Ghosts...

folan wrote: »

so what your saying is its harder to see when im taking the piss on the internet?

<taking the piss>interesting</taking the piss>

Generally when people take the piss there is a witticism or something else which allows those of intelligence to clearly see they were taking the piss.

Your statement seemed a bit too genuine to be taking the piss. :pac:

I was going to post this in the creepy thread this evening but I'm going to put it here as being the closest I can manage to an uncontradictable ghost story.

Some years ago I was working in an old building in Dublin. We finished up late at night (not terribly late, around 10pm or so). As I was going to collect my coat and bag I passed the small section that had been converted into a tea service area, a small corner with sweets, biscuits, a burco etc. As I walked through the door beside the service area, I looked into the area and beside the burco I could see as clear as day the figure of a woman standing there. I could see her clearly enough to see what age she was, what she was wearing, her hair colour, the position she was standing in. All of that.

The building manager was still there so I asked her if the building was haunted, to which she replied "Yep - which one did you see?". So I began to describe to her what I'd seen. As I described the woman, the manager said that I was the third person in the space of a couple of months to see her. Not only that, but she was able, from the descriptions given to her by the other people who'd seen the woman, to describe to me the things I hadn't told her - the colour of the woman's clothes (blue), the type of headwear she was wearing - and then she went in and stood beside the burco and said "Was she standing like this?" and stood in the exact position, with her arms folded - another detail I hadn't told her.

The following week the former manager of the building arrived in. We told him about the ghost that I and others had seen. He was able to tell us who she was, her name, where she was buried - he remembered her from when he was a kid working there. The outfit she was wearing was consistent with what a 1960s tea woman would have been wearing (blue dress, white apron, little blue cap, hair tied back).

So can you give me a logical explanation for that that can logically come to any conclusion, any conclusion at all, OTHER than a ghost?

Ghosts exist, OP. Your choosing not to believe in them is your choice but you can't just settle on a point of view and then decide that you are just absolutely right and every single piece of evidence to the contrary is misinformed, misleading, can be explained even if you don't have the explanation or is just plain wrong, and that, by extension, everybody else who holds a differing point of view is wrong too.

You've already switched from saying you don't believe in them to knowing they don't exist - believing something and knowing something are two different things. You're entitled to believe anything you want. But you can't KNOW ghosts don't exist unless you can prove it. Unless and until you can prove that, it's a matter of believing they don't exist. Otherwise it's;

You - I have no proof but I believe/know, based on my experience, that ghosts don't exist
Me - I have no proof but I believe/know, based on my experience, that ghosts DO exist

Stalemate.

The plural of anecdote is not evidence.

Ghost stories is just that - mind playing tricks on people. The human brain will create patterns out of any chaos, and create fake memories and other things to create a coherent story.

This has even been proven in MR scanners, while fake memories was being created by the brain .. It seems real, just like Deja Vus etc.

Of course ghosts are real. Didn't we build housing estates for them to live in.

I never believed in what ghosts have to say,
I can always see right through them

o1s1n wrote: »

I know they don't exist. Therefore I'm not a skeptic.

While I too think ghosts are a load of bull****, I can't say that I know that they don't exist. Nobody does. There is no proof that they don't exist.
Of course, there is obsoletely no proof/evidence that they do exist at all. But similarly, there is no proof that they don't exist either.

Again, I don't believe in ghosts.

firefly08 wrote: »

I hope you won't take this as a personal criticism, but I think that quote says more about your position than anything else. Rationally minded people do not simply believe anything they want. Do you? It's not a question of entitlement. Yet we only ever hear this from confirmed believers - that belief is a choice. Skeptics don't accept that; they believe what evidence compels them to believe. Is your belief in ghosts a personal choice, that you feel entitled to?

That said, I agree with you 100% that it's absurd for someone to insist that something doesn't exist just because they have never seen it.

No personal slight taken at all. However, I'm not sure you read my entire post, which I think clarifies why I believe in ghosts. My belief in ghosts was just as dubious as the OP until I personally experienced one. I don't believe in them because of some nebulous belief in the ethereal or spirit world, I believe in them because I can logically see absolutely no explanation whatsoever for what happened. I remain openminded to the possibility that it was something else, and would welcome a convincing rationale. I personally, however, cannot for the life of me conceive of any other explanation.

12gauge dave wrote: »

So enlighten us with your rational explanation for what this person seen?

I wasn't there, plus, another post made a good attempt.
Fantastical explanation for phenomena go along with fashions; back in the heavily religious influenced middle ages, people would see witches and demons, later on ghosts became more popular, nowadays it's more likely to be aliens

Honestly? No, I don't.

12gauge dave wrote: »

I understand why people dont believe in ghosts and i have never seen one myself to be fair but ive heard too many storys from people who have no reason to lie and yes there maybe some scientific reason of there mind playing tricks or something but its very easy to say oh ur mind does this and that and thats why u think u seen that!
I know im off topic but ive also friends whoi have played ouiji board(however you spell it) and have sworn of talking to unknown sources of energy for a lack of better wording! I would never get involved in a game to be honest as much as it intrigues me storys of bad luck etc?
Has anyone here playes ouji board?

Ask yourself which is more likely?

The unkown, unverified, without a shred of physical evidence and completely contradictory to science; ghost.

Or the well known, understood, observed under scientific conditions and extremely common; hallucination.

Rheo wrote: »

"I saw something that I couldn't explain, therefore I can explain it"

Pretty much how most ghost stories go.

It is The Devil tricking them into believing it was a ghost rather than God.