Ghosts

Have you personally encountered a ghost?

  • Total voters
    31
Status
Not open for further replies.
I don't think we have enough knowledge of the universe so rule out different dimensions and energy states of the universe so idk, I wouldn't say ghost aren't real. Whether I believe they exist is a different story and I'm just going to say yes out of wishful thinking, albeit I can't say for sure

 
Piratemonkey said:
I don't think we have enough knowledge of the universe so rule out different dimensions and energy states of the universe so idk, I wouldn't say ghost aren't real. Whether I believe they exist is a different story and I'm just going to say yes out of wishful thinking, albeit I can't say for sure
Click to expand...


If we do not possess evidence for something, we are well within our rights to rule it out. Until conclusive and definite proof is discovered pertaining to the existence of ghosts, it's perfectly reasonable to say that ghosts do not exist, even if there might be a possibility of someone discovering that they actually do. When such a discovery is made and adequate proof is provided, ghosts exist, but no sooner.

 
Big Brother said:
If we do not possess evidence for something, we are well within our rights to rule it out. Until conclusive and definite proof is discovered pertaining to the existence of ghosts, it's perfectly reasonable to say that ghosts do not exist, even if there might be a possibility of someone discovering that they actually do. When such a discovery is made and adequate proof is provided, ghosts exist, but no sooner.
Click to expand...
This is what I feel as well.

 
I have encountered a ghost. I was staying overnight at a friends old farmhouse and I woke late at night to see an apparition gliding from the door to the sofa I was sleeping in. It was an old bearded man. He came to the sofa bent over and looked at me before leaving the same way he came.

 
Deus said:
I have encountered a ghost. I was staying overnight at a friends old farmhouse and I woke late at night to see an apparition gliding from the door to the sofa I was sleeping in. It was an old bearded man. He came to the sofa bent over and looked at me before leaving the same way he came.




 
Click to expand...
Our god is all knowing and has encountered a ghost.

Checkmate non-believers

 
My experience is more with possessions and exorcisms, not really apparitions.

My opinion still stands that they're like snakes or spiders - they only exist in certain areas. I think the cultural explanation is that they're (un)dead people, but I don't really think it may be the case. There's a lot more of them in the jungle. 

I've had way too many friends who were cured by exorcisms to not believe. Even if it were some mental health problem, whatever exorcists do, it works.

We sent a possessed friend to a proper hospital once, ambulance and cops came in because she took out a knife and started cutting herself. She was a doctor who was born to a family of doctors. The people who treated her were doctors. 2-3 weeks and she was still insane. The family paid for an exorcism and she was fine in a day.

People are usually like, "Oh, I saw a window open and close. I think it was a ghost."

That's really lame shit. Look at people who are having convulsions because of 'posession'. Talk to a girl whose voice suddenly goes manly deep. Meet children who have been in hospital ICUs for a week and then are instantly cured after exorcism. Then tell me you still need evidence.

Like if you see someone getting raped or a car catching fire, you don't pick up a camera and start recording it to prove that rapists or fire exists. If you see a girl with a knife laughing manically in a deep voice, cutting herself, you call the police, lock yourself in a bedroom with friends, and drag the bed to block the door. There's no video evidence or whatever and I don't need it.

 
I understand that science has not proven the existence of "ghosts" however, my understanding of what they are inseparable from my faith.  

I believe the Bible identifies three kinds of existence:

  •  the Earthly (which includes humans and animals)
  • the Heavenly (to include the Lord is all aspects and the angels of all kinds)
  • and the Demonic (The fallen angel Lucifer and those who fell with him, previously of the Heavenly realm but separated by Lucifer and God)
I know people that have experienced the these "ghosts" or "apparitions" and my interpretation of those would be that they are either Heavenly or Demonic servants choosing to cross your path in forms we might recognize or just interpret better. What distinguishes the two is the message/result of the encounter. For example, I have struggled recently with the loss of my great grandmother. If I were to see her and she told me to stay strong and that she loved me, that I would interpret as a Heavenly servant appearing unto me for uplifting and spiritual wellness. Other the other hand, if she appeared to me in the same way and told me that God wanted me to be his spear and punish the world of sinners by shooting up a gas station, I would understand that to be a Demonic presence because it contradicts my faith and the Lord said to ignore any message that contradicted His message, even if it were to be an angel. Both of these I know to exist in the world and I feel as though most encounters could be classified as one of those two. 

Deus said:
I have encountered a ghost. I was staying overnight at a friends old farmhouse and I woke late at night to see an apparition gliding from the door to the sofa I was sleeping in. It was an old bearded man. He came to the sofa bent over and looked at me before leaving the same way he came.
Click to expand...
For this, since there was no understood message (at least from what I understand of your statement) the classification would rely on your faith. If you are a man of faith and this led you to question your trust in God or in your spirituality, then I would be inclined to see this as a Demonic appearance. Should this however have strengthened your belief in God by forcing you to come to terms with the fact your mind cannot understand the ways in which God works, than it could very well have been Heavenly. 

Basically, I believe that Heavenly and Demonic beings come to us in human forms so that we can understand their messages and that by understanding the message or the effects of the message help us to understand which kind of existence we have been exposed to. 

And please, by all means, if anyone has thoughts or comments about what I said please roast away!

 
Well small children see stuff that adults don't. After the death of my wife's grandma my daughter has been talking to some "old". She constantly wants to visit the "old". 

 
dang, I really like what @Patrick MacFarlane and @Rin said and I have to agree. 

I've seen a lot of weird things, including what I believe to be people possessed by demons, I can't say I firmly believe in the spirits of those dead walking among us, or haunting places, but there is a lot I don't understand about the universe and about what happens after you die. 

This one time, I was home alone (of course) and I noticed my front door was open, so I closed it (I thought my mom had just not shut it all the way when she left). I walk into my kitchen, grab some food, and go back into my living room and the door is open again. This time I thought maybe I thought I closed it and didn't, so I for sure closed it, like real good, I made sure it was closed. 

I take my food into my room and get ready to play some vidyagamez, but I need something to drink, so I go back into the living room (to go to the kitchen) and my front door is OPEN AGAIN. This time I'm like 'what in the fff' so I close it, lock it, and lock the deadbolt. DONE DEAL RIGHT. I go and grab me a glass of milk, on my way back THE DOOR IS OPEN AGAIN ARE YOU SERIOUS.

I closed it, locked it up and sat on my couch facing the door for 10 minutes. Nothing happened. 

Okay, this happened when I was little and I still have no explanation. 

When I was 6, it was pretty early in the morning, I was in my parents room and I hopped into my mom's bed to watch cartoons with her. 

I see these two  things come into her room, I'll do my best to describe them. 

#1 was a cylinder with a sphere above it and two rotating "arms" spinning slowly around the cylinder, #2 was a rectangular box, same rotating "arms, no sphere but two cylindrical legs. They were oscillating/pulsing with all colors. They moved (not touching the ground) from the hallway into my mom's room and in front of her bed. 

I was staring at them, terrified, my mom asked me what was wrong and I'm thinking "what do you mean what's wrong some floating shapes just moved into your room" but I think I just said "they're scary" she asked me what was scary and then I was really confused because wth mom. I asked if she saw them and she said "see what?". At this point I'm beyond terrified because they're still there, hovering with their spinny arms. I just buried my face in my mom's arms for a solid 15 minutes and when I finally looked back up they were gone. 

hallucination? idk. 


In the Philippines I visited a very rural, remote, small village that had a very small community. I'm talking about the kind of place where you either see a witch doctor for healing, pray, or die when you're sick. This couple brought a boy up to our group of missionaries, he's was snarling babbling, his face seemed all twisted and every time we said "Jesus" he would growl and snarl at us. He was obviously physically and mentally disabled, but that didn't explain the weirdness of his reactions to phrases like "Praise God" "Jesus" Hallelujia". His parents asked us to pray for him, so we did. 

We prayed for him in all the general ways, blessings, health etc, but then our lead pastor started talking to a demon (that was in the boy). 

Guys I don't have a reason to lie to you, and this is a weird story, you can take it or leave it, if you think it's fake I won't be offended, just don't call me a liar. There could very well be an explanation other than the one I give, although I don't think there is. 

Our lead pastor starts rebuking this demon, telling it that it has no place in this village, telling it it needs to leave in Jesus name, now our whole freakin team is praying for this boy, like translators, the local members of the team, this is like 30 people all praying for this boy. He's still all snarly faced and growling, but we kept praying and our lead pastor kept using the name of Jesus Christ as his authority over the demon. We prayed for like 20-30 minutes, there wasn't a big black smoke that left his mouth, there wasn't a dramatic snarl and scream, by the end of it the boy was just happy, he didn't growl when we said Jesus, he started dancing to praise music with the worship team. It was weird but I think that boy was possessed by a demon, and during our prayer the demon was exorcised out of him. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Deus said:
Well small children see stuff that adults don't. After the death of my wife's grandma my daughter has been talking to some "old". She constantly wants to visit the "old". 
Click to expand...
Holy crap.
Also, that sends chills down my spine. My worst experience with any supernatural entity was besides the occasional unexplained movements (drawers being opened and closed, windows being slammed shut etc.) was one early morning around 4am or so I awoke from deep sleep and realized I had sleep paralysis. I couldn't move, couldn't talk, was hard to breathe. I felt like I wasn't alone in my room. I couldn't turn my head but I could see in my peripheral vision to my left, saw that someone was next to me. Being as I couldn't turn my head, I kept trying to look to my left and I swear to you there was a weird old lady there. I tried to scream and couldn't. She was just standing there. Staring.
Well I began to try and move, which I couldn't. I got so scared and so worked up I went into a full panic attack.
It ended with me pretty much passing out. Once I came to I still felt the dread from earlier and went into a full cold sweat panic. I could not stop shaking whatsoever.

Fast forward two weeks and my younger brother wakes me up one night. He always had a habit of sleep walking. I heard him fumbling around in the living room trying to open the sliding door that led to our backyard. I walk towards him and say "dude go back to bed." which normally works and he'll just mumble nonsense and head back to bed. Not that night. He starts to get agitated and says to me " *mumble*mumble* I cant. I have to go..." and keeps trying to open the door. I try again ".... go to bed. Come on, ill help you." he stops and stares at the door. He then turns, looks at me and I realize that he's crying. He's totally still asleep, but tearing up. So I ask him if he's ok. His reply was "She wont leave me alone. I have to go...."
yeah fuck that. I woke up my parents who managed to get him half awake and led him to bed.
The next day he couldn't remember a thing. He never sleep walked after that.

We assume it was the old lady my parents bought the house from.

We used to rent next door and my mom being the sweet angel she has always been, always took care of the older lady. Well, one day she fell in the bathtub and hurt herself badly. She didn't return and I can only assume she died in the hospital. Her family sold the house to my parents shortly afterwards. Who knows, maybe her spirit was still around? or still is? Ill have to ask since my family still lives there to this day.
 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
When I was younger, I had a weird experience that wouldn't fall under a ghost encounter, but a sort of reason I think they exist. I was at home at age 8 and suddenly, this shadow falls across my room like something walked in front of the window. I looked outside but saw nothing except one single right footprint in the mud outside my window (it had just rained). The mud was 3 meters wide, so it couldnt be somebody walking with one foot in and one foot out. It still happens to this day, sometimes with snow, etc, etc. 

 
Big Brother said:
If we do not possess evidence for something, we are well within our rights to rule it out. Until conclusive and definite proof is discovered pertaining to the existence of ghosts, it's perfectly reasonable to say that ghosts do not exist, even if there might be a possibility of someone discovering that they actually do. When such a discovery is made and adequate proof is provided, ghosts exist, but no sooner.
Click to expand...


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance#Absence_of_evidence

Appeal to ignorance: the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa. (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs exist, and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.[3]

"If a proposition has not been disproved, then it cannot be considered false and must therefore be considered true.

If a proposition has not been proved, then it cannot be considered true and must therefore be considered false."

I believe you are displaying a logical fallacy.

Reality exists as it is, independent of whether you provide evidence for its existence. You can choose to only believe in things if you have evidence for their existence. But where things go wrong with your logic is, if an experiment is never made to determine the existence of "ghosts" then you cannot possibly know that they don't exist. You can choose to believe they do not exist, but you cannot say that they don't.

Your belief that ghosts do not exist is just that, a belief.

According to your logic, if you have no evidence that a certain plant does not provide some medicinal properties, and there was no experiment to provide evidence of absence, then you can "rule it out". Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Piratemonkey said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance#Absence_of_evidence

Appeal to ignorance: the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa. (e.g., There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs exist, and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: There may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.[3]

"If a proposition has not been disproved, then it cannot be considered false and must therefore be considered true.

If a proposition has not been proved, then it cannot be considered true and must therefore be considered false."

I believe you are displaying a logical fallacy.

Reality exists as it is, independent of whether you provide evidence for its existence. You can choose to only believe in things if you have evidence for their existence. But where things go wrong with your logic is, if an experiment is never made to determine the existence of "ghosts" then you cannot possibly know that they don't exist. You can choose to believe they do not exist, but you cannot say that they don't.

Your belief that ghosts do not exist is just that, a belief.

According to your logic, if you have no evidence that a certain plant does not provide some medicinal properties, and there was no experiment to provide evidence of absence, then you can "rule it out". Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Click to expand...


I believe in reality as it is, as we experience it and that what is real is what can be proven to be real. To me, absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence, until there's no absence of evidence. Reality does exist as it is, independent and objective, you are right about that. But I'm not sure you understand me, you say that because no experiment to prove the existence of ghosts has been performed, we cannot know for sure that ghosts don't exist. I say that until someone performs such an experiment, there's no reason ascribe possibilities actual reality, there's no reason to deny ourselves certain certainties. We must believe in reality as it is, anything else is insanity. Sure, ghosts could exist but there's no proof of this so as far as we know, ghosts do not exist. And as far as we know is all that matters, all we can know for sure. Everything else is ambiguous, and we cannot guide our lives based on ambiguous possibilities, only on what is certain in this moment of time even if what is certain now may not be certain in the future.

I don't rule out possibilities, a certain plant could definitely have certain medical properties. But I rule out these possibilities existing as facts until they have been proven. Ghosts might exist, shoggoths might be lurking under my bed, a meteor could fall on my head the second I exit my building, all of these are possibilities, but I cannot live my life as if they were facts until they have been proven to be so. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence until evidence is not absent. So, as far as I'm concerned, ghosts do not exist. If someone performs an experiment proving me wrong and still I stick to my opinion, my opinion will have become a belief. Until then, as far as anyone knows, it is a fact.

Patrick MacFarlane said:
Basically, I believe that Heavenly and Demonic beings come to us in human forms so that we can understand their messages and that by understanding the message or the effects of the message help us to understand which kind of existence we have been exposed to. 

And please, by all means, if anyone has thoughts or comments about what I said please roast away!
Click to expand...


Why do you care about their messages? What does it matter what these ethereal beings have to say about our existence? We should not seek affirmation or validation of our existence outside ourselves. We are independent, intelligent, thinking beings with free will. Why do we need any answers other than those we can provide for ourselves through the means that we possess?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Big Brother said:
Absence of evidence is evidence of absence until evidence is not absent. So, as far as I'm concerned, ghosts do not exist. If someone performs an experiment proving me wrong and still I stick to my opinion, my opinion will have become a belief. Until then, as far as anyone knows, it is a fact.
Click to expand...
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, ever. That is illogical. Straight up.

It's your opinion that ghosts don't exist. I still think it's very much a belief, considering there is no evidence for or against ghosts and, you are already saying they do not exist. I do understand you. You are saying that there is no reason for you to believe in ghosts because you never experienced a ghost, or there is no evidence. To you they may not exist, but that is not necessarily indicative of reality itself.

You seem to see things as either existing or not existing but fail to recognize that a majority of the stuff that exists isn't observable. The reality is that the existence of ghosts is an untestable hypothesis currently and therefore a matter of belief much like God.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I used to sleep at my grandparents house when I was young and my parents when away, and it's a 1500's farm house that used to belong to a rich merchant.

Twice I walked across the landing at night to go to the toilet and someone passed me. These two times occurred about 2 years apart, aged 9 and 11. The younger age I didn't think anything of this, but age 11 I thought "oh, where did they walk to?" I went and searched my room, as that's the only place they could've gone on that side of the landing and no one was there.

Thinking nothing of this I went to the toilet and heard someone knock on the door, presumably waiting to use the toilet. I finished up and opened the door and nobody was there and I went to bed. The door swung shut on its own and the covers were really cold and slightly damp, despite being warm and dry before hand.

In the morning I mentioned this to my grandparents and they exchanged a look and said I must have dreamt this. When I got home I told my mum about this dream and she told me this kind of stuff often happens to my grandparents, and to herself and her sister when they were younger and lived there.

It was a ghost according to my mum, and it was admitted by my grandparent a few weeks later that they have a ghost but they avoid talking about it. For this reason I believe there are ghosts, but I don't count my encounter as a sighting, as I never definitely saw a ghost or know 100% what I was told is true :P

 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top