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Do you believe in Ghosts?


dkv

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Ideally Theological discussion forum should not have been part of a scientific forum.

However if we discuss or comment on God then we must necessarily acknowledge the fact that theology is nothing but spirituality.Religions involves life after death , resurrection , dreams , souls etc which are necessary part of the spirituality.

Hard physical evidence which we are looking for may not be found because Ghosts are as sublime as the thought. However many of us have seen the ghosts and we know that there is something which needs an explanation..

One explanation comes from Science which rejects it outrightly or allows weak study under the name of parapsychology...(it is only recognized in US ..I dont think Europe officialy recongnizes parapsychology)

 

You might wonder what is the benefit of such a discussion?

The answer is simple.. If mind can exists without body then Mind has always been existing meaning the Universe didnt discover the Mind... instead the Mind discovered the Universe. This solves our age old problem of the origin of Conciousness and Universe.

This might also explain why all societies tend to follow some kind of moral guidelines... Why no one wants to steal or murder in secret.

We get a set of aviodable purposes... i.e given a number choices we dont things which do not help us spiritually.

It is a very powerful concept which has not been used in science till now.

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Again Your [CraigD’s] choice [to doubt the existence of ghosts].. you want to fight with the psychologists and statisticians...
I don’t want to fight with psychologists of statisticians! I professionally support a large department of psychologists and psychiatrists, am married to a clinical social worker, and am a statistician (academic research and insurance actuarial), so it behooves me both professionally and personally :turtle: to be on good terms with members of both disciplines.
You want to deny thousands of documented cases of OBE and NDE and Inner Voices...
As a large body of data supporting these claims exists, I don’t deny that many people have had emotionally intense and profound out-of-body and near-death experiences, or have auditory hallucinations. As no scientific data linking these psychiatric phenomena to the objective reality of ghosts exists, I very much deny that ghosts have been demonstrated to be real.

 

Dvk, if you know of objective, repeatable experimental data supporting the claim that ghosts exists, please provide it. It is a given that many people believe ghosts exist, but belief in a thing is not scientifically acceptable evidence of the objective existence of a think.

You wish to deny the fact that in dreams we see personalities we have never seen before.
I deny that in dreams, we actually see anything, other than occasional glimpses of our immediate surrounding via our ordinary sense of sight. Again, if you have evidence to the contrary, present it. My understanding of the literature on the subject is that no such evidence exists, a belief I will persist in until presented with evidence to the contrary.
I dont know how you interpret statistics... I quote from the same link.
A special analysis of the data shows that 73% of Americans believe in at least one of the 10 items listed above, while 27% believe in none of them. A Gallup survey in 2001 provided similar results -- 76% professed belief in at least one of the 10 items.
I quoted from the same The 2005 Gallop in question “Three in Four Americans Believe in Paranormal”, which states that, to the statement “Ghosts or that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations”, 32% surveyed responded “believe in”, 19% “Not sure about”, 48% “don’t believe”, and 1% “no opinion”. One might consider another of the statements, “That houses can be haunted”, which had results 37% believe in, 16% not sure, 46% don't believe, an implicit reference to ghosts. However, the survey appears designed to allow respondents to explicitly believe in some paranormal phenomena, such as ESP, while not believing in ghosts. So, while a majority – 73% - believed in at least one paranormal phenomena, only one statement “ESP or Extrasensory Perception” had more “believe in” responses than “don’t believe in”, with 41% believe, 25% not sure, and 32% don’t believe.

 

Interestingly, 2 of the 3 questions asked along with these 10 but not reported, presumably because they were not considered sufficiently paranormal, had more “believe in” responses than any of the 10: “Psychic or spiritual healing or the power of the human mind to heal the body”, with 55% believe, 17% not sure, 26% don't believe; and “That people on this earth are sometimes possessed by the devil", with 42% believe, 13% not sure, 44% don't believe.”

 

It’s incorrect to conclude that, because 73% surveyed believe in at least 1 of the statements, that 73% of them believed in a particular one, such as “ghosts”.

 

In short, dvk, you appear to claim that the existence of ghosts is widely accepted by either the general public, by psychologists, or by statisticians. The good-quality data you presented in post #1, however, contradicts the first of these claims, and doesn’t address the others. From the posts in this thread, it appears that only a small minority of hypographers believe in ghosts, a difference from the general public I suspect is common among science enthusiasts.

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Ideally Theological discussion forum should not have been part of a scientific forum.

LOL, you are very wrong. Theology as a science, is, in fact a very interesting topic to discuss, if you were a true psychologist and a true statistician, as you claim you are, you whould most likely agree with me on this point. It is these very two fields that in combination make theology an interesting topic for conversation.

 

Theology is more or less a study of a certain type of texts, and historical psychological influence data, that create very interesting statistics that one can't help to avoid...

 

Theology is a study of religion, it is therefore a science, and it belongs, just like chemistry, physics and linguistics, in a science forum. Besides, anywhere you discuss science you are bound to strike roaming preachers, and while not right, having theology as one of the topics, it is a convenient way to filter the discussions that go way into that topic, into a section specifically allocated for those. I think you will find it interesting, that any person who simply is tired of discussing and making the same points, over and over again, simply dont go into the theology section... i would be one of them.

 

However if we discuss or comment on God then we must necessarily acknowledge the fact that theology is nothing but spirituality.

what kind of an analitical minded phsychologist are you?

 

First of all, theology != religion, and visa versa, please dont confuse the two, religion is the spirituality, theology is a cold minded approach to god, based on scientiffic principles.

 

Second, from the study of religions, you, as an analist should easily see, that at the highest level, religion is NOT about spirits.

 

Religions involves life after death , resurrection , dreams , souls etc which are necessary part of the spirituality.

There are more religions out there, then Judeo/Christian. Not all involve life after death, resurrection, or really even souls (in the terms most common meaning)...

 

However many of us have seen the ghosts and we know that there is something which needs an explanation..

hey how about external stimulation of prefrontal corpex, sometimes primary visual cotex and wernicke's area, activity that would make one quickly distinguish shapes in rather shapeless objects, and with a little adrenaline, perhaps even make them see something that was not there at all? I dunno, you are the psychologist here...

 

If mind can exists without body then Mind has always been existing meaning the Universe didnt discover the Mind... instead the Mind discovered the Universe.

i want what you are on...

 

This might also explain why all societies tend to follow some kind of moral guidelines... Why no one wants to steal or murder in secret.

no, no, seriously... please, next time you take, whatever it is you take, and sit down thinking about society as a whole, please use that prefrontal cortex to analize the society as a whole, i think you are greatly mistaken in saying that we follow moral guidelines, and that whole secret stuff. Yes many times serial killers want to be found, but trust me, those 99% of the other people in jail, did not want to be caught...

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Ghosts? Ghosts are figments of the imagination.

 

I think the desire to believe in them is emotionally driven and not based in logic or rationale. Belief in ghosts stems from the desire to exists beyond one's death.

 

If consciousness were possible without a physical construct, than the brain would be unecessary. I'm in the camp that believes brains are required for consciousness and that our brains have evolved and grown as our consciousness has increased.

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I am not going to debate the numbers and conclusions of statisticians. Personally I believe 3 things are unspeakable Sex, Drugs and Statistics.Situtation is always worse.

As far as the preforntal or cortex argument is concerned you might appreciate the fact that the "external simulation"(which is not denied) leads to real events.

In other words dreams sometimes predict what is going to happen in next 24 hours. Dreams sometimes describe things you have never seen before.

Dreams help us build future.. most designs were first dreamt in the mind.

 

Inner Voice is happily accepted by those who get real benefit from it.

 

Some people deny that they actually see things. But the question is what is seeing? Who sees what ? Isnt it the Mind which has been seeing all the time whether one is asleep or awake?

When we see a different personality in the dreams then it is obvious that our Mind which evolved to live in a unique and different mind suddenly starts behaving differently. If in your dreams you ask Dalai Lama a question then you will get a Wise answer.But who is wise ? It was your dream.

I listed few cases of personality superposition. Actually there are hundreds of such psychological diseases called personality disorders generally ,classified under schizophrenia,which can be understood as personality superpositions....

Ghosts are real. they can superimpose their personality on anyone.

Infact mind is powerful that it can lie to itself.

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...Personally I believe 3 things are unspeakable Sex, Drugs and Statistics....Ghosts are real. they can superimpose their personality on anyone...

 

This just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Next you'll be saying ghosts make people do unspeakable things...like "Sex, Drugs and Statistics".

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Reality is much much more exciting than anything you can imagine.

Several scientists believe in paranormal. Those who debate God carry a natural desire to look at the other side of the reality...

Offcourse it will take another 1000 years to accept ghosts because Science and religion do not share any common values be it the logic or the reason.

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your choice. But remember America spends 45% of the world's total education budget and it also spends 35% of research budget... Had the answer been so easy 3/4th americans would not have believed in ghosts and the paranormal.

Either america is stupid and all the money is being spent to train the foreigners or the america is a land of paradoxes just like India... where 70-80% "scientists" believe in God and supernatural. In US more than 80% believe in God and Supernatural...

Why should we ignore the possibility?

Because the education budget of the us is high has nothing to do with "ghosts"

Yes, America is stupid.

Religious beliefs of Americans about ghosts, Satan, Heaven, Hell, etc.

One third of Americans believe in ghosts | The Register

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Education budget has everything to do with Ghosts If Ghosts were only a kind of superstition then with increasing knowledge and education, the population would have lost its "faith" in the Ghosts and paranormal.

We are not talking about India or China or some developing country. We are talkin US which is 4-5 times rich and educated than any other country...(offcourse excluding the debt)

US has had the greatest number of Nobel prize winners.

In sharp contrast China which is largely atheist is becoming a powerhouse of Science.However some 30% chinese still believe is some kind of "supernatural" things.30% chinese is not a small number ,it is greater than entire population of USA.

During Olympics the Chinese President recognized the role of religions and invited pastors to see the opening ceremony. Undoubtedly religions have a great influence on the politics of the world. It is interesting to note that Bush recently advised China to not to be afraid of Religion and give greater freedom to the religions.

Never before Chinese had allowed its communist ideology to be challenged this way. Therefore the question remains why religions can exert such a great influence on the minds of people if it is fake? Why religions survive with ever increasing knowledge base in the age of Petabytes?

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Reality is much much more exciting than anything you can imagine.

 

I'm sure it is, especially for people who can't tell the difference.

 

Offcourse it will take another 1000 years to accept ghosts because Science and religion do not share any common values be it the logic or the reason.

 

Perhaps what you mean here is "values such as logic and reason." And if that's what you mean then I agree.

 

Religion is part of the Humanities...and not even in 1000 years will Science and the Humanities be the same.

 

The humanities are academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are largely analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences....

 

...The humanities include languages, literature, music, philosophy, history, the classics, religion, and the visual and performing arts. Additional subjects sometimes included in the humanities are anthropology, area studies, communications and cultural studies, although these are often regarded as social sciences. It was popular in the Renaissance ages, which was when people where obsessed with human nature....

Humanities - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

So can you back up your claim that ghosts are real and can superimpose their personality on people, or is it just your imagination?

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