Are spirits, creepy encounters, ghosts, seances, ouija boards etc proof of afterlife

Gerry Rio

What do you think? Arent ghosts proof that there's something after all this?

Insect Overlord

Nope.

/thread

They're proof of suggestibility, cold reading, group hysteria, imagination and gullibility.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Gerry Rio wrote: »

What do you think? Arent ghosts proof that there's something after all this?

Well, no... Becsuse none of the things you list are statisticly reliable....

captbarnacles

Gerry Rio wrote: »

What do you think? Arent ghosts proof that there's something after all this?

You sound like you have proof of ghosts?

My name is URL

lol... nice bait thread

Gerry Rio

An File wrote: »

Nope.

/thread

Very insightful. Thanks.

endacl

What you have provided, OP, is a list of things that constitute evidence of stupid.

Gerry Rio

May I just point the sceptics in the direction of this thread.

FortySeven

I've been around a while and been around a few places. Never had a hint of anything spooky, the people who tell me about their 'experiences' always seem to be those needy, always trying to impress type people. And vegetarians, always bloody vegetarians.

So no. The things that do not exist and have no evidence of existing cannot be accepted as proof of an afterlife.

Gerry Rio

Candie wrote: »

They're proof of suggestibility, cold reading, group hysteria, imagination and gullibility.

So everyone in here is like that?

Gerry Rio

Gerry Rio wrote: »

May I just point the sceptics in the direction of this thread.

Who needs evidence when you have a whole thread full of anecdotes!

Insect Overlord

Gerry Rio wrote: »

Very insightful. Thanks.

No problemo!

Omackeral

There's actually a really quick way to tell if your house is haunted.













It isn't.

StewartGriffin

Not too long ago it was easier to believe in ghosts. When there were shadows in the corner of rooms and you walked home from the pub with a shaky flashlight. Sadly now everything is illuminated and even hearsay and rumour is countered by lack of video evidence.

In this age of eternal cameras, phones or cctv, check you tube and see the the evidence. Nothing.

Ghosts don't exist. I wish they did. But they don't.

Insect Overlord

Gerry Rio wrote: »

So everyone in here is like that?

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Gerry Rio

Candie wrote: »

Who needs evidence when you have a whole thread full of anecdotes!

By your previous logic they're all liars or gullible.

Gerry Rio

Gerry Rio wrote: »

By your previous logic they're all liars or gullible.

Did I say liar? No, I didn't. Nice try.

'Psychic's' are certainly either liars or deluded.

endacl

Gerry Rio wrote: »

By your previous logic they're all liars or gullible.

Mostly gullible, I'd say. That's quite a funny thread.

LionelNashe

Leaving aside for the moment that there is no such thing as ghosts, and just pretending for the sake of argument that there is such a thing as ghosts.....

I would think the most likely explanation of a ghost walking across a room or emerging/disappearing through a wall would be that we're getting a glimpse of somebody who existed in the past, maybe because of a thin spot in space-time. i.e. A window to the past has briefly opened, and we can see through it to a moment in history, but it doesn't imply that there was life after death for that person. People have even reported 'phantom buses'.

Quote:

The Phantom Bus.

There can be few hauntings that are as bizarre and dramatic as that which afflicts Cambridge Gardens in the early hours of some mornings.
The phantom in question is that of a number 7 double decker London bus, last seen in May 1990.
However, it first came to public attention when, in early one morning in 1934, a motorist driving along Cambridge Gardens, suddenly swerved, for no apparent reason, and was killed when his car hit a wall and burst into flames.
At the subsequent inquest into his death, witnesses came forward to testify to the existence of a phantom bus that many of them had been seen, more or less at the exact spot where the fatal crash had occurred. They told how it would always appear at round about 1.15am, the time that the crash had occurred, and spoke of their terror as it came racing along the centre of the road towards them. No driver was ever visible, and no lights were ever on

The Randy Riverbeast

If there was proof of spirits, ghosts etc then maybe.

Creepy encounters might be creepy but there would be an explanation or is just coincidence.

endacl

endacl wrote: »

Mostly gullible, I'd say. That's quite a funny thread.

Or drunk/exhausted/experiencing sleep paralysis/stressed/highly imaginative and suggestible.

No, wait!

Believing in phantoms and ghosts and things that go bump in the night is much more logical!

Savage Tyrant

Spirits, seances, ghosts and ouija boards are NOT proof of the afterlife... They do belong in the same category though... Listed under complete nonsense.

Gerry Rio

There are over 3 thousand posts in that "Creepy" thread.

3 thousand!

So lets say half those posts are replies and not stories, that leaves 1,500 claims of encounters.

They're all liars?

FortySeven

Gerry Rio wrote: »

There are over 3 thousand posts in that "Creepy" thread.

3 thousand!

So lets say half those posts are replies and not stories, that leaves 1,500 claims of encounters.

They're all liars?

Yes. There are a few million others too.

Like these guys, they drive around Galway in a beat up old car with the cheapest stickers all over it. Fair play to them, they have a market but who are we kidding.

http://connachttribune.ie/galway-s-ghost-hunters-probe-the-paranormal/

Azalea

I keep an open mind about there being more outside the dimension we inhabit/are aware of. Might be nothing, but can't know for sure. People say to respect that religious people have their beliefs, why not the same applied to those who believe in the supernatural?

I know there are odious scammers that take advantage though.

Insect Overlord

Gerry Rio wrote: »

They're all liars?

Not liars. Story-tellers. Some of them very good story-tellers too.

Not too many of them are claiming to offer proof of an "afterlife".

FortySeven

Azalea wrote: »

I keep an open mind about there being more outside the dimension we inhabit/are aware of. Might be nothing, but can't know for sure. People say to respect that religious people have their beliefs, why not the same applied to those who believe in the supernatural?

I know there are odious scammers that take advantage though.

We should respect peoples 'rights' to belief. No expectation to respect the belief itself.

I personally find it all disturbing. Belief without evidence. Faith. Etc.

Not much respect for the right to logic from the other side.

con___manx1

I used t live in a house facing a cemetary.the weirdst thing about it was i used too see an old woman at night. She was always in the same spot beside the same grave. I never seen her leave or arrive.I don't live there anymore thank god. Hope she wasn't a goast ; ) she was always alone and I never seen her face it was always too dark. I'm sure she was just a poor grieving person. But graveyards creep me out . people who say they don't believe in goasts are mostly full of crap. I no a few places that they wouldn't spend a night alone for sure. There are some really old overgrown grave yards that are really isolated too. I suppose the people who don't believe would have no problem pitching a tent and spending the night in one without one thought of a goast. I very much doubt it ; )

Gerry Rio

An File wrote: »

Not liars. Story-tellers. Some of them very good story-tellers too.

Not too many of them are claiming to offer proof of an "afterlife".

They're telling stories of spirit like encounters. That they believe in.

They're all wrong? All of them? You dont believe that one of the hundreds of stories in there had an real encounter with a spirit?

Gerry Rio

Gerry Rio wrote: »

There are over 3 thousand posts in that "Creepy" thread.

3 thousand!

So lets say half those posts are replies and not stories, that leaves 1,500 claims of encounters.

They're all liars?

Three thousand posts and how many instances of hard proof...?

FortySeven

con___manx1 wrote: »

I used t live in a house facing a cemetary.the weirdst thing about it was i used too see an old woman at night. She was always in the same spot beside the same grave. I never seen her leave or arrive.I don't live there anymore thank god. Hope she wasn't a goast ; ) she was always alone and I never seen her face it was always too dark. I'm sure she was just a poor grieving person. But graveyards creep me out . people who say they don't believe in goasts are mostly full of crap. I no a few places that they wouldn't spend a night alone for sure. There are some really old overgrown grave yards that are really isolated too. I suppose the people who don't believe would have no problem pitching a tent and spending the night in one without one thought of a goast. I very much doubt it ; )

I used to live in a house within a graveyard. I was in a turret room with gravestomes in the walls. Never anything spooky. There was a wierd thing up in the rafters that I wondered about once but when I climbed up there it was an old amber lamp. Lived there for a year, the graveyard was our garden. Never spooked once.

Come to think of it, slept rough in a few overgrown, old graveyards too, also got drunk in them when a teenager. Never spooked.

the evasion_kid

nope there's a want in people to believe, bit like pareidolia were the mind makes a pattern or shape of something were none exist, faces or figures on mars or the moon etc.

Smidge

Candie wrote: »

Who needs evidence when you have a whole thread full of anecdotes!

BURN THE NON BELIEVER :mad:



:P

Insect Overlord

Gerry Rio wrote: »

You dont believe that one of the hundreds of stories in there had an real encounter with a spirit?

Got it in one.

People like to remember the dead. I see things most days that remind me of someone I used to know, but I don't assume she's trying to contact me from beyond the grave!

KERSPLAT!

OP, you asked a question and people are answering. You seem bemused that people aren't answering as you think they should, why ask at all?

Lots of people believe they've had experiences with ghosts or other paranormal entities, that doesn't mean they did but it also doesn't make them liars.

The Randy Riverbeast

Gerry Rio wrote: »

There are over 3 thousand posts in that "Creepy" thread.

3 thousand!

So lets say half those posts are replies and not stories, that leaves 1,500 claims of encounters.

They're all liars?

Liars? No, well I'd say at least most aren't. It's a thread of people seeing and experiencing weird ****. I've experienced some weird **** but it doesn't mean it was really ghosts or Jesus. It is possible for someone to see Jesus burnt into their toast, doesn't mean Jesus is real and that doesn't mean the event never happened.

Totofan99

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

OP, you asked a question and people are answering. You seem bemused that people aren't answering as you think they should, why ask at all?

Lots of people believe they've had experiences with ghosts or other paranormal entities, that doesn't mean they did but it also doesn't make them liars.

This is a common problem with believers in the paranormal, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, etc. They've already decided what they want to believe, and that they're correct, so nothing anyone can say is going to change their minds. So why bother?

Yes OP, all of those things are proof of the afterlife. Absolutely.

TheLastMohican

The only spirits I believe in are, at the moment, Christian Brothers Brandy and Triple Sec. 60%:40% over crushed ice. The peasants' Grand Marnier.

Sláinte!

Peregrine

Gerry Rio wrote: »

They're telling stories of spirit like encounters. That they believe in.

They're all wrong? All of them? You dont believe that one of the hundreds of stories in there had an real encounter with a spirit?

Unless that one of the hundreds has some evidence then, no, I don't.

topmanamillion

con___manx1 wrote: »

But graveyards creep me out . people who say they don't believe in goasts are mostly full of crap. I no a few places that they wouldn't spend a night alone for sure. There are some really old overgrown grave yards that are really isolated too. I suppose the people who don't believe would have no problem pitching a tent and spending the night in one without one thought of a goast. I very much doubt it ; )

I can honestly say i would camp out in a graveyard and the thought of ghosts wouldn't cross my mind.
The thing that would concern me is relatives of the deceased finding a 6 foot grown man camped out at the foot of their loved ones grave.

FortySeven

topmanamillion wrote: »

I can honestly say i would camp out in a graveyard and the thought of ghosts wouldn't cross my mind.
The thing that would concern me is relatives of the deceased finding a 6 foot grown man camped out at the foot of their loved ones grave.

Best to go to the really old parts, not many grieving those from the 1800s.

Insect Overlord

Do graveyards not have the same rule as parks and public greens, the one that prohibits tents and temporary dwellings?

TheLastMohican

topmanamillion wrote: »

I can honestly say i would camp out in a graveyard and the thought of ghosts wouldn't cross my mind.
The thing that would concern me is relatives of the deceased finding a 6 foot grown man camped out at the foot of their loved ones grave.

Ancesror worship?

You'd be Big In Japan

Samaris

The question is badly phrased, since it assumes that encounters with ghosts (which are an unproven phenomena) are all entirely inexplicable by any other means.

I've read all through that thread (great thread, also the Mysteries thread is well-worth a read), and even contributed my own odd experiences to it. One or two did make me go "hm", but I'm not going to call it proof of anything. For a start, even "ghosts" might not prove an afterlife.

Say we take the hypothesis that something happens that is actually and totally inexplicable by known physics and normal means. We've totally ruled out creaking floorboards, methane, other chemical influences, over-active imagination, dreaming, someone arsing about, etcetera etcetera.

One commonly accepted hypothesis is that the life-force or spirit of a dead person is hanging around. A second is that some people are able to (generally unintentionally) affect things outside their physical reach. So already any "supernatural" phenomenon has two potential explanations and thus neither can be conclusively proved by a given phenomenon. If a tree falls in the woods and no-one's around to hear it, does it make a noise? Does a 'ghost' appear if there's no-one around to influence its appearance?

There's also the question of what -is- paranormal?
How much is imagination accepted as being a valid issue? If lots of people feel "wrong" about a place (maybe they know it's got a bad history, it looks bad, cold breezes, etc.), what exactly is setting off the danger signals?

Basically, the whole thing is so woolly that you really can't call anything proof or even what exactly you're proving.

KungPao

Savage Tyrant wrote: »

Spirits, seances, ghosts and ouija boards are NOT proof of the afterlife... They do belong in the same category though... Listed under complete nonsense.

I read that in Jeremy Clarkson's voice.

hatrickpatrick

Something to think about - what if ghosts and supernatural forces are not actually people who have died, but are independent beings in their own right rather than just an extension of human beings?

Personally I do believe in the afterlife, but I find it odd that so many automatically correlate ghosts and spirits with deceased humans. What if they're their own "species", and exist entirely independent of the human race? What if they're born as ghosts to begin with, rather than just being another stage of something else?

/3AM thoughts

Optimalprimerib

I did experience something creepy in my life, and it convinced me that there is more going on than what is explainable. Even when i tried to break down how it may have been a coincidence, i cant do it.

Maybe we are not clever enough to find the data yet to prove it. although most in here seem to think they are.

Bongalongherb

Gerry Rio wrote: »

What do you think? Arent ghosts proof that there's something after all this?

There is something there. When it comes to seeing ghosts or other anomalies as such I never saw anything personally. But being sucked out of your body when in bed asleep and experiencing reality from a height above the home buildings and thinking and seeing real life move along while looking at it as if it was real waking life is strange indeed.

The impression I get is that when the physical body dies, only then the electrical energy from your body with memories intact exist in some form not understood yet. There is definitely something there but I just can't prove it.

And this is coming from an atheist. There is something there 100% The real mystery from a world society that refuses to acknowledge such things.

topmanamillion

Bongalongherb wrote: »

There is something there. When it comes to seeing ghosts or other anomalies as such I never saw anything personally. But being sucked out of your body when in bed asleep and experiencing reality from a height above the home buildings and thinking and seeing real life move along while looking at it as if it was real waking life is strange indeed.

The impression I get is that when the physical body dies, only then the electrical energy from your body with memories intact exist in some form not understood yet. There is definitely something there but I just can't prove it.

And this is coming from an atheist. There is something there 100% The real mystery from a world society that refuses to acknowledge such things.

One question, why do people only experience these outer body experiences when they are either asleep/on top of a high mountain/fasting etc?
Is it what you say or could it be these states are necessary to experience such hallucinations.
If I told you I was wide awake, well rested, had just eaten and was at a reasonable altitude and I had an outer body experience without losing consciousness. Would I be less or more believable?

kneemos

Nurses apparently have no end of ghost stories.Quite a common sight in health care facilities.
Heard of one case where they would wave at a deceased guy that that regularly appeared and carry on with their work.