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

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    #122
    FortySeven
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,296 ✭✭✭FortySeven


    DarkyHughes wrote: »
    You want proof? Hows this for proof.


    That's right hell for everybody in this thread.

    Oh god! Here we go! How could you?


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    #123
    Titanucd
    Registered Users Posts: 132 ✭✭Titanucd


    Fleawuss wrote: »
    No one has to credibly debunk what you claim. As you have carefully constructed your conditions for such ( a time machine no less) I suspect that you have no intention of ever allowing your beliefto be debunked.

    I look on your story this way ( you are a story teller):
    Why would an evil spirit intent on murder and capable of interference in the physical world give warning of its intention? Why give you time to intervene? You see that makes no sense. What does make sense is that you want to convince people to believe in you and your story and look there's the proof! Murder and a crying child! All we have to do is..... Believe you.

    Your story serves only one purpose: to convince people to believe you. I don't. Your spirit story is nonsense. If it was true we would have verifiable evidence from many sources: spirits on demand. They aren't because there's nothing there except the finality of the grave.

    Ah the absolute certainty of youth. Oh how I miss it.

    You seem to be quite hung up on not believing me. I actually don't care because quite frankly I find it nearly impossible to believe myself and I lived it.
    You haven't asked what I think happened. You've just got on your high horse about how certain you are that what happened didn't happen the way I said.
    As regards the time machine? That was an attempt to demonstrate how difficult it would be for anybody to prove what happened, me included.
    Anyway I hope you can keep that certainty of belief in your life. It gets eroded all too quickly.


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    #124
    Fleawuss
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,681 ✭✭✭Fleawuss


    Titanucd wrote: »
    Ah the absolute certainty of youth. Oh how I miss it.

    You seem to be quite hung up on not believing me. I actually don't care because quite frankly I find it nearly impossible to believe myself and I lived it.
    You haven't asked what I think happened. You've just got on your high horse about how certain you are that what happened didn't happen the way I said.
    As regards the time machine? That was an attempt to demonstrate how difficult it would be for anybody to prove what happened, me included.
    Anyway I hope you can keep that certainty of belief in your life. It gets eroded all too quickly.

    I know what you want. Every aspect of your story screams it: believe me, believe me, believe me. The bad salesman's approach: my product is crap but believe me. Your story is bull****. Your child wasn't being murdered by a spirit. Any sane person knows that.


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    #125
    Titanucd
    Registered Users Posts: 132 ✭✭Titanucd


    Fleawuss wrote: »
    I know what you want. Every aspect of your story screams it: believe me, believe me, believe me. The bad salesman's approach: my product is crap but believe me. Your story is bull****. Your child wasn't being murdered by a spirit. Any sane person knows that.

    Wow your making stuff up now! Who said anything about anyone being murdered?
    Seriously wind your neck in.
    You've read the post in question and what you got from it was that I thought my child was being murdered?? 😂😂😂
    By an evil spirit???

    Maybe she sensed a presence? Maybe she was trying to warn us? Maybe she had wind?


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    #126
    Fleawuss
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,681 ✭✭✭Fleawuss


    Titanucd wrote: »
    Wow your making stuff up now! Who said anything about anyone being murdered?
    Seriously wind your neck in.
    You've read the post in question and what you got from it was that I thought my child was being murdered?? 😂😂😂
    By an evil spirit???

    Maybe she sensed a presence? Maybe she was trying to warn us? Maybe she had wind?

    :D


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    #127
    Titanucd
    Registered Users Posts: 132 ✭✭Titanucd


    Realise we might have gone off topic a bit so apologies. For what it's worth I voted undecided because I don't believe in ghosts etc but I can't say for certain that they don't exist


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    #128
    Kev W
    Registered Users Posts: 2,536 ✭✭✭Kev W


    I voted no because something which cannot be proven (spirits, ghosts, wizards, wombles) cannot, by definition, be reasonably considered proof of something else that cannot be otherwise proven (life after death, moomins).


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    #129
    Titanucd
    Registered Users Posts: 132 ✭✭Titanucd


    Kev W wrote: »
    I voted no because something which cannot be proven (spirits, ghosts, wizards, wombles) cannot, by definition, be reasonably considered proof of something else that cannot be otherwise proven (life after death, moomins).

    Yeah true. I suppose in order to vote yes you need to take it as fact that ghosts etc do exist.and even if they did that wouldn't necessarily prove an afterlife. Aww crap can I change my vote?

    That said wombles do exist! They're just not sentient beings 😉


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    #130
    The Randy Riverbeast
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,770 ✭✭✭The Randy Riverbeast


    Kev W wrote: »
    I voted no because something which cannot be proven (spirits, ghosts, wizards, wombles) cannot, by definition, be reasonably considered proof of something else that cannot be otherwise proven (life after death, moomins).
    Thought that said Mormons. Was thinking Mormons do in fact exist.


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    #131
    mcmoustache
    Registered Users Posts: 7,236 ✭✭✭mcmoustache


    Kev W wrote: »
    That depends, have any wizards been at it? More to the point, can you prove they haven't?

    That must be it. Not only is my poop purple but a wizard did it. And since you can't prove otherwise, we must conclude that it could only be that my poop is purple because of a wizard.

    It couldn't be because I'm a liar or deluded. No sirree.

    *huffs more glue*

    No sirree.


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    #132
    The_Kew_Tour
    Registered Users Posts: 34,068 ✭✭✭✭The_Kew_Tour


    No such thing as Ghosts.


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    #133
    nullzero
    Registered Users Posts: 16,516 ✭✭✭✭nullzero
    ****


    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?

    You're missing the point in fine style. These things can't be conclusively proven or disproven and in situations like that most people believe that there is no way said things could happen /exist. What you find on this site and most others of its type is people posting snarky "how can you be so stupid /gullible" replies and being commended for it. In the case of psychics who largely (in the case of show "mediums") who prey on people's good nature and make money through complete deception of gullible people it is easy to identify as nonsense. However simply because dodgy mediums prey on gullible people it does not mean every unusual or supposedly" supernatural" phenomenon known to man is nonsense, although that is the leap in logic made by a lot of people.


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    #134
    topmanamillion
    Registered Users Posts: 3,319 ✭✭✭topmanamillion


    Bongalongherb wrote: »
    It's just an unknown at the moment because I tried to understand it many times in the past, but it's so vivid and real as in 100% waking life but clearer some-how, it's hard to explain it. Amazing though.

    The weird interesting part of this experience is that when you are 'asleep' and you then feel the suction of being removed from your physical body to an awakening state is the strange part.

    You go to bed and sleep, simple, but then you experience awakeness as you are being pulled out is the feeling and then when pulled out it feels like you are fully awake in real-time reality and you experience it this way as a fully awake scenario and not any kind of a dream.

    I have no idea how to explain it but I myself had this so-called out of body experience many times in the past but the only way I can describe it is that it all feels like I am fully awake and I can see everything going on below on the street from around 150 feet or slightly above.

    It's one hell of a visual that's for sure and basically you are fully awake but not in your physical body. I've no answers to it, but it is one hell of an experience to have. You know very clearly immediately that you are floating above a space whether it is in your room or high above your house, you are saying to yourself that this is crazy but you can see everything as natural as day. Whatever it is is very interesting to say the least.

    Oh, there is one more thing about this. When you are out of the body in this feeling of reality... you sure as hell feel a jolt when you are sucked back into your physical body and it's like a person banged you hard on the chest and then you are wide awake wondering wtf just happened. The jolt being sucked back in is very strong and can give a person quite a shock.


    Also lucid dreams are strange and amazing.

    I still have lucid dreams and control them to an extent but sometimes they themselves are difficult to control as to stay in the lucid dream. Basically you are fast asleep but you awaken in your dream of complete lucidity, I mean fully awake in the dream and you will be saying to yourself that this is too real even though you know you are asleep and dreaming.

    I once walked up a small cliff and there was a road there with 2 cars parked on the side of the road and a few people walking along and I immediatelly felt the heat of the sun on my face and put my hand over my forehead for a few seconds. Then I said to myself ok, I know I'm dreaming but this is just too real so I picked up some dust and small stones in my hand just to see how real this felt and I could feel them just like if I was fully awake and picking up the same in real waking life, and this made me think of reality.

    How could I be fully awake and aware of everything but asleep at the same time, this is what I was asking myself in the lucid dream it was as real as you can imagine in real life. The human brain is an amazing thing, I just wish we had more information as to why you can be fully awake in a lucid dream and feel everything perfectly. A mystery for the time being, but I'm sure in the future we will have the correct answers. The after-life and out of body experience's are as facinating and strange as to seriously make a person think about what reality really is, even though we think we know what it is.
    Lucid dreams are an entirely different thing to supernatural events. There 's a vast array of medical journals and information about then. They are a neurological phenomenon. Nothing supernatural about them in the slightest.


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    #135
    BorneTobyWilde
    Registered Users Posts: 35,863 ✭✭✭✭BorneTobyWilde


    I've had conversations with people that aren't actually there.


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    #136
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,340 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    mattP wrote: »
    Im kinda shocked at the "No proof so it isn't real" attitude that seems prevalent. Do ye not think thats a little narrow minded?

    Nope. Narrow minded would be thinking that no proof means it is impossible or can never be true. That is close minded. Being open minded means being willing to accept it is true IF evidence for it arrives, but not accepting it to be true UNTIL evidence for it arrives.

    Narrow minded, open minded, close minded.... none of these things has anything to do with whether you believe it or not. They have everything to do with your willingness to accept the evidence for it if it arrives.

    But since no one, least of all on this thread, is showing a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning that lends even a modicum of credence to things like ghosts, gods or after lives.... there is _nothing_ narrow minded about acknowledging that and withholding belief in such nonsense at this time.
    mattP wrote: »
    Im sorry, but just how have you proved that there is no such thing as a ghost? Or an after Life?

    They are not required to. The Burden of proof really is philosophy 101 stuff. It is entirely and solely up to the people claiming there ARE such things to substantiate that claim. All the rest of us have to do is merely noticed they have not done this yet.
    kneemos wrote: »
    So you're saying it could be supernatural.

    I think if you actually stop to listen to most people on this subject, few of them are denying that these things "Could" be supernatural in explanation. At this time all we know is that some things have not been explained. What the explanation is is open, and of course a supernatural explanation is possible.

    The fact remains however that no one, least of all you, has substantiated.... even by the tiniest bit.... that the explanation for such things IS supernatural.

    It would behoove you to note the difference closely between people saying "It can not be a supernatural explanation" and "We have absolutely zero reason of any type to think the explanation is supernatural at this time".

    Discounting an explanation as unsubstantiated is not the same as discounting the possibility of that explanation. The former is merely rational and good thinking. The latter would be close minded. Of course purveyors of woo very much contrive to mix the two and accuse adherents to the former OF the latter at the drop of a hat. Which is pretty low. And transparently desperate.
    Joe prim wrote: »
    I once put a pair of socks in the washer at home, with my weekly wash (it's an old house, with a tiled roof), and later, when I went to get my clean clothes, ONLY ONE SOCK WAS THERE!

    Actually I was lucky enough once to witness a "supernatural event" of another person. The person in question was looking for their keys. Their first port of call was their hand bag. They were not there. They started looking EVERYWHERE for them.

    In the end they got distracted and started clearing the table top. They lifted their hand bag, picked up the keys that were sitting UNDER the hand bag and put them IN the handbag.... all without noticing or thinking.

    Than a little later they went back to the task of looking for their keys. On a whim they checked the hand bag again, and of course then found the keys right there in plain sight.

    Now *I* had observed what happened but *they* did not. And they were convinced some ghostly or supernatural explanation was at play. They simply had no explanation how the keys could be gone one minute and there the next. As with most purveyors of supernatural explanation they demanded to know what other explanation I could possibly offer for the affair. So I told them. At which point they shut up quite quickly about it.

    But imagine I had NOT been there. What explanations could I have given? Very few really. The reality is I would have just had guess work to offer. And like so many purveyors of this kind of woo.... they would not have accepted any of my guess work. No explanation at all, like with Kneemos above, would have been the evidence for the supernatural. Because saying "I can not explain it" means "Therefore I can explain it!!!" in the heads of this type of person.


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    #137
    seamus
    Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Anyone who claims, "I know my own mind" should take a look at stuff like this, (The internet is full of these).

    The world you perceive, you perceive through sensors which while complicated and incredible, are also designed for a broad range of uses and thus are highly prone to all sorts of errors. Your eyes, ears, skin and other senses, are not finely-tuned and accurately calibrated scientific apparatuses, they are best-guess general purpose utensils. They lie to you all the time, but still give you an approximation of reality that's accurate enough to function on an everyday basis.


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    #138
    kneemos
    Registered Users Posts: 20,419 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »
    Nope. Narrow minded would be thinking that no proof means it is impossible or can never be true. That is close minded. Being open minded means being willing to accept it is true IF evidence for it arrives, but not accepting it to be true UNTIL evidence for it arrives.

    Narrow minded, open minded, close minded.... none of these things has anything to do with whether you believe it or not. They have everything to do with your willingness to accept the evidence for it if it arrives.

    But since no one, least of all on this thread, is showing a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning that lends even a modicum of credence to things like ghosts, gods or after lives.... there is _nothing_ narrow minded about acknowledging that and withholding belief in such nonsense at this time.



    They are not required to. The Burden of proof really is philosophy 101 stuff. It is entirely and solely up to the people claiming there ARE such things to substantiate that claim. All the rest of us have to do is merely noticed they have not done this yet.



    I think if you actually stop to listen to most people on this subject, few of them are denying that these things "Could" be supernatural in explanation. At this time all we know is that some things have not been explained. What the explanation is is open, and of course a supernatural explanation is possible.

    The fact remains however that no one, least of all you, has substantiated.... even by the tiniest bit.... that the explanation for such things IS supernatural.

    It would behoove you to note the difference closely between people saying "It can not be a supernatural explanation" and "We have absolutely zero reason of any type to think the explanation is supernatural at this time".

    Discounting an explanation as unsubstantiated is not the same as discounting the possibility of that explanation. The former is merely rational and good thinking. The latter would be close minded. Of course purveyors of woo very much contrive to mix the two and accuse adherents to the former OF the latter at the drop of a hat. Which is pretty low. And transparently desperate.



    Actually I was lucky enough once to witness a "supernatural event" of another person. The person in question was looking for their keys. Their first port of call was their hand bag. They were not there. They started looking EVERYWHERE for them.

    In the end they got distracted and started clearing the table top. They lifted their hand bag, picked up the keys that were sitting UNDER the hand bag and put them IN the handbag.... all without noticing or thinking.

    Than a little later they went back to the task of looking for their keys. On a whim they checked the hand bag again, and of course then found the keys right there in plain sight.

    Now *I* had observed what happened but *they* did not. And they were convinced some ghostly or supernatural explanation was at play. They simply had no explanation how the keys could be gone one minute and there the next. As with most purveyors of supernatural explanation they demanded to know what other explanation I could possibly offer for the affair. So I told them. At which point they shut up quite quickly about it.

    But imagine I had NOT been there. What explanations could I have given? Very few really. The reality is I would have just had guess work to offer. And like so many purveyors of this kind of woo.... they would not have accepted any of my guess work. No explanation at all, like with Kneemos above, would have been the evidence for the supernatural. Because saying "I can not explain it" means "Therefore I can explain it!!!" in the heads of this type of person.



    Haven't read the rest of your novel,but open minded means believing in possibilities without evidence.


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    #139
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,340 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    kneemos wrote: »
    Haven't read the rest of your novel,but open minded means believing in possibilities without evidence.

    No I did not expect your attention span to be up to it at all to be honest. Which is why the part addressed to you was relatively short. You are welcome to ignore the rest, it was not for you anyway.

    open-minded
    adjective
    willing to consider new ideas; unprejudiced.

    So yes open minded means being open to the possibilities. It does not mean believing those possibilities.

    I am, for example, extremely open to the possibility there might be ghosts, an after life, or a god. I could not _be_ more open to the possibility.

    But I _also_ recognize there is not a SHRED of evidence to support those possibilities at this time. Least of all from you.

    All too often the purveyors of woo want to pretend "open minded" means lending unsubstantiated notions some level of respect, credence or belief without evidence. That is not what it means. At all. Even a little bit.


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    #140
    Kev W
    Registered Users Posts: 2,536 ✭✭✭Kev W


    kneemos wrote: »
    Haven't read the rest of your novel,

    Yet you're willing to dismiss it out of hand? What would we call that?
    kneemos wrote: »
    but open minded means believing in possibilities without evidence.

    Open mindedness does not require that you believe in the supernatural. It requires that you accept evidence when it is presented.


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    #141
    seamus
    Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    kneemos wrote: »
    open minded means believing in possibilities without evidence.
    Open-minded means that you treat all potential evidence without prejudice and without trying to shoehorn it to fit your existing theories. Being open-minded means that you don't bend your evidence you fit your beliefs, you bend your beliefs to fit the evidence.

    Being open-minded doesn't mean that you give equal weight to all potential theories regardless of evidence. Because that's just stupid.
    That would mean that you give equal weight to the theory that gravity is caused by the farts of subatomic caterpillars.

    A theory which has zero evidence can be dismissed out of hand by an open-minded person because it doesn't fit any of the evidence.


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    #142
    kneemos
    Registered Users Posts: 20,419 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    seamus wrote: »
    Open-minded means that you treat all potential evidence without prejudice and without trying to shoehorn it to fit your existing theories. Being open-minded means that you don't bend your evidence you fit your beliefs, you bend your beliefs to fit the evidence.

    Being open-minded doesn't mean that you give equal weight to all potential theories regardless of evidence. Because that's just stupid.
    That would mean that you give equal weight to the theory that gravity is caused by the farts of subatomic caterpillars.

    A theory which has zero evidence can be dismissed out of hand by an open-minded person because it doesn't fit any of the evidence.



    The definition of open minded is being open to new and different ideas and opinions . Nothing about having evidence.


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    #143
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,340 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    kneemos wrote: »
    The definition of open minded is being open to new and different ideas and opinions . Nothing about having evidence.

    Sure. Being open minded means being open to considering new ideas and opinions when you hear them.

    Believing them requires evidence.

    As I said above for example, I am open to the idea there is a god or an after life. No evidence has come for these things however, least of all from you, so I do not BELIEVE there is a god or an after life.

    The problem is, as I said, that many people conflate these two things and act like not believing things without evidence means you are close or narrow minded.

    I repeat I am _OPEN_ to the idea there could be a god or an after life or that ghosts exist or that reincarnation happens. I do not believe any of these things however due to the fact that despite being open to them, and open to evidence for them, no evidence is forth coming. At all. Ever.


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    #144
    kneemos
    Registered Users Posts: 20,419 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »
    Sure. Being open minded means being open to considering new ideas and opinions when you hear them.

    Believing them requires evidence.

    As I said above for example, I am open to the idea there is a god or an after life. No evidence has come for these things however, least of all from you, so I do not BELIEVE there is a god or an after life.

    The problem is, as I said, that many people conflate these two things and act like not believing things without evidence means you are close or narrow minded.

    I repeat I am _OPEN_ to the idea there could be a god or an after life or that ghosts exist or that reincarnation happens. I do not believe any of these things however due to the fact that despite being open to them, and open to evidence for them, no evidence is forth coming. At all. Ever.


    Who said anything about believing .
    Your reading a different thread.


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    #145
    Kev W
    Registered Users Posts: 2,536 ✭✭✭Kev W


    kneemos wrote: »
    The definition of open minded is being open to new and different ideas and opinions . Nothing about having evidence.

    You seem to be conflating belief in the possibility of the supernatural with belief in the probability of the supernatural.

    You can absolutely beieve that the supernatural may exist without any evidence. Nobody could reasonably tell you that's wrong. But to state that it probably exists requires at least some evidence.


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    #146
    nozzferrahhtoo
    Registered Users Posts: 9,340 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    kneemos wrote: »
    Who said anything about believing .
    Your reading a different thread.

    Nope. Sometimes contrasts between things help understand one of them better than without that contrast. So contrasting and comparing belief and open mindedness can be very illuminating to the definition of open mindedness.

    Anyway given you openly admit to not even bothering reading much of what is written here, you are the last one to lecture anyone on what they are reading or not reading.


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    #147
    kylith
    Registered Users Posts: 17,736 ✭✭✭✭kylith


    Not to mention that dismissing mundane explanations out of hand in favour of a supernatural explanation is also closed minded.


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    #148
    seamus
    Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    kneemos wrote: »
    Who said anything about believing
    You did.
    kneemos wrote: »
    Haven't read the rest of your novel,but open minded means believing in possibilities without evidence.


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    #149
    Ave Sodalis
    Registered Users Posts: 7,548 ✭✭✭Ave Sodalis


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


    I take it you haven't actually read that thread...


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    #150
    kneemos
    Registered Users Posts: 20,419 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    seamus wrote: »
    You did.


    Forgot to highlight "possibilities".


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    #151
    dandyelevan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    This is an interesting thread and I enjoyed reading the 'for and against' of ghostly sightings.
    Those 'against' seem to hold sway, indeed, the vote above is overwhelmingly against such manifestations being real.
    However - some folks (whether they are aware of it or not, and they are mostly not) are Psychic, Clairvoyant, and possess some measure of ESP.
    I'm not writing about your famous TV Mediums, Fairground Soothsayers, etc, etc, but about ordinary, simple people who's senses are 'tuned' differently, and have the ability to see, hear, or otherwise perceive 'stuff' hidden from those not gifted / cursed with this ability.
    Before you dismiss something like this subject out of hand, give some thought to the 'seer' as they may have that special ability denied to you, and the many.
    To those who have witnessed ghostly apparitions, I would urge you to consider that you may be 'gifted' and no amount of proof you offer will convince the disbeliever.
    (I speak from experience)


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