|
|
|
Badger
Skeptic Friend
Canada
257 Posts |
 Posted - 02/16/2002 : 17:24:01
|
I've been wrestling with the question of the existence of ghosts and the whole pandora's box attached to them.
The reason is that many years ago, my father confided in me that when he was a boy of about 10, he and his father ran into a neighbour of theirs on the street. They hadn't seen her for a month or so, and so had a bit of a conversation with her. My dad told me that the conversation with her seemed strange as she was somewhat incoherent, and disjointed.
When they got home, they mentioned to my grandmother that they'd seen this neighbour and chatted with her. My grandmother turned white, and stated that she'd been dead for 2 weeks, and that she'd been to the funeral.
Now, to provide a little context, my dad was from Barbados, and when he used the term "neighbour" it wasn't like next door. It was someone who lived in the same town as them, whom they ran into occasionaly, and did the "how's the kids, how's the job" kind of thing. It wasn't a strange thing to not know that she'd died.
Anyway, my point is that both my grandfather and my father collaborated this story on separate occasions, years apart with the same story from both, independently. Neither was given to flights of fancy or pulling of legs. Both were agnostic, and in a nutshell, very British stiff upper lip. Not a very humourous pair, though they enjoyed humour in others. So I don't think they were in cahoots to "pull my leg". It was not their nature to do such a thing, and they had no history of doing it.
There is no question about them being mistaken about who they met, as they were familiar with her, and the conversation was about things that were in her life.
Because of the above, I'd think there's a strong probability that 1 ghost existed, but as I've never met one myself, I cannot definitively say that they do or don't exist.
Anyone else got any ghost stories they want to relate?
I'm stumblin through the parking lot of an invisible 7-eleven. ZZ-Top
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
|
|
Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2002 : 18:15:12 [Permalink]
|
Remembering from when he was ten after many decades - Not everything you remeber actually has to have happened that way.
The human memory is far less reliable then most people think.
I have experienced that in myself remebering stuff from where i was little that now looking back on it could not possibly have happened. After I thought about it some more I realized that what I remebered the strongest was my indignation that noone was believing me.
That episode showed me that my own memories are not as perfect as I thouht it to be.
I still catch myself sometimes in the act of rewriting my own memories. It is frightening to realize that one can't even trust onself sometimes.
It could have been that your dad had a conversation with someone else he thought to be his neighbor or some other explanation that would make a ten-yearold tell his parents that he had seen this neighbor.
The actual facts of the conversation were not really important. The shock of being told that she was dead and the fact that people failed to believe hima re probably what stuck in his mind most.
Later when he had grown up a bit his focus would shift as he came to realize that the actual encounter was more important then what happened afterwards. By that time the memory of the encounter would have been haveyly colored by the other bits and he would remember it that way. Filling in gaps with what would fit best with his other memories.
Telling and discussing the encounter would further change his memories. Tell a story a certain way a dozend of tiems and that is how you will remember it.
Somthing like that can happen to the most honest person and is far more likely then him actually having encountered a ghost.
|
 |
|
|
Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2002 : 18:29:52 [Permalink]
|
Seperate post on topic of ghosts themselves.
I have to say that I do not believe in ghosts. The Idea of some part of a human living on after it's death and interacting with the living just does not fit into my world.
It would require a complete rewrite of almost every branch of science to explain this type of ghosts. People who try to bring scientific explanatinos will talk about enrgy conservation and electricity and quantum-stuff but it is not that easy. You would have to rethink everything.
Not that I am not ready to take this step to explain an otherwise unexplainable phenomenon, it is just that I don't think we have enough of an phenomenon to require explanation here.
Most observations of ghosts can be explained without that much work. And I will just take the easier way.
I am a lazy sceptic with one of Occams famous razors and I won't change my worldview unless it is absolutly necessary.
--
There might be things between heaven and earth that my philosophy never dreamed of, but as soon as they show themselves they will get incorporated into it.
|
|
|
|
Espritch
Skeptic Friend
USA
284 Posts |
Posted - 02/16/2002 : 22:01:48 [Permalink]
|
Many years ago when I was a young child, my Grandfather shot a duck. I saw him as he was bringing it home and asked him what had happened to it. He told me that ducks are very stupid creatures and sometimes, when it rains, a duck will stare up at the rain until the water runs down it's nose and drowns it. Since my Grandfather said it, I of course believed every word of it (I was a very young child). For several years I went around convinced that ducks were dumb enough to drown by staring up at the rain.
Off course it is possible that your father and grandfather are completely sincere. There are other possibilities. The most likely would be a simple case of mistaken identity. The somewhat incoherent "ghost" may have simply been a somewhat perplexed stranger (perhaps a relative of the deceased) trying to figure out who these two strangers were who acted like they knew her.
In any event, given the choice between believing that dead people are walking around on the street or believing that ducks are stupid enough to drown in the rain, I go with the ducks.
|
|
|
|
Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 02/17/2002 : 01:09:08 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Remembering from when he was ten after many decades - Not everything you remeber actually has to have happened that way.
The human memory is far less reliable then most people think.
I have experienced that in myself remebering stuff from where i was little that now looking back on it could not possibly have happened. After I thought about it some more I realized that what I remebered the strongest was my indignation that noone was believing me.
A couple of personal facts 1st. I don't believe in ghosts. I have no factual memory from before I was 7 years old. And I hardly every dream, that is remember dreaming.
Here goes: I thought I remembered things from when I was little but in later life I realize it was things I heard my parents or others talking about. Yet the incidents do seem real. Maybe I have a 'sense' of them happening but not a clear or exact memory of them. Half memories from others recolections.
Next, my aunt died of cancer from smoking several years ago, I was a young adult then and do of course have full memory of that. Some days later after the funeral I had one of the most vivid dreams in my life. I still all these years later remember it and it's scary. When I woke up it seemed real for a moment. I deramed she was walking around our house, kind of floating and that she was having a conversation with my mother and I. I composed myself after waking up but it did seem so real at the time.
What I'm trying to say is, our minds(brains) are not completely understood. There are so many factors involved....in your case too. The age, the time, the culture possible, folklore. Who knows! But I guess it's like believing in a god, one can explain away anything when there's no proof and it's just faith and stories. You can choose to believe or you can try to sort it out and find a 'scientific' reason. Sorry Badger
*
Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
|
|
|
|
Dr Shari
Skeptic Friend
135 Posts |
Posted - 02/18/2002 : 03:36:26 [Permalink]
|
"There are more things on heaven and earth Horatio, Then are thought of in your philosophy." Hamlet Shakespere
We must never forget that even if we a skeptic of Gods and Religions ect...Ghosts? Why not. I have no other explanation for things I have seen in my life but feel they are most likely just unexplained forces of nature. I don't KNOW but FEEL that our known plane of existance touches others that are, as yet, unknown to us. If you don't know me I have terminal Leukemia and don't expect to be able to come back and haunt people but I believe our energy goes somewhere even if it justs scatters and becomes part of the cosmos. But energy may linger for years and if it does that may be what ghosts are.
I was getting ready to do Surgery on a woman who was afraid she was going to die. It was a simple Cholecystectomy on an otherwise healthy woman and I could not convince her she would be fine. When I asked her why she was having the surgery if she was so sure she was going to die she said she wasn't afraid of death and the pain of the inflammed gallbladder was ruining her life anyway so it was either "Heaven" or pain and she chose "Heaven". Knowing I was going to do fine and so was she I started the surgery after she had said good-by to her family, who also thought she was going to be fine and was being silly, and about 20 minutes in I got a jolt. I looked at her stats and everything was going fine but I started to sweat and I saw her standing across the surgical suite. I looked at the Anesthesiologist and said "She's going to crash." He asurred me she was fine but she was still standing across the room and I said "NO!" Just then she arrested. We coded her and brought her back. After the surgery she told me she had seen me operating on her and I told her I knew she had but as I had promised her she would be fine I brought her back.
That is a True Story. Go ahead and pick it apart as a self-full filling prophecy, which it was on her part, but I never thought I would see her standing across the room from either. I admit there are more things then what exists in my philosophy
Death: The High Cost of Living
It is easier to get forgiveness then to get permission! |
|
|
|
Badger
Skeptic Friend
Canada
257 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2002 : 09:33:30 [Permalink]
|
I guess I'll never know until either I am one or I meet one.
Things that make you go Hmmmm. (Young MC)
I'm stumblin through the parking lot of an invisible 7-eleven. ZZ-Top |
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2002 : 10:17:54 [Permalink]
|
Didn't go to work today - Arthrirtis is kicking up. As it happens, John Edward is on the toob and I'm too lazy to turn it off. Am I on this thread due to 'Guidence' from the Other Realm? If so, damn! Edward is GOOD!! There. Just turned it off. Couldn't take it any longer.
The problem with ghosts is the same as the problem with God(s): You can't test the supernatural, only humbug it's corporial practitioners - Edward, et al.
If you don't believe in ghosts nor angels, well, you're never going to see either, at least, I never have.
f
"Don't tell me your doubts; I've got enough doubts of my own. Tell me something you BELIEVE in!"
Brother Dave Gardner |
|
|
|
Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2002 : 11:17:39 [Permalink]
|
I've seen ghosts on three seperate occasions. Each time in the company of other people who confirmed what I had seen. So I believe in ghosts.
What I don't believe is that they are the spirits of dead people. That seems as huge a leap to me as finding a design some one has constructed in a corn field and deciding for no apparent reason that they come from outer space.
The ghosts that I have seen have all been in the tropics, roughly the same size and shape as people. By that I mean between 5 and 7 feet tall, about a foot to a foot and a half across. They were rounded on top and their sides shifted shape. They didn't quite touch the ground but slowly drifted along. Obviously they were affected by the breeze. They were translucent like fog and slightly luminescent.
They were exactly like the classic ghost portraied by sheet covered trick or treaters.
If I were to give it my best guess I would say that ghosts were a weather phenomenon.
-------
The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain. Only evil will come from it. |
|
|
|
Snake
SFN Addict
USA
2511 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2002 : 13:10:17 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Didn't go to work today - Arthrirtis is kicking up. As it happens, John Edward is on the toob and I'm too lazy to turn it off. Am I on this thread due to 'Guidence' from the Other Realm? If so, damn! Edward is GOOD!! There. Just turned it off. Couldn't take it any longer.
F, we have some things in common. While the station just happens to be on Edward and after the shock and amazement wear off I can't take it either. Isn't he a great actor though? I wouldn't have the nerve to make up stories like that with a 'stright face' AND tell them to a grieving person. Sometimes I wonder if he's going to break out in laughter.
I have Arthrirtis too. Hope you feel better, it'a pain.
quote:
If you don't believe in ghosts nor angels, well, you're never going to see either, at least, I never have.
f
I have tried to see them, hoping someday I'll find out what people are talking about but I fear you are right so the prospects are dim that I will get the chance.
UNLESS, as some say, we could be talking to one and not know it....hope arises again.
*
Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
|
|
|
|
PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2002 : 13:53:35 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Things that make you go Hmmmm. (Young MC)
Not only wrong but you didn't phrase it in the form of a question.
Who is C+C Music Factory?
Laws of Thermodynamics:
1. You cannot win.
2. You cannot break even.
3. You cannot stop playing the game. |
|
|
|
Badger
Skeptic Friend
Canada
257 Posts |
Posted - 02/20/2002 : 15:41:32 [Permalink]
|
Thanks, PH Dreamer.
I'm stumblin through the parking lot of an invisible 7-eleven. ZZ-Top |
|
|
|
Wolfgang_faust
Skeptic Friend
USA
59 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2002 : 15:10:58 [Permalink]
|
This may be a bit off subject, but someone mentioned angels and never haveing seen one. If anyone tells you that they have seen an angel ask them what it looked like. For those of you who have read the Bible you know that it would probable scare the crap out of the average person. They are never described as cute little girlie things with wings. To be honest I wouldn't want to see one. As for dead people walking, I don't believe it. Sorry.
Add value to every day, Sharpen your skills, your understanding |
|
|
|
James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 03/15/2002 : 20:27:21 [Permalink]
|
quote:
This may be a bit off subject, but someone mentioned angels and never haveing seen one. If anyone tells you that they have seen an angel ask them what it looked like. For those of you who have read the Bible you know that it would probable scare the crap out of the average person. They are never described as cute little girlie things with wings. To be honest I wouldn't want to see one.
They had a good PR team.
"Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." -Buddha |
|
|
|
Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 03/19/2002 : 08:33:25 [Permalink]
|
James, was that before or after they lost their flaming swords?
---
...no one has ever found a 4.5 billion year old stone artifact (at the right geological stratum) with the words "Made by God."
No Sense of Obligation by Matt Young |
|
|
 |
|
Topic Locked
