Do you believe in ghosts / spirits of the dead?

I believe in life after death, I believe in the Bible, and so in that sense I believe that the spirits of the deceased can return under the proper circumstances.

That said, being a believer in the Bible, I believe in the Supremacy of God. I do not believe that he would allow hauntings and other such nonsense to occur. Therefore, I do not believe in haunted houses or other such things.

To paraphrase another member (DotW) who was discussing his religious beliefs, if you have a negative / condescending / derogatory position on my beliefs, good on you, but keep it to yourself -- I've heard it all a million times before.

 

That would describe my thoughts on ghosts perfectly - unless I experienced something that would be considered incontrovertible proof, I do not believe in ghosts.

 

But it may make me believe in zombies....

 

AtFI, if you had incontrovertible proof, you wouldn't need to believe, you'd know they existed. That's generally the crux of these discussions, much like with religion: do you still think these things exist, without knowing for sure? If so, you believe in them, which is a long way off from having evidence. i.e., you have faith in ghosts (or their existence).

People believe in ghosts for I suppose a lot of different reasons, but the one thing ghost-hunting has in common with bigfoot and aliens and stuff like that is that there's not a shred of cedible proof that these things exist. I'm talking bodies or undoctored, convincing photos and/or video in the case of bigfoot or aliens, and convincing photos or 'show me' moments with reliable persons in the case of ghosts. If bigfoot existed, someone should have found a corpse by now. Likewise aliens - someone should at least have convincing evidence of spacecraft or whatever. And ghosts shoud be documentable with all the people chasing them nowadays, but you never see anything that is universally convincing.

Still, imo this is one of those things where the best you can do is say "I see no reason to think that bigfoot/aliens/ghosts exist," as opposed to declaring outright that they don't. All I know is that I've never seen one. If the day comes when I do, then I'll change my mind.

 

I can’t say I believe in ghosts per se. I also don’t really believe in the afterlife, but something happened about 25 years ago to make me wonder.

When I was growing up, we had a neighbour I’ll call Mrs. X. She was nice enough, but pretty much kept to herself. I moved out when I was 26, and didn’t give her another thought. One night a couple of years later, I had a dream where I was walking down the sidewalk towards our house, and Mrs. X was standing in her front yard looking at me – nothing scary or menacing, just looking. I woke up, and forgot about it. A couple of days later, I was talking to my mom, and she said “I have some sad news – Mrs. X passed away a few days ago.” I immediately recalled the dream, and a shiver went down my spine; it just seemed a bit too coincidental. I know this is related more to afterlife than ghosts, but the two are somewhat (at least potentially) related.

 

No.

 

No, but I think there are natural phenomena that can easily be interpreted as ghosts. Usually I would be more vehement but I had a pupil a while back, a middle aged man, worked for the Swedish military intelligence for most of his life listening to Russian radio transmissions who now studied science who was a firm believer and even saw himself as somewhat of a shaman. He ran around doing stuff like putting ghosts to rest and whatnot and I had some interesting conversations with him. I told him straight up that the most likely explanation to his stories is that he is lying, the second most likely that he is insane. During our talks he did plant a seed of doubt in me though and there might be some phenomena that humans interpret as "ghosts". He was a showman, an entertaining and most likely a lying showman.

Aldeth, you sure it wasn't just a deja vu? Your mother mentioned mrs X and your brain made up a memory or some such? Dreams are notoriously intangible and I can't count the number of times where something has happened and I have gotten the feeling that I have dreamt this recently

 

Everybody's got a heebie-jeebie story or two. I once saw a space-man walking across an empty parking lot at 4 in the morning.

 

You've seen what the living do, right?

Yes, I believe there could be ghosts. That doesn't mean I believe the hollywood crap put out there. Most mediums, ghost-hunters and public renditions of anything paranormal are a collection of nonsense.

 

I don't put much of a stock in ghost stories, but I can't completely rule out some sort of psychic phenomenon. For now, I generally dismiss stories of ghosts until they can be corroborated.

 

It is widely known that Uri Geller is full of $h!t.

no, I dont believe in ghosts.

 

I can say that it's highly unlikely. Like I said, she kept to herself, and we didn't have much to do with her. I know that there isn't alot know about why we dream what we do, but seriously - Mrs. X was really a non-factor in my life, and I just don't see why I would have had numerous dreams about her. I also can say that I have several recurring dreams that I do recall, and if Mrs. X was one of them, I think I would know that.

I'm not saying I'm convinced there is a connection - not by a long shot. But it is kind of erie.

 

I went to see a medium (verging on small) once. I was prepared to be skeptical and for her to come out with a load of BS... However, the first thing she said was that my dad had died, the time and place, my age when he died, where his old watch was and what time it had stopped at. Apparently she'd had a 'message' telling her that I thought she was a fake.

Thing is, no one had seen my dads watch for years and I went home, looked straight away in the place she'd said and found it. It was on the right time too!

 

The only spirits I believe in usually come in a bottle....