009 by SlayerRock]

reply to post by SlayerRock


There are many people who do not believe in Ghosts, even those that have seen for themselves.

Just last April I was paid a visit by my deceased Chihuahua Pupita.

[edit on 29-5-2009 by OrangeJuice]

yeah i fit into that category lol. i've seen all the things that the believers claim to have seen but i know that i must have imagined it because science suggests there is no such thing

reply to post by SlayerRock


What if you only listened to yourself? somtimes people in powerful positions trip over the truth and call it elsehardware

I don't blame anyone for not believing in the paranormal especially if they've never had any experiences. It's simply something that must be seen to be believed. There is a considerable amount of evidence, from videos, pictures, audio and witness accounts. But if you've never had any experiences yourself, you'll likely doubt it all to death. So what's the use with trying to convince anyone with evidence?

I suggest you go out and look for your own experience. Contact a paranormal research team in your area and ask to tag along as a neutral observer. Or maybe stay the night in a "haunted" location...every town has its haunted houses.

*edit*- ok so I see that have had experiences but still don't "believe." Hmm, that's a weird one then.

[edit on 29-5-2009 by monkcaw]

what type of scientific evidence do you want? Its not like there is deffinative proof that there are ghosts, only blurry photos and possibly rigged videos. To believe in ghosts one has to either, have an experience, know someone you trust that has had an experience, or be spiritual enough to believe with out evidence. All of which I don't think applies to you, so enjoy your journey for truth.

I think what you fail to realize is that "science" is just as much a belief system as anybody elses. So if you worship the religion of science then your just as close minded as the rest. Stop thinking you know all the answers and then the answers will come to you.

I agree with both of you,

Why would someone only believe in Science or Religion.

Ghosts are denied by both perspectives.

reply to post by SlayerRock


"im just really curious as to how any reasonable and intelligent person could believe in ghosts and the paranormal. "

I'm sure you are a reasonable and intelligent person and you believe in many things that are simply false or are based on faulty logic. Remember when they thought the world was flat? Remember when they thought the sun went around the earth? Well when you worship science/religion you get stuck thinking like that.

[edit on 29-5-2009 by dannyfal]

i hate all religion and i dont worship any religion. i dont consider science a religion because i admit that science doesnt have all the answers and it can and does make mistakes.
although some of you have still sent me abuse i appreciate the helpful comments.

my girlfriend used to go on and on about all these paranormal expeiences she had and tbh it used to really annoy me and i almost broke up with her because i considered her to be insane at the time. i admit that i behaved incorrectly at the time btw. but have convinced her that ghosts arnt real.

yes i have had very confusing experiences but until i see some kind of scientific proof that they may exist then i cant just blindly believe. if there was even a slight piece of evidence i would be more open to the possibility of ghosts.

i dont consider peoples stories or experiences to be evidence as im sure they are all fake and mostly liars.

my experience was very powerful and it did shake me up until i actually began to think about it and how illogical my experience was.

thank you all for your replies. again, i do not wish to bash your beliefs and i d wish to keep this conversation friendly

thanks

edit: i dont know all the answers and neither does science. i dont deny that


[edit on 29-5-2009 by SlayerRock]

reply to post by SlayerRock



I think I entirely understand where you are coming from. I think the problem lies within your lack of having a experience or having a experience that could be logically reduced to make sense, therefore concluding others experiences could also be explained with the same type of reasoning. Am I correct?

See, most people are not expecting something phenomenal when it happens and do not have anyway to document, photograph or videotape it because they were not expecting it. That alone leaves out massive amounts of considered evidence.

Another factor is that people tend to automatically give things a irrational explanation for many different reasons instead of logically deducting the immediate situation and surrounding factors. People "WANT" to believe and most are willing and perfectly happy to automatically count out logic to title something as a paranormal experience. I feel you are not one of those types which is good but also bad. The good reason is that when or if something seemingly paranormal does happen and logic cannot be applied, the experience will be a real phenomena to you.

The bad reason is that usually it will take something of extreme phenomena to convince you and the logically inclined type. I however have had my experiences. Most I can explain but few I cannot. Given time and maybe after your stated conclusion is set in stone is when you will experience something astounding you cannot reason with. Then you will be one of the people that are described, as you describe, by another feeling the same way. I am also not trying to be offensive. Just trying to apply some logic to the situation as it is hard to believe people because of the way they can be or are.

The problem with science and all other logic, in essence, is that it is still growing and expanding in knowledge. Rational logic and intelligence only can be applied to how much you know and only so far, which leaves room for the unexplained and paranormal.



[edit on 29-5-2009 by N3krostatic]

N3krostatic, i agree with you 100%
tbh i agree with everything you said
you really do make sense and you actually really do seem to understand where i'mcoming from
i do feel that maybe sometimes i am too close minded but i'm not unshakeable like some creationists or extremist atheists lol
if some evidence for the paranormal appears then i will be more willing to consider it to be true. in the meantime i will say that the existence of ghosts seems very unlikely as it seems to contradict some scienctific facts but with new evidence i am willing to change

great post btw N3krostatic

reply to post by SlayerRock


I am glad to have been able to put that into some kind of sense.

I also agree with you wholeheartedly on the religious aspect as well.
The hard part of all the info and stories and thoughts floating everywhere for me is keeping it all balanced. It can seriously be a nightmare to balance hope, logic, skepticism and belief. I suppose that's what it's all about. Balance.

I believe in spirits, in short, because I have encountered more than one.

Here's the story of the most vivid one.

All my life I have had sleep issues-it is nearly impossible for me to sleep more than two or 3 hours at a time.

Well, when I waas in my early twenties, I was dating a girl in Vancouver washington whose mother had died very suddenly of a brain anuerism. She always spoke of her how her mom was still following her, which I mostly shrugged off.

Well, one evening I was sleeping(or trying to) at her apartment. Around 2a.m., I was lying next to here, more meditating than sleeping(this is what I do when i am having issues-it doesn't help me sleep, but does help me feel more rested). I rolled over, and saw someone leaning over the bed.

I figured it was simply my girlfriend getting up to use the restroom, but she was just standing there, which concerned me, as she was very prone to slipping into depressions after her mom died, and sometimes she would just go into a sort of shock where she seemed lost for a while.

I asked if she was okay, and got no reply, but she then turned and walked out of the room. All of a sudden, a chill swept over me, I mean a real chill, to the point I could see my breath.

I rolled over to wear my girlfriend had been sleeping, figuring I would just wait until she returned to make sure she was okay.

To my surprise, she was lying next to me, breath visible in the air, eyes wide open.

She looked at me, and said "Mom was just here".

The room quickly warmed, and that was that.

To this day (including right now) I get a major chill whenever I even think about this.

if you're sincere, then thank you for your post

[edit on 29-5-2009 by SlayerRock]

I have had one experience in my life so far in the house we live in. My wife who is more sensitive than I has had a few. I saw a shadow figure. It was not dramatic or scary and lasted about 4seconds. I did not see it in my peripheral vision and I was sober lol. Can I reproduce it for you? Nope. Is it important to me that you believe? Nope. I know what I saw and hope you see something too some day. Only then will you believe.

While I'm afraid I cannot provide any evidence to aid your quest for knowledge, I can assure you that I understand your position. I consider myself an intelligent, rational individual, and I detest conjecture and inference; I do, however, respect observation and fact. On that note, despite my inherent skeptiscism, it is a fact that I have observed several occurances which could not be immediately explained by conventional science. I'll spare you the details, understanding as I do how little the personal recounting of a paranormal experience means to a skeptic. I will tell you this much, however; there is only one real reason why I believe my experiences were true, and not the result of my imagination, a hallucination, or simple coincidence wrapped around my lack of knowledge. There was, at the time of these experiences, a number of people who also experienced unexplainable phenomena with no prior knowledge of the area. These individuals described to me in precise detail what had happened to, or near, them; their descriptions matched my own experiences quite flawlessly, which has led me to believe that I am not, in fact, insane.
I suppose there are two lessons you may glean from my seemingly incessant rambling. The first is a lesson in method; when investigating anything of a paranormal nature, you must control the information. People's minds can and will conform to a suggestion.
The second is the one you may learn in time, though you'll surely hate me for saying it. Seeing is believing.

SlayerRock... if my post came off negative that wasn't my intention... 5 years ago i was in the same shoes as you, no one could break my over analytical have to see it to believe it mind.

now. what you are asking for is a paradox. you want scientific evidence for paranormal events.

not to sound cliche but... asnwers.com defines paranormal as...
Beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation

you want scientific answers for an unscientific thing. again i'm not knocking science. i'm saying that if even you admit that science does not have all the answers and that it can and has mistakes, then why can't the answer simply be some crazy # we just haven't discovered how to detect yet? i don't have a good argument going here haha so i'll move on to my next point

i really think you should challenge your own belief that science is not a religion. (and you can't go around saying you hatereligion). maybe i should have used the term 'belief structure' instead of religion. but its all the same thing. its how you are raised to be taught every single thing you know. i do not quite see a difference between the the rather (rigid) belief systems of science and any other religion/belief system. any way i'm no more correct than you are so feel free to dismiss everything i said. its just my perspective vs. your perspective.

if you want to know why we truely believe in this nonsense? its because we feelit. i think its just that simple. at least for me it is.

don't take offense to anything i said. probably badly executed sarcasm.

some people just have watched one too many spooky movies or stories, but for the people who have actually experienced the paranormal, its like a veil being lifted from your eyes. Many people who never believe in this stuff in the first place, become believers overnight, when they experience their first paranormal experience. And frankly, most people won't figure it out what actually happen to them til after the event. Example being my big brother who was warned by a ghost or angel or guardian spirit or whatever you want to call it, then finding that there wasn't anyone there. That damn Skippy made him into a believer after that.

i never understood why people needed scientific evidence for something that has nothing to do with science. its like trying to build a rocket by praying, its two completley different things