Ghosts

[touchingcloth]

For those who nay-say the paranormal without ever looking into it, experimenting with magic, occult, or whatever else, I would say to find someone who claims to have knowledge or experience in seeing/feeling spirits. Then I would taunt the spirits to attack you as I hear they will do so if you jeer or disrespect them.

Infact, I might try this myself to see if there is real proof of the supernatural.

Better still - get Randi to taunt and jeer the spirits, and claim his prize.

[PaulB007]

I know a girl who is atheist, in a healthy state of mind who was playing around with one of those wigi board things. Not sure how to spell it but you know what im talking about. She told me that she was on a dock at a lake with her friend and they were goofing around. That she got pulled in the water by the legs, and when she came up she had bruises all over her legs and marks that resembled hand prints. There was no rocks or objects in the water that were around her, so it makes the case particularly interesting to me considering this person isn't "spiritual".

Another one, same situation, normal person who was atheist/maybe agnostic told me she and a few friends were playing with one out of curiosity. She told me she was sitting down cross legged, and she was a ways away from the wall. That she sprung up, and hit back against the wall. The way she was sitting, it was impossible to have thrown yourself that far back to hit the wall.

What I find most interesting about the first scenario is that the girl refuses to do it again or try it with me. Not out of worry I won't see anything, because frankly she could care less as she isn't spiritual or into occult things, but that she is petrified out of her mind of getting involved in it again. I just can't pin any naturalistic causes to these scenarios. These two wouldn't really have a reason to lie to me or make this up because they know im not impressed easily. I actually asked them if they had ever tried it, which prompted them to tell me the experience. Considering they weren't all excited and gloating about their story, I have to conclude they weren't telling me for fame or notoriety like many do.

I am skeptical of these things in general, but their stories didn't seem to have ulterior motives.

[touchingcloth]

I am skeptical of these things in general, but their stories didn't seem to have ulterior motives.

Have you read much about the malleability of memory? The more I read, the more I come to realise that memories have the potential to be extraordinarily unreliable...the literature on the topic is fascinating and deeply challenging, as I guess most people's experience with their own memories is much like my own; every memory seems crystal clear and totally & utterly real.

I'm not saying that your friends are lying to you, but when you take into account the foibles of memory, their heightened emotions at the time of the experience, a few embellishments as they tell the story more...and it's not hard to see how they can come to remember a benign experience as something more intense.

[PaulB007]

Yes, that is a real possibility too. I will probably just try this myself and try and provoke the spirits. If there are such things and they do attack me, I'd have to conclude that there is some sort of God. I can agree with you on the one where the girl hit the wall that there may have been some naturalistic event that was unaccounted for, but there was another person there who claimed to see this. I'm just not sure about the first one about the handprints and bruises all over the legs, that one seems more plausible than the second situation. Who knows though? I'd really like to personally experience this and see for myself one day.

I do wish there were an easier way to find God rather than ask spirits to attack me, seems kind of counter intuitive.

[touchingcloth]

All prior evidence points to the likelihood of finding ghosts and spirits (at least in any corporeal or physically interacting form) to be very low. I wouldn't hang your faith in god on finding one.

[PaulB007]

I do take a lot of the claims I hear from certain individuals with a grain of salt as I have talked to some with mental disorders. That's not to say all who encounter these things are mentally I'll but it seems to play a part in some instances.

[touchingcloth]

Totally - but far more fascinating to me are the people who clearly perfectly sane, yet are also obviously honestly convinced that they have encountered a ghost, or seen a UFO, or been abducted.

[PaulB007]

Definitely, I always wonder about those people who are mentally healthy yet make such claims. You wouldn't believe the stories I have read. Such documents saying that the Men in Black is a real agency, that aliens have reproduced among us, ect.

I really am open to about anything with proper evidence. Hell, the odds of us even being here through random probability are amazing, considering that I wouldn't be surprised to find out if those things might have some truth behind them honestly.

[touchingcloth]

Amen to anything with proper evidence. I'd love to know that that there are aliens out there somewhere, and I'd love it even more if they were visiting us on earth. Sadly the evidence to that effect is just, erm, lame.

[PaulB007]

I'd be even more impressed to actually see some kind of spirit, either with my eyes or to feel one make some kind of contact with my body. I want to think these people have some sort of basis in what they believe in, and that they aren't just superstitous.

[chance]

I've yet to hear an EVP that wasn't fuzzy and indistinct

Well then - go and look for some yourself. Which is what I did because I wanted to know firsthand how all of this worked.

On one trip, my first one, I caught an EVP that everyone who heard it agreed on what they heard. A male voice saying 'go away'.

Also - let's look at other things from a science point of view. We can't see infrared light, but it exists - and with special tools we can see it (which is why special forces use it to mark landing zones and such. You can light up the ground and human eyes cannot see it.). We cannot hear radio signals with our ears - but they exist and we can hear them by using radios.

With EVPs the general idea is that we cannot always hear them but by masking out other sounds we can (kind of like how MP3's rip out the sounds we cannot hear to compress music, a big improvement over wav files).

Just because YOU have not hear any that were not fuzzy does not mean others have not heard some which were clear - and just because they are fuzzy does not mean they are not real.

Defining the universe and what is in it based on what you can see and hear seems rather archaic.

[zoegirl]

I do wish there were an easier way to find God rather than ask spirits to attack me, seems kind of counter intuitive.

ever hear of prayer....of reading His word?

[chance]

All prior evidence points to the likelihood of finding ghosts and spirits (at least in any corporeal or physically interacting form) to be very low.

Define evidence. Is it capturing one on video tape or audio? Is it you seeing one?

For me - if I see one, that is one thing (and I believe have finally). But I too wish to have evidence independent of myself, which is why I chose to look for them via EVP's and analyzing such information utilizing sound analysis programs.

There is much that we as humans cannot see or hear, but still exist. Why are we so shaken by that?

What is the harm in looking using our more modern tools?

[chance]

For those who nay-say the paranormal without ever looking into it, experimenting with magic, occult, or whatever else, I would say to find someone who claims to have knowledge or experience in seeing/feeling spirits. Then I would taunt the spirits to attack you as I hear they will do so if you jeer or disrespect them.

Infact, I might try this myself to see if there is real proof of the supernatural.

To quote the bible here: "Seek and ye shall find."

If you don't look chances are you won't find.

Go on the assumption that thousands of years of humans here on earth has some merit - and that over those years people have seen and heard things we can't easily explain.

I was once an atheist, agnostic, new ager, and so on. But I also loved science and math. Instead of just discounting the experience of others I decided to look for myself, and found things I cannot explain in any simple way. Sometimes I don't get anything on evp's - sometimes I get things which freak me out. So do many others.

The evidence is there - the question becomes how do we explain it all? If you have a bias (ie, either from a science point of view or a religious one) you will reject it all out of hand.

But I can't, because I looked for myself and found things which don't fit either my science or religious point of view.

The easy way out would be to say 'it cannot exist' and go and bury my head in the sand. It does not fit into my views, therefore it cannot exist.

But then that would be the exact thing I feel is wrong with both science and religion - ignoring things which don't fit my 'beliefs' or 'theories'.

I think all too often now we have people who hold beliefs and don't want them challenged - from scientists to religious people.

[PaulB007]

Oh nothing is wrong with it at all chance. Personally, I'd really need to be there to see/hear for myself before I could give an honest judgment.